A Darker Shade of Blood

by Lawrence J Epstein

“Yes. In truth it is. I was looking for a Heaven. Some beautiful vision I could cling to.” Ari paused. “I have a confession, Rabbi. What you described about the darkness, that’s exactly what I believe. It gives me some comfort to know that someone as religious as you can have the same feelings.”

  “Maybe we’ll both be surprised. Maybe the souls of our loved ones will greet us.”

  “That’s a much better vision than a cold darkness.”

  I thought the Rabbi was lying well. He had once told me his real vision. It did involve meeting relatives and reading and learning, at last, the mysteries of life. But he somehow intuitively understood how Ari felt and that Ari needed to be reassured that his own views of nothing after death were accepted in the sanctity of a Rabbi’s office. And so the Rabbi told Ari what he thought Ari needed to hear to have a comforted soul. I wondered what kind of man could do that, to misstate his own views deliberately in order to make another person feel better. I suddenly understood the possibility of an enormous soul.

  Rabbi London put his hands together. “Now, Ari, this is about you. I understand your dilemma from our phone conversation.”

  “Can I get over this guilt?”

  “Why would you want to?”

  Ari looked surprised. “What do you mean, Rabbi?”

  “You are ethically sensitive. This is the goal of our tradition. To make you feel the pain of others.”

  “It’s a lot of pain to walk around with.”

  “The pain prevents you from hurting the innocent. You should always carry it with you.”

  “I can’t take it.”

  “Ethics and morality are complicated. I’m sure people have asked you if you intended for the young man to be killed.”

  “Of course I didn’t.”

  “And what would have happened if you didn’t let him go?”

  “He’d be alive.”

  “That’s too simple an answer. Let me imagine an alternative reality. In this reality you tell him he can’t go with his comrades into the house to confront the terrorists. So he doesn’t go. But his not being there could have had its own consequences. Maybe his taking the bullet saved someone else. So there would have been another death, someone with a wife and children who would one day be a great leader. And then your New Zealand friend is riddled with guilt. One day he can’t take it any longer. You see, Ari, there is no alternate reality we can possibly understand. You can’t say what the results would have been if he hadn’t gone in with you. You can only see the reality that is. You accept the pain of reality. You ask yourself if you tried to do good. You ask what you can do in his name to make a better world. If he really wanted to go, then you did no moral wrong. The guilt you feel is a misunderstanding of your moral obligations. If you want a world with no pain, no difficult decisions, no sorrow about what happened, I’m sorry but you’ve wandered into the wrong universe.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “I take it you’ve spoken to the young man’s family.”

  Ari nodded. “Right away. I asked if I could do anything for them. They said save other young men.”

  “You saved me,” I said. ”Literally. And many times.”

  “The work you and Danny do, Ari, is your redemption. Every life you save is a reminder that you have used your life well after the New Zealand boy’s death.”

  “So I should keep doing what I’m doing?”

  “Is there a higher calling than helping and saving people?”

  “No,” Ari said, “there isn’t.”

  I knew I was wrong.

  The Rabbi shouldn’t retire.

  “Don’t die, Rabbi. Please don’t die. We all need you.”

  Rabbi London laughed.

  “Thank you, Danny, but God has other people to save. I’m at rest.”

  His hand was shaky as I took it to say good-bye.

  Ari Eilat, soldier, killer of terrorists, and the fiercest of fighters, was crying as we walked out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  There was a diner on the corner of Route 111 and Route 25 in Smithtown, just on the edge of the busy part of Main Street. Hannah and I used to meet there for lunch and then go to the duck pond in Stony Brook. It was a small pond. We once sat there for hours planning. Hannah was a big dreamer. She said she wanted to be her generation’s Margaret Mitchell, writing a great novel that would be made into a great film. In fact she was a good writer, but she had had no luck. There was no book published with her name on it.

  She had been in Miami working as a waitress, and not very happy. She had wanted to set her novel in Miami until she realized she was a foreigner who could never absorb the city’s culture well enough to make it her own.

  I told her to write about Port Jefferson, where she had been brought up. She said it was too familiar. And so she wrote nothing.

  We met at “our” diner. I couldn’t decide if I hoped or expected or wanted her to look washed-out, with time and failure the agents of her aging badly. Then I realized what an idiot I was and hoped she would recover, that being home was the beginning of a cure. I hoped she looked better now than when she left. I felt better once my emotions of anger and despair had been conquered.

  I stood inside the restaurant in the waiting area before you go inside.

  I was there for ten minutes. And then she arrived.

  She walked inside, and I almost stopped breathing. Someone once asked Truman Capote about what was the best preparation to be a writer. He said, “An unhappy childhood.” It was a profoundly sad response, but I only understood it the moment I saw Hannah. She had withstood genuine sorrow. There had been disappointment and, although I didn’t know the whole story, serious illness. She had been lonely. She had failed at her life’s dream. She was, by anyone’s standard, including Capote’s, unhappy.

  And yet that unhappiness had given her some kind of moral depth. I saw it in her eyes. She wasn’t prettier. She was more beautiful. She had a layer to her that hadn’t been there before.

  I told her the truth.

  “Hannah, I can’t believe how happy I am to see you.”

  She gave me a small smile, as though she was supposed to be happy but couldn’t quite work up the strength to feel a genuine happiness.

  “Don’t you know the rules, Danny? You’re supposed to get older.”

  I grinned.

  I almost said, “I was older until I saw you.” And then I realized such a line would probably make her turn around and walk back out.

  “Believe me, Hannah, I’m getting older on the inside. Pretty soon it will make its way to my outside.”

  We got a table. The waitress was over quickly. Many politicians came to this diner because of its central location. I hoped none of them had decided to come by at that moment.

  Hannah was looking down.

  “I heard you were working for a Congressman. My parents were very impressed.”

  Her parents had objected to her seeing me because of my father.

  “I’m sort of working for a new Congressman. If he doesn’t go to jail.”

  She turned her head to one side.

  I told her the story.

  “As long as you’re not involved, Danny.”

  “I’m not. And never will be.”

  Hannah understood that I was referring to my life’s project to redeem myself for my father’s actions, and so she nodded. Her face had relaxed.

  “I can’t believe how happy I am to see you again, Danny.”

  I shrugged. “It’s probably the comfort of the familiar.”

  “Maybe that’s part of it, but not all of it. It’s not just the familiar. It’s you in particular. You always encouraged me. You were strange for a boy. You listened to me. You talked to me.”

  “We’re an odd species.”

  “You’re not kidding.”

  “Why did you want to see me, Hannah?”

  The food came. Someone should do a study about when food arrives during a conversation. I bet it frequently shows up at some dramatic mom
ent.

  Hannah and I looked at each other. She took a single French fry and ate it.

  We began eating. We both had hamburgers. The food was good. Maybe it tasted good because it was so warm. All I knew is that it felt wonderful to be sitting opposite Hannah again. It was for a second almost as though our time apart had been erased from reality. It was almost as though we had always been together, that we had held hands and jumped across time.

  And then we finished our hamburgers.

  We both knew it was time for her to talk.

  “Danny,” she began with what sounded like a sigh. “First of all, I want to apologize to you. I ran away. I didn’t give you a proper good-bye. I was desperate to get out. That’s no excuse. There is no excuse. I understand if you can’t forgive me.”

  “I felt abandoned, Hannah.”

  She lowered her head and nodded.

  “I want to see you again. I want to stay at my parents’ house and try to write. And to go out with you.” A pause. A long pause. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  “No,” I said.

  A nod.

  “I heard you were in love with a poor woman whose father died. Someone in Patchogue.”

  “Yes. Her name was Rebecca Roth.”

  “Is she still around, Danny?”

  “No. She left too. And we weren’t exactly dating.”

  “I’m sorry. You must feel cursed.”

  “I do. A bit anyway. It’s like anyone I have feelings for runs away.”

  “I’ve run back. If you still have feelings for me.”

  “The feelings are raw, Hannah.”

  “Can we start from where we left off? Give me another chance, Danny. Please. I need it. I think you need it. Maybe I can help you save the new Congressman. Maybe I can inspire you. “

  “I’m in a tight situation. I only have ten days or so to solve this.”

  “All right. I’m there when you need me. Maybe you need to get away to think. Maybe we’ll go out to Coopers Beach like we used to go in winter. We’ll stare at the ocean’s roaring waves until you get an idea. Maybe a kiss or two will set off some of those ideas.”

  “That does sound good. Only...”

  I stopped talking.

  “Only you’re worried I’ll run away again.”

  “I’m worried that the last time you ran away was a rehearsal for the real act of running and never coming back.”

  “That’s fair. All I can do is prove to you by my actions that I’m here.”

  We had a cup of coffee and some apple pie. We used to have that when we were happier and younger. We talked of joyous moments in the past, of the fate of mutual friends, of our families, and of our hopes.

  We got up as we prepared to leave.

  Hannah came over and hugged me. The warmth was profoundly comfortable. I told her I’d call her and we would get together.

  The maturity she had acquired from her suffering was on her face as she said good-bye.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Betsy Revere was so excited when I got home that she gave me a bear hug when I walked in the door. She had uncovered some information about the father of Marilyn Park’s baby.

  She and Ari and I sat around the kitchen table. I was filled with coffee, so Ari made me a hot chocolate. He had gone out and gotten some doughnuts.

  Betsy took some sips, bit a cinnamon doughnut, and started talking.

  “I checked all her phone records. There were a lot of calls to a number in Selden. I checked it out. It belonged to a man there named Robert Kaiser. So then I began building a file on him. I haven’t had much time. I didn’t tell you anything because I didn’t want to create false hopes. But now I think he might be the right person.”

  “Go ahead, Betsy.”

  “He’s a maintenance worker at the Community College. He’s thirty-five, married with a kid. I only had a chance to talk to one friend of Marilyn’s. Someone she works with at the diner gave me the friend’s name. This friend didn’t know Robert’s name but she knew all about him. He was handsome, she said. He called himself Bobby. He was always asking Marilyn for money. He said he had a plan and would make it big and then he would give her a fortune back.”

  “Now that’s a story no man has ever told a woman before,” I said.

  Betsy shrugged. “I think it’s up into the billions.”

  “I don’t think Marilyn had a triple-digit I.Q. She fell for it. Or she was lonely.”

  “Did the friend see Bobby as violent?”

  Betsy shook her head.

  “I asked, but this guy seems like someone who keeps score of his ladies and gets all the money he can. I don’t think he cared enough about her to get angry or jealous.”

  “But if the kid was his and she got money for the baby wouldn’t he want a piece?”

  “If he knew about it. We don’t know he didn’t get some money. At least we don’t know yet. He has no record. I just don’t see it.”

  “You have his home address?”

  “I thought I did. I had an address, called, and got his wife. Someone who I think will soon be his ex-wife. She didn’t know where he was living, and she begged me to find him. He’s not supporting the family. Maybe he’s living with a girlfriend. That’s my best guess. I can’t find a brother or sister or parents, but there may be name changes. And also, of course, Kaiser is just too common a name. I could call all of them, but I don’t want to alert him under the circumstances.”

  “But we can get him at work.”

  “That we can do.”

  “That we will do. We’ll drive over to the College tomorrow, Ari.”

  “I should get a chance, too, Danny.”

  “I don’t mean to leave you out. I’m not joking. We really need someone at home to keep track, and that’s not good work for Ari.”

  She looked disappointed.

  “But tomorrow you come with us.”

  “Thanks.”

  We went out to eat that night and to a movie. It was pleasant to relax for a few hours. Betsy was calmer, too, and funny. We all had a good time.

  Ari went to sleep early.

  Betsy and I sat on the couch talking of her plans.

  Then she said, “Thank you for making me part of this team, Danny. It means a lot.”

  “You’ve earned it.”

  A nod.

  She wanted to talk.

  I wanted to get some sleep, but Betsy needed to get something out of her.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Do you think I’m pretty?’

  A dangerous question. There was no right answer.

  “Betsy, talk to me.”

  “When I was young, people always said I was pretty. And then I grew up into somebody who looks more like a linebacker than a beauty queen. I...it happened starting at age fourteen when my father left. He was the one I could speak with. I cried and cried and begged him not to go. I went out to the car while he was packing the trunk and I begged him. I pulled on his arm. And then I stood there and watched as he drove away.” She paused for thirty seconds.

  “You know what I learned from that, Danny?”

  “That life is filled with undeserved pain?”

  “I learned you can’t trust men. They will say they love you, and then they’ll leave. Or they will fall in love with another woman. Anyway, I reacted by becoming hard and mean. I became a cop and couldn’t get on in such a male world. I felt lost, and then you gave me a chance. Don’t leave, Danny.”

  “Listen, Betsy, I’m not going to leave. But I’m worried you’re going to depend on me and Ari. We’re friends and professional colleagues. That’s all we are.”

  “For now.”

  “Maybe. And maybe forever. We’re here for you as friends.”

  Betsy didn’t say a word. She got up and walked to her bedroom. She didn’t quite slam the door and she didn’t quite not slam the door.

  I didn’t sleep well.

  At about ten the next morning, we drove down to College Road, wen
t on the campus, and pulled into a lot near the Islip Arts Building. Kaiser supposedly worked there. We went in an entrance in back.

  There were a few workers sitting around and talking.

  I stepped up and said, “Whoever’s Robert Kaiser, I got a check for him.”

  They all raised their hands and laughed.

  Then they pointed and Robert Kaiser came over to me.

  “Come on,” I said. “This is private.”

  It was cold outside, so we went in another entrance. It was near the theater.

  “What’s this all about?” Kaiser asked. “I could use a check.”

  “There’s no check, Bobby. We’re here so the cops don’t have to be.”

  “You said there was a check.”

  “You’re lucky there isn’t an arrest warrant.”

  “What are you? Like bounty hunters?”

  “No. Let’s say for now we’re just people. We have a simple question and if the answer is right we go away and you never see us again. The police don’t pay you a visit.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You know Marilyn Park is dead.”

  “Hey. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “No one said you did.”

  “Okay, then, what do you want?”

  “She got killed on the sixteenth. Where were you all day then?”

  He hesitated. “What day of the week was that?”

  “It was a Tuesday.”

  “Good. I was here. What time?”

  “Let’s say from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.”

  “That’s easy. I was working. You saw the guys who could vouch for me. And teachers and maybe students and most of all my supervisor who is a pain in the neck. Now I’m glad he’s a pain in the neck. He’s always checking on me. And he’s crazy. He keeps records like you wouldn’t believe. Ask him if you want. I never left the building. I didn’t go out for coffee. And...Wait a minute. The sixteenth you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  He held up a finger.

  “I didn’t have my car that day. Caruso gave me a ride. You can ask him. I’ll take you to him. He never gave me a key, and I didn’t borrow the car.”

  “Let’s go see Caruso right now. And don’t you move a muscle or say a word, you understand?”