I opened the burnished cherry door somehow expecting to see Sadie, thrown when I found the secretary’s room deserted and dark. “Simon?” I called, fighting a sudden shiver of anxiety.
“Back here,” he answered from the rear office. “I should have left it open.”
The door swung open and there he stood, hair disheveled, arms akimbo, reading glasses pushed high on his head. Rumpleman, loose in the middle of sleek, high profile modern. His eyes matched his clothes and both needed ironing.
“It took you long enough. Get in okay?” he asked. “I left the downstairs unlocked.”
“You know me too well. I never said I’d show.”
He looked at me glumly. “We both know each other too well. Come sit down and I’ll fill you in.”
I followed him through his office door into wall to ceiling Roche Bobois, broken only by a framed Phillie’s scorecard signed by Richie Allen. The scorecard hung at eye level alongside the cherry étagère. I pulled the closest thing to four legs over near Richie’s signature.
Simon went to his desk then swiveled in his leather seat. “Do you sit there just to annoy me?” he asked, nodding at the scorecard. “I don’t need you to underline the past. I see it well enough from here.”
I stared over his shoulder at the numberless wall clock. “You didn’t drag me out of bed for a deep and real. What’s going on?”
The telephone interrupted before he answered. Simon pushed a button and the room suddenly filled with the tinny speaker drone of an insistent reporter asking about the night’s double death. By the time the conversation ended I’d had my briefing. The only surprise was the reporter’s focus on the ongoing confrontations between the congregation and the nearby hate gang. Maybe I should have suffered the dog food commercial.
Simon had just buttoned off when the phone rang again with another reporter and I was dosed with a second helping of the same two shootings.
“Shut it down, Boss,” I demanded once he’d finished.
He shrugged and flipped a switch. “This has been going on since I got here.”
“Why?”
“There’s a lot of eyes looking at this one and the State won’t talk. For the past couple years, there has been nothing but trouble between the Hasidim and this particular hate gang. Swastikas, chasings, broken windows, beatings. Don’t you read the papers?”
“Sports, gossip, arts and entertainment. The Eternals.”
“Well, sport, this is another eternal. Only now two people are dead—the head Rabbi of the Hasidic community and a bigshot member of the gang. The ultimate escalation.”
“And you have the killer Hasid for a client?”
“Don’t joke around. He’s a Rabbi.”
“I understand why the dogs”—I pointed toward the phone—”are barking, but what’s got you so wired? Your client defends himself and protects the rest of his people. Someone will throw a testimonial dinner.”
“I’m telling you, Matt, this isn’t funny!” Simon rubbed his hand across his eyes. “When I got Downtown, Assistant District Attorney O’Neil was already there. This guy doesn’t normally work the graveyard shift.”
“Had to be there to get his name in the morning edition?”
“Not this guy. Everyone is worried about the neighborhood blowing up like Brooklyn.”
“Come on, Simon, this isn’t New York. Did he spell his name for the press?”
Simon shook his head. “I’m telling you it’s not that way. O’Neil is their shut-down, clean-up guy. He rolls his sleeves when the State wants quiet. I don’t like it.”
“What’s your client’s name?”
“Yonah Saperstein. Reb Yonah.”
“I never met a Jew named Reb.”
“Don’t be an asshole. It’s a term Hasidim use for their Rabbis. The Rabbi who was shot was called Reb Dov or ‘The Rebbe.’”
“What’s your Reb charged with?”
“They’re still dicking with it. No one wants to act ‘precipitously.’”
“Maybe the hard working O’Neil didn’t want the weight.”
“Maybe. But right now there are too damn many ‘maybes,’” he grunted while he rummaged inside a large desk drawer.
“What do you want with me?” I asked.
He looked up with his bleary, baggy eyes. “What do you think I want? I want you to investigate. We’re going to proceed as if they intend to charge Reb Yonah with something serious. I want everything I can get on the dirty Jew-hating putz and all his friends.” His voice grew harsh. “I want to know about every illegal, immoral, or ugly thing Sean Kelly ever did or thought about doing. I want to know about each and every time he uttered the word “Jew.” I want to know everything about the cocksucker and every one of the White Avengers…”
“What are they avenging? We won the war with the Indians.”
He didn’t throw change onto the stage, didn’t even smile. Simon just wasn’t gonna loosen up.
“I don’t know much about them. From what I read they are a variation on the Zionist/Commies/Blacks/Eastern seaboard conspiracy mongers.” He smiled grimly. “We’re not talking about chart-busting IQs.”
I tried to follow his mood. “Chest-beaters or serious nasty?”
“I don’t really know what they are. That’s what I want you to find out.” His voice rose with his temper. “I want to know about every time those fucking neo-Nazis farted near a Jew.”
I looked at the different angles in the room’s sleek modernity, looked around again, then asked, “Simon, what’s really going on?”
His head jerked. “What do you mean?”
“You Doberman lawyers like O’Neil. This time you tiptoe away. Then you call me here and circle the wagons. What is this bullshit?”
His eyes dropped. “You’re still worrying about my lying to you. No matter how much time goes by…”
For a brief instant I saw the dead bodies that had created the chasm between us but I quickly pushed the image from my head. Hell, Simon was still among the living. And so was I. “This has nothing to do with Alex.”
He studied my face to see if I was lying. I didn’t know myself so I figured he couldn’t tell either.
“I can’t just slash and burn through this case,” he finally groused. “You don’t understand the pressure. Every Jewish organization is looking at me through a magnifying glass. The case should be a lock, but right now the D.A. wants to keep the situation, “fluid.” That’s the word. I have to be careful not to push too soon.”
In other words, if he fucked up, his career would pay. “I have trouble seeing you on the short end of this stick, Simon.”
He stared at me with very hard eyes. “Look, two people are dead and the State has the right to charge my client for one of those deaths. We can debate all day but I just don’t know what they plan to do. Your job is to provide me usable background. That’s all you have to worry about. I’ll take care of the O’Neils.” He bent over his open desk drawer and came up with another tight smile and a cupped fist. “Here, have some coke. I want you to start digging today but if you go back to sleep…”
“Back off, Boss. You don’t have to bribe me with sugar to keep me awake.”
Simon stared at me. “You don’t want to get high?”
I grew annoyed and stubborn. “Maybe I don’t like coke sweats early in the morning.”
Simon raised his hand. “Don’t get pissed, I wasn’t trying to bribe you. I’m just not used to you turning down dope.” He shrugged. “Anyhow the stuff is too clean to make you sweat.”
“Well, if you never saw me say no before, there’s no reason to break new ground now.” I grinned with a junkie’s change of heart, leaned across the desk, and whisked the tiny glass bottle out of his hand. “What’s on the end of it?” I asked, staring at a small chamber attached to the bottle’s black plastic cover.
“It measures toots.” Simon reached for the bottle, turned it upside down, then up again. “Here. Just put it under your nose and snort.”
“Tapes?”
“Videos of the Jewish party. Maybe someone caught the shootings?”
“No,” he said. “I asked.”
“You asked the cable news channel?”
“Yes.”
“You have been busy,” I said impressed. “Individual camcorders?”
“I haven’t checked, but I’d guess not. Most of the people outside were Hasidim.”
“Jews buy video equipment.”
“Hasidim don’t like having their pictures taken.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m Jewish.”
“So am I but I didn’t know it.”
He averted his eyes and shuffled the papers on his desk.
“Simon, stop lawyering me. Why the hell did you get involved with this?”
He met my eyes with a defiant look. “I’m doing a favor for my Rabbi.”
My chair dropped down onto its front legs. “Your Rabbi? What are you doing with a Rabbi? A Hasidic Rabbi? This Reb Yonah?” I couldn’t keep the amazement out of my voice.
Simon’s wary face relaxed into a wry smile. “Not Reb Yonah. No Hasidic Rabbi. During the last couple of years Fran and I have gotten involved with a Reform Temple. Our Rabbi is famous for his ecumenicism and often serves as a mediator between the larger Jewish community and the secular world. The Hasidim called him and he called me.”
“The Rabbi calls and you jump? And you wake me?”
A look of anger flashed across his face. “It’s not just the Rabbi. Anti-Semitism has spread like AIDS during the past ten years. It’s one thing to paint hate on a wall, but what’s been going on is different. Once again Jews are under siege and if there is a way to turn this incident against us…”
He relaxed his fist. “That’s why the Hasidim called Sheinfeld and Sheinfeld called me.” His chin pointed forward. “You know enough history to know when Jews defend themselves it always gets turned around. Look at Israel!”
I was taken back and uncomfortable with his lecture. “Every time I look at Israel I see apartheid.”
“That’s what I mean,” he retorted. “Pin the blame on the victim. Exactly what will happen with this case if I’m not careful.”
I didn’t know why, but my chest was tight with echoes of abandonment. “What are you doing involved with a Temple? Was this Fran’s idea?”
His anger was gone and he was back fidgeting with his papers. “No, I had to convince her. I just got tired of having nothing to believe in.” Simon lifted his head and stuck out his jaw. “Aren’t you?”
I don’t think it had to do with my lack of belief or even the hour of the day, but suddenly, despite the cocaine, I was very tired. More tired than I’d been since he’d pulled me out of bed. So tired that I stood up, reached across the desk, and palmed his little glass bottle. I was tired enough to know it was time to leave.
The sound of slamming delivery truck doors slapped at my ears the moment I walked onto the street. While I was in Simon’s office early morning light had replaced the sky’s pre-dawn gray: October’s brittle beacon for the city’s first shift.
I hadn’t walked very far before realizing the cocaine had eliminated my hunger. Simon’s ploy had been a good one; I was also no longer tired. I decided against the apartment but headed home for my car. Maybe I’d think of somewhere to go when I got there.
Simon’s assignment seemed straightforward: interview the Hasids, interview the punks. But his religious conversion, however sugar-coated, continued to feel uncomfortably complicated. This wasn’t one of his political “joins,” but something from the heart. At the very least, it was a new wrinkle on an old friend’s coming middle age. His conversion recalled a time when almost everyone I knew returned to school for a graduate degree. As if, in unison, their alternative lifestyle had grown obsolete. I’d never been as political as my friends, nor as straight, so I just stayed put and felt abandoned. I was feeling some of that now and wondered whether it was Simon’s decision that disturbed me, or his parting question? Was I tired of having nothing to believe in?
I kept my eyes on the street scene while I walked past clumps of wage-earners huddled around the urban oases—sub shops and newsstands. There is something seismic about a metropolitan area just before showtime; an urban potpourri of ambiguous feelings steaming into the chilly daylight. People leaned into the autumn with grim determination or weary resignation. Too many days doing the same damn thing. Some people, though, actually had a bounce to their step. The ones who couldn’t remember yesterday.
My fist uncurled to grasp the car door handle and I felt a fierce desire to roll down the windows and cut a radio-blasting swathe through town. To hell with propriety, the new case, or Simon’s middle age.
To hell with my middle age.
I let the keys dangle, kept the windows rolled, and lit a joint hoping to ratchet down. I inhaled and thought about throwing the little glass bottle out the window. But I knew better. By nightfall I’d be back crawling around in the street.
Two cigarettes later I pulled my head out of a minor midlife crisis, no longer needing to teenrace through the town. I felt a little more like myself, though still reluctant to spend the day alone. I stayed with my decision to work, but didn’t want to meet with the Avengers until after I’d met with the Hasids.
And meeting the Hasids meant introducing myself to Rabbi Sheinfeld. Simon’s Rabbi would be my first step on the stairway to Hasidic heaven. I’d received the Temple’s address along with a warning to park my personality before I went calling. Simon didn’t want me to leave a bad impression. He was more than a little worried I’d be hostile in a House of the Lord.
My anxiety flared as I approached the massive limestone building. I’d always been aware of the Temple’s presence, but never before noticed the amount of high-priced, tax-free real estate it consumed. The frontage faced the main thoroughfare of the city’s adjoining suburb—a town proud of its schools and its ability to hold the line against Black immigration. When I turned onto the bordering side street I saw, for the first time, a driveway sign offering substantial parking to the Temple’s worshippers. I stretched the invitation and turned in anyway. I didn’t think God towed.
I was relieved when Rabbi Sheinfeld pointedly pulled an ashtray from his desk. “I generally don’t allow anyone to smoke in my office but sometimes it’s impolitic to make a fuss.”
I didn’t think this was one of those times so felt doubly grateful as I lit up.
“They aren’t very good for you, as I’m sure you know,” Rabbi Sheinfeld said with a friendly nod.
“I’m not a just-say-no kind of guy,” I acknowledged after a tension releasing drag. “Who were the people we passed on our way to your office?”
“The Temple’s fundraising group. The more heinous the anti-Semitism, the harder they work. These days Israel needs as much support as possible.”
I wasn’t sure why. “I suppose,” I said noncommittally.
The Rabbi looked at me carefully, leaned back in his executive maroon leather chair, and changed the subject. “This has been an extraordinary twenty-four hours.” He pointed to the telephone. “If my secretary weren’t holding calls we wouldn’t have a moment to talk. Organizations, Hasidim, members of my own congregation…,” he said shaking his head. “I had to nap right here in the Temple.”
“News travels fast.”
“Instantaneously. Reb Dov’s brutal murder has shocked the entire Jewish world.” Sheinfeld pulled a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses from his suit’s breast pocket, perched them on his nose, and peered. “Simon suggested I might find you…,” he groped for a moment, “distant from your herit
age.”
“Depends on your definition of heritage. Some people think I’m too much like what came before. When did you speak to Simon?”
“Before coming downstairs to greet you. I’m afraid I woke him up. Again.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mind. He’s pretty upset himself.”
“You seem surprised. You’re Jewish, aren’t you upset?”
I wasn’t going to tell him that the measure of my Jewishness had been tossed into a hospital’s foreskin container a couple of minutes after my birth. “I never like unnecessary death.”
“Of course. But doesn’t it horrify you when it’s the result of violent anti-Semitism? Perhaps you think it paranoia, but when something like this happens it elicits terrible memories. I grew up during the Second World War. Although none of my immediate family died in concentration camps, we had relatives.” He hesitated then added, “All Jews had relatives.”
He waited for me to agree but I couldn’t. There had been no talk of losing family in my house. There had been no talk of Jewish. Hell, there had been no family. Of course, I only lived there for twelve years. Maybe the subject came up after I’d gone.
“Rabbi, I don’t know whether I had relatives in concentration camps or not. It doesn’t really matter. Simon asked me to investigate the White Avengers and their relationship with the Hasids. I intend to do a thorough job. I hoped you might make a few calls to some of them, letting them know who I am.”
“Absolutely. Simon was surprised you arrived here so quickly.”
I smiled. “Tell you the truth, I don’t think Rabbi Yonah has much to worry about, but I understand the pressure everyone is under. The Rabbi who died was an important religious figure, wasn’t he?”
“Murdered,” Sheinfeld corrected. “Yes, extremely important. He was the spiritual teacher of the Hasidim throughout New England. More than that really. At the time Reb Dov became Rosh Yeshiva, the Rebbe, the Hasidim were a small community, isolated and practically irrelevant to the rest of the Jewish world.” Sheinfeld smiled wryly. “It would be an exaggeration to suggest that Reb Dov marched them into the twentieth century, but the Yeshiva expanded under his humanitarian leadership. Reb Dov brought a warmth and joy to religion. He created an atmosphere that reduced the distance between the Hasidim and the rest of the Jewish community.”
The Complete Matt Jacob Series Page 56
