I nodded. ‘Then he knows about Sheinberg, and you two. And Rachel. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s a game with him,’ said Louis. ‘You know that, don’t you? The business card, the spiders in the mailbox. He playin’ with you, man, testin’ you. He know who you are, and he like the idea of goin’ up against you.’
Angel nodded in agreement. ‘You got a reputation now. Only surprise is that every psycho from here to Florida hasn’t caught a bus and headed for Maine to see just how good you really are.’
‘That’s not very reassuring, Angel.’
‘You want reassurance, call a priest.’
Nobody spoke for a time, until Louis said, ‘I guess you know we be joinin’ you in Maine.’
Rachel looked at me. ‘I’ll be coming too.’
‘My guardian angels,’ I said. I knew better than to argue with any of them. I was glad, too, that Rachel would be close. Alone, she was vulnerable. Yet once again I found this beautiful, empathetic woman reading my thoughts.
‘Not for protection, Parker,’ she added. Her face was serious, and her eyes were hard. ‘I’m coming because you’ll need help with Marcy Becker and her parents, and maybe the Merciers too. If the fact that I’m with you and the odd couple makes you feel better, then that’s a plus, nothing more. I’m not here just so you can save me.’
Angel smiled at her with both admiration and amusement. ‘You’re so butch,’ he hissed at Rachel. ‘Give you a gun and a vest and you could be a lesbian icon.’
‘Bite me, stubby,’ she replied.
It seemed to have been decided. I raised a glass of water, and they each lifted their beers in response.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘welcome to the war.’
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, the front page of the Herald was dominated by a pretty good picture of Al Z slumped in his seat at the Wang, beside the headline ‘Gangland Leader Slain.’ There are few words that newspaper subeditors like better than ‘gangland’ and ‘slain,’ except maybe ‘sex’ and ‘puppy,’ and the Herald had opted to display them in a point size so large there was barely enough room for the story.
Tommy Caci’s throat had been cut from left to right. The wound was so deep that it had severed both of the common carotid arteries and the external and internal jugulars, virtually decapitating him. Mr. Pudd had then stabbed Al Z through the back of the head with a long, thin blade, which punctured his cerebellum and sliced into his cerebral cortex. Finally, using a small, very sharp knife, he had made an angled incision about three quarters of the way up the middle finger of Al Z’s right hand and sliced off the top joint.
I learned this not from the Herald, but from Sergeant McCann, who rang me on my cell phone as I sat at Rachel’s breakfast table reading the newspapers. Rachel was in the bathtub, humming Al Green songs out of key.
‘Guy had some balls, taking out two men in a public place,’ commented McCann. ‘There are no cameras on the fire exits, so we got no visual apart from your description. Some guy in the loading bay took the license; came from an Impala stolen two days ago in Concord, so zilch there. The killer had to gain access to the VIP lounge using a key card, so we figure he came prepared with one he made himself. It’s not that hard to run one up, you know what you’re doing. Al Z went to every first night – he may have been a mean, crooked son of a bitch, but he had class – and he always sat in or near those seats, so it wasn’t too difficult to guess where he’d be. As for the missing finger joint, we’re guessing it’s a calling card and we’re checking VICAP for equivalent MOs.’
He asked me if I remembered anything else from the previous night – I knew it wasn’t simply a courtesy call – but I told him that I couldn’t help him. He asked me to stay in touch, and I assured him that I would.
McCann was right; Pudd had taken a huge risk to get to Al Z. Maybe he had no choice. There was no way to get at Al Z in his office or his home, because he was always surrounded by his people and his windows were designed to repel anything smaller than a warhead. At the theater, with Tommy behind him and hundreds of people around him, he could have been forgiven for feeling secure, but he had underestimated the tenacity of his killer. When the opportunity presented itself, Pudd seized it.
It struck me that Pudd might also be tying up loose ends, and there were only so many reasons why someone felt compelled to do that. Primary among them was as a preparation for disappearance, to ensure that there was nobody left to continue the hunt. My guess was that if Pudd chose to disappear, then nobody would ever find him. He had survived this long even with a price on his head, so he could vanish like dew after sunrise if he chose.
Something else bothered me; it looked like bugs weren’t the only things that Pudd liked to collect. He also wanted skin and bone, removing joints and sections of skin from each of his victims. His taste in souvenirs was distinctive, but Pudd didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would mutilate dead bodies just so he could put the pieces in jars and admire them. There had to be a better reason.
I sat at the breakfast table, the newspapers now abandoned, and wondered if I should simply turn over all I knew to the police. Not that what I knew was a great deal, but the deaths of Epstein, Beck, Al Z, and Grace Peltier were all connected, linked either to the Fellowship itself or to actions that Grace’s biological father, Jack Mercier, was taking against it. It was about time for a serious face-to-face talk with Mr. Mercier, and I didn’t think that either of us was going to enjoy it very much. I was about to pack my bag in preparation for my return to Scarborough when I got my second call of the morning, and from a not entirely unexpected source. It was Mickey Shine. Caller ID could only tell me that the number he was calling from was private, and concealed.
‘You see the papers?’ he asked.
‘I was there,’ I told him.
‘You know who did it?’
‘I think it was our mutual acquaintance.’
There was a silence on the other end of the line. ‘How did he find out about your meeting with Al?’
‘He may have been keeping tabs on us,’ I conceded. ‘But it could also be that he was aware of Al Z’s interest in him for some time, and that my investigation precipitated a course of action he’d been planning for some time.’ He had learned from his pets that if something starts tugging at the farthest reach of your web, then it’s a good idea to find out what that might be and, if you can, to make it stop.
‘You weren’t out at your apartment last night,’ I continued. ‘I checked up on you.’
‘I left town as soon as I heard. Somebody called me about Al’s death, a friend from way back, and I knew it had to be Pudd. Nobody else would dare make a move like that against Al Z.’
‘Where are you?’
‘New York.’
‘Think you can lose yourself there, Mickey?’
‘I have friends down here. I’ll make some calls, see what they can do for me.’
‘We need to talk some more before you disappear. I get the feeling you haven’t told me all that you know.’
I thought he would demur. Instead, he admitted: ‘Some I know, some I’m just guessing.’
‘Meet me. I’ll come down to you.’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Mickey, are you going to keep running from this guy for the rest of your life? That doesn’t sound like much of an existence.’
‘It’s better than being dead.’ He didn’t sound too sure.
‘You know what he’s doing, don’t you?’ I asked him. ‘You know what the threat of “being written” means. You’ve figured it out.’
He didn’t reply immediately, and I half expected to hear the connection being ended.
‘The Cloisters,’ he said suddenly. ‘Ten tomorrow. There’s an exhibition in the Treasury you might want to take a look at before I get there. It’ll answer some of your questions, and I’ll try to fill in the gaps. But you’re not there at ten and I walk away. You’ll never see me again.’
With that, h
e hung up.
I booked a ticket on the Delta shuttle to La Guardia, then called Angel and Louis at the Copley. Rachel and I met them for coffee in the Starbucks on Newbury before I caught a cab to Logan. I was in New York by 1:30 P.M. and checked into a double room in the Larchmont on West Eleventh Street in the Village. The Larchmont wasn’t the kind of place Donald Trump was likely to be frequenting but it was clean and inexpensive, and unlike most New York budget hotels, its double rooms weren’t so small that you had to step outside to change your mind. In addition, it had a security-locked front entrance and a doorman the size of the Flatiron Building, so unwanted visitors would be kept to a minimum.
The city was stiflingly hot and humid, and I was soaked in sweat by the time I reached the hotel. The weather was due to break that night, but until then the A/C would be on full-blast throughout the city, while those too poor to afford it made do with cheap fans. After a quick shower in a shared bathroom, I caught a cab uptown to West Eighty-ninth Street. B’Nai Jeshurun, the synagogue with which Yossi Epstein had until recently been involved, had an office on West Eighty-ninth, close by the Claremont Riding Academy, and it seemed that while I was in Manhattan it might be useful to try to find out a little more about the murdered rabbi. The noise of children leaving P.S. 166 echoed in my ears as I walked to the synagogue’s office, but it was a wasted trip. Nobody at B’Nai Jeshurun seemed able to tell me much more than I already knew about Yossi Epstein, and I was referred instead to the Orensanz Center on Norfolk Street on the Lower East Side, where Epstein had relocated after his falling-out with the Upper West Side congregation.
To avoid the rush hour traffic I took the subway from Central Park West as far as Broadway and East Houston, which left me sweating again, then strolled along Houston, past Katz’s Deli and storefront operations selling garbage masquerading as antiques, until I came to Norfolk Street. This was the heart of the Lower East Side, a place that had once been full of scholars and yeshivas, of anti-Hasidic Lithuanians and the rest of the first wave of Russian Jews, who were regarded by the already settled German Jews as backward Orientals. It was said that Allen Street used to belong to Russia, there were so many Russian Jews there. People from the same town formed associations, became tradespeople, saved so their kids could go to college and better themselves. They shared their neighborhoods uneasily with the Irish, and fought with them on the streets.
Now those times were largely gone. There was still a workers’ co-op on Grand Street, a few Jewish bookstores and skullcap manufacturers between Hester and Division, one or two good bakeries, Schapiro’s kosher wines, and of course, Katz’s, the last of the old-style delis, now staffed almost entirely by Dominicans; but most of the Orthodox Jewish community had moved to Borough Park and Williamsburg, or to Crown Heights. The ones who were left were mainly too poor or too stubborn to retreat to the outer boroughs or Miami.
The Orensanz Center, the oldest surviving synagogue in New York, once known as the Anshe Chesed, the People of Kindness, seemed to belong to another, distant time. Built by the Berlin architect Alexander Saeltzer in 1850 for the German Jewish congregation, and modeled on the cathedral of Cologne, it dominated Norfolk Street, a reminder of the past still alive in the present. I entered through a side door, walked along a dark entrance lobby, and found myself in the main, neoGothic hall among elegant pillars and balconies. Dim light filtered in through the windows, turning the interior to the color of old bronze and casting shadows over flowers and white ribbons, the remnants of a wedding held some days earlier. In one corner, a small man with white hair, dressed in blue coveralls, was sweeping paper and broken glass into a corner. He stopped his work as I walked over to him. I produced my ID and asked if there was anybody who might be willing to talk about Yossi Epstein.
‘Nobody here today,’ he said. ‘Come back tomorrow.’ He resumed his sweeping.
‘Maybe there’s somebody I can call?’ I persisted.
‘Call tomorrow.’
I wasn’t getting very far on looks and charm alone. ‘Mind if I take a look around?’ I asked and, without waiting for a reply, began to walk toward a small flight of stairs leading down to the basement. I found a locked door with a card pinned to it expressing sorrow at the death of Epstein. A bulletin board to one side listed times of services and Hebrew classes, as well as a series of lectures on the history of the area. There wasn’t much more to see so, after ten minutes or so of unsuccessful snooping around the rest of the basement, I brushed the dust from my jacket and walked back up the stairs.
The old guy with the broom had disappeared. Instead, there were two men waiting for me. One was young, with a black skullcap that looked too small for his head and a head that looked too small for his shoulders. He wore a dark shirt and black jeans and, judging by his expression, wasn’t one of the people of kindness. The man beside him was older, with thinning gray hair and a thick beard. He was dressed more traditionally than his friend – white shirt and black tie beneath a black suit and overcoat – but didn’t look significantly kinder.
‘Are you the rabbi?’ I asked him.
‘No, we are not connected with the Orensanz Center,’ he replied, before adding: ‘You think everyone who dresses in black is a rabbi?’
‘Does that make me anti-Semitic?’
‘No, but carrying a gun into a synagogue might.’
‘It’s nothing personal, or even religious.’
The older man nodded. ‘I’m sure it’s not, but it pays to be careful with such matters. I understand you are a private detective. May I see some form of identification, please?’
I raised my hand and slowly reached into my inside pocket for my wallet. I gave it to the young guy, who handed it in turn to the older man. He examined it for a good minute, then folded it and handed it back to me.
‘And why is a private detective from Maine asking about the death of a New York rabbi?’
‘I think Rabbi Epstein’s death may be connected to a case I’m investigating. I hoped that somebody might be able to tell me a little more about him.’
‘He’s dead, Mr. Parker. What more do you need to know?’
‘Who killed him would be a start, or doesn’t that concern you?’
‘It concerns me a great deal, Mr. Parker.’ He turned to the younger man, nodded, and we watched as he walked from the hall, closing the door softly behind him. ‘What is this case you are investigating?’
‘The death of a young woman. She was a friend of mine, once.’
‘Then investigate her death and leave us to do our own work.’
‘If her death is connected to that of the rabbi, it might be in both of our interests for you to help me. I can find the man who did this.’
‘The man,’ he repeated, emphasizing the second word. ‘You seem very certain that it was a man.’
‘I know who he is,’ I said simply.
‘Then we both know,’ he replied. ‘The matter is in hand. Steps have been taken to deal with it.’
‘What steps?’
‘An eye for an eye, Mr. Parker. He will be found.’ He drew closer to me, and his eyes softened slightly. ‘This is not your concern. Not every unlawful death is fuel for your anger.’
He knew who I was. I could see it in his face, my past reflected back upon me in the mirrors of his eyes. There had been so much newspaper coverage of the deaths of Susan and Jennifer, and the final violent end of the Traveling Man, that there would always be those who remembered me. Now, in this old synagogue, I felt my personal loss exposed once again, like a mote of dust caught in the sunlight pouring through the windows above.
‘The woman is my concern,’ I said. ‘If the rabbi’s death is connected, then that becomes my concern too.’
He shook his head and gripped my shoulder lightly.
‘Do you know what tashlikh is, Mr. Parker? It is a symbolic act, the casting of bread crumbs onto the water, symbolizing the sins of the past, a burden with which one no longer chooses to live. I think you must find it in yourself
to lay aside your burdens before they kill you.’
He began to walk away, and was almost at the door when I spoke.
‘“This was said by my father, and I am the atonement for where he rests.”’
The old man stopped and stared back at me.
‘It’s from the Talmud,’ I said.
‘I know what it is,’ he almost whispered.
‘This isn’t about revenge.’
‘Then what is it about?’
‘Reparation.’
‘For your father’s sins, or your own?’
‘Both.’
He seemed to lose himself in thought for a few moments, and when the light returned to his eyes a decision had been made.
‘There is a legend told of the Golem, Mr. Parker,’ he began, ‘an artificial man made of clay. The Rabbi Loew created the first Golem in Prague, in fifty-three forty. The rabbi formed him from mud and placed the shem, the parchment bearing the name of God, in his mouth. The rabbi is justified in legend for creating a creature capable of defending Jews against the pogroms, against the wrath of their enemies. Do you believe that such a creature can exist, that justice can be served by its creation?’
‘I believe that men like him can exist,’ I replied. ‘But I don’t think justice always plays a part in their creation, or is served by their actions.’
‘Yes, perhaps a man,’ said the old Jew softly. ‘And perhaps justice, if it is divinely inspired. We have dispatched our Golem. Let the will of God be done.’ In his eyes I could see the ambivalence of his response to what had been set in train; they had sent one killer to track another, unleashing violence against violence, with all of the risks that such an act entailed.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘My name is Ben Epstein,’ he answered, ‘and I am the atonement for where my son rests.’
The door closed gently behind him, its sound in the empty synagogue like a breath exhaled from the mouth of God.
Lester Bargus is alone behind the counter of the store on the day he dies, the same day on which I meet Yossi Epstein’s father. Jim Gould, who works for Bargus part-time, is out back fieldstripping a pair of stolen H&K semiautomatics, so there is nobody in the rear storeroom, where a pair of TV screens show the interior of the store from two angles, one from a visible camera above the door, the other from a lens hidden inside the shell of a portable stereo kept on a shelf beside the register. Lester Bargus is a careful man, but not careful enough. His store is miked, but Lester Bargus doesn’t know that. The only people who know are the ATF agents who have been monitoring Bargus’s illegal gun operation for the best part of eleven days.
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