Obsessed

by Ted Dekker

  You are my Stone of David, his foster father, Benadine, used to say, kissing him on the forehead. He asked Benadine what it meant. His foster father had smiled. “You are a survivor, Stephen. No Goliath can touch you.” That was enough to make any boy of six walk around with a puffed chest for the day.

  You are my Stone of David.

  But he’d never been Rachel Spritzer’s Stone of David.

  A tall, gray structure loomed ahead. He glanced at the listing and scanned the building again. Four stories high. Cracked and discolored stucco siding. Chipped red-tile roof. Mexican tiles displaying the building numbers embedded in the stucco under an exposed light bulb. A Caldwell Realty sign in the lawn.

  “This is it,” Chaim said. “I have the distinct feeling that your denial has been compromised. Perhaps this is all for the best.”

  “I’m not in denial,” Stephen said. “I’m living beyond the past.”

  Chaim didn’t respond.

  Stephen pulled to the curb and peered up at the structure. Dying vines spilled from flower boxes below dirty windows. A lone palm tree listed slightly, its dead, bushy fronds in desperate need of a trim. Concrete steps led to a single brown entrance door. A patchy brown lawn surrounded the corner lot, separating it from the nearest structure—a dilapidated apartment building with boarded windows across the street. The buildings looked to have been built at the same time, although Rachel’s building was in far better condition than its twin.

  They climbed out of the car, Stephen clutching the newspaper with its old black-and-white photograph of Rachel Spritzer and her husband, Rudy, shortly before his death. Three yards to his right sat a dog, stubby tail madly twitching, tongue hanging limply out of its jaw. It was a cocker spaniel, not fully grown, perhaps a year old or so.

  “Are you okay?” Chaim asked.

  Stephen gazed up at the four-story building. “Yes.”

  “Arrff!”

  “Easy, boy.”

  The dog offered a brief whine, bounded toward him, stretched up on its hind legs, and tried to lick his hand with a large wet tongue.

  Stephen glanced around, saw no sign of the dog’s owner, and tentatively petted the spaniel behind its ears, welcoming the distraction.

  Stephen straightened and flipped his hand “Go home. Shoo.”

  The dog sat on its haunches, tilted its head, and stared at him with big brown eyes.

  “Go on now. Shoo!”

  The dog turned away and bounded a few feet before turning back and sitting again. Good enough.

  “Maybe it would be best to come back later, after you’ve had more time to digest this news,” Chaim said.

  “No.” Stephen let out a long breath. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s just a house.”

  Chaim said nothing, but Stephen was sure he was thinking denial.

  They walked to the entry. Chips in the stucco and small cracks in the door’s brown paint showed the building’s age. A lock box hung on the door handle. According to the article, Rachel Spritzer had spent the last month of her life in a hospice facility, where she’d made preparations to settle her estate. The complex had been on the market for a week. Stephen entered his code, removed a corroded brass key, and opened the front door.

  Chaim poked his head in, then studied Stephen. “I think I’ll wait in the car.”

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “Yes, I think there is. You should be alone.”

  Stephen nodded. “Okay. I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time.” He descended the steps. “Please, take your time.”

  The dog suddenly barked and bounded up the steps and into the building.

  The dog had no business inside, but the moment Stephen stepped in, a sense of wonder swept away any thought of issuing the canine out. The entire entry level had been converted into a parking garage similar to those found under office buildings. Three rows of bare steel posts stood in the place of load-bearing walls. Judging by two large cobwebs, the garage door hadn’t been opened in at least a month. He noticed a single elevator to his right, next to a door that read, “Stairs.”

  This was his mother’s house?

  The dog had stopped ten feet in and once again stared at Stephen, head tilted.

  Stephen shut the door behind him. “You can’t be in here,” he said. But again, he welcomed the dog’s presence. Despite Chaim’s insistence, Stephen wasn’t sure he wanted to be alone.

  The dog bounded for the elevator, sat by the door, and stared eagerly at the call buttons. Seemed to know the building. What was the chance that this was Rachel’s dog? Surely she would have made arrangements for it, as she had for the rest of her estate.

  Stephen walked toward the elevator, breaking the silence with the clack of his shoes on hard concrete. With a whole lot of remodeling, the apartment building could be restored. Then again, if the rusted pipes overhead were any indication, the entire infrastructure would need an overhaul. Cheaper to start over.

  See, it didn’t feel like his mother’s house to him. He was a Realtor examining a building, not a son coming home. Maybe because he wasn’t really her son.

  A twinge of guilt pricked his mind. He should feel more like a son.

  “You stay here,” he told the dog. But the moment he cracked the door to the stairwell, the cocker spaniel bolted for it, squeezed between Stephen’s legs, and disappeared down a flight of steps.

  “Hey!” His voiced echoed through the stairwell. He considered following the dog into the darkness below. “I’m going up.” He was talking to this dog as if it could understand. “You hear me? I’m going up. Don’t you dare poop down there.”

  Stephen headed up the concrete steps. He would deal with the dog before leaving. Letting it wander around the basement for a few minutes wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  The second floor still housed three apartments, but they looked as if they’d been abandoned for a decade, maybe two. Green carpet, fifties all the way.

  Third floor, same as the second. Musty, dark, and vacant. She had lived in the building only a month ago, but where? Caldwell may have removed her belongings, but the first three floors had been vacant for a long time.

  Stephen walked up the last few steps, saw the heavy oak door that led into the fourth floor, and stopped. This was it. His hammering heart was driven as much by nerves as by the climb.

  The dog sat by the door. Must have run up while he was on the third floor. Maybe this really was Rachel’s dog. Did that make it his dog? It really was a beautiful dog, and by the look in its eyes, quite intelligent. No, this wasn’t his dog. Rachel had left everything to someone else. To a museum.

  “You poop down there?”

  The dog barked and Stephen jumped. “Hush.”

  This was ridiculous. He should just go in there, see what this Rachel Spritzer had left, and then be on his way.

  He gathered himself, transferred the newspaper to his left hand, pushed the door open, and stepped into the fourth floor. A smell that reminded him of cherry blossoms tinged with licorice filled his nostrils. The odor of . . . Russia. His foster grandmother’s apartment in Moscow. If he was right, he would find some mothballs hanging around somewhere as well.

  The dog ran around him and headed straight for the back of the apartment. Stephen peered through the dim light. He was breathing through his nostrils. Loudly. He opened his mouth. Better.

  The entire level had been converted into a single apartment. Plush carpet, textured gold wallpaper, lavender drapes—Turkish, if he was right.

  A light switch to his right brought a large crystal chandelier to life in the entryway. He walked farther in, taken by the contrast between the floors below and this one. Judging by a scattering of empty picture hangers leaning against the walls, someone had selectively removed some of the paintings. Undoubtedly, the museum had picked through her belongings and taken what they considered truly valuable. There certainly weren’t any Stones of David lying around.

  You are my Stone of David.<
br />
  Stephen stood in place for a full minute, gazing about the room, trying to decide what it meant to him. Was there some deep, mysterious connection between the apartment and his life? He tried to imagine Rachel Spritzer living here. He lifted the paper and stared at the picture of Rachel and Rudy Spritzer. The black-and-white photograph was slightly out of focus. Dark hair pulled up in a bun. A kind face. Thin. Before coming to the United States, and during his first year here, he had searched for any record of his true parents. Nothing. Not a scrap of information in the hundreds of war records he’d pored over.

  He folded the paper, took a deep breath, and walked into the room. He would look around, sure. It would be good to know who had given him birth. But to pretend there was any meaningful relationship between this woman and him was nothing more than misguided sentimentality. He’d shut this door once and had found a certain amount of peace in doing so. He couldn’t afford to open that door now. This was about closure, not a new beginning.

  Stephen walked slowly through the sprawling five-bedroom apartment, feeling distant from it all.

  Some of her clothes still hung in the master-bedroom closet, clearly the source of the mothballs he’d smelled. A king-size canopy bed sat draped in lace. The kitchen boasted the latest appliances. A cookie jar with a rose inlaid in gold leaf still held sugar biscuits. Although the museum evidently had no interest in the furniture, most of the pieces in the living room were antiques, probably from Europe, and would fetch some money with the right dealer. The dinner table was hand carved from cherry.

  History seemed to leak from every knickknack and every doily. But Stephen didn’t want to engage that history right now. The trappings of unmistakable taste were everywhere. No photographs though. She hadn’t even left him a photograph.

  Stephen stopped in the middle of the room, struggling against a terrible urge to cry. He couldn’t, of course. He was a grown man. He didn’t even know if she really was his mother. And even if she was his mother . . .

  A wellspring of sorrow rose through his chest. He struggled to hold back tears and failed.

  He stood straight, sniffed hard. It was enough. He’d come, he’d seen, and he’d cried. He couldn’t afford any more.

  Stephen walked to the dining room table, slapped down the paper, and cracked his knuckles. All right, then. There you have it. Finished. Chaim was waiting. He headed for the door.

  The dog.

  “Hey, do—” His voice cracked and he cleared it. “Hey, puppy?” He headed back to the master bedroom. “Hello? Puppy?”

  A brown nose poked out from under the bed skirt. No eyes, just the nose. “Come on, Spud, time to go.”

  In response, the spaniel eased its head out, still flat to the carpet, eyes rolled back for a view of Stephen. The dog was certainly no stranger to this apartment. If it wasn’t Rachel’s, it had to be one she’d befriended.

  “Come on.” Stephen turned and walked into the living room, hoping the dog would follow. It bounded past him, pulled up by the elevator, and barked.

  “You want to ride the elevator? Is that the way you normally go?” He punched the call button. “Sure, why not?” He was feeling better already.

  He punched the call button, stepped in behind a happy cocker spaniel, and pressed the lowest button before realizing it had a B on it. Basement. The number on the button above was worn off, and when he pushed it, no light illuminated. The car rumbled slowly for the basement. Stairs would have taken half the time.

  Stephen rested his head against the wood paneling. What would he tell Chaim? He would be reasonable. He had found some closure. Maybe they could come back later and walk through the apartment together. Maybe they should take a closer look at her will—she may have left something for him in the fine print. Something that had meaning.

  He tried again to imagine the Jewish woman who had carefully packed her precious treasures and crossed the seas in search of a new life. Rachel Spritzer. She’d survived Hitler’s reign of terror. He’d spent the last ten years pushing it from his mind.

  The car reached the bottom, and its door slid open. He hit the close button, but the dog leaped through the gaping doors.

  “No, Spud, not here! Hey!” Stephen stepped from the elevator, hit the switch to his right, and let his eyes adjust.

  The dog stood by a door across the empty room, swapping expectant looks between the door and Stephen.

  “You know this place, don’t you? Is this where you slept?”

  Curious, Stephen quickly poked his head into three other doorways. Two led to empty storage rooms, the other to an old coal room. He cracked the door Spud had fixated on—utilities. The dog hurried toward a plump, black cast-iron boiler that sat against the far wall, then found an old blanket in the corner. Spud had obviously slept here on more than one occasion.

  Stephen scanned the room. The building had been constructed in the forties or fifties, before electricity dominated the water-heating industry. Black water pipes ran out of the boiler and disappeared into the ceiling. A newer electric water heater stood in the corner. Several fifty-five-gallon drums lined the wall next to the black boiler. The room smelled a bit like kerosene. Or was that charcoal he smelled?

  He walked to the drums and tapped them. Two gonged loudly, empty. The third thudded, and the liquid caught in its rim vibrated. It smelled stagnant. A drop splashed on the drum, and Stephen glanced up. The culprit appeared to be a slowly leaking pipe.

  He grunted and was about to turn when the dog caught his eyes. Spud was sniffing at a round plate set in the concrete floor behind the boiler. Something like a manhole cover, only smaller, maybe eighteen inches in diameter.

  “You find something?” He crossed the room and leaned over the dog for a better view. Spud was pawing the edges of the cover now. Careful not to rub against the boiler, Stephen squeezed behind, bent down beside the dog, and examined the dirt-encrusted surface. A pattern had been stamped into the steel, but he couldn’t make sense of it. The cover probably gave entry to a sewer system or a large drain. Of course, you never knew with these old buildings.

  He straightened, dug for his keys, and scraped at the dirt. No luck. A screwdriver or crowbar would probably do the trick, but he didn’t make a habit of lugging around either in his back pocket. Interesting though. The dog was certainly taken by it.

  It occurred to him that he was squatting over a sewer grate behind a potbellied boiler with a dog. The day’s revelations had messed with this mind. He grunted and stood. Black dust covered his right hand, and he wiped it as best he could against the cement wall.

  He found a certain quality about the utility room appealing. The fact that it had survived all these years, maybe. Its utter silence, perhaps. Peace and bliss at the bottom of a hole. Or was it isolation and death? Abandonment. Misery loves company.

  “That’s it, Spud.”

  The dog looked up wistfully; returned a longing gaze to the circle.

  “If only my life were as simple as yours. Let’s go.”

  Amazingly, Spud obeyed.

  They opted for the stairs this time. The ancient elevator deserved a wrecking ball through its gut. It was amazing that the thing still worked. Stephen pushed his way into the garage and stopped.

  The rolltop door was open. A black Cadillac with tinted glass gleamed under the lights—a rental from California Limousine Service, according to the insignia on its doors.

  “Stephen Friedman, what on earth are you doing in a dump like this?”

  Stephen turned to face Mike Ryder, a Realtor he’d bid against on a piece of property in Hollywood last year. The dog ran past Mike and through the garage door.

  “Hey, Mike. Never know where you’ll find the deals. You showing the place?”

  “Second time today. To the same party. That mutt follow you in?”

  “It slipped in before I could stop it,” Stephen said. No sign of Chaim. “Know who he belongs to?”

  “I think he’s a she,” Mike said. “Used to belong to the owner,
but I guess she found another home. Been meaning to call the pound.”

  “Who’s the lucky prospector?” Stephen asked, glancing around.

  “German investor. Working on an offer.”

  Stephen arched an eyebrow. “Just like that? How much?”

  “Asking price. He’s on the top floor now with two business associates. Forget this place, Stephen—no short-term money in this one.”

  The thought of someone buying the building struck Stephen as profane. He may not have a legal right to the place, but if Chaim was right and he was Rachel’s son, his own history was tied to this building.

  Stephen nodded and looked at the limousine again. Odd for a foreign investor to snap up a property like this so quickly.

  “Your listing, right? Can you give me a day on this?”

  “You really interested?” Mike wore a crooked grin. He shrugged and headed for the elevator. “Nothing’s going to happen in a day anyway. You got it. But don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. You may have a nose for a deal here or there, but trust me, this ain’t one of them.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  Stephen left the building feeling dazed and confused, and clueless as to why. It was just a building from the past. Like the Holocaust, he should just leave it for history.

  The thought made him sick.

  7

  Los Angeles

  July 18, 1973

  Wednesday Evening

  THE RICH AROMA OF VEAL GREETED STEPHEN WHEN HE STEPPED into the house at five thirty. He’d dropped Chaim off after their visit to the apartment and gone for a long drive before making some inquiries at the courthouse and the museum that had acquired Rachel’s estate. In the end, he’d learned nothing new. The afternoon had been a complete waste of his time. He had to get beyond this crazy assault on his emotions.

  But Chaim and Sylvia would want to talk about it. Maybe it would be for the best.

  He stood by the door and gathered his resolve; the last thing he wanted to do was spoil the evening with his problems. The fact was, he really didn’t have any problems. Nothing had changed, really. Only history. So he’d been born to a woman named Rachel Spritzer. Maybe. So what?