Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [68]
The principal of Baltimore’s prestigious school for young rabbis and scholars-in-training laughed. From the sound of it, he didn’t do so very often.
“All right, I think that’s enough male posturing from the both of us. I’m not really very good at it.” He chuckled softly a more genuine sound. “Probably why I chose my path and you chose yours.”
I wondered if he’d ever get to the point. “How can I help you, rabbi?” I emphasised his title.
He apologized, then began his story. “My daughter Beryl is to be married next month. She’s the second youngest in the family, and a lovely girl. Beautiful, really. If you saw her you’d understand what I’ve had to deal with.”
“Fighting off the boys with a stick?” I said only halfironically. Some of the yeshiva boys who showed up in the store talked about the same things any guy would. Namely, women. And not necessarily in the nicest of terms.
“You might say that,” said Rabbi Brenner tightly. “I should be happy she’ll be settled down soon.”
“But you aren’t.”
“Correct.” The door swung open and a young, heavily pregnant mother wheeled in a stroller containing two crying toddlers. The rabbi briefly stepped away from the register to say hello to her. She responded, looking at the rabbi with undisguised awe. Her stay was brief: She wanted candlesticks, I found them for her, and five minutes later, having paid a small fortune, she left.
The rabbi resumed his story. “On paper, my future son-in-law is very desirable. A decent young man, attends a yeshiva in Cleveland, went to Israel last year, and comes from a good family with yichus …” That word I didn’t know. He hesitated briefly before translating it as, “Breeding, good lineage. It’s hard to express in English, but this boy, he is perfectly acceptable. On paper. And he’s always been a gentleman with Beryl, and extremely respectful of me and my wife.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“In the last two or three weeks, I’ve heard … rumors. Usually I wouldn’t dare take unsubstantiated gossip, loshen hara, into account, but too many stories are repeating themselves from different sources. I’ve tried to warn Beryl but she won’t listen to a word I say. The girl believes that because she’s getting married, she won’t have to answer to me anymore!”
I can’t say I blamed the girl’s reasoning, but I said nothing and let the rabbi continue.
“Anyway, this boy, Moshe, everywhere he goes, trouble seems to follow. In Israel, the rabbi at the yeshiva he attended in Be’er Sheva couldn’t prove anything wrong, but any time a boy was beat up—and there were four incidents like this—he’d clam up as soon as Moshe reappeared. I called up the principal of the school in Cleveland, and after some serious questioning I received even more stories along the same lines, but even worse.” Rabbi Brenner trailed off, his face twisting in sudden pain.
He dropped his voice to a whisper even though no one else was in the store. “One boy had to go to the hospital, the beating was so bad. They hushed it up and made it clear Moshe would not be welcome to return once he’d finished the year. This happened three months before my daughter met him, and now it’s too late. She insists on marrying him and refuses to listen because all I have are bubbe-meises, ‘fairy tales,’ as she says.
“There’s no other way to put it: Moshe is a blot that must be rid of.”
I tried to process what the rabbi was saying, and it didn’t make any sense. Or at least, I didn’t want it to make sense in the way I thought he meant.
“Look, rabbi, you’re going to have to be a whole lot more specific. Because if you’re asking me to do what I think you are, then you’ve asked the wrong person.”
“Sam said I could count on you!”
“And I’m very glad my employer trusts me. But killing someone’s going way too far.”
The whisper was gone now. “That’s not what I meant!” Rabbi Brenner blushed. “My God, how could you think that of me? That I’d hire a … hit man, or whatever it’s called. Never mind that to do so would be illegal