Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [70]
My mother’s words brought back the humiliation of those early weeks. I’d been back maybe a month, living in a basement apartment just outside of Pikesville. A part of town I would never have set foot in when I was younger, but the shabby, poorly lit one-bedroom I now called home belonged to my cousin Sal. Still, it was a step up from an 8’x 8’cell, so I didn’t care too much if the kitchen was tiny and there was barely room for a bed and a desk. I didn’t cook, and once I got a job I’d hardly be in the apartment at all.
But weeks of frustration took their toll. I didn’t want to lie, but telling the truth about my stint in prison made prospective employers antsy, leaving them to reject me outright or not even bothering with a response. After yet another ill-fated interview where my past came up, I wondered whether I was qualified for anything but selling small bags of powder to desperate customers on shitty street corners. All I had to do was call up a couple of old contacts and I’d be back in.
I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t face my mother’s disappointment when she’d believed in me the entire time I was in prison, and I couldn’t quit on myself and take a step back when all I wanted to do was keep barreling forward. Something had to come along.
Thanks to Sam Levin, something had.
I leaned over and kissed my mother on the forehead. “You’re the best, Ma. I’ll come and see you soon.”
She shook her head and smiled ruefully. “Just do the best you can.”
Later that afternoon, I met Rabbi Brenner at a kosher Italian place further south along Reisterstown Road. I didn’t shy away from the truth: that I’d found absolutely nothing to prove Moshe Braverman was a bad match for Beryl.
Of course the rabbi didn’t like what I had to say. “And you checked? And double-checked? Did you interview people?”
Even though you didn’t ask me to, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Your daughter’s friends gushed about Moshe, about what a nice boy he is. A couple of them seemed pretty jealous that she landed him and they didn’t. Some of the boys at Ner Israel—”
“You were on the premises? I never saw you.”
“It wasn’t too hard.” I let that sink in, because the school was known for its excellent security. “Going there didn’t yield me much in the way of information, though. Since he’s not a student there, most of the boys I spoke to could only offer impressions formed when he’d been in town. All of which were of the ‘decent young man’ variety.”
I took a spoonful of fettuccini—surprisingly good—and swallowed. “I’m sorry, rabbi, but I think you might have to accept Moshe as your son-in-law.”
Rabbi Brenner slumped in his chair, taking the news worse than I’d expected. But his eyes burned. It occurred to me once again that this man wielded considerable power within his community, and was regarded as a scion, a man of absolute respect. I had given him bad news and he didn’t like it. I didn’t like what this could mean for me.
He sat back up and held my gaze. “If there isn’t anything to be found before the wedding, there will be something found a the wedding.”
“Forgive me,” I said, “but is it possible you’re taking this just a bit too personally? Let her marry Moshe. He could turn out to be a good guy, after all—”
“That’s just not possible, Mr. Colangelo. And to think of him fathering my grandchildren,” his face turned sickly white, “is something I cannot even consider. No. You’ll go to the wedding and keep an eye on him there.”
“What?” It was definitely the strangest invitation I’d ever received.
“Just continue your decoy act, the one you’ve been doing all month. But this time you’ll have to wear what I’m wearing.” He signaled downward toward the fringes, the tzitzis
“Oh,” I said, understanding.
“After all, it’s not like you’ll be the only outsider there. Many times, we need to add men to the group in order to increase the number of dancers, to make it look more festive, freilach. You’ll just be another member of this group.”
He explained further: There was an agency responsible for