I signal the waitress for more coffee. “You might also interview his wife. She can help you with the money trail, I’ll bet.”
“We already have. And you’re right, she’s more than eager to talk. A lot of anger there, of course. The wronged wife. I don’t know yet if the prosecutor’s going to want her in court. They’re still married. That could go either way with a jury. I feel sorry for her though.”
“Yeah, me too.”
We stop talking then and concentrate on the food. Then out of the blue, Bill tells me how he took his wife Jessie to church last Sunday. First time in years that either of them went. “You wanna know why?” he says.
“Sure,” I say. In all the time I’ve known him, Malloy has rarely veered off the topic of crime. “Why?”
“I went because of you.”
“Me?”
“Because of the things you learned reading the rabbi’s sermons and all. I mean, I know you were just looking for clues, why someone would want to kill him for what he said, but it got me thinking. The whole back and forth about the Jews in Egypt, the implications. Even if it never happened, you know what, even if it’s all nonsense, a man’s religion is a very powerful thing.”
“That’s why I stay the hell away from it, Lieutenant. It’s the most intoxicating nonsense on earth. I think Jews in particular should be wary of religion. We’ve had nothing but the short end of it for thousands of years now.”
“Yeah, well, when you kill our savior, what do you expect?” Malloy grins, and I grin back.
“He probably deserved it,” I say. “All that shit about love thy neighbor. Gimme a break.”
From behind the long clear display case of salami and corned beef and creamed herring, Ruben Glazer spies us and ambles over. He’s wearing his kitchen apron and it looks like he’s been working hard because his face is sweating and his hand, when I go to shake it, is warm and moist. “I heard the news about Howie Rothbart,” he begins. “I dunno what to think.”
“Maybe this isn’t quite the nice neighborhood you thought it was,” I say.
“I served him brisket,” Ruben says. “He always said good things about our brisket.”
“And Hitler was a vegetarian,” Malloy says. “So what the hell are we talking about?”
“I’m trying to understand,” Ruben continues. “A guy like that—good dresser, nice wife and kid, beautiful home. How do you square that with murder?” He has moved into a deep pool of anxiety. His lips are trembling and he’s waving his arms. “What’s going to happen with the temple? First the rabbi. Now the president of the shul behind bars. How can they—how do we—go on?”
I pull him down beside me in our booth. I take hold of both his large sweaty hands, and I talk to him in a steady voice about Rabbi Zack, the young man from Texas who seems to have just naturally stepped into the breach. How the Board voted him in immediately after Howie Rothbart was arrested. How the congregation has really rallied around him. “Sure,” I say, “they’re hurting, who wouldn’t be? But you know what, Ruben? That’s a tough bunch of Jews over at Shir Emet. They’ll weather this,” I say, “believe me.”
Ruben nods. He’s suddenly sheepish. He stands up, tries to return to his old self. “Okay,” he says. “That’s—that’s good to hear.” He starts to walk back to his post, then turns on his heel. “Oh yeah, so, thanks. I feel better now. And—and forget about lunch, will ya? It’s on me.”
I walk Malloy out to the parking lot. He has a squad car and tries to offer me a ride home, but I say, no, no thanks, I should really put in my daily steps. Doctor’s orders. Besides, I might just decide to drop by the Farmers Market on the way and see if they have any peanut brittle I can bring back to Loretta. She’d appreciate that.
He nods. “What about you, Amos? Will you ever set foot in that temple again?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure I’d be welcome at the moment. And anyway, you know me, Bill, I don’t guess I’d ever fit in there. I’ve been in the detective business too long.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that when I hear a lie, I know it’s a lie.”
“So you think Rabbi Ezra was onto something about your people never being slaves in Egypt?”
“I think history will decide. But that’s a long, slow process, isn’t it? One day—we’ll both of us be in the ground by then—one day scientists will make a pronouncement, and that will please some folks. I also think that no matter what they say, Jews will argue about it forever. Hey, that’s what we do.”
On the way back to my apartment, I pass by the same black homeless woman I had met many weeks before. She’s squatting at a different bus stop—this time it’s 3rd and Gardner. Other than that, nothing has changed. She still has her shopping cart piled high and her tattered cardboard sign about how homeless people matter.
I put a ten-dollar bill into her weathered hand. “The last time I saw you, you danced when I gave you something.”
“And you’d best believe me, sugar,” she declares, “you’d best believe I’d do it again.” She starts to rise slowly from her metal seat.
“Don’t,” I tell her. “You know what? I’m an old man. You could use the money. And I don’t need to be entertained.”
A Few Words You Might Be Wondering About
alte katchke - an old duck
bubkes - nothing, or a very small amount
daven - to recite prayers in Jewish liturgy
farblunget - broken down, wasted
goyim - non-Jews, gentiles
kasha varnishkes - a cooked dish of bulgur wheat and bow-tie noodles
L’chayim - To life! Cheers! Traditional Jewish toast
landsman - a countryman, a fellow Jew
le sholem - (Hebrew) May he/she rest in peace, term invoked after the name of a deceased person
macher - big shot, wheeler dealer
megillah - a long involved story, or account, usually stated as “the whole megilah”
mitzvah - (Hebrew) a good deed
nebich - so what, whatever, big deal, who cares
nu - so, well
oneg - a Jewish social gathering held on Saturday afternoon or Friday evening
rebbe - rabbi
schmattes - literally “rags,” but generally understood as clothes
shmutz - dirt, filth, grime
shpilkes - pins and needles, connoting anxiety, tension
sufganiyah - (Hebrew) Israeli jelly donuts
tallis - prayer shawl
tsimmis - literally, a Jewish stew, but more usually, a commotion, an upset or turmoil
tsuris - hurt, trouble, woes
tuchis - a person’s behind, rear end
Acknowledgments
THERE IS an urban myth out there that we are born alone and we die alone. Moreover, that whatever we manage to achieve in this life is only through dint of our own efforts. My experience has been quite the opposite. We human beings are naturally cooperative and gregarious. We enjoy working together for the greater good. So, yes, I wrote this book, but it would not be the same book were it not for the help of many others.
First of all, I need to thank my parents, Arthur and Moosie Weinberger, who although they grew up dirt poor in the crucible of the Great Depression and World War II, also loved me enough to want me to be able to follow my dreams, no matter how impractical.
Thanks also to my teachers, in particular to Tom Vournas and Abel Franco of Pasadena High School, who first gave me the courage to write. And to poets Robert Creeley and Gary Snyder, as well as Raymond Chandler, all of whom—in their own way—opened new doors of language.
Thanks to dear friends and early readers Ron Raley, Leslie Carlson, Patricia Raley, Mark Swed, Aimee Levy, and Cheryl Howard, for invaluable suggestions. Also to my pair of legal beagles, retired judge Ann Dobbs and attorney Richard Conn, who kept me on the straight and narrow.
I had great encouragement and assistance from my writing group—Michael Farquhar, Ned Racine, Emily Adelsohn Corngold,
Alice Simpson, Fran Yariv, Melina Price, and Paul Pattengale, who patiently listened while I read each chapter aloud and, with their comments, criticisms, and superior punctuation, kept me from making a fool of myself.
Similarly, I want to pay tribute to the staff at Readers’ Books—in particular, Jude, Thea, and Rosie, who read the early version of this manuscript and made useful remarks that shaped it down the line. And to family members—my brother, Jonathan, my nephew, Russell Weinberger, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Steve and Sandi Auer—for cheering me on.
Thanks and a big hug to Lise Solomon of Consortium for telling me about Prospect Park, and to the good folks there for their fierce and unstinting support of this project. Publisher Colleen Dunn Bates and editor Dorie Bailey have utterly replaced my old-fashioned notion of what it means to go from sitting alone in a room writing a book to being out there in the world as a published writer.
Special appreciation to my sons, Gideon and Tobias, who taught me real-life lessons about forbearance, humility, and compassion—much needed and always in short supply.
Finally, I owe a big debt to my wife, Lilla, who has stood by me through thick and thin, always believing that I had a valuable contribution to make, never for a minute doubting that I could do this, even when I sometimes doubted myself. This is for you.
About the Author
ANDY WEINBERGER is a longtime bookseller who opened Readers’ Books in Sonoma, California, with his wife, Lilla Weinberger, in 1991. Born in New York, he grew up in the Los Angeles area and studied poetry and Chinese history at the University of New Mexico. He lives in Sonoma, where Readers’ Books continues to thrive. This is his first novel.
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