"Will it bring back your son to you if Tzwee Kovalenko dies?" he asked.
The old man plucked at his beard.
"He was my son, my only son," he said; "my Kaddish. A good son he was."
Mrs. Levin, still at her dishwashing, raised her head and snorted impatiently.
"Yow—a good son!" she commented in English, "A dirty, lowlife bum he was. If it wouldn't be that he ganvered a couple bottles wine from a store he wouldn't of been in the police office at all. He brought it on himself, mister—believe me."
Morris nodded.
"What is vorbei is vorbei," he said. "Tell your man he should bring his uncle to Steuermann and I would pay him sure twenty-five dollars cash."
He bowed to the Rav and with a final "Sholom alaicham!" passed downstairs to the street.
As he waited at the corner for a west-bound car he thought he discerned a familiar figure in the shadow of the house he had just quitted. He walked slowly up the block and Harkavy stole out of the basement area and slunk hurriedly past him.
"Harkavy!" Morris called, but the assistant cutter only hastened his steps and it seemed to Morris that a sound like a sob was borne backward.