Gangsterland: A Novel

by Tod Goldberg

“One thing,” David said. “Before you start losing your mind, you need to update your will. The funeral home needs to be left to the temple.”

  “That was to be left to Rachel,” Rabbi Kales said.

  “Yeah,” David said, “that won’t work. I’m sure Mr. Zangari can recommend an estate lawyer to you.”

  “You’re taking everything away from me,” Rabbi Kales said again.

  It was true, David realized. In one day—in one hour—he’d stripped Rabbi Kales clean. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but the end result was that he’d let him live. That was worth something, wasn’t it?

  “You’ve had a good life, Rabbi. Why not relax? Spend time with your granddaughters. Play golf.” David understood it was hard to do those things while simultaneously drooling on yourself and pretending to be lost, but it could be a slow descent, he supposed. Rabbi Kales was seventy-two. Rachel had said he was slipping, but David hadn’t believed it, chocking it up more to the secrets Rabbi Kales had to keep than some actual cognitive deficiency. Now, thinking about the last nine months, it seemed more than plausible, even though the rabbi still looked fit and able. “This thing,” David said, “could be a mitzvah.”

  “Sal Cupertine,” Rabbi Kales said, “what did he believe in?”

  “Family,” David said. “Duty, I guess. Retribution.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Everybody dies,” David said. “That was sort of my motto.”

  “What about Rabbi David Cohen?”

  “He believes in the articles of our faith, Rabbi.”

  Rabbi Kales smiled at David and then got up, walked over to his desk, emptied a small file box of its contents, and then came back and filled the box with the tea set, save for one cup and saucer—the one with tree branches—which he handed to David. “Does your wife drink tea?” Rabbi Kales asked.

  “Sometimes,” David said. “If she can’t sleep.”

  “When you see her next, give her that cup and saucer as my regards,” Rabbi Kales said. “That will be the mitzvah.”

  Just before midnight, David walked across the street to the funeral home to call Jerry Ford. In the time they’d been in business, they’d fostered a positive working relationship with no real sense, at least on David’s part, that Ford considered him anything more than a rabbi. David tried to keep the flow of work to Ford’s firm within reason in case anyone bothered to look into the business of either side of the transaction. All the paperwork was legit—or at least looked legit when it involved the bodies Bennie took in—and everyone seemed happy. David wasn’t exactly sure when it occurred to him that it was no happy accident that Jerry had appeared on the scene with this wonderful offer to help the Jewish faith by moving corpse tissue, though the afternoon he saw Jerry and Bennie chatting amiably out in front of the temple confirmed what he probably should have always known: that Bennie was involved from the get-go. It was simply another layer of secrecy: If David didn’t know that Bennie had the initial idea, it was one less potential witness for the prosecution.

  The endeavor needed a rabbi . . . and that was never going to be Rabbi Kales, nor the late Rabbi Gottlieb. And who knew what Bennie had on Jerry Ford. Probably nothing, once he thought about it. Guys like Jerry, they wanted to work with the mob. Made them feel like they were doing something out of a movie. It wasn’t like that in Chicago too much because the stakes were too high. People in Chicago were much more open about killing you. Here it just helped get you into nice strip clubs, maybe a little extra grind for your twenty bucks.

  Thus, David was under the impression that Jerry Ford might be willing to do him and the temple a little favor. So David sat down in the funeral director’s office and called Jerry Ford’s cell phone.

  He picked up on the first ring. “How you doing, Ruben?” he said.

  “This isn’t Ruben,” David said. “It’s Rabbi Cohen.”

  “Oh, sorry, Rabbi,” he said. “Ruben calls me so often in the middle of the night, my wife is beginning to think something is up.”

  “Yes, well,” David said.

  “Not that my wife has reason to worry otherwise, you understand,” he said. In the background, David could hear music and people talking. It was midnight on Super Bowl Sunday, and it didn’t seem like Jerry was keeping vigil at one of the local hospitals.

  “Listen,” David said, “a man has taken his life and has asked that his body be buried in a traditional Jewish ceremony, with conditions, however, and so I’m hoping you might be of some help.”

  “How’d he go?”

  “He shot himself in the head, I’m afraid,” David said.

  “Okay, I’m listening,” Jerry said. If Jerry was completely above board, he would have already hung up, but David could hear the man making calculations in his head. Internal organs were big business . . . and not a business he was normally privy to . . . and a bullet to the head wasn’t the sort of thing that spoiled a kidney.

  “He’d like only his hands, feet, and head to be buried and for the rest of his body to be disposed of,” David said.

  “Strange,” Jerry said.

  “Yes, well, he was not right in his mind,” David said. “And while I’d like to respect his wishes, I’d hate for what was an otherwise healthy young man to not pay forward the gift of life, particularly if someone could use a kidney or a liver or heart.”

  “Of course,” Jerry said. David could hear that Jerry had stepped outside now, the music gone, replaced by the sound of traffic. He was probably on the Strip or, worse, at one of the local casinos playing cheap poker with guys in satin jackets.

  “Unfortunately Ruben is gone for the evening, and thus you’d need to handle the harvesting on your own. I trust you would dispose of the internal organs in an appropriate fashion.”

  Jerry paused for a moment and then said, “Yeah, I can take care of all of that. No problem. No problem in the least. I’ve got a guy who can do that.”

  “Because I know you can’t handle the organs yourself,” David said.

  “Right,” he said. “The extremities, you got that part handled? Avoiding the long bones, that would be best. I’m talking femur, tibia, humerus. Keeping those intact would be, uh, helpful, in terms of paying it forward.”

  “Yes,” David said. “One of our technicians has taken care of that. But he isn’t certified for the other work. So if you think you can handle this, I’d be happy for the help. Though I think it might be wise for you take caution here. You’d hate to lose your license.”

  “I’ll take supreme caution, Rabbi. Absolutely.”

  “Good.” David paused for a moment and thought about everything that had transpired that day and over the last few weeks, tried to figure out just how to say next what he wanted to say, and then decided being simple and direct was probably the route to go. “I’m not sure if you heard, but Mr. Savone was arrested today.”

  “Yeah, yeah, tough stuff there,” Jerry said. “Saw him getting perp-walked on the news tonight. Terrible.”

  “Yes, horrible. Horrible indeed. We’re hoping to help get him bonded out, of course, so it would be helpful if you could bring cash with you tonight instead of waiting sixty days.”

  “Cash? How much are we talking about?”

  “Whatever you think is the correct amount.”

  “And this is for Bennie?”

  “In light of everything,” David said. It was one of those terms he’d heard Rabbi Kales use periodically that seemed to comfort everyone while saying absolutely nothing.

  “Right, okay,” Jerry said. “For the temple.”

  “Yes, for the temple.”

  “No problem, Rabbi,” Jerry said. “I’ll cash a check at the Bellagio, and we’ll be good to go. Everything will be above board. What time should I be there?”

  “Ninety minutes,” David said. That would be enough time to get Gray Beard and Marvin back out the door, get the body refrigerated, and make sure there were no bumps in the road. Like another actual body being delivered for non-nefarious purposes
. “I’ll have all the paperwork waiting for you, too. Please don’t be late.”

  David hung up and leaned back in the chair. Ruben’s office was small and tidy—a desk, a computer, a phone, a Rolodex, a file cabinet, a framed copy of his funeral director’s license, another of his diploma from a mortuary school in Arizona—and smelled like lemon Pledge. There were photos on the desk of a little boy dressed in a Little League uniform, another of Ruben with a woman, presumably his wife, and the same child wearing Hawaiian shirts, the blue waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing behind them, a sunset of orange and pink hovering above the horizon.

  What did he know about this asshole? Nothing, really. He worked with him on a daily basis and didn’t even know his last name. He looked at Ruben’s diploma. Ruben Topaz. He sounded like a fucking magician.

  In the photo, Ruben’s wife wore a diamond ring that could be seen from Russian satellites (which went well with the diamond-crusted watch Ruben had on in the photo, which must have been his vacation watch, as opposed to the nice gold number he wore to the office each day), a diamond pendant necklace, a diamond tennis bracelet, and diamond studs in her ears . . . all of which helped David understand why Ruben was the only other person on the planet Bennie trusted, even a little bit.

  Mostly, the photo just made David feel . . . sad. Yes, that’s what he was feeling. Sadness. He felt bad for calling Ruben an asshole in his head, that was one thing, but there were other more specific things pinging around in there tonight, too. He’d been gone now almost a year . . . and did Jennifer even have photos of him? He wasn’t real big on his image being snapped, for obvious reasons, but now it seemed like a terrible thing. And then: Could he even remember Jennifer’s voice? Would he even recognize William? Would either of them recognize him?

  It was 2:15 a.m. in Chicago. Jennifer would be asleep on her right side, the blankets pulled up to her neck, her sketchbook on the nightstand, the remote control on top of it. William would be asleep on his stomach, his bed filled with army men and Star Wars action figures. Or maybe he’d be into something new. Almost a year.

  David picked up the phone.

  Fuck it to death.

  He punched in the first nine digits of his phone number. All that was left was the number 5. That was it. Just the number 5, and he could hear Jennifer’s voice, tell her he was alive, tell her that he was coming back, eventually, and that she needed to wait for him. Tell her that he was going to take her and William away from Chicago, that they’d go to Hawaii or Barbados or, hell, Green Bay if that’s where she wanted to go. Tell her that he was out of the game just as soon as he finished cleaning out the closet . . .

  “Oh, excuse me, Rabbi Cohen, I didn’t know you were here.”

  David whipped around in his seat, the phone clattering from his hand, and found Miguel, the tech who’d worked on Paul Bruno, standing in the doorway dressed in a suit, holding one of the saws they used to cut open the bodies.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” David said before he could catch himself.

  “It’s my night,” Miguel said, but the look on his face said something entirely different. That didn’t explain the fucking giant saw.

  “Your night?” David was still rattled, things weren’t computing right, and there was about to be a fucking headless, footless, handless torso delivered to the funeral home in an RV. Not exactly standard practice. When the bodies came in from the other families, it was always Ruben who checked them in. He’d let Miguel or the other techs work on them, but shipping and handling was his area of expertise.

  “Super Bowl Sunday,” Miguel said, “can be a busy night. People lose a lot of money.” David just stared at Miguel, trying to figure out what the fuck he was saying. “You know, people have heart attacks, or they jump off something. It’s an emotional night. So we always have someone on that night, in case of emergencies.”

  “What are you doing with that saw?”

  Miguel looked down at his hands and seemed surprised to find he was still holding the saw. “I thought someone had broken in,” Miguel said.

  “And you were going to cut them in two?”

  “I guess I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Miguel said. He gave David a sheepish grin.

  David smiled back. Just two guys in a mortuary, one with a saw, the other with a gun stuffed in his waistband.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Bus dropped me off around ten,” Miguel said. “I might have fallen asleep in the back, so I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “No, I mean, how long have you worked here?” Though, actually, he meant both things.

  “Oh, three years in June.”

  “You like your job?”

  “It’s cool,” Miguel said with a shrug. “I like the responsibility.”

  “Did you hear my phone conversation?”

  Miguel looked confused. “I’m sorry?”

  “I was on the phone,” David said. “Did you hear me talking?”

  “I heard voices,” Miguel said carefully. “That’s what woke me up.”

  David examined Miguel closely. His suit was olive green and cheap—probably bought from one of those places in the Meadows Mall called Suitz or Stylez or Fashionz. His watch had a leather band. No rings on his hands. His shoes were brown and didn’t really match his suit, and he wasn’t wearing a belt. In his whole life, he’d probably never made over fifteen bucks an hour. What did this Miguel know about him? Probably nothing. What did Miguel know about Bennie Savone? Probably an awful lot.

  There was a single bead of sweat on Miguel’s upper lip.

  David could see Miguel’s pulse beating in his neck.

  He kept swallowing.

  “So, yes or no,” David said, testing Miguel, because he knew the answer just from looking at him.

  “I guess,” he said. “Yes. I guess.”

  “You have a wife?”

  “No,” Miguel said.

  “Kids? You got some shorties running around? Is that what you call them now? Shorties?”

  Miguel shook his head. “No, that means girlfriends. Actually, it means both things. Depends how you say it. Like the context of the word.”

  “You got either one of those?”

  “No, not right now.”

  “So, no wife. No kids. No girlfriend. What the fuck do you have, Miguel?”

  “Rabbi?”

  “What the fuck do you have?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re asking,” Miguel said.

  “It’s a simple question, Miguel: What the fuck do you have?”

  David knew that what was throwing Miguel off was that one word—fuck—that he’d dropped early into their conversation and now felt married to using a few more times, just because it felt good saying the word out loud after having it run through his mind pretty much constantly, in different derivations, for the last nine months.

  “I guess nothing big,” Miguel said.

  “Nothing worth losing your life over then, right?”

  Miguel swallowed hard. “No, nothing worth dying over.”

  “Then if you think this place is ever getting robbed,” David said, “run out the back door. Because nothing is worth dying over . . . particularly not something you might have thought you heard.”

  “Yes, Rabbi,” Miguel said. He now had a good seven beads of sweat on his upper lip, and David was somewhat concerned that if his pulse didn’t slow down a tick, Miguel would stroke out.

  “Go home,” David said.

  “I’m on until six.”

  “Put that saw down, and go home,” David said, and this time Miguel didn’t bother to disagree. He set the saw down on the desk, nodded once at David, and then left.

  David picked up the phone, which had begun to bleat from the incomplete call, and examined it for a moment. He’d been so close. One number away. But nothing here was worth dying over. That much was absolutely true.

  At 12:57, Gray Beard and Marvin pulled up to the receiving bay of the f
uneral home in a white cargo van that said lincoln medical supply & uniform on both sides. At first David thought he’d failed to account for something important, but then he saw Marvin behind the wheel and realized that Gray Beard wasn’t shitting him: They did everything professional.

  The van backed up to the building, and Marvin came around to the rear of the vehicle. He held a clipboard and wore a crisp white uniform with the Lincoln Medical logo on the back of his shirt. He even had a name tag, except it said Alex.

  “We have a delivery,” Marvin said.

  “Okay,” David said.

  Marvin opened up the van’s rear double doors and pulled down a short metal ramp. He then climbed into the cargo hold and pushed down a large cart topped with freshly laundered towels. “Everything you ordered should be in the cart,” Marvin said.

  He peeled back several layers of towels to reveal that the cart was filled with ice and, in two body bags, what was left of Dr. Kirsch. David had thought getting shipped across the country in a freezing cold meat truck was a bad lot, but he supposed there was, in fact, worse ways to get from point A to point B.

  “If you just want to sign off here,” Marvin handed David the official-looking clipboard, “we’ll be on our way.”

  According to the paperwork, they’d been making deliveries all over town for the last few hours, including a stop at the Marshall Brothers mortuary a few miles away, where the goyim seemed to gather for the afterlife, and which made David ponder just what the future might hold in terms of revenue streams if he had to stay in Las Vegas for the long term. David signed his initials where indicated, figuring that if they were going to go this far with putting on a show, he’d keep it up, too. He gave the clipboard back to Marvin, who silently nodded his ascent and headed back to the front of the van.

  David walked around to the passenger side, and Gray Beard rolled down his window. He was also wearing a Lincoln Medical uniform. “Everything okay?” Gray Beard said.

  “Looks like it,” David said.

  “You left a real mess there,” Grey Beard said. “But we managed pretty well. Took care of some hair we found, some fibers, that sort of thing. No charge.” Gray Beard smiled. “On account of you maybe giving me an early retirement.”