Sal set the digital timer on the autoclave. “We have one minute to have this conversation,” Sal said, and he hit start.
Jerry Ford said, “You know I went to med school?”
“No.”
“Yeah. I was going to be a surgeon. That was my plan.”
Forty-five seconds.
“Failed out my second year,” Jerry said. “Thing was, I didn’t tell my parents for another year. And then I told them I dropped out. That I just didn’t think I was passionate about the field. My mother, she was Chicago through and through. She thought I didn’t work hard enough, that anything could be accomplished with putting your head down. My father, he’s Jersey; all he thinks about is the money wasted on me, four years at Rutgers, another year at Harvard, all that cash for nothing, particularly when he realized I basically stole a year of tuition money from him. That pissed him off. Neither ever asked me what I was going through that made this happen. They didn’t just want a son who was a doctor; they needed a son who was a doctor. Part of the big grand plan.”
“It was a different time.”
“Hmm. Maybe. Rabbi, here’s the rub: It wasn’t hard to me at all. I went to school every day feeling like I knew more than anyone else. The problem, and I recognized this just in time, I think, was that I didn’t care about the people. If someone lived or died? I didn’t care. Meant nothing to me. That began to work on my brain. You can’t be a sociopath and be a doctor.”
“I disagree.”
“Not a good doctor,” Jerry said. “Maybe I should have been a veterinarian, because then you gotta be both the doctor and the patient, you know? Maybe that would have taught me something important.”
“That you’ve thought all this through,” Sal said, “and have feelings about it, means you’re not a sociopath.”
“Huh. Well. Where were you thirty-five years ago?” He clapped his hands together, then flipped them over for the eye in the sky, like a poker dealer. “Anyway. I bring this all up because it’s come to me that this? I can’t just quit this, can I?”
The timer beeped. All done.
“No.”
Jerry said, “Can I get one more minute? I feel like, since this is about the rest of my life, two minutes should about handle it.”
Sal added another minute. Hit start.
“That was true before this problem, I guess? This is a job you don’t quit.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been fucked since the day you agreed to help me?” Sal met his gaze but didn’t respond. “I guess I knew I was,” Jerry said. He seemed suddenly resigned. Of course he knew who Bennie Savone was all this time. And that’s really what this was about. Who represented who. And Rabbi David Cohen represented Bennie Savone. “If you help me, am I going to get out of this alive?”
“For a time. Time comes, time comes.”
“How long, do you wager?”
“We do this right,” Sal said, “I can get you two weeks.”
Jerry shivered. “Can I talk to my rabbi during this minute?”
“Yes,” David said.
“What does the Talmud say about this?”
“Everything dies,” Rabbi David Cohen said. “That’s a fact. But everything that dies one day comes back.”
Jerry actually chuckled. “You dumb shit,” Jerry said, “I’m from Jersey. You’re singing the national anthem.” There was a flicker of amusement in his voice. “It was always bullshit, wasn’t it, because no one knows anything anymore, do they?”
“If it ever helped you, it wasn’t bullshit,” Rabbi David Cohen said.
“Turns out, it never did.” He yanked off his booties, tossed them in the trash. “Like Moses said, it’s a suicide rap; get out while you’re young.” Jerry Ford could have run then, got into his car and driven off into the night, but instead he turned heel and went about gathering up everything Sal needed to blow up a building.
FORTY MINUTES LATER, SAL AND JERRY WERE SEATED IN A BOOTH AT THE Marie Callender’s just down the block. Sal only realized after they sat down that they were across the parking lot from the Tony Roma’s where The Outfit fire bombed Lefty Rosenthal’s Eldorado, only to have him inexplicably survive. The Outfit always was dogshit with explosives, even back in the day. If you’re gonna blow something up, it’s egregious to miss your target, which is why Sal and Jerry were here in the first place. Make sure what was done was done.
“Give me a phone,” Sal said. They’d stopped at the Chevron across the street and bought two burners. Jerry slid one across the table. Sal dialed 911, watched out the window. From his vantage point, he could see the exit and entrance into the Commercial Center perfectly, along with the intersection of Sahara and Maryland Parkway, a major artery for the city.
The operator picked up on the third ring, asked his emergency. He shoved his pinky into his mouth, bit down on it, then said, “I’m on the corner of Rainbow and Charleston and I just saw a motorist shoot a cop that had pulled him over,” Sal said, his voice calm, measured. Not loud. The only way you can speak when you’re biting down on your pinky. “Yeah, a blue Honda Accord, California plate, all I made out was the last three numbers, 812. Yes, ma’am, the cop is down. Rainbow and Charleston, east side of the street. You better get an ambulance quick. I can’t stay,” Sal said, “I’m late for my shift, but you need me, my number is . . .” and then he turned the power off, pried the phone apart with his butter knife, yanked out the SIM card, and crushed it with the ketchup bottle.
Rainbow and Charleston was about ten miles from where they were sitting. Way Sal figured it, every cop in the city would be flooding that direction in about two minutes. Including every single one inside The Ponderosa. There’s an officer-down alert, every motherfucker with a badge gets on the scene. That it wasn’t the same for every dead body was how Sal had managed to work in the shadows for so long.
“This going to work?” Jerry said.
“We’ll see,” Sal said. He waved over a waitress. “How’s your New York Strip?”
“Better than you’d think,” she said.
“Great,” Sal said. “Bring me one of those. Medium rare. And some blueberry pancakes. You want something, Doctor?”
Jerry shook his head.
“He’ll have ham and eggs, scrambled together. Four pieces of link sausage. And a short stack,” Sal said.
When the waitress left, Jerry said, “How can you eat?”
