IT WAS AFTER SEVEN BY THE TIME RABBI DAVID COHEN FINALLY MADE IT TO The Willows, the assisted living and memory-care facility where Rabbi Cy Kales was living out what would be the last days of his life, whether David killed him or not. It was located on Rampart, just past West Lake Mead, and directly across the street from Desert Shores, a gated community built around a man-made lake.
“Just drop me off in front,” David told Avi. “I’ll get a cab home.”
“You sure?” Avi asked.
“I’m sure,” David said.
“Mr. Savone,” Avi said, then corrected himself, “Cousin Bennie, he always makes me wait. I don’t mind.”
“The Talmud says waiting for family is easier than waiting for a stranger,” David said and got out. He opened up the back door, grabbed the bags of food he’d picked up at the Bagel Café.
“It does?” Avi asked.
It didn’t, not as far as David knew. “Look it up.”
RABBI KALES’S APARTMENT WAS ON THE SECOND OF FOUR FLOORS, AT THE end of a long hallway that smelled like cooking onions and Chanel No. 5. There were a dozen apartments on the floor—most doors were adorned with mezuzahs; like everywhere else, the Jews liked to congregate together—as well as a library filled with books, board games, and DVDs, the back wall devoted to a flat-screen TV, plus a bar serving white zinfandel and chardonnay in plastic cups, ice optional. This evening, six people sat on an L-shaped leather sofa watching a Tom Cruise movie. David and Jennifer had caught the flick at a theater by Navy Pier and walked down toward the water after, despite it being the middle of December, barely 20 degrees outside. They’d had a sitter for the evening; they were going to take advantage of it.
“The only thing I didn’t find realistic,” Jennifer said, her head buried in his arm, “was his epiphany. You don’t change like that overnight. He was a scumbag and then he wasn’t because of one bad deal? You ever had a day at the office that changed you completely in, like, fifteen minutes?”
Sal stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk. “What?” Jennifer asked. They were a few feet apart, their frozen breath meeting in the distance between them.
“I could change,” Sal said.
“But here we are, Sal,” Jennifer said.
“You want me to quit? I’m out tomorrow.”
“And then you’re dead, what, day after tomorrow?”
“They could try.”
“They would try,” Jennifer said. “They wouldn’t stop. Ever.” She took out a Kleenex. Blew her nose. “I’m freezing, baby. We don’t need to have this conversation right now.”
“Our house is probably bugged,” Sal said. “This is the best place to have this conversation.”
“I don’t want to have it,” Jennifer said. “I just want to have a date night with my husband and not worry about anything real. Can’t we do that for one night?” She stepped into his arms. In his memory, they stood like that for a long time, holding on to each other as the wind whipped around them, Lake Michigan lost in blackness. The truth is the moment was probably fleeting: they held each other, he kissed the top of her head, apologized for whatever he could apologize for, and then went to find their car. They’d had that moment before and they’d have that moment again, when Jennifer’s fears and doubts showed up and Sal would lie to her.
She spoke the truth. He could never leave. Even now, thousands of miles away, in an entirely different life, he was still so deep in the game that it seemed impossible there’d ever be a final score.
RACHEL SAVONE OPENED THE DOOR AFTER DAVID KNOCKED THREE TIMES AND then called Rabbi Kales’s phone. “Sorry,” she said. Her hair was tangled up and she had folds in her face from sleeping on something patterned. “I fell asleep watching TV.”
“It’s fine,” David said. “I brought more than enough food.” He opened the bags, showed her the Styrofoam containers of corned beef sandwiches, soup, and bagel chips.
“Looks good,” she said. David set the food down on the small kitchen table inside the apartment. “Is it poisoned?” she asked.
He opened each of the containers, popped a piece of meat from each sandwich into his mouth, and smiled.
Rachel said, “Tell me something. You killed Rabbi Siegel, didn’t you?”
“How would I kill a man who died of pneumonia?” David asked. He had, in fact, poisoned him. Wasn’t trying to kill him. He just needed the man to agree that all the synagogues in town should pool their money and get better security. He wasn’t sorry for that.
“The last place he visited was our Temple,” Rachel said, “for your sewing circle of Rabbis. One day he’s well, and by the end of the month, he’s buried in our cemetery.”
“Well,” David said, “first, he was eighty. Second, he should have built his own cemetery. Third, he will return, and he will be perfect. So don’t stress too much, Rachel. It’s all been foretold.”
Before Rachel could respond, Rabbi Kales walked into the kitchen. David expected him to look as he always looked—dressed either in a suit or slacks and a pressed shirt, his gold Rolex on his wrist, reading glasses in a leather case somewhere nearby—but he wore a cream-colored robe, done up tightly at his waist, over pajamas, perfect hair mussed up a bit, like maybe he, too, had fallen asleep.
“Terry,” he said, sitting down at the table, “you didn’t need to come all this way.”
David met Rachel’s eyes. She put up her finger, exhaled.
“Poppa,” Rachel said, carefully, “that’s not your nephew. That’s Rabbi Cohen.”
“Oh,” Rabbi Kales said. He squinted up at David, then took his hand in his, patted it, let it go. “Rachel, sweetheart, get me my glasses.”
When Rachel left, David said, quietly, “Laying it on pretty thick these days.”
Rabbi Kales shook his head. “I don’t understand what you are saying, Terry.” He opened up the boxes. “What is this?”
“Corned beef,” David said.
Rabbi Kales stuck his pinky into the sandwich, lifted the bread up. “Would it kill them to put some mayonnaise on it?”
“That’s not kosher, Rabbi,” David said.
“If I was going to die from not keeping kosher,” Rabbi Kales said, “I’d already be dead.” He went to his fridge, took out a jar of mayonnaise, then slopped a gob of it onto his sandwich. He looked pleased.
“That’s how I like it, too,” David said.
