He kissed her. “Praise the Lord for healing the sick.”
She gave him the address. “You’re not going to fly into another ravine, are you?”
He laughed. “You didn’t like it the first time?”
“I found out who paid the senator.”
“You mean Sheen’s real name?”
“Still working on that, but the actual bagman was Al Zonshine.”
He hit the brakes, rocking the car. “That’s crazy!”
“The video clip shows the hand of a man in a green polyester suit.”
He started driving again. “Is he the only American who owns one?”
“We figured out what Mahoney was saying on the video.”
“How did you do that?” Silver glanced at her, his foot pressing the gas too hard.
“Lip reading. And Al was working with someone at Temple Zion. I made a list of suspects, including you.”
“Me? I hardly knew Zonshine!”
“I’m sure it’s not you, but I have to consider everyone systematically.” She pointed. “Red light.”
The car came to an abrupt stop.
She took a deep breath. “I think it’s the rabbi.”
“Rabbi Josh?” Silver exhaled, shaking his head. Cars honked behind them. He hit the gas, and the car lurched forward.
“The trick,” Masada said, “is to see beyond his good looks and charitable manner. He’s a fanatic Zionist.”
“True, but there are many others.”
“I look for inconsistencies. For example, he can get any woman he wants, so why did he pursue a bitter, aging troublemaker like me? Unless he was ordered to find out what I’m up to!”
Silver laughed. “Don’t you realize how alluring you are?”
“You’re biased. Look around at this town. It’s full of model-quality babes out of Vogue, but this Brad Pit look-alike rabbi kept showing up at my doorstep, offering support, feigning romantic interest, asking repeatedly about my investigation of Judah’s Fist. Why?”
Professor Silver rubbed his goatee with one hand, steering with the other. “He is extreme about Israel, that’s true. But if Al was working with Rabbi Josh, how come the rabbi didn’t know about the poisoned brownies?”
“Maybe it was Al alone, trying to harass me. Or maybe they receive their orders separately.”
“From Sheen, the Canadian?”
“He must be an intermediary for the Israelis. Watch it!”
Silver corrected sharply, the wheels jumping the edge of the median. The Cadillac swayed from side to side like a boat.
She pressed her temples to ease the headache. “Do you want me to drive?”
“I’m fine.” He looked sideways at the road ahead. “Got some dust in my eyes. Nothing to worry about.”
“There’s a lot to worry about if our dashing rabbi is an Israeli agent.”
“Life’s full of surprises.” Silver took advantage of a stop sign and put a few drops in his eyes.
“Every Jewish state in history ended up with Jews killing each other while their enemies rammed the gates. With the Senate preparing to vote on the Fair Aid Act, the Israelis must be desperate.”
“Joshua Frank! Judah’s Fist! Same initials: JF”
“That’s right. And I had such a crush on him!”
Silver chortled. “Love is blind, but the heart isn’t. Your heart saw through the facade of a provincial rabbi in Arizona and fell for a handsome Israeli agent.”
“You should be on Dr. Phil.” Masada laughed. “What would I do without you, Levy?”
“Pay for a taxi?” He stopped at the curb. “I’ll wait for you here.”
Jab Magazine emerged weekly from a downtown Phoenix building that looked like a finger jabbing a human ear. Masada entered the lobby, which was tiled with past covers of the magazine. She took the elevator up to Drexel’s third-floor office. A slab of concrete served as his desk. The red-tinted window behind him was the fingernail on the ear-jabbing finger.
“Hello, sweetheart!” He checked himself in a framed mirror that stood on his desk in lieu of a family photo and smoothed his hair back. “What a nice surprise!”
“Do you have a check for me?”
“Manslaughter in Israel? Deadly trap in your house? This whole thing is embarrassing!”
“I thought Jab likes sensational stories.”
He pulled a nail file from his drawer. “We’d rather report the news than make the news. Are you any closer to Judah’s Fist?”
“I’m closer to bankruptcy. I need an advance. The house is all I have, and I can’t sell it or mortgage it because of the damages and the liens.”
“What a mess you made.”
“I wrote the truth, which you were happy to publish and sell a million new subscriptions.”
“Not a million.” He looked at his computer screen. “We’re up seven-”
“Whatever. You’re my publisher. I need help.”
“It’s out of our hands.” Drexel slid a bunch of stapled papers across the desk. “Your legal troubles are spilling over into our lap.”
It was a lien, issued by the court, ordering Jab Magazine and all its affiliated entities to deposit all money coming to Masada El-Tal into a trust account set up by the court to await resolution of the litigation in the case known as The Estate of Alfred Zonshine v. Masada El-Tal.
Rabbi Josh washed his face and put on a clean shirt. Professor Silver picked him up outside the house. As they were driving, Silver spoke of meeting Masada earlier and of how pale and sickly she had seemed.
At Target, they found the luggage display in the back of the store.
“This one looks sturdy.” Silver removed a black suitcase from the rack, pulled out the handle, and walked up and down the aisle, the suitcase trailing behind. “You want to try it?”
“It’s fine.” Rabbi Josh didn’t care. He would use it only once for the trip to Israel, where he would stay until the end of his days. He grabbed an identical suitcase. “I faxed the letter to the Israeli consulate. They called back to confirm.”
“Do you think they’ll approve me?”
Rabbi Josh loaded the suitcases into a cart. “If you don’t qualify as a Jew, who does?”
As they were waiting in line to pay, the rabbi said, “I keep thinking how random it was, how so many things could have happened differently, little coincidences that followed each other until that bullet found Raul.”
“It’s written,” Silver said. “By God’s word the skies were formed, by His breath the earth was created.”
The rabbi nodded. It took a good friend to remind him. “I must accept His judgment, as incomprehensible as it is.”
“I know your pain from when my own son died. But, may the Lord forgive me, I have to cause you even more pain.” He blinked behind the thick glasses and bit his lips, his gray goatee trembling. “I think Masada is involved.”
“Involved?”
“I think she’s part of that Judah group.”
Rabbi Josh’s chest constricted, as if a hand had reached inside and put a vise on his heart. “What are you talking about?”
“She controlled Al. She gave him the money to deliver to the senator. Then he faked attacks on her because she told him to.”
“What?”
“I heard them.”
“It can’t be!” Rabbi Josh lifted the suitcases and landed them on the cashier’s counter. “The bribe was paid by Judah’s Fist!”
“But Rabbi, that’s what I’m telling you! Masada is Judah’s Fist!”
Masada used a computer in Drexel’s office to check her e-mails as the FBI had not returned her laptop or Blackberry. She had hundreds of e-mails from readers, mostly hateful. There was a recent one from the rabbi. Dear members of Temple Zion,
In a perfect world, I would wait until you found a new spiritual leader to step into my humble shoes. But obviously this isn’t a perfect world, and I’m leaving you to bury my son in Israel, where I shall remain. My only request is that you fight against the Fair Aid Act. Write, call, and send e-mails to your congressmen, the newspapers, and Internet blogs to protest against this attack on our Jewish state. Next year in Jerusalem.