An Old Man's Game

by Andy Weinberger

  “You don’t want me to go in with you?”

  “No, I’ll be perfectly fine, Omar. It’s a Torah study. A bunch of old guys drinking coffee and arguing about God and what might have happened two thousand years ago. Besides, you go in there and people will stare. Even with the yarmulke. Trust me. Fish out of water, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I already feel like that. But I just want you to be safe. That’s all.”

  “No problem. Everything’s covered.” I grab his hand then and press it against the bulge in my side coat pocket. “What do you think that is?”

  Omar looks at me bewildered. “You brought your piece even though you didn’t think you’d need it?”

  “Nobody ever needs an umbrella until it rains, amigo. That sounds like something Hemingway said, huh? Anyway, I know my people. We like to argue. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s harmless.”

  “So that’s why you brought it along, then, for the one percent?”

  “No, that’s why I brought you along. This gun’s just a prop.” He doesn’t look convinced. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. It’s ten o’clock. If I don’t come out by 11:30, you make your entrance.”

  A bunch of beards move past us and into the sanctuary. I wave goodbye to Omar and join them.

  The room is laid out in a square of long wooden tables, with about eight people on each side facing in. Some are holding disposable cups of coffee, which they’ve procured from another table at the back; others are sifting through the various editions of their Torahs or talking quietly in small clusters. Howie Rothbart is there, all dressed up, also Dov Boorstein and Alan Ross and, to my surprise, so is Rabbi Zack, the tall, curly-haired young man from Texas I saw a few weeks ago. I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect him to still be here. He’s grinning, chuckling over something with one of the congregants.

  Then, as if on cue, everyone takes their seats and the room grows quiet. Zack looks around and one by one acknowledges us all. He’s still kind of toothy and, in my view, overly earnest, but that may just be the Texas shining through. “Let me welcome you to our study this morning. Many of y’all have been here before, but for those newcomers”—and here he beams some sunshine directly at me—“a special welcome is in order.” Zack opens the Torah. “And so we begin, as always, with a prayer.”

  Everybody except yours truly chants this Hebrew prayer, which I realize I’ve heard before, but it was a hundred years ago. Even so, I seem to be able to translate most of it. Or maybe it’s just in my DNA. Blessed art thou, Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who has commanded us—blah, blah, blah, holy something, Torah.

  Today they are reading from a section of Leviticus. It’s a lot of dos and don’ts, which is not all that exciting to me, but the rest of the folks in the room lap it up. Zack asks a man at the far end named Michael if he would read aloud, and in a deep baritone voice, Michael says, “The following you shall abominate among the birds—they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, and the black vulture; the kite, falcons of every variety; all varieties of raven; the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull; hawks of every variety; the little owl, the cormorant, and the great owl; the white owl, the pelican, and the bustard; the stork; herons of every variety; the hoopoe, and the bat.”

  He stops there, thinking maybe that’s enough to get the ball rolling, but Zack gestures him to continue. And, of course, there’s more—lots of restrictions on insects and swarming things in general, although some, it turns out, are okay. Locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers. I never knew that, but it’s right there in the Torah, so it must be so.

  People start raising their hands almost immediately. They want to talk about defilement and purification. Nobody seems to care what birds you can’t eat or what insects are allowed. The text is just a launching pad for a much more rarified discussion. A fellow named Jeremy is amazed at God’s attention to detail, how God takes the trouble to name each and every bird that’s forbidden. Is that a metaphor, he wonders, for everything else in our lives? And if that’s so, then how can we possibly pay that kind of attention to everything?

  Zack nods. Even though he’s a young rabbi, much younger than everyone else in the room, still, this is something he’s familiar with. “Well, in an ideal world, that’s what God wants, you bet,” he says. “To pay attention. To focus on the here and now. That’s why we have those 613 obligations we’re supposed to perform. That’s why we say so many prayers in Judaism. There’s a prayer for just about everything, folks, because in the end, let’s face it, everything matters.”

  There’s lots of nodding. Then a bald-headed guy next to me raises a little-known point from the eleventh-century sage Rashi, and on and on it goes. I keep my mouth shut and just watch and listen as the arguments fly, and by the time the hour is over, my head is spinning. Rabbi Zack leads everyone in a final prayer, and then people are slipping on their coats and starting to leave.

  Howie Rothbart stands up. He’s shaking hands with everyone as they file past him, and I join in at the back of the crowd. “Well, hello, Amos. I didn’t expect to see you here. What do you think about our Rabbi Zack?”

  “Is he the new kid on the block?”

  “Well, it’s not official or anything, but he’s certainly in the running. Ezra had big shoes to fill, of course. We’re still conducting a search.”

  “That’s kind of why I came this morning, Howie. I’m still searching. You have a little time to talk?”

  “Here? Now?”

  The room is empty. Just tables and chairs and empty coffee cups. “Why not?”

  Howie shrugs and resumes his seat. I sit beside him.

  “So? What more can I tell you?” he asks.

  “There’s a great deal,” I say. “You can start by filling me in on the details of your relationship with Dora Ewing.”

  “The details? What do you mean? We were in love. Is that what you want me to talk about?”

  “There are a few inconsistencies, Howie. Little things to iron out. For instance, you said you first met Dora around graduation time at Stanford.”

  “I did.”

  “Yeah, you met her then, but you were already seeing her romantically six months before that time. So you lied.”

  “You could call it a lie, I suppose. I wouldn’t. I honestly don’t remember how long we’d been together. Is that a crime?”

  “No, but I keep wondering. You know, the cops spent a lot of time going through Dora’s apartment.”

  “I’m sure they did. And what did they find?”

  “Oh, what any young girl would have, I suppose. Fancy sweaters. Designer dresses. Italian shoes. Jewelry. They said they’d never seen so much jewelry outside of Tiffany’s. What do you think about that?”

  “Those were gifts,” he says quietly. “I gave them to her.”

  “I have no doubt about that, Howie. You were very, very generous.”

  “I did it out of love.”

  “You did it to get laid, but if you want to call it love, okay. I won’t quibble with you.”

  He frowns. “Look, Amos, the girl is dead. Why do we have to go on with these sordid kinds of questions. It’s not going to bring her back.”

  “No,” I say, “you’re right. Nothing’s going to bring her back. I’m just trying to find out why she had to die.”

  “Somebody broke into her office, and she happened to be there. Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “That’s one story.” I glance at him sideways. “But first, I’d like to talk a bit more about those gifts you gave her, Howie.”

  “Is there something wrong with giving a girl you like jewelry? Lots of guys do that.”

  “They certainly do. I’ve done it myself once or twice.” I pull out my cardboard notebook and flip through it. “But I’ve got the list here of what was on her bedside table. And the police did me one better. They checked with some jewelry stores, showed them pictures of everything. And guess what? You spent a ton of money on that girl.”
/>   “I told you, I was in love.”

  “You loved her, sure, sure. And we haven’t even begun to talk about the free rent or how you were paying off her student debt.”

  He looks down at the table.

  “So, Howie, where’d you get the money?”

  “I paid for it myself.”

  Here I pause. When I open my mouth again I try to keep my voice calm and even. I speak slowly and I try not to show my exasperation. “You might have paid for some of it, maybe in the beginning. A pair of earrings here or there. But I’d bet you anything that when the police finally peek at your bank statements, they won’t add up. I’ll bet you gave her cash for those student loans. In fact, I’ll bet they won’t find a thing in your bank account that’s even remotely out of kilter. You know why?”

  He’s not saying a word now. All his excuses, he’s used them up.

  “Because your wife is a banker, Howie, that’s why. She’d catch it immediately if something were wrong with the numbers. And you didn’t ever want her to know.”

  “No,” he says sullenly, “my wife couldn’t know.”

  “So then, all those clothes and gifts and cash to pay off her student debt—where’d it come from?”

  For a long time, he doesn’t answer me. He looks at the table. He looks down at his shoes. “All right,” he says, at last, “it’s true, the money wasn’t my own. I borrowed it.”

  “From who?”

  “Malcolm Bloom. Who else?”

  “And why would Mr. Bloom do that?”

  “He was a friend, it was a friendly gesture.”

  “Howie, you’re going to have to stop lying to me. This is getting old.”

  “Okay,” he says. “He had a lot of money to throw around. He wanted my help in reining in the rabbi. He said he’d give the temple a very large sum for the rabbinical program and for a few other areas where we were short of funds. That’s when I suggested that I could use a loan as well.”

  “And he knew what it was for?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And how did you figure on paying him back?”

  “It was a long-term arrangement, a gentleman’s agreement. No papers or anything. I thought that one day, when the time was right, that Ellie and I would get divorced, and I could pay him back when our house was sold. I make a decent enough living as a lawyer, and I do own that property on Doheny, and the medical building. I could move in with Dora. We’d be all right. That’s what I thought.”

  “Did you talk this over with Dr. Ewing?”

  “Many times.”

  “And how did she feel about it?”

  “She had—she had reservations. She liked being courted, you know. She loved all the necklaces and the clothes, all those dinners. I think she knew it had to end at some point, but looking back, I can see why she wanted it to go on and on. I mean, she was living in a dream.”

  “And somewhere down the line, you knew you had to be the one to wake her up, didn’t you, Howie? It couldn’t go on indefinitely.”

  He pulls a handkerchief out from near his lapel and dabs at his eyes. “No,” he mumbles, “it had to end. I had to end it.”

  “That must have been hard,” I say. “You loved her.”

  “She was using me,” he says now. “She said if I didn’t do what she wanted, well, then, she knew how to get in touch with Ellie. Ellie would love to know that she was pregnant. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “And then you got lucky.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I mean Rabbi Ezra died, and even though you knew it was an accident, it was your chance to solve the problem you had with Dora Ewing.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll spell it out for you. The rabbi dies. The cops say it’s probably an aneurysm, a heart attack, who knows? But it’s unclear, because there’s no autopsy, and the body’s already in the ground. That’s when you get this brilliant idea. You talk Malcolm Bloom into funding an outside detective. You need to keep the case alive. You tell him the Board is upset, you tell him the congregation’s in an uproar, just put it on the tab. You call the police and ask them to please dig a little deeper. Check with the late rabbi’s doctor. That’s what happened, Howie. Am I right? Tell me when I start to veer off course.”

  He just looks at me. No response.

  “Then you take Dr. Ewing out to dinner in Culver City. You’ve tucked a crowbar into your briefcase. She tells you the cops have been by, asking about what’s in Ezra’s file. And some old guy named Parisman too, but she kicked him out. Everybody wants the rabbi’s file, she says, even though there’s nothing special in it. You say you’d like to have a look at it yourself. Maybe she hesitates, she knows it’s wrong, but hey, you’re her lover, you’re dangling diamonds in front of her eyes, and so she agrees. After dinner, you take her car and drive over to the office. While she’s hunting around for the file, you slip on a pair of plastic sanitary gloves. I remember she had a box in every room. She comes in, hands you the blue medical file, turns her back for a moment. That’s when you whack her. You drag her over to her desk. You put a tissue over your mouth and call my number. You put on a falsetto voice and pretend to be her. I’m sorry to call you so late, Mr. Parisman, you say, but I came in to check my files and—bam—maybe you whack her a second time and hang up the phone. Then you trash the place. You need this to look like a burglary gone south, so you smash open the lock to the drug cabinet. Then you dump all the Schedule II samples—all the opiates, all the amphetamines, everything—into your briefcase. You look around, you see her little laptop computer sitting there, and you think, a burglar wouldn’t walk away without that, so you take it too. There’s one last thing to do—you pry off the front office doorknob from the outside so everyone will think that’s how you got in. You tuck the crowbar into your briefcase, press the down button on the elevator, and start hiking back to your car. It’s a perfect crime.”

  He looks up from the table then. The color has drained from his face. “I can’t believe you said that,” he whispers. His hands have slowly turned into fists. “Is that what you think happened?”

  “Something like that. I could be wrong on some of the details. You tell me.”

  It’s hard to read another man’s mind, but his body is doing a lot of talking. His fists start to unclench, first the left, then the right. “Well,” he says, drawing a deep self-satisfied breath. “Well now, it’s a great story. I’ll concede that much. But where’s the proof? This is all conjecture. Fantasy.”

  “Oh, I think it’s a lot more than fantasy, Howie. But you know what really tipped the scales for me?”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you went after Jonah Siegel.”

  “I told you already, I barely know his name.”

  “Not according to Mr. Bloom. He hired Jonah Siegel on your personal recommendation.”

  “Hired him? For what?”

  “Bloom buys and sells information. He needed someone to spy—er, keep tabs on the rabbi. You said—wait, I have it here—” I pull out my cardboard notepad. “You said, and I quote, ‘Jonah Siegel was honest and trustworthy.’ Now that’s a recommendation where I come from. But how could you say that about a person you barely know?”

  “So you’re suggesting I killed them both? The woman I loved more than life itself, and a boy I hardly knew? Is that it? Before I sue you for defamation, Amos, tell me this: have you gone out and spread this crazy story to the police?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Well,” Howie says, shaking his head, “I don’t understand any of this. Not one word. Why would I kill Jonah Siegel? What would be the point?”

  “I’m sure this is hard, Howie, but bear with me a minute. You remember how once upon a time you said you wanted to learn the truth? That you wanted to get to the bottom of things? Well, that’s what I’m all about. You didn’t know Jonah Siegel, not very well. I’ll grant you that. But you knew enough. You knew he
was a devout Jew. You knew he believed in the standard version of the Old Testament, which would put him at odds with Ezra’s Judaism. You knew he was one of the four people sitting around at Canter’s when the rabbi keeled over. And you also knew he worked for Bloom, who is someone you’d come to distrust.”

  “No. Not true. Malcolm Bloom saved me,” he replies. “He kept my love alive.”

  I shake my head. “Malcolm Bloom may have thrown you a lifeline once. But let’s face it, he was working you, just like Dora Ewing. You were being milked by both of them.”

  I study his face. His eyes are wide. He’s blinking a lot and he seems on the brink of tears. “So go on,” he says finally. There’s something almost operatic in his voice. “What’s your grand idea about Jonah Siegel? Why would I want to kill him?”

  “You didn’t want to. Look, don’t get me wrong,” I tell him. “You’re not a stone-cold psychopath. Nothing like that. You’re a decent human being. The only person you wanted to kill—or, let me back up, the only one you needed to kill—was Dora Ewing.”

  “Because?”

  “Because you knew she didn’t love you. Because she was gnawing away at everything you worked for, and that had to end. Because you finally came to your senses, Howie. The way you looked at it, when you were your old rational lawyerly self again, you had no choice. And then, when the rabbi died suddenly, you realized what a golden opportunity it was.”

  “The rabbi’s death was an opportunity? Really?”

  “Absolutely. If you got rid of Dora, and the cops thought those two deaths were tied together, well, that would muddy the trail for a long time. So you killed her, stole his file, called me in the middle of the night from her office, and tried to set up the crime scene so it looked like a burglary.”

  “How very clever of me.”

  “It was. Pretty darn clever. Only you still had some loose threads—questions that wouldn’t go away.”

  He’s looking at me wearily, but now I know he wants to hear what I have to say if, for no other reason, so he can poke legal holes in it.