David went to a pay phone and called the one person in all of Las Vegas he trusted, then waited for him to show up.
Took an hour, but eventually a FedEx van pulled up, Gray Beard behind the wheel.
“New ride?” David asked when he got in the passenger seat.
“Had to work fast,” Gray Beard said.
David looked behind him at the van filled with boxes. “You gonna return this? That’s about five hundred federal crimes back there.”
“Might just deliver them myself,” Gray Beard said. “Might find I enjoy the work.” They drove a couple blocks, to the Summerlin Library parking lot, which was lit like Wrigley Field for a night game to keep the homeless from sleeping in the bushes. David knew the homeless preferred the labyrinth of storm drains beneath the city, anyway, the Temple often going down there on holidays to hand out food and gift cards.
Gray Beard parked in the far corner of the lot, beneath a towering light pole, which flooded the inside of the van with light. Nothing new under the sun, Gray Beard always said, so you wouldn’t bother to look hard at what wasn’t trying to hide.
He took a penlight from his breast pocket. “Take your hood down; I didn’t get to see your new look the other day.” David did. Gray Beard whistled. “Nice work. You hurt still?”
“Not too much,” David said. “Not like before. Just sore.”
“That’s gonna be the case.”
“How long?”
“Rest of your days.” He moved David’s chin from side to side. “Good movement, finally. Good, good. Open up, let me see inside.” David did, Gray Beard shining the light in. “Never seen anything like it,” he said. “I don’t think I could work in the field anymore. I can’t see how they do this. Like they built the Golden Gate Bridge under your sinuses.” He tapped his index finger under David’s right eye. “Those cadaver bones?”
“Yes.”
“Well. That’s ironic.” He leaned back in his seat. “You like your face?”
“That’s the thing,” David said. “It’s the one I started with.”
“That’s ironic, too,” Gray Beard said. “What do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’ve sped up my timeline,” David said.
“For what?”
“For getting out of this situation.”
“Didn’t know that was part of the plan.”
“It’s part of any plan,” David said.
“I guess I just thought we’d all grow old and die together here in Las Vegas.”
“Gangsters don’t die,” David said. “Look around. Bugsy Siegel’s alive as ever.”
“Same fucking guys, isn’t it?” Gray Beard said. “Just in a different suit.”
“I had a vision in the hospital,” David said.
“You were on some good shit, I bet.”
“I saw myself as the prophet Ezekiel, sitting on the banks of the River Chebar for seven days and seven nights,” David said. “God came to me and said he didn’t want me to die. He wanted me to turn from my evil ways and live.”
Gray Beard whistled. “Morphine is a motherfucker.”
“Thing is,” David said, “I had the exact same dream last night. And the night before that. Every detail; it’s all the same.”
“Is that what you want? To leave it all?”
Truth was, nothing was stopping David from getting in a car and driving out of Las Vegas. But then what? Mob would be after him. FBI would be after him. Public would be after him. His wife and kid, wherever they were, would be endangered. Bennie and Ronnie would put a bounty on his head, equal to or better than whatever the FBI was offering. As long as he stayed in Las Vegas, under Bennie’s thumb, he was relatively safe.
“Not yet. The people I’d leave alive behind, I’d ruin their lives. I’m talking about you, too.”
“Me and Marvin, we’re a mobile unit. My paper is legit. I can be in British Columbia tomorrow morning.”
“I need to figure out a way to make things right for the people I’m going to hurt.” Fact was, Sal Cupertine was the mob’s most efficient killer because he was precise. He killed those who needed to die and didn’t leave a trail of others behind as collateral damage. In his life, he’d killed one person who didn’t have it coming, and now she was haunting his ass. But David was also thinking about all the marriages and funerals he performed, innocent Jews who had come to trust him. He needed to figure out how to make those events legit. He couldn’t leave their lives in tatters, too. The other side was that he didn’t view what he did as evil. He worked in a business that necessitated a certain amount of loss. That’s just how it was. Everybody dies. That’s not evil; that’s just true. It wasn’t evil when race car drivers died. It wasn’t evil when boxers died. Everyone knows the risks inherent in their jobs. Sometimes, it’s taking blows to the head for twenty years. Other times it’s the Rain Man showing up in your house in the middle of the night. “I need to get right.”
“It’s not my place,” Gray Beard said, “so if you don’t like what I’m saying, you just put a hand up.” He leaned forward. “You’re a good Rabbi, I bet.”
“I think I am.”
Gray Beard pointed at himself. “See, I was a good doctor.”
“You still are.”
“I love heroin more,” he said. “That’s the truth. But I’m like Keith Richards now. I got the balance right. Marvin and me, we got something special.” He looked out the front window. “This place? When I first got to Las Vegas, you could park your car, tie off, watch the world fly into Las Vegas, trip on the lights, nod out to the coyotes running behind you. This was nothing but wild desert. I wish I’d known Marvin then. He would have liked it.” He shook his head. “The point is that I’m never gonna be a real doctor again. I get to do some work now and again, and I find it keeps me from tying a rope around my neck. What’s stopping you from getting rid of the criminal element around you and just, you know, being a rabbi?”
“I love being a gangster more,” David said.
