It was a nice day for a run.
If a fellow has to run, Mullaney thought, he certainly couldn’t wish for a nicer day than this one. He could remember fishing for blue crabs one night off a Fire Island dock, Irene luring the crabs in with a flashlight and he scooping them up into a net before it began raining. They had run that night because the rain was suddenly upon them in torrents and they were positive they could be drowned just standing still on the dock. The house they had rented for the month of August was at the far end of the boardwalk, adjacent to Saltaire, and they were both barefoot and afraid they would pick up wood splinters, neither of them dressed for the sudden summer storm, there had been stars and a moon in the sky when they’d begun their solitary crabbing. But they ran nonetheless into the pelting rain and were drenched within minutes. And then, suddenly, there was no point in running any longer, they were both as wet as they ever would be. So they said the hell with it, and joined hands and idly ambled up the boardwalk, laughing and singing, and waking at least two irate neighbors who shouted for quiet, thereby waking at least two more. They were wet to the marrow when they finally reached the house, shivering on the front porch while Mullaney tried to extricate the key from the sodden pocket of his dungaree trousers. They each drank a shot of medicinal brandy, and Mullaney lighted a fire in the old fireplace, filling the house with smoke that sent them out laughing into the rain again.
He could remember that nights running with great pleasure, and he wondered now whether they hadn’t done the very sensible thing, whether it wasn’t advisable to stop running when you really had nothing further to lose, and realized that what he had to lose right now was his life, and tried again to understand what was so terribly important about that jacket lying in the stacks of the New York Public Library, and couldn’t. He knew he should hurry back there to pick it up before someone found it, but he also knew he could not go there with K and Purcell in hot pursuit. So he kept running east, away from the library, coming out into Chinatown, and then continuing eastward and northward until he hit Houston Street, and then running past the pushcarts and the dry-goods stores and the catering places and the delicatessens, and looking behind him to sec that K and Purcell were still with him, closer than they were before. He was convinced that they would get him now. For the first time since last night in McReady’s cottage, when he thought he was looking at K’s ghost, he knew fear — fear that this would be the end of everything, the end of all hope, he would not escape them, he would be unable to circle uptown to the library to claim the jacket and unlock its secret, he would never place his monstrous bet on Jawbone or flee to Rio or Jakarta where dusky sloe-eyed maidens would drop grapes into his mouth — all at once the man with the beard stepped into his path.
The man had black beetling brows and burning black eyes. His beard was wild and unkempt, black too, he was dressed entirely in black except for a white handkerchief knotted cowboy-fashion around his neck, black coat, black hat, black shoes, black socks, Mullaney’s fear rocketed into his skull. Behind him he could hear K and Purcell rounding the comer, It’s an international ring, he thought, there’s no escape, there’s no goddamn escape, they’ve got me surrounded.
The man clutched Mullaney’s arm and leaned closer.
He’ll kill me, Mullaney thought. He’ll kill me on the spot and take my head to K.
“Are you Jewish?” the man asked.
“Yes!” Mullaney shouted, hoping he would pass.
“Good,” the man said. “We need you for a minyen.”
9. Solomon
He heard footsteps clattering on the sidewalk outside as the synagogue door whispered shut behind him.
“This way!” K’s voice shouted.
“Where is he?” Purcell shouted. “Where did he go?”
“This way! This way!”
He leaned against the closed door with his eyes shut, breathing hard, listening as the footsteps faded, echoing on the street, “Where did he go?” Purcell shouted again.
Mullaney opened his eyes.
The bearded man was studying him closely.
“The goyim?” he asked, and because he sensed that goyim meant enemy, and since K and Purcell were most certainly that, Mullaney nodded, and sucked in a deep breath. Both men were silent, listening. The voices outside were indistinct now, distant. K shouted something, but the words were unintelligible. They kept listening. At last, the street outside was silent. The bearded man smiled, his grin cracking into his black beard, as white as the handkerchief knotted around his neck. He beckoned to Mullaney, and Mullaney followed him down the long flight of steps just inside the entrance door.
He had been in a synagogue only once before in his life, and that had been for Feinstein’s funeral services, a very classy synagogue befitting his station in life. The underground temple in which he found himself now was small and dim, with two high windows at street level, and another two opening on what appeared to be the brick wall of the tenement next door. Three dozen or more folding wooden chairs faced what he assumed to be the altar, a carved wooden stand upon which rested a candelabra holding six lighted candles. Behind the altar was what Mullaney first thought was a picture, and then realized was another small window, stained glass, set very high up on the wall, also at street level. He could not tell what the window depicted; it seemed to be only an interesting design of blues and greens behind which were darker blues and blacks pierced by a yellow pane of glass that descended vertically from the top of the window. To the right of the window, and almost on the same level, a candle — or at least a flame — flickered in a small metal cage that hung from the ceiling on a brass chain. A pair of red velvet curtains were on the wall below and behind the hanging cage, and a rack on the adjoining wall was draped with what appeared to be fringed silk scarves.
“I’m Goldman,” the man with the beard said abruptly and handed a black skullcap to Mullaney, who held it on his open hands and looked up into Goldman’s face.
“And your name?” Goldman said.
“Mullaney,” he said.
“Come, Melinsky, you’ll meet the others.”
“Mullaney,” he corrected.
“Come, take a tallis, we’ve been waiting here all morning. To get a minyen in this neighborhood, you have to have a big shining temple. Come, Melinsky, come.”
“Mr. Goldman...”
“This is Melinsky,” Goldman said to the other men in the room. “Solomon, get him a Siddur, let’s begin here.”
The other men — there seemed to be six or seven, or perhaps more — were rather old, some of them bearded, some of them bald, most of them wrinkled. They were standing before the rack of silk scarves, all of which were identical, white and striped with the palest blue, fringed with long white knotted tassels. As Mullaney watched, the men began taking scarves from the long wooden rack bar, and draping them over their shoulders. He suddenly knew that they were prayer shawls, not scarves, and further knew he could not go on with this hoax.
“Mr. Goldman...” he started, but Goldman turned away from him and began walking toward the front of the temple.
“You have to yell at him,” a voice at his elbow said. “He’s a little deaf.”
Mullaney turned at the sound of the voice, and then looked down to find a short old man wearing a white skullcap perched on the back of his bald head. The man was smiling, his mouth was smiling, his eyes were smiling behind thick-lensed rimless spectacles. He had a tiny mustache that echoed the white of the prayer shawl draped over his shoulders. His suit was brown, and he wore a brown tie and a yellow sweater under his jacket. He extended his hand.