Snow in August

35

Across the long, broiling day, Michael made nine more trips to the hill beside the Quaker cemetery. Around two o’clock, he went home to assure his mother that he was all right. He had a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and washed it down with iced tea. After she left to look once more at the garden apartment in Sunset Park before going on to work, Michael rushed to the park. It was after dark when he carried his last load of dirt into the synagogue on Kelly Street.

He poured each load of dirt into the long, flat sink, packing it loosely with his hands. After the last bagful was transferred into the sink, he sat down hard on a dusty pew. He was so drowsy that he felt as if he were underwater. I need a nap, he thought. Just an hour, stretched out on this empty bench. Just to rest. Just ten minutes. Five. But then he imagined waking in the gray dawn, and his mother panicking and the police searching the parish for him. He couldn’t let that happen. No. He stood up straight and slapped his cheeks to come fully alert, and thought of the great, ballooning shape of Rabbi Hirsch’s battered face. No: I have to sleep at home tonight. In my own bed. I need to be strong.

The upstairs sanctuary was now very dark, its spaces illuminated only by light from the moon. He looked at the shem, waiting in its ceramic box. The spoon lay hidden under a pew. Everything is ready, he thought, even me. But it was time to go home. After all, this was still only Thursday. He had one more day to do what must be done. One more day until the party for Frankie McCarthy. On Shabbos.

At home, he soaked in the bathtub and scrubbed away the traces of dirt under his fingernails. He went to bed before his mother came home, and in spite of the relentless, clammy heat, he fell swiftly into a dreamless sleep.

When he woke on Friday morning, the bed was marshy with sweat. He could hear the radio from the kitchen and his mother’s voice, singing happily along with the Ink Spots on a song called “The Gypsy.” He pulled on his white baseball pants, as instructed by Rabbi Hirsch, and his white socks and sneakers and a white T-shirt. But he felt strange and dreamy. His mother’s familiar voice made him think that maybe none of this had ever happened. She sounded as she always did in the mornings before Frankie McCarthy walked out of the snowstorm into Mister G’s. Everything else was the same: his chair, his bureau, the cabinet full of comics, the window that opened to the fire escape. Was he really dressing in white, for purity, to spend a day summoning a living creature from dirt? Was he to be like Dr. Frankenstein? He lived in the real world, not in a movie. Then he saw the piece of his plaster cast adorned with Rabbi Hirsch’s precise Hebrew letters. He picked it up and kissed it reverently. Everything had happened, all right; all of it.

“Good morning, young man,” Kate Devlin said cheerfully, poking a spatula into a frying pan on the stove. He mumbled a good morning and stepped into the bathroom to throw cold water on his face and comb his hair. He left the door open while he washed. Everything was familiar.

“You had yourself a sleep, didn’t you?” she said. “It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Slept like a rock.”

He closed the door and urinated and washed his hands, examining the bathtub for signs of dirt from the park. There were none. When he came out, Kate had laid three slices of French toast on a plate on the table. He sat down, slapped butter on the fried bread, and sprinkled sugar over the top. He ate greedily.

“Well, it’s done,” she said, explaining her cheerfulness. “I rented us a place. The one with the garden.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, we’ll be in by the middle of August, so we’ll have to start packing tomorrow.”

“But you’re still working at the Grandview?”

“For now,” she said. “Tonight for sure. But there’s an opening out at the RKO in Bay Ridge. Just great luck.” She gazed out the window at the summer haze. “We’ll be out of here soon. It won’t be soon enough.”

Her voice mixed with the radio, a tune called “The Anniversary Song.” Al Jolson. He heard a phrase about how the night was in bloom though a word wasn’t said. Kate was talking about getting boxes from Roulston’s grocery, and how he could begin packing his own things on Saturday. But he didn’t even try to imagine the move, the new apartment, a garden. He was thinking only about the night ahead.

“Sometimes bad times are really for the better,” she said. “We can throw out a lot of junk, and—” She noticed his clothes and smiled. “You’re dressed to play ball!”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Up the park.”

His plate was already clear, and he got up to wash it in the sink and place it in the drainer.

“You’ve made it up with those two so-called friends?”

“Well… I don’t know. I’ll just try to find a game.”

“Be careful with that leg, now,” she said.

Off he went, wearing his I’M FOR JACKIE button as a badge of defiance. He took the long way to the synagogue. Walking fast on what felt like a brand-new leg. Off to Kelly Street. Through the door. Into the upstairs sanctuary.

Then he started to work at the long, deep sink, murmuring the instructions from Rabbi Hirsch as if they were part of the mass. He ran some water and stirred the dirt and water with the long silver spoon to make mud. He stripped off his shirt and trousers to keep them clean, because later he had to be dressed in pure white. Then he started shaping the mud. A torso. Arms. Legs and feet. A head. Stepping back to be sure the proportions were right. Shaping the details of the face with the handle of the heavy spoon. Making an opening for the mouth. Dividing fingers and toes.

He was on the banks of the Vltava. He was waiting for fog. He imagined a red moon. His sweat splashed into the mud. Hours passed as he refined and refined his work. The light in the sanctuary shifted with the sun.

When he was finished, he walked as instructed to the four corners of the sanctuary and gathered dust and dirt in his hands and sprinkled it over the mud. As the mud dried, he smoothed the rough spots on hands and face until he could refine them no more. Then he went to the loft above the front door and found a worn, paint-spattered wooden stepladder. Right where Rabbi Hirsch said it would be. He carried it down to the sanctuary floor, bumping into walls in the tight stairway, knocking a wooden collection box to the floor. He carried the ladder to the front of the sanctuary, opened it, and adjusted the brace. He climbed up the rungs, as the ladder swayed and creaked, and lit the fat, squat candle of the eternal light with a wooden match. A soft, golden light immediately suffused the room.

Now he was very hungry. He went downstairs to Rabbi Hirsch’s room and washed his hands in the sink and took apple juice from the small refrigerator and drank straight from the bottle. The juice was cold and sweet, but the bottle shook in his hand and the perspiration would not stop dripping from his body. He dried himself again with a towel, but the sweat returned. He sat down at Rabbi Hirsch’s table, trying to be very still, struggling to control his fear. He was afraid of what he was about to do. Afraid he would succeed. Afraid he would fail. No: he would not fail. He believed. He would make it all come true. God would recognize him, his belief, his need. It would happen. Yes. It would happen, it would happen.

“Believe,” he whispered to the silence. “I believe.”

His gaze drifted to Leah’s photograph and he wished he could talk to her. He wished he could talk to Rabbi Hirsch too. But he was alone here in this place, and there was nobody to talk to except God.

Whispering an Our Father, he climbed the dark stairs to the sanctuary. There could be no more delay. Shabbos was almost here. He pulled on his clean white baseball pants and his white T-shirt. He stared down at the shaped mud. He opened the ceramic box and saw the shem: a rolled yellow parchment an inch wide, so old that the paper was leathery to the touch. He walked to the edge of the bimah and eased the shem into the hole he’d made for the mouth. Then he took the spoon in hand again and used the point of the handle to letter a single word on the brow of the head.

’EMET.

It meant Truth.

Then, standing behind the head, he took a deep breath, raised the spoon over the shaped head, and began to chant. The prescribed sounds were all letters. A, and B, and C, and D, right through the alphabet. First in English; then, to be sure, in Yiddish. The aleph-bayz. Seven times for each letter, followed by the letters that Rabbi Hirsch had told him stood for the secret name of God.

YHVH.

YHVH.

YHVH.

YHVH.

YHVH.

YHVH.

YHVH.

The secret name echoing mightily through the empty sanctuary.

Then he added vowels, A-E-I-O-U, seven times, again followed by the name of God. All the time moving, forming a wheel, doing a kind of dance around the sunken bimah, making a circle that traveled from right to left. Following the commands of Rabbi Hirsch. Feeling his own body charged with power and mystery. Believe, he thought. Believe. Here is the Kabbalah. Believe.

For the mystery was all about letters, Rabbi Hirsch had told him. Numbers too, in Kabbalah, but above all, letters; for from letters we make words, and words are the names of life. They name arms and legs and faces. They name men and women, insects and animals, and the creatures of the sea. They name oceans and rivers and cities. They name the grass. They name the trees. God gave letters to man and man made words from the letters and used them to name God’s nameless world. And Michael remembered from catechism class, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.…

So Michael danced and chanted, repeating the letters in pairs and in triplets, then singing them as if they were sacred music, the room growing darker now as the sun faded, while Michael tried to will himself into the inert mud. He rose into a frenzy of words and letters, hearing sounds from his mouth that he did not think, moving to music that nobody played, rising into clouds, moving palaces across distant skies, speaking to birds, joining hands in a dance with Mary Cunningham and the Count of Monte Cristo, soaring and swooping and breaking for third, up, rising up, full of rain and fire and salt and oceans, all the way up, chanting the letters that named galleons and cowboys, pirates and Indians, borne by the letters, swept through golden skies, above the crazy world, above Brooklyn, above Ireland, above Prague, above the fields of Belgium.

And then fell to his knees in utter emptiness. He had no more words in him. He had no more letters. He had no more music. He wanted to vanish into a dreamless sleep. Here in the sweet dusty darkness. He could hear the cry of a bird like a sound of morning. And then the barking of a dog. But he did not rise. He stretched out on the floor, facing the Ark.

And then the mud began to glow.

A deep red.

Then a brighter red. Like something in an oven. Michael rose to his feet, his heart beating in fear.

He stepped back, afraid to look into the sink, retreating into the shadows, but the glow grew more intense. Two minutes. Five minutes. Ten. Like something deep in the coals of a sacred furnace.

And then a chilly breeze blew through the sanctuary. The burning wick flickered in the eternal light. Dust lifted from benches, and cobwebs bent and snapped. Something clattered to the floor in the darkness. The windows rattled. Michael felt the floor tremble and heard a wild sound of birds rising from the roof and then a high-pitched sound like a dog whistle, hurting his ears, piercing his brain.

And then a sudden silence.

He could only hear the pounding of his heart.

The breeze abruptly died.

And then two dark hands gripped the sides of the tub and the Golem pulled himself up.

It was him.

The Golem.

Everything was true.

Sitting there, the Golem was as dark as Jackie Robinson, his hazel eyes full of sorrow. He looked from left to right, the sorrowful eyes taking in the desolation of the sanctuary. He seemed to have expected this sight. He leaned forward and looked at the palms of his immense black hands before turning them over to gaze at their blackness. Then he stared at Michael for a long moment. Michael did not move. The Golem bent a knee, shifted his weight, and stood up.

Michael backed up as the Golem stood naked in the tub, his muscles rippling like bags of stones. He must be eight feet tall, Michael thought; bigger than any man I’ve ever seen. Without a sound, the Golem stepped over the wooden framework of the bimah to the floor.

Michael needed words. The words did not come. He fought the impulse to run. Talk to him, he thought. Speak to him.

The Golem stared at Michael and then reached forward, touching his face. His hand felt like the sole of a shoe.

“I’m Michael Devlin,” the boy said. “Can you understand me?”

The Golem nodded yes.

“Can you speak?”

He shook his head sadly. No.

Michael tried to control his trembling. When he first had heard the stories of the Golem from Rabbi Hirsch, he imagined a figure from comic books. Made of pen lines and brush marks. Simple, sometimes even humorous, sent on missions of justice by a good rabbi. He did not expect this naked creature, as large as a tree, as dark as night. Standing before him, waiting for instructions. For a moment, he wanted to reverse the process, to send the creature back to where he came from. But then he remembered his mother’s humiliation and the battered face of Rabbi Hirsch and his own lost summer. No: he could not turn back. He had invoked the name of God. He must go on.

“We… we have to find you some clothes,” Michael said, pulling on his T-shirt. “You understand? Clothes. Because we have some things to do out there tonight.” He pointed at a broken stained-glass window and the visible fragment of the August evening. “Out there in the street.”

The Golem understood. He gazed around the dusty sanctuary, as if looking for clothing.

“Come on,” Michael said. “Let’s see what we can find.”

They opened closets and pantries, the Golem defeating locks and layers of cementlike paint as he effortlessly jerked them open. They found banners, books, old Ark curtains; but no clothes. Until the Golem suddenly emerged from a tight, small subbasement with what seemed to be a cape. There were golden cords or tassels on the ends, and he tied them at his neck to make the cape. In Rabbi Hirsch’s kitchen, he bent his knees to fit under the ceiling, and whirled the cape. The frayed tassels crumbled and the cape fell. He grunted sadly.

“Wait,” Michael said.

He removed the I’M FOR JACKIE button from his T-shirt and jumped up on a chair in front of the Golem. He held the two ends of the cape together and fastened them with the button.

“Great!” he shouted. “It works.” The Golem laughed without sound. Michael said: “You look like you could fly.”

Michael went to the small bureau where Rabbi Hirsch kept his shirts and underwear and in the bottom drawer he found a sheet. Perfect. The creature could tie it around his middle like a giant diaper. Or, what did they call it in those stories about India by Rudyard Kipling? A breechclout. When he turned with the sheet in his hand, the Golem was holding the photograph of Leah in his leathery hands, staring at her face.

“She’s part of the reason you’re here,” Michael said, as the Golem replaced the photograph on the shelf. “That’s the rabbi’s wife. Killed by the Nazis.”

He showed the creature what to do with the sheet, and the Golem tried clumsily to wrap it between his legs and around his massive hips, the sheet slipping until Michael tied the ends as tightly as he could. Michael stepped back, smiled, and said, “You look like Gunga Din.” The Golem did not smile. He moved a huge hand toward the framed photograph, and then Michael told him some of the story. About Rabbi Hirsch and Leah and Hitler and the millions of deaths. About Frankie McCarthy and the Falcons, Mister G on the day of the snowstorm, and what was done to Michael and to Rabbi Hirsch and to Michael’s mother. The Golem listened in a fierce way, his brow furrowing, a gash deepening through the word for Truth, which was lighter against the black skin. His head moved slowly from side to side. As his anger built, his eyes receded under his slablike brow. He did not smile. He did not laugh. His immense hands kneaded each other. When Michael told him about Frankie McCarthy’s plans, a bright sheen appeared on his black skin.

“That’s about it,” Michael said. “That’s why we brought you here. We have to stop them. We have to make sure they don’t do stuff like this ever again. We have to make sure they are punished.”

The Golem sat there for a long moment. Then he gazed again at the photograph of Leah, and Michael was reminded of the story about the Golem in Prague and how he fell in love with the girl named Dvorele. That was a heartbreaking story, but it also showed that the Golem didn’t simply follow orders. He had his own feelings, his own ideas. Michael began to worry that he would not be able to completely control the creature. Then he saw that the Golem’s eyes had fallen on the shofar, which lay on a lower shelf. The creature rose and gently picked up the shofar in his giant thumb and forefinger.

“Rabbi Hirsch tried to play tunes on it,” Michael said, and smiled. “But he couldn’t do it. Maybe you could.… Maybe you could send them a message down at the poolroom. Let them know we’re coming.”

Exhaling softly, the Golem took Michael by the hand and led him upstairs to the sanctuary. Pausing, the Golem stood with the shofar in both hands and bowed his head to the Ark. Then, with Michael behind him, he moved to the rear of the sanctuary and up the stairs to the loft. He seemed to know the way. He found another door and jerked it open. They stepped out to a small flat roof. For a dazzled moment, the Golem gazed at the million lights that were scattered across the blackness all the way to distant Manhattan. This was not Prague. He grew very still. Michael said nothing. The August heat was deadening, and there was no breeze. From this height, Michael could pick out the glow of the Grandview’s neon sign, the tower of the Williamsburg Bank Building, the arc of the Brooklyn Bridge, and off to the left in the black harbor, pale green and small, the Statue of Liberty. There were still some people waiting out the hot night on blankets on rooftops and fire escapes.

The Golem brought the shofar to his mouth.

He blew one long, terrifying note. It seemed to rip a hole in the heat-stricken night.

He blew another.

And then a third.

Michael backed away, frightened by the power and savagery of the three notes blown on the ram’s horn. Notes as old as the world.

But the Golem placed a hand on his shoulder. Reassuring him. Cautioning him. Telling him to wait. Telling him, without words, that something was coming.

Something was.

It began to snow.

Millions of flakes, radiant and beautiful, drifting down through the August night. Black when Michael looked up, brilliantly white as they passed the level of his eyes, melting as they touched the hot rooftops and the sweating foliage of trees and the soft asphalt and the torrid steel of parked cars.

Snow.

Driven now by a sudden wind off the harbor. Coming now at a harder angle. As birds rose in great flocks to tell the news and dogs barked and windows opened.

Snow in August.

The Golem smiled. He handed Michael the shofar and then the boy led the way back through the synagogue. Now we will do it, he thought. Ready or not, Frankie, here we come. He left the shofar on the kitchen table and went out into Kelly Street with the Golem behind him, bending his head and shoulders under the lintel. The August snow was falling hard. Kids ran through it, shouting and yelping. An old woman came out on a stoop, looked up at the dense snow, made a steeple of her hands and mumbled prayers. Michael heard the wolf wind, and wished for Arctic fury, and the storm grew more violent. In the churning, gyrating, eddying frenzy of the sudden storm, nobody saw the white boy and his giant black companion.

Michael prayed. In English and Latin and Yiddish. Prayed to God, to Deus, to Yahveh. Prayed in thanks, prayed in awe. But he did not turn back. He moved steadily onward, leading a procession of two, the Golem’s bare feet crunching a soup can, his face grim, his cape unfurling in the wind. The snow was so thick now that nobody could possibly see them, and yet Michael wasn’t cold. Screened by the blinding snow, they reached the alley behind the abandoned hulk of the Venus, where Frankie McCarthy once had threatened Michael with a knife. Then they came to Ellison Avenue. Across the street was the Star Pool Room, with a six-foot-long WELCOME HOME FRANKIE BOY banner draped above the front door. A stray dog came out of the snow and huddled in the doorway beside the poolroom.

“They’re in there,” Michael said, standing beside the abandoned box office under the marquee of the Venus. “We’ll have to go and get them.”

The Golem placed his hands on Michael’s head. His brow furrowed. The driving snow halted, then skirled and danced, before resuming with even greater fury. Michael glanced at the dirty glass of the shuttered box office, where he had once admired the look of his suit on an Easter morning. He could not see himself. He could not see the Golem.

Jesus Christ, he thought. We’re invisible!

He stepped out into the street, the Golem behind him, and marched through the storm, directly to the front door of the poolroom. The stray dog came over, big, black, muscled, sniffing around them but not seeing them, growling in a baritone voice. “Sticky?” Michael whispered, and the dog barked an answer. Oh, Dad. Oh, Daddy: Thank you.

Michael gently opened the poolroom door, and he and the Golem stepped inside. The dog waited in the snow, as if for a command. About fifteen of the Falcons were bunched together in front of the six pool tables with green baize tops. All turned to the door. The wind howled. Snow scattered across the floor. But they could not see Michael and the Golem.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said. “Close that fucking door!”

Michael saw Frankie McCarthy coming from a room at the rear of the pool hall, buttoning his fly. He was dressed like a movie gangster, in pinstriped dark suit, thick-soled shoes, a white tie on a white shirt. Tippy Hudnut slammed the door shut, and turned to Frankie.

“You find out anything yet?” he asked.

“I’m on the phone ten minutes, calling up newspapers, radio stations, everything,” Frankie said. “Nothing. Nobody ever heard of it, snowing in fucking August. They treat me like I’m a fucking nut.”

The Golem opened the door again, and he and Michael stood to the side. The dog continued to wait.

“Hey, what the fuck is it with that door?” Frankie said.

“You seen me close it, Frankie,” Tippy said, closing it again. “Maybe it’s that dog out there.”

“Then give the mutt a swift kick and lock the motherfucker.”

“We lock it, how will the broads get in?” the Russian said, as Tippy shooed the dog and closed the door.

“They knock,” Frankie said, glancing at his watch. “Where are the broads, anyway?”

Michael saw that they were all there. Not only Tippy, but the Russian and Skids and Ferret. Along with the other idiots who followed them around and laughed at their jokes. And Frankie McCarthy. Playing boss. Acting like a big shot. Snarling, giving orders. To the right, a table was laid out with cold cuts and cheese, baskets of rolls and bowls of potato salad, quarts of whiskey and gin, and a tub full of beer bottles. On a table in the rear, a phonograph was playing “Sleepy Lagoon.” Frankie went to the windows, his eyes glittery, his lips curled, and stared at the driving snow.

“What the fuck is this?” he hissed. “I gotta fuckin’ party to throw.”

He slammed a fist against the doorframe. The door swung open.

“All right, which one of you fucking jokers is doing this?” He laughed in a weird way. “You got some kind of a fucking button or something?”

Michael thought: Now. We’re going to do it now. No more waiting. We’re going to wipe that smile off his face.

The Golem seemed to understand. Skids came over to close the door, taking a key from his pocket to lock it. The Golem placed his hands on Michael’s head. The lights above the pool tables dimmed, then came back to full strength. Michael and the Golem stood there, visible to all.

“What the fuck?” Frankie McCarthy said, backing up, his face twitching. The others inched to the side, looking at the huge black man and the kid they had tried to terrify out of the parish. “Hey, what — hey, Devlin, who is this guy?”

The Golem stared at him, then turned to Michael. A smile flickered on his face.

“That’s Frankie McCarthy,” Michael said, as if making a formal introduction. He took the key out of the locked door and slipped it into his pocket. “He’s the one I told you about.”

Frankie backed up, his hand darting inside his jacket but not finding what he was looking for. He’s scared, Michael thought. Scared out of his goddamned wits. Without taking his eyes off the Golem, Frankie reached in a fumbling way for a pool cue, finally gripping it by the narrow shaft. The other Falcons began spreading out. Their hands went into their pockets. They picked up pool cues. Their eyes were wide and uncertain, as if calculating odds. Glancing at the other Falcons, Frankie McCarthy was suddenly a little braver.

“You’re looking for fucking trouble,” he said, “yiz’ll find it here.” His bravado was cut by the crack in his voice. “This is members only. So leave now. While you can still fucking walk.”

Michael saw Skids slap the butt of his pool cue into his hand. The hand that had mauled his mother’s body. Most of the others followed Skids’s example. Michael could sense their thinking: Good odds. Fifteen to one. Or fifteen to one-and-a-half. Good odds, no matter how big the guy is that’s wearing the cape. The Russian put his hand in his back pocket and whipped out a knife. Ferret eased around to the side, holding an eight ball in his right hand.

“Just so you know, Frankie,” Michael said, taking a step forward, “I never said a word about you to the cops.”

“Don’t horseshit me, you fuckin’ punk.”

“I’m not horseshitting you, Frankie,” Michael said. “I didn’t rat. But you know what I learned? I should have told them everything. I should have told them right from the start what a goddamned coward you were, beating up poor Mister G.” Michael remembered what the rabbi had said one night in early spring. “That’s what I learned. I learned, you keep your mouth shut about a crime, sometimes that’s worse than the crime.”

“A rat is a rat.” Frankie sneered.

“No, Frankie. A cowardly bum is a cowardly bum. And you are a goddamned coward and a goddamned bum.”

Frankie saw that all of them had weapons now. He winked at Skids and moved to the side, turning his back on the Golem.

“How’s your mother, kid?” Skids said, and then made a panting sound. The others made sucking sounds or sounds used to summon dogs. Some of them laughed.

Michael rushed at Skids, but the Golem wrapped a huge hand around the boy’s chest and shoved him back.

“You prick, Skids!” Michael shouted. “You gutless bum.”

Suddenly Skids came in a rush, swinging the pool cue like a bat. The Golem grabbed it in midair as if it were a twig. He yanked it away from Skids, used both hands to snap it in half, and dropped the pieces on the floor. Then he grabbed Skids by the shirt, whirled, and heaved him twenty feet. Skids landed between two pool tables.

Silence, except for groans from Skids.

“That’s just a start,” Michael said. “Now, Frankie, you want my friend here to take care of you too, or do you want to do what’s right for a change? You know, go down to the precinct, ask for Abbott and Costello, and tell them what you did. To Mister G, to me, to Rabbi Hirsch. Tell these friends of yours to go and apologize to my mother. Tell my friends that I didn’t inform on anybody and we can live the way we used to. Do something really goddamned brave, Frankie. For a change.”

There was a pause.

“I’m warning you, Frankie. It’s your last chance.”

Frankie said, “Fuck you, kid.”

He looked at the others as if saying, Hey, nothing to worry about. Saying it to them, saying it to himself. There were too many of them for these two. His mouth curled, then became a slit, but his eyes were glittery.

“We got us a couple of tough guys here, boys,” he snarled. “Whatta ya think of that?”

The Russian didn’t think. He whipped open his switchblade and dove for the Golem. He was hit in midair and fell to the floor, the knife clattering from his hand. The Golem stomped his neck with his leathery bare heel and then toed him aside as if he were a stunned rat.

“Get the kid!” Frankie said, backing up, panicky, then turning to run to the small office in the rear. “Get that fucking kid!”

Two of the Falcons charged Michael, but the Golem stepped between them and the boy, and hit each of them with short, savage punches, knocking them down. Okay, Michael thought. Now it’s too late for mercy. I told Frankie what he had to do, and he answered with a fuck you. So now he has to be punished. It’s too late for Mister G. Too late for a lot of things. Including the cops. Again the Golem seemed to read his mind. He looked down at the I’M FOR JACKIE button, figured out how it worked, unpinned his cape and let it drop to the floor. He stood there, wearing only his breechclout, and glared at the Falcons. From the side, Tippy Hudnut suddenly threw a cueball, but it bounced off the Golem’s head and succeeded only in annoying him.

“It’s Frankie we’re after,” Michael said. “The others are small fry.”

The Golem gestured for Michael to go to the door and leave. Michael didn’t move. He thought: I’ve been afraid long enough. I’m not running.

The Golem then upended a pool table, scattering the balls and kicking a hole through the green top. He shoved the other Falcons aside as if they were dolls. Michael had told him to get Frankie McCarthy; he was going after Frankie McCarthy. Michael saw that all of them were panicking now, muttering, Oh shit, oh shit, this guy, oh man, oh fuck, hey let’s—And then Frankie stepped out of the office. He was holding a gun. His feet were planted, his lip curled, like a gangster from a hundred movies. Michael felt a tremor of fear; he had never seen a real gun before, except on the hips of cops.

“Don’t fuck with me, Sambo,” Frankie said. “I’ll blow a hole through you, and no jury will ever send me to the hot seat.”

The Golem walked straight at him, the muscles corded and rippling in his back. Michael could see Frankie’s eyes change. Now wide and jittery. The Golem took another step, and Frankie backed up, his jaw loose, his eyes wild, and then he fired.

Blam!

The bullet hit the Golem and he kept coming.

Blam! Blam!

And the Golem reached Frankie McCarthy. He took the gun away from him, held the grip in one hand, and snapped off the barrel. He tossed the pieces over his shoulder. Then he grabbed Frankie by the lapels and heaved him ten feet against a wall. Frankie fell in a shambling pile. But the Golem wasn’t through with him. He took him by one leg and dragged him the length of the poolroom to the front door.

“Enough!” Michael shouted. “That’s enough for now! We don’t want to kill him.”

The Golem halted, dropped the groaning Frankie by the door, and turned to Michael for instructions.

“Wait,” the boy said.

Michael turned to the other Falcons. They were backed away, far from the door, drawing closer to each other, as if for warmth. They needed to be taught a lesson too.

“Hey, listen, man, we’re sorry what happened wit’ your mother that time, okay?” said Tippy Hudnut in a pleading voice. “You see, we was drinkin’ and, you know, sometimes, you got your load on, you don’t know what you’re doing. And, hey, you know.…”

“Take your clothes off,” Michael said. “All of you.”

“What?”

“I said take your clothes off. Everything. Shoes, socks, everything.”

“Hey, man, it’s snowing,” Ferret protested.

On the floor beside the door, Frankie moaned.

“You take them off,” Michael said, turning to the Golem, “or he takes them off for you.”

Ferret was the first to unbutton his shirt. Within minutes they were all naked, shivering in the poolroom, a cluster of pale bodies, tattooed, scarred, muscled. The clothes were piled on pool tables, along with brass knuckles, switchblades, a homemade zip gun, a length of pipe. The Falcons looked much younger now, stripped of their armor.

“Now what?” Tippy whispered.

“Go home,” Michael said.

“Through the fucking snow?”

Michael went to the door and opened it with the key. The wind howled. The black dog waited at the curb, snow gathering on his pelt.

“Go.” The naked youths started reluctantly toward the door.

But now the Russian was on his feet, his jaw hanging loose. He looked at Frankie, who was facedown beside the open door. He looked over and saw Skids in a sitting position.

“Hold on, everybody wait,” Michael said, as if addressing prisoners of war. “Russian, you go over there and help Skids get ready for his outing,” Michael said. “Take his clothes off. Then take off your own. Very fast.”

“You kiddin’, or what?” the Russian said.

“You’re one of the Falcons, right? Look at them.” The Russian looked at the pale shuddering mass of the others. “One for all, all for one.”

The Golem picked up a pool cue, and casually snapped it in half, as if doing an exercise. The Russian did what he was told. Skids limped naked toward the door, held under one arm by the naked Russian. I should go over and slap their goddamned faces, Michael thought. I ought to make them crawl on their hands and knees to beg my mother for mercy. But no. Wait. We’ll save it for Frankie.

“All right,” Michael said. “Get outta here. Run home to your mothers.”

The naked Falcons began to run now, crowding through the door, past Michael, past the Golem, past the stricken Frankie, out into the falling snow. The black dog snapped at them, barked, lunged for them. The groggy Russian staggered out last, holding his jaw, guiding the shivering Skids. Michael closed the door behind them.

Then they were alone: Michael, the Golem, and Frankie McCarthy. We should wreck this place, Michael thought. The way they’ve wrecked so many places and people. The Golem somehow heard him. He smashed each of the six pool tables, the phonograph, the wall telephone, the office furniture, the benches. He tipped over the table loaded with food and drinks, glasses splintering, bottles breaking, beers and ice and potato salad carpeting the floor.

Neither of them was watching Frankie McCarthy.

Suddenly Frankie was behind Michael. And a blade was at the boy’s throat.

“Okay, stop right there,” Frankie shouted at the Golem, gesturing with a knife. Michael saw it glint in the light. “You tell this rat stool pigeon to unlock the fuckin’ door. You don’t do what I say, I cut his throat.”

Michael was terrified, but he forced himself to be calm. Nobody on earth would ever again make him go in his pants.

“It’s not locked, Frankie,” Michael said.

“I don’t believe you. You got the key. I seen you put it in your pocket.”

Michael slipped the key from his pocket and Frankie grabbed it. The knife remained at Michael’s neck.

“Now, you, big boy,” he said to the Golem. “You go in the back and lie down.”

The Golem did not move. He stared at Frankie McCarthy. His concentration was so fierce that a halo of energy seemed to rise off his head. Michael could see holes in his chest from the bullets, but no blood. And he could see a smile flickering on the dark face. If he were Jackie Robinson, he would now steal home. The Golem’s face became a hard grid.

And then Frankie McCarthy’s knife began to melt.

Michael could feel the heat on his neck. Then a warm dripping that was not blood. And not molten metal either.

Frankie backed up. His hand was full of wax. His face was full of terror. He turned to the door, stabbing at the lock with the key, his hand palsied by fear. The Golem stepped between him and the door. Frankie backed away in surrender.

“All right, enough,” Frankie whispered. “I don’t get this.”

“Sure you do, Frankie,” Michael said. “Don’t you ever read Crime Does Not Pay comics? This is the part near the end.”

“Please,” Frankie said, his face runny with fear. “Whatta ya want me to say? I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry about all that shit. You know… Mister G… I lost it, know what I mean? Dumb Hebe, buttin’ in. There I was, just havin’ a little fun with your friend Sonny and — Please. And your mother, hey, man, I was in the can that night.” The Golem took a step toward him. “And what’s that rabbi doing around here anyways? We ask him for a few bucks, you know, ’cause the guy’s got a secret treasure in there, and he gives us some lip. What’s he expect?”

The Golem inched forward, no expression on his dark face, and now Michael could smell the odor he wanted to smell. Coming from Frankie’s trousers. Tears of shame welled in Frankie’s eyes. His voice rose.

“Please, kid,” he said whimpering now. “Gimme a break. What’s done is done, right? Let bygones be bygones. Come on…”

The Golem looked at Michael. The boy could hear Father Heaney’s voice: We believe in an Old Testament God. He nodded, and the Golem went for Frankie. He slapped McCarthy three times. Each slap broke something. Then he bowed formally to Michael before kicking out the glass in the front door.

He shoved Frankie ahead of him into the blizzard. He reached for the banner welcoming Frankie home, pulled it down, and then tied an end of it around Frankie’s waist, making a crude leash. The black dog tore at Frankie’s trousers, shredding them. Michael stepped over the shards of broken glass and followed them into the street, carrying the Golem’s cape.

Holding the end of the banner, the Golem pulled Frankie to the middle of the avenue. He smacked him again, knocking him down, then grabbed his ankles. He snapped each of them. Frankie’s screams filled the air. Windows opened. Michael shivered, but not from the cold.

“Remember, no killing!” Michael shouted into the howling wind. “We save him for the cops!”

The Golem looked at Michael, inclined his head slightly. Then he grasped the end of the banner tied to Frankie’s waist and swung him around. Around and around and around, like a hammer thrower. With Frankie’s feet flopping loosely and his arms straight out as the speed increased.

And then, with one final, immense effort, the Golem let him go.

Frankie flew high through the driving August snow and landed with a skittering crunch on the top of the marquee of the Venus. His screams turned to moans. Well, Michael thought, he won’t be hurting anyone for a long, long time. And now, barely audible above the howling wind was Frankie McCarthy’s pleading voice. Help me, he called through the snow. Please, somebody help me, please.

The Golem paused and then turned to Michael, who was standing at the curb, holding the cape. The black dog howled in triumph and farewell and then disappeared into the snow. Michael walked to the Golem and handed him the cape, thinking: I’d better call the cops to pick up Frankie. And he now noticed that the Golem’s eyes were like tombs, as old as the Bible. The Golem slung the cape across his shoulders and fiddled with the Jackie button until it closed. Then he put a huge hand on Michael’s shoulder and together they vanished into the storm.