Tod Goldberg - Gangsterland

The newer luxury hotels that had contracts with Kochel Farms — the Monte Carlo, the MGM, the Bellagio, even the revamped Caesars — barely even let Jeff in the door, which didn’t make it likely that they off-loaded a hit man, either, and the restaurants inside them were all corporate jobs for the most part, none of them connected to any known crime figures.

He hit up the bars and the dives and the mom-n-pop joints on the list, and the reaction he got was the same each time, usually some variation on, “Why the fuck would we be hiding that guy? Get the fuck out of my business.” He event went off the map a few times, rolling into venerable (and reputed Mafia) businesses like the Venetian, the twenty-four-hour pasta spot over on Sahara, and Piero’s over by the Convention Center, just to get the feel for the city again, listen in on conversations, that sort of thing, but all he heard were tourists quoting The Godfather while they ordered dessert.

And now Summerlin, Howard Hughes’s landgrab that had turned twenty-five thousand acres of scrub desert into high-end suburbia, replete with private golf courses, McMansions, man-made lakes, and millions of dollars’ worth of plastic surgery patients. Hughes wanted to rid Las Vegas of organized crime, and he did a pretty good job of it. But he’d replaced one kind of criminal with elements just as immoral and ruthless: real estate developers and elective surgery outlets.

Jeff exited on Buffalo, then headed west on Vegas Drive and then up Hillpointe, past gated developments with names like Adagio, Cielo Vista, and Painted Shadow Canyon, signs for the TPC golf course and vacant lots that promised “unique, timeless homes at exclusive members’ pricing!” Jeff couldn’t help but think of Paul Bruno.

There were six places in and around Summerlin Jeff needed to visit today, and he figured he’d knock the easiest one out first — the cafeteria at the Tikvah Preschool and Dorothy Copeland Children’s Center at Temple Beth Israel — before going to a bar called Bananaz, a couple delis, a new resort in Summerlin, and then two different country clubs.

The idea that a private preschool might need its own meat distributer seemed absurd on the face of things, until Jeff saw the sprawling campus of Temple Beth Israel unfold in front of him. On one side of the street was the temple, with a lattice-work of adjoining buildings and green spaces forming a crescent against the road. Aside the crescent of completed buildings was another series of buildings — the signs said it was a private K–12 school called the Barer Academy — which looked to be about 80 percent finished and which at the moment was filled with construction workers.

On the other side of the street was a funeral home, a cemetery, and even more construction — a learning center and another park that promised tennis courts and an aquatic center by 2001. Jeff thought of Paul Bruno again — a guy like him could have made a billion dollars selling real estate in Las Vegas.

Jeff parked in the temple’s lot and gathered up his materials — a notepad, a pen, a stack of photos of Sal Cupertine, his cell phone, and his gun, but then thought better of it and stuffed the gun in the glove box of his rented Pontiac, figuring that bringing a gun into a house of worship that was also filled with kids was a bad idea. No need to court anxiety and trouble where it wasn’t needed, particularly not for an exercise that would probably be over in ten minutes or less. The bars and delis, well, those he’d come strapped in. You never knew who was hiding in the back of those places.

He walked through the temple, poked his head into their little Judaica shop, which was well stocked but didn’t seem to have anyone actually working in it, and then made his way down a long hall to the temple’s administrative office. . where he sat for fifteen uncomfortable minutes, waiting for someone with a little authority to come and speak with him, since the receptionist was no help whatsoever. It was nine thirty in the morning. If he wanted to get everything done that he planned for the day, he’d need to bounce in another fifteen minutes, come back the next day, or just cross it off the list as cleared.

He’d shown the receptionist, a woman in her late fifties named Esther, several photos of Sal Cupertine, and she hadn’t recognized him, and she said she’d been there every weekday for the last three years, except for holidays and when she went on vacation to the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego.

“Rabbi Cohen should be here any minute now,” Esther said.

“Is Rabbi Cohen the only person who can take me over to the cafeteria?”

“Oh, yes,” Esther said. “We have very strict rules about strangers coming onto the campus during school hours. Rabbi Cohen or Rabbi Kales must be with you at all times, for safety purposes. We can’t very well have strangers with the children, you understand.”

“Is Rabbi Kales in?”

“Oh, no, he’s out ill. Rabbi Cohen should be here any moment now,” she said, a touch too sternly for Jeff’s taste. “A cup of coffee would probably make the time pass faster, that’s what I’ve always found.”

“Okay, thank you,” Jeff said. Esther stepped away then, so Jeff got up and looked out the window to the construction going on across the street. What a strange combination of facilities: a funeral home and a Jewish cemetery surrounded by an aquatic center, tennis courts, and, at least according to the signs, a performing arts center. The entire circle of life on one street.

“Can I help you?”

Jeff turned around. Standing in the doorway was a man in an expensive black suit, a thick salt-and-pepper beard, glasses, close-cropped black hair that showed just a hint of gray at the temples, a black yarmulke on the back of his head. He was maybe six foot, lean in the body but had some weight in his face, like maybe he ate a few too many cookies. Jeff guessed he was in his forties.

“I’m waiting for Rabbi Cohen,” Jeff said.

The man cocked his head, like he hadn’t quite heard him. “Did you have an appointment?”

“No,” Jeff said. “I’m actually here on some sensitive business that I hoped to discuss with him.” He stepped back over to the uncomfortable chair and gathered up his materials. “I’m actually wondering if anyone here has seen this man.” He handed the man a photo of Sal Cupertine. He stared at it for just a moment, then handed it back.

“I didn’t get your name,” the man said.

“Jeff Hopper,” he said, and he extended his hand.

“Rabbi David Cohen,” the man replied, though instead of shaking Jeff’s hand, he clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m afraid I’ve just come back from a funeral, so my hands are covered in dirt.”

“Oh, of course, right,” Jeff said. It was one of the few things Jeff knew about Jewish funerals: Everyone threw dirt on the casket. It was both touching and a little creepy, though of course someone had to bury the dead. What must it be like for this man, Jeff wondered, who had to throw dirt on the graves of people every day? What must it be like to be so intimate with death? Jeff wasn’t a religious man, so he never gave much thought to people like priests and rabbis, never considered that when it all came down to the end of things, they were always there to handle the worst of it. How do you not take that home with you at night? Four people had died because of Jeff’s actions — or his inactions, anyway — and he wore their memories like chain mail. And then there was Paul Bruno. . and Fat Monte. . and who knew what the hell would happen to Fat Monte’s wife, a still-living vegetable?

“I can come back,” Jeff said, because suddenly he realized just how fruitless it was to be at Temple Beth Israel, of all places, bothering this rabbi.