The information rearranged the playing field in my head like a cat’s paw rearranges bees in a hive. I tried to catch a few of my thoughts but they darted out of reach like quicksilver. I settled instead for another cigarette and Herculean restraint. “Schvantz?”

“It’s an insult too unfit to explain. I meant Kelly the murderer.” Now that Yakov had finally spilled the heart of his anguish, he appeared slightly less ready to break.

“What do you mean by dealings?”

“I don’t know what their business was, only that they knew each other.”

“I’d understand better if you tell me everything you know.”

“There were telephone calls between them.”

“How do you know the calls were from Sean Kelly?”

“One night last summer I overheard my father speaking English on the telephone. You must try and understand, this was unusual. Especially since it was very late. My father often receives calls in the middle of the night asking about a section of the Talmud or the Laws. Yeshiva students study without regard to time. To be called on to explain a difficult portion is a sign of respect. My father would never refuse such a call, no matter how late.”

There was a note of pride that disappeared once he continued. “Only Yeshiva calls were never in English.”

“So you listened in?”

“Sort of. I didn’t want to eavesdrop, I was just very surprised to hear him speaking English. I wanted to be sure.”

“Did you hear what they talked about?”

“No.”

“So why do you think it was Kelly?”

“That call was only the beginning. There were more telephone calls, more English. I didn’t really listen in on the conversations, but I always knew when they occurred. My father would be disturbed afterward.”

“I still don’t see how you can assume it was Kelly?”

“During the late summer, after another of the English telephone calls, my father left the house. He returned about an hour later. I came downstairs pretending I’d just awakened. He was more upset than I’d ever seen him. When he saw me he tried to cover it up but couldn’t. He told me to go back to sleep.”

“He say anything else?”

“No. Just gae schluffen—Go to sleep. The next time he left the house after one of those conversations I followed him.”

Yakov’s anxiety was mounting, but I was too engrossed to settle him down. “You followed him?” I prodded.

“Yes. He didn’t walk very far. You know the small park attached to the basketball courts? I followed him there and saw him meet with Kelly.”

“You’re sure it was Kelly?”

“At the time I didn’t know who he was. I could only see that it wasn’t one of us. A goy! I thought I recognized the face, but I didn’t know from where. I never imagined he might be one of the Avengers who had been harassing the Yeshiva.

“I had no reason to.” He lifted his thin shoulders helplessly. “It was not conceivable to me that my father would meet with someone like that. I only realized who it was when I saw him again on Simchas Torah. I didn’t even learn Kelly’s name until after the shootings.”

His face clouded over, so I steered away from the killings and back to the past. “Did you hear what they talked about in the park?”

“No, nothing.”

“Did you see anything unusual?”

“Only that my father was meeting a Gentile in the middle of the night. I just stayed for a minute or two then went home.”

“Why so short a time? Weren’t you curious?”

“Curious?” He looked at me strangely. “I don’t think so. I was worried.” He turned his head away. “I felt very guilty so I returned home.” His voice dropped into the atonal rhythm he used when talking God. “A child must be certain never to wake his father unless it is an extreme emergency. This is the manner of respect a Hasid learns to have for parents.”

His flatness cracked and jumped an octave. “I trespassed when I listened to my father’s conversations on the telephone! I trespassed when I followed him. My suspicions, especially telling them to you behind his back, is an enormous act of disrespect.”

His hand trembled as guilt washed through his slumped, slight frame. I was split wide: one voice insisted I continue my questions. But that voice was being drowned out in the realization that this was the moment to use my newly discovered interior room. This was the moment to touch, absorb, step away. The moment to take his weight, his fatigue, his suffering.

But in that instant I also saw a little girl taking her first, halting steps. Though the steps were aimed toward me, they were really her first giant strides away. Right then, I knew this moment was the beginning of another goodbye.

“You’re being much too hard on yourself, Yakov. You are incredibly concerned about your father. There is no sin in that. You listened and followed out of love, out of respect. You wanted to help him. Your religion can’t condemn that.”

Yakov’s shaking slowed but his voice lashed back, at himself, at me. “And here? Now? Telling you all this? This is not respect, this is weakness. I could no longer keep thoughts to myself. What I’m doing is betrayal.”

I gave him a moment to catch his breath. “Yakov, stop trashing yourself long enough to listen up.” I paused to make sure my words could sink in. “You came here to talk because I am someone who, in a very small way, filled the gap left by Reb Dov’s death. The same gap Reb Dov had been filling since your mother died. For whatever reason, your father couldn’t or didn’t.”

I met and held his eyes. “Truth is, your father hasn’t done much good by you and that’s a tough nut to swallow. You have a lot of anger toward your dad about it. Anger you turn on yourself.

“Boy, you’re sitting here because you want to help your father. And you want me to help him as well. You’re afraid that you’re here out of rage but, fact is, you’re here out of love. You imagine the worst, but want the best. You came to me because I’m someone you trust and because you want me to find out what those calls and meetings were about. At least you think you do.” There was a whole lot more gray, but gray was for middle-age, not adolescence.

Seeing a different row of ducks gave back some bone. “Why do you say I think I do?”

“Because I don’t know if it’s always a good idea to search for irrelevant information.” I looked him directly in the eye and lied, “I am absolutely certain that your father was in no way involved with Rabbi Dov’s death. I don’t know what he was doing in the park or on the telephone with Kelly, but if I had to guess I’d say it had something to do with his diamond trading.”

A surprised, hopeful look crossed his face. “Why do you think that?”

“Because both of us flat out know your father could never hurt his Rebbe. And diamonds are something people like the Avengers are interested in.”

“Those are your only reasons?” He sounded disappointed. In for an ounce, in for a pound. “No. When I searched Kelly’s apartment I found diamonds.”

“You think he was blackmailing my father?” He seemed almost happy about the idea.

Why shouldn’t he be happy? That had been the intent of my lies. “I don’t know. But what difference does it make? Kelly’s dead. You haven’t seen your old man sneaking out in the middle of the night recently, have you?”

I heard my harshness, but Yakov was oblivious to it. “No. Except for the Never Agains, everything is the same as it used to be.”

“See?” I bit back the beginnings of a mad. “If you can deal with the fact that you’re really very angry at your old man, you won’t be plagued by these fantasies.”

“You’re saying that I thought my father was involved with the Rebbe’s death because I’m angry at him?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“So you’re telling me not to worry about him knowing Kelly?”

“Whatever went on between them was their business. Maybe someday he’ll tell you.” I had a flash of Reb Yonah standing behind his table, his stern face frozen in a sneer. Sure he’d tell him. “I’d just leave it alone if I were you, Yakov. You’d do better to work on the relationship.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

I forced myself to smile. “Go home, get some sleep. When you wake up, help pull the Yeshiva back together. Do your learning and be a loving son. That’s what I mean.”

Yakov stared at me. He looked relieved but depleted. I lit a cigarette and got up. “It’s late, kid, I’ll drive you back.”

Yakov jumped to his feet. “No, no, you’ve already done enough.”

I smiled again and motioned him to follow.

 

If you didn’t count Yakov’s increasing cheerfulness and my corresponding withdrawal, the ride to Reb Yonah’s house was uneventful. Despite my forebodings of loss, I had few regrets. This way, only one of us was counting. We said goodbye about a block from his house. His, an enthusiastic promise of another one-on-one. Mine, the imminent certainty there were no more games to be played.

Well, I’d shouldered his load, all right. What a guy.

When I arrived back at my apartment, there was a note from Lou inviting me upstairs. I crumpled the paper and threw it into the garbage; I wasn’t going anywhere. I sat at the kitchen table, poured a couple of fingers’ worth of Turkey and sipped.

The night trickled away while I thought about Yakov’s spill. All the ambiguities I’d neatly sidestepped in my earlier explanations rushed back to their rightful places leaving me worried and confused. Worse, my suspicions and dislike of Reb Yonah clashed with my decision to send Yakov home.

I was still sitting, still sipping, when the first streaks of morning brightened the sky over the yellow crime lights. By the time I noticed the change I no longer thought Yonah’s involvement possible. I thought it likely. I also figured it likely that the Never Agains had been manipulating the Rabbi.

What I couldn’t figure was the other side of the pond. Kelly was the bridge, but the bridge to what? And why? What the hell did the IRA, Father Collins, and Deirdre have to gain by joining forces with the Never Agains in an internecine struggle within a local Hasidic community?

I also thought about my conversation with Julius, finally understanding his warning about organizational agendas. Despite our discussion I had continued to view the case in personal and personality terms. No surprise; it was the way I saw my life, my work. I’d even reduced the IRA to the specific pugs who had run me off the road.

But the spilled blood here wasn’t the drippings of dysfunctional families, personality disorders, psychosis. This blood was the result of ideology in action. The goosesteps of religious, political, and social visions. The fucking IRA. The Never Agains. The Church, the Avengers, the Yeshiva. These were the forces at play, pressing their goals and desires onto a small, isolated city patch. To understand what had been happening during the last few weeks meant comprehending that Collins, Deirdre, Yonah, even the bastards who tried to kill me were nothing more than tools. Now that I’d sent Yakov home, the only personal left was me. And maybe Blue. Not a pleasant comparison.

Throughout the course of the night, I occasionally tried to convince myself to drop the case. Belay my questions, silence my conjectures, stop my investigation. Even if Yonah had somehow been involved with Dov’s death, nobody else was going to pursue it. Hell, I didn’t want anyone else to pursue it. Legitimately reopening the case inevitably meant turning Yakov against his father, against himself.

If I let it slide now, there would be nothing more. The kid might have a shot at a life, Yonah his beloved organization, Deirdre and the priest their IRA gun fest. The books would close and life would go on.

But I had absorbed Yakov’s suspicions, his worry, even his sleeplessness. And more. Added to my list of unanswered questions, my feelings of confusion and loss, was the outside chance I’d sent Yakov home to someone involved with murder.

By morning I knew there was no possibility of ending my hunt. Though I might be forced to cast a drooped eyelid on what I discovered, I had to know what I was winking at.