A Horse’s Head

9. Solomon

He heard footsteps clattering on the sidewalk outside as the synagogue door whispered shut behind him.

“This way!” K’s voice shouted.

“Where is he?” Purcell shouted. “Where did he go?”

“This way! This way!”

He leaned against the closed door with his eyes shut, breathing hard, listening as the footsteps faded, echoing on the street, “Where did he go?” Purcell shouted again.

Mullaney opened his eyes.

The bearded man was studying him closely.

“The goyim?” he asked, and because he sensed that goyim meant enemy, and since K and Purcell were most certainly that, Mullaney nodded, and sucked in a deep breath. Both men were silent, listening. The voices outside were indistinct now, distant. K shouted something, but the words were unintelligible. They kept listening. At last, the street outside was silent. The bearded man smiled, his grin cracking into his black beard, as white as the handkerchief knotted around his neck. He beckoned to Mullaney, and Mullaney followed him down the long flight of steps just inside the entrance door.

He had been in a synagogue only once before in his life, and that had been for Feinstein’s funeral services, a very classy synagogue befitting his station in life. The underground temple in which he found himself now was small and dim, with two high windows at street level, and another two opening on what appeared to be the brick wall of the tenement next door. Three dozen or more folding wooden chairs faced what he assumed to be the altar, a carved wooden stand upon which rested a candelabra holding six lighted candles. Behind the altar was what Mullaney first thought was a picture, and then realized was another small window, stained glass, set very high up on the wall, also at street level. He could not tell what the window depicted; it seemed to be only an interesting design of blues and greens behind which were darker blues and blacks pierced by a yellow pane of glass that descended vertically from the top of the window. To the right of the window, and almost on the same level, a candle — or at least a flame — flickered in a small metal cage that hung from the ceiling on a brass chain. A pair of red velvet curtains were on the wall below and behind the hanging cage, and a rack on the adjoining wall was draped with what appeared to be fringed silk scarves.

“I’m Goldman,” the man with the beard said abruptly and handed a black skullcap to Mullaney, who held it on his open hands and looked up into Goldman’s face.

“And your name?” Goldman said.

“Mullaney,” he said.

“Come, Melinsky, you’ll meet the others.”

“Mullaney,” he corrected.

“Come, take a tallis, we’ve been waiting here all morning. To get a minyen in this neighborhood, you have to have a big shining temple. Come, Melinsky, come.”

“Mr. Goldman...”

“This is Melinsky,” Goldman said to the other men in the room. “Solomon, get him a Siddur, let’s begin here.”

The other men — there seemed to be six or seven, or perhaps more — were rather old, some of them bearded, some of them bald, most of them wrinkled. They were standing before the rack of silk scarves, all of which were identical, white and striped with the palest blue, fringed with long white knotted tassels. As Mullaney watched, the men began taking scarves from the long wooden rack bar, and draping them over their shoulders. He suddenly knew that they were prayer shawls, not scarves, and further knew he could not go on with this hoax.

“Mr. Goldman...” he started, but Goldman turned away from him and began walking toward the front of the temple.

“You have to yell at him,” a voice at his elbow said. “He’s a little deaf.”

Mullaney turned at the sound of the voice, and then looked down to find a short old man wearing a white skullcap perched on the back of his bald head. The man was smiling, his mouth was smiling, his eyes were smiling behind thick-lensed rimless spectacles. He had a tiny mustache that echoed the white of the prayer shawl draped over his shoulders. His suit was brown, and he wore a brown tie and a yellow sweater under his jacket. He extended his hand.

“I’m Solomon,” he said.

“How do you do?” Mullaney said. “Mr. Solomon...”

“Come, I’ll get you a Siddur,” Solomon said. “You’re from the neighborhood?”

“No. As a matter of fact...”

“You’ll forgive me, Melinsky,” Solomon said, “but you forgot to put on your yarmoulke,” and tapped the top of his head.

Mullaney hesitated a moment. Then, thinking a bare head might defile the temple, and not wishing to offend either Solomon or especially God, he quickly put the skullcap on and said, “Mr. Solomon, there’s something...”

“We’re Orthodox, you know,” Solomon said.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. So you’d suppose, in this neighborhood especially, it would be easy to find ten men for a minyen, nu?”

“I suppose so,” Mullaney said.

“Especially on the shabbes.”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“But it’s very difficult. Believe me, you are performing a real mitsva.”

“Yes,” Mullaney said.

“You didn’t take a tallis. Take a tallis, hurry. Goldman gets impatient. We’ve been waiting here since seven o’clock this morning. These days, religion is a difficult business. Nobody cares, nobody comes, only the old men who are already dying. Look, we have to send somebody out on the street yet to find a Jew so we can pray. Ach,” he said and shook his head.

“I see,” Mullaney said, beginning to understand at last.

Solomon took one of the silk shawls from the rack and draped it over Mullaney’s shoulders. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “We all know you’re a stranger.” He smiled. “It’s no sin to pray with strangers.”

“I guess not,” Mullaney said.

“I’ll get you the Siddur,” Solomon said, moving toward a shelf of books on the left-hand side of the room. “Do you remember your Hebrew?”

“Well... well, no. No, I don’t. As a matter of fact, Mr. Solomon...”

“It’s in English also, you’ll be able to follow. Besides, it all comes back. You’ll be surprised how it all comes back.”

“I’ll be very surprised,” Mullaney said.

“Why? When was the last time you were inside a temple?”

“When Feinstein died.”

“Isadore Feinstein from Washington Heights?”

“No, Abraham Feinstein from the Grand Concourse.”

“Anyway, a person shouldn’t have to die for people to pray. It’s almost too late already by then.”

“I guess so,” Mullaney said.

“Come, we’re starting. Goldman is a good reader. He could have been a khazn.”

“Mr. Solomon,” Mullaney said, “I really feel I should tell you...” and suddenly heard footsteps on the street upstairs. He hesitated. The other old men had taken seats already and were watching Goldman, who had his back to them, a book open on the altar before him. The room was silent as they awaited the opening words of the service. Into the silence came not Goldman’s voice, but K’s from the sidewalk outside the open windows.

“Where’d the bastard go?” he shouted, and the words would have sounded obscene even if they hadn’t been.

“How about that store across the street?” Purcell answered. “You think he’s in there?”

“I don’t know. Let’s take a look.”

“Wait! What’s this door here?”

Mullaney held his breath.

“I think it’s a synagogue,” K said.

“Shhh.”

“I don’t hear anything,” K said.

“Don’t they pray in synagogues?”

In that moment (and Mullaney could have kissed him, beard and all) Goldman began reciting the opening words of the service. His voice rang out in clear and vibrant tones, the Hebrew filling the room in ancient meter, carrying across the heads of the old men sitting in their prayer shawls, rising to the high open windows at street level.

“It’s a synagogue,” K said, “I told you.”

“Let’s try that store,” Purcell said.

Mullaney let out his breath.

“Page eleven,” Solomon whispered beside him.

He listened to their retreating footsteps. Over the sound of the footsteps, fading, came Goldman’s resonant voice, and the answering chant of the old Jewish men. He found page eleven. Each right-hand page of the prayer book was printed in Hebrew, he saw, each left-hand page in English.

“Here,” Solomon said, and pointed to a line on the English page.

Mullaney realized at once that, despite the English translation, he would have difficulty following the service, the Hebrew words tumbling in ritual splendor from the front of the temple, the mumbled answers coming discordantly and out of phase from the congregation — he wondered suddenly where the rabbi was, wasn’t there supposed to be a rabbi around? Solomon, ever helpful, turned pages for Mullaney, pointed out new lines to him, and each time Mullaney nodded, and read the words in English and finally despaired of keeping up, and decided instead to conduct his own service because he hated to see a sabbath go to waste. He roamed through the prayer book at will, learning, for example, that the prayer shawl around his shoulders was called a tallith (though it most certainly had sounded like tallis when both Goldman and Solomon pronounced it). He was amazed by the numerical significance attached to the threads of the fringe, because apparently four threads were separated from the others and then twisted tightly seven times around the remaining seven threads, after which a double knot was tied. It was then twisted another eight times and fastened with a second double knot; eleven more times and yet another knot; and then another thirteen times and a final double knot. Seven plus eight, Mullaney learned, equaled fifteen, which was the numerical value of , a Hebrew symbol he could not translate. Eleven, on the other hand, equaled , and thirteen equaled ,[1] meaning “The Lord is One.” Furthermore, Mullaney learned, the numerical value of the word was 600, which, together with the eight threads and five knots, made a total of 613, the exact number of the 248 positive and 365 negative precepts of the Torah. He did not know what the Torah was, but he was enormously impressed by the very logical mathematical precision of the religion. So engrossed was he in learning all about the tallith (he would have to tell Solomon how to pronounce it correctly) that he did not realize the congregation was standing, and only joined them after Solomon tugged at his sleeve. He had always been a sucker for God, Mullaney supposed as the Hebrew words rang around him, always a sucker for the Latin mumbo-jumbo of the Catholic church in which he’d been raised, the trappings of the priests, he had to admit Catholics knew a lot more about show biz than Jews, at least when it came to costume design; you couldn’t compare any of these talliths (was that how the word had got corrupted) with what Catholic priests and altar boys wore during mass. The church, on the other hand, had never come up with a triple parlay like 600, and 8, and 5, combining to form the exact number of precepts in the Torah, whatever that was. He could remember even now, and he missed the aroma here in church on the sabbath, the musky smell of incense, the priest swinging his thurible, and the words et cum spiritu tuo — the congregation was sitting now, he wished there were some incense here.

“Page twenty-six,” Solomon whispered, and when Mullaney had found the page, he pointed to a line in the English text.

“Thou wast the same,” Mullaney read silently, “before the world was created; thou hast been the same since the world has been created; thou art the same in this world, and thou wilt be the same in the world to come,” a premise he could not buy because it seemed to negate the motivation for taking any gamble; if nothing ever changed, if you remained the same now and always, then what was the sense of — and then, reading back, saw that the passage was prefaced with the words “Blessed be the name of his glorious majesty forever and ever,” and realized they related to God, and thought again of the incense flooding over the altar railing and wafting back over the pews, et cum spiritu tuo.

It had been so simple then to accept without question, why does the world get so complex? Mullaney wondered. Well, he thought, it gets complex because sooner or later you’ve got to say No, you have got to shake your head and say No, I will not accept this, I will not be bound by this, I will be free. And so, despite your mothers sorrowful look (oh those soulful brown eyes, I think she’d wanted in her heart of Irish hearts for me to become a priest like my Uncle Sean in County Wicklow) you must break the old lady’s heart by saying No, my dear Mother darling, I do not wish to accompany you this Sunday to St. Ignatius, I am terribly sorry but this Sunday I would like to sleep till noon, and then write myself a sonnet or two and then stroll in the park by the river and build a castle on the further shore, that is what I wish to do — you must say No sometime in your life. And, perhaps, I don’t know because I am new at this game of Taking the Gamble, I have only been at it for a year now, and losing steadily, but perhaps you have got to take the gamble more than once, turn your back more than once, say No, and No again, rush out into the wind and find whatever it is out there that’s beckoning you. Because, you see, you’re not really his glorious majesty, you are only Andrew Mullaney and you were not the same before the world was created, nor will you be the same in the world to come. Say No to Irene who begged you to stay, with her mascara running down her face and looking very much like a little girl who had put on her mother’s heels and makeup, weeping in the chair as I took a last look back at her and started to say something, but could not because Goodbye is very final, and I loved that woman, you do not say Goodbye to someone you love, and yet not sufficiently debonair to say au revoir or ciao (I have never yelled Banco! in my life, how could I even pretend to say those other things) and knowing that So long was far too casual for a woman who had given me seven years of very happy times — but you’ve got to say No sometime, you have got to say No or die, and I could not die, not even for you, Irene my love.

So Solomon, where are we now? where are you pointing now with your old and withered finger? what are you showing me in your ancient book, is this the Siddur, does Siddur mean prayer-book or missal or some such, what are the words? let them speak to me, Solomon, because I am, and always have been, a sucker for God, though a gambler besides.

“Here,” Solomon said.

Here, Mullaney thought, and read On your new moon festivals you shall offer as a burnt-offering to the Lord two young bullocks, one ram, seven yearling male lambs without blemish, numbers again, Mullaney thought, and a partridge in a pear tree, he thought and remembered the third Christmas they were married, he and Irene, when he had given her the Twelve Days of Christmas, carrying each of the days in his head for a month before the twenty-fifth, he could still remember each and every damn word of that song, it had driven him crazy for the better part of December. But oh the joy on that Irish phizz of hers when she opened them all on Christmas morning, each package wrapped and appropriately numbered. “One,” of course, was the partridge in a pear tree, he had bought her a small flowering pear and a tiny cotton-stuffed bird whose wire feet he had attached to the uppermost branch. For “Five,” he had bought five gold rings in Woolworth’s, enormous rings with rubies and emeralds that looked like the real McCoy, and diamonds every bit as genuine in appearance as the collection that had been stolen on Forty-seventh Street Thursday night — “Lots of money involved here,” Bozzaris had said — the whole thing had cost him two dollars and nineteen cents, Irene’s face worth a million dollars when she opened the box and the rings came tumbling out. For “Eight,” he had bought eight paperback novels with the bustiest half-clad beauties he could find on the covers, maids with milking breasts bursting out of peasant blouses, unimaginable titles like Up in Mabel’s Cooze or whatever; he had felt like a complete pervert buying the novels in a Times Square bookshop where scurvy characters thumbed photographs of long-legged girls in black lingerie, and he a respectable encyclopedia salesman. The Twelve Days of Christmas, one to twelve, each box numbered and each gift clever, if he had to say so himself, though inexpensive because that was a prime requisite in those days, clever but cheap. He had hated that bloody song ever since because in order to remember that “Nine” was nine drummers drumming, for example, he always had to sing the whole damn thing from the top, oh, what a Christmas that had been.

“They want you to hold up the Torah,” Solomon said.

The men had parted the red velvet curtains under the hanging caged candle and had taken from the wooden cabinet there a large — well, he didn’t know quite what it was at first, a red velvet case or cover with two carved silver handles protruding from its top. And then someone removed the velvet cover, but Mullaney still didn’t know what it was until Solomon said, “The Holy Book, they wish you to hold it up.”

“Why?” Mullaney said.

“It is an honor,” Solomon said.

“I appreciate it,” Mullaney said, “but no. Thank you, I don’t think it would be right. For a stranger,” he added hastily. “Thank you, Mr. Solomon, but it would not be right.”

Solomon said something in Yiddish to the old man who was anxiously leaning over them. The man smiled, and nodded, and then chose someone else to come to the front of the temple. The man walked to the altar, seized the Torah by both silver handles and held it up for the congregation to see the holy words. The service was coming to a close. Someone was reading more Hebrew, Mullaney no longer tried to follow even the English translation, some of the older men were impatiently beginning to take off their talliths (See, Mullaney thought, I learned a word). And then the Torah (another word) was rolled up and put back into its cover and carried back into the wooden cabinet behind the velvet drapes, and the drapes were closed, and there were more words in Hebrew, and the men were rising, and Solomon said, “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it, Melinsky?”

“No, that was very nice,” Mullaney said.

“Not like maybe at a big fancy temple,” Solomon said with a wink, “but not bad for a bunch of old Jews, huh?”

“Not bad at all,” Mullaney said, giving him a wink of his own, and following him toward the left-hand side of the temple where the other men were taking off their prayer shawls and carrying them to the scarred wooden rack on the wall. The flickering light on its long chain hung motionless from the low ceiling, casting dancing shadows on their faces as they folded the shawls over the long wooden bar. Mullaney followed Solomon to where the others were standing, being careful to imitate the exact way Solomon draped his tallith, the Hebrew lettering to the right, though he wasn’t at all sure this was part of the ritual.

“Would you like a little schnapps?” Goldman asked, and Mullaney suddenly thought of McReady and the burglary charge and of the jacket at the New York Public Library.

“Well, I really ought to be going,” he said.

“Come,” Solomon said, “it’s a b’rokhe.”

Mullaney followed Solomon to a round table at the rear of the temple. The table was set with a white cloth. A small dish of cookies rested on the table alongside a fifth of Four Roses. Two dozen shot glasses were turned upside down in a loose circle around the bottle. An old man there was already pouring for some of the others.

“Come,” Solomon said, “it’s very good for the intestinal tract.”

“Well, just a little,” Mullaney said. He was still wearing the yartmoulke, and he wondered whether he was supposed to take it off now that the service was over. None of the other men seemed to be removing theirs, however, so he touched the back of his head once again (the yarmoulke sat so feathery light on his skull that he was certain it had fallen off), adjusted the cap, and then accepted the glass Goldman offered. The synagogue seemed so suddenly dark, had it been this dark when he’d entered not an hour ago?

“L’chaim,” Goldman said. “To life.”

“L’chaim,” the men repeated, and raised their glasses. To life, Mullaney thought. McReady had used those identical words in the cottage last night, l’chaim, to life.

“To life,” he said aloud, and drank.

The stained-glass window above the altar suddenly erupted in dazzling brilliance, showering incandescent bursts of color into the room (The earth was without form and void, Mullaney thought in that instant, darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters — and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light), blue and purple, green, a penetrating shaft of yellow, glowed intensely for only an instant, illuminating the faces of the men and the whiskey glasses they held to their lips. And then an explosion rent the silence of the room, just above the temples low ceiling, and Mullaney pulled his head into his shoulders and thought They’ve come to blast me out with bombs and mortars, I’m finished.

“Rain,” Goldman said, and shook his head. “Why does it always rain on the shabbes?”

“It is the Lord’s will,” Solomon said, peering through his thick glasses, tilting his head to one side, listening as the rain drops began pattering on the temple roof. The men sipped their whiskey silently. Another streak of lightning illuminated the magnificent stained-glass window, the rolling blue and green sea capped with white, the darker blue beyond, the nascent world’s blackness, the dazzling yellow pane of light, let there be light. Thunder boomed above. The drops fell more heavily now, beating on the roof of the old building. Solomon poured more whiskey into Mullaney’s glass and said, “You know what happened to my Uncle Aaron, he should rest in peace?”

“We all know what happened to your Uncle Aaron,” Goldman said.

“The khoshever gast doesn’t know.”

“The khoshever gast doesn’t want to know,” Goldman said. “It’s a hundred times he’s told this story already, Cohen, nu?”

“A thousand times,” Cohen said. “Ask Horowitz.”

“A million times,” Horowitz said, and held out his glass for a refill.

“If the Lord didn’t want it to rain, would it rain?” Solomon said.

“The rain has nothing to do...”

“If the Lord didn’t want it should be thundering and lightening, would he make it thunder and lighten?” Solomon asked.

“The Lord works for Solomon,” Cohen said. “The Lord does all these things only so Solomon can tell us about his Uncle Aaron in Bialystok.”

“In Belopol’ye,” Solomon said.

“Wherever, and don’t tell us again because it’s time we all went home.”

“In the rain?” Solomon asked incredulously.

“Better in the rain than your Uncle Aaron’s story again.”

“You want to hear it or not?” Solomon said. “Listen, if you don’t want to hear it, believe me, I won’t tell it.”

“We don’t want to hear it,” Horowitz said.

“Do you want to hear it or not?” Solomon asked.

“He said already no.”

“Because if you don’t want to hear it, I won’t tell it,” Solomon said.

“I already heard it,” Cohen said.

“True, but did the khoshever gast hear it?”

“Did you?” Cohen asked Mullaney.

“No,” Mullaney said, certain he had not.

“Perhaps he would care to hear the story?” Solomon said.

The men all turned to Mullaney. They wore entreating looks upon their faces, but none of their eyes pleaded so eloquently as Solomon’s behind his magnifying lenses.

“Yes,” Mullaney said gently, “I would like to hear about your uncle, Mr. Solomon.”

“Oi vei, he’s meshuge,” Horowitz said, and gulped his whiskey.

“It happened that my Uncle Aaron, he should rest in peace, was a no-good, always fooling around with women, cheating at cards, a regular gambler, anyway, which is forbidden in the Holy Book...”

“Where is it forbidden?” Cohen said.

“I don’t know where, but it’s forbidden, believe me. Otherwise there would be gambling houses in every Jewish ghetto, you think Jews don’t like to gamble?”

“I don’t like to gamble,” Horowitz said, shrugging, “and it happens I’m a Jew.”

“I once played a number, God forgive me,” Goldman said.

“Well, my Uncle Aaron, he wasn’t a once-upon-a-time numbers player because, first of all, in Russia they didn’t have the numbers racket like here in New York, and also he was a cardplayer and a horseplayer from when they used to run the races.”

“Where did they run the races?” Cohen asked.

“I don’t know where, but in Russia in 1912 they had a big racetrack like all over the world, what do you think it was an uncivilized nation?”

“I’m saying where did they have a racetrack?”

“The Czar had a racetrack.”

“Where?”

“In Moscow.”

“Where in Moscow?”

“I don’t know, I’ll look it up. If the rabbi was here, he could tell you because it happens he’s from Moscow himself.”

“The rabbi, it happens, is in Livingston Manor,” Cohen said.

“When he comes back, he’ll tell you where the racetrack was. Do you mind terribly, Cohen, if I continue with my story?”

“Please continue, I only heard it already a thousand times.”

“And a thousand times you made the same interruptions.”

“Forgive me, Solomon,” Cohen said, and executed an elaborate bow. “Forgive me, Melinsky,” he said to Mullaney, and made another bow.

“So my Uncle Aaron, on this fateful day in 1912, he had been playing a game of cards with a couple of merchants from the village...”

“Bialystok, it happens,” Cohen said, “is a big city.”

“It happens,” Solomon corrected, “that Bialystok is in Poland, whereas Belopol’ye is in Russia, and is a small village.”

“Belopol’ye, it also happens, is a big city.”

“We’ll ask the rov when he comes back from Livingston Manor.”

“We’ll ask him,” Cohen said.

“Anyway, my Uncle Aaron had been in a very large card game on Friday evening, continuing even until after the candles were lighted for the shabbes, and it was all over the village that the game was going on, but neither my uncle nor any of his friends would stop the game because very high stakes were involved. Melinsky, are you familiar with cardplaying?”

“A little,” Mullaney said.

“The stakes can get very high,” Solomon said.

“I know.”

“So this game my uncle is in, with its very high stakes, is continuing on and on into the night-midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock...”

“All right, already,” Horowitz said.

“... four o’clock,” Solomon continued, “five o’clock, still the game is going on, six o’clock...”

“Make it morning, please dear God,” Goldman said.

“... seven o’clock, and finally the game breaks up. So guess who’s the big winner?”

“Your Uncle Aaron,” Cohen said.

“Correct! And guess what he decides to do?”

“He decides to go to temple to thank the Lord for his good fortune.”

“Correct!” Solomon said. “The sun had been up for perhaps an hour and a half by then, it was a beautiful spring day, it was April in fact, oh the sun was shining brightly and the cocks were crowing and all the animals of the field were making sounds in the early morning, the village very quiet...”

“A big city!” Cohen complained.

“... and my uncle walking along the dusty road to the little temple, where are gathered for services several dozen old religious Jews like ourselves.”

“This part I heard already,” one of the men at the table said, and abruptly banged down his shot glass and walked toward the stairway.

“Mandel, wait!” Solomon called after him, but the man shook his head, and then made a shooing gesture with his palm flat and out toward Solomon, and quietly trudged up the steps. Solomon turned to Mullaney. His blue eyes behind their magnifying lenses were glowing with the pride of narration, the honest effort of building a story to a climax. Mullaney could hardly wait to hear what happened next. Solomon smoothed his trim white mustache under his nose, put a withered finger alongside his cheek and said, “The sun is shining bright, remember, when my uncle goes into the temple. He puts on a yarmoulke and a tallis — he is not carrying his own tallis-zeckl because this is the shabbes, and he is not permitted to carry anything, though his pockets are full of money that he won from the game...”

“Tsah!” Goldman said, and would have spit had he not been in the temple.

“Certainly,” Solomon said, “I told you he was an evil man, I didn’t tell you this from the beginning?”

“Still, to carry money on the shabbes,” Goldman said, and pulled a grimace, and touched the handkerchief knotted around his throat as if in affirmation. Mullaney suddenly realized that it was knotted there because he was not permitted to carry anything in his pockets today.

“Anyway, my uncle goes to put on the tallis,” Solomon said, “he is already saying the words, ‘Bless the Lord, Oh my Soul! Lord my God, thou art very great,’ and so on, when all of a sudden there comes a thing of lightning through the open window of the temple, it could blind you, and immediately afterwards there comes a boom of thunder like you never heard, and it starts raining. My uncle looks up and the lightning is still hanging there in the temple, it isn’t moving, it’s hanging just inside the window where it first came in, as if it’s waiting there until it finds who it came in for, farshtein? And who did it come in for? Well, my friends, in the next minute that lightning starts to move around the room, straight for my Uncle Aaron who’s gambling and fooling with women, who’s carrying money in his pockets on the shabbes, it chases him around that temple with the other Jews running to get out of his way, and finally it chases him right out the temple door into the street! And there, in plain sight of all the people of the village, in plain sight so that everyone can see in the eyes of God, bang! that lightning hits him right on the head and kills him, and all the money he won in the card game falls out of his pockets on the street! This is a true story, so help me God, may I be struck down like my Uncle Aaron.”

“I don’t believe it,” Cohen said.

“It’s true,” Solomon said, nodding.

“I don’t believe it neither,” Horowitz said.

“I believe it,” Mullaney said fervently.

“You do?” Solomon asked, surprised.

“Yes. The exact same thing happened to my friend Feinstein.”

“The exact same thing?” Solomon asked, astonished.

“Yes. Well no, not the exact same thing. Actually, it happened in Las Vegas, outside the Sands, while Eddie Fisher was singing inside. But yes, Feinstein had been gambling all night, and he did get chased into the street, and he was struck by lightning. Though later, of course, there was speculation about what had really killed him, it being said a blackjack dealer had shot him with a .45 automatic. I, personally, have always believed he was struck by lightning, though witnesses claim Feinstein had been praying aloud for aces all night long, which could have caused the dealer to go berserk, I suppose, especially if he had no sense of humor or was not as pious a man as Feinstein.”

“Isadore Feinstein from Washington Heights?”

“No, Abraham Feinstein from the Grand Concourse.”

“I don’t think I know him,” Solomon said, and suddenly turned toward the stairwell.

The surprise was mutual and immediate, preceded only by the creaking of a stair tread, the single harbinger that caused Solomon to turn. The stairwell was behind the rear wall of the synagogue, and K and Purcell came around that wall cautiously, revolvers drawn, rather like bad imitations of television detectives raiding a numbers bank. Mullaney saw them at exactly the same time that they saw him, and all three men let out squeaks of surprise and almost leapt into the air, Mullaney in fear that he would be shot in the next instant, K and Purcell in delight at having found their quarry at last.

“There he is!” Purcell shouted — needlessly, Mullaney thought, since it was plain to see that there he was, and even plainer to see that there was no way out of this underground room save for the staircase which e^ras now so effectively blocked.

Goldman, taking one look at the pistols in their hands, shouted, “Pogrom!” and all the other old men, cued by Goldman, remembering stories of atrocities in Russian and Polish villages, perhaps even remembering scenes from their own childhoods, began running around the room shouting, “Pogrom, pogrom!” coming between Mullaney and his two pursuers, who still stood near the stairwell uncertainly, the pistols ready in their hands, but not wanting to shoot a bunch of old men who were racing around the room holding their hands to their heads and their ears and shouting, “Pogrom, pogrom!” for the whole neighborhood to hear. Mullaney, who didn’t want anyone to get shot either, least of all himself, picked up one of the folding chairs and threw it at Purcell, missing, he had never been very good at hitting people with folding chairs. The old men stopped running in that moment, perhaps because they realized Mullaney was the intended victim and not themselves, a realization that provided immunity and therefore power, perhaps because they remembered all at once that it did no good to run, it was more important to stand and fight even if the victim was only a stranger who had enabled you to pray publicly on the sabbath. Solomon seized the lighted candelabra from the altar, and with a bloodcurdling shriek worthy of an Irgun warrior, rushed K and struck him on the arm, sending the gun skittering across the floor, and also sending candles flying in every direction — oh my God, Mullaney thought, we’re going to have a fire here.

“Run, Melinsky!” Solomon shouted. “Flee!”

But Mullaney could not run, would not run while candles were burning on the wooden floor. He began stamping them out, and saw that Purcell had turned from the stairway to level his gun at Solomon, who was bending over the fallen K now, ready to strike another blow, this time on the head perhaps. Cohen veiled, “Solomon, look out!” and then seized a whole handful of talliths from the rack and threw them over Purcell’s head, the shawls covering him as effectively as a net. Mullaney kept stamping on the candles. A pistol shot rang out, shattering the stained-glass window, Purcell firing blindly from beneath his entangling silk shawls.

“We’ve got the situation!” Solomon shouted. “Flee, Melinsky!”

“Thank you!” Mullaney said, or perhaps only thought, and fled.

He fled into a city washed clean by the rain, her streets black and shining and smelling sweet and fresh, the sun poking through the clouds now like a religious miracle, great radiating spikes of dazzling light piercing the overhead gloom, reflecting in curbside puddles. A barefooted little boy stamped his feet in the water and shrieked in glee as Mullaney ran past him, turning left onto First Avenue, running uptown because uptown was where the library was.

The cessation of the storm had summoned everyone outdoors to sit or stroll. There was a holiday mood on First Avenue, partially because it was the sabbath and partially because this was the dirtiest city in the world and everyone was delighted that a rainstorm had carried away some of its soot and grime. Besides, it was spring, and city rain never succeeds the way it does in the spring, when it carries the aroma of unseen green clear across the canyons from Central Park, wafting gently on each crisp new breeze, cool and excruciatingly sweet. You can breathe in New York in the spring, Mullaney thought, you can suck great gobs of air into your lungs, especially after it rains. The clouds were scattering now, the sun was breaking through completely, putting the grey to rout, turning the streets to glittering obsidian. He ran not because he thought he was being chased, but only because he was beginning to enjoy running, feeling very much the way Jean Paul Belmondo must have felt on the Champs Elysees. In fact, when he spotted an old lady in a flowered housedress standing on the comer, holding a shopping bag, he ran up to her and threw the hem of her housedress clear up over her pink bloomers, “Oh, dear!” the lady said, and stared after him in wonder as he raced on past. The jacket was waiting for him at the library. The secret was nestling on the floor of that dusty vault where he had made love to Merilee, the secret to untold wealth, some of which he would lay on Jawbones nose, oh what a lucky man I am, he thought, oh what a wonderfully lucky fellow to be running in this springtime city like Jesse Owens or Gunder Hägg.

But, being thirty-nine and very close to forty, he soon tired of all this springtime frivolity and, out of breath, panting hard, decided he had best try to rustle up twenty cents for a subway token that would take him to the library before he dropped dead of a heart attack right here on this lovely springtime street. He did not want to beg because it didn’t seem fitting for someone as nicely dressed as he was to go around begging on First Avenue; that would hardly seem proper for someone wearing clothes that had belonged to a person ten times the man he was, or so Melanie had claimed, and he had no reason to doubt her word. And, as much as he detested the idea of stealing, he justified the plan that sprang full-blown into his head by telling himself that as soon as he made his killing he would come back and return the money he was about to pilfer — well, not pilfer, but certainly con out of an unsuspecting sucker.

He carefully eased the avenue, picking out the most crowded luncheonette he could find, and taking a seat at the farthest end of the counter, away from the cash register. He ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke, figuring he might just as well eat while he was at it, being very hungry. He ate leisurely and unobtrusively, keeping his head bent most of the time, avoiding the waitress’s eye, and ascertaining what he had learned from his scrutiny of the place through the plate-glass window: that the cashier was a rather portly old gentleman wearing glasses and reading a copy of Sports Illustrated. When he finished his meal, he picked up the check the waitress had given him, walked toward the cashier, and then directly past the cashier and into the telephone booth. He lifted the receiver from the hook, pretended to deposit a dime, dialed Irene’s number because it was the first number that came to mind, and then carried on an imaginary conversation with her while watching the cashier.

The cash register was on the extreme right-hand end of a long, glass-enclosed cigar display case. The cashier sat behind it on a high stool, turning to his right whenever a patron came to pay a check, adding up the items on it, taking the money and making change, and then turning to his left to skewer the check on the spike of a bill spindle that rested on the counter top to the left of the register. He then invariably went back to reading his magazine, leaning against the wall behind him, and looking up again only when the next patron arrived. Mullaney carried on his imaginary conversation with Irene, biding his time, waiting for the proper moment.

The proper moment arrived when three diners walked up to the cash register simultaneously, ready to pay their checks. Mullaney immediately came out of the phone booth, walked quickly to the register, and stood slightly apart from the people gathered there. The cashier turned to his right, took the check from the first patron, and then bent his head to add the column of figures. Mullaney swiftly and daringly thrust out both hands and stuck his own check onto the bill spindle to the left of the register, piercing the green slip, and then glancing quickly at the cashier to see if he had noticed the sudden move. The cashier pushed some keys on his register, opened the cash drawer, made change for his customer, a fat lady in a flowered bonnet, and then turned to his left and skewered the check on the spindle, covering the check Mullaney had just placed there. The only person who seemed to have followed the action was a hawk-nosed man with a heavy beard shadow, who glanced at Mullaney, shrugged uncomprehendingly, and then turned away. Mullaney waited until everyone, especially the hawk-nosed man, had paid his bill and left the luncheonette. Standing expectantly and patiently by the register, he waited for the cashier to look up at him. The cashier was now leaning against the wall again, reading his Sports Illustrated. Mullaney cleared his throat.

“Yes?” the cashier said.

“May I have my change, please?” Mullaney said.

“What?” the cashier said, and looked up at him for the first time.

“May I please have my change?”

“What do you mean, change?”

“I gave you my check and a five-dollar bill, but you didn’t give me my change.”

“What do you mean, you gave me your check?”

“A few minutes ago. You stuck it on your thing there, but you didn’t give me my change.”

“What do you mean, I stuck it on my thing there?”

“Well, take a look,” Mullaney said. “I had a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke, it’s right on your thing there.”

“This thing here?”

“Yes.”

The cashier pursed his lips, shook his head, and pulled the bill spindle closer to the register. He studied the top check (which had been given to him by the hawk-nosed man) and he studied the check under that (which had been given to him by a man in a grey sweater) and then he studied the check under that (the one that had been paid by the fat lady in the flowered bonnet) all the while muttering, “No grilled cheese sandwich here, you must be crazy,” and finally came to Mullaney’s check, sure enough, skewered on the long metal spike. He pulled it off the spindle, shoved his glasses up onto his forehead, held the check close to his face, peered myopically at it, and said, “Grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke, is that what you had?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You gave me five dollars?”

“Well, check your drawer there. I’ve been standing here for maybe ten minutes, waiting for my change.”

“Why didn’t you speak up?”

“Well, I saw you were busy.”

“You should speak up,” the cashier said. “You won’t get no place in this world, you don’t speak up.”

“Well,” Mullaney said shyly, and watched while the cashier rang up a No Sale, and then reached into the drawer for four singles and fifty-five cents in change, the grilled cheese sandwich having cost thirty cents, and the Coke fifteen cents, for a grand total of forty-five cents — “Four fifty-five,” the cashier said, “is that correct?”

“That’s correct, thank you,” Mullaney said.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” the cashier said.

“That’s quite all right,” Mullaney said. He walked back to the end of the lunch counter, left a twenty-five-cent tip for the waitress, and then nodded to the cashier as he walked out of the luncheonette, vowing to return with the money as soon as his ship came in.

He could not find the proper labyrinth.

He kept trying doors as he had last night, but somehow the magic was missing, he could not find the one that opened on the jacket’s hiding place, the secret book-bound glade wherein he had claimed his maiden, promising her the world and then some. But then, at last, frantic and exhausted, he found a door that opened on what seemed to be a familiar passageway, and he followed it between rows and rows of books, the dust rising before his anxious feet, saw a red light burning somewhere in the distance, made a sharp turn, found himself in the remembered cul-de-sac, and immediately saw the jacket. Untouched, it lay on the dusty floor where he had dropped it, surrounded by the paper scraps that had been sewn into its lining.

His hands trembling, he picked it up.

There was nothing terribly remarkable about it, it seemed to be an ordinary-looking jacket, made of black wool, he supposed or perhaps worsted, which was probably wool, he was never very good on fabrics, FA-FO with four round black buttons on each sleeve near the cuff, and three large black buttons at the front of the jacket opposite three buttonholes in the overlapping flap, a very ordinary jacket with nothing to recommend it for fashionable wear, unless you were about to be buried. He opened the black silk lining again, and searched the inner seams of the jacket, thinking perhaps a few hundred-thousand-dollar bills were perhaps pinned up there somehow, but all he felt was the silk and the worsted, or whatever it was. He thrust his hand into the breast pocket and the two side pockets, and then he searched the inner pocket on one side of the jacket and then on the other, but all of the pockets were empty. He crumpled the lapels in his hands, thinking perhaps the real money was sewn into the lapels, but there was neither a strange sound nor a strange feel to them. To make certain, he tore a lapel stitch with his teeth, and ripped the entire lapel open, revealing the canvas but nothing else. He was extremely puzzled. He buttoned the jacket and looked at it buttoned, and then he unbuttoned the jacket and looked at it that way again, but the jacket stared back at him either way, black and mute and obstinate.

He put the jacket aside for a moment and picked up one of the New York Times scraps, not knowing what he would find, or even what he was looking for, but hoping one of the scraps might give him a clue to what the jacket was supposed to possess. He began methodically studying each scrap, not actually reading all of them, but scrutinizing the newsprint to see if any word or sentence had been circled or marked, but none of them had. As he turned each scrap over in his hands, he remembered what McReady had said last night, “Let us say that where there’s cheese, there is also sometimes a rat.” Now what the hell was that supposed to mean? He sighed heavily; there were far too many bogus bills. He finally spread them out haphazardly on the library floor, using both hands, and then only scanned them, making a spot check now and again, picking up one bill or another to scrutinize, and deciding on the basis of his sampling that none of them had any of their corners clipped or trimmed or scalloped or dog-eared or folded or anything.

Well, he thought, I don’t know.

I just don’t know what the hell it is.

He picked up the jacket and slung it over his arm, thinking he might just as well hang onto it in the event he had a brilliant inspiration later, which inspiration seemed like the remotest possibility at the moment, and then decided he had better get himself out to Aqueduct before the second race went off without him. He didn’t know what good it would do to be there, since he now possessed only four dollars and ten cents. With subway fare costing twenty cents, and admission costing two dollars, he wouldn’t even have enough left to lay a two-dollar bet on Jawbone.

Well, he thought, we shall see what we shall see.

He left the library the way he had come in, though now he was carrying the black-buttoned, black worsted jacket over his arm. On his way to the IRT in Grand Central, he passed a department store, and saw two pickets out front. One of them smiled, walked over to him, and said, “Shopping bag, sir?”

“Thank you,” he said.

The shopping bag was white with large red letters proclaiming JUDY BOND BLOUSES ARE ON STRIKE! Not being a union man himself, but being of course in sympathy with working men all over the world, Mullaney accepted the shopping bag, dropped the jacket into it, and hurried to Grand Central Station.