“Who is ‘they’ in this situation?”
“Me. Or someone like me.”
“I want to show you something.” She opened up her purse, and in what was supposed to be a smooth move she yanked out her Lorcin .380, put it right up against David’s forehead . . . except that in the process, she fumbled out her compact and her cell phone clattered onto the pavement and she caught the hammer on the zipper. But she didn’t notice any of that. Rachel Savone’s awareness was not, it turned out, as good as a hit man’s. “Don’t fucking threaten me, okay? I will kill you and people will cheer on the streets of Chicago. I know who the fuck you are. I know about all the men you’ve killed.” She stopped. “Why are you smiling?”
“Rachel,” Sal Cupertine said, “look down.” Sal already had his knife pressed into her side. She was already bleeding. He’d sliced right through her blouse and punctured her flesh, directly below her left rib cage, blood running down her leg, dripping onto her shoes.
“Oh Jesus. Why don’t I feel that?” she said.
“Adrenaline,” Sal said. “Now, move that gun or I’m going to carve out your kidney and serve it to your father with eggs in the morning.” Rachel didn’t move, not because she didn’t want to, but because she was transfixed on the pool of her own blood.
“Am I going to die?”
Sal snatched her wrist with his left hand and took the gun from her, let her see him there: a gun in one hand, a knife in the other, no fucks to give. “You wanted to know Sal Cupertine, here he is.”
“It wasn’t even loaded,” Rachel said.
“I know,” Sal said. “Also, the safety was on.”
“You stabbed me.”
“No,” Sal said. “I cut you. You’re not gonna die. You might need a Band-Aid.”
Rachel unlocked her convertible Mercedes, sat down in the driver’s seat. “I’ve never seen this much blood.”
“Get my handkerchief out of your purse, apply pressure to the wound. The bleeding will stop.”
She did as she was told. “It wasn’t even loaded,” she said again.
“Get a real gun if you’re going to start pointing it at people. I still can’t believe Bennie bought you a .380.” He handed it back to her. “And then load it. Next person you point an empty gun at is liable to beat you to death with it.”
“I bought it for myself, asshole,” Rachel said. “And I was worried my daughter would find it and blow her brains out, so I took the magazine out.” She put it back into her purse. “Jesus. Do you hear me?” And then she was sobbing again.
Fuck. How had it happened that for the first thirty-odd years of his life he’d managed to avoid crying women, but now, four years into being a fake rabbi, all he ever did was comfort crying women? He got in the passenger side of the Mercedes.
“Listen to me,” David said. “I have a plan. It’s coming together. But it doesn’t include you leaving with me. Your father needs you. Temple Beth Israel needs you. But I can help you. You have to trust me.”
“Why would I ever trust you?” Rachel said. She reached into her backseat, found her gym bag, David watching her in case there was a shotgun inside of it, but instead came out with a pink Juicy zip-up hoodie. She unbuttoned her blouse, balled it up and tossed it on the floor, put on the hoodie. Sat there, panting. “Jesus. I can’t even breathe.”
“Also adrenaline,” David said.
“Have you apologized to me?”
“I’m not sorry,” David said.
“Want to hear something funny? Just to put a cap on this whole fucking surrealist nightmare?”
“Sure,” David said.
“I don’t look anything like my mother. For years, I thought maybe they’d adopted me. But what I really don’t understand is why he thinks you’re Terry. You don’t even look like the man you actually were.” She reached past David, opened his door. “Get out, please. I don’t like having you this close to me.” David did as he was asked.
“Rachel, you’re in shock.”
“From the blood loss?”
“No,” David said, “because part of you knows you should be dead.”
She started the engine. “We leave on Thursday. Bennie doesn’t want the kids there, but if he doesn’t make it through surgery, I’d feel sick if they were at home alone.”
“The surgery won’t kill him. That’s not what happens.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “I’m bringing them because I want them with me, okay?”
“Okay,” David said. “Whatever choice you make, it’s the right choice.”
“You need to promise me something,” she said.
“You want someone you don’t trust to promise you something,” David said.
“Let me talk to the other guy. The one who stabbed me.”
“He’s right here,” Sal said.
“Kill my father before I get back,” she said. “Don’t let him suffer like this.”
“He’s so far gone,” Sal said, “anything he says will be viewed as gibberish. You and Bennie have nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t care about that,” Rachel said. “All of us deserve the dignity of not withering to absolute shit before we die. I’ve said goodbye to him a hundred times, and each time, he is further and further away from me. When I see him now, he’s a speck in the distance. Barely familiar. Don’t let me come back and find him swept away. I couldn’t take it.” She put her hand out. “Please, take my hand.” He did. “He got lost in his apartment this evening. He couldn’t get out of his own walk-in closet. The horror on his face, it was incalculable. Every day, every single day, he gets closer to oblivion. You wouldn’t let a dog suffer the way he’s about to suffer. Promise me you will do this.”
