“All due respect, Rabbi? I’m not like you. I can barely tie my shoes without Stephanie.” David looked down. Motherfucker was wearing slip-ons. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life either in jail or waiting to get killed. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Yes.”
An ambulance pulled into the parking lot behind the Palm Tiki.
“This normal?” David sank down in his seat.
“Every day about this time,” Jerry said. “Maids start making their rounds. If they find a body, first call is the EMTs.” Two men stepped out of the ambulance, both in their thirties, shuffled into the Palm Tiki, moving at a pace usually reserved for those walking to an electric chair. “LifeCore gets a lot of clients from this block. We’ve made a lot of money from these people.”
“You did,” David said.
“You just made a million dollars, if I remember correctly.”
A police cruiser came slowly down the street. David pulled out his gun. Put it on his lap. But the cruiser kept going. It probably wasn’t unusual for a hearse to be at the Palm Tiki, as normal as an ambulance, anyway.
“I need to get off the streets,” David said.
Seconds later, another cop car came down the block, but this one pulled into the parking lot behind the Palm Tiki, no sirens, but with a K-9 in the back. David had never killed a dog before. A cop no older than twenty-five got out of the cruiser, looked right at David, right at Jerry, said, “Doing a pickup?”
“Down the way,” David said, “just waiting on the call.”
Cop nodded. “Sundays are always terrible in this city. Makes me want to move somewhere safe, like New York.” He laughed. David laughed. Jerry laughed. “Have a good one, gentlemen,” he said then disappeared into the hotel.
“Get in the fucking car,” David said.
THEY DROVE A FEW BLOCKS AWAY, TO THE PARKING LOT FOR A NEW CITY park under construction. It was to boast two full artificial-turf soccer fields, a water feature, pickleball courts, whatever the fuck that was, basketball hoops, barbecue areas, a lactation station, and shaded study areas. But at ten thirty on Sunday morning, it was just concrete, mounds of dirt, about an acre of grass, and a series of 1950s-era one-story buildings that at some point had been set on fire, but not recently. There were six rotting buildings in total. The construction site was surrounded by a chain-link fence riddled with huge holes, likely cut by the homeless or anyone interested in stealing copper wiring from the massive stadium lights being installed.
For fifteen minutes, David and Jerry sat in the hearse listening to the all-news station. They kept repeating, every five minutes, that the FBI was raiding half of Summerlin, looking for a mass murderer. It was, frankly, a categorization that David did not appreciate. He wasn’t fucking Pol Pot. He killed criminals, 99.9 percent of the time. An argument could be made that he’d made the world a better place.
David said, “How much did the TV news say about me?”
“Your real name, like I said,” Jerry said. “Showed your photo, from when you were a kid, I guess. You still had baby fat in your cheeks. Said you were armed and dangerous. Said the public should not approach you. Said you were wanted for at least four murders, suspected of hundreds. Said your wife and kid were reported missing . . .”
“Wait,” David said. “What was that last part? About my wife.”
“I don’t know. They were looking for your wife and kid, too, threw up photos of them. At that point, I was already feeling kinda like I was at the bottom of a well.”
But then, a new update, from the perky host of the local news show, whose name was never mentioned: “Now Charles, this is crazy, we’re hearing from sources in the Jewish community that the mass murderer they’re looking for—this Sal Cupertine—has been living in this region for years, embedded in the Jewish community as a rabbi!”
“No!” said Charles, whoever the fuck that was.
“We’re going to be joined by Harvey B. Curran from the Review-Journal at eleven with the full story. This is a bizarre one. Apparently, he and the rabbi are very close friends.”
“Only in Las Vegas!” said Charles.
“We’re quickly becoming Florida,” said the perky one, who then cut to a commercial.
David said, “I need some air.”
“HARD TO IMAGINE THIS AS A PARK,” JERRY SAID. THEY DUCKED THROUGH A hole in the fencing and were walking through the grounds, toward the burned-out buildings, David feeling like he should enjoy some freedom while he still had it. “This was a VA clinic for years. During the Gulf War, someone threw a Molotov cocktail through a window. Place went up like tinder. Been sitting here ever since.” He pointed in the distance, to a gleaming four-story white building that loomed over the neighborhood, blocking out the view of the mountains that encircled the city. “That was built a few years later. Guess they knew they’d have more veterans.” They approached one of the buildings and Jerry peered inside. “Stephanie’s father used to volunteer here. World War II vet, one of those tough-ass Jews you read about. Growing up, I thought all Jews were pussies.”
“You’re not Jewish, are you, Jerry?”
“You learned my secret,” he said. “But that’s not because I don’t believe in the Torah or dislike a good kugel. It’s because I don’t believe in anything.” He tried a door. It opened, revealing an old closet that mostly smelled like piss. “I didn’t know you were Sal Cupertine until about an hour ago.”
David did not like hearing Jerry say his name. He didn’t like the ease with which it rolled from his tongue, like he wasn’t scared.
“No one did.”
“Not true,” Jerry said. “Ronnie knew. For decades.” He closed the closet door. Leaned against it. “Which means you’re not Jewish, either.”
David stared at Jerry for a few seconds, tried to figure out if he was having some kind of stroke, if both of them were having some kind of stroke.
“You fucking wired?” David said.
“If I were,” Jerry said, “we’d already be in prison.”
He had a point. But still. “Take off your fucking shirt,” David said.
Jerry said, “Rabbi, why don’t you first look to see if my cell phone is on. Wouldn’t that be easier? Who needs to be wired anymore?”
“I’m old-school,” David said, “show me both.”
Jerry unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt, did a little twirl, then handed David his phone. “Satisfied?”
He wasn’t, not in a general way, but as it related to this issue, yeah, he was fine.
“What the fuck are you telling me?”
