“Standard practice. Ruben did everything by the book, when it was possible,” Sal said.
“That was . . .” Poremba paused. He stared at Sal for a long time, as if he was figuring out the solution to a problem that had been deemed unsolvable. “Decent. That was decent of you.”
“He didn’t deserve it,” Sal said. “If I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I’d get out of that hotel without doing what I did, but my next move, I should have killed Ronnie, took control of The Family myself.”
“You’d be dead by now.”
“Maybe,” Sal said. “Or I’d be on a beach.” Sal sat down, took a cheese Danish from the platter, dug the cheese out, ate the Danish, then said, “Can I ask you a question?”
Poremba looked at the camera. The light was still off. “Make it quick.”
“All this is over,” Sal said, “Ten years. Twenty years. Whenever. I find Kirk Biglione. I make it look like an accident. That a problem?”
“If you can find him.”
Poremba drank the rest of his coffee. Took out his phone, removed the SIM card, put it in his pocket. The door to the boardroom opened and the government’s lawyer walked in. She was about forty in a smart blue suit.
“Sorry,” she said, “am I interrupting?”
“No,” Poremba said, “you’re fine.” He smiled at the lawyer. Looked at the camera. Nothing. Turned to Sal. “No, that’s not a problem in the least.” Sal put his hands out and Poremba cuffed him to a hook on the table. He left it plenty loose, so it wouldn’t hurt his wrists.
“Thank you, Agent,” Sal said.
“You’re welcome,” Poremba said, “Rabbi.”
EVERY NIGHT AT EIGHT, SAL’S PRIVATE HOSPITAL ROOM BECAME HIS CELL. A nurse would come in with a final around of antibiotics, watched closely by two U.S. Marshals, and would also drop off a carafe of water and a bowl of fruit and nuts and crackers. The nurse would depart, and the Marshals would lock Sal in for the night. He’d typically spend the next hour reading the Talmud or the Torah and then another wrapping tefillin while he did his prayers. He was supposed to do this in the morning, but he was not yet comfortable wrapping tefillin in front of other people, and besides, the FBI would force him to remove the tefillin when bringing him to the Federal Building.
He usually fell asleep by eleven. He’d undo the tefillin first thing in the morning, Sal finding the loose binding of the strap down his arm and crossing his knuckles oddly comforting, like swaddling. For thousands of years, men like himself wrapped tefillin and spoke to God. He was just another cog in the machine of the faith, no better, no worse, than anyone blessed by Adonai . . . and if he kept his own process, so be it.
Tonight, however, was different. He wrapped up, prayed, and then pulled his chair to the window, the night clear enough to make out stars. A rarity in Los Angeles. That was the nice thing about living in Summerlin, where there wasn’t much light pollution—by city ordinance, no less—he could go into his backyard and see the past. The Talmud said God hung the stars, but of course Sal didn’t believe that, but he understood why the ancients believed such a thing. If you wanted your problems to dissolve, stare into the universe for an hour or two, recognize that your entire life—and by extension, your conflicts—will eventually be forgotten forever, that the only thing permanent in this life is that you will evaporate, you will be dead for infinity. Stare into the abyss, and the abyss takes everything away.
It was enough to keep a man awake past midnight, particularly since his face also felt like it was melting off of his head. So when the knock came at his door, he said, “I’m up, come in.”
Special Agent Kristy Levine stood in the doorway, the hallway in half-light. “Ninety minutes,” she said, and before Sal could respond, she stepped away, and standing behind her was a woman with long blond hair that had turned intermittently silver, holding the hand of a young boy dressed like he was taken out of gym class. The woman touched her face in the places Sal still had visible scarring—his chin, his cheeks, above his eyes—as if she, too, might have been hurt and didn’t know it.
Was this another ghost?
No.
Of course not.
“What did they do to you?” she said.
“Nothing,” Sal said. “I did it all to myself.”
And then Jennifer was across the room and in his arms. “Sal,” she said, and it was the most beautiful word he’d ever heard, his own name, said by the woman he’d loved for nearly all the days of his life, into his death. “Baby, what did they do to you? What did they do to you?” She kissed him, his lips, his cheeks, his eyes, his forehead, his tears, his lips again. She put her hands on his face, held him still, stared into his eyes. “There you are,” she said. Another kiss, this time gentle, in the space between his eyes, like she used to do at bedtime.
“I’m so sorry,” Sal said. “I made so many mistakes.”
“You did exactly what you wanted to do,” Jennifer said. “And I never stopped you. That was my fault, too.”
“I’m sorry,” Sal said again. “I have never stopped loving you. I have never stopped worrying about you. Not for one moment. The things I have done to get back to you and William.” He paused. “I would do them all again. I would do them one hundred times.”
“Sal,” Jennifer said, “I don’t want you to hurt anyone ever again. Do you understand me? Never. Can you make that promise?”
Sal gripped the tefillin tight in his hand. The Talmud said, “Be not like servants who work for the master on condition of receiving a reward.” And so it was. You did good because it was right. Because it was your duty. “I can,” Sal said.
Jennifer put her hand up against his cheek again. “Are you in pain?” she asked.
“Constantly,” he said.
Jennifer began to cry, Sal dabbing at her tears with his thumb.
“Did you make my mother cry?”
William hadn’t moved from the doorway.
“No, baby, no,” Jennifer said. “I’m crying because I’m happy.”
Sal kissed Jennifer once more and then got down on one knee in front of his son.
“Do you recognize me?” Sal said to William. He took him by the hands. They were so soft.
“I know you,” William said, quietly. “I have seen you before. On the computer.”
Sal gave Jennifer a quick look. She seemed as puzzled as he was.
“Of course you know me,” Sal said. “I’m your father. I have thought of you every single day. I have talked to you, in my mind, every single day. Do you know that? Every single day.”
