What do you do when you want a woman like that and you can't be alone with her for a decade? It was one thing to hold on to her while he was in Jessup, but Zeke knew that all bets would be off once he was in Terre Haute. It was too far away, his sentence too long. His solution had been nothing short of genius, if he did say so himself. He stored Natalie in Mark's house, just another beautiful thing in that sterile museum full of paintings and sculptures. It had been too perfect. Orthodox life had required her to dress modestly, to live modestly, not even touching other men. She was hidden in plain sight, locked up in Pikesville waiting for him. And while he had been furious when she showed up on his release day with three little bonuses in tow, he had to admit he was moved by her devotion to them. If only his mother had cared as much. But she had chosen her second husband over her son, time and time again.
Had his mother and Mark's father been having an affair before his father's death? He could believe it of Aaron Rubin-the gonif, the schemer-but not of his mother, never of his mother. It was not so far-fetched to believe that Rubin had coveted his mother all along, even before his own wife had died. Leah Rubenstein had been a prize, a German Jew so proper she was almost a gentile. The two young partners had met her when she came in to buy her first mink, just eighteen. Zeke's father had fallen in love with the shy, proper girl, while the already-betrothed Aaron Rubin had been smitten with her money. And in the end both men got what they wanted. Yakob Rubenstein got love, Aaron Rubin got money.
Jewish women kept their property-but not in death. Zeke's mother had died of breast cancer his senior year in college, and it was then that the boy who was born Nathaniel Ezekiel Rubenstein became just Zeke. What did it say about Aaron Rubin, that every woman who married him died of cancer? Rubin was the sickness. Rubin was evil. Rubin was the one who had convinced Zeke's mother that he would care for her son, so she hadn't felt the need to provide for Zeke in her will. And while Aaron Rubin was ready to share his second wife's largesse with her only son, it turned out he wanted to apply condition upon condition. If Zeke-or Nat, as the family never stopped calling him, despite his insistence that he wanted to be known by his middle name-brought his grades up, if he graduated from Maryland, if he stopped wrapping cars around trees, then he might-might, mind you, might-find a place at Robbins amp; Sons. The business his father had cofounded, the business that was his by all rights.
"Fuck you," Zeke told his stepfather, and struck out on his own, starting his own clothing store. Like father, like son. Right down to the money problems and the subsequent felonies. Zeke chose credit-card fraud. His father tried arson.
People always said that if Zeke's father hadn't died, the gossip would have killed him. Zeke, only five at the time of his suicide, was spared the whispers at first. By the time he was a teenager, however, the neighborhood yentas and yentas-in-training made sure he knew every shameful detail. The division of the business, with the shrewd macher Rubin screwing Rubenstein, persuading him to take the downtown real estate and the dress business, while he moved the furs to the suburbs. Then there was the fire at the store, an arson fire that killed a night watchman who should have been on his dinner break, but they never proved that Zeke's father did it. He didn't live long enough to be charged.
To Zeke's way of thinking, his father's death proved only that he was in despair, not that he had arranged that little bolt of Jewish lightning. The fire had wiped him out-the insurance company didn't want to pay because of the arson investigation. Yakob Rubenstein had nowhere to turn, except to his wife's bank accounts, and sweet, pliant Leah didn't want to give him her money. Why did everyone harp on the suspicious fire while ignoring the serendipity of the Widower Rubin marrying the Widow Rubenstein less than six months later? Rubin had screwed his onetime partner, now he screwed his wife. All the while expecting Nathaniel Ezekiel to toe the line, to be a scared little yes-sir boy like his own son, Mark.
If only his own mother had been more like Natalie and put her son first. If only Natalie were more like his mother, willing to abandon her children for the man she loved. One was too weak, the other too strong.
Well, Natalie would need her strength when she learned that her children were dead. It would be hard for weeks, even months-Zeke had no illusions about that. But it was the only solution that made everything work out. He'd give her another baby to make up for the ones she had to lose.
He reviewed the plan in his head, glorying in the details. Zeke would call Mark and propose a deaclass="underline" All the cash he could raise in one business day in exchange for the children. Once that was done, they would meet-oh, so fitting-in the Robbins amp; Co. storage facility. He would tell Mark and the children to go into the storage vault, promising to send Natalie to unlock the door in a few hours. But in a few hours, Zeke and Natalie would be long gone, taking whatever money Mark had given them.
And when Mark and the children were found, suffocated, it would be obvious to everyone what had happened, even Natalie. Mark was so bitter, so warped, that he'd decided to kill her children to get back at her. It happens. Zeke knew a guy at Jessup who did just that, killed two kids to get back at the wife who was divorcing him. Men are capable of anything. So Mark would be dead-which was the plan all along-and Natalie would inherit his money, which was really Zeke's money.
He never wanted to kill the children, truly. He'd been trying to think of a way around it, truth be told. But Penina and Efraim had seen too much, back on the highway in Ohio. Isaac knew too much and talked too much. They would end up hanging their own mother-and Zeke alongside her. Besides, they'd be happy for a few hours. They'd have hope. Before they used up all the oxygen, they'd think they were preparing for a reunion. Even Mark would dare to be hopeful, thinking his life was about to be made whole again, that Natalie was finally coming back.
Horrible yes, but better for Natalie-and Zeke. They would get a fresh start, they would have the life for which they had planned all these years. There weren't supposed to be any children. He thought he had made that clear to Natalie. It wasn't his fault that she had ignored his instructions. No children, ever. He didn't want to be a father to another man's sons, because he knew how impossible that was.
"Everybody settle in," he said, trying to sound cheerful. "We need to make good time." A sign promised that Washington was only sixty miles ahead, which meant Baltimore was a mere one hundred-not even ninety minutes if the highways treated them right. "Good time means we get to the good times that much faster." Zeke's father always said that when they went on their rare trips, usually just long weekends to Ocean City. There was always too much work to do to take longer vacations. He was the one who taught Zeke the traveling song. "We're hitting the road! (We're hitting the road!) Without a single care! (Withut a single care!) 'Cuz we're going, and we'll know where we are when we're there."
Zeke began singing the song lustily, not minding when the children refused to chime in. This time he sang all the parts himself.
Chapter Thirty-seven
"BUT I ASKED YOU," TESS SAID, HER VOICE A LITTLE WHINY even to her own ears. "I specifically asked you about Nathaniel Rubenstein when his name showed up on the list, and you said he was still in federal prison. You also said he never participated in the group."
They were in the living room, where Mark had spent a painful half hour stammering through a family history that made Tess realize how uncomplicated-and, really, how unblighted-her own family was. Robbins amp; Sons had started off as a partnership between Aaron Rubin and Yakob Rubenstein, two young friends who had learned the garment trade from their fathers, both tailors. There had been no sons, and no wives, when they opened their store on Lombard Street, but all that was assumed. They soon married, and both had sons the same blessed year. They quarreled, they went their separate ways. In the same cursed year that Aaron lost his wife to cancer, Leah Rubenstein lost her husband to suicide. The pair married while the boys were in grade school. Everything Mark had told Tess about Nathaniel Rubenstein-the stolen goods accepted to prop up his fledgling business, the credit-card fraud, his refusal to participate in the group-was true.