Cecil laughed. “We’re on high alert, in light of events in the Middle East. Just a precaution, sir.”
“Mr. Savone tells me he went to school with your father.”
Cecil looked at David in the rearview mirror. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Bishop Gorman. It’s where I went, too. Class of 1989.”
David nodded. Every Las Vegan of a certain age went to Bishop Gorman. They talked about it like they’d gone to Harvard. David wanted the Barer Academy to hold that kind of weight, but he understood that one day, when David’s true story was told, the Barer Academy would mean something entirely different.
“Thing is,” Cecil said, “we’re Jews, but not Jews-Jews, you know? My mom, she’s nothing anymore. Not even spiritual. My dad is Jewish on holidays. Back then, when my dad and Mr. Savone were in school, there was no Jewish high school, so everyone just went to Bishop Gorman. And then when I went to high school, we were a Bishop Gorman family.”
“Explain that to the Nazis when they show up,” David said.
“Pardon me?”
“Your mother was born Jewish?”
“Yes, but no one can spell Hanukkah.” He held up his right hand. “And then I’ve got this dumb shit.” Across his knuckles he had a tattoo of Hebrew letters: תרֵּכָ. It was the Hebrew word kareth. Kareth had different meanings in the Talmud, depending upon what one took literally. It could either mean dying young without children or it could mean you were a soulless motherfucker cut off from your family and the world due to irredeemable sin, or because the sinner simply doesn’t give a fuck and is happy with his own iniquity. It was some shit David understood, certainly, but he couldn’t imagine getting it tatted up across the knuckles, the mere act of which was probably enough for old-school Jews to cut you off permanently. But David had the sense Cecil was aiming for something like the Hebrew equivalent of bad motherfucker. If you had to tell people, though, that usually meant the opposite.
“You’re still Jewish,” David said. “Even with that ink. Emotion doesn’t change identity. It’s confusing to know who you are when you’re young, but you’re a man now, so I will solve it for you. Officer Cecil Kiraly, you’re Jewish. Mazel tov.”
Officer Cecil Kiraly laughed. “All right then. More days off.”
They wound through the streets of Summerlin. In the months David had been in the hospital down the block, nothing of substance had changed and yet everything seemed slightly different. Trees and bushes had grown. Grass had expanded. A new Starbucks opened on that corner, a new Baja Fresh on this corner, a new tanning salon was COMING SOON into what used to be the Quiznos, a new Port of Subs was COMING SOON, next to the Coffee Bean. A CVS was COMING SOON a few blocks south of the synagogue. David couldn’t imagine who would drink all of this coffee, who would fill these fast-food restaurants, who would need so many prescriptions. The Talmud said that after the fall of the Holy Temple, prophecy was left to the mentally ill and the children.
“What’s your beat, officer?”
“Gang unit,” Cecil said, meeting David’s eyes again in the rearview.
“You like it?”
“Don’t have to arrest too many of my friends,” he said. “Which was a nice change from vice. Appreciate this job, though; we haven’t had much overtime lately. Streets have been pretty quiet since 9/11.”
“Why is that?”
“Patriot Act has even the Bloods and Crips worried. They all think they’re OG enough to get wiretapped without a warrant or that we’ve got every camera trained on their corner deals. But we’re only fishing for whales right now. Sell your weed. Who cares as long as you’re not crashing a plane into the Excalibur.”
They turned up Hillpointe and there was yet another COMING SOON sign: Kales Assisted Living & Memory Home, a “Sixteen-Acre Premier Medical and Retirement Destination Featuring Three Pools, a Putting Green, Pickle Ball Courts, and On-Site Five-Star Medical Facilities! Taking Deposits NOW! Live Longer. Live Better. Live.”
Cecil pulled into Temple Beth Israel’s parking lot, about ten feet from where David strangled Melanie Moss, before ultimately snapping her neck. She was standing there, watching him.
“I’m here all day,” Cecil said, which brought David back to the present, “so if you need anything, just call.” He handed David one of his Las Vegas Metro business cards. “That’s my cell phone on there. And when you’re ready to head home, I’m your wheels, Rabbi.”
“Thank you,” David said. He opened the door and stepped out. Melanie had David’s tefillin around her neck, still.
“You okay?” Cecil asked, his window down. “Your color got bad real quick.”
“Just stood up too quickly,” David said.
“Okay, you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”
David turned to him. “Look into getting that ink off your knuckles if you wish to continue working here,” he said, not unkindly. “The survivors here are easily triggered, and that matters to me a great deal.”
“I never thought about it,” Cecil said.
“I know,” David said. “But now you have. You have the inner sholem to not hurt someone you’ve never met. Take that opportunity.”
DAVID WAS WRONG ABOUT ONE THING: HIS DESK AT TEMPLE BETH ISRAEL WAS covered in get-well cards, not spreadsheets. Hundreds of them. Handwritten cards from the day school children, fancy Hallmark cards from the parents and congregants. Stacks from the other temples, churches, and mosques in town. Even one from Harvey B. Curran at the Review-Journal. The spreadsheets were stacked on his coffee table.
“Everyone has missed you so much,” his receptionist, Esther, said. “Mr. Savone had me open them, in case there were checks inside, but I didn’t read them.”
“Were there?”
“A few,” she said. “I deposited them for you.” She opened his blinds, flooding his office in light. “I watered your plants every day. Dusted your books.”
“Thank you, Esther,” David said. He sat down behind his desk. Through the window he could see the Barer Academy, the Temple’s K–12 school, and a sliver of the Performing Arts Center, plus the land movers had lined up to start hauling away dirt to build the assisted living facility.
“Mrs. Savone had us replace your computer,” she said.
“Why?”
“She said you probably had a bug,” Esther said.
“A virus?”
“Right, yes,” Esther said, “but she called it a bug. She had us purchase a laptop.”
“Such kindness,” David said. David flipped open the cover. There was a Post-it Note on the screen that read, in Rachel’s schoolgirl script, “Pick a better password.”
“Since you’ve been gone, Mrs. Savone has been here most days, helping Rabbi Kales with the business of things,” Esther said. She kneaded her hands. “He’s slipped so much, Rabbi Cohen. The stress has had a negative effect on him. And then to lose his contemporaries in town, like Rabbi Siegel, it must have been such an emotional challenge for him. Everyone his age is dying.”
