“What other arrangements?” Jacob asked, climbing out. He stepped into the middle of the street to flag down Dietrich, who came barreling toward him, and Moses averted his eyes; he was certain something deep inside the German would not be able to stop himself from running Jacob down. Yet there was nothing, no scroop of tires, no impact, no thud, which meant Jacob did not go flying through the air, broken and bloody. There was merely the morning wind in his ears. Then Jacob was back and leaning into the car, saying, “I was talking about the special, Mo, not the other business. But good thing I brought it up or we wouldn’t have known about your ‘other arrangements.’ A contingency plan, Mo? Really? When were you going to tell us that you were thinking of hiring an outside party?”
“Calm the fuck down, Jacob. It was just an idea,” Mo said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t had a similar thought.”
“Actually, I haven’t,” Jacob growled. “I didn’t fly halfway around the world to—”
“You know ‘outside parties’?” Edith cut in excitedly, sitting up.
“You’d rather farm this out to someone else, wouldn’t you?” Jacob accused. “You’d rather let someone else have all the fun and take all the glory for something we planned. Unbelievable. You’re a coward, Mo. A coward and a traitor.”
“I’m not saying that,” Moses said. “All I’m saying is that you may be right about tonight. Let’s be honest—none of us wants to get caught or go to jail, not on account of him. I have a family to think about, besides.”
“Oh, and what about us? What about Thistle and me? Because we haven’t produced a litter of five, our lives don’t matter? Throw us to the lions, but you and your offspring run free?”
“I’m not saying that, either,” Moses said. “But better to get it all out in the open now rather than later. Isn’t it better to know where we stand?”
“You know what? I have a sunrise to see and a blowjob to give and to get, so I’m going to say auf Wiedersehen,” Jacob said, walking over to the idling Dietrich, who slid into the passenger seat, and off they went. Moses was convinced that as they pulled away he heard the German singing, “ ‘Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land. Tell old Pharaoh, let my people go.’ ”
“That didn’t go so well,” he said after Edith climbed up front and buckled herself in. “You don’t think I’m a coward, do you? My kids are my life, Thistle. I just don’t want anything to go wrong. If that makes me a coward, then so be it. We just have to be incredibly careful, which is why I was thinking about a gun for hire, because let me tell you—I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my boys grow up without a dad the way we did.”
“We didn’t grow up without a dad,” she said, “but I know what you mean.”
“I still think about the day the old man announced he was moving out. It would have been better for all of us if Mom had divorced him, you know. So don’t sit here and tell me you’re having second thoughts, too. Don’t tell me I’m going to have to do this by myself.”
“You know where I stand,” she said as he put the car in drive. “If we’re going to do it, I want it to be quick and painless. Those are my stipulations. I don’t want to look back on this with regret.”
“How could you ever look back on it with regret? Don’t you think Mom deserves some peace and happiness? I don’t think I need to remind you that she’s dying, do I?” he said.
“And I don’t think I need to remind you that the man we want to kill is taking care of her, do I?” she asked. “She seems perfectly happy to me, Mo. Who are we to assume she isn’t?”
“And who are we to assume she is? Has she said as much?” he asked. “We’re her children and we know what he’s like and how he could turn on her in a heartbeat. We lived in that house. We were there. We experienced life with Julian Jacobson. Fuck, Edith, you were there, too.”
“All I’m saying is, you can’t have it both ways,” she said. “You can’t speak to us about fearing for your children in one breath, then about torture and murder in the next. It doesn’t work like that. You have to choose, just like you’re making us choose.” Leave it to Thistle to lay it all out in black and white, Moses thought. She was right, of course, and in being right, she was forcing him to examine not only certain precious beliefs he held about life and love but also the belief he held about himself, that when the time came he’d be able to carry out the deed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. You’re not forcing Jacob or me to do anything,” she added.
Moses lived somewhere in between his siblings, not hating Julian as much as Jacob did or loving him as much as Edith did, and because of this, his decision was that much harder. “Let’s not talk about it anymore,” he said, feeling very much alone.
“I don’t know,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him. “Maybe we should try to give him one more out.”
“Like what? Ask him to divorce her?” he asked, laughing. “Like that’s going to work.”
“Not ask. Demand,” she said. “Make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
As far as Moses was concerned, there was only one kind of offer his dad couldn’t refuse, and there weren’t enough shekels in the whole world to satisfy it. “You do understand he’s been playing a long game,” he said. The goal had always been his mom’s fortune—all eight million dollars of it. His dad was nothing if not predictable that way, predictable and single-minded. And what better way to make his claim on her money stick than to pit his own children against him and thus demand his mom choose sides? And we all know how that usually went, he thought. In a way, he couldn’t help but find his dad’s play at concern brilliant, for it only bolstered his cause and pulled the wool further over his mom’s already failing eyes.
Moses had had no idea about the money until he took that fateful trip with his dad down to the Texas coast, to Rockport, a small fishing village where Uncle Bernie owned a house. One night they’d gone out to dinner at Hamburger Haven, and eleven-year-old Moses had asked his dad to tell him the story of how he and his mom met.
“Was it love at first sight?” Moses asked. His dad, ever careful with his words, talked around his question, saying he’d been dating Roz’s roommate. “So you thought she was pretty?” he said.
“I don’t know, Mo,” he said. “I guess I must have. I certainly didn’t know what a talker she was, that’s for sure. Some women hate spiders, your mom hates silence. It’s like living with a radio twenty-four hours a day. Drives me bat shit, I tell you. When you find a woman of your own one day, just make sure she knows when to shut her mouth.”
“But you love her, right?” Moses asked, surprised by his own nerve.
“Love,” his dad said. “I have no idea what love is.”
This might have been the end of the conversation, yet Moses, for whatever reason, kept pressing on, emboldened by his cheeseburger, as well as by what felt like a real, honest heart-to-heart with his dad, the first they’d ever had.
“If you don’t love her, why did you marry her?” At the time, he still had quite a fondness for his dad and thought the feeling was mutual. But that night was the first time his dad revealed himself to be both completely disingenuous and a consummate swindler.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” his dad said, taking a gulp of beer, then setting it back down and putting on that sinister smirk of his, which should have clued Moses in on what was coming. “Your mom’s many things—not particularly smart, or capable in the kitchen, or even all that beautiful, but she’s completely devoted to me, which you should only be so lucky to find in a wife. Devotion and loyalty. That’s what makes a man happiest.” He took another pull on his beer. “It also doesn’t hurt when your wife’s parents are filthy, stinking rich. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Confused, Moses said that he didn’t. Then his dad leaned across the table and said, almost in a whisper, “I’m an incredibly lucky man, Mo. Not because I married your mom but because I married an heiress. Money is only an issue when you don’t have it. You’ll see what I mean someday.”
&nbs
p; Moses had spent the next thirty-one years of his life keeping his dad’s awful confession a secret, for he knew that if he ever told his mom it would break her spirit. He now finally understood that part of her inability to leave his dad was his fault, for he had never told her. Not that she would have believed him, and even if she had, he was sure his dad would have come up with some sort of plausibly deniable excuse—that Moses misinterpreted what he’d said, that the boy didn’t like him and so of course invented this horrible lie—all the while knowing that Moses knew the truth.
“What if it isn’t money but something else we can use to compel him to divorce her?” Edith asked, bringing up the video Pandora had shown her. “It should still be on her phone.”
“What the fuck, Thistle? Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” Moses said hotly, turning the car around and heading back toward Calabasas.
“She’s your wife and it’s on her phone, Mo,” Edith said. “I didn’t know she hadn’t told you about it, so don’t blame me.”
“This is our ace in the hole,” Moses said, ignoring her, for it didn’t matter to him which of them had kept the video from him, because now he had it—the offer his dad simply couldn’t refuse.
“Then we don’t have to kill him?” she asked.
“On the condition that he agrees to disappear—and I mean vanish, up in smoke, never to be heard from or seen again,” he said. “But it all depends on what’s in that video and if it frightens him enough to leave.”
Then it was as if a dam burst in her, for suddenly she was opening her mouth and spilling out another vital piece of intel, which she had also been keeping to herself. “You saw that? You saw him nearly tip Ma into the pool and you didn’t think to tell us? What. The. Fuck?”
“Ma didn’t seem the least bit scared,” she said. “She was laughing. So what was I to believe? It’s not like he didn’t know I was there. I mean, he looked directly at me and smirked.” She bit her lip. “Oh, God, that smirk. I see what you mean. It’s more leverage for us, isn’t it?” Someone, please, tell me how this is going to end well, Moses thought. “Maybe we’ll have a happily-ever-after, after all,” she said.
“Maybe,” he said, turning into Edelweiss Estates, past the drab, useless guardhouse, empty again this morning, the mechanical arm hoisted high in the air, allowing unimpeded access to anyone who wanted to do his family harm. Including me, he thought, determined to see this whole macabre affair through to the end, no matter the consequences. Jacob was right—this was far bigger than they were. And it was gaining momentum, Moses felt it, gathering a force and life all its own, a penny dropped from the fifty-story building of his imagination. After pulling into the drive and parking behind the Expedition, Moses said, “If anyone asks, the sunrise was beautiful.”
“Alles klar, Herr Kommissar,” she said, saluting.
“Do me a favor—use that ugly language only on the German and keep it far away from me and mine,” he said, climbing out into the bright, warm sunshine.
“You can’t tell me you actually have a problem with Dietrich, who happens to be one of the sweetest men in the world. I’m thrilled Jacob found someone like him, Mo,” Edith said, “and you should be, too. You’re being unfair and childish. We invited both of them to Passover, we helped pay their airfares, and now that they’re here you’re behaving as if you never invited him in the first place. What gives?”
“Why do I have to like everyone?” he asked. “Jacob doesn’t particularly like Pandora, but I don’t make a federal case out of it.”
“This is different, and you know it,” she said. “It’s one thing to align yourself with Daddy—and we all know how he feels about Germany—but it’s another thing to disrespect Jacob and his relationship. He’s in love with a German, and so the fuck what? You need to get over it if you don’t want to alienate Jacob any more than you already have.”
“Maybe it has to do with the fact that he’s a latent anti-Semite. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that one of the boys found a Nazi uniform in the upstairs guest room closet. It was hanging right beside a filthy schmatte that looked like a camp uniform. There’s a yellow Star of David embroidered into the pocket of it. I can show you if you want.”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for it,” she said, though her voice was chilly and he could tell the news had had a sobering effect on her. “They’re probably just costumes for one of Jacob’s plays. It could be as simple as that. You can’t always jump to the worst conclusion. You aren’t Daddy.”
“You’ve always been good at giving him the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “And look where it’s gotten you. Look where we are now.”
“Don’t be cruel,” she said, massaging her hip.
“Pandora has drawers of Zyklon B—I mean, oxycodone—from her last tummy tuck,” he said. “You should help yourself.”
“No more speaking German for me, no more references to cyanide gas for you,” she said. “Stop being morbid. It’s a gorgeous day and we’re all together and before I forget, Elias might be coming tonight,” and she hurried on ahead of him into the house.
“Wait a second,” he said, hurrying in after her. “You’re in touch with Creepy the Jew? Since when?”
“You know I always hated when you called him that,” Edith said from the stairs.
Moses gave chase, nearly overtaking her, but she ducked into the guest room away from him. He caught his breath on the landing, where he happened to glance down to see something both oddly repulsive yet uniquely beautiful, for he’d never before witnessed anything quite like it in his entire life. He recoiled at the sight—his parents, in the living room below, locked in a long, slow kiss—and turned toward Edith, who exited the guest room with a wry smile on her face. “If you’re going to accuse Dietrich of concealing Nazi paraphernalia in your closet, you might want to make sure you have actual proof,” she said. “Next time, don’t try so hard to win me over to your side by lying. It just makes you look like a sore loser.”
“He must have moved them or hidden them,” he said. “They aren’t there?”
“Nope,” she said. “Check if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you,” he said. “What I can’t believe is what just happened down there,” and he pointed to the place where his parents had been and were no longer. “I might have to get a lobotomy to remove it, and when I tell you you’re going to wish for the same. Ma and Dad were kissing.”
“You saw our parents, Roz and Julian Jacobson, kissing, as in sucking face, as in smooching, as in osculating?” Edith asked, shocked.
“Yeah, all of those except the last one, whatever it means,” he said.
“It’s just a ten-cent word for kissing.” This was their dad, who’d come up the back staircase. “And why shouldn’t I kiss your mother and what business is it of yours?”
“Maybe because I’ve never ever seen you two kiss,” Moses said. “Maybe because I always just assumed you had to like someone to kiss them?”
“What about you, Eddie? Do you also have an opinion like your brother, the genius, which you’d like to share?” their dad asked. “No? Well, I’m glad we had this little chat because I’d hate for there to be any confusion about my ongoing love and devotion to your mother.” He was laying it on thick and speaking well above his normal range, because his mom was within earshot. Sure enough, Moses caught her out of the corner of his eye, wheeling herself out of the kitchen and back into the downstairs guest room.
“Oh, there’s no confusion on my end,” Moses said. “Yours, Thistle?”
“None on mine, either,” she said.
“That’s good. Now, if I were you, Mo, I’d let that wife of yours, who was up at the crack of dawn, sleep in and see about waking those kids up and fixing them a decent breakfast full of complex carbohydrates,” he said. “You remember what I always used to tell you kids—breakfast is the most important part of the day. That, and kissing the woman you love,” and with that, he turned to go back downstairs, hummin
g what sounded to Moses like “Chad Gadya.”
“That awful, smug son of a bitch,” he snarled, recalling the day a couple of months ago when Pandora threw him out of the house. He’d called his parents sobbing and his dad had gotten on the phone and told him what a stupid piece of shit he was and that he didn’t know the first thing about women or how to treat them, and Moses had just sat there, weeping and shaking, for in some way his dad was right, though it was impossible to take him seriously because if he’d learned anything from his dad, it was how not to treat a woman. Pandora was nothing like his mom, though. When Moses raised his voice to her, she did not shrink back and try to appease him but rather reared up and came charging at him, this woman he’d married and whom he loved more than anyone in the world. He’d spoken terribly to her over the years, he knew he had, and he was trying to be better, trying to make it right, if not for his or Pandora’s sake, then for the boys’. While he might not have been the perfect husband, no one could tell him he wasn’t a good dad. He never shouted at his boys unless circumstances demanded it, and he never told them they were stupid or inadequate or insignificant or made them feel as if they weren’t wanted. He tried to protect them from the world’s phenomenological vengeance and curses both medieval and institutionalized: kike, Yid, Christ killer, Hebe, dirty Jew.
Moses crossed the catwalk that bridged the two wings of the house and entered the war zone of his sons’ carpeted kingdom, a sprawling, cluttered land of Wiis, Xboxes, tablets, books, soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs and gloves, a pennant of the L.A. Dodgers, a poster of the Dallas Mavericks, and a couple of Israeli flags that served as window shades—the trips were still vehement Zionists and before the dissolution of Israel had often spoken of wanting to visit. The trips’ media lounge (their former playroom) was still set up to look like a mock UN, with a table, three chairs, and three tiny flags of Israel. Last year, they had watched with disgust the real UN tribunals that had taken place in the days following the Three-Day War, which would not have gone the way it did had it not been for the absolute neutrality of the Europeans and Americans, having elected leaders who fervently embraced a new brand of isolationist nationalism. The rise of ISIS and the flood of Muslim refugees from war-torn Arab nations had convinced the west to leave the Middle East to itself, and they’d simply sat by and watched as enemy nations, with the help of Hamas, terrorized Israel’s cities and invaded its borders. An unholy alliance between liberal anti-Zionists and right-wing protectionists had meant that for the first time in modern history, the United States of America refused to come to Israel’s defense. Things were shifting all across the nation and coalitions that would have been utterly unthinkable a few years ago were suddenly welcomed, championed, and celebrated by those Americans who’d grown tired of the conflicts in the Middle East and wanted an end to it once and for all. The gut punch came when the United States joined the other nations of the UN in recognizing the dissolution of Israel, which was carved into thirds—one part each for the victors Syria, Lebanon, and Iran—the outraged, still nationless Palestinians absorbed in the process.
Tell Me How This Ends Well Page 27