“Not so much,” David said.
“But you see, she wasn’t given a choice about when she was to die, so every day could have been her last.”
“That’s true for everyone,” David said.
“That is not true,” Rabbi Kales said. “I can’t tell you how many of my relatives died in the camps, David. Do you think they had any choice?”
“They could have fought back,” David said. “Maybe they did. You don’t know.”
“They killed the entire village my family came from in Ukraine. Not a Jew left standing. Unless they had tanks and planes, no amount of fighting would have saved them from that.”
“All respect,” David said, and he actually meant it, “this is a choice you made to enter into this life, with Bennie, with me, with all of this shit. And now I’m giving you a choice of how to leave it. You can either wait for me to show up one day with a gun, or you can fade away and buy some time.”
“That’s not a choice. It’s an ultimatum. Act like I’ve lost my mind, or you’ll kill me?”
“Call it what you want, Rabbi Kales,” David said. David knew that Bennie wouldn’t have anyone else take out Rabbi Kales, so if it came down to it, he’d see about implying to the rabbi that a nice cocktail and a handful of Percocet might be a good way to leave the world. “I’m offering you a lifeboat.”
“You’re taking everything from me,” Rabbi Kales said.
“I’m giving you a chance,” David said. “It’s more than I need to give you.”
Rabbi Kales considered this. “When would this madness have to begin?”
“Depends on how long Bennie is locked up,” David said. “A stressful time like this, a psychotic break wouldn’t seem that unusual. So let’s say a week from today, you maybe tell Rachel that you’ve been feeling disoriented.”
“She’ll take me to see a doctor,” he said.
“Great,” David said. “Even better.”
“Won’t the doctor know that I’m lying?”
“Rabbi,” David said, “how old are you?”
“Seventy-two,” Rabbi Kales said. And then he nodded, getting it. “And that’s it? Am I still allowed to come here?”
“Of course,” David said, though he suspected Bennie would feel differently.
“Anything else?”
“One thing,” David said. “Before you start losing your mind, you need to update your will. The funeral home needs to be left to the temple.”
“That was to be left to Rachel,” Rabbi Kales said.
“Yeah,” David said, “that won’t work. I’m sure Mr. Zangari can recommend an estate lawyer to you.”
“You’re taking everything away from me,” Rabbi Kales said again.
It was true, David realized. In one day — in one hour — he’d stripped Rabbi Kales clean. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but the end result was that he’d let him live. That was worth something, wasn’t it?
“You’ve had a good life, Rabbi. Why not relax? Spend time with your granddaughters. Play golf.” David understood it was hard to do those things while simultaneously drooling on yourself and pretending to be lost, but it could be a slow descent, he supposed. Rabbi Kales was seventy-two. Rachel had said he was slipping, but David hadn’t believed it, chocking it up more to the secrets Rabbi Kales had to keep than some actual cognitive deficiency. Now, thinking about the last nine months, it seemed more than plausible, even though the rabbi still looked fit and able. “This thing,” David said, “could be a mitzvah.”
“Sal Cupertine,” Rabbi Kales said, “what did he believe in?”
“Family,” David said. “Duty, I guess. Retribution.”
“Nothing else?”
“Everybody dies,” David said. “That was sort of my motto.”
“What about Rabbi David Cohen?”
“He believes in the articles of our faith, Rabbi.”
Rabbi Kales smiled at David and then got up, walked over to his desk, emptied a small file box of its contents, and then came back and filled the box with the tea set, save for one cup and saucer — the one with tree branches — which he handed to David. “Does your wife drink tea?” Rabbi Kales asked.
“Sometimes,” David said. “If she can’t sleep.”
“When you see her next, give her that cup and saucer as my regards,” Rabbi Kales said. “That will be the mitzvah.”
Just before midnight, David walked across the street to the funeral home to call Jerry Ford. In the time they’d been in business, they’d fostered a positive working relationship with no real sense, at least on David’s part, that Ford considered him anything more than a rabbi. David tried to keep the flow of work to Ford’s firm within reason in case anyone bothered to look into the business of either side of the transaction. All the paperwork was legit — or at least looked legit when it involved the bodies Bennie took in — and everyone seemed happy. David wasn’t exactly sure when it occurred to him that it was no happy accident that Jerry had appeared on the scene with this wonderful offer to help the Jewish faith by moving corpse tissue, though the afternoon he saw Jerry and Bennie chatting amiably out in front of the temple confirmed what he probably should have always known: that Bennie was involved from the get-go. It was simply another layer of secrecy: If David didn’t know that Bennie had the initial idea, it was one less potential witness for the prosecution.
The endeavor needed a rabbi. . and that was never going to be Rabbi Kales, nor the late Rabbi Gottlieb. And who knew what Bennie had on Jerry Ford. Probably nothing, once he thought about it. Guys like Jerry, they wanted to work with the mob. Made them feel like they were doing something out of a movie. It wasn’t like that in Chicago too much because the stakes were too high. People in Chicago were much more open about killing you. Here it just helped get you into nice strip clubs, maybe a little extra grind for your twenty bucks.
Thus, David was under the impression that Jerry Ford might be willing to do him and the temple a little favor. So David sat down in the funeral director’s office and called Jerry Ford’s cell phone.
He picked up on the first ring. “How you doing, Ruben?” he said.
“This isn’t Ruben,” David said. “It’s Rabbi Cohen.”
“Oh, sorry, Rabbi,” he said. “Ruben calls me so often in the middle of the night, my wife is beginning to think something is up.”
“Yes, well,” David said.
“Not that my wife has reason to worry otherwise, you understand,” he said. In the background, David could hear music and people talking. It was midnight on Super Bowl Sunday, and it didn’t seem like Jerry was keeping vigil at one of the local hospitals.
“Listen,” David said, “a man has taken his life and has asked that his body be buried in a traditional Jewish ceremony, with conditions, however, and so I’m hoping you might be of some help.”
“How’d he go?”
“He shot himself in the head, I’m afraid,” David said.
“Okay, I’m listening,” Jerry said. If Jerry was completely above board, he would have already hung up, but David could hear the man making calculations in his head. Internal organs were big business. . and not a business he was normally privy to. . and a bullet to the head wasn’t the sort of thing that spoiled a kidney.
“He’d like only his hands, feet, and head to be buried and for the rest of his body to be disposed of,” David said.
“Strange,” Jerry said.
“Yes, well, he was not right in his mind,” David said. “And while I’d like to respect his wishes, I’d hate for what was an otherwise healthy young man to not pay forward the gift of life, particularly if someone could use a kidney or a liver or heart.”
“Of course,” Jerry said. David could hear that Jerry had stepped outside now, the music gone, replaced by the sound of traffic. He was probably on the Strip or, worse, at one of the local casinos playing cheap poker with guys in satin jackets.