“Probably. But a case like this is hard to sort out. When you’re tracking a kid like this Green, you meet nothing but dirty types. Almost everyone you meet is guilty. The question is, what are they guilty of?”
“Guilty until proven innocent?”
“Lawyers being what they are, probably guilty even then.”
“I hope I never think like that”
“Stay on the street for a few years. You will. By the way, you didn’t do too badly back in Canducci’s bar. We walked in without a warrant, slapped people around, and you handled yourself like a cop. What happened to all this business about civil rights and going by the book?”
Guttmann lifts his hands and lets them drop back onto the table. You can’t discuss things with LaPointe. He always cuts both ways. But Guttmann realizes that he has a point. When he handled that tight moment when the boys were resisting the order to sit on their hands, he had felt… competent. There is a danger in being around LaPointe too long. Things get less clear; right and wrong start to blend in at the edges.
When he looks up, Guttmann sees a crinkling around LaPointe’s eyes. “What is it?”
“I was just thinking about your Mr. W–.”
“Honest to God, I’d give a lot if you’d get off that, sir.”
“No, I wasn’t going to rag you. It just occurred to me that if Mr. W–ever did kill somebody, all he’d have to do would be to wait until it got into the papers, then come to us with a confession involving Jewish plots and Cream of Wheat We’d toss him right out”
“That’s a comforting thought.”
“Oh. By the way, didn’t you say something the other night about playing pinochle?”
“Sir?”
“Didn’t you tell me you used to play pinochle with your grandfather?”
“Ah… yes, sir.”
“Want to play tonight?”
“Pinochle?”
“That’s what we’re talking about.”
“Wait a minute. I’m sorry, but this just came out of nowhere, sir. You’re asking me to play pinochle with you tonight?”
“With me and a couple of friends. The man who usually plays with us is sick. And cutthroat isn’t much fun.”
Guttmann senses that this offer is a gesture of acceptance. He can’t remember anyone in the department having bragged about spending off time with the Lieutenant. And he is free tonight. The girl in his building takes classes on Monday nights and doesn’t get back until eleven.
“Yes, sir. I’d like to play. But it’s been a while, you know.”
“Don’t worry about it. Nothing but three old farts. But just in case you’re a little rusty, I’ll arrange for you to be partners with a very gentle and understanding man. A man named David Mogolevski.”
11
The evening of pinochle has gone well—for David.
As usual he dominated play, and as usual he overbid his hand, but the luck of the cards allowed Guttmann to bail him out more times than not, and as partners they won devastatingly.
After a particularly good—and lucky—hand, David asked the young man, “Tell me, have you ever thought of becoming a priest?”
Guttmann admitted that the idea seldom crossed his mind.
“That’s good. It would ruin your game.”
On one occasion, when not even luck was enough to save David from his wild overbidding, he treated Guttmann to one of his grousing tirades about how difficult it was, even for a pinochle maven like himself, to schlep a partner who couldn’t pull his own weight. Unlike Father Martin, Guttmann did not permit himself to be martyred to David’s peculiar and personal view of sportsmanship. He countered with broad sarcasm, mentioning that the Lieutenant had rightly described David as a gentle and understanding partner.
But David’s thick skin is impervious to such attacks. He thrust out his lower lip and nodded absently, accepting that as an accurate enough description of his character.
For his part, Moishe was slow in warming to the young intruder into their game, despite Guttmann’s genuine interest in the fabric Moishe had on the loom at that moment. He had been looking forward to one of his rambling philosophic chats with Martin.
Still, so it shouldn’t be a total loss, he made a venture toward drawing Guttmann out during their break for sandwiches and wine. “You went to university, right? What did you major in?”
It occurs to LaPointe that he never asked that question. He wasn’t all that interested.
“Well, nothing really for the first two years. I changed my major three or four times. I was more looking for professors than for fields.”
“That sounds intelligent,” Moishe says.
“Finally, I settled down and took the sequence in criminology and penology.”
“And what sorts of things does one study under those headings?”
David butts in. “How to steal, naturally. Theft for fun and profit. Theft and the Polish Question.”
“Why don’t you shut up for a while?” Moishe suggests. “Your mouth could use the rest.”
David spreads his face in offended innocence and draws back, then he winks at LaPointe. He has been riding Moishe all night, piquing him here and there, ridiculing his play, when he knew perfectly well that all the cards were against him. But he is a little surprised when his gentle partner snaps back like this.
“So?” Moishe asks Guttmann. “What did you study?”
Guttmann shrugs off the value of his studies, a little embarrassed about them in the presence of LaPointe. “Oh, a little sociology, some psychology as related to the criminal and criminal motives—that sort of thing.”
“No literature? No theology?”
“Some literature, sure. No theology. Would you pass the mustard, please?”
“Here you are. You know, it’s interesting you should have studied criminal motives and all this. Just lately I have been thinking about crime and sin… the relationships, the differences.”
“Oh boy,” David puts in. “Here we go again! Listen! About crime it’s all right to think. It’s a citizen’s duty. But about sin? Moishe, my old friend, AK’s like us shouldn’t think about sin. It’s too late. Our chances have passed us by.”
Guttmann laughs. “No, I’m afraid I never think about things like that, Mr. Rappaport.”
“You don’t?” Moishe asks gloomily, his hopes for a good talk crumbling. “That’s strange. When I was a young man thinking was a popular pastime.”
“Things change,” David says.
“Does that mean they improve?” Moishe asks.
Guttmann glances at his watch. “Hey, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to be going. I have a date, and I’m already late.”
“A date?” David asks. “It’s after eleven. What can you do so late?”
“We’ll think of something.” As soon as he makes this adolescent single-entendre remark, Guttmann feels he has been disloyal to his girl.
Moishe rises. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“That isn’t necessary, sir.”
“You’re already late for your date. And you’re not familiar with the streets around here. So don’t argue. Get your coat.”
As they leave, Moishe has already begun with “…when you stop to think about it, the differences between sin and crime are greater than the similarities. Take, for instance, the matter of guilt…”
As the door closes behind them, David looks at LaPointe and shakes his head. “Oh, that Moishe. Sin, crime, love, duty, the law, the good, the bad… he’s interested in everything that’s so big it doesn’t really matter. A scholar! But in practical things…” His lips flap with a puff of air. “That reminds me of something I wanted to talk to you about, Claude. A matter of law.”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“I know, I know. But you know something about the law. This may come as a surprise to you, but I am not immortal. I could die. At my age, you have to think about such things. So tell me. What do I have to do to make sure the business goes to Moishe if he should, cholilleh, outlive me?”