Jonathan Kellerman - The Conspiracy Club

“I’d rather have it, now.”

“Eager to learn?” said the man. “It’s a very good commentary.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“How did you find me?”

“The Catholic bookstore recommended you.”

“Ah, Joe McDowell, he was always loyal.” The man smiled and stood. At least six-three. His torso was huge, and Jeremy wondered how he’d adjusted to the closet-size premises. He extended a hand. “Bernard Kaplan.”

“Jeremy Carrier.”

“Carrier… is that French?”

“Way back,” said Jeremy. Then he blurted, “I’m not Jewish.”

Kaplan smiled. “Few people are… excuse my curiosity, but Sforno’s commentary is a rather esoteric request. For anyone.”

“Someone recommended it to me. A doctor at Central Hospital, where I work.”

“Good hospital,” said Kaplan. “All my children were born there. None became doctors.”

“Did Dr. Chess deliver them?”

“Chess? No, don’t know him. We used Dr. Oppenheimer. Sigmund Oppenheimer. Back then he was one of the few Jewish doctors they allowed in.”

“The hospital was segregated?”

“Not officially,” said Kaplan. “But of course. Everything was. Some places still are.”

“The country clubs.”

“If it was only the country clubs. No, your hospital was not a citadel of tolerance. During the early fifties there was some agitation about expelling the few Jewish doctors on staff. Dr. Oppenheimer was the reason it didn’t happen. The man delivered so many babies that losing him would’ve slashed revenues too severely. He delivered the mayor’s children and just about anyone else’s who wanted the best. Golden hands.”

“It often comes down to dollars and cents,” said Jeremy.

“Often it does. And that’s the point of the Ethics of the Fathers . It shouldn’t. There’s more to life than dollars and cents. It’s a wonderful book. My favorite quotation is, ‘The more meat, the more worms.’ Meaning, he who dies with the most toys, simply has the most toys. Also, ‘Who is happy? He who is satisfied with what he’s got.’ If we could just realize that- and I include myself. Anyway, Dr. Carrier, I just happen to be carrying one copy of the Sforno edition because I ordered it for a man who changed his mind and stuck me with it when he bought it at discount over the Internet.” Kaplan opened the glass case, pulled out a paperback with dusty-rose covers, and handed it over.

Jeremy read the title. “Pirk-eye…”

“Peerk-ey,” said Kaplan. “That means chapters in Hebrew. Pirkei Avos - literally the chapters of the Fathers.”

“Who were the Fathers?”

“Not priests, that’s for sure.” Kaplan chuckled. His eyes were gray-blue, amused, slightly bloodshot. “It doesn’t mean father literally, in Hebrew the term also applies to scholars. In our tradition, when someone teaches you something important, he becomes as valued as a parent. Feel free to inspect the book.”

“No, I’ll take it,” said Jeremy. “How much?”

“Fifteen dollars. For you, twelve.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“You’re doing me a favor, young man. I’m not likely to sell it to anyone else. No one comes here anymore. I’m a relic and should be smart enough to engage in voluntary extinction. But retirement means death, and I like the old neighborhood, this street, the memories of the people I used to know. I own this building and a few others on Fairfield. When I die, my kids will sell everything and make out like bandits.”

That caused Jeremy to think of something. “Did you know Mr. Renfrew- the used bookseller?”

“Shadley Renfrew,” said Kaplan. “Certainly. A fine man- ah, you knew him because his shop was right near the hospital.”

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“I heard he passed on. Too bad.”

“He beat cancer, then his heart gave out.”

“Throat cancer,” said Kaplan. “That’s why he never spoke. Before the cancer, he used to sing. Had a wonderful voice.”

“Did he?”

“Oh, yes. An Irish tenor. Maybe he was lucky.”

“In what way?”

“Enforced silence,” said Kaplan. “Perhaps it made him wiser. That’s something else you’ll find in there.” He tapped the book. “ ‘Be cautious with your words, lest they learn to lie.’ Here, let me wrap it for you.” He reached into a drawer and drew out something shiny and orange. “And here’s a hard candy to go with it. Elite, from Israel. They’re very good. I used to give it out to the kids when they came in. You’re the youngest person I’ve seen around here in ages, so today you’ll be the lucky kid.”

Jeremy thanked him and paid for the book. As he left the shop, Bernard Kaplan said, “That customer could wait for his ethics. I’m glad you couldn’t.”

On the way to the car, Jeremy popped the orange candy in his mouth and ground it to sweet, citrus dust.

He opened the book while the Nova’s engine idled. The right side was Hebrew, the left English translation. During the brief time he’d been in the shop, the temperature had dropped, and the car had turned frigid. Still a good ways from winter, but his windshield was coated with a gossamer layer of rime. It could get like that because of the lake. Winds whipping across the water, churning up the cold.

His first year at City Central, a storm from the north had plunged the mercury from forty above to forty below in two hours, and the hospital’s auxiliary generators had threatened to shut down.

No deaths, the bottom-liners claimed, but Jeremy’d heard tales of respirators hesitating, operating lights switching off midincision.

He switched on the heater, reached to activate the wipers to clear the frost and thought better of it. Privacy was good.

Time to soak up some ethics from the Fathers. From Bernard Kaplan’s quotations and the Bartlett’s analogy, he’d expected a collection of homilies, and the pages he flipped on the way to Chapter Five seemed consistent with that.

But Chapter Five, paragraph 8 was different.

A litany of punishments wreaked upon the world for a host of transgressions.

Famine for failure to tithe, a plague of wild beasts for vain oaths, exile for idolatry.

Section e read:

The sword of war comes to the world

for the delay of justice.

Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno’s commentary backed that up with a citation from Leviticus: A sword avenging the vengeance of the covenant.

Someone out to set things in order.

A covenant- an agreement- to set things straight.

By clearing up unsolved murders?

Or committing new ones- a cleansing plague?

Viewed through the prism of vengeful justice, the articles took on a different cast.

Laser surgery on women. Newspaper accounts of two murdered women.

The laser, a cleansing weapon- a cleansing tool ?

Had some madman used an ancient text as rationale for his personal brand of justice?

Or worse: a fiend, simply bragging?

Jeremy flipped through the pink book and gazed, uncomprehending, at the Hebrew letters. Could there be a Jewish link to all this? Someone wanting him to think there was?

That brought to mind something he’d read years ago, in college. About Jack the Ripper. An abnormal psych professor, straining for relevance, had placed a true-crime account of the Whitehall murders on his reading list, claiming it illustrated sadistic psychopathy better than any textbook.

Straining for relevance was generally a fool’s game, and Jeremy had considered the work yet more gratuitous dumbing-down: lots of speculation, theories that could never be proved or disproved, pages of gory photos.