He stared into Jimmy’s whirling eyes. Jimmy did his best to stare right back.
“I’m a gentleman. I always offer the lady a taste.”
“She needs to sample her own coke?”
“Not sampling, indulging. And there’s always some lost in the field test.”
“Think a jury will buy that? Think I buy that?”
“You want me to piss in a cup?”
Becker pretended to think about that, then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “No. That’s what I most definitely do not want you to do. Look, I’ll stand up for you, but it’s time you cleaned house. You need some time, we’ll work it out. There’s a program, six weeks, over in Bullhead City, you can use an assumed name. It’s the best deal you’re gonna get. In the meantime, wrap this up. You’ve got your case, close it out.”
Jimmy felt a surge of bile boiling in his stomach—at the thought of rehab, sure, the shame of it, the tedium, but not just that. “Like when?”
“Like now.” Becker’s whole face said:
Look at yourself
. “Why wait?”
Jimmy pictured Sam in her sundress, face raised to the light, hand in her hair. Moisture pooling in the hollow of her throat. Lipstick glistening in the heat. He said, “There’s a kid involved.”
Becker stood up behind his desk. They were done. “Get CPS involved, that’s what they’re there for. Make the calls, do the paperwork, get it over with.”
“For chrissake, don’t overthink it. Sounds like the last nice guy in Vegas.”
It was Mandy talking, Sam’s old best friend at the Roundup. She’d stopped by on her way to work, a gram for the shift, and now was lingering, shoes off, stocking feet on the coffee table, toes jigging in their sheer cocoon. They were watching Natalie play, noticing how her focus lasered from her ball to her bear, back to the ball, moving on to her always mysterious foot, then a housefly buzzing at the sliding glass door.
“Dating the clientele,” Sam said, “is such a chump move.”
“Rules have exceptions. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be rules.”
Natalie hefted herself onto her feet, staggered to the sliding glass door, reached for the fly—awestruck, gentle.
“He’s got a bit of a problem.” Sam tapped the side of her nose.
“You can clean him up. Woman’s work.”
“I don’t need that kind of project.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how long’s it been since you got laid?”
Admittedly, sometimes when Jimmy was there, Sam felt the old urge uncoiling inside her, slithering around. “To be honest, I do mind you asking.”
They weren’t close anymore, just one of those things. To hide her disappointment, Mandy softly clapped her hands at Natalie. “Hey, sweetheart, come on over. Sit with Auntie Man a little while.” The little girl ignored her, still enchanted by the fly. It careened about the room—ceiling, lampshade, end table—then whirled back to the sliding glass door, a glossy green spec in a flaring pool of sunlight.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“She can be persnickety.” Sam glanced at the clock. “Don’t take it personally.”
“You think if you let this guy know you were interested, he’d respond?”
Sam felt another headache coming on. Each one seemed worse than the last now. “It’s not an issue.”
“You’re the one playing hard to get, not him.”
Jimmy’s last visit, Sam had almost thrown herself across his lap, wanting to feel his arms around her. Just that. But that was everything, could be everything. “I’ve given him a few openings. Nothing obvious, but since when do you need to be obvious with men?”
Mandy crossed her arms across her midriff, as though suddenly chilled. “Maybe he’s queer.”
Once Mandy was gone, Sam tucked Natalie in for the midday nap with her blue plush piglet, brushing the hair from the little girl’s face to plant a kiss on her brow. Leaving the bedroom door slightly ajar—Natalie would never drop off otherwise—Sam fled to her own room and took a Demerol. The pain was flashing through her sinuses now, even pulsing into her spine. Noticing the time, she changed into a cinched sleeveless dress, freshened her lipstick, her eyeliner. Jimmy had said he’d stop by, and she still couldn’t quite decide whether to push the ball into his end of the court or abide by her own better instincts and let it go. Running a mental inventory of his pros and cons, she admitted he was a joy to look at, had a soldier’s good manners, adored Natalie. He was also a flaming cokehead, with the predictable sidekick, a blind thirst. Those things trended downward in her experience, not a ride she wanted to share. Loneliness is the price you pay for keeping things uncomplicated, she thought, pressing a tissue between her lips.
She heard a shuffle of steps on the walkway out front, but instead of ringing the bell, whoever it was pounded at the door. A voice she didn’t recognize called out her name, then: “Police! Open the door.” To her shame, she froze. Out of the corner of her eye she saw three men cluster on the patio—shirtsleeves, sunglasses, protective vests—and her mouth turned to dust. The front door crashed in, brutal shouts of “On the floor!” and shortly she was facedown, being handcuffed, feeling guilty and terrified and stupid and numb while cops thrashed everywhere, asserting claim to every room.
When they pulled her to her feet, it was Jimmy who was standing there, wearing a vest like the others, his police card hanging around his neck. The Demerol not having yet kicked in, her head crackled and throbbed with a new burst of pain, and she feared she might hurl right there on the floor.
“Tell us where everything is, and we won’t take the place apart,” he said, regarding her with a look of such contemptuous loathing she actually thought he might spit in her face. And I deserve it, she told herself, how stupid I’ve been, at the same time thinking: Now who’s the creature? She could smell the Scotch on his breath, masked with spearmint. So that’s what it was, she thought, all that time, the drink, the coke. Mr. Sensitive drowning his guilt. Or was even his guilt phony?
She said, “What about Natalie?” In her room, the little girl was mewling, confused, scared.
Jimmy glanced off toward the sound, eyes dull as lead. “She’s a ward of the court now. They’ll farm her out, foster home …”
Sam felt the room close in, a sickly shade of white. “Why are you doing this?”
Almost imperceptibly, he stiffened. A weak smile.
“I’m
doing this?”
“Why are you being such a prick about it?”
He leaned in. His eyes were electric. “You’re a mother.”
You miserable hypocrite, she thought, trying to muster some disgust of her own, but instead her knees turned liquid. He caught her before she fell, duck-walked her toward the sofa, let her drop—at which point a woman with short sandy hair came out of Natalie’s bedroom, carrying the little girl. Her eyes were puffy with sleep but she was squirming, head swiveling this way and that. She began to cry. Sam shook off her daze, turned to hide the handcuffs, calling out, “Just do what the lady says, baby. I’ll come get you as soon as I can,” but the girl started shrieking, kicking—and then was gone.
“Get a good look?” Jimmy said. “Because that’s the last you’ll see of her.”
He was performing for the other cops, the coward. “You can’t do that.”
“No? Consider it done.”
Sam struggled to her feet. “You can’t … No …”
He nudged her back down. She tried to kick him but he pushed her legs aside. Crouching down, he locked them against his body with one arm, his free hand gripping her chin. Voice lowered, eyes fixed on hers—and, finally, she thought she saw something hovering behind the savage bloodshot blue, something other than the arrogance and hate, something haunted, like pity, even love—he whispered, “Listen to me, Sam. I want to help you. But you’ve gotta help me. Understand? Give me a name. It’s that simple. A name and we work this out. I’ll do everything I can, that’s a promise, for you, for Natalie—everything. But you’ve gotta hold up your end. Otherwise …”
He let his voice trail away into the nothingness he was offering. For Sam knew where this led, she remembered the words exactly:
I have men who take care of certain matters … The timewill have passed for you to say or do anything to help yourself …
And there it was: her daughter or her life, she couldn’t save both. Maybe not today or tomorrow but someday soon, Claudia’s threat would materialize, assuming a face and form but no name—the police would promise protection, but the desert was littered with their failures—and Sam would realize this is it, that pitiless point in time when she would finally know: Which was she? One of those who tried to kick and claw and scream her way out, even though it was hopeless. Or one of those who, seeing there was no escape, calmly said,
I’m ready. I’ve been ready for a long, long while
.
T
hat Rabbi David Cohen wasn’t Jewish had ceased, over time, to be a problem. He hardly even thought of it anymore except when ordering breakfast down at the Bagel Café. He’d sit there across from Bennie Savone, that fat fuck, watching him wolf down ham and scrambled eggs, or French toast with a steaming side of greasy link sausage, and his mouth would actually start to water, like he was some kind of fucking golden retriever. He didn’t even think Bennie liked pork all that much—sometimes Bennie would order a cup of coffee and a side of bacon and would leave the bacon uneaten in, David assumed, not-so-benign mockery—though David knew Bennie liked letting him know who was in control of the situation.
But now, as he sat in his normal booth in the back corner facing the busy intersection of Buffalo and Westcliff, waiting for Bennie to roll up in his absurd black Mercedes that might as well have a personalized plate that said
MOBSTER
on it, he thought that he probably qualified as a Jew by now, if not in the eyes of God, then at least in his own eyes. It’s not that he gave a fuck about religion—his personal motto, before all of this shit, had been “everybody dies”—but it was true he probably knew far more about the Torah and the culture in general than the people who belonged to his temple. And had he grown up with it, David was fairly certain he would have appreciated the subtle nuance of kugel.
After fifteen years, though, he still couldn’t get used to the idea of baked noodles, raisins, apples, and cinnamon as a fucking entrée. Now pork loin. Pork loin was something he could get behind, especially this time of year, what with Christmas coming up. Back in the day, his wife Jennifer knew how to make it just how he liked it. Brined in salt overnight, covered with juniper berries, a bit of garlic, maybe some thyme, and then slow-roasted for three hours, until even the garage smelled like it.
Christ.
Fifteen fucking years and for what? He understood that his situation was fairly untenable these days, that those fucking Muslims had changed the way Family business was handled, particularly as it related to guys like David whose fake paperwork was fine in a company town like Las Vegas but which wouldn’t even pass muster in Reno. David wasn’t inclined to give too much thought to the whole Israel-Palestine issue, but he had to keep abreast of shit in case someone dared ask his opinion, though he never could confide in anyone that he shared some anger issues with the Palestinians, at least as it related to real estate, confined as he was to Las Vegas.
“Can I get you something, rabbi?”
David looked up from his reverie and saw the smiling face of Shoshana Goldblatt. Her parents, Stan and Alta, were two of the biggest donors Temple Beth Israel had, and yet here she was busting her ass on a Tuesday morning running tables. And that was an ass, David had to admit. She was only eighteen and he’d known her since she was five, but … damn. “A cup of coffee would be fine, Shoshana. I’m waiting on Mr. Savone, as usual, so maybe just a toasted onion bagel for now.”
Shoshana took down his order but he could tell that something was vexing the girl. It took her nearly an entire minute to write the words
coffee
and
bagel
on her pad, her eyes welling up with tears the entire time. It was always like this. He’d go somewhere to just chill out, maybe smoke a cigar and catch a ballgame over at J.C. Wooloughan’s Irish Pub, and next thing he knew, one of his fucking Israelites would pull up next to him with some metaphysical calamity.
“Is there something wrong, Shoshana?” he asked. When she slid into the booth across from him and deposited her head into her hands, thick phlegmy sobs spilling out of that beautiful mouth he’d just sort of imagined his dick in, he felt himself wince and hoped she didn’t notice. He’d spent the better part of his life avoiding crying women of all ages, never really knowing what to say to them other than “Shut the fuck up, you stupid whore,” and that hadn’t seemed to help anyone, least of all himself. Whatever was wrong with Shoshana Goldblatt would invariably ruin David’s whole fucking day. First there’d be the guilt he felt hearing her secrets and then there’d be the guilt associated with him finding it all rather humorous.
“Oh, rabbi,” she said, “I wanted to just come in and talk to you in private, but there’s always such a crowd, and my mom, you know, she’s always telling me to not bother you with my problems, that you’re a busy man and all, so I’m like, okay, I’ll just figure it out for myself, but then, like, you’re always saying that we should trust that the Torah has answers to all of our problems, right?”
“That’s right, Shoshana,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if he’d ever said such a thing. Most of the time, he just downloaded shit off the Internet now, but it seemed plausible that at some point he’d said something like that.
“I’m just so confused,” she continued, explaining to David a scenario that involved, as best as he could suss out, her having sex with three different black guys from the UNLV basketball team while a graduate assistant coach filmed the whole thing on his camera phone. It was hard for David to concentrate completely on the story since Bennie Savone had entered the restaurant about five minutes in and was stalking angrily about the bakery area, dragging his black attaché case against the pastry windows, like he was banging his cup against prison bars. So when David sensed that Shoshana had come to the basic conclusion of the issue—that she’d liked it, that she wondered what was wrong with her, but that she wanted to do it again, and with more guys—he reached across the table and took both of her hands in his.