Стив Хокенсмит - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 6, June 2006

“Tomorrow morning.”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched. “I’ll be there.”

“Please, Danny. Sam wants you in the store.”

“I’ll get someone else,” I said, not bothering to keep the frustration out of my voice. “It’s the least I can do.”

Rebecca left soon after. I had no doubt now that her father wasn’t the only Levin hiding something. And with Sam not talking to me, there was only one person left to speak to.

Business was slow, and after six hours of doing virtually nothing, I finally called Rebecca’s house. I knew she wouldn’t be home because she’d gone straight to work after her strange visit. But her daughter Shira would be home.

She picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Shira, my name is Danny Colangelo—”

“I know you! You work with zayda at the store.”

“That’s right. Listen, I don’t want to bother you for too long, but did your mother have some words with the rabbi?”

Something changed in Shira’s voice. She almost sounded excited. “How did you know? She came home after... everything and she was even more upset than usual.”

“Why?”

“Because the rabbi had said something to her in the bathroom.”

“He followed her into the bathroom?”

“Yeah, it was weird. I was already in there, and I was just about to leave when I heard his voice and my mom’s. Then I couldn’t leave so I stayed and listened. They kept their voices down, but he sounded like someone in one of those old movies, threatening the heroine or something.”

I was about to ask something else but Shira interrupted me. “Damn, my mom’s home. I better go. Bye!”

I cradled the phone. There was my answer.

I buzzed the door of Sam’s apartment, wondering if he’d actually let me in. To my surprise, he buzzed me in, and I walked up the five flights of stairs hoping he wouldn’t shut me out.

Sam’s eyes brightened at first when he opened the door, then narrowed into slits.

“Danny, what the hell took you so long?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What do you mean?”

“Rebecca said that you were too busy asking everyone else what they were doing when the rabbi got himself killed to come and see me.”

“Sam,” I said, adjusting to the rickety chair opposite Sam’s rocking chair, “your daughter’s been playing each of us off the other. She said you didn’t want me to come see you.”

“And you listened to her?”

“Why wouldn’t I? She’s your daughter.”

He shook his head sadly. “Yes. She is. But she got herself way in over her head.”

I didn’t know what to do: shake him or hug him. “And that’s why you allowed yourself to be arrested?”

“I knew the truth would come out,” he explained. “And even if it didn’t, I’ve survived far worse.”

“But this is your life they’re messing with, Sam! You’d just give up everything?”

For so long he’d looked a little frailer than he ought to. Now, somehow, he looked strong, even vigorous.

“I’m an old man, Danny. I’ve lived more years than I have left, and I’ve been fortunate that most of those years turned out to be very good. I saw my children grow up, give birth to their children, and now the youngest has had her celebration. And what my daughter did, she had her reasons.”

“Reasons that don’t include stabbing a rabbi in the chest twelve times.”

Sam recoiled. “I didn’t know that.”

“Nobody told you?”

The vigor disappeared, and he looked like a tired old man once again. “All I know is that Kranzman died quickly.”

Neither of us spoke for a bit. My mind went round in circles: Sam was prepared to go to jail for his daughter, which would deprive him of his family for the rest of his days. But if he was free, Rebecca’s punishment would tear apart both older and younger generations.

I looked at him, searching for a solution. Somehow, it had become my decision to make. I knew all too well what awaited either of them in prison. I’d survived, but I couldn’t be certain that either of them would.

Finally, I looked Sam in the eye. “I’ll find a way,” I said.

“You always do, Danny. Even when you think you can’t.”

It was my cue to leave, but then the door opened.

“Daddy, are you going to be all right for tomorrow—”

Rebecca stopped when she saw me.

“Hello, Rebecca.”

She looked at her father, then back at me, her mouth open as if she would say something. When she did, it sounded like she hadn’t spoken for weeks.

“You know.”

“I didn’t tell him!” Sam said.

“Of course not,” Rebecca snapped. “I didn’t misdirect things enough. I tried, sneaking that note into the cantor’s place—”

“You put it there?” I said. “But your name was on the list!”

“Not originally.”

She went into the kitchen to get a drink. It struck me as ironic, that someone who’d stabbed a man twelve times for reasons I’d yet to figure out could calmly walk into the kitchen like that.

“I don’t get it,” I said, when Rebecca returned. “Why would you do this to your father?”

“I wasn’t going to do anything! There’s so little to hold him that Sam’s lawyer is confident the charges will be dropped in the morning. The police don’t have anything.”

“They have you, Rebecca.”

She spat at me. “What the hell do you know? You’re just a druggie ex-con who got the job out of pity. You think you’re good enough? You think you can waltz into my father’s life and be like the son he never had, when he already had children? And grandchildren?”

I watched Sam, his face turning to utter horror at his daughter’s words.

Rebecca rushed toward him, falling to her knees, sobbing. “But Daddy! I loved him, I loved him so much, and he ruined everything! He was going to leave, and that he humiliated Shira, hurt me like that—”

Finally, he spoke.

“I expected better of you,” he said, the voice of a man whose spirit had finally broken.

The shop stayed shut for several weeks after Rebecca turned herself in. I visited Sam as much as I could, and he tried to be his usual joking self, but we both knew it was futile. The only times he brightened up were when I brought Sharon around. One time he whispered, “Don’t let her go, Danny. She’s the best thing that ever happened to you.”

I looked at her, the lustrous brown hair that always seemed moments from escaping from its ponytail, the eyes so bright and alive.

“You think so?” I whispered back.

“Absolutely.”

I knew better than to ignore his advice. But on the way home, I told Sharon I needed to make one last stop.

“Where to?” she asked, bewildered in the change of plans.

“There’s a poker game I need to sit in on.”

“Promise you won’t stay late?”

“That’s the easiest promise I can make.”

She swung the car over to the synagogue’s entrance. I kissed her quickly before heading downstairs to the game. Jack Reichstein, Cantor Cohen, and the gabbai, whose name I didn’t remember, were deep into a competitive round. A pile of chips was stacked in front of Cohen, who seemed to relish his good fortune.

Everyone turned when I shut the door behind me.

“Looking for a fourth?” I said.

Reichstein grinned. “For you? Anything.”

In this case, politics wasn’t more predictable because any thought of stacking the deck was shot at every turn. And I wanted something predictable.

I sat in and let everyone else win.

Every day, Scottie Crocker walked past Jayzee’s corner on his way to the store for a Coke. And every day, one of Jayzee’s guys would waddle after him, imitating him, babbling, maybe even drooling. Scottie had learned to ignore them.