Bennie laughed. “Try spending a year there on house arrest.” He pointed at the cameras perched on the block-wall fence surrounding the property. “Noticed you unplugged those.”
“I like to swim nude,” David said. He also didn’t want Bennie to know when he was going for his walkabouts. He’d unplugged other cameras in the house over the years, a few mics. Bennie claimed to have a safe house where all the video was being kept, but the longer David worked with him, the more this seemed improbable. Bennie Savone operated just like everything else in Las Vegas: the perception of danger was just enough to keep most people in line.
“You’re an odd man, Rabbi,” Bennie said. He cleared his throat. Or tried to. “I need to go out of town for a while.”
“Where to?”
“Rochester, but in Minnesota,” Bennie said. “You ever been?”
“No,” David said.
Bennie said, “Me either,” and took another drag of the cigar. Again, didn’t inhale.
“What’s out there?”
“Mayo Clinic,” Bennie said. When David didn’t respond, he said, “My cancer’s back.”
David pointed at the scar across Bennie throat. “I thought they took your thyroid out?”
“They did,” Bennie said. “It’s metastasized to my throat, my lymph nodes, there’s a spot on my prostate. I’ve been shitting blood for a month.” He took another sip of orange juice. “This place, it’s supposed to be the best in the country for this sort of thing. So I’m learning to become a person who takes vitamin C.”
“It’s good for your immunity,” David said.
“Once it’s in your fucking lymph nodes,” Bennie said.
David waited for Bennie to continue, but he didn’t.
“When do you leave?”
“Doctors wanted me there yesterday,” Bennie said, “but we gotta get housing set up, all that shit. I’m gonna fly out tomorrow night. Bring a couple guys with me. Clinic has housing, but that won’t work long term. So I need to find somewhere to set up shop. Rachel will be there for the surgery this coming Friday and then she’ll come back and forth, I guess.”
“What about the kids?”
“The tsuris this is causing me with the kids is out of this fucking universe,” Bennie said. “We can’t just pick up and move to fucking Minnesota. Summer break, Rachel will bring the girls out for a couple weeks. Once we know everything is in order. But Jean is so fragile right now. They’re here until the foreseeable future.”
“Kids don’t need that stress,” David said.
“I’m trying to live a more honest life, Rabbi,” Bennie said, “but the girls don’t need to see me shitting in a bag. My pops? When he went? I was sitting with him when he died, and let me tell you, part of me is still sitting in that room. I want to avoid that.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“They got me set up for a minimum of three months of chemo, then radiation, then I guess if that doesn’t work, they send me to the Space Station. Let me live in zero gravity.” He shook his head. “You’re gonna need to take care of some things for me.”
David started making a mental list:
1. He’d want Rabbi Kales dead.
2. He’d want Jerry Ford dead.
3. He’d probably want one more local rabbi dead, to ensure a membership bump in 2003.
“First thing,” Bennie said, “my girls, they need to be protected. These fucking Russians? You see the shit they did this week? Motherfuckers can scream Al-Qaeda all day, but Boris Dmitrov owns that whole corner of Sahara. Whoever did this did it to send him a message. Some motherfucker sees an opportunity to come in here and become somebody by taking out my wife and kids? Someone with a beef from the Old Country that Rabbi Kales boned out in 1909 with their kugel recipe? That’s not happening. Rachel’s cousin, he’s been living in the house. But when they’re at school, I need to know you’re willing to jump into the fray. You’re the only person I trust on this shit. Comes down to it, no rental cop is taking a bullet for Bennie Savone’s kid, you got it?”
“Of course.”
“Rachel can handle herself, a little bit, but someone steps to her, I expect you to put them on their back. Second. I want you to run a clean shop. I need to get this assisted living facility off the ground. That can be a real earner for us. Once we get the building up, get everyone licensed and certified, get it approved by the fucking state, we’re looking at two years, and that’s if everything goes A-plus all the way through. You hear what I’m saying?”
He did, but he couldn’t believe it. “Nothing crooked? You gonna turn the strip club into a monastery?”
“You let me worry about the Wildhorse. Everything else, nothing with a fucking dent in it. The Temple and the mortuary need to be clean. This is fucking important. Because I’m on the funeral home’s insurance. I lose my fucking Blue Cross because of some shit, that’s it, okay? That’s fucking it. I’ve already told Ruben; he’s 100 percent on board. He voiced some concerns about your ability to take the same order.”
“Ruben thinks he knows me,” David said. “He doesn’t know anyone like me.”
Bennie watched David for a few seconds, a smile working its way across his face. “No,” Bennie said, eventually, “he does not.” He put his sunglasses on, leaned back in the chaise lounge. “How long you been here now?”
“Four years.”
“Tell me something,” Bennie said. “How many times did you wish me dead?”
“You or the idea of you?”
“Let’s go with the idea,” Bennie said.
“Every day since the doors to that meat truck opened and you were standing there with Slim Joe.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“Wasn’t personal. I would have felt that way about anyone.”
