"We'll want to put something on that. I'd ask for a raw steak, but I'm pretty sure they don't have real steak here. Hey, maybe I could ask for a McRib, but the barbecue sauce would stick to your face."
The boy didn't smile. "All the food here is crummy. I wouldn't want to eat it even if it were kosher."
"It's good food-you don't know what you're missing. Other kids love it, would eat it every day if they could."
Isaac just shook his head, his lips pressed together as if someone might try to sneak in an outlaw french fry. Zeke was actually worried about how little the kid ate, holding out as much as possible. Today he had agreed to drink a strawberry milk shake, on the grounds that it wasn't made from real milk, then asked for the money for a salad. He loaded up on salad bars when they went to places like Ruby Tuesday, sometimes asking the waitress for a Styrofoam to-go box and plastic utensils. He was rigid, a little chip off the old-before-his-time block. But there was something defiant in his behavior, too, a thumb-in-the-eye slyness that drove Zeke mad.
"I know about keeping kosher, but it's bullshit, my man, just old superstitions that don't make any sense. You think God cares what kind of plates you eat from or whether you have a lobster now and men? Why would God make something as delicious as lobster if he didn't mean for man to eat it? Think about it."
"It didn't look good, when we went to that Red Lobster place. The twins left it on their plates. They said it tasted like butter-flavored rubber."
Zeke decided to try a different tack. "You miss your dad, don't you, partner?"
The boy nodded miserably.
"Look, I know what it's like to miss someone, buddy, but you have to understand. This is for the best. Your dad was good to you, but he wasn't good to your mom. Your mom was very, very unhappy, living like she did. And your dad knew it, but he didn't want to do anything about it. So she had to leave."
"She could have left me with Dad. I wasn't unhappy."
"Is that what you wanted, a life without your mother?"
The question was cruel, almost worse than a smack, asking a child to choose between two parents. Zeke could see that Isaac was floored by the impossibility. Like every kid since time began, he wanted his mother and his father. Yeah, well, four out of five dentists pick Trident, and one out of two marriages folds. Get used to it, kid. One parent is better than nothing. Zeke had two, then he had one, then none. It was all survivable.
"Was my mom really unhappy?" the boy asked. "I never saw her cry."
"She didn't want you to know, but yeah, she was really unhappy."
"But my dad was happy, and I was happy, and the twins were happy."
"I suppose so. You thought you were, which is as good as. But now that you know how unhappy your mom was, maybe it was all an illusion."
Isaac shook his head, defiant now. "No, I was definitely happy. So you're saying that for my mom to be happy, it's okay to make us all unhappy-me and my dad and the twins."
"The twins are like puppies, my man. They're fine as long as they're warm and their bellies are full."
"Still," Isaac said, "two against one, me and my dad."
"What?"
"Majority rule. If we were happy, she should have tried to be happy."
Oh, man, the apple really don't fall far from the tree. Another little selfish shit, courtesy of Orthodox Judaism, arguing every point as if it were straight from the Talmud. What about my happiness? Zeke wanted to ask this smug brat, but he knew that Isaac didn't consider Zeke a factor. As someone outside the Rubin golden circle, he didn't matter at all.
"Look, partner, there's some stuff kids just can't understand. If we go back to Baltimore, they're not going to let you live with your dad."
"Why?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"I could if you pick the right words. My father tries to explain everything to me, no matter how complicated."
"I'm not your father," Zeke said, straightening up. "Thank fuckin' God."
He assumed that Isaac would have a smart-ass retort, but Natalie appeared in the corridor just then, the twins in tow, her lovely face flushed and on the verge of tears.
"Penina-I mean, Daisy-made…" She gestured helplessly at the girl, red-faced and damp, either at the end of a crying jag or about to begin one.
"Made what?" Zeke asked, although Isaac was nodding as if he understood.
"Made. In her pants, in the ball room, and they're all out there screaming at me, saying the sign says no children who aren't toilet trained. Only she is, she was, for over three years now-never even wet the bed in all this time. I don't know what's gotten into her."
The girl babbled something, and the boy twin babbled back, comforting her, or so Zeke assumed. He couldn't understand a word these two said, even when it was allegedly in English. Natalie said they used to talk like normal kids, but you couldn't prove it by Zeke.
"Take her in the ladies' room and clean her up the best you can," Zeke said. "I'll take the boys out to the car and wait for you there. And if we have to, we'll start strapping diapers on the two of them. If I'm all but living in a car, I don't want it to smell like crap."
He left the receiver dangling on its silver cord, catching Isaac's longing looks toward it. Zeke was going to have to watch this one like a hawk. Watch him or put him in the trunk more often. He had no choice.
You'll be sorry, he thought, then wondered who the words were for, Isaac or some long-vanquished foe. Was the boy his enemy or simply a reminder of others who had wronged him? Oh, things would be so much simpler if Natalie hadn't shown up with the children, if she'd never had them in the first place. There weren't supposed to be any children. But there were, and Zeke prided himself on his ability to improvise. The key to a truly genius plan was its flexibility, the planner's ability to modify, to roll with the punches.
Natalie had always been good at keeping secrets. That was a big part of her attraction. It occurred to Zeke for the first time that perhaps she had grown too good at staying mum, that there could be other surprises in store for him as well. He might have to think this all through again, change his plan one more time. He had to figure out just what he was going to do about the kids.
Chapter Thirteen
Tess sat in Rubin's office chair for the next hour, hitting the redial button with her index finger until she began to feel a twinge from wrist to elbow. Finally the unsympathetic buzz of the busy signal gave way to a ring, which turned into a puzzled "Hello?" on the twelfth ring.
"Could you please tell me where I'm calling? I know it's a McDonald's in Indiana, in the 812 area code." Caller ID and Isaac had combined to give her that much information. "But I need the town name and the location of this phone."
"You're calling McDonald's but you don't know why or where it is?" The voice was pleasant if foggy, a young man blissed out on Happy Meals or some other substance that had led to the sudden need for a cheeseburger.
"Long story," Tess said. "Boring one, too. But I sure would like to know where you are."
"Well, according to conventional cartography, I am at the forty-second latitude and seventy-fifth longitude, aka French Lick, Indiana, you'll pardon the expression."
"Is that really the latitude and longitude for French Lick?" Tess asked, curious in spite of herself.
"No, I just made it up, but it sounds plausible, doesn't it? Where are you calling from?"
"Baltimore."
"Oh, I don't think so," the young man said, hanging up. Tess felt like one of the errant knights in a Monty Python film, denied permission to cross a bridge because she'd waffled on her favorite color. She had already struck out with the state police once they heard that Mark's son had confirmed he was with his mother and there was no custody order for the father to enforce. No laws broken there, the police said, compassionate but firm. If only Isaac had spoken of kidnapping or said he feared for his life.