It was one minute to nine and no one had returned Thaleman’s key. Which was going to be an issue. There was a master in the reception desk, but Sheldon couldn’t keep it long in case someone came looking for it.
“So,” said Ben, standing up. “I’m off. Nice talking to ya, Sheldon Horowitz.”
“Good night, Mr. Adelman.”
When Adelman left the building, it was four minutes past nine o’clock at night. Sheldon slipped behind the desk, grabbed the master key, and ran down the hall to the empty guest room where he’d stashed Mrs. Ullman’s jewels.
* * *
The hallway to Mrs. Ullman’s room was busy. Guests were walking back and forth on their way to a show, back from an event, on their way to their own rooms for a rest, or on their way to someone else’s room. Sheldon was hesitant to make his move so visibly, but the clock was ticking. There was no other time in the foreseeable future when both Lorenzo and Thaleman would be out of their rooms.
* * *
In retrospect, Sheldon thought that he should have probably sent them to completely different places or else sent them both to see Lenny—who was performing as Sheldon Horowitz tonight—but not introduced them.
Why had he introduced them? Why didn’t he write a letter that said, “I’m the short fat man in the fine suit and polished black shoes at the bar drinking Jack straight up. Strike up a conversation. Pretend you don’t know me. If I trust you, I’ll tell you.” That would have kept them going for ages.
Why was he thinking about this? That option was a train that had left the station. He was set on a track now and he needed to speed up!
“Fine,” he said aloud.
Not a single person looked at him. He was the only person in the hall who thought a bellhop walking down a hall looked strange. Once he took this fact to heart, he walked to the empty room, knocked twice just to be sure it wasn’t occupied now, and then entered.
The room was dark and unchanged from when he had hidden Mrs. Ullman’s jewels in the reservoir of the toilet. Sheldon flicked on the overhead lamp. Nothing—as best he could tell—had changed. The room was still not made up for guests, and he couldn’t see anything to prove the place had been turned upside down in a search.
Sheldon looked at the window and saw himself staring back.
“Turn off the light, idiot,” said his reflection.
It was a good idea and he did.
In the dark, he hoped no one was watching the room. It would have been a good idea for catching the thief. The police could have found the jewelry and cunningly left it to see who would come to collect it. They could be watching him right now. Maybe they drilled a tiny hole in the wall so they could look through it.
He was letting it get to him, the pressure of it. It was a strange combination of traits a person needed to have to be a top criminal: enough imagination to set it all up but not enough to become lost in it. The creativity to outthink everyone but yourself. Not a natural balance.
Your imagination is going to get you into trouble, his father had said to him. Had he known? What had he known?
He’d known his son. Nothing more and nothing less.
“Mrs. Ullman will get her stuff back, Dad,” Sheldon whispered to the room. “I just needed to borrow it. Stop watching me, this is hard enough.” Sheldon stepped into the bathroom, which was black and had no window. “And don’t tell Mom.”
The top of the toilet reservoir was easy to remove, and though he worried that Eliot Ness and the Untouchables were going to burst in the minute he stuck his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, he did it anyway.
The sunken treasure was still there.
Sheldon pulled everything out and toweled the pieces off before placing them in his jacket pockets; he wasn’t going far.
Taking a breath, he calmed himself though he felt his heart pounding. When he had stormed into Bruno Krupinski’s house, he hadn’t been scared. He had walked in there with the wind of justice at his back. Why wasn’t that happening now? Why was he so afraid now?
It doesn’t matter, said his father’s voice. Do the job.
* * *
Lenny Bernstein, aka Sheldon Horowitz by Night, might have finally found the one topic that wouldn’t get him fired. He was going to tell jokes to a Jewish crowd about a topic they knew and understood, something straightforward and obvious but still original because no one had put it into words yet. Not these words. Not Lenny’s words. It was a dark topic he was ready to shed light on through the vehicle of comedy the way Abraham stood on that dusty hill overlooking Sodom and Gomorrah—just before God razed them to dust—and raised his hand, and asked, “Forgive me for asking but . . . are you sure about this?”
That’s comedy, right? Standing up to the obvious and demanding that it explain itself ?
Lenny was still working on the details. But this. This. This he had down. He’d spent more than two entire hours working on this. Which really ought to do it.
In a few brief minutes, Lenny was going to explain the entire history and evolution and phenomenon of the persecution of the Jews.
And he had it down to four words. Four words that explained it all, that no one had ever heard before, but they’d get it and accept it the minute they heard it.
And it wasn’t about Jesus. It never was. It was about what Christians really cared about, what united them as a people.
Lenny tapped the microphone.
He inhaled audibly. He exhaled.
“The Jews killed Santa,” he announced.
Silence.
He had them. They wanted to know. To understand. And why? Because deep in their hearts they already knew he was right. They just wanted to hear it. That’s all anyone wants, to be affirmed. Recognized. Heard.
Perhaps amused in the process.
He continued.
“The Jews killed Santa! This is what’s got the gentiles all worked up. OK, we didn’t stab the guy with a knife—we’re not Italian—but we passed on the knowledge that effectively killed him in the minds of every Christian child.
“Please, think back to when you were a little kid waiting for Santa to spread cheer and toys on Hanukkah like every other Jewish child in America. And then, on cue, some prick walks up to you on the playground and says, ‘My daddy says Santa Claus isn’t coming to YOUR house because you’re a JEW.’
“You started to cry. I know, I cried too. I went home to my father. There he was on a cold Massachusetts night in his slippers sitting in his chair with his pipe going and the newspaper across his face like a wall—like we wouldn’t be able to find him back there—and I said, ‘Daddy, little Tommy Goyim says Santa Claus isn’t coming to our house because we’re Jewish.’
“Perhaps,” Lenny said, feigning anguish, “he heard the pain in my trembling voice. The pain of two thousand years fully delivered into the heart of a child in one jab. Here it was. The Christian resentment at its parent religion. Unwilling to accept the rejection. The lashing out as a response. The oppression. The sadness. So, my father put down the paper and looked at me. I could see on his face that he had an answer. This . . . this was what fathers were for. I’d always known there had to be something and this was going to be it! ‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘that Santa isn’t coming to our house. BUT,’ he added quickly, with a rabbinical finger thrust to heaven to halt my pain, ‘it isn’t because we’re Jewish. The fact is, he isn’t coming to Tommy’s house either. And it isn’t because Tommy’s an asshole. Let me tell you why.’ ”
Lenny shook off the pain and weight onstage as though it were water from the back of a duck.
“The next day, I skipped to school enlightened. I flew on the wings of eagles back to that playground because I knew something Tommy didn’t know. I approached Tommy, and I said, ‘Tommy . . . you were right. Santa isn’t coming to my house. But I also learned that he isn’t coming to your house either. And it’s because—’
“And I paused. Because I wanted to relish his pain. I wanted to say that Santa never existed. T
hat gentiles made him up so kids could get used to absolute faith in the patently absurd. But I didn’t have the heart, so I said, ‘Tommy, he’s not coming to our houses because the Nazis recently shot him down with antiaircraft guns somewhere over Poland and they’re now eating the remains of the reindeer while handing your presents out to the Hitler Youth. Meanwhile . . . happy Hanukkah!’
“Thank you, I’m Sheldon Horowitz, and I will never be complete without your love!”
* * *
Sheldon was not there to hear Lenny’s explosive bit because he was standing face-to-face with Miriam at 9:20 p.m. a few doors down from Lorenzo’s.
She was dressed in a blue evening gown, looking as if she had stepped out of a Technicolor scene in a movie. In front of such a vision, Sheldon had never felt so small and so inadequate. If he hadn’t been late and the sharp edges of Mrs. Ullman’s treasured jewelry in his pockets hadn’t been there to remind him of his purpose and intent at that moment, he would have collapsed into a puddle of water.
Miriam’s neck was the most graceful curve Sheldon had ever seen, and her shoulders were as soft as a dove’s feather. The thin fabric of her dress stretched across her breasts and wrapped itself tightly around their perfect sides before tapering down to her hips, where everything became expansive once again. In her high heels, she stood an inch taller than he was and Sheldon had to look slightly upward into her misty eyes. He felt a conflicted desire to both flee and remain there, transfixed, forever. Sheldon wanted her to break the spell for him so he could move, and speak, and even breathe again, but he wanted her to do it later; as later as possible.
She smiled at him and he failed to close his mouth or blink.
“You OK?” she asked him.
He heard the question and had no idea that he hadn’t answered her.
“Sheldon?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Aren’t you coming to the dance?”
Dance.
Dance?
“What dance?” he asked.
“The dance. The big dance. With the musicians. And people. And me. You’re not wearing that to the dance, are you?”
The dance.
There was a dance tonight. Sheldon had forgotten all about the dance. How had he forgotten about the dance?
He had forgotten about the dance because he was busy. He had a Mafia assassin to frame, a thief to rob, and vengeance to be delivered. These were all-encompassing activities.
“When does it start?” he asked.
“Now. Nine-thirty.”
“It’s nine-thirty already?”
“Almost. I don’t have a watch.”
Was she more beautiful than Mirabelle? He had never thought anyone could be more beautiful than Mirabelle. Was he only attracted to older girls whose names started with the letter M ? He’d have to think about that.
He was gripping the gems so hard that his fingers threatened to bleed.
Lenny’s bit was supposed to be ten minutes long. He’d run over, of course, but did that even matter? An assassin and a thief were meeting at a bar, and this was not the start of a joke. Sheldon had to hurry. He had to move.
Joy in life may be hypnotic but fear of death is a motivator.
To move, though, he’d have to stop looking at the way Miriam’s red hair perfectly complemented the cobalt blue of her dress. And that was impossible.
“I thought you wanted to dance with me,” she said, more confused than hurt.
“I did. I do. I want almost nothing more.”
“Almost?”
Technically, yes. But Sheldon couldn’t explain why.
“Do you want me to wait for you?” Miriam asked.
Did he? Did he want her to wait? Of course he did, but the timelines weren’t accommodating. He had other things to do. His senses were returning. The sweat in his eyes helped focus his mind.
“I’ll see you there,” he said, refusing to compromise with reality.
“You sure?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
* * *
Lenny was riding his bicycle back to the hotel when a car started following him. The night air was a warm breeze scented with pine, and the fireflies lit up the fields around him to the sound of bullfrogs in the distant bogs. He was sorry that the real Sheldon had missed the show tonight. Lenny was getting much, much closer to not being fired and he was sure that this was a good sign. Shorter would be better. He still had a lot of work to do whittling away the extra words to make sure the story was funny all the way through, not only at the end.
Maybe the long stories weren’t such a good thing, he thought. He’d have to think about it. He didn’t know anyone else out there telling these long stories. Most comedians told jokes as if they were shooting bullets from a tommy gun.
The car behind Lenny wasn’t passing him. The yellow headlights cast a shadow of him on the road ahead, stretching out his head so that it looked long and black and smeared across the asphalt. He waved the car ahead, but it didn’t go.
Lenny measured the width of the road at a glance and found it plenty wide for a car to pass if it wanted to. He edged the bicycle closer to the dirt and scree at the edge of the road and tried to wave the car on again but it still followed him.
Starting to panic, Lenny tried to think of who might be in the car. He had offended everyone but no one in particular. He had no debts and no fights, no enemies and no girlfriends or ex-girlfriends who would want to scare him.
He had no friends with cars. No friends who lacked a sense of humor deep enough for this.
Lenny became afraid and thought of Sheldon and his father being run off the road. He pedaled faster, hoping to find a turnoff or a path.
The car sped up.
The bicycle rattled beneath him. The chain threatened to pop off the teeth if he rode any faster. The car engine revved. Lenny saw the edges of his own shadow grow sharper; the shapes of his legs became crisper as the headlights got closer.
There was no escaping off the road to the right; it rose gently but it would have slowed him just enough to be crushed under the wheels of the car. To the left, it fell downward into a valley, through grass so high and wild, it could have been hiding anything beneath—rocks or streams, crevasses or outcrops.
With the car only feet behind him and nothing ahead but the black sweep of lonely road, Lenny took a deep breath and—with the courage of a paratrooper on his first jump, blind with fear—he leaned hard to the left and jumped the edge of the road into the night.
The bicycle flew into the bottomless black of the field beyond; the yellow headlights turning hard after him.
The Catskill Shuffle
THE HEART INSIDE SHELDON’S chest seemed to beat as fast as his wristwatch. He clutched the edge of the porcelain reservoir with his left hand and plopped the incriminating jewels in with his right.
The top scrapped with a sound like sandpaper when he fit the heavy lid back into place.
Taking a deep breath, that part of the job now done, he dried his hand on Lorenzo’s towel and left it damp.
Every moment that passed afforded Lorenzo a chance to return, walk into this room, and kill him.
Why had he sent those messages for them to meet? It was stupid. Stupid. He’d based his plans on pigeons. Who does that? He wasn’t good enough at this. He wasn’t a criminal mastermind. When he, Abe, and Mirabelle broke into the pawn shop, the owner actually shot at Abe on the way out.
Call that planning?
He pictured it all differently now. The two men meet at the hotel. They hear that Sheldon Horowitz is telling jokes. Sure, it means that Sheldon Horowitz can’t be setting them up back at Grossinger’s, but what if Lorenzo recognizes the name? It’s unlikely, but after all these years, what if he learned the real identity of the person he had killed? Maybe Lenny—dark haired and the right shape and age—might look enough like Sheldon for Lorenzo to put things together the wrong way.
One way or another—for one reason or
another—they’d realize they were set up. Once they did, they’d rush back here, Sheldon thought. Not on bicycles but in enormous ninety-horsepower cars with pistons pumping, dust on their tails, guns loaded, maybe as a team or maybe as competitors, and maybe afterward, one pops off the other. Lorenzo might have had the same thought as Sheldon. If Thaleman showed up, it means he’d come to do business. So, the cash was still lying around. From Lorenzo’s perspective, all he’d need to do was kill Thaleman and take the money. The money was the real goal. Sending those messages might have started a bloodbath.
Jesus, Sheldon thought. What the hell was he doing?
And what about Thaleman? If he got wise to the setup and survived, he’d be rushing back here for his money.
In any case, Sheldon had to get that money first.
Inside the darkness of Lorenzo’s suite, the fear of action was overtaken by the fear of inaction, and Sheldon—his wits gathered once again—threw open the door to the hallway and confidently stepped out.
A middle-aged couple was standing two doors away and turned to look at him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sheldon immediately said to the empty room behind him. “I’ll have someone bring it right away.” He then tipped his hat to the invisible matron, closed the door, turned to the couple, tipped his hat again, and walked on—empty-handed and empty-pocketed.
The couple smiled and then forgot he existed.
9:37 p.m.
Even if Lenny’s bit ran long, it wouldn’t take up more than twenty minutes. It was impressive enough that he could keep coming up with new material every few days, but a full twenty minutes of new blather seemed unlikely. And who was to say Lorenzo and Thaleman would sit there listening to him?
There was no knowing how much time Sheldon had left. All he knew for a fact was that he had less.
Less by the second.
* * *
How to Find Your Way in the Dark Page 26