“Hey man,” he says, “Come on. What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Keep it safe for me,” I say. “You still remember how to use it, don’t you?”
“Sure, sure, but if the cops catch me with this, I’m in deep shit.” He sticks the gun reluctantly under his T-shirt behind his back and climbs out of the car. “Really,” he whispers, “why do you want me to carry this thing around?”
“I want you to follow me, Omar. But not too close, not close at all, in fact. Stay a hundred yards away if you like. Just keep me in your general line of sight. And for God’s sake, keep your eyes peeled.”
“For what?”
“Anything out of the ordinary. Anyone who’s out of the ordinary.”
“That describes just about everyone in Hollywood.”
“Come on, you know what I mean.”
“Shadow you? That’s the job?”
I nod. “If you’re patient, and if you’re even a little bit lucky, maybe you’ll spot the guy who dropped the bullet on me. He’s the one we want.”
“You really think he’ll be back?”
“I think he’s still out there. And as long as I stay on the case, I think it’s a decent bet he’ll keep coming around. That bullet was just the beginning. So okay, then. I’ll be the bait, you be the detective. Let’s try that.”
“Amos Parisman, you are one fucking loco individual. I hope I don’t have to follow you to your funeral.”
“You got any better ideas, amigo?”
“Yeah, I do, actually,” says Omar, leaning in on the passenger’s side. “Why don’t you just go home, and do what that old broad from the temple told you. Read the rabbi’s sermons. That’s not so peligroso. Do something that’s not dangerous for a change.”
Chapter 7
ON THE THEORY that Omar is probably a whole lot smarter than the rest of the world gives him credit for, I go home and lock the door tight. By the time I get there Carmen has already fed Loretta. She’s swallowed all her pills and has settled down in front of the television. Jeopardy is on. Alex Trebek is firing off the clues and Loretta is beaming. Before she got sick, she used to be able to play right along; she’d shout out the answers, and she was ten times better than me. She knew about things I’d never even heard of. Now she just likes to sit quietly and watch the contestants go at it. In another hour she’ll be nodding off. I lean in and give her a kiss on the forehead.
“Where were you?” she wants to know. The light from the television flickers across her face.
“Work.”
“Oh.”
That’s all she wants to hear, apparently. She turns back to the game show, and I retreat to the old lumpy couch in my office with the rabbi’s writings under my arm. I read much slower than I used to, but even now it’s still a pleasure to behold a well-turned sentence.
Ezra Diamant, it turns out, is a poet. Or was one. I can see that early on. But his arguments seem to veer all over the place. There’s something odd, unsettling, about his writing. I’ve heard a lot of rabbis speak, and in my own not-so-humble opinion, what they talk about is always a lot like Chinese food. It comes to the table. You smell the different aromas. Then, once you sit down and pick up your chopsticks, it all starts to taste the same. But not with this guy. He’s different. He’s not doing the ordinary rabbi shtick. He doesn’t compare the Torah to a dream map. Or to a tree of life. He doesn’t sneak in quotes from Bob Dylan or Cole Porter or Groucho Marx. He doesn’t draw witty inferences out of a phrase or moral lessons from what we endured thousands of years ago.
The first sermon I read talks broadly about the Jews in Egypt. How it is written in the Torah that we were slaves in Egypt. How we built the pyramids. How they mistreated us. How Moses challenged Pharaoh. How he summoned up the plagues and led our whole mob of illiterate nobodies across the Red Sea to the Promised Land. He builds and builds on this. This is, of course, nothing I haven’t heard before. You’re rooting for the Jews, but you don’t really have to, because it’s an old story and you already know how it ends.
But then, after he sets you up, he lurches away from the sound track. Modern-day archaeologists, linguists, and others, he says, now believe the events described in Exodus—if they took place at all—had to have happened around 1200 BCE. The dating is pretty precise. And we know what the Bible says about the Jews in Egypt. It’s in the Torah, it’s been passed down—l’dor v’dor—from one generation to the next. But the world is a crowded place, and just as we Jews do not exist in a vacuum now, we were hardly alone then. There have always been others. There have always been others, and we ignore them at our peril. So what, he asks, do we really know about their neighbors of that period—in particular, the ones we didn’t get along with, the Egyptians? Egypt was a very accomplished kingdom back then. And among the many things Egyptians were famous for—besides papyrus and mummies and pyramids, oh yes, and falafel (this was no doubt thrown in to get a laugh)—was their deep interest in history. In fact, from the beginning of time, Egyptians have always been meticulous historians.
I grab my ballpoint pen and start to underline phrases here and there. I don’t know this man from Adam, but still, there’s a kinship. He’s onto something. I can almost feel the heat of his words on the page.
Now, of course, from our perspective, there is no greater story in Judaism than the Exodus. The life of Moses. How he liberated our people with the help of God. The Ten Commandments. Our trials and tribulations en route to the Promised Land. It is who we are. But that raises a question. Wouldn’t you suppose, he asks the congregation, that events as momentous and miraculous as happened in the Exodus story—if even a small portion of them took place—would be noticed? That they’d be recorded, not just by Jews but by the scribes of Egypt? Wouldn’t you think someone else—their neighbors, for example—would find them interesting enough to remember?
And for argument’s sake, let’s say that a great deal of the Exodus story is fabricated. That slavery, the way we understand it today, did not exist. That there were no plagues, or at least that they were overblown. Let’s say that the folks who wrote the Exodus story were merely conjuring up generalities about the Egypt they knew. After all, people got sick and died all the time back then. It was hot. Crops failed regularly. Insects were always swarming. I have never been there, but I would imagine that unless you were rich, or happened to be a pharaoh, Egypt was never really a spectacular place to live in, then or now. Let us admit that. Let’s pretend that all those plagues and Moses’s magic stick and more were thrown in after the fact. Why? To embellish it. To give it the gravitas it deserves.
I put down the sheaf of papers and head into the kitchen for some pretzels and a cold bottle of Negra Modelo. This is not at all what I was expecting, I think. Well, I don’t know what I was expecting, but whenever a man starts throwing around fifty-cent words like gravitas, that’s when I reach for a beer. It’s a nice word, gravitas, I have nothing against it. Just not my kind of word. I plop myself back down on the couch and read on.
Let’s suggest that the real story boils down to simply this: that the Jews lived in Egypt a long, long time. Fifty years. Four hundred years. Whatever. That they were estranged from their native land and indentured to their Egyptian overseers. Maybe it was slavery, maybe it was just a primitive form of capitalism, who knows? And these workers, these servants, these slaves, they rose up en masse, and left.
It is written in the beginning of the book of Numbers that roughly 600,000 Israelites walked out of Egypt. They took a census: 600,000. Not a small figure, even now. But let’s be skeptical. Let’s suppose even that was too much. That the Israelites couldn’t count. Or that they lied. Maybe it was just 300,000. Or 100,000. Maybe they were wildly off base. Even so, it would have been an enormous number for that age.
Now, I’d like to try a little experiment, if you don’t mind. I realize that we’re separated by three millennia from the Exodus story. And yes, three thousand years is a long, long time. But human beings aren’t
any different now than they were then. Emotionally we are just the same. Our brains are the same size as those of our ancestors. So for a moment I want you all to close your eyes. I want you to relax. I want you to try to put yourselves back in the sandals of the ancient Egyptians. Make believe you are an ordinary Egyptian. Or a scribe. Or imagine you are an official of the government, or the wife of a prince, or an officer in the military. Now, if a large population of foreigners just opted to arbitrarily leave your country overnight, wouldn’t you react?
Or let me put it another way. Forget about Egypt. Think about LA. If every single undocumented person in Los Angeles just suddenly decided to walk off the job, if all those souls were somehow erased, if they were no longer in the picture, how would that affect you? At a minimum, wouldn’t you wonder why our lawns weren’t getting mowed? Wouldn’t you want to know why no one was cleaning our floors, or why the garbage was piling up? Wouldn’t you find it curious that nobody was on hand to cook in our restaurants and drive our buses and change grandma’s diapers? Wouldn’t you say something to someone? Wouldn’t people be talking? Wouldn’t there be big black headlines in the LA Times?
I put down the sermon for a minute and with my thumb and forefinger, I rub my eyes. I probably ought to get a better lamp in this room. Couldn’t hurt. I’m worn-out, it’s been a long day, but I’m trying my best to imagine the expressions on the faces of the rabbi’s audience members as he reads this. I’ve known these people all my life. That’s what goes through my mind. I know them. This is not what they think about.
So back to Egypt. Wouldn’t you suppose that Egyptian historians would take note of this labor dispute? This mass migration? Wouldn’t you suspect that someone somewhere would be upset enough to write an article or draft a memo or bring it up at Pharaoh’s court?
You would. Of course you would. And yet, the amazing thing is, they didn’t. Egyptian historians took note of all kinds of events, big and small. They discussed crops and recipes, rainfall and the path of stars, mining and architecture, but the fact that a huge foreign population, people who’d been living in their midst for decades, if not centuries, chose, on the spur of the moment, to leave their kingdom overnight, well, that apparently made no impression.
Why? Why? I would submit to you that the reason there was no reaction, the reason the dog didn’t bark, was because we Jews were never in Egypt to begin with.
About an hour after that revelation, I go into the kitchen and dial Malloy’s home number. “I might have some interesting news for you,” I say.
“It’s late, Amos.”
“I know. I apologize.”
“Okay, so what?”
“Well, I’ve been reading over the rabbi’s recent sermons. And from a Jewish point of view, at least, what he’s talking about, it’s pretty radical.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he’s denying and denigrating just about everything the Jewish people hold sacred. I’ve honestly never heard this kind of stuff, particularly coming out of a rabbi’s mouth.”
“And?”
“And, well, it looks like maybe he crossed the line.”
“So you think God killed him? Is that it? Gee, that would make my life so much simpler, Amos. Case closed. God killed him.”
“Very funny, Malloy.” I reach inside the fridge and pull out another Modelo. “I wouldn’t point the finger at God, but I’m ninety-eight percent sure he was getting up there on the bimah and insulting folks. Some folks, anyway.”
“Now why would he do that?”
“Who the hell knows? Maybe he was starting to lose it. Even rabbis melt down now and then.”
“That’s why you called? To tell me he was crazy?”
“Or maybe he wasn’t crazy. Maybe it was deliberate. Maybe he’d had enough and wanted to get himself fired.”
“You’re grasping at straws, Amos. Why didn’t he just quit?”
“I’m only speculating, Lieutenant. I’m reading his last few sermons and I’m thinking to myself, here’s a guy with a whole batch of brilliant theories. Only he’s way outside the box.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Parisman, but who suddenly made you an expert on Judaism? When was the last time you asked that God of yours for anything?”
“Point taken. But trust me: these are absolutely wild ideas. It’s like they came from outer space. And, I don’t know, Bill, they could even be true, but that’s not important. What I’m wondering is, what about his audience? What would they think?”
“You’re asking me?”
“No. But I can just see how some schmuck who’s been paying his dues and coming to shul all his life, some damn fool whose name is etched in gold because once upon a time he donated to the library, you know, some old duck sitting there in the third row, he might get upset.”
“You people are so touchy. I had no idea.”
“Well, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. I mean, the Romans killed Jesus for mouthing off, didn’t they?”
“Not according to Sister Agnes back in Chicago,” Malloy says. “As I recall, it was the Jews who did him in.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Well, that’s what you had to write down if you wanted to pass.”
“Bill, are you even listening to me? Diamant was out there every Friday night, fanning the flames. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
There’s an appropriate silence. Then Malloy is back in form. I hear the old cop voice again. “So what would you have us do, Mr. Parisman? Round up the whole congregation? Bring them in for questioning? Ask ’em how they really feel about the rabbi’s cockamamy sermons? Hell, where I come from, nobody even remembers these things from one Sunday to the next.”
“I’m just the messenger, Lieutenant. What you do with it is your business.”
“Yeah, well, seeing as how it’s late, I’m not going to do anything. Not tonight, anyway.”
I pop open my beer, take a short, satisfying swig. “Oh, one other little thing,” I say. “I almost forgot, but I thought you’d get a kick out of it. While I was inside chatting with the secretary down at the synagogue, someone left a bullet for me on the hood of my car.”
“Really?” Now his voice perks up. I’ve finally got his attention. “A bullet. What kind?”
“Hell, I dunno.” I pull it out of my pocket. “I was never good with that kind of technical malarkey. It’s a bullet. A little fellow. The kind that can kill you. You come by. Take a look.”
“Nah. What’s the difference. But you hang onto it, okay, bring it to lunch with you next time, just in case we find a fresh corpse somewhere with holes in it. Then maybe we can connect the dots.”
“So you don’t think I should worry? Just forget about it? You don’t think someone’s trying to tell me something?”
“Could be, sure. People don’t usually leave bullets lying around willy-nilly. Maybe he’s telling you to back off. Hell, I’ve been telling you to back off.” There’s a pause. “Only I didn’t leave you a bullet.”
Then I ask him what he’s found out about Dr. Ewing, and he goes into a long rambling spiel about how she grew up near St. Louis. Smart girl, he says, an only child. Parents divorced early on, and she was shuffled back and forth between them. Who knows what that did to her. The father was a civil engineer. The mother worked days in a drug store. They lived small, but Dora was ambitious, her teachers said. One of those kids who wanted to get out early and see the world. She read constantly, got straight As, wrote for the high school paper, joined the drill team. Went to Stanford on a partial scholarship. Graduated with honors and all that, but with lots of debt shadowing her around. Med school weighed her down that way.
“So how’d she ever end up in Culver City, I wonder?”
Malloy clears his throat. “I believe after she finished interning, she was offered an office there by Mr. Howard Rothbart. That’s what her former roommate told us, anyway.”
“Oh my goodness. Now why would he do that?”
“Apparently, he
was in Palo Alto for his own daughter’s graduation and they met somehow and got to talking. One thing led to another. You know him better than I do,” Malloy says.
“I’m not so sure anymore.”
“No, we’re not, either. I’m going to chat with him and see what’s what. Could be everything’s on the up and up. Still, it never hurts to check it out.”
“Howie’s a good soul. Maybe he was just doing a mitzvah. You know, like Humpty Dumpty.”
“Huh?”
“He’s trying to piece the world back together.”
“Aren’t we all,” says Malloy.
Chapter 8
WHENEVER I MEET an old duffer like myself on a park bench or riding a downtown bus, and they hear I’ve been a private detective all my life, there’s always this furtive little expression that crosses their face. And I’m not fooled. I know what’s going on. They may not say much, but they’re staring at me and the wheels are turning inside; they’re trying, as quietly and politely as they can manage, to put me in a box. They’re thinking back to the days of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Or Mickey Spillane and Rex Stout. They’re remembering all the Sherlock Holmes they read when they were kids. All those Columbo episodes they watched. The rumpled trench coats. They’re drifting into the dark, where we detectives are thought to dwell. And if they still have all their marbles, they’re imagining what a glamorous life I must have led. The gritty world I inhabited. The dingy hotel lobbies I staked out. The corpses I tripped over in alleys. The rich men who tried to buy me. The whores and pinup girls who pretended to love me. They don’t have to say a word; their face says it all.
But you’ll forgive me now if I tell you that almost none of that is true. I’m not gonna lie, I’m too old, and there’s no point. My forty years being a detective have been anything but glamorous. It’s hard work, pure and simple. You put in the time. You bear witness. Yes, I’ve covered a few murders. Yes, I’ve seen all kinds of crazy, crooked characters, and a few—too few—beautiful women.
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