“Asylum?” asks Suri.
“He was saying they were being oppressed because of their religion, or lack of religion, and that the judicial system was corrupt-which it is-and that Rivka should be able to keep her children because she’d always been their primary caregiver. I asked him what happened with the sister-in-law, and he said she must have recognized him from the grocery store. He said once when he and Rivka were shopping-that’s how they used to meet at first, before they started fucking, at the grocery store. He’d, like, shop with her and they’d talk. They ran into her and Rivka pretended she didn’t know him, but Baruch said the lady looked suspicious.”
“So she fainted?” asks Suri. “That’s weird. You’re sure that’s why?”
“Who fucking knows? The whole thing was weird.”
“Do you remember the woman’s name?” I ask. “Was it Miriam?”
“Maybe,” says Dev. “You can ask Heshy.”
My phone rings. It’s Tony again. I decline the call just as we all hear the front door slam and someone come in.
“Suri, before I forget, can I get your last name? And your age?”
“Goldblatt,” she says. “I’m seventeen.”
“You can use mine, too, if you want,” says Dev. “Devorah Kletzky. I’m twenty-two.”
Whoever is coming up the stairs shakes the house. A man appears at the bedroom door. He is breathing heavily, and he is drunk. Pickled. The alcohol has a sweet-and-sour smell as it seeps as sweat out of his pores. He looks at Dev and Suri and then he looks at me. I’ve got my notebook out but he doesn’t seem to notice. Just another Jew girl in the house at Coney Island.
“I need to take a nap,” he says.
“You stink, Baruch,” says Dev.
Baruch does stink, but he is nonetheless incredibly attractive. He has olive skin and dark wavy hair. He’s months past a haircut and thick curls fall in front of his eyes. He is lean, but seems powerful. The veins in his hands are thick with blood. I don’t really know anything about how Rivka Mendelssohn felt about her husband, but looking at the man she was considering leaving him for, I can’t help but wonder if sheer chemistry wasn’t part of it. Baruch is fucking hot.
“Moses wants to talk to you,” he says. I’m not sure which of them he’s talking to.
“Tell Moses he can come get me if he wants to talk to me,” says Dev.
“He wants to talk to you, too,” says Baruch, looking at Suri. “He doesn’t think we’re taking it well.”
“What?” says Suri.
“He doesn’t think we’re taking it well,” he says, louder.
“Clearly you’re not taking it well,” says Dev.
“How could I take it well!”
“He seriously wants to talk to us?” asks Suri. Her eyes are darting between Dev and Baruch.
“Fine,” says Dev. “We want to talk to him, too. We’ve got something to show him.”
“Dev…,” says Suri.
“Look!” Dev says, grabbing the photographs from me and shoving them at Baruch. He doesn’t catch them all and several fall to the floor. He fumbles for a moment with the photographs, then, recognizing their subject, straightens up. His breathing slows.
“This is Baruch,” says Dev, introducing him to me.
“Where did you get these?” asks Baruch, his voice quiet now.
“Heshy’s drawer,” says Dev.
Baruch looks at Dev. His eyes are liquid with drink. Bloodshot and cloudy.
“Yank material starring your girlfriend,” she says, enjoying her crude explanation.
Baruch frowns. He’s trying to put the pieces together with a spinning mind.
“I think Moses should know about these,” says Dev. “I mean, if he’s going to make us talk about our feelings…”
“Moses knows about this?” says Baruch.
“No,” says Suri, standing up. She’s a smart girl. This conversation is about to get ugly. “Moses doesn’t…”
“Why don’t you just ask Heshy? He’s right downstairs,” says Dev.
This gets Baruch’s attention. “He’s here?”
Dev shrugs. “You didn’t see him? He’s been here all day.”
Baruch turns and runs down the hall. Suri and Dev follow. I bend down and grab one of the photos he dropped, sliding it under my coat as I go after them.
Downstairs, Baruch is shouting in Yiddish, and Dev and Suri are standing in the doorway between the hallway and the kitchen. A tall man whom I take to be Moses is standing inches from Baruch, trying to keep him away from Heshy, who is cowering on the sofa. Next to him sits Saul.
He doesn’t see me at first; like everyone else in the room, he is focused on Baruch. But I see him, in a moment unguarded, and something seems wrong. Why didn’t he tell me he was coming here?
“Who’s that?” says Dev, pointing at Saul.
Saul looks at Dev and sees me standing behind her. He stands up, leaving Heshy to sink farther into the sofa.
Baruch shakes the pictures at Heshy. “What did you do to her!” he shouts.
“Baruch,” says Saul, stepping toward him. “Heshy is…”
Baruch runs at Saul, his hands up like he wants to fight. But Saul, twice his age and several inches shorter, is ready. In a swift, easy motion he grabs Baruch’s left wrist and twists his arm down and back, hard. Baruch screams in pain, falling to his knees.
“You’re hurting him!” shouts Dev. “Let go!”
Saul does not let go. Dev runs at Saul, and he pushes her aside. She stumbles back, then falls on her ass with a thud.
“Saul…” I say, stepping forward.
“Rebekah, I have this under control,” he says.
“I’m calling the cops,” says Suri.
“I am the cops,” says Saul, glaring at her.
Suri looks at me. I don’t know what to say. Saul looks like a different person. The dumpy, tired cop I met on Friday is gone. In his place is a man confident with his physical strength. Baruch is no longer fighting and Saul lets him go, but Baruch stays on the floor, slumping to the side. He brings his hands to his face and begins to weep.
“Everybody needs to calm down,” Saul says. He looks down at Baruch. “Do you understand?”
Baruch grunts an affirmative. Dev crawls to sit beside him. Heshy is still half-sitting half-lying down on the sofa, and Suri and Moses are standing, looking at Saul.
“I know you’re all very upset about Rivka,” says Saul. “I’m here to ask some questions. That’s all.”
My phone rings again. It’s Tony again. I silence it and see I’ve missed a text from him:
saul katz is not a cop
CHAPTER TWELVE
“He’s on indefinite suspension from the NYPD,” says Tony. I’m halfway to the F train station with the phone to my ear.
“Oh,” I say, stopping to catch my breath beneath some scaffolding across the street from a housing project. “So he is a cop.”
“No! Rebekah. If he’s pretending to be on the job when he isn’t, you need to stay away from him. He’s off the rails.”
I bolted from the house the moment I got Tony’s text, hoping, as I ran down the steps and around the corner that maybe everyone in that living room would just forget I’d ever been there. I’ve got three people on the record now. I’ve got a photograph of Rivka Mendelssohn. I have a story even without Saul. What I don’t have is any fucking answers.
“I assume Darin told you this,” I say. Obviously, the information that Saul-whom I’ve been quoting as a source inside the NYPD-has been suspended from the force is important, but I’m still unhappy with Tony for getting Darin involved in my life. I feel like a child and I’m going to kick. “I’m glad he’s so concerned with my welfare.”
“I’m the one that’s concerned for your welfare, okay?” says Tony. “This guy’s been lying to you, Rebekah. He might be a bad guy.”
“What do you mean, a bad guy?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “But Darin says they want you to come in.”