by P. D. Cacek
“How much you want for this?” he asked and when Aryeh didn’t answer he felt the pain deepen in his spine.
“Twenty dollars.”
The tall man’s eyes widened. “Twenty dollars? That’s highway robbery! I can get a suit with a vest and two pairs of pants for twenty dollars.”
“And a nice tie thrown in,” the shorter man added.
“That’s right, and a nice tie thrown in. You sell many watches at that price?”
Aryeh swallowed the blood and nodded. “Some.”
“Good. That means you’re a good businessman and can afford this.” The tall man swung the gold watch until the chain was wrapped around his fingers and put it into the inside breast pocket of his coat. Then he pulled out another twenty-dollar watch and reached for a third. “You want one, right?”
“Yoh, pick one that goes good with this suit.”
The tall man looked at his partner, then selected the one with fancy scrollwork on the front.
“No. Please,” Aryeh whispered. “My family….”
The pressure on his back doubled. “Your family will be proud you gave us such nice gifts.”
“That’s right,” the taller man said, “a man is known by the gifts he gives. That’s what Mr. Toblinsky always says. And he will be pleased with the gift you give. Now, as to the matter of insurance.”
“Wh-what?”
“You pay us insurance for protection from crooks and hoodlums, like all the other shop owners, and Mr. Toblinsky makes sure no one bothers you or takes gifts that aren’t freely given. Now you understand, yoh?”
The pressure left his back so that Aryeh was able to watch the tall man with the three stolen watches move to the cash register and crank it open. “For a man who sells twenty-dollar watches, I think ten dollars a week is—”
“Papa?”
Esther stood in the hall doorway looking at them. Her face was pale, her eyes filled with something beyond terror. It was the same look he’d seen in his sisters’ eyes when the men began tearing away their clothes….
He wouldn’t let it happen again.
“NEIN!”
The shorter man stumbled to one side as Aryeh stood up. He had never, never in his life hit a man. To strike another was an affront to God, averah, a transgression, a sin that would stay upon his soul for all eternity, but when he remembered his sisters’ screams….
Aryeh struck the shorter man across the face with his closed fist. He fell heavy like a sack of potatoes.
“Esther – gaien, go! Run! Get politsai! Robbery…get police! Gai—”
But Esther just stood there with her big eyes and pale face until the moment she screamed. The taller man didn’t use the brick, he had a gun.
ARYEH ROSENBERG
December 20, 1892 – June 4, 1926
Chapter Seven
Helen
Helen used the hair dryer to clear the steam off the bathroom mirror then dropped the towel and gave herself a good once-over-not-so-lightly look in the glass. Setting the dryer down, she raised her arms over her head. Good. Next she dropped her hands to her hips, lowered her chin and looked up through her lashes, lips in full pout. Not bad at all. Finally she took a deep breath and….
Nothing.
She took a deeper breath….
“Come on, dammit – lift!”
Her size 38Ds quivered but didn’t move.
Helen exhaled. Her body was still in the upper ten per cent, but her breasts weren’t as high as they’d been when she was twenty and there was already the hint of a ‘muffin top’ beginning to form along her waistline.
She’d been a perpetual dieter since her teens, avoided starches, carbs and sugar as if they were small disease-carrying rodentia, ran track in both high school and college, had a gold card membership at a local fitness club and still jogged four times a week.
Not that any of her discipline and self-denial made a difference. She’d seen enough family photos to know she came from ‘hearty, big-boned farming stock’.
Helen turned, looking for and finding all the imperfections her DNA foisted on her.
Yee-haw, let’s hear it for genetics.
Helen unplugged the dryer and dropped it into the vanity cabinet. She could dye her hair to cover the gray and there was always Botox, when and if she needed it, but unless she wanted to spend most of her savings on medical ‘body sculpting’ – which she might consider one day – diet and exercise would continue to be her boon companions.
Forever and ever.
Amen.
Her cell chirped while she was slipping into her running bra and shorts.
“Y’ello?”
“Me,” the voice said. “ETA three minutes, more or less. Just pulling into the visitors’ parking lot now.”
“Which one?”
“Blue Heron.”
Helen did a quick calculation. Blue Heron was on the far southern end of the massive parking lot, three full units down from her own, but generally empty which was why her friend and partner-in-pain, Kate, always used it. Three minutes plus another two to get on her cross-trainers plus two flights down and….
“Okay, meet you at the front gate in ten. And this time stretch before I get there.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Turning off her cell, Helen set it on the desk next to the file she’d brought home to check and double-check before the next morning’s deposition. On the surface, a simple divorce, but under the calm façade was the little matter of an iron-clad pre-nup that her client, a soon-to-be ex-wife, wanted to challenge.
The pre-nup had been made when her client and the co-respondent were both young and in love, and his father’s money (soon to be inherited, as it turned out) didn’t matter. Now, after twenty-eight years it did matter, and the not-so-young and obviously not-so-much-in-love lady wanted her fair share.
And Helen L. Harmon, Esq. was going to get it for her with the same energy, assurance and legal prestidigitation that she’d used to acquire the condo, the good car, the health club membership and a nice little monthly stipend from her own former true love.
Helen was very good at her job and looked even better on the firm’s prime time television commercials.
So far.
That thought produced a faint puckering of skin between her eyes as she left the condo and stalked the concrete path to the parking lot, a pucker that deepened into the beginnings of a real frown when she saw her friend leaning up against the side of her SUV smoking as she watched the ocean rise and fall on the other side of the complex’s chain-link security fence.
Helen jogged the last twenty feet across the blacktop, feeling the heat off the blacktop through the cross-trainer’s thick soles. It was past six, a little less than an hour before sunset, but the air was still thick and muggy. Sweat had begun to rise along her shoulders and gather between her breasts the moment she’d left her lovely air-conditioned cocoon. It had been another scorcher, the seventh in a row, and it was only early June.
God help her and her fellow Californians by the time August rolled around.
“Hey!”
Kate’s reaction was as comical as it was expected. Plucking the cigarette from her lips, she threw it to the ground and crushed it under the toe of her running shoe. She smiled, but there was guilt shimmering in her eyes.
“I stretched at home.”
“Of course you did. Well, don’t cry to me when you cramp up. I thought we’d do Ocean Front Walk up to the Santa Monica Pier.”
Her friend’s face went from its natural mahogany to a shade somewhere between red oak and walnut. “Santa Monica? That’s…a million miles away.”
Helen leaned to the left, pulling her left arm over her head with her right, then reversed directions – stretching to show her friend how it was done.
“It’s not far, Kate, and we’v
e jogged three times that distance lots of times.”
“Yeah, maybe…around the marina, but—”
Helen dipped into a squat/lunge. “That’s right…butt. Gluteus going to the maximus if we don’t watch out. Come on and I’ll treat you to a ride on the carousel.”
Her friend made a face. “But I thought we could jog over to that seafood place at the marina for the margarita shrimp we like so much.”
Helen turned and looked toward the line of heat-shimmering buildings and boats. It was maybe a fifteen to twenty minute run…if that. Obviously their ideas of what constituted physical exercise differed greatly.
“You mean that marina?”
Her friend smiled.
“Okay, but we’ll have to do, oh, let’s say two loops around the marina before we eat.” Her friend stopped smiling. “Or…we can do a nice easy jog down along Ocean Front Walk and stop in at this great little place I heard about at work today. It’s supposed to make the best gluten-free pasta in town.”
“Gluten-free pasta? What do they give you…air?”
Helen ignored the comment and leaned into the first of her quad stretches when a familiar, and utterly annoying, chirping sounded.
“Oh, you are kidding….”
“I know, I know—” Kate simultaneously nodded and pulled the cell phone from the zippered side pocket in her Munvot running shorts. “But we’ve got a deal in the works that could generate a lot of publicity.”
Helen looked skyward as she pulled in her left leg and lunged forward with her right. Kate worked for an art gallery in Beverly Hills, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like she was a brain surgeon and needed to be on call 24/7.
“It’s a Henderson,” her friend said, eyes gleaming.
Helen brought both arms over her head – hands together, fingers laced – and leaned back over her hips.
“Fantastic!” Kate squealed into the phone and actually jumped up and down. “We got it!” she told Helen and did a little happy dance. “It’s ours!”
“Whoo-hoo. Now, shut that thing off. You know the rules…no outside distractions during exercise.”
“Unless it’s tall and cute.”
“Yes,” Helen agreed, “but your phone isn’t. Off.”
Helen made sure her friend turned the smartphone off, and didn’t just put it on vibrate.
“Any particular reason you’re being a hard-ass tonight?” Kate asked as she slipped the phone back into her pocket.
Helen slapped her ass with both hands as an answer. “Leave the phone.”
“Why? It’s off.”
Helen rolled gracefully from forward lunges to side stretches. “Yes, but we’ve been…friends too long…I know you…you’ll be checking it every…five minutes. And then calling back…everyone who left…a…message.” She came to center and began bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Kate looked like she was about to argue, but only nodded instead. “Okay.”
Helen watched with a justified sense of accomplishment as her friend unlocked her car and placed the phone under the driver’s seat before slamming – and locking – the door. That had been for Helen’s benefit – hiding the phone – as if they were leaving the car on some back alley off Twenty-Eighth and Hoover instead of an upscale, security-monitored and patrolled gated condominium complex in the heart of Marina del Rey.
“Thank you. And I promise to come in next week and buy whatever overpriced painting you want to sell me.”
Her friend’s smile was back. “Really?”
“As long as it matches the living room furniture,” Helen said and took off at a dead run.
They’d only gone a mile or so down Ocean Front Walk before the first alarm was sounded.
“HMB, three o’clock.”
Helen shifted her gaze to the Hard Male Bod coming toward them on her right and did a quick appraisal. Tall, lean, tan, minus shirt to show off the washboard abs and semi-loose nylon shorts riding low on the hips. Pricey sunglasses and high-quality running shoes. Sockless. The right side of thirty. A bronze god and he knew it.
“G or S?” Kate huffed next to her.
Helen moved her gaze back to the near-empty walkway. “G.”
She could feel her friend’s disappointment against her side like a chilly breeze. “You think so?”
“Yup.”
“Couldn’t he be an S but just extremely shallow?”
“Nope.”
“Shit.”
“Yup.”
“B?”
Helen did another glance back over her shoulder, watching the twenty-something jog away. Oh yeah – now there was an ass you could flip quarters off.
“Maybe,” she said and returned her full attention to the path. “So many guys are metrosexual now it’s hard to tell.”
“Yeah, but there’s always hope.” Kate’s voice was getting thin and raspy, a good indication that she hadn’t hydrated on the drive over. “I mean…you never know…right?”
“Did you drink anything before we started?”
“Yeah…a venti iced…coffee.”
“I mean water.”
“There’s water…in…coffee.”
Helen cursed under her breath.
Once she’d gotten her stride, she didn’t like to stop for anything short of a natural disaster until she reached her appointed destination. Unfortunately that evening’s said destination was still a good mile away and even though she was sure Kate would make it, the thought of trying to enjoy a big platter of guilt-free pasta while her friend secreted bodily fluids and panted like a sick dog was more than her imagination could handle.
Helen slowed from jog to walk. “Let’s pull up for a minute.”
“’Kay.” Kate stopped dead and leaned over her legs. “Good.” Pant. Pant. “Idea.”
“Come on, keep moving or you’ll cramp up. You know the—”
“Rules.” Kate straightened, nodding. “Right. Okay.”
Helen made sure Kate was up and breathing more or less evenly before steering her into one of the many tourist shops. Kate selected a blue-tinted ‘sports’ drink from the prominently displayed refrigerated case. Helen asked for, and received, a tepid bottle of spring water.
Kate was back to almost her old self by the time they left the shop.
“Why can’t you let yourself live a little?” she asked, taking a sip. Her bottle was still almost full while Helen’s was down by three-quarters.
“I do, but water is to hydrate, not enjoy.”
Kate held out her sports drink. “But you can do both. Here, try it.”
Helen took the bottle and sniffed it. It smelled exactly how it looked – not related to anything in nature. She handed the bottle back and finished her water, tossing the empty into one of the many recycling bins that lined the path. “You about ready?”
Kate looked at the blue fluid and took a deep breath, which was followed by a half dozen equally deep swallows.
Helen stretched. “Put the top back on and stick it in your waistband. The restaurant’s going to fill up if we don’t hurry.”
Kate did as she was told. “For gluten-free pasta? Somehow I doubt that.”
“You’ll love it.”
Helen took off and was just looking over her shoulder to make sure Kate was following when someone hit her in the middle of the chest with an invisible bowling ball.
Jesus H. Ch—
Chapter Eight
Crissy
(1992)
It had to be a mistake.
Crissy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Maybe she’d read it wrong; her teachers were always telling her she missed things because she read too fast.
Exhaling slowly the way her vocal coach showed her, Crissy opened her eyes and used one blossom-pink fingernail to slowly go down the list of names again.
> John Proctor – Anthony Carr
Abigail Williams – Trisha Blaine
Elisabeth Proctor – Wanda Peterson
Rev. Samuel Parrish – Carlos Hawsley
Tituba – Mia Montgomery
Ann Putnam – Andrea Roth
Her nail picked up speed, stopping when she found her name, third from the bottom:
Mary Warren – Christine Moore
A bit part.
It was a mistake, all right.
She’d been either the lead or secondary lead in every school production, drama and musical, since her freshman year, plus she’d given a killer audition. The Crucible was one of her favorite plays and she’d done exactly what Mr. Byrd always told them to do: she’d ‘gotten into the skin’ of Abigail, the temptress/lover of John Proctor who later condemned him.
For those few minutes, even reading cold from the script, she was Abigail Williams.
Mr. Byrd had even applauded.
So it had to be a mistake, someone had put her name in the wrong place…and she knew exactly who that someone was: Blankie Frankie, Mr. Byrd’s stupid, stuttering, blank-as-a-plank TA. He was always messing up…like the time he misspelled her name on the program for the spring musical – Christine More instead of Moore.
Jerk.
Crissy ripped the cast list off the bulletin board and shoved it into her notebook.
“Hi, Crissy.”
Crissy closed the notebook as she turned. “Hey, Trisha.”
Trisha Blaine had only been at Sherwood Academy for half a semester and already the staff – primarily Mr. Byrd, the head of the drama department – was falling all over themselves over her.
Trisha smiled and looked past Crissy to the empty bulletin board.
“They said the cast list was up for Crucible.”
“THE Crucible?” Crissy corrected. Real actresses never shortened a play’s name. She shrugged. “Guess not.”
“That’s weird. Andrea told me it was.”
Andrea was supposed to be Crissy’s best friend. “Well, I guess Andrea’s wrong.”