“He was not a real man or a good Jew. No, this is what I want: Follow Moshe around. Find out what he does. Find out if the rumors are true and do so before he marries my daughter.”
What Rabbi Brenner proposed shocked me more than if he’d asked me to kill his future son-in-law. “You want me to play private investigator?”
He smiled. “If that’s how you want to think of the task, then yes, I do. You already know how to blend in, else how would you have worked here so long?”
“Good point,” I acknowledged. Blending in was a talent I’d developed when I was little. I’d never looked stereotypically Italian, thanks to a smattering of Irish inherited from my maternal grandmother and some stray Scots ancestry on my father’s side. Instead, I grew up to look like a taller, stockier absentminded professor. Granted, one who could alter his perceived appearance depending on whether the situation was benign, neutral, or dangerous. I’d harnessed the ability even more when I’d taken up space in certain city corners to deal, and it was even more of an asset in prison.
I was good at fading into a crowd. And this, in a perverse way, sounded like a fun thing to do.
“I’ll do it, but are you sure Sam will let me take so much time off the job?”
“I’ve already procured a substitute: my youngest daughter, Sara.”
That was easy. “Fine, but I’ll warn you, I might be good at the chameleon business, but I’ve never followed anyone around before.”
“You could always find a mark, correct? Someone to whom you could sell your wares?”
Rabbi Brenner had an interesting way with words, and as soon as those were out of his mouth, he winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to remind you of your past.”
I shrugged it off. “That’s why it’s the past. I’m trying to move on, but I guess I’ll never leave it behind.”
We quickly negotiated payment and a next meeting, scheduled for a week before the wedding. I only foresaw one major problem.
“What if I don’t find anything out before the wedding takes place?”
The rabbi fixed me with a look that chilled me. “Then we’ll figure out something else.”
With Sam’s blessing, I spent the next three weeks tailing Moshe Braverman from Rabbi Brenner’s home to wherever the boy-because he wasn’t more than about twenty-one-went to. When I followed him to a religious neighborhood, I wore clothing similar to my Pern’s uniform. If it was an area I knew better, like Baltimore Highlands or the Northwest sections, I ditched the white dress shirt and glasses and opted for all black. And if I happened to be in a nicer part of town, closer to the downtown core, a quick trip to a restaurant bathroom to change into jeans usually did the trick.
Except all that clothes-switching didn’t amount to anything at all, because from what I could see, Moshe was clean. When he was with his bride-to-be, he was the epitome of the lovesick suitor, telling Beryl whatever she wanted to hear without ever breaching the social codes of where to touch and how much distance to keep. Because of their engagement, the couple was allowed to go around town unchaperoned. An irony, then: Maybe all Rabbi Brenner wanted was a glorified bodyguard for his daughter, the last vestige of an overprotective parental instinct.
When I asked my mother, whose illness was worsening, she seemed to agree.
“Some parents just don’t know how to let their children go, to be adults,” she declared between hacking coughs.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m still here with you, Ma,” I said, mopping her brow. I didn’t like that her fever kept spiking, but any time I brought up the idea of admitting her to the hospital, or even a nursing home, she refused.
“Danny, in spite of everything, you’re a good son. A good man. Even for this crazy, overbearing rabbi, you’ll do the best you can.”
“You really think so?”
“Of course I do. You think other people would have been so determined to look for a decent job when they left prison? Would they have spent weeks driving up and down the city looking at want ads, even though not a single person wanted to hire you?”
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
“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
“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,
He explained further: There was an agency responsible for finding able-bodied young men to add to the corps. Being Jewish was an option, not a requirement. In order to blend in, yet again, I’d have to register with this agency
