Never Again

by Harvey A. Schwartz

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” she said.

  When Shapiro pressed the telephone icon on the steering wheel, the navigation screen switched to a telephone dial. He scrolled down his recent call list to Suffolk County district attorney Patrick McDonough.

  “Ben, thought you’d be down in DC waving a sign,” the district attorney said, laughing. “Aren’t you the head Jewish lawyer or something these days?”

  “Actually, Pat, I’m in the car on the Mass Pike heading for Washington right now. I wanted to check in with you about that kid I’m representing. Mandelbaum. You said you’d give the idea of turning him over to the feds some thought.”

  “Oh, I thought about it all right, Ben,” McDonough said. “For about five seconds. That kid’s a murderer, no two ways about it. I saw how the feds rounded all those people up and then sent them home with a stern lecture. No, Ben, it’s not going to work that way on this one. People are dead, ten people. It’s too bad he’s the only one who’s gonna pay, but he’s all I’ve got. I think I’ll hang onto him.”

  “I thought you might say that,” Shapiro said. “I’ve got another proposition for you, Pat.”

  “I didn’t think you were calling to ask me to look up the traffic conditions on the Mass Pike,” McDonough said. “Okay, Ben, shoot.”

  “What if he could identify the Israeli soldiers who sank the Coast Guard boats, the ones who fired the grenades and planned the whole thing?” Shapiro asked in a flat voice. “That would be worth something, right?”

  “That would be worth something.” McDonough said. “What’s the deal you have in mind, Ben?”

  “Simple,” Shapiro said. “Ten or so Israeli soldiers get ID’d, you bring whatever charges you want, you fight the feds for custody, and my guy gets turned over to the feds to be placed in that camp, all state charges against him nolle prossed.”

  “You want me to dismiss against him?” McDonough replied. “I can’t go that far.”

  “Yes you can. Call it federal preemption or something,” Shapiro said. “You can do it on your own, don’t even need a judge’s approval. You know, Pat, we go to trial and I might walk this guy. He had nothing to do with anything. All he did was jump in the water and not swim fast enough to get away. A jury could walk him.”

  “Dream on, Counselor,” the district attorney said. “Not with the mood going around today. Not a good time to be a Jew on trial for murder. You know that. Let me give your proposal some thought. Just so I’m clear, you say you can identify Israeli soldiers, active military personnel, right, who fired rocket-propelled grenades and sank the Coast Guard ships?”

  “This is just a theoretical discussion for the moment, Pat,” Shapiro said. “Let’s say that in theory that’s true. You get back to me and tell me what you would do in return for that information.”

  “Hold on, Ben. I trust you. I don’t trust the time of day from your client,” McDonough said. “Do you personally have this information?”

  “Pat, if I did, it would be privileged. Does it make a difference if it comes from me or him?”

  “It could make all the difference in the world, Ben.”

  “If it makes a difference in regard to getting my guy out of Charles Street,” Shapiro said, “you can theoretically assume that I can be in a position to share my client’s knowledge.”

  “Good. I’ve got to check with the feds first. You’ll be hearing from me, Ben,” McDonough said. “Let’s say that I’m intrigued by your proposal.”

  “Can your guy really do that?” Katz asked seconds after the call ended. “I suppose what I mean is, would your client really do that, turn in Israeli soldiers like that?”

  “My guy is presently the best girlfriend of at least six very large, very horny men who seem to be very good friends with the corrections officers who are supposed to be looking out for my guy’s safety. He’ll do anything to, quite literally, save his ass.”

  They drove on in silence, only to be interrupted by the cell phone ringing. The caller ID was not the district attorney as Shapiro hoped.

  “My wife,” he said. “We’re on the outs. It’s a long story, but I don’t think this is a conversation you want to experience. I’ll let it ring. I can always talk to her later.”

  Sally was filled with guilt as she sat on the bedroom floor and went through the cardboard banker’s box that held the couple’s “important papers.” Wills and investment statements, old tax returns and the like. She told herself she was not doing anything to feel guilty about. After all, they were her papers as much as they were his. She’d give him copies, or her divorce lawyer would give them to his lawyer.

  Her search through the box came to a halt when she opened a well-stuffed manila envelope on which was written, in her handwriting, the words My Famous Husband. The envelope was filled with newspaper clippings—stories about cases Ben had handled over the years. He never saved anything about himself. Without telling him that she did so, Sally saved everything.

  Memories flooded her mind as she glanced at the yellowing newsprint. Each story was about a case, a triumph, a defeat, a crusade, a financial windfall, a financial disaster of a loss. She dumped the contents of the envelope on the bedroom carpet and started reading through the articles, holding each one as if it were precious and fragile.

  I remember this case, she thought. He sued the state licensing board for race discrimination for that old black man when they wouldn’t give him a barber’s license. The memory of sitting at the dinner table as Ben reenacted his devastating cross-examination of the head of the licensing board, waving a chicken leg in the air for emphasis, brought a smile to her face. When he finished his tale she’d asked him to tell her the rest of the story, the part he always held back. He’d smiled and said, “Did I mention that the guy I’m suing for race discrimination is black, too?”

  Another article described a case Ben brought and lost in the state supreme court, representing a single mom who worked at a high-tech startup who was fired when she said she had to leave work to spend time with her son on the weekends. He told me from the start he was going to lose that case, she remembered, but he took it to make a point, to give that mother a chance to fight back.

  Sally smiled at that one. What a knight he is, always rushing off to do battle for the little person. I’m so proud of my husband.

  That thought hit her like a rock to the forehead. I’m always so proud of my husband. Why am I not proud of him now, now that he is fighting his own fight? She realized—all of a sudden she realized with crystal clarity—that her husband had no choice about this fight. He couldn’t turn his back on a single mother, out of work and living off her unemployment check. He couldn’t turn his back on an elderly man who’d learned barbering from his father, rather than from a trade school.

  How can I expect him to turn his back on his own people, his own heritage? He not only won’t do that, she realized, he can’t do that. It isn’t part of the man. And that man is the man I love. I still love.

  Sally sat on the floor and carefully replaced each news story in the envelope, then she collected the pile of important documents and put them, one by one, back into the box.

  The fist that had clenched her stomach for weeks loosened. Her shoulders lost the slump into which they’d fallen. She stood. Back straight. Head raised. Relieved. She smiled. “I still love him.”

  I don’t even know where he’s staying in Washington, she thought, then decided to try calling his office on the chance that he hadn’t left yet. Ben’s secretary seemed surprised to hear from Sally and told her Ben was going to DC directly from home.

  Sally felt she could not wait another instant to talk to her husband, to tell him she was sorry for what she’d put him through; to tell him that of course she’d be home when he returned and to tell him she knew how important this fight, of all his fights, was to him; to tell him that she’d be there with him, her and Adam, if he wanted them by his side at a march or a rally or a trial.

  Maybe I’ll drive
to Washington and surprise him, she thought. Imagine his face when he sees me.

  Ben did not usually carry his cell phone, to her frustration, but he enjoyed how the phone connected wirelessly to the voice navigation system in his car. He so loves his toys, she thought, smiling. Smiling.

  She dialed his cell, jabbing at the tiny number keys in excitement at not getting divorced, at not not loving her husband. He must be in the car now, on the way to Washington.

  The telephone rang eight times before going to voicemail. I can’t apologize in a voicemail, she thought and punched the disconnect button.

  Sally remained energized as she waited to pick Adam up from school later that day.

  “I have a treat for you, sweetie,” she said to her son as he climbed in the car, slinging his backpack into the back seat. “We’re going to the mall to buy Daddy a special present.”

  “Oh boy, the mall?” Adam crowed. “Can we get Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken?”

  Sally sighed. “This is a special day, and if you are extra good while I’m shopping for Daddy, we’ll get Japanese chicken afterwards. We are going to buy a big surprise for Daddy when he gets home.”

  “Isn’t Dad coming home tonight?” Adam asked. “Where is he?”

  “Daddy had to go away for a few days,” Sally said. “He had something very important to do, very important for the Jewish people, Adam. He had to say something to the government in Washington for the Jewish people. We should be so proud of him for what he is doing.”

  Adam noticed his mother crying now, softly at first, but soon her shoulders trembled as a week’s, a month’s worth of fear and anger escaped.

  “Why are you crying, Mom?” Adam asked.

  Sally reached into the glove compartment for a tissue, finding only an old Dunkin’Donuts paper napkin to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

  “I’m crying because I’m happy, sweetie, and because I love your daddy, and you, so much.”

  Adam looked at her with an odd expression.

  “You’re weird, Mom,” he said. “I cry when I’m sad. When I’m happy, I laugh.”

  Sally laughed.

  The North Shore Mall was crowded. They parked in a secondary lot, a ten-minute walk from the main entrance. As they walked into the mall, Sally took her son’s hand and warned him, as she always did when they went there, to stay close to her and to ask a sales clerk in any store to take him to mall security if he got lost. For some reason she never understood, malls made her anxious.

  Early on in Ben’s legal career, she’d created what became a family tradition. When an especially big case came in, she would buy him a new suit. That suit would be his “case suit” for the life of that new case, bringing him good luck when he wore it to court. If the case turned out well, if he won or it settled before trial, the suit remained in his closet for future use. If he lost the case, the suit went to the Salvation Army.

  Most of his office clothing came from Brooks Brothers, which had a large store at that mall. Brooks kept a file on each customer, with all of his various sizes recorded, from shoes to neck size. She’d never had to return a suit she bought for her husband at Brooks.

  Adam was getting tired and showing it as Sally finally chose between a gray wool pinstripe that she decided was too conservative even for a lawyer and a solid blue double breasted with pleated pants that she thought sent a stylish, confident message.

  She glanced at her watch as they left the store. It was six fifteen already. She considered heading home when a revitalized Adam grabbed her arm.

  “Japanese chicken, Japanese chicken now,” he begged. “You promised, Mom.”

  The food court was packed. They had difficulty finding a table, finally having to dash as a mother and daughter stood and left. They barely beat two teenage boys wearing iPod headphones and baggy pants, who gave them killer scowls but let them have the table.

  Sally piled her bags on the table and ordered Adam to remain right there without moving an inch while she got his Japanese chicken. He promised to guard their table. Her eyes never left him as she waited in line at the Teriyaki-Chicky booth.

  Sally returned five minutes later with a Styrofoam dish overflowing with tiny bits of chicken covered in a brown sauce on top of what looked like a triple serving of brown noodles, a few pieces of broccoli and miniature corn to the side. She handed Adam a plastic knife and fork, which he promptly bent over double trying to cut a piece of chicken. He looked at his mother in confusion.

  “Just use your fingers,” she said, patience running out as the last of her energy, the last remnant of her overcharged emotional state, dissipated. I’m feeding him junk food at the mall, she thought. Might as well finish being a terrible mother by sitting him in front of the TV when we get home while I take a long, hot soak in the tub. She could almost feel the warm water supporting her.

  “What’s that weirdo doing?” Adam asked, pointing at a young man in a long black coat and hat. Sally looked up from her thoughts of the bathtub and turned her head to see what her son was pointing at. Two tables from where they sat, a young man was climbing from his chair to stand on top of the table.

  His coat was unbuttoned, revealing black pants and a white shirt beneath. The shirt looked odd, puffy. Sally noticed the black curls descending from beneath the man’s hat in front of his ears.

  “He’s a Hasid, Adam—a very religious Jewish person,” she told her son.

  He’s acting strange, Sally thought, looking around for mall security as heads turned toward the man throughout the food court. By now he was standing on the table, his legs spread. He reached into a bag and removed some white fabric, which he draped over his shoulders.

  “Look, Mom,” Adam said. “It’s a Jewish flag. I know that star. They’re fun to make. You do it by drawing two triangles, one right side up and the other upside down.”

  The man started shouting. Most of what he said was unintelligible, but Sally heard the word Israel shouted and something that sounded like a prayer. She heard a yell from across the food court. When she turned, she saw a mall security guard gesturing at the man to climb down from the table.

  Sally looked back at the man on the table, standing not more than ten feet from her and Adam. She watched him bring his feet together and stand straight, almost like a soldier at attention. His final words were odd, definitely not English at all, not even sounding like Hebrew but more like he was saying something that began with the word Allah.

  Sally saw the man’s right hand reach inside his shirt, where two buttons were left undone. Funny, she thought, I didn’t even notice that his shirt was unbuttoned.

  She was just turning her head to smile at Adam, who was staring in fascination at the man, when seventy-five quarter-inch steel balls tore through her upper body, instantaneously shredding her heart and lungs and smashing her face into a pulp beyond recognition. Adam died beside his mother.

  The Israeli flag rose thirty feet over the pandemonium in the food court and then slowly fluttered down to cover a small piece of the carnage.

  CHAPTER 46

  Ben Shapiro and Judy Katz drove west from Boston, south into Connecticut and across to New York, crossing the Hudson River north of the city, connecting with the Garden State Parkway. Then south through New Jersey. They barely stopped talking for the entire five-hour drive. The radio was off. Shapiro told war stories—legal wars, beginning with college demonstrations and continuing through his entire career.

  Katz mostly listened. That was unusual for her. As a federal criminal prosecutor dealing with organized crime, she had her own catalog of stories. At the rare parties she attended, she was used to being the person who entertained others. Her stories were more interesting than what her investment banker and stockbroker friends had to say about their jobs.

  It dawned on the young woman, several hours into listening to Shapiro carry on about cases he’d won and cases he’d lost, that while Shapiro liked to hear himself talk about himself, this was also a man who’
d enjoyed his career and who did more than just make money with his work. She thought about the momentary heartthrobs during her aborted lunch with Bob Shaw of the antitrust division and realized that Shaw’s career highs would coincide with the days on which he made the most money. Shapiro casually mentioned, in the middle of what seemed to be half his stories, that this “wasn’t a money case” or that another was done “as a favor” or that a client “won me over against my better financial judgment.”

  Before she became too enthralled with Shapiro’s altruism, Katz reminded herself that they were comfortably driving in his year-old Mercedes. Doing well and doing good, she thought. Not a bad combination.

  Shapiro began running out of stories, or out of energy, as they crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. After a few minutes of silence he asked Katz if she wanted to try the radio. She turned it on and began scanning for stations, pausing on a station halfway through Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”

  “Cool,” she said. “I love oldies.”

  Shapiro grinned but said nothing.

  The song finished with its multiple-chord piano flourish. The announcer came on with “And now for WBEB Fox Action News with Brenda Waters.”

  “Hundreds of persons are believed dead in two massive, well-coordinated bombings at shopping malls outside of Boston,” the newscaster said. “Police report two suicide bombers who appeared to be Orthodox Jews wrapped in what appeared to be Israeli flags blew themselves up in the crowded food courts of the Burlington Mall and North Shore Mall in Burlington and Peabody, Massachusetts.”

  “This won’t be good,” Shapiro said. “Damn. The North Shore Mall. I go there. I buy my suits there. I need to call Sally. I need to make sure she and Adam are okay. Do you mind?” Shapiro asked.

  “No, go right ahead. I understand.”