“Yes,” Faith said.
“All those other separations, he’d always come back. But not this time.”
“And she just lost it,” Micki said.
“The ultimate scorned woman.”
We sat in one of the small Coyne Cose interview rooms. The Melvindale detectives had questioned us, then asked that we sit tight. I needed a smoke; I needed to be on my feet; I needed out of here. Micki sat to my right, Faith to my left. The widow in white was anything but elated. She seemed in fact more numb than ever. She now had to get her mind around a new and much uglier reality. And J. J. was still dead.
“Thing is,” Micki said, “Joy’d gotten away with it. It was so obviously an industrial accident, the police had never investigated. But she still needed to strike at you,” she said to Faith. “And when she heard about our lawsuit, she saw her chance.”
“And overreached,” I added.
“So cruel,” Faith said softly.
We sat in silence for a bit. Then Micki touched my arm. “You did good, Ben. Putting it all together.”
“Thanks, coach.”
“You can be a whirlwind in a thorn tree. But you get the job done.”
I suppose. But, as always, I had help. Art Drinkard, Ike Watt, Del Laing. I thought back to Jugg’s Astro Lanes and my chat with Del early on. The big, squishy, hapless lug never seemed all that swift to me. But he was living proof that everyone is an expert at something. What Del Laing was expert at was women like Joy Monrho.
“At least,” I remarked, “I got through one without being knifed or shot or run off the road or knocking over furniture. That’s something.”
The door opened and Spikes came in. Up close he was, if anything, skinnier, in his black suit with blank pinstriping that mirrored the vertical black spikes of his hair. He looked grim. “The cops said you all can go.”
“Thanks, Gerald,” Micki said as we stood.
“I just need to get something out,” Gerald said, glaring at Micki.
“Okay.”
“Why didn’t you come to us? Give us a head’s up?”
Micki shrugged. “No time.”
“That’s not true. You had all weekend. You blindsided us. It’s unprofessional.”
Micki fixed him with a stare. “We wanted Joy on the record, with sworn testimony. To make sure that if she got nailed, she stayed nailed. We couldn’t run the risk of tipping our mitt.”
“We’d have worked with you. After all, what you did helped our client.”
Micki waved a dismissive hand. “You I can deal with, Gerald. But I couldn’t count on that idiot you work for not to screw it all up.” Gerald did not react. “And besides,” Micki added, with a glance at Faith, “after all the grief that woman caused my client, Faith deserved this moment today.”
Gerald was nodding but clearly not buying it. “You’d just better file a motion to dismiss, Micki, forthwith. After all, your case against Stone Automotive is moot. And if you think we’ll agree to even a nuisance payout, you’re dreaming.” He spun and stalked out.
We trailed him up the hall toward the elevators. “Oh no,” I murmured. “Does this mean we don’t get paid?”
“Everybody gets paid,” Faith said. “I have the insurance.”
“But no big payout from Stone,” Micki said.
“That’s okay,” Faith said as we reached the elevators. “What you two got for me is better than any amount of money.”
Now I believed her.
Politics and Poker
by Sarah Weinman
The first time I attended Saturday morning services at Beth Jacob, a man was killed during his own wedding.
The second time proved to be less dramatic, but not by much.
“Oh dear God, he’s going to give a speech after all,” Sam Levin muttered loudly enough for everyone around him to hear.
“You mean he’s not supposed to?” I whispered back, leaning forward so Sam could hear me better.
“No, it’s now a tradition for the rabbi to say something at bar and bat mitzvahs. The trouble is the speeches they give are so long that people forget who it was they actually came to hear.”
Sam had every right to be annoyed. It was his granddaughter being bat mitzvahed, and so it was supposed to be her special day. And she’d given a pretty good speech too. Others would tell me later that Shira’s speech was one of the better ones they’d heard out of the mouths of twelve year olds. But because I didn’t understand what she was talking about — something about the laws of purity — all this was lost on me.
Not on Sam, though; he’d beamed throughout the speech, proud of his granddaughter’s oratory skills in front of the sprawling crowd of four hundred or so. But the smile had become a scowl, and that didn’t bode well. When Sam was in a bad mood, it was a good idea to be as far away from him as possible.
Considering I worked for him at Pern’s five days a week, that didn’t usually happen.
“Is there any way to walk out of here?” I asked, only half kidding.
I got the answer I deserved: a glare.
Sam had insisted I be seated as close to him as possible. Originally, he wanted me to sit next to him, but his children had been adamant that the front row was reserved strictly for immediate family members. Sam and I had grown closer over the years, but I wasn’t blood and never would be. So as a consolation, I sat directly behind him.
I’d have been happy to sit anywhere, but I didn’t want to disappoint the older man. So I braved his family’s curious stares and overly loud whispers as to what I was doing there, and now I had a ringside seat to what looked to be a very good show, if Sam’s mutinous expression was anything to judge by.
I leaned back in the uncomfortable seat and waited for the rabbi to begin.
“A fine speech, young lady,” he boomed from the pulpit. “But I’d like to take a little time to elaborate on some of the finer points of the parsha just to make things a little clearer.” The girl smiled up at the rabbi in some approximation of respect, but she looked like she’d rather be somewhere else.
Sam filled me in on the synagogue’s newest hire about a week before the bat mitzvah. Rabbi Kranzman was supposed to signal the shul’s willingness to update to the twentieth century, hiring someone who was actually under the age of seventy. In fact, Kranzman was all of twenty-nine, fresh out of rabbinical school and full of verve and ideas.
The problem, as Sam explained, was that the rabbi had a tendency to alienate everyone around him. He’d tell the big shots and longtime donors that they really should try to walk to synagogue instead of drive, or criticize the mechitzah for being too low, actually allowing the men to see their wives and children across the room. But Kranzman reserved most of his ire for two people in particular: Jack Reichstein, the synagogue’s long-standing president, and Meyer Cohen, the cantor. Most people figured the latter feud had to do with money and status, while the former had to do with religious leanings.
Then there was Kranzman’s ego, on display every week if you chose to attend Sabbath services. He’d get up and start on the current Torah portion, but by the end, the topic had somehow drifted to the life and times of Menachem Kranzman.
“So why haven’t they fired him?” I once asked Sam one afternoon during a lull period at the store.
Sam shrugged. “Nobody can figure it out. How a young man can make so many enemies in such a short period is quite a talent.”
I understood that all too well, but when I tried to say this, Sam stopped me. “You’re different, Danny. You made a concerted effort to change yourself. Rabbi Kranzman has no intentions whatsoever of damping down his ego.”