Max Loewenthal, Lotty’s longtime friend and lover, was executive director of Beth Israel Hospital and on the board of their holding company. Lotty called me the next day with his response. “Lennon sits on Beth Israel’s ethics committee. Max says she’s very young, but he thinks she has good judgment. As for your other question, do we have a discretionary fund, we have all kinds of odd funds for odd purposes but none to pay for private detectives to find the missing children of residents in our facilities. You’ll have to decide on your own what to do about that, my dear.”
I could have—should have—let Karen Lennon and her old ladies lie, but, after all, Lennon had stepped in to help with Elton. Three days later, when I found a free hole in my schedule, I drove out Roosevelt Road, past the gargantuan buildings the South Side hospital behe moths were erecting, to Lionsgate’s tired manor. It was a fifteen-story building, with a locked ward on the top two floors for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, and a variety of apartments and nursing wards underneath. What a grim way to live, knowing the elevator might one day loft you skyward and only bring you down again in a box.
The security guard at the entrance directed me to Karen Lennon’s office. The place was so labyrinthine that I got lost a couple of times and had to stop for directions. At least everyone I asked seemed to know who the chaplain was, which meant she was doing a good job of covering her parish.
Lionsgate Manor was clean, but its last overhaul lay a long way in the past. The paint on the walls was chipped, and you could see where walkers and canes had pounded dents in the cracked linoleum flooring. Only a few hall lights were burned out or missing, but management used the lowest wattage possible, so even on a bright summer day the air was a dingy green, making me feel as though I were at the bottom of a dirty ocean.
When I finally reached Lennon’s office, she was talking to an older woman, a staff member, but she finished the conversation quickly and got up to escort me to Ella Gadsden’s apartment.
I mentioned Max Loewenthal’s name to the chaplain as we rode the elevator, and her face brightened. “So many executive directors are too focused on profit. Max remembers that the hospital only exists because it has a mission to care for human suffering.”
We got off on the ninth floor. Lennon led me briskly down the hall. As we went, the pastor warned me that Miss Ella’s manner could seem brusque. “Don’t let that put you off. She’s been through a lot, as I said at your office, and she puts on a tough veneer for protection.”
Karen Lennon knocked on the apartment door. After several minutes, after we heard the heavy thumping of someone who walked with a cane and the scrape of locks being undone, the door opened.
Miss Ella was a tall woman, and, despite the cane, she held herself ramrod straight. Home alone in the middle of the afternoon, she still wore stockings and a severely cut navy dress.
“This is Ms. Warshawski, Miss Ella. She’s here to talk with you about your son.”
Miss Ella inclined her head a fraction of an inch but ignored my outstretched hand.
“Call and let me know how you get on.” Karen Lennon let the comment float between Miss Ella and me. After a few questions about “Miss Claudia’s” condition, the chaplain trotted back down the hall.
I got off to a rocky start as soon as I walked in. The room was tiny and crammed with the mementos of Miss Ella’s life—tables and shelves stuffed with Hummel figurines, china vases, glass animals, a large bronze head of Martin Luther King, Jr.. I knocked against a teetery table and rattled a tableau of china gazelles and zebras. Nothing fell, but Miss Ella muttered “Hmmpf,” adding, “Bull in a china shop,” in a loud undervoice. Only a small round table near the kitchenette was free of breakables, but it held Miss Ella’s workbasket, an enormous wicker affair that sprouted knitting needles like porcupine quills.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s and Barack Obama’s portraits hung on either side of the wall-mounted television, framed religious texts stood among the figurines. “During your times of suffering and trial, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then I carried you,” I read, and “Try to live each day He sends / To serve my gracious Master’s ends.”
The messages seemed incongruous with Miss Ella’s bitter mouth and harsh tone, but maybe when she was home alone she was softer, more malleable. She motioned me to a wooden chair next to the porcupine quills and pulled up a second hard chair to face me. When I tried to help her, she gave me a look that could have slit upholstery and told me to sit.
The first few minutes, she only offered the briefest answers to my questions:
I hear you’re looking for your son.
Yes.
What is his name?
Lamont Emmanuel Gadsden.
How old is he?
Sixty-one.
“When did you last see him, Ms. Gadsden?”
“January twenty-fifth, 1967.”
I was startled into silence. No wonder Karen Lennon hadn’t wanted to tell me. That was more than a long time to be missing. It was two lifetimes.
Finally I asked if Miss Ella had looked for him at the time he went missing. She nodded grimly but didn’t volunteer anything further.