An Image of Death (30 page)

“I think it’s pretty unbelievable, too.” I bit my lip—it wouldn’t be a good idea to fall apart in front of my fourteen-year-old daughter. “But there are times when things just don’t work out.” God, what a pitiful answer. “And we end up hurt.” Just as inane.

“You know just what this sounds like?” She shot me a look. “It sounds like the junk you told me when you and Daddy got divorced.”

Back then, I’d bought one of those “how to explain divorce to your kids” books. Its strict guidelines mandated that parents tell the child together in a neutral location. We should stress that it wasn’t the child’s fault. We followed the advice. It didn’t work.

“I already went through it once.” She bristled. “I don’t want to do it again.”

“I—I’m sorry, Rachel.”

She rolled over, got out of bed, and stormed into her room.

The gas heater clicked on, and hot air pushed through the vents. I lay in bed wondering how life, which had seemed so normal a few weeks ago, had become so unsettled. David. The tape. Petrovsky. Max Gordon. And I seemed to be the only person who cared about any of it. David didn’t care about me; the police didn’t care about the case; Ricki Feldman and Max Gordon cared only about their business.

But, how do you learn not to care? To shrug off doubts and reclaim sleepless nights? Maybe I should take a few lessons. I switched off the light, for once welcoming the dark for its indifference.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-TWO

Friday night I dropped Rachel at Barry’s for the weekend. His condo, on the third floor of a small, upscale apartment building, isn’t far from the house—it was one of the more rational decisions he made when we broke up. Barry met us at the front door in the lobby, which, considering the frigid temperature, was surprising. Usually he lurks in his apartment, waiting for me to ring the bell and deliver Rachel as if she were a package from UPS.

He came out to the car and leaned his head in. “How ’bout you come to dinner with us? We’re getting Thai.”

“I—I’m already cooking for Dad.”

“He can come, too.”

Rachel had told me how Barry’s affair with Marlene, the aerobics queen, had cooled. Considering my run-in with her last fall, I wasn’t unhappy. And despite their differences, Dad and Barry tried to get along. But I was feeling vulnerable, which was exactly what Barry was counting on.

“Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

Barry shrugged as if to say “I tried,” and slipped his arm around Rachel.

“Bye, Mom. Tell
Opa
he owes me a game of chess.”

***

There’s nothing like the aroma of a good Shabbos brisket on a cold winter night. To some people, the smell is an aphrodisiac. I tend to think of it as foreplay—sniffing can be better than the main event. Tonight, though, Dad seemed impervious to its siren song. He’d been quiet on the ride up, but once inside, he proceeded to sit in three different chairs, like a wizened, male version of Goldilocks.

I lit candles, and Dad recited kiddush. After
Motzi
I served bowls of my homemade matzo ball soup. I dug in—I make good matzo balls, even if they come from a box—but Dad took one spoonful and pushed his away.

“Too much salt?” I looked over.

He reached for his cane, lumbered to his feet, and started to pace around the dining room table.

“What’s with the
shpilches
tonight?”

He pressed his lips together. “I’m beginning to think that guy Kevorkian has the right idea.”

I put my spoon down. “Excuse me?”

“At a certain point in your life, you get let out to pasture.” I started to interrupt, but he overrode me. “No, it’s true. Once you’re over the hill, you’re marginalized. No matter who you were before. And if you’ve got health problems on top of it, you’re in even more trouble. People shove you into a corner, roll their eyes when they deal with you—”

He held up his palm when I tried to break in. “I’ve seen it happen. What I’m saying is if you get to the point where you can’t even wipe yourself without help, maybe someone oughta give you a push into the Almighty’s arms.” He sniffed. “It happens a lot more than we think. It’s just no one ever talks about it.”

“You think that kind of thing should be sanctioned?”

He rounded the table. “Here’s the thing, Ellie. Who decides when it’s time to pull the plug? Let’s say I draft a living will—you know, put in that no special resuscitation clause, if I think I’m gonna end up a vegetable. And say you’re my executor. If I’m not in any shape to make decisions, how do I know you are? How do you know when it’s time? Do you ask the doctors? Do you rely on your own common sense?”

“That’s a lot of speculation.”

“Exactly. Which is why it’s all so crazy. What if you’re just fed up—what do they call it now when you’ve had enough?”

“Burnout?”

“Right. What if you’re burned out with taking care of me? How do we know—how does anyone know if the decision you made was in my interests…and not yours?”

I leaned my elbows on the table, remembering a conversation we’d had when I was younger and much more sure of myself. We’d been discussing medical miracles, and how they save lives, even though the cost of them might drive the patient into bankruptcy. I’d been arguing against the principle; it was creating a two-tiered health care system. Medicine for the rich and famous, I’d called it—middle-class need not apply.

“Who wants to live to be ninety-five, anyway?” I’d asked huffily.

Dad looked at me, then answered quietly, “The guy who’s ninety-four.”

I never forgot that. I repeated it now.

He sat down heavily. “But what if you don’t know how old you are?”

I finally realized what was making him so morose. “Sylvia’s worse, isn’t she?”

He nodded slowly. “She needs more care than the place can give. But.…” His eyes glittered. “Her daughter-in-law’s ready to send her to one of those advanced care facilities. You know. The places you go when you’re waiting to die. And everybody else wishes you would.”

I winced.

“Her son isn’t convinced she should go. He’s got a good
nashoma
, that boy. He wants her to move in with them. But his wife? Forget it. God forbid it interferes with her paddle tennis or their kid’s soccer practice.”

“Watch it,” I said.

“Come on. You know what I’m saying. It’s not the money. I’d understand it if they couldn’t afford a decent nursing home, but they can. They can even afford in-home care. The wife just doesn’t want to be put out.”

“What about Sylvia? What does she think?”

“She just sits in her room.” He sighed. “She stares at the clock all the time now. Keeping track, letting it wind down, I don’t know. I visit her every afternoon, make her a cup of tea, and we talk. But, Ellie.…” He turned an anguished face to me. “I can’t do this again.”

When my mother was dying of cancer, my father dropped everything to stay by her side. He nursed her, fed her, entertained her, comforted her. Watched as each day she became a little less of the person she’d been before. And when it was all over, he cried and packed up all her things for the Ark, a Chicago Jewish good-will agency. It was an experience no one should repeat.

I stood up and put my arms around him. “You don’t have to.”

He shaded his eyes with his hand. “She’s got no one else.”

I stroked the back of his head. “How much longer can she stay there, you think?”

“Hard to say. Maybe a month.”

I was quiet. Then, “That month could be the best month of her life.”

He looked up and gazed at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. “I suppose.” After a moment, he hugged me. “Thanks, sweetheart.” A glimmer of a smile played around his lips. “Okay. Time for some of that brisket that’s been smelling up the house.”

***

“How’s David?” he asked a few minutes later.

“Fine,” I lied. One of us crying into our soup was enough. Especially considering the time it took me to make it. I changed the subject and told him about the ground-breaking ceremony. He nodded when I mentioned Max Gordon.

“You know him?”

“I know who he is. Short, bald Jewish guy. Sticks his hand in his jacket like Napoleon.”

“That’s him.”

“Don’t know a thing about him—except that he wants to be the Trump of Chicago. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged.

“I see right through you, sweetheart. You’re your mother’s daughter. She never could hide anything, either.”

“You’re right. I feel uneasy about the guy. But everybody else seems to think he’s the best thing to hit town since Michael Jordan. I even did a search on him, and only one article was the slightest bit critical. And even that wasn’t really critical. Just guarded.”

“Why do you care about Max Gordon’s reputation?”

“It’s a long story.”

Dad’s eyebrows shot up as if I’d just pronounced a secret password. “I worry when you start out like that.”

“I’m not in trouble this time. Promise.” I tried my most reassuring smile. “But there are some strange—well, I don’t even know if you could call them coincidences…more like confluences of events.” I told him everything: the woman on the tape, the killer’s ski mask, DM Maids, the van driver, Celestial Bodies, the dentists’ office, the woman’s tattoo, the note, Max Gordon’s reaction to my comments about the construction worker.

His eyebrows went sky high “How did you happen to meet the women at Celestial Bodies, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I—I was there. With the police.”

He scowled.

I skipped the part about the gun at my head. “It was fine, Dad. Really.” I passed him the meat. “So, what do you think?”

“I don’t like you being involved.”

“Me, I’m not—not really.”

He pointed to the gravy boat. “They don’t know that.”

I passed it over. “I know what you’re saying, and I am trying to stay out of trouble. But I did wonder if I should call the guy who wrote that newsletter article on Gordon. Maybe I’d learn something that would help.”

“Dream on. What do you think the guy’s gonna tell you? He has no idea what you’re gonna do with the information.”

“You’re probably right.” I sighed. “So what should I do?”

Dad took a bite of meat and chewed it thoroughly. “I don’t know why I’m helping you—it’s a sure sign of trouble. But I know someone who might be able to give you a heads-up on Max Gordon.”

***

Dad’s buddy Frank Mayer looks like a combination of Alfafa and Albert Einstein. Tufts of frizzy white hair stick out at odd angles, framing his head like some ethereal halo. He was alone in the card room enveloped by a cloud of cigar smoke. A bright light hung directly over the table. A TV in the corner blared the news. His thick glasses almost obscured his eyes, but his face creased into a smile when he saw Dad.

“Jake. You’re back early.”

“Can’t have you playing solitaire by yourself now, can I? How can you cheat?”

Yanking his thumb in Dad’s direction, Frank looked over at me. “This from the guy who tells me that a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.”

Dad positioned himself behind Frank. “Yeah. Me and W.C. Fields.”

I smiled at their tough-guy banter. My father was as likely to cheat as the Cubs were to win the World Series.

“Slap the two of hearts on the ace,” Dad said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Frank grumbled. He looked down, moved the card, then looked at me. “And how’s Queen Eleanor tonight? You look good, honey.”

“Thanks.” I touched his arm. “Frank, Dad says you used to work at Harrison Trust.”

He grunted. “Thirty years. Still on the board of directors.” He flipped over three cards, placed a queen on a king, then a two of clubs on the ace. “Why? You got a banking problem?”

“Not really.” Dad and I exchanged looks. “I just wondered what you could tell me about Max Gordon.”

Frank looked up from his game. “The little giant?”

I wasn’t sure if he was being facetious. I nodded.

“Why?”

“I shot some video for him the other day, and I—I was curious.”

“The ground breaking downtown?”

“That’s right. I didn’t realize he was such a big deal.”

“Yeah, he’s a big deal.” He sounded unenthusiastic.

“He’s not?”

“Oh, he’s a big deal, all right.”

“So, why—what is your take on him?”

Frank gathered up the cards and folded them together. Then he picked up a copy of the
Chicago Jewish News
on the next chair and patted the seat. “What do you want to know?”

I sat down. “Everything I read says he can’t do anything wrong. Investing in Eastern Europe. Growing the bank’s asset base at the same time. He’s a hero.”

“You believe everything you read?” I saw a reflection of the overhead light in Frank’s glasses.

“I shouldn’t?”

He paused. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t call him a
landsman
.”

“
Landsman
” is one of those Yiddish expressions people use to refer to someone from the same town or region—a neighbor of sorts. My father uses it to refer to other German Jews, who can do no wrong, as opposed to Jews from other parts of the world. But I didn’t think that’s what Frank meant.

“You gotta wonder when a bank gets that big that fast,” he went on.

“That’s exactly what one of the articles said.”

“Is that so?”

“Why, Frank? What’s the deal?”

He shifted and picked up the cards. When he spoke, I got the feeling he was choosing his words carefully. “You hear things. On the street.”

“What things?”

“About depositors, how the books are handled. Things like that.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “He does a lot of business overseas. Always traveling. Deposits come in, deposits go out. Cash gets washed through. Suddenly he’s got huge assets on his books. But some of the depositors don’t exactly fit the profile of Fortune 500 companies.”

My father cut in. “Are you accusing him of dummy investments? Or money laundering?”

“I would never make those kind of allegations.” Frank smiled sweetly. “A man’s reputation is at stake.”