Whatever his critics might have said about him, Yossi Epstein was a brave man, a man of conviction, a man who worked tirelessly to improve the lives not only of his fellow Jews but of his other fellow citizens. He was found dead in his apartment at 11 P.M. on Wednesday night, apparently after suffering some kind of seizure. The apartment, in which he lived alone, had been ransacked and his wallet and address book were missing. Foul play was suspected, according to the report, a suspicion increased by another incident earlier that night.
At 10 P.M., the office of the Jewish League for Tolerance was firebombed. A young volunteer, Sarah Miller, was working there at the time, printing off addresses for a mailing the following day. She was three days short of her nineteenth birthday when the room around her became an inferno. She was still on the critical list, with burns over 90 percent of her body. Epstein was due to be buried at Pine Lawn Cemetery in Long Island that day, following the prompt autopsy.
There was one more detail that caught my attention. In addition to his work on right-wing organizations, Epstein was reported to be preparing a legal challenge to the religious tax exemption given by the IRS to a number of church groups. Most of the names were unfamiliar to me, except for one: the Fellowship, based in Waterville, Maine. The law firm employed by Epstein to handle the case was Ober, Thayer amp; Moss of Boston, Massachusetts. It was hardly a coincidence that the firm also took care of Jack Mercier's legal affairs and that Warren Ober's son was soon to be married to Mercier's daughter.
I read through the piece again, then called Mercier's home. A maid took the call, but when I gave my name and asked to be put through to Mr. Mercier, another female voice came on the line. It was Deborah Mercier.
“Mr. Parker,” she said. “My husband is not available. Perhaps I can help you?”
“I don't think so, Mrs. Mercier. I really need to speak to your husband.”
There was a pause in the conversation long enough to make our feelings about each other clear, and then Deborah Mercier concluded: “In that case, perhaps you'd be kind enough not to phone the house again. Jack is not available at present, but I'll make sure he hears that you called.”
With that she hung up, and I got the feeling that Jack Mercier would never know that I had called him.
I had never spoken to Rabbi Yossi Epstein and knew nothing more about him than what I had just read, but his activities had awakened something, something that lay curled in its web until Epstein caused one of the strands to twitch and the sleeping thing roused itself and came after him, then tore him apart before it returned to the dark place in which it lived.
In time, I would find that place.
9
I RETURNED TO RACHEL'S APARTMENT, showered, and in an effort to cheer myself up for the evening ahead, put on some of my sharp new purchases: a black Joseph Abboud coat that made me look like I was auditioning for the second remake of Nosferatu, black gabardine pants and a black DKNY V neck. Screaming “fashion victim,” I walked down to the Copley Plaza Hotel and into the Oak Bar.
Outside, the traffic on Copley melted away, the sound of horns and engines smothered by the red curtains of the Oak. The four big ceiling fans scythed the air and the ice in the raw bar glittered in the dim light. Louis was already sitting at a table by the window, his long frame folded into one of the bar's comfortable red chairs. He was wearing a black wool suit with a white shirt and black shoes. His dark head was no longer shaven and he had grown a small, vaguely satanic beard, which, if anything, rendered him even more intimidating than before. In the past, when he had been bald and devoid of facial hair, people crossed the street to avoid him. Now they probably felt the urge to book a trip somewhere safe and quiet, like Somalia or Sierra Leone.
There was a presidential martini on the table before him, and he was smoking a Montecristo No. 2. That was about $55 worth of vices. He blew a stream of blue smoke at me in greeting. I ordered a virgin cocktail and shrugged off my coat, ostentatiously showing Louis the label as I did so.
“Yeah, very impressive,” he said unconvincingly. “Not even last season's. You so cheap, your hourly rate probably got ninety-nine cents at the end.”
“Where's the insignificant other?” I asked, ignoring him.
“Buying some clothes. Airline lost his bag.”
“They're doing him a favor. You pay them to lose it?”
“Didn't have to. Baggage handlers probably refused to touch it. Piece of shit practically walked to La Guardia by itself. How you doin'?”
“Pretty good.”
“Still huntin' pen pushers?” Louis didn't entirely approve of my move into the area of white-collar criminals. He felt that I was wasting my talents. I decided to let him go on thinking it for a while.
“The money's okay and they don't tend to kick up a fuss,” I replied, “although one of them called me a bad name once.”
Close to the door, heads began to turn and one of the waiters almost dropped a tray of drinks in shock. Angel entered, dressed in a yellow-and-green Hawaiian shirt, a yellow tie, a powder blue jacket, stonewashed jeans, and a pair of red boots so bright they throbbed. Conversations died as he passed by, and a few people tried to shield their eyes.
“Off to see the wizard?” I asked when the red boots finally reached us.
Louis looked like someone had just splashed paint on his car.
“Shit, Angel, the hell you think you are? Mardi Gras?”
Angel calmly took a seat, ordered a Beck's from a distressed-looking waiter, then stretched out his legs to admire his new boots. He straightened his tie, which did nothing to help in the long term but obscured some of his shirt for a while.
“You look like a used car salesman on acid,” I told him.
“Man, I didn't even know Filene's Basement had a basement,” said Louis. “Must be where they keep the real shit.”
Angel shook his head and smiled. “I'm making a statement,” he said, like a teacher explaining a lesson to a pair of slow children.
“I know the kind of statement you makin',” replied Louis as Angel's beer arrived. “You sayin', ‘Kill me, I got no taste.’ ”
“You should carry a sign,” I advised. “ ‘I will work for fashion tips.’ ”
It felt good to be here with them. Angel and Louis were just about the closest friends I had. They had stood by me as the confrontation with the Traveling Man drew closer, and had faced down the guns of a Boston scumbag named Tony Celli in order to save the life of a girl they had never met. Their gray morality, tempered by expediency, was closer to goodness than most people's virtue.
“How's life in the sticks?” asked Angel. “Still living in the rural slum?”
“My house is not a slum.”
“It don't even have carpets.”
“It's got timber floors.”
“It's got timbers. Just 'cause they fell on the ground don't make them a floor.”
He paused to sip his beer, allowing me to change the subject.
“Anything new in the city?” I asked.
“Mel Valentine died,” said Angel.
“Psycho Mel?” Psycho Mel Valentine had been working his way through the A-to-Z of crime: arson, burglary, counterfeiting, drugs… If he hadn't died, then pretty soon the Bronx Zoo would have been mounting a guard on its zebras.