Requiem for Moses

Chapter Seven

And so, for Judith, teenage life settled down to a predictable normalcy.

She dated whomever she wished. She did not wish to date anyone vaguely reminiscent of Morris. She was a gifted, natural, athletic dancer. Her training extended from classic ballet to modern expressionism. She grew more beautiful by the year.

She excelled in academics, was consistently on the honor roll and popular in extracurricular activities. Nothing seemed beyond her potential. Having experienced the limitations of Morris and the horror of having him thrust upon her socially, she especially appreciated the present freedom to act her age and enjoy this maturing period.

She was almost sixteen years old and a junior in high school when her father called in her marker.

His demand was simple enough: Seduce Jake Cameron.

She’d never even met the man. And all she had to do was surrender her virginity and self-respect.

She was devastated.

Dr. Green couldn’t comprehend her concern. It was a simple matter of seduction. That sort of thing had been going on since animals inhabited earth. It was no big deal; what was all the fuss about?

In a last-ditch effort, Judith appealed to her mother. But in the explosion of this particular and peculiar nuclear family, there was little that Margie could do. She’d been through this many times before: When Moe called in a marker, the bottom line was that he would get what was owed to him. Opposing arguments were no more than a delaying action at best.

That it was his own daughter, young and vulnerable, whom he was sending as a virgin sacrifice into the volcano concerned him not a bit. “She owes me” was his response. Judith wept; Margie ranted, raved, and threatened. Moe remained unmoved.

So accustomed were mother and daughter to Green’s ruthless tyranny, that like the proverbial abused spouse neither of them seriously considered any type of significant opposition, legal recourse, or even departure. Judith was too young and Margie was too unwilling to give up what she had achieved as the wife of the wealthy and well-placed Dr. Moses Green.

Finally, Margie, in an attempt to put the best possible light on things, threw herself into coaching her daughter toward the least disgusting and compromising scenario.

In this, Margie’s one distinct advantage lay in her intimate knowledge of the target. Once, long ago, Margie had been Cameron’s woman. As such she was in complete agreement with Moe that Cameron would (a) hire Judith at first sight and (b) have sex with her that night. The object, then, was to make this sexual encounter as brief, painless, and safe as possible.

Margie would make certain that her daughter was fitted for a diaphragm as well as provided with a spermicide. Cameron prided himself on leaving sexual partners satisfied; Margie knew that Cameron would want prolonged foreplay. Judith was advised to forestall any of Jake’s attempts at foreplay. Get it over with as quickly and decisively as possible. And, as the coup de grace, she should make haste to the nearest bathroom and either become sick or make the appropriate sounds.

It went just as planned.

Cameron hired her on the spot. He never questioned the document stating her age as eighteen. He made his move at his earliest opportunity. She had all the necessary protection. She drew him into intercourse with no foreplay. And he left disgustedly when she did actually vomit as a capper.

The details did not interest Moe Green in any way. His bargaining chip proved sufficient; he became a partner in Virago-the original as well as all future Viragos.

The impact on Judith was profound and manifest.

She no longer believed she was something special. There was little parity in her dating life; she accepted invitations from boys she never would have even looked at prior to her coupling with Cameron. She drew the line only at Morris.

There was one, and only one, positive for Judith. She no longer owed anything to her father. The only feeling she could muster for him was disrespect bordering on contempt. It was a blessing for her that she had to be in his presence only minimally.

From the time, as a small child, she had become conscious of a father, his role had been nothing more than that of a procreator.

And now, Moe Green had so sullied the title father that it signified for her nothing but shame.

From that time, whether Moe Green lived or died was a matter of supreme indifference to his daughter.

THE PRESENT

For Koesler, all this was now coming together.

He had heard the chronicle of Dr. Moses Green from the experience of Jake Cameron, from Claire McNern and her fiance, Stan Lacki, and now from Judith Green.

A clear if most distasteful profile was taking form.

Not only had Green forced his way into Jake’s enterprise, now he was forcing Jake out of the clubs that had been his babies. Claire had lost her virginity, her unborn child, and her reproductive capacity. Stan, marrying Moe’s castoff, would never be a father. Green did not limit himself to one outrage per victim.

At this juncture, Koesler wondered whether Judith might also have had a more recent confrontation with her father.

“… so, that’s the way it was, Father,” Judith said. “There is no way Jake could possibly have known the complete story. I didn’t want you to have only his side of it.”

“Well,” Koesler said, “this was very thoughtful of you. I guess we can be thankful it’s over, and your father considered everything to be evened up and that the slate was clean on both sides. But I must say that, short of actual child molestation, I’ve never come across a parent-child relationship more fraught than that of yours and your dad’s.”

“Oh, it wasn’t over.” She grimaced-or was it a sneer? He wasn’t sure. “I just filled you in on the Cameron obscenity. Strangely enough, you’d think that Jake and I were the central players in that episode. But I think you’ll agree that we were only pawns. The player was Dad. He always was.”

“It wasn’t over?” Koesler was definitely puzzled.

Judith shrugged. “It never was. Not with Dad.” Seeing his appalled expression, she hastened to explain. “Oh, nothing happened after Jake Cameron for a long while-actually, not until very recently-when I decided to get married.”

“From all I’ve learned of your father-actually just in the past few minutes-I wouldn’t assume that he’d take much interest in your getting married.”

“He wouldn’t. Not ordinarily-not if it didn’t affect him. Not unless he objected to my choice.”

“Your choice?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The wrong ethnic background?”

“I guess you could say that. Actually, the wrong color. He’s African-American. Very black.”

“Hmmm. I wouldn’t have guessed that would upset your father. Racially mixed marriages aren’t that uncommon these days.”

“I know. And by this time you must know his objection has nothing to do with me or my fiance. He was worried about what his gang would say. He didn’t want anyone laughing or making fun behind his back.”

“Does that possibility exist?”

“With Dad’s group, probably. There’d be jokes about the wedding in white and black, the super sexual prowess of the groom, and, of course, my father’s grandchildren.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed. Not in this day and age.”

“Oh, sure, Father. Years ago, Sammy Davis Jr. based part of his act on his being black and Jewish. He used to say he found the combination confusing: When he woke up in the morning he didn’t know whether to be shiftless and lazy or stingy and mean. And that, from someone like Davis, was comparatively high class. From there, and in the mouths of Daddy’s cronies, it would be straight downhill.”

Koesler looked about the church. The crowd had grown. And eulogy time neared. But he couldn’t leave Judith with her account half told. “So, what did your father do-threaten to disown you?”

She shook her head. “Not much point in that. Bill-my fiance-had just passed the bar, and he’s being romanced by some of the larger Michigan firms. He’s the right color at the right time, and his marks were high. We won’t need any financial assistance.”

“Then what?”

She seemed to flinch. “The tapes.”

“Tapes?”

“I didn’t even know they taped the thing. It makes sense now. I guess at the time I refused to even consider it-think about it. Jake and I …”

As far as Koesler was concerned, she didn’t have to complete the sentence. Cameron had told him about receiving a copy of the tape from Green. But she had no way of knowing what Cameron had told Koesler. “You see … the seduction … when I was … with Jake … they filmed it. They taped it. I didn’t know. I never knew. Not until Daddy and I had our final confrontation.”

“Final?”

“I considered it to be. I think he did, too. It was blackmail, I guess. He showed me the tape. He didn’t have to spend much time on that. I couldn’t stand to watch it. But he threatened that if I went ahead with my marriage plans, not only would Bill see the tape, the copies would circulate to most of the people we know.

“I didn’t know what to do. There was no serious problem as far as Bill was concerned; he’s well aware of Daddy’s cruelty, lack of any kind of conscience. But, what would it do to his career? We knew that whichever firm interviewed him would immediately receive a copy of the tape. If the managing partner and the hiring committee could overlook my … indiscretion, then clients and prospective clients could receive a copy. It was a threat that just hung over my head.”

“And now,” Koesler concluded, “that threat is gone.”

“Yes, it is!” Her tone bordered on the defiant. “At the time my father and I parted, after he made his threat, I considered that our final confrontation. There was no room for any compromise. Either I married Bill or I called it off. Depending on that decision, he would either sit on the tapes or circulate them. Now, of course, there’s no doubt. That was, for sure, our last confrontation.”

So, Koesler thought, the pattern remains intact.

First Cameron, then Claire and Stan, now Judith. Each had reason to hate Moe Green. But, more than that, each had recently been grievously threatened and/or grossly mistreated by Green. With Green alive, Cameron stood to lose his most precious achievement, his Virago. With what Claire and Stan had recently learned, they would have to live with the awareness of Green as the unindictable murderer of Claire’s child.

And now Judith. If her father had lived, she would have had to wrestle with the dilemma of calling off her marriage to the man she loved, or see both herself and her husband destroyed by the vengeful Moses Green.

Once again the serendipity of Green’s death of natural causes. These deus ex machina occurrences were convenient to the point of unbelief.

But it was growing late. Glancing toward the widow Green, Koesler noted a break in the line of mourners. Though “mourners” seemed an inappropriate term in the present case.

Koesler thanked Judith for her attempt to set the record straighter. He moved toward Margie, but had taken only a few steps when a young man blocked his path.

Koesler had no memory of having met this man before. But, if the priest had a last dollar, he would have bet that this was Moe Green’s only son, David.