Tod Goldberg - Gangsterland

He had a temporary Nevada license in his wallet — Bennie brought it by over the weekend, along with another test, this time about what happens to Jews after they’re resurrected, which was some of the most absurd shit Dave had ever read, as it involved Jews rolling from their graves all the way to Israel, which made no sense whatsoever — and had been told over and over again that his paperwork was legit and not to worry, which was easy enough for Bennie to say. He wasn’t the guy driving around in a gold Range Rover with tinted windows, which made David feel as inconspicuous as the Sears Tower and just as big. So David drove from his house in Summerlin to the Bagel Café, located five miles away on the busy intersection of Westcliff and Buffalo, at about ten miles below the speed limit, which brought him to the restaurant fifteen minutes late.

When David walked in, he noticed first all the old people. There was a bakery section at the front of the house, and the seniors were lined up five deep by the pastry windows, the din of their hearing-aid-loud conversation bouncing off the walls of the place, the cacophony reminding David of a bingo parlor the Family ran back in the day on the South Side. On the other side of the bakery was the seating area — a U of booths around the perimeter, which looked out to the street and the parking lot, and then a dozen or so tables in the middle. David had always been freaked out by old people, never able to imagine himself living past fifty or so, not even after Jennifer had William and his life began to feel. . different. More valuable. It just didn’t seem feasible. His father was dead by forty. Never knew his grandparents. His mother remarried and moved to Arizona as soon as he graduated high school, and he’d lost complete contact with her, though he guessed she was probably still alive. His dream of retiring to California as a top dog was just a dream, something to put in the back of his head when he was doing contract killing in Champaign. As it turned out, Sal Cupertine was dead. David thought he might start keeping a list of all life’s cruel ironies, just to be sure he wasn’t imagining half of the shit that was happening.

He spotted Bennie sitting alone in a booth at the near corner of the restaurant, a bunch of papers spread out in front of him, three waters on the table. He had a pair of reading glasses in one hand, something David had never seen before.

“You’re late,” Bennie said when David slid in across from him.

“It took Slim Joe a while to get all the books downstairs,” David said.

“How’s that working out?”

“He’s fine,” David said, though the truth was he really wanted him out of the house, David not having any time to himself since the day of the shooting.

“He’s an idiot,” Bennie said.

“He’s all right,” David said, not really sure why he was defending Slim Joe.

Bennie put on his glasses and examined David’s face. “Any pain?”

“Nothing I can’t manage.”

“Swelling?”

“Around my chin some,” David said. “Probably couldn’t take an upper cut, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Jaw looks good,” Bennie said. “The beard is coming in nicely.”

“I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror.”

“That was the point,” Bennie said. He gathered up some of the paper in front of him — they looked to David like blueprints and spreadsheets, actual business work — and slid them into a manila envelope. “Anyway,” he said. “You ready to start earning?”

“Yeah,” David said, not sure what he was agreeing to. Anything was better than sitting around reading and watching the local news. Maybe Bennie would send him out to hit the weatherman on Channel 3 who needed a dog to sit next to him every day while he told Las Vegas it would be eighty-eight degrees for the fiftieth straight day, as if the stress of blue skies, dry air, and a city full of strippers was too much to handle by himself. “I need to get out of the house.”

A waitress walked up to the table then and smiled warmly at Bennie. “Hi, Mr. Savone,” she said. She was maybe eighteen, no more than twenty, tall, brown hair, had a hole in her nostril where David presumed she usually kept a ring, a little butterfly tattoo on her ankle just above her no-show socks and white Keds. The servers — male or female — all wore the same outfit: tan shorts, red polo shirt, white shoes. It looked to David that this waitress had hemmed her shorts a little higher than most of the other ladies. Not that he had a problem with that.

“How are you, Tricia?”

“Super,” she said. “How’s your wife? I haven’t seen her at temple in forever.”

“She’s been sick lately,” Bennie said.

“I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“Lady problems,” Bennie said. David marveled at how Bennie showed absolutely no embarrassment at all. “What’s it called? Endometriosis? When it gets bad, she just can hardly get up. But what can you do, right?”

“Oh, no,” Tricia said. “Well, when she’s feeling better, if you guys need someone to watch the kids for a date night or whatever, I’m happy to come over to help anytime.”

“I appreciate that,” Bennie said, and it sounded to David like the truth.

“Are you waiting on Rabbi Kales?”

“He just went to the restroom, so maybe just get him his usual,” Bennie said. “And I’ll have bacon and eggs, scrambled wet. Bring me a plate of sausage, too.”

“And what about for you?” Tricia gave David that same warm smile, which immediately made him feel uncomfortable. When was the last time he’d even seen a woman, much less spoken to one?

“Rabbi,” Bennie said, “you want some bacon and eggs, too?” Bennie not just fucking with him now, but also letting him know that he needed to act like a Rabbi in this place.

“I guess I’ll have an onion bagel and coffee,” David said. A plate of fucking sausage would work, too, the mere thought of it making his mouth turn on for the first time in months. No, no, not sausage. A plank of honey ham and a couple eggs fried in the ham fat and some corned beef hash. Glass of buttermilk to wash it down. Why were they meeting at a deli when Bennie knew Rabbi David Cohen couldn’t eat anything he might want?

Tricia took down his order but didn’t scurry on, which David really wanted her to do. The combination of his ham fantasy and her legs, which had to be ten feet long, was distracting. “So, I have to ask,” Tricia said, “are you going to be the new youth rabbi we’ve been hearing about?”

“He is,” Bennie said before David could answer. “He’ll be taking over in a couple of weeks.”

David couldn’t help but think of something he’d read a few mornings ago about the nature of good and evil, which basically said that no man was born entirely one or the other, that the moral freedom to be a complete asshole is inherent in all men. If you were largely a decent human, that was called yetzer tov. If you were not, that was called yetzer hara. Bennie Savone, the fat fuck, with his order of sausage and bacon, with his complete inability to inform David of things like the fact that he was about to become some kind of youth rabbi, clearly had made his choice. This was a personal choice to surprise him, put him off-center, show him that he had no control over anything. The Jews, they were always going on about personal liberty and truth — what did they call truth? The seal of God , not that David believed in God, but the sentiment was concise enough.

“That is so cool,” Tricia said. “We all totally miss Rabbi Gottlieb.”

“I’ve heard only good things about him,” David said, thinking, I can’t just sit here like an idiot and let Bennie push me into corners , though, at the same time he realized he had no choice, his own response a calculated answer to make this pretty young girl appeased. What was happening to him?