"Fuck you," Zeke told his stepfather, and struck out on his own, starting his own clothing store. Like father, like son. Right down to the money problems and the subsequent felonies. Zeke chose credit-card fraud. His father tried arson.
People always said that if Zeke's father hadn't died, the gossip would have killed him. Zeke, only five at the time of his suicide, was spared the whispers at first. By the time he was a teenager, however, the neighborhood yentas and yentas-in-training made sure he knew every shameful detail. The division of the business, with the shrewd macher Rubin screwing Rubenstein, persuading him to take the downtown real estate and the dress business, while he moved the furs to the suburbs. Then there was the fire at the store, an arson fire that killed a night watchman who should have been on his dinner break, but they never proved that Zeke's father did it. He didn't live long enough to be charged.
To Zeke's way of thinking, his father's death proved only that he was in despair, not that he had arranged that little bolt of Jewish lightning. The fire had wiped him out-the insurance company didn't want to pay because of the arson investigation. Yakob Rubenstein had nowhere to turn, except to his wife's bank accounts, and sweet, pliant Leah didn't want to give him her money. Why did everyone harp on the suspicious fire while ignoring the serendipity of the Widower Rubin marrying the Widow Rubenstein less than six months later? Rubin had screwed his onetime partner, now he screwed his wife. All the while expecting Nathaniel Ezekiel to toe the line, to be a scared little yes-sir boy like his own son, Mark.
If only his own mother had been more like Natalie and put her son first. If only Natalie were more like his mother, willing to abandon her children for the man she loved. One was too weak, the other too strong.
Well, Natalie would need her strength when she learned that her children were dead. It would be hard for weeks, even months-Zeke had no illusions about that. But it was the only solution that made everything work out. He'd give her another baby to make up for the ones she had to lose.
He reviewed the plan in his head, glorying in the details. Zeke would call Mark and propose a deaclass="underline" All the cash he could raise in one business day in exchange for the children. Once that was done, they would meet-oh, so fitting-in the Robbins amp; Co. storage facility. He would tell Mark and the children to go into the storage vault, promising to send Natalie to unlock the door in a few hours. But in a few hours, Zeke and Natalie would be long gone, taking whatever money Mark had given them.
And when Mark and the children were found, suffocated, it would be obvious to everyone what had happened, even Natalie. Mark was so bitter, so warped, that he'd decided to kill her children to get back at her. It happens. Zeke knew a guy at Jessup who did just that, killed two kids to get back at the wife who was divorcing him. Men are capable of anything. So Mark would be dead-which was the plan all along-and Natalie would inherit his money, which was really Zeke's money.
He never wanted to kill the children, truly. He'd been trying to think of a way around it, truth be told. But Penina and Efraim had seen too much, back on the highway in Ohio. Isaac knew too much and talked too much. They would end up hanging their own mother-and Zeke alongside her. Besides, they'd be happy for a few hours. They'd have hope. Before they used up all the oxygen, they'd think they were preparing for a reunion. Even Mark would dare to be hopeful, thinking his life was about to be made whole again, that Natalie was finally coming back.
Horrible yes, but better for Natalie-and Zeke. They would get a fresh start, they would have the life for which they had planned all these years. There weren't supposed to be any children. He thought he had made that clear to Natalie. It wasn't his fault that she had ignored his instructions. No children, ever. He didn't want to be a father to another man's sons, because he knew how impossible that was.
"Everybody settle in," he said, trying to sound cheerful. "We need to make good time." A sign promised that Washington was only sixty miles ahead, which meant Baltimore was a mere one hundred-not even ninety minutes if the highways treated them right. "Good time means we get to the good times that much faster." Zeke's father always said that when they went on their rare trips, usually just long weekends to Ocean City. There was always too much work to do to take longer vacations. He was the one who taught Zeke the traveling song. "We're hitting the road! (We're hitting the road!) Without a single care! (Withut a single care!) 'Cuz we're going, and we'll know where we are when we're there."
Zeke began singing the song lustily, not minding when the children refused to chime in. This time he sang all the parts himself.
Chapter Thirty-seven
"BUT I ASKED YOU," TESS SAID, HER VOICE A LITTLE WHINY even to her own ears. "I specifically asked you about Nathaniel Rubenstein when his name showed up on the list, and you said he was still in federal prison. You also said he never participated in the group."
They were in the living room, where Mark had spent a painful half hour stammering through a family history that made Tess realize how uncomplicated-and, really, how unblighted-her own family was. Robbins amp; Sons had started off as a partnership between Aaron Rubin and Yakob Rubenstein, two young friends who had learned the garment trade from their fathers, both tailors. There had been no sons, and no wives, when they opened their store on Lombard Street, but all that was assumed. They soon married, and both had sons the same blessed year. They quarreled, they went their separate ways. In the same cursed year that Aaron lost his wife to cancer, Leah Rubenstein lost her husband to suicide. The pair married while the boys were in grade school. Everything Mark had told Tess about Nathaniel Rubenstein-the stolen goods accepted to prop up his fledgling business, the credit-card fraud, his refusal to participate in the group-was true.
Mark had just neglected to mention that the man was his stepbrother.
"Besides, he's still in prison, as far as I know. He got two and ten. That adds up to twelve."
"Your arithmetic is great, but your knowledge of corrections is a little sketchy. He probably got credit for the state time. Or he could have been released early for any number of reasons."
Mark held out his hands, almost as if he were a drowning man. "My stepbrother stopped speaking to me years ago, so I wouldn't have any idea if he got out early. I started the group at Jessup for him, but he wanted no part of it, and no part of me. I'm not sure he even knows Boris."
Tess shot a look at Whitney, who was circling the room appraising Mark's art collection. Literally appraising, for Whitney had a complicated formula that identified potential charitable givers according to how much they were willing to spend on the fine arts. In for a Picasso, in for a pound, she liked to say.
"Maybe this is the secret Boris has been dangling like bait all these years. He knew there was something between his daughter and your stepbrother."
"What do you mean by that? Besides, it could be a coincidence. Who knows what Isaac was spelling, if anything?"
Given their quarrel earlier in the day, Tess was reluctant to challenge Mark when he went into full denial mode. Whitney, however, had no such limitations.
"Pull your head out of your ass," she said, distracted from the statue she'd been admiring. "Your runaway wife is on the road with your stepbrother. That's not a coincidence. It's a scheme."
Mark looked furious for a moment, as if he might throw something or order them out of his home. His hands even balled into fists, then quickly came undone.