Requiem for Moses

by William Kienzle

  “Daddy! It’s not my fault.”

  “Good. It’s somebody else’s fault.”

  “Yours!”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Daddy, you’re making me go out with Morris. All the time!”

  “Morris!” Green crushed the paper between his hands. “Morris! What about Morris?”

  Morris played a long-range part in one of Green’s schemes. Judith’s mention of the name captured his attention.

  “You’re making me go out with Morris all the time. I have to dance with him at all the sock hops. When we have vacations, it’s always Morris, Morris, Morris!”

  “Morris is a good kid. What’s the matter with you? He’s your cousin, for God’s sake.”

  “That’s another thing: He’s my cousin!”

  “He shouldn’t be your cousin? It’s good he’s your cousin. Keeps it all in the family.” He looked up as Margie entered the room and stood by the fireplace.

  “We’re supposed to date lots of boys. We’re supposed to—um—play the field. If we don’t get enough experience from a lot of different people, we won’t develop a mature personality.”

  “Your personality is fine.”

  “And”—Judith continued to talk through her father’s comment—“if we only date one fellow we will be committing serious sins. Because steady dating is like an engagement. Engagements naturally lead to marriage. And steady dating leads to sins. Sins of the flesh!”

  Moe chuckled. “Morris still feeling you up?”

  “Not much. Last time he tried that I decked him!”

  “See? That’s my girl.” Moe was grinning. “You won’t commit any sins … except maybe murder.”

  “You should take her seriously, Moe,” Margie said.

  “Not you, too!” He tossed the crumpled newspaper in the general direction of the fireplace.

  “Daddy …” Judith valued her mother’s intervention, but would have preferred that it come a bit later. Judy had a few rounds left to fire. “What’s the point of it? It’s not like we’re going to get married!”

  Green’s squint focused directly into his daughter’s eyes. “And what would be so fatal about that?”

  “Daddy!” Judith almost shrieked.

  “Leave the room for a little while, darling,” Margie said. “Mother wants to talk to your father for a few minutes.”

  “Mother!”

  “Leave, honey!”

  “Oh, all right.” She stomped from the room, glaring over her shoulder at her father.

  “Moe, I think I know what you’ve got in mind.”

  Green leaned back in his recliner. By no means would it be the first time that Margie had virtually read his mind. “Okay, the floor is yours. Let’s hear what I’ve got in mind.”

  “When we got married, your family, for all practical purposes, disowned us. The sole exception was Sophie. It was a reaction that affected you about the way news of life on Mars might. You don’t give a damn about anybody. So why do you push Morris on Judith so relentlessly? Morris has neither the brains nor the looks to attract any girl of any age. But in Judy he’s got the cream of the crop. You’re giving him a queen on a platter. You don’t even care about your only daughter except for what she can get for you.”

  “Where is this going, my love?”

  “To Morris’s father Sam, I do believe.”

  Moe smiled. So far she was right on the money.

  “I’d have to be comatose not to know what Sam’s doing,” she continued. “It’s Amway. He’s been selling Amway stuff for a long time now. You’ve been itching to get in on this. But you can’t quite figure out how to get in on it and at the same time keep up your practice. I sympathize; it’s tough to sell something to somebody after he’s anesthetized. Beforehand, your patient is too worried about the operation to get really interested in carpet cleaners. And afterward, he’s so happy he survived, he considers nothing more than getting the hell out of your hospital.”

  Moe kept a straight face. Margie dealt in sarcasm. She was good at it. He didn’t care—particularly if she could come up with a solution to his problem.

  So far, the best plan he could muster was to try to get on Sam’s good side. That would take a bit of doing. Even if Sam were willing to strike some sort of deal, Moe faced the implacable hostility of just about all his relatives who refused to recognize his marriage to a shiksa. Sam was reluctant to risk inclusion in the family’s ostracism of Moe.

  However, Sam also was painfully aware that his son Morris was a social misfit. Put that on one side of the scale with beautiful, attractive, desirable Judith Green on the other and Morris becomes a happy camper. As does Myrna, mother to Morris, wife to Sam.

  Any way one looked at it, it was a good fit.

  Neither Sam nor Myrna wanted to incur the family’s ire. Yet they knew that Morris’s best—perhaps only—chance to be societally acceptable was in liaison with Judith.

  Without Judith, and on his own, Morris likely would marry someone much like himself, and they would breed other little misfits. With current life expectancy, Sam and Myrna would be forced to grow old watching all this happen.

  All of this Moe had forestalled. With little concern, he would sacrifice his only daughter for a share in Sam’s profits.

  Judy hated the situation, but what could she do? And it was even worse than she realized: Her father’s scenario, unbeknownst to her, was leading her toward a brokered marriage.

  And why not? From Moe’s vantage point, if it was good enough in the old country in olden times, it was good enough now.

  Actually, that rationalization was beside the point. Simply put, Moe wanted a piece of Sam’s Amway action. If Judith was the price—so be it.

  Enter Margie, with what she believed was a viable alternative.

  “You can have what you want, Moe,” Margie said. “Without having to romance Sam at all. Without sacrificing your daughter. Or, to look at it from your angle, without having your daughter disturb your reading of the financial page.”

  “Sounds pretty good, my dear. Just how does this happen?”

  “Sam makes good money on Amway. And he works like a dog doing it,” Margie explained. “But Sam is shortsighted. He could make tons more if he concentrated on recruitment. He needs to spend more time recruiting other people into selling Amway. The way to make real money is to expand the network. That way you earn a percentage on the sales of your new recruits.”

  “Smart, Margie. Very smart,” Moe said. “But how does that help me? I got as little time in the evenings as I got during the day.”

  “So,” Margie said, “what was your ultimate offer to Sam going to be?” She held up her hand to silence Moe and permit her to answer her own question. “You were going to recommend your patients to Sam and sell your billings to him … right?”

  Moe closed his mouth that surprise had opened. “Yeah … right. But, how did you—”

  “Over the years, Moe, I have developed a knack for simply knowing how you think. A special gift of intuition.”

  “I tip my hat to you, Margie. But I repeat: What good does your intuition do me? I tell Sam how he can make a better killing by concentrating on recruits? What does that do for me?”

  “What this does for you is that I take over the Sam role.”

  “I recommend my patients to you? You recruit? For you?”

  How typical of him, thought Margie, to project his value system on others. Everything is either for himself or for someone else. Nothing is shared.

  “For us,” she said. “We put the Amway proceeds in our joint account. You won’t have to mess with Sam anymore. You won’t have to fight Judy anymore to get her to date that horrid brat. And, best of all, you won’t have to try to force a marriage. I don’t think you would have won that one,” she added.

  Green massaged his temple in thought. “I like your scheme.” He looked up at her. “I still could do it my way—including the marriage. But yours is simpler.” A little more thought. “Wait a minu
te. You figured out what I was doing a long time ago. What made you hold off till now to bring this up?”

  “I was waiting for the right time. I put up with your pushing Judy into those god-awful dates with little Morris. I figured you were leading up to something big. My guess was marriage. I just had to wait until you played your ace before I trumped it.” Margie raised her voice. “Come on back in, honey.”

  Judith returned, smiling hopefully.

  Margie too was smiling, reassuringly. “It’s all settled, darling. No more dates with Morris, and, best of all, nothing serious like marriage. You just lead a normal life now.”

  “Oh, Mother … Daddy … thank you! Thank you, thank you!”

  “All that your mother said is true,” Green said. “But you still owe me.”

  “What!” Margie almost screamed. “We made a deal!”

  “And so we did. We go into the Amway business with you as the active partner. And, in return, Morris can go to hell.

  “But I let her off the hook. I could have kept to the status quo and arrived at about the same goal. A bit more troublesome, but workable nonetheless.

  “So, since I gave up a very livable option to make this agreement, I have the advantage.

  “Look,” he said soothingly, “it may never happen. Maybe I never need a big favor. All I’m saying is: I got the option. You owe me, Judith. Maybe I never collect. But you owe me.”

  How could he? Margie thought, and not for the first time. How could he use his own daughter, make a pawn out of her? And now he says she owes him! What sort of a man treats his daughter like … like a defeated enemy … or a slave child? Was there anything he wouldn’t do, any way he wouldn’t use anyone, even his own daughter, to get what he wanted?

  Weird! What a crazy way to handle family affairs! Like bitterly separated opponents, thought Margie, fighting always to stay one step ahead.

  From the start she had known this would be a loveless marriage. She knew she was marrying greed incarnate. So she had entered the marriage with open eyes.

  Her ultimate hope now was that one day she would live to see him dead. Then everything would be hers to do with as she wished. Then she would make it up to Judy.

  Meanwhile, she did not at all like this. Not for a moment was she fooled by Moe’s disclaimer that he might never collect a debt that he made up out of whole cloth. No, he would collect; she knew that. When and what would be involved she couldn’t yet know.

  All she knew was that when Moe Green declared, “You owe me,” he would inevitably collect.

  Chapter Seven

  And so, for Judith, teenage life settled down to a predictable normalcy.

  She dated whomever she wished. She did not wish to date anyone vaguely reminiscent of Morris. She was a gifted, natural, athletic dancer. Her training extended from classic ballet to modern expressionism. She grew more beautiful by the year.

  She excelled in academics, was consistently on the honor roll and popular in extracurricular activities. Nothing seemed beyond her potential. Having experienced the limitations of Morris and the horror of having him thrust upon her socially, she especially appreciated the present freedom to act her age and enjoy this maturing period.

  She was almost sixteen years old and a junior in high school when her father called in her marker.

  His demand was simple enough: Seduce Jake Cameron.

  She’d never even met the man. And all she had to do was surrender her virginity and self-respect.

  She was devastated.

  Dr. Green couldn’t comprehend her concern. It was a simple matter of seduction. That sort of thing had been going on since animals inhabited earth. It was no big deal; what was all the fuss about?

  In a last-ditch effort, Judith appealed to her mother. But in the explosion of this particular and peculiar nuclear family, there was little that Margie could do. She’d been through this many times before: When Moe called in a marker, the bottom line was that he would get what was owed to him. Opposing arguments were no more than a delaying action at best.

  That it was his own daughter, young and vulnerable, whom he was sending as a virgin sacrifice into the volcano concerned him not a bit. “She owes me” was his response. Judith wept; Margie ranted, raved, and threatened. Moe remained unmoved.

  So accustomed were mother and daughter to Green’s ruthless tyranny, that like the proverbial abused spouse neither of them seriously considered any type of significant opposition, legal recourse, or even departure. Judith was too young and Margie was too unwilling to give up what she had achieved as the wife of the wealthy and well-placed Dr. Moses Green.

  Finally, Margie, in an attempt to put the best possible light on things, threw herself into coaching her daughter toward the least disgusting and compromising scenario.

  In this, Margie’s one distinct advantage lay in her intimate knowledge of the target. Once, long ago, Margie had been Cameron’s woman. As such she was in complete agreement with Moe that Cameron would (a) hire Judith at first sight and (b) have sex with her that night. The object, then, was to make this sexual encounter as brief, painless, and safe as possible.

  Margie would make certain that her daughter was fitted for a diaphragm as well as provided with a spermicide. Cameron prided himself on leaving sexual partners satisfied; Margie knew that Cameron would want prolonged foreplay. Judith was advised to forestall any of Jake’s attempts at foreplay. Get it over with as quickly and decisively as possible. And, as the coup de grâce, she should make haste to the nearest bathroom and either become sick or make the appropriate sounds.

  It went just as planned.

  Cameron hired her on the spot. He never questioned the document stating her age as eighteen. He made his move at his earliest opportunity. She had all the necessary protection. She drew him into intercourse with no foreplay. And he left disgustedly when she did actually vomit as a capper.

  The details did not interest Moe Green in any way. His bargaining chip proved sufficient; he became a partner in Virago—the original as well as all future Viragos.

  The impact on Judith was profound and manifest.

  She no longer believed she was something special. There was little parity in her dating life; she accepted invitations from boys she never would have even looked at prior to her coupling with Cameron. She drew the line only at Morris.

  There was one, and only one, positive for Judith. She no longer owed anything to her father. The only feeling she could muster for him was disrespect bordering on contempt. It was a blessing for her that she had to be in his presence only minimally.

  From the time, as a small child, she had become conscious of a father, his role had been nothing more than that of a procreator.

  And now, Moe Green had so sullied the title father that it signified for her nothing but shame.

  From that time, whether Moe Green lived or died was a matter of supreme indifference to his daughter.

  THE PRESENT

  For Koesler, all this was now coming together.

  He had heard the chronicle of Dr. Moses Green from the experience of Jake Cameron, from Claire McNern and her fiancé, Stan Lacki, and now from Judith Green.

  A clear if most distasteful profile was taking form.

  Not only had Green forced his way into Jake’s enterprise, now he was forcing Jake out of the clubs that had been his babies. Claire had lost her virginity, her unborn child, and her reproductive capacity. Stan, marrying Moe’s castoff, would never be a father. Green did not limit himself to one outrage per victim.

  At this juncture, Koesler wondered whether Judith might also have had a more recent confrontation with her father.

  “… so, that’s the way it was, Father,” Judith said. “There is no way Jake could possibly have known the complete story. I didn’t want you to have only his side of it.”

  “Well,” Koesler said, “this was very thoughtful of you. I guess we can be thankful it’s over, and your father considered everything to be evened up and that the slate was clea
n on both sides. But I must say that, short of actual child molestation, I’ve never come across a parent-child relationship more fraught than that of yours and your dad’s.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t over.” She grimaced—or was it a sneer? He wasn’t sure. “I just filled you in on the Cameron obscenity. Strangely enough, you’d think that Jake and I were the central players in that episode. But I think you’ll agree that we were only pawns. The player was Dad. He always was.”

  “It wasn’t over?” Koesler was definitely puzzled.

  Judith shrugged. “It never was. Not with Dad.” Seeing his appalled expression, she hastened to explain. “Oh, nothing happened after Jake Cameron for a long while—actually, not until very recently—when I decided to get married.”

  “From all I’ve learned of your father—actually just in the past few minutes—I wouldn’t assume that he’d take much interest in your getting married.”

  “He wouldn’t. Not ordinarily—not if it didn’t affect him. Not unless he objected to my choice.”

  “Your choice?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The wrong ethnic background?”

  “I guess you could say that. Actually, the wrong color. He’s African-American. Very black.”

  “Hmmm. I wouldn’t have guessed that would upset your father. Racially mixed marriages aren’t that uncommon these days.”

  “I know. And by this time you must know his objection has nothing to do with me or my fiancé. He was worried about what his gang would say. He didn’t want anyone laughing or making fun behind his back.”

  “Does that possibility exist?”

  “With Dad’s group, probably. There’d be jokes about the wedding in white and black, the super sexual prowess of the groom, and, of course, my father’s grandchildren.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed. Not in this day and age.”

  “Oh, sure, Father. Years ago, Sammy Davis Jr. based part of his act on his being black and Jewish. He used to say he found the combination confusing: When he woke up in the morning he didn’t know whether to be shiftless and lazy or stingy and mean. And that, from someone like Davis, was comparatively high class. From there, and in the mouths of Daddy’s cronies, it would be straight downhill.”