David Lazar

by Robert Kalich

  Though I had known Solomon Lepidus since I was twenty-four, this was the first time I had seen this side of him full-blown. I had gotten the gist of the man and put two and two together. I wasn’t an idiot, but during all those years, I had never imagined this kind of ugliness. Sickness was there. Deep-rooted malevolent universal hunger and greed. I knew for me to accept him was a conscious leap to the other side.

  Catholics call it hell. I call it The American Plague.

  I knew I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to say no. A large part of me was flattered. When I arrived at Solomon’s office, Solomon took his thumb and forefinger and pinched my ear. Hard! (Was it a father thing? My own cantor dad used to pinch my ear, much like Solomon.) Then he pulled out of a desk drawer two six-inch wads of rubber banded C-notes. Telephone numbers would be the kind of bets that I’d now be able to make. I thought of Solomon Lepidus more as my dad than my own father. I thought of him as a “champion amongst men.”

  “I can’t have lunch with you today, Davey boy. But tomorrow night we’ll meet at my restaurant.”

  I didn’t want to leave. I was disappointed.

  “On second thought, Davey boy, walk with me.”

  We left his office. The building itself was a converted warehouse with thousands of feet of loft space on every floor. Solomon called it his factory. On the second, third, and fourth floors at least 150 to 200 people hunched over benches. We took a private elevator to the fifth floor, stepped out of the boxcar, and entered a corridor. I followed Solomon on a catwalk at least 300 feet long at the end of which stood an employee in paramilitary khakis and holding a semi-automatic weapon. He waved to Solomon. We climbed a narrow pathway to the top floor. It looked like a vacant parking lot. Solomon opened a door. Then he took a key from his suit pocket and turned a lock in another door. Inside a dimly lit room, a man shook his head. “Mr. Ressler ain’t cooperating, Mr. Lepidus,” he said with a German accent.

  Solomon had introduced me to Jason Ressler at his restaurant. We had had dinner together more than once. Solomon referred to Ressler as “the Schemer.” Had pinched his ear just as he had pinched mine. Now, Ressler’s jaw was broken. His brow gashed. His arms cuffed. I looked away. Grew nauseous. I peered at Solomon. He appeared to be a beast more than the affable champion amongst men that I had idealized since I was twenty-four.

  Ressler was sitting on a straight-backed iron chair in the middle of the enormous room. Around his narrow neck was a Star of David. The German man had a silver crucifix around his own thick neck. The rest of the room was empty except for a bottle of vodka on the cement floor.

  “I wanted you to see this, Davey boy,” Solomon said to me in an enthusiastic voice. “Your mom and dad never schooled you in this kind of stuff. But I think now that you’re starting to earn a living, it’s time you became educated.” He grinned.

  “I’m proud of you, Davey boy. You could say I’m even impressed.” He paused again, and then said in a less enthusiastic tone, “You’re just beginning to climb Mount Gamble, and, it’s time for you to—” Again, he stopped. “You know what I always say, Davey boy. First you make your living. Then you live your life. You’re ready!”

  Twenty-six years later, on my third date with Elizabeth Dunn, I told her the story of Jason Ressler. She got up from the sofa she was sitting on with her three cats and raced out of the room. She refused to return. I kept pleading with her to return. I did an about face and said, “I’m just kidding. You know I’m a fiction writer. This is all make-believe.”

  But that night, Elizabeth didn’t allow me to hold her hand or kiss her lips when I said good night. I decided that from then on I would be duplicitous.

  “Mendacity is my watchword,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Prevarication will be my SOP,” I said when I cabbed it home.

  As I paced my rooftop until dawn, I repeated, “Fuck you, world! I’m free! Fuck you, world! I’m free!”

  That’s what handicapping and all that went with it has brought me. Freedom. But do I stay the course of duplicity, mendacity, and prevarication? If I go down the honest road, I’ll be alone, no Elizabeth, no Liam. That’s a freedom I don’t want.

  I focus my eyes on another snapshot on my wall: a woman, physically faultless. It’s my first wife, Leslie, who before me, had everything going for her but for a while I foolishly decided I was a better fit than her Ivy League millionaires or any of her previous CEO husbands. How I remember the details of 1969, the last year of our marriage.

  Leslie called me at the Welfare Department. “I’m throwing out your manuscript on American racism. I’m burning that nigger-loving book.”

  In a panic I ran out of the office, caught the subway at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, and was down to 59th Street in minutes. I sprinted the four blocks north and two long blocks east to the Regency Towers, our apartment building. At our door, I fumbled with my keys until I finally turned the lock. Leslie was wearing a snug knit skirt, a form-fitting sweater, and, as usual, she was looking like a piece of ass. Between her lips was a Viceroy; in her right hand a half-full glass of Russian vodka. She smirked. I pounced at her, grabbed her hair. She splashed my face with the drink. I raised my hand. I closed my fist. “I burned your manuscript,” she hissed.

  Half-crazed, I cocked my arm. I couldn’t do it.

  I headed straight for the toilet bowl and puked.

  Many more incidents occurred during our final year as husband and wife.

  When Leslie and I separated, both of us were wiped out. She couldn’t raise her arms to wash a dish. I couldn’t lift a postage stamp.

  Of course, it was delicious to walk out on my rooftop terrace at midnight in the late 1970s and shout at the top of my lungs, “FUCK YOU, WORLD, I’M FREE!”

  So what lesson do I draw from that? If I were to live my life over again, the only thing I’d change would be to not marry Leslie. But if I hadn’t married Leslie, I’d never have had the strength and determination to master handicapping. I wouldn’t have the money—and the freedom—that I enjoy now.

  What is that life? It’s a call from Elizabeth. She read to me the latest teacher reports on our son. The reports are glowing. Liam is a great student, a conscientious, well-meaning citizen on campus. A favorite of all his teachers. The words made me proud. It’s my life now. Being proud of my son. Living in the magnificent quiet glow of a slow-moving marriage. I’m content. I was content until Elizabeth asked about Evan Strome.

  I often flew to Las Vegas but only to collect or pay. Never once did I have the urge to visit the tables or the available women. On many an occasion, I spent time with Solomon Lepidus at the casinos. Yet I was never enticed. While Solomon might lose as much as a quarter of a million dollars on dice, cards, or on something called Chuck-a-Luck, not once did I put as much as a coin into a slot machine. If I made a wager, I wanted the percentages to be in my favor. I think Liam is going to be even more disciplined when it comes to stuff like that. When he was at the 92nd Street Y pre-school, after he went to the bathroom, he always washed his hands. Even at four years old I never had to tell him to do that. I babble on about my son, as my parents did about me. Everything repeats: bigotry, sadness, mistakes, fear...Fear!

  I met Elizabeth Dunn ten months after she had come off a recurrence of breast cancer. If I recall correctly, we spoke on the telephone several times. Each one was as crucial as grinding a baseball bat when you come to the plate. You plant your feet. You focus. You concentrate. And then the pitch comes and you either take it or take your swing. I took mine.

  Elizabeth was not even close to being talkative, but somewhere in the beginning, I sensed what she had gone through. How terrifying it must have been for her to think about dying. She faced it trembling and alone. I felt guilty that I wasn’t there to share her double-mastectomy debate, reconstruction versus going flat. Liz finally decided to go flat.

  “I’ve accepted that my body is mine,
” she said. “I’m comfortable without reconstruction. The accepting part to me, David, was more important than the surgery I went through. I’m at peace with it. I hope you are, too.”

  The first year was a gift. Elizabeth One was my all-time favorite. No one in my entire life captured my heart like Elizabeth did. Elizabeth was there by not being there. Elizabeth was there by needing what I had to offer. We started talking and she started voicing opinions with words, intuition, imagination, catastrophic experiences. I heard, listened, and absorbed. I knew Elizabeth One well enough that the gift of life and love flooded me. And I thought during that time that I was on the path to a complete and wonderful friendship, and I was.

  To me, Elizabeth is more complete than any woman I’ve ever known. I am the one who’s incomplete. I admit that when I first heard about her reconstructive decision, I thought of Leslie’s perfect breasts, Debbie Turner’s voluptuous bosom, but then I spanked my brain hard. Grew up. I resolved that what mattered was that I’d found a woman with whom I could connect. The truth is I’m with Elizabeth because it’s where I want to be. It’s a shared life with parts added and parts missing.

  I don’t want to lose her.

  Chapter 11

  So many photographs on the wall, at least two dozen of Solomon Lepidus, “everyone’s best friend” and mine, too. He was there when I needed him. Not with Debbie Turner, but he was there to save my life. How many times I needed Solomon to intervene. He was street smart, experienced, and unseemly connected. He had the deception of a respectable life: a good wife, children, a place in the community. He knew everyone. He could reach out everywhere to call in a favor. He was Solomon Lepidus. Everyone loved him. He was the disingenuous muscle that I needed to see, talk to, get advice from. He did make Debbie Turner aware that I wasn’t just a civil servant, gambler, or the deadbeat I had been during my Leslie years.

  “Forget about Debbie Turner, Davey boy. You’ve got much bigger problems. I just got a call from Willie Alter’s office. They say you tried to past post them.”

  I wasn’t a larceny guy, but I wasn’t Mister Clean either. What I did was past post one of bookmaker Willie Alter’s runners. Gave the clerk a bet ninety-seven seconds after the game had started. I had taken six points on the game, and when I past posted, the score was 13–2 in my favor. Nathan Rubin had gotten away with it. I hadn’t. It’s a big deal and getting caught at it can send you to the hospital. Or the morgue.

  “I’ll talk to Willie, but let me tell you, Davey boy, that’s not the way to make friends or acquire an honorable reputation. Willie’s a good friend of mine. If he wasn’t, you’d be getting a beating. And I don’t mean anything less than having your skull fractured. You get what I’m saying, Davey boy? Don’t do it again! And don’t tell me what Nathan Rubin does. What he gets away with is only because, in one way or another, he ends up making everyone rich. Now, get outta my office. I gotta make some calls.”

  Four days went by before I saw Solomon again. I went to his steakhouse. Solomon peered at me. “I guess you heard what happened. That runner of Willie Alter’s who screwed up your bet. He was hit by a car on 10th Avenue and 18th Street at two in morning. Now, Davey boy, what else can I do for you?”

  I use the word “handicapping” when I mention my work because it’s euphemistic. It doesn’t come close to hinting at the carnage my life involved, something Elizabeth never suspected before she read about Evan Strome.

  “Solomon, what do you think I should do?”

  But I didn’t need Solomon Lepidus to sanction my behavior. I wasn’t a wimp, who prayed for a solution. I took the matter into my own hands. How many times I aggressively, forcefully, brutally collected. How many times I motivated myself by recalling Leslie Kore’s words. “You’re a loser, David. A real man would make money.” As incredulous as it sounds, I used Leslie as fuel. I did things that others wouldn’t do. Couldn’t do. Would never do. I could spell them out one by one. I never told even those I loved about many of my deeds.

  For instance, one time one of my beards walked out with $2,200 that belonged to me. He pulled what we call in the trade “a claim.” He said. “You didn’t tell me to bet on Florida State. You told me to bet against Florida State.”

  I collected my winnings. I carried a brain and a soul that was as unrecognizable to others as it is to me. At times I did terrible things, things I don’t regret. I was climbing Mount Gamble. Each step in the climb was a necessity. I sound like a sick man. I am. I was. I shared my decisions with no one. Solomon Lepidus was there, but I owned some of the brute force. He wasn’t part of all of it. Many times, I didn’t ask his permission or his advice. I acted on my own.

  The first time there was a hint of carnage was with a decent family man, Benjamin Futterman, a bookmaker, who had gone bad. Bookmakers can lose as much as compulsive gamblers. Some are compulsive gamblers. Benjamin Futterman was. I didn’t know that when I started feeding him bets that were larger than he could handle.

  I went to his Forest Hills apartment. His wife opened the door. I asked to see Futterman.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  I pushed her aside. Searched the apartment. Every closet. Two bathrooms. The three children’s rooms. I found Futterman trembling behind an oak desk in his eleven-year-old daughter’s room.

  I carried a billy club in those days. It was a gift from a friend of Solomon’s. Champ Holden. I’ll talk about him later. It was the first time I ever went over the line. At least, my line. I remember it was a learning tree for me. I cut off a branch and realized that to be successful, I would have to do much more than calculate numbers, analyze reports, get the best odds and line, manage every dollar. It would be war, and in war people are hurt. Benjamin Futterman was a collectible entity. He owed me. He paid me. After that there were others who required me to live a life of sickness, bottom-line greed, so that I could salvage what I had won. Handicapping it was. Handicapping it wasn’t. At times I had to do things I haven’t revealed to anyone, certainly not to Elizabeth, seldom even to my conscious self. I keep it all inside. A deep, dark, nonverbal secret that only part of me knows. The rest of me is out there with all the civilized people. Acting normal. Being normal. Being the man I want to be. Most of the time I succeed. That was the man Elizabeth knew and loved. The man without the

  dark secret.

  No dark secrets with my son Liam. This morning he texted me that he’s been selected to represent Choate in a robotics competition. His robot won him a major trophy last year. Now he’s going to be leading the team. I joyously text Squirt back telling him how proud of him I am. I text Elizabeth in North Salem to tell her how I feel more warmth and joy inside for our son’s accomplishments than I ever did for mine. After I finish the text, I go to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of chocolate milk. I think of how I got to where I am. I think of Nathan Rubin and his chalk-colored hair, his dwarfish features, his dentures and cackle and peccadilloes. I think of all the ice cubes and walnuts that he shoved up his mistress’ butt every Thursday afternoon.

  What a different life.

  I send Liam another text. “I’m proud of you, son...so proud...”

  I wrote a nonfiction book I titled Solomon’s Pledge about Solomon Lepidus at sixteen. It was inspired by how in the 1930s, Solomon and Stickers would travel from the Bronx to Germantown on East 86th Street in Manhattan to break up Nazi Bund meetings orchestrated by Indian Joe McWilliams and fueled by “the Radio Priest” Father Coughlin’s broadcasts and his National Union for Social Justice pamphlets of hate. Those jingoistic pamphlets ended up in Yorkville bookstores and other Bund locations. It was teenaged Solomon Lepidus who was the most combative in destroying this swill.

  Stickers told me, “Solomon might have only been sixteen at the time, but he was our leader, the most determined of all of us. We fought with baseball bats and chains to break up those Bund meetings.”

  When I wrote Solomon’s Pledge, I
interviewed several of Solomon’s boyhood friends, including Sam, a slight, hunch-shouldered old man. (I never was told his last name.) He looked like your neighborhood tailor from the 1950s. He invariably sat in Solomon’s office in a far corner reading a newspaper or just minding his own business. The rumor was that Sam was out of federal prison. At Solomon Lepidus’ request, he’d killed a prison inmate, a Nazi Bund fiend. Sam, like the other people I interviewed, agreed that Solomon was a born leader.

  “All us boys followed Solomon in those days,” Stickers told me. “Those who are still around still do!”

  I, too, followed that complex man, at least some of the time. Too much?

  It’s not only men who can be complex, and not only men who fooled me. Fooled me? Was I a fool to expect simplicity? Sure.

  I thought Debbie Turner was as unsullied and as much of an apparent winner as Secretariat was in the home stretch in the Belmont. Nothing to worry about with Debbie Turner. “You’re my best friend, David,” she would say and start blushing. When I touched her inverted nipples, she’d gasp. I loved Debbie Turner and that prick Nathan Rubin knew it. He jumped her one night. Debbie didn’t have a chance. What can I say? I didn’t give up our partnership. I was making money. Debbie Turner wept for weeks. “I don’t understand you...I don’t understand you...” She sobbed night after night.

  But that was me. I almost don’t understand myself either.

  And as crazy as it sounds, Debbie went from being a caseworker in Harlem to living in my penthouse. From wearing ripped jeans to cover her sticks for legs to wearing elegant designer dresses. Then, six years after Debbie moved in with me, she moved out. I tried to get her to come back.

  “The plug has been pulled, David. I have nothing left to give to you.”

  After Debbie moved on with her life, she bumped into someone at Kennedy Airport. The fellow was a member of the One Percent of the One Percent of the One Percent Club. In a New York minute, Debbie Turner became a billionaire. This kind of serendipity only happens in New York. Perhaps it does happen elsewhere, but I only know New York City. We still have poverty, homelessness, women’s issues, housing problems, addicts, street gangs, cancer, a less than perfect health care system, corruption, racism, but we have feel-good stories, too. Debbie Turner, who came to New York from Bethesda, Maryland looking like Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, met the quintessential one percenter. These things do happen in real life. Look at Melania Trump.