The Head of the House

by Al Zuckerman

  Yet at the same time, nagging at Iz—it was more than doubt, almost a hatred of Leroy. And fury with himself for having been so blind.

  Iz had been within a hairbreadth of dumping the kid—or worse. But Iz, as usual, had let the blaze of anger burn down before he’d made a decision—and he’d realized that Leroy during the ensuing weeks would have to run like a three-legged Indian just to keep up with business. Later Iz could evaluate and if necessary make another decision.

  But Linda, what if, while Iz was in the “other world” springing his trap, she kept after the boy—which she might? No, Leroy could handle her. And now Iz had to concentrate on these men around the table.

  “When you’ve been away before,” Okun was softly pushing, “Reuben’s always done pretty good, hasn’t he?”

  “Reuben’s terrific, always was, and still is. It’s just—now the problems are different.” Iz felt himself beginning to sweat. But these guys, he could see, were sweating more. That gave him a small good feeling, made up for some of the awkwardness.

  “So then, Iz,”—Okun still wasn’t letting go—“what’s the problem you think he can handle better?”

  “And like if we should need some muscle-type help,” Morris blurted, looking pained, “Maffetore or any of them might get their backs up about taking the word from Leroy here.”

  The answer to that would hurt. But now for their own protection, Iz decided, they’d better know it. “I think we’re gonna forget Maffetore for a while, and the Detroit Purples and all those Sicilians. Look, if they were with us, really, wouldn’t you think that since last October—Jesus, that’s nine months!—that during all that time, some word would have come along from one of them about who was ripping me up like this?”

  Okun winced. Nathanson’s mouth opened. Silverberg’s eyes glazed. Iz had dealt them a blow on top of a blow. He was going off half way round the world, and at the same time leaving them like kids abandoned, naked, with real wolves outside the door.

  “. . . So you guys won’t need artillery. The only business we’re still in where there could be heater problems is the numbers banks, and Leroy, well, he handles all that by himself now already; no?”

  The flare-up against Leroy’s promotion had abated. Bigger worries had eclipsed the shvartze.

  “So—so why Israel?” Morris was first to ask. “What’s happening there that’s so crucial?”

  “Izzie,” Blinkie interrupted, “what you just said about Maffetore, I haven’t felt hit that bad since when I heard about my momma’s cancer.”

  Iz nodded empathetically. There was a kind of death in this too, this falling away of longtime allies. But death could be fought against for a time: held off, beaten back, maybe. …

  “You gonna tell us what’s in Israel, Izzie?” Morris asked again.

  “That’s where Christ,” he quietly jibed, “was resurrected, they say.”

  “And crucified,” Reuben lightly tossed back.

  This journey, Iz knew, might turn out to be the chanciest ever, and his last one, maybe, too. He shrugged vaguely. “Yeah, well, one or the other, no?”

  “You’d ask, wouldn’t you,” Blinkie almost pleaded, “if there was something in addition you wanted us to do, some way you thought we could”—and the fleshy man shrugged perplexedly—“I don’t know—help?”

  Iz had a warm feeling. Despite these guys’ hurt and worry, they were also worried for him, and not just as a meal ticket. Their friendship, that was a part of his life he could savor and not ever regret.

  “You know I wouldn’t ask,” he came back forcefully, but with a twinkle. “I’d tell you.”

  “So then there’s nothing, hunh?”

  Iz smiled appreciatively. “You know. It’s just, some jobs get done better if one guy goes it alone.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Linda had never seen her grandfather so continuously happy. For four days now, he’d reminded her of a saintly figure in a medieval painting. The halo she saw about his head could have been induced, she realized, by the blinding sun; but then evenings too sometimes he seemed to emit rays. Transfigured was the word. And this despite their clambering up and down ancient monuments in searing heat, breathing dusty air, journeying on bad roads for too many hours, and seeing sights which to Linda were depressingly grim: squalid refugee camps with half-naked kids in sagging tents; lopsided tar-paper shacks amid swarms of flies and an all-pervasive sewery stench; deserted Arab villages on hillside after ghostlike hillside, mud and stone clusters of homes now windowless, doorless, roofless; new settlements, white cinder-block cubes plunked on rock-strewn, barren fields; everywhere deprivation—not enough food, water, transport, anything. Yet not once did she notice her Zaydeh fazed or even disconcerted. Israel, Ehretz Yisroel—by a miracle this place actually had come to be; and by a greater miracle yet, after living in exile for seventy-four years, her grandfather was seeing and touching and standing upon this blessed land. How few ever live to see their prayers answered, Linda mused.

  She had been reared on tales of Jewish persecution: her own ancestors sold into slavery, tortured on the rack, burned at the stake, by Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, Spaniards, Cossacks; and then during her own junior high school years, four thousand years of oppression were eclipsed by Hitler’s butcheries. Yet her feeling of oneness with Jews, Jewishness, with this parched, rawly new country was nothing compared to her grandfather’s. To her, home was West End Avenue, and secondarily Miami Beach, and also “purple mountains’ majesties above the fruited plain”; and last summer when she’d traveled Europe, her heart had fluttered at every sighting of an American flag.

  But to her Zaydeh, Jewish sufferings were more than classroom lectures or sickening newsreels of death camps, or nightmares even. His childhood memories, she knew, were full of rocks thrown at him by Gentile kids, their dogs trained to snap at him. Daily he’d been made to feel part of a hated race; and then years after he’d fled that frighteningly hostile world, the Nazis had made it into a madhouse; an uncle, nephews, nieces, cousins, a huge family gassed to death, none of whom Linda herself had known. The torments of his people, then, were personal, deeply felt, in a way the essence of his inner being, with the result that Israel’s lack of comforts, the rude, pushy people, the tawdry hotel rooms, cracked dishes, smelly toilets mattered not at all.

  When Poppa first had invited her, he’d suggested the trip as a little jaunt, a family thing, just the three of them. Linda, furious with him still about Leroy, had said, no. Then he’d pleaded, begged her to come, as a favor to her only father; and he’d never in his life asked her for a favor. Grudgingly she’d agreed. And at first the trip had been surprisingly pleasant. Now though, it was beginning to exhaust her, and had become troubling, gnawingly so. Why really did Poppa want her here? And more to the point, what was he—who as far as she could remember had never in his life taken a pleasure trip—doing here? Unlike her Zaydeh, if Izzie was getting a boost out of Zion, he was keeping it pretty much to himself.

  Everything about her father here was strange. Wherever else Linda had been with him, there’d been men, constant streams of them, sidling up to Izzie, whispering things, handing him little slips of paper, bellhops with telegrams, waiters bringing phones to restaurant tables. As a little girl, Linda had hated these intruders for taking her Daddy’s attention. As an adolescent, she’d minded less, in fact had begun liking his importance, basking a bit in his reflected glory. But here in Israel it was all different. True, when they’d arrived at the airport they’d been welcomed by three Government officials, but ever since then no one had seemed to know Isadore Hargett existed. He was being treated as just one more anonymous Jewish-American tourist resting up from half a day’s jolting in a car with no shock absorbers, sipping a godawful, tepid, artificial orange drink.

  “Sand dunes, desolate sand, nothing at all, that’s what was here less than fifty years ago; and now there’s a city; boulevards, theatres, hospitals; and the people, not just merchants, rabbis, doctors, but carpenter
s and gardeners and bus drivers, Jewish everything, like any other people in their own country.” The old man’s voice cracked with emotion, and he shook his head in wonderment.

  At moments like these Poppa would usually share in the old man’s enthusiasm with an encouraging word, a pat on the shoulder, or a decisive nod. Linda looked toward her father, and suddenly her heart stopped, her chest tightened fiercely. Izzie’s eyes were glazed, staring ahead, yet seeming to see nothing. Low gurgling noises came from inside his throat. His lips were twisting, one side of his mouth angling upward grotesquely. Linda started to jump up, determined to help him somehow. But before she could, he’d begun falling, crumpling, and then he toppled off his chair, stiffly, like a mannequin who’d been lightly pushed. His arm swept the edge of the table, knocking over the half-finished orange drink, which dribbled down on his shoulders and neck as the metal chair clattered over falling with him onto the dusty cement.

  Before she quite realized what she was doing, she was shrieking piteously. People from surrounding tables rushed over, crowded around, jabbered at her in Hebrew or other unintelligible languages. Then a khaki-clad young policeman with a mustache was there, ordering the onlookers to move back.

  Linda’s screams stopped almost as abruptly as they’d begun, though her breathing was raggedy still, and her chest hurt.

  Khayim, crouching awkwardly on the ground next to Poppa, was holding Izzie’s hand, rubbing it. The old man’s lips were moving silently, praying.

  And Poppa, she dared not look at him; and then she did. His face, after days of searing sun, was so pale, bloodless, tinged with green. Was he breathing? Linda’s eyes closed.

  Dimly she heard murmurs all about her, voices whispering. Any minute probably, there’d be an ambulance. Or—an undertaker?

  Linda felt weighted, oppressed, a ton of lead sitting on her head, shoulders, pushing her down, down, cruelly, hopelessly.

  Could this be why they’d come here? Could Poppa have been sick all along? Known he was going to—no, not die!

  CHAPTER 6

  His eyes were open, Iz realized, but they felt as if coated with a film. The blurred room which he’d begun to perceive seemed so dark. The outline of a window took shape, grew brighter. Then he picked out the bed’s footboard, beyond and above it bright glimmers, a mirror, to the right a human shape, sitting, longish hair topped with a little cap, probably a nurse. NO! Anger flared through him. No, damn it, no! He was burning, his breath quickening. Rage clouded his vision again.

  Lousy, two-timing fink! Personally, that’d been the deal, the Hungarian would personally take care of everything by himself—except for two things, only two. As a doctor, a specialist well known throughout Israel, he could not himself arrive with the ambulance and shlepp a stretcher. But everything else, and Iz had gone over each step with him, in detail, from the moment Iz swallowed the stuff, to the paralytic physiological effects it’d produce, to how Iz then would be provided with emergency aid and transport, and by whom, and to what hospital, what room, up to and including his being pronounced dead on arrival, after which a bona fide corpse would be wheeled out of this same room and onto a hearse. Iz himself only minutes later would be fully revived and would slip away in disguise, gotten up as an old cemetery hanger-on, the kind of shabby prayer-crooner who circulated among mourners at funerals intoning, “Charity saves from death.”

  Right now though, at this particular stage, when Iz was first recovering, the Hungarian had promised that he’d be there (“I watch you good in the hospital, so no mistake”). But he was not watching, and some strange woman was. An old saying popped into Iz’s mind: “A Hungarian you got for a friend, then you don’t need enemies.” Hate bubbled inside him, and yet Iz knew it’d be pointless to hate the man. Hell, the guy could have run into something, a bad accident case, got himself tied up in surgery. Or maybe Iz had come to faster than normal, and this nurse was on only till Takasch got here for when the wake-up was supposed to be. Except that would make it a swindle, considering how much Iz had paid the Hungarian specifically for keeping this dead quiet.

  Eyes closed, Iz inhaled, carefully, noiselessly, letting his diaphram rise hardly at all. He’d have to be so careful, every move, every breath even. Everything that mattered, like getting himself back into the real action, becoming again the man with the word, whose word was it—all of that was riding now on his tenth-rate play-acting.

  Another pang, a new worry shot through Iz’s chest. Linda. Jesus! What about her, and Poppa too? If Takasch had sent some out-of-left-field female in here, what might he have told the two of them, and where might he have put them? They were not right in here yet; but they could be, maybe, right outside the door. Iz’s innards ached. He imagined Lindeleh bounding in, bending over and listening for his breathing, then her joyful shrieks, kisses. That would finish him, make this intricately planned and labored-over theatrical worth bubkes. They, Linda and Poppa, had to believe it was for real. Unless they did, truly, sincerely; unless they mourned, actually let out what was in their hearts, he might just as well climb out of bed, get dressed, and forget the whole business. They, not he, were the ones now up on stage, in full glaring view, being peered at, scrutinized by a secret audience, and a canny one, who would see right through any simulation or mimicry. Only his daughter’s and father’s true feelings, expressed exactly as they were felt, would convince, and spread the news faster and better than anything. Only that might lure the bloodsucker out of his secret burrow—if anything would or could.

  Iz started. He heard noises, footsteps clacking softly on the tile, a chair scraping, voices murmuring, a door closing. Then he felt someone lifting his wrist, holding it, taking his pulse, goddamn Takasch probably. The nurse, Iz surmised, had just been sent packing. He let his belly, his whole body relax, but guardedly. Now maybe things were getting back onto the right track. If only no one knew about that nurse, no one had noticed her, and if only she could keep her yap shut, at least the next few days, If if if. …

  Iz toyed with opening his eyes to make sure the pulse-taker really was Takasch, but decided, no. A hundred to one it had to be the Hungarian; and Iz had nothing to say to the guy except to let him have it. And how would that help now?

  He began wondering about the other side of the deal, if the stand-in corpse had gotten out of here all right. He hoped fervently that it was already in the hearse and riding away from here. And following after it, in a taxi probably, Linda and Poppa.

  Then the remorse smote, engulfed him, a hot wrenching wave of it. The two of them would be grieving, deeply. And he—nowhere along the route had he given even a moment’s thought to their hurt. But if the thing worked, it’d be good in the long run for them too, especially Linda. Or would it? He thought about Acapulco, opening a new casino there, to force them from his mind. No point in upsetting himself. He had to keep a clear head.

  * * *

  Iz estimated he had climbed fifteen feet; he could climb ten more; which would extend his view, except that now he was at a perfect gap in the spirally foliage, opening straight toward the fresh-dug grave. The cemetery was in a wadi down the hill from his tree perch, the headstones dusty white and crammed so tight together it was hard to locate any ground still empty.

  The sun’s glare blinded him for a moment. Imaginings took over his vision. He was picturing the human bones, rows and rows of them, laid out under the stony earth, men who had once run, fought, loved, and hated probably too. Whatever happened with this ruse, in the not too far future he’d still end up here, or in a place very similar.

  He breathed deeply. The cedar fragrance seemed to dispel his morbidity. When had he last climbed a tree? Twenty years at least, certainly not since his early bootleg days. And then it filtered back: Russia, a half-starved kid, terrified, clutching a sack, in it the heavy-as-a-rock pistol. He’d scrambled up high, high, before he’d dared even look at the dead officer’s gun. And then he recalled pointing it, scared stiff yet determined to shoot if necessary at the man threatenin
g to steal away their tiny home. … And now again he was up in a tree, tense, peering through spy glasses to salvage his life.

  Yesterday when scouting this place, he’d at first considered using a mausoleum diagonally opposite the grave site; but sightlines from its one aperture were confined, and the people he was out to glimpse might keep themselves at a distance from the funeral party. So he’d ruled against the granite tomb. Weeks back when he’d conceived this scheme, he’d fantasized about mixing with the cortege, in the rear, picking up gossip about himself. But the damn Hungarian had advanced the funeral to the day after his collapse, a day earlier than planned, which more than likely was not the doctor’s fault. Poppa, Iz realized, must have insisted on going with the rabbinic law, immediate burial. So Iz, recognizing that no one would be able to make it here from New York in time and that mourners would be sparse, had scotched the disguise bit.

  Now he spied cars winding down the hillside opposite: three, a tiny procession, the whitish dust-covered hearse followed by two nondescript sedans. Tensing up, he rechecked his footing, the branches he was straddling, getting himself ready. The climax of the act would be played in minutes now. A hole in the ground, the final home. A sardonic old saying of Poppa’s flickered through his mind: “Dying isn’t too bad in itself. It’s laying a man down in the earth that really buries him.”

  A moment later he heard noises. His stomach tightened. They were close by, twigs snapping, dislodged stones clattering downhill. He froze, pressed himself to the tree’s trunk, wishing he could slip inside it, then gritted his teeth and peered in the direction of the sounds. The cedars’ dense greenery prevented his seeing anything; but there was no mistaking that some living thing was nearing or was in the grove. His heart pounded. What if whoever it was came to this tree? Which could happen, since it did front so nicely on the graveyard. And then what if Iz were discovered? What then?