“It’s too late, now,” Myron said, spotting Mickey pointing to his car.
Benjamin got out of the car and hustled to the rear passenger side and opened Myron’s door.
“Mr. Mayor, how nice to see you,” Mickey said, sticking his arm and outstretched hand out.
Myron clutched his hand and gave him a firm shake. “Same to you, Mickey.”
Mickey turned and said, “Of course you remember my daughter, Niko.”
“I do,” was all Myron could muster.
Niko was wearing her full length shearling coat, with her hair lying softly over the thick fur collar. She gave a subdued smile, and said, “Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Please follow me.”
Niko led the men past the people waiting in the cold, to get inside the club. Once inside, they removed their coats and handed them to the coat check girl.
“Damn it,” Mickey said suddenly. “I forgot something. Wait for me here, Myron, I’ll be back in two minutes.”
With Mickey gone, Myron and Niko stood alone in the lobby of the club.
Myron leaned in and whispered, “You look amazing, baby.”
“You like it? I just bought it,” Niko said, offering a provocative pose showing off the tight fitting and short outfit.
“Very much,” Myron said, feeling the warmth reignite inside him.
Niko gently put a hand on his chest and touched the recording device.
“What’s that?” she asked, moving her hand around the bulk taped to his chest.
“Nothing, stop it. Here comes your father,” he said.
Mickey walked back in, slapped his hands together, and said, “All set, let’s find our table.”
Myron turned away from Niko and walked toward the double doors that led inside to the dining tables. As he reached the doors, he looked about and saw that he was walking alone. He turned back, and saw Niko whispering something into her father’s ear. Mickey listened, nodded, and gave his daughter a kiss on her cheek. He then walked over to Myron, slapped him on his back and rubbed his shoulder.
“Let’s go have a few drinks and talk, Mr. Mayor,” Mickey said, as the two men entered the Stork Club’s dining hall. Myron glanced nervously over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Niko welcoming guests.
“Sure, that would be great,” Myron said following Mickey through the cluster of tables already filled with patrons drinking, smoking and chatting away.
Mickey gestured to the semi-circle booth with a reserved sign placed upon the table. “Order yourself a drink, Mr. Mayor. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Myron nodded.
When the waitress came over Myron ordered a whiskey and lit up a cigar. While he waited for Mickey to return, his mind replayed the moment Niko touched the recording device. He casually ran his fingertips across his shirt and felt the outline of the machine strapped to his chest. There was no doubt that Niko knew what it was, and she must have warned her father.
It occurred to him that his recent thoughts of marriage were now just some ridiculous fantasy. He looked into his nearly empty glass and frowned. How could he have been so wrong about Niko? Beside her beauty and alluring charm, she had proven herself to be a woman with formidable intelligence, as well as a resource of valuable political insights that had impressed him—so much so that he had been ready to offer her his unconditional allegiance. Apparently, she was not willing to do the same. Better that he learned about this now, than to discover her misguided loyalty after they were married.
Myron shook his head, deciding that this was the end. He would have nothing to do with her any longer. He slammed his drink down, slid out from the booth and walked toward the front door, ignoring Niko as he passed by her. Once out onto the sidewalk, he saw Benjamin standing by the car a few feet down the street. He marched toward him and said, “Let’s go, Ben, we’re done here.”
Chapter 68
It had been a week since the disturbing Coliseum fiasco. Along with his concerns about Moshe, that was all Arnold could handle. He decided to take a break from the stress and enjoy a coffee and a piece of almond cake at the diner.
He took a seat in a booth and Rosie the waitress poured him his coffee. As he was reaching for the sugar, Gray walked in.
“Good morning, Arnold,” Gray said with a wave. “Would you mind if I join you?”
“Please,” Arnold said, gesturing to the empty side of the booth.
“Just water, please Rosie,” Gray said.
“It always amazes me that you show up just when I’m thinking about you.”
“I do my best,” Gray said, smiling and taking a sip of water.
“Have you heard from Moshe lately? I haven’t seen him in a while,” Arnold asked.
“Moshe has been working with my mentor, Noa.”
Arnold shook his head. “Who is Noa?”
Gray took a deep breath and nodded. “I think it’s time I fill you in on a few things,” Gray said, as he patted away the perspiration from his forehead with the cloth napkin Rosie handed to him.
Arnold sat mesmerized in the booth at the Fordham Diner as Gray told his story. He began when he first met Noa at a friend’s dinner party in Queens about ten years earlier.
“When she walked in, I knew right away there was something different about her. There was this sense of wisdom that I recognized, even before we said a word to each other. During dinner there was a lively discussion among the guests. Afterwards, Noa and I sat side-by-side on the couch and talked. She told me that she was a dream therapist. When I told her about my father’s research into lucid dreaming and how I became proficient at moving about in the dream world, she stood up and took me into the other room so we could speak without anyone overhearing us.”
Arnold put down his cup of coffee and said, “What do you mean, moving about in the dream world?”
“That’s how I live, in two worlds: the dream world, and the awakened world. That’s what Noa is teaching Moshe. It’s what he needs to know in order to deal with the rasha, Solomon.”
“And that’s where Moshe is now?” Arnold asked.
“It is.”
“I’m assuming your sweats have to do with all of this two-worlds stuff,” Arnold said.
“It does, you’re right,” Gray said with a smile.
“Please tell me more about your connection with Noa.”
“In my training with her, she taught me that she was a direct descendant of Francesa Sarah of Safed, a spiritual guide of living in the dream world.”
“What does that mean?” Arnold said shaking his head.
“It means that her life’s purpose is keeping balance in the dream world. That was how she became aware of Solomon. She saw that he was using his prophetic dreams to make himself rich, even if it meant hurting others in the process. This, Noa understood, had to be corrected. But unlike other disturbances which she was able to rectify herself, this one was caused by a rasha, and the only way to stop a rasha was through the power of a tzaddik. After she explained to me what a tzaddik and a rasha were, I asked how does one find this mysterious tzaddik?”
Arnold felt his jaw hang open as Gray continued, “She told me that since you can’t find the tzaddik in the dream world, she hoped she could find him by following the trail of the rasha. But after years of searching, she had no luck. Noa then grabbed my hands and asked me if I would use my skills in the dream world and see if I could locate the tzaddik.
“I enthusiastically agreed to try, as this would be the first time I had something worthy of my skills. I told her I would stay in touch with her and let her know my progress. So I searched the dream world. Finding Solomon was easy. Once I did that, it wasn’t hard to find his life in the awakened world.”
“And you found me through Solomon?” Arnold asked.
Gray nodded and said, “Solomon had many dreams that included his son Myron. Especially the ones that foresaw events that they could capitalize upon. Once I was able to find Myron in the awakened world, I stumbled upon you, Arnold, as you were runn
ing your sports book through Myron at that time. I figured that perhaps you could be a way into the Blass organization.”
Arnold rocked his body back and forth, like an adding machine tabulating the information Gray just shared with him. He looked briefly out the diner window and at the parked cars on Fordham Road, then turned back to Gray, and said, “What does Moshe have to do?”
“He needs to take the rasha to Gehenna,” Gray whispered.
“Gehenna?” Arnold repeated, swallowed hard and asked, “Do you mean hell?”
Gray looked at Arnold with his gray eyes twinkling from the morning sunlight shining through the diner windows, and said, “Yes, I mean hell.”
When questioned later by the police, Arnold barely remembered leaving the diner and walking back to the Paradise Theater with Gray. All he could recall was hearing Gray’s name being called out. He told the police officer that he turned and saw Henryk Appel pointing a pistol at Gray, and firing.
“Gray’s body slammed into the brass doors of the theater and collapsed to the sidewalk. I looked at the rabbi, who stared at me with his disturbed eyes that I can still feel. He then calmly turned and walked away. I tended to Gray, who had been shot in his chest. His gray suit turned blood red and the life drained out of him as I held him in my arms.”
Chapter 69
Solomon heard the phone ringing in his dream, before realizing that he needed to wake up and answer it. “Hello?” he choked out through his usual morning congestion.
“Solomon, it’s me, Henryk. I’ve been arrested.”
“Arrested? For what, Rabbi?”
“I shot Gray. I’m being held at the Forty-sixth Precinct on Ryder Avenue. Please come,” he said before Solomon heard a dial tone.
When Solomon arrived he was escorted to a holding cell where Henryk was awaiting arraignment. He looked at his longtime friend, mentor and confidant, and said, “Why did you shoot him, Rabbi?”
Henryk looked up from the metal bench in his cell, his tired eyes darkened with circles and said, “I did it for you, Solomon. I did it for the rasha.”
Solomon hired a criminal attorney he used in the past, but it did little good. With Arnold Lieberman as an eyewitness, Henryk was convicted of murder and given a death sentence by the electric chair. He would be held at the Attica Correctional Facility, a high security prison, until his execution.
Solomon felt himself choke up each time he thought of his friend. This emotion was new to him. Not even when he heard about the death of his childhood friend Leo Gorpatsch did he feel this distraught.
While sitting alone at Charlie’s, he found himself trying to hold back tears. He had no memory of ever crying in his adult life, as he caught a tear escaping and rolling down his cheek.
This sudden melancholy was accompanied by a wave of guilt. It was because of me that he felt compelled to shoot Gray, Solomon thought.
He lifted his glass in the air and rattled the cubes settled at the bottom to attract Ralph’s attention for another whiskey.
While waiting for his drink, he looked out the window. The first buds of the spring were exposing themselves on the trees. Another season, after so many in his life. The moment passed when a car pulled up to Charlies’ and a young woman stepped out. It was Rebecca. Why was she here?
The door opened and Rebecca stepped in. She turned and looked at Solomon and said, “I thought I would find you here.”
“Rebecca?” Solomon asked, trying to compose himself from his emotional episode just moments before.
She took off her coat and slid it over the back of the bar chair and sat down. “You disappeared the last time I saw you at the library. Did I scare you away?”
Solomon exhaled. “I guess you did.”
Rebecca reached across the old, stained wooden table and put her hand on top of Solomon’s. “I need to talk to you,” she said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.
Solomon felt a return of the sweats, though milder than his previous episode at the library.
Rebecca didn’t wait for Solomon to respond. She said, “When I didn’t see you again at the library after our last conversation, I started teaching myself how to be awake in my dreams. When it happens, I mean when I’m aware that I’m dreaming, I think of you.”
Solomon swallowed, and said, “You think of me?”
“Yes, and you come. But you’re much younger,” she said with a gentle smile, before continuing. “And so handsome, Solomon.”
Solomon took a sip of his whiskey.
“We make love, Solomon. It’s a spiritual experience. I feel happy, blissful and content as if we were one entity, floating high above the earth. It’s wonderful.”
“That sounds amazing,” Solomon managed to say.
“I’m sorry, Solomon, this is selfish. I know it’s only a one-way relationship.”
Solomon regained his composure, and his posture. He sat tall in his chair, looked at her, and smiled. “Not necessarily, Rebecca.”
“What are you saying?”
“I can show you how we can be together in the dream world.”
Rebecca narrowed her eyes as she pondered Solomon’s words. “I figured that when I dream about you, it comes from my mind. You’re not real. But you’re telling me that you can be real, we both can, at the same time.”
“This is possible, Rebecca.”
“Will you be young or old?”
“I’ll be whatever I want to be. I’m assuming you will want the younger version of Solomon,” he said.
“Not too young,” she said, offering an alluring smile. “I think it’s your wisdom that attracts me the most.”
Chapter 70
“When is the funeral?” Moshe asked.
“I’m trying to arrange something for tomorrow,” Arnold said.
“Another senseless death because of me,” Moshe said softly as he looked out the window onto the Grand Concourse.
“There’s no point in blaming yourself, Moshe,” Arnold said, sitting at his desk.
“Gray was a kind and caring man. Did he have any family?”
“He never mentioned anyone. I don’t even know his real name,” Arnold said.
“Why would Solomon’s rabbi want to kill Gray?”
“I don’t know if it means anything, but the morning of his murder Gray told me about your involvement with a woman called Noa, and the dream world.”
“There’s a lot more than that,” Moshe said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“What else?” Arnold asked.
Moshe leaned forward, looked directly into Arnold’s anxious eyes, and said, “I’ve been shaken to my soul.”
Arnold nodded slowly and took a deep breath.
Moshe swallowed hard, and continued, “Hell exists, Arnold, and it’s where I need to take Solomon.”
“The day he was gunned down, Gray spoke to me about it.”
Moshe nodded and said, “From what I was told, the only way to eliminate the soul of the rasha is to bring the rasha to Gehenna, to hell.”
“And how do you do this?” Arnold asked.
“It’s done in the dream world. I travel with him through the blackness, to the bowels of Gehenna,” Moshe said, then stopped. He put a hand to his lips, took a breath, and whispered, “She took me there, Arnold.”
Arnold’s eyes widened. “What did you see?”
Moshe’s face reddened, he dug his fingernails into the chair’s arms, and said, “A sea of fire, where the flesh of the damned burns, then regrows, to be burned again. Screams of pain, and cries of sadness fill the air fouled by the burning flesh. There’s no escape, once the soul is thrown into it.”
Arnold leaned back in his chair, ran his fingers through his hair, and asked, “I don’t understand, Moshe. How do you bring the rasha to Gehanna without yourself being in danger?”
Moshe held his hands together to keep them from shaking. “I don’t know, Arnold. I suppose I too can lose my soul to the fires of Gehenna. Perhaps I should ask Noa?”
Arnold furrowed
his brow, trying to make sense of Moshe’s words. “Gray told me that Noa traces her lineage back to this Jewish mystic, Francesa Sarah of Safed, from the seventeenth century.”
Moshe leaned in to whisper, “She took me to see her.”
“She did?” Arnold asked, rubbing the unshaven stubble on his chin.
“After I left her and Sammy on the beach…”
“Sammy? Who is Sammy?” Arnold interrupted.
“Oh that’s Noa’s boyfriend,” he said and noticed Arnold’s furrowed forehead. “Don’t ask,” Moshe said waving his hand. “Anyway, I met Noa in the dream world on some beach. She took me by my hand and suddenly we were in Safed. But not the same Safed we visited, Arnold. This was of three hundred years ago, when the most illustrious and studied scholars migrated to Safed after their expulsion from Spain.
“We were in a large underground cave-like room, built with bricks of limestone. Women were busy milling about. We remained unnoticed until Noa spoke. She called out, I have brought the tzaddik for your blessing, Francesa Sarah.
“I stood alongside Noa, afraid to speak. No one turned to look at us. I wondered if Noa’s words were heard. Then suddenly we were in a space of total darkness. I couldn’t even see my hands inches from face. Believe me, I tried,” Moshe said, holding his two hands up.
Arnold nodded.
“Then she appeared, out of the darkness. She spoke to me, Arnold, as clearly and life-like as you are speaking to me now.”
“What did she say?” Arnold asked.
“‘You are the righteous one.’ I looked around for Noa, but I was alone. I stood there unsure of what to do or say. She reached out and grasped both of my hands. I felt a charge, like an electric shock, coursing through my body. I jerked back quickly, releasing her grip. Then she said, ‘The power of the almighty flows through you, tzaddik. You cannot elude your purpose.’”
Arnold stared at Moshe, unable to speak for a moment. He rubbed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “What are you going to do, Moshe?”
The Righteous One Page 21
