Zaddik, page 19
“Easy,” said a voice. Hands on his shoulder stopped him. Hands propped him up against a wall.
The sun was directly in his eyes. He couldn’t see the face bending over him. He looked down at his arm. His jacket had been sliced open, and blood pumped sluggishly out of a deep wound that began a few inches below his elbow and snaked down to his wrist, like the rawhide strap that tied his tefillin. He reached into his coat with his right hand, and when he pulled out his hand, his fingertips were daubed red with arterial blood. No one will ever know why I died or who killed me, he thought. I made it through ’Nam, but now it’s New York; things like this happen all the time.
Taylor leaned his head against the side of the building and closed his eyes against the bright sunlight. It hurt to breathe. He felt the rage seeping out of him, leaving him empty, hollow.
The same voice again said, “Easy.” Taylor opened his eyes, and now he saw a man about his own age bending over him, his face shadowed by a large black shtreiml, the sun behind his head crisping the edges of his beard. “Make it easy,” the Hasid said in a thick Yiddish accent. “Ambulance is already coming.”
“I’m hurt,” Taylor whispered. It hurt to speak.
“No talk,” said the man. “You will be okay.”
“I know you…” Taylor felt himself growing groggy, felt himself drifting away. “Who are you?”
The man responded in Yiddish.
“Did he get away?” Taylor asked, gasping.
The man patted Taylor’s hand and continued speaking to him in Yiddish even as Taylor heard a siren growing louder and then cutting off as the EMTs arrived. They took his pulse, slapped an oxygen mask over his face, and maneuvered him roughly onto a stretcher, lifting him into the ambulance as the Hasid held his hand.
It was so confusing. He knew he knew this man, even though he had no idea who he was. And even though, rationally, Taylor knew he could not understand a word the Hasid was saying, he had the distinct impression that he was being told that the same thing had happened to the Hasid a long, long time ago.
Chapter 31 All Things Beautiful
Kingston Street, Brooklyn
Tuesday, September 14
THE CUTTER, CARRYING his possessions in a large black leather traveling bag, stood beneath the awning of Rothstein’s Bakery and watched Sarah Kalman locking the metal security gate across the entrance to All Things Beautiful. There was very little traffic on Kingston Street now. The neighborhood’s women and children were home—the children studying, the women preparing dinner. The men were strolling toward 770 for the evening prayers, taking their time until a few stars would become visible, thereby signaling the proper moment to begin. Finally, after days of heat, the air was cooling off, and the Cutter could smell autumn coming on.
But despite the snap in the air, the Cutter was sweating. He rubbed his palms against his slacks and smoked one cigarette after another. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. He should, he knew, be holed up in a room near the airport, waiting for the morning plane to Rome. His work here was finished, even if that detective had survived.
Had he? The Cutter cursed the Hasid who had called out when the Cutter pushed by him to get at Taylor. If not for him, the knife would have punctured Taylor’s heart. The detective would have fallen where he stood. By the time anyone in the crowd noticed, the Cutter would have been gone. Instead, Taylor had turned toward the sound, and that had thrown the Cutter off. Still, the blade could have caught one of the major arteries coming from the heart.
No matter. The Magician had the stone; the Cutter would soon be leaving this horrible city behind. And even if the man survived, how would he ever find them, even if he wanted to?
So why was he here, among the accursed Hasidim, wearing a yarmulke, watching the rabbi’s daughter? Because an unfamiliar need had been growing inside him ever since yesterday, when he’d seen her walking with that detective. He had asked the shopkeepers on Kingston Street about her, and what he had heard convinced him that he needed to know her. All last night, after he had disposed of Ariel Levin’s body, he had thought about her as he sat on his bed, smoking cigarettes and staring into the darkness. Alone in his room, he had felt her presence all around him. At times he thought he could almost see her, her small white hands, her fine, sweet features. This was not about sex, he assured himself. This was about the loneliness he sensed in her. He understood her. He felt she was made for him. She could redeem him.
The Cutter made up his mind and crossed the street. He saw Sarah Kalman turn toward him, her hair so vivid it looked like a holy, cleansing fire; her skin like porcelain, her eyes as green as emeralds. So different from that whore Maria, he thought. So small, so delicate, so modestly dressed. She will smell of soap, the Cutter imagined, because this one is clean.
“Excuse me,” the Cutter said in Yiddish. Yes, she did smell of soap. “You are Reb Kalman’s daughter, Sarah?”
“Yes?” said Sarah Kalman, surprised that a stranger would address her.
“I wish to speak with you. You are perhaps going home? May I walk with you?”
“I live just around the corner,” Sarah said.
“Fine,” said the Cutter. “What I have to say will take only a moment.”
“All right.” Sarah tried to place the Cutter’s Yiddish. An Israeli, certainly, but not a sabra, not native born. Not a Litvak. Not a German. A southerner? A Rumanian? A Hungarian? Maybe a Pole.
They began walking up Kingston Street.
“A lovely night,” said the Cutter.
“Yes, but is this what you wanted to discuss with me?” Sarah asked. “The weather?”
“No, of course not. Miss Kalman,” the Cutter began, clearing his throat, the sound of his own voice as strange to him as the words he was speaking, “I have watched you from afar. I have admired you. I know you are unmarried. I know you are an accomplished woman, a scholar, and you have your own business. This does not disturb me.”
Definitely a Pole, she thought.
“Before you speak, let me say that I know I am much older than you, not a handsome young man. But I am not that old, I have never been married, and I am quite wealthy. I am not a Hasid, but I am a pious, Sabbath-observing Jew. In conclusion, I want to ask your permission to ask your father if he would accept me as a suitor for your hand in marriage.”
Sarah stopped. The Cutter turned toward her, and she felt goose bumps that did not come from the suddenly chilly weather. She bit back the casual, sarcastic words that came to her. She felt sure that this tall, hollow-checked Polisher was not joking, and something told her it would be dangerous to treat him dismissively.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“My name is Jacob Rothstein,” said the Cutter, combining the name of the bakery with the first name that popped into his head.
“Mr. Rothstein,” said Sarah, “I am very flattered, but I’m sure you will understand that I cannot respond to what you are saying.”
“All I am asking, Miss Kalman—”
“Excuse me, sir. You are a stranger to me, and, frankly, you have taken me quite by surprise. I am sure you are a respectable man, but what you are doing, what you are saying, is not respectable. I assure you, sir, my father would never accept a man who is not a Hasidisher Yid as a marriage possibility. I beg your pardon, Mr. Rothstein, but I must go home now.”
The Cutter nodded. “I understand, Miss Kalman. But let me explain. I am being so direct with you because I must go away soon on business, and I wanted you to become aware of me. I understand very well now that my speech must have seemed abrupt, even crude, and I realize now that I have made a mistake. But this mistake comes from an honest heart.
“Listen to me. You are right; I am a stranger to you. But you are not entirely a stranger to me. I know the Lubavitchers, and I know they see you as an outsider. I do not say this to hurt you. Believe me, I understand what it is like to be considered different because one is special, because one is chosen. I know you are a special one, Sarah Kalman, and when I return to this country, I would like to ask you again for your permission, if that is all right.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Rothstein. I have said what I can say. Now you must excuse me.”
“I will come back, Miss Kalman,” said the Cutter. And as he watched her walk away, her heels clicking smartly on the sidewalk, he promised himself, I will come back. You are the chosen one.
Chapter 32 Roosevelt-St. Luke’s Hospital,
Manhattan
Wednesday, September 15
TAYLOR KEPT GOING over the attack in his mind. Could he have reacted faster? Could he have gotten to his gun? Could he have been a hero instead of just another victim lying in a hospital bed?
The Demerol he had been given that morning added to his anxiety. He had been nodding when Frank Hill had arrived to ask him for a description of the man who had stabbed him, and even as he told Hill that he had no memory of the man’s face, that all he could remember was that he was tall and had worn a black leather jacket, Taylor worried about his sobriety. Did the Demerol count as a slip? What would happen when he left the hospital? Would they give him a prescription for Percodan? Would he need it? Would he fill it? Would he take it?
Hill had been surprisingly decent. He hadn’t asked him what he had been doing in the diamond district. That, Taylor knew, would come later, and he would have to tell Hill that he’d been meeting a source, someone who had told him he knew something about the case. But Taylor wanted to speak to Phil Horowitz before Hill did. He wanted to smash his ugly lying face. Then he would give him to Hill.
Taylor did tell Hill he was convinced that the man who had stabbed him was the same man who had killed Ariel Levin, and possibly Zalman Gottleib and Shirley Stein, too. He saw me talking to Levin, and he thought I was getting close to him, Taylor had told Hill. He overestimated me.
But why did Horowitz set me up? Taylor wondered. Why? Phil is a thug, sure, but a murderer? Could the Satmarer rebbe have been right all along? Could all this be some grotesque feud between the Lubavitchers and the Satmarers? After all, isn’t the killer a Jew, someone who knows about kosher slaughtering? But what had Horowitz said? Overseas people? People who tap phones? Who the hell could that be? Or was that all bullshit?
Well, at least he was alive. Last night the doctor had told him that the knife had nicked his lung and collapsed it—that was why it was hard for him to breathe—but it had missed everything else, most importantly his spleen and his heart. The wound on his forearm and wrist was potentially more troubling. Nerves and ligaments had been severed. There might just be some stiffness, or he might not regain the full use of the hand. But, otherwise, he was going to be fine. And if his lung reinflated, and if he didn’t develop a fever, he could leave tomorrow, or the next day, and begin physical therapy at home.
Dumb luck, thought Taylor. Christ, I’ve been dumb.
How much time had passed since his last shot? He reached over to his bedside table, wincing at the pain in his chest and arm, and looked at his watch. Three hours. That’s enough. He rang the bell for the nurse and asked for another shot. The nurse went away, and another nurse arrived carrying a tray of needles.
“Last time, let’s see, was the left cheek, right?” she asked. “So let’s see if you can shift over on your left side and we’ll stick the right cheek.”
A few moments after the nurse left, Taylor felt the warmth spreading through his chest, taking the pain away, making him sleepy. It felt wonderful. All the anxiety in his body disappearing, all his muscles relaxing, letting go, all his questions melting away, drifting off into space, gone. He remembered the first time he had ever tasted junk, smoking touc phins, heroin and grass, at combat school in Chu Lai. It was the only thing that made the army, the jungle, the war, bearable. Drifting away as the rockets went up, drifting away as the psy-choppers flew overhead, their speakers blaring. Drifting away as he watched the tracers making gorgeous fluorescent arcs across the velvet sky. Drifting away in hell. Drifting away.
Taylor shook his head. What was he doing? The first shot may not have been a slip, but this one was. Did I need it for the pain, or did I want it for the kick? Once a junkie always a junkie, Taylor thought angrily. Isn’t that what they say?
The phone by Taylor’s bed rang. He picked it up. It was Rabbi Kalman.
“So, you are all right, yes?”
“I guess so, Rabbi.”
“You don’t sound so good.”
“I’ve only got one lung working right now.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It’s not so bad. They’ve got me blowing into a gadget, a tube running into a bottle, trying to make a little ball float up in the air. They say it’ll get my lung working in no time.”
“It still sounds terrible. So, Dov, you know who did it?”
“No. I didn’t see him.”
“You think it was the same one that killed the diamond operator?” Rabbi Kalman asked.
“I don’t know, Rabbi. Maybe.”
“So what can we do to help?”
“Nothing. The doctor says I can leave tomorrow or maybe the day after. I’ll come see you.”
“All right. All right. Stop nudzhing.”
“What?”
“Not you, Dov. Someone here wants to speak with you.”
There was a pause, and then Sarah Kalman came on the line. “Mr. Taylor. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right, Sarah. Don’t worry.”
“May I come visit you?”
“There’s no need. You don’t want to come to the hospital. It’s a creepy place. I’ll be out in a day or two and I’ll come visit.”
“Do you have someone to take care of you when you get home? To cook, to do the shopping?”
“Don’t worry about it, Sarah. I’ll be okay.”
“Because if you don’t have someone, I could bring you some food, some soup, and run some errands for you.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind. But I’ll be all right.” As soon as I get myself to a meeting, Taylor added to himself.
“Well, if you need anything, please call us,” said Sarah.
“I will.”
“I’ll put my father back on.”
“Dov. The Satmarer rebbe heard about what happened to you,” Rabbi Kalman said. “His gabbai, Pinchus Mayer, whom you met, called me and asked me to tell you that the rebbe is very sorry for your suffering. He prays for you to get better soon. I myself told our master, Rebbe Seligson, may he live long and happily, what happened, and he, too, prays for you. Imagine, Dov, you have two holy men, two zaddiks, helping you recover.”
“Well, then I should have no problems, right, Rabbi?”
“Mayer also said you should call him because the rebbe wants to see you as soon as you get out of the hospital. And he says also you should get the best doctors, a private room, whatever. The Satmarers will pay.”
“Good,” said Taylor. “Thank him, but that’s not a problem. I have insurance. But you can tell Mayer that he should have a check waiting for me. Finding these bastards is going to be expensive.”
“I will tell him.”
“Also, Rabbi, tell Sarah to be careful. The man who stabbed me, he may have followed me the day I visited her in Brooklyn. For a while she shouldn’t walk around alone, she shouldn’t be in the shop alone.”
“You think she is in danger?” asked Rabbi Kalman, dropping his voice to a whisper.
“No, I don’t. But it wouldn’t hurt to be a little careful, would it?”
“No, and the same for you, Dov. Get better. Make it easy.”
“You know, Rabbi, that reminds me. After I was stabbed, while I was lying there on the street, a Hasid came up to me and told me I was going to be all right. He held my hand and told me to take it easy and I would be all right. The strange thing was, most of the time he was speaking Yiddish, but I swear I understood him, or understood a lot of what he was saying. I think he was telling me that the same thing had happened to him. I guess he meant that he had been stabbed. I don’t know. You get hurt, you think you’re going to die, crazy stuff goes through your head.”
“Not so crazy. He was talking inside you, Dov. Not outside.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are doing good, that you are on the right track. But when you see the Satmarer reb, you should tell him about this man. He will understand better than me.”
After he hung up, Taylor told his nurse that he didn’t want any more pain medication. He told her he was a recovering alcoholic, and he asked her if there was an AA group in the hospital. There was, and Taylor began to feel better.
No, he would not accept a script for Percodan. He’d tough it out. And tomorrow he’d get out of the hospital—away from all the needles and drugs—even if he had to crawl.
I’ll talk to Horowitz, he told himself. And something tells me that when I finish with him, I’ll find Mary Rubel, too. I’ll find her even if I have to chase her to Poland, or wherever it is she lives. Some of my old snitches must be around. A woman like that, someone knows something about her. And when I find her, I’ll find the rebbe’s diamond, too, I know it.
The rebbe’s diamond. His big secret that almost got me killed. Taylor started thinking about how much he would enjoy giving the Satmarer rebbe a piece of his mind, and he began rehearsing what he would say to him.
Chapter 33 The Satmarer Rebbe’s House
South Ninth Street,
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Friday, September 17
TAYLOR AWOKE WITH A START as Pinchus Mayer touched his shoulder lightly. “The rebbe is ready for you now, Dov Taylor,” Mayer said. “You are all right, yes?”
Taylor stood up unsteadily and checked his watch. It was two A.M. He had been discharged from the hospital at noon, Thursday, and the first thing he had done was to call Alex, his sponsor, and tell him about the Demerol.
