Gangster Nation. Tod Goldberg

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      They were sitting in David’s office at Temple Beth Israel. He’d rearranged it since taking over from Rabbi Cy Kales, moving out the two sofas that faced each other in favor of four uncomfortable chairs surrounding a narrow coffee table. He didn’t want people staying longer than they had to.

      “Talmud says it is acceptable,” David told him, “if the baby isn’t viable, or if it’s making your daughter want to harm herself.” This was, admittedly, a pretty modern interpretation. “In either case, it’s not a choice you get to make for her.”

      “What if she’s not in her right mind?”

      “Is that the situation?”

      “Seems like it,” Jordan said. “When I was her age, you know what I was doing?” he asked. “Nothing. I was doing nothing. That’s how it should be. Make no important life decisions until you’re at least twenty-five. That’s what my father told me. Makes sense to me now. At the time, it was just a free pass to screw up without any real ramifications. It was liberating.” Jordan squeezed his thumb and index finger over his slim mustache, thinking. Then: “What about killing the kid who knocked her up? What’s the ruling on that?”

      “Is he threatening your life?”

      “In a way.”

      Jordan Rosen was in his late fifties and had amassed a decent fortune developing gas station mini-marts around the city, all of them called Manic Al’s. His latest venture was a carwash over on Fort Apache and Sahara that catered to the Summerlin country club set. Leather sofas. Recessed lighting. A wine bar. A cigar lounge. Seven pretty girls in knock-off Chanel suits running the front of the house like they were FBI, everything handled via earpieces, cuff mics, and disinterested stares.

      Friday afternoons, Rosen brought out minor Las Vegas celebrities for meet and greets, so guys coming to pick up their Bentleys might run into Danny Gans or Charo or even Ralph Lamb, the cowboy sheriff who supposedly roughed up Johnny Roselli back in the day. It was one of those famous stories David heard growing up in Chicago, but which, when he thought about it now, seemed like it was probably made up. Good for tourism, shitty for reality. Because it turned out, what the fuck did it matter? Mob was still in Las Vegas and Ralph Lamb was still swinging his dick, fifty years later, eating free lunches for maybe smacking a guy who spent his days producing movies and counting cards. Real tough guys, both of them.

      Jordan calling the car wash Manic Al’s wouldn’t fly in Summerlin, so he opted for the Millionaire Detail Club, started running commercials on KNPR, pulling in those sensitive types who listened to classical music and shopped organic but still wanted to feel like a boss, then priced everything at a markup: The most basic wash was $35.99. The Platinum Care Package ran five bills and included a blacked-out, supposedly bulletproof Suburban that would shuttle you back and forth to your home or office while your ride was getting cleaned. The Diamond Experience? Rosen didn’t bother to advertise a price on that, nor explain what it entailed. You felt the need to ask, it wasn’t for you.

      David didn’t get it. It was all just water and soap. And yet there was always a line of cars waiting to get washed.

      “What does your wife think?” David asked.

      “Sarah’s losing her mind with glee. She’s been preparing to be called Nana her entire life. Throw in planning a wedding and she might combust.” Jordan stopped rubbing his mustache, but left his thumb in his rather pronounced Cupid’s bow, then pointed at David. “Can I ask you a personal question, Rabbi Cohen?”

      “If you feel you have to.”

      “Growing up, what did your parents want you to be?”

      “My own man,” David said. That was what his mother wanted, at any rate, back when David was still her son Sal, back before he started doing hits in Chicago for the Family, back before he became the Rain Man, when she’d still acknowledge him. What his dad wanted? Sal didn’t know. He’d been dead since Sal was ten, so what he remembered about him now, almost thirty years later, were small things: How he’d pay Sal a quarter for a hug. How he read the comics in the Sun-Times first thing every morning. How he always had scabs on his knuckles.

      Sometimes, Sal thought about the sound his father’s body made hitting the ground in front of the IBM Building, about how when someone gets thrown out of a fifty-two-story building, they’ve got a long time to make noise, and his father did. Screamed for a good five seconds. And then it was a liquid crunch, a spray of blood, and nothing. Sal Cupertine never did anyone like that. It wasn’t fucking human.

      Rabbi David Cohen tried not to think about those things too often. He was about keeping his rage in check these days. Every morning, he wrapped tefillin on his strong arm, to remind himself of this. As a Reform Jew, it wasn’t needed, but David had adopted it anyway, thought the imagery was good, and it served a higher purpose. David couldn’t always be dialed to ten, or else he’d have nowhere to go when he really needed to be angry. Six or seven, that was his sweet spot.

      “I imagined Naomi would be a vet. She always had hamsters and silkworms and whatnot,” Jordan said. “Made me sponsor a puma adoption at that gypsy zoo over on Rancho. Have you been there?”

      “I don’t believe in zoos,” David said.

      “She didn’t either. That’s why I had to sponsor the puma. She wanted to bust it out. Place is a dump. Anyway. I don’t know. I guess that’s just me imagining a life for her.” He stood up, cracked his neck—an annoying habit that David had noticed over the course of the last few years—then walked over to one of the three bookshelves in the office. They were six feet tall and crammed full of books on Jewish philosophy, Jewish thought, even a bit of poetry and self-help, titles like Understanding the Mishna, Understanding You. “You read all of these?”

      “Most of them,” David said.

      He pulled out a book of poetry, flipped it open. David didn’t like people touching his books, much less reading what he wrote in the margins. “Truth is,” he said, “I don’t really know Naomi anymore.” He closed the book, slipped it back into its slot, upside down, pulled out another. “Maybe a kid will put us into each other’s orbit again, you know? I guess that would be a side benefit.”

      “Do you know the boy?”

      “Yeah,” he said. “It’s the Solomon kid. The oldest.”

      “Robert and Janice’s son?”

      “No, the other Solomons. The yenta and the ear, nose, and throat guy.”

      “Oh. Scott and Claudia?”

      “Good family, I guess. It could be worse. Few years ago, Naomi was dating a Vietnamese kid. Father dealt cards at the Orleans. One of those pinkie-ring guys who smoked funny? You know, like he held his cigarette with the wrong fingers? Anyway. Kid’s name was Binh but he called himself DJ Bomb Squad. Had it painted on his car, left stickers on light poles, even had T-shirts. I’m of the opinion it put Naomi’s grandfather into the grave prematurely.” He snapped closed the book in his hand and put it away, right side up, then flipped over the poetry book, too. “It was fine with me,” he added eventually. “I sort of liked DJ Bomb Squad. He was enterprising. I knew what I was getting with that kid.”

      “What happened?”

      “Who knows. One day, he’s everything, next day, Sarah tells me never to mention DJ Bomb Squad again. I almost felt sorry for him. He probably СКАЧАТЬ