By a Spider's Thread: A Tess Monaghan Novel (22 page)

His voice caught then, as it always seemed to do when he spoke of his children.

“Anyway, this list gives me something concrete to do,” Tess said. “Your father-in-law was clearly upset when I suggested that one of these men might be an important link.”

A consistent man — the word “rigid” came to mind — Rubin had not yet asked Tess a single question about her interview with his father-in-law.

“So you’ll find them, talk to them — and then what?”

“You always want to be told the future, but I won’t pretend to know what I can’t know.” Tess hesitated, reluctant to put Rubin on the offensive. “The men on the list — do any of them resemble the man with Natalie in French Lick?”

The question clearly pained him. “Yes and no. Truth is, they all resemble one another. Except for Amos, who was huge. Not fat, just enormous, built on a different scale. The others are neither tall nor short, neither fat nor skinny, and they all had darkish hair. It’s been almost ten years since I’ve seen them. Who knows what they look like now? Who knows what I looked like then?”

“Why did you stop volunteering in the prison anyway? I know you were on the outs with Boris, but what about the other men? Wasn’t there a way you could have continued with them?”

“Natalie asked me to stop going. Once she was pregnant with Isaac, she was adamant that I must not visit the prison anymore. She said it worried her, that it was a dangerous place. Funny, she had been there all those times, as a beautiful young girl, and yet she worried about me. I have to admit, I was charmed. I was so young when my mother died. My father was wonderful, but he always treated me like a little man. No one had ever worried about me before.”

Tess resisted the urge to raise her own eyebrows Groucho style, or wiggle her own cigar. When it came to Natalie, shrewd Mark Rubin was fatally thick.

I
saac was lying in the trunk, thinking about Anne Frank. He had given up being Jonah. After all, Jonah got out of the whale after a little bit and went to Nineveh, but Isaac was still in the trunk. Anne Frank had to stay in the attic, day in and day out, hiding from Nazis. Isaac’s teacher had told the class the story of the brave girl this past year, and Isaac had been quite impressed. He did not see how anyone could live under such circumstances, especially when there was no television and, even worse, no new books to read, just a book you were writing to yourself. Which seemed kind of boring, because you would always know what happened next.

But Anne, it occurred to him now, had it better than he did in some ways. Of course, she was up against the Nazis, and that was pretty bad, about as bad as things get. But she had an entire attic and her whole family around her. She had her journal, which became almost like a friend to her. Here in the trunk, Isaac couldn’t even see, much less read or write. True, he was seldom in here more than twenty minutes or so, while Anne never got out of the attic. Lately, however, Zeke had begun to put him in the trunk more and more, for all sorts of infractions. That was Zeke’s word, and it was new to Isaac. Infractions. He was still trying to figure out what it had to do with math. Maybe it meant Isaac misbehaved in parts, sort of like one-third or three-fourths.

Today, for example, the trouble began because Isaac had refused to eat anything at lunch. He wasn’t being stubborn. He just wasn’t hungry. His mother had nagged him to eat, which made him feel contrary and mean, and he had crossed his arms against his chest, refusing to take a single bite of anything. His mother had hissed at him, threatening one minute, pleading the next, almost in tears from frustration, and people began looking at them. That was the one thing Zeke would never tolerate — people looking.

So Zeke took Isaac outside to give him a lecture, but Isaac just stared at the sky, as if he were in a place far, far away, where Zeke’s words couldn’t be heard.

“Listen to me,” Zeke had commanded, grabbing his arm, only to drop it when he noticed the two waitresses sharing a cigarette nearby. “Man, you are a stubborn little bas —
pisher.
”

“I’m not the
pisher,
” Isaac had said. “Penina is.”

Zeke smiled, giving him credit for the joke. “Daisy,” he corrected. “Your sister’s Daisy now.”

“She’s Penina.”

Zeke gave him his meanest look, which was pretty scary, but Isaac knew he wouldn’t do anything as long as those girls were around. Isaac and Zeke sat next to each other on the curb, enjoying their dislike of each other, the freedom not to pretend. Of course, Isaac never pretended to like Zeke, but Zeke put on an act when Isaac’s mom was around, ruffling his hair, giving him play punches on the arm that were just a little too hard.

“So,” one smoking girl said to the other, “I love your earrings.”

“These earrings?”

What other earrings would she be talking about, stupid?
Isaac’s father said Isaac would like girls one day, but he couldn’t see it. These girls had big, fluffy heads of yellow hair, and their makeup was as bright and vivid as the kind of markings that Isaac had seen on people in
National Geographic.

“Yeah. They’re adorable. Where’d you get ’em?”

“At the flea market over on Wabash. The Sunday one? Guy wanted twenty dollars, but I jewed him down.”

“Ex-cell-ent.” The girls tossed down their cigarettes and ground them beneath their feet. One girl wore sensible flat shoes, but the other was tottering around in high heels that looked to be almost four inches tall. How could she walk in those? Isaac had tried on a pair of his mother’s high heels once, just to see how she did it, but his father had said he really shouldn’t do that.

“What did they mean?” he asked Zeke when the girls were gone.

“What?”

“ ‘Jewed him down.’ Does that mean she made him a Jew?”

Zeke laughed, an unpleasant sound to Isaac’s ears. Zeke laughed only when he was laughing at someone.

“It means she drove a hard bargain.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Jews are known for being good businessmen, Isaac. Maybe a little too good. A lot of folks think Jews are cheats, who will do anything for a buck.”

“But we’re not.”

“Some are. Enough to give Gentiles that impression.” Zeke stared off into the distance, although there was nothing to see but highway and a large truck stop across the parking lot, a huge complex of silver and chrome where enormous trucks stood idling. “Your grandfather was like that.”

“How do you know my grandfather? He died before I was born.”

“Well, he was famous, right? Ran a big fur store, made a lot of money, married into even more. But no one in Baltimore who knew him ever said he made his money fair.”

“My grandfather was not a cheat.” Said with more conviction than he felt, because he had never known his Grandfather Rubin. But his father was a good man, so his grandfather must be a good man, too.

“Suit yourself.” Zeke’s laugh this time was short and bitter, more like a cough.

“You said Baltimore.”

“What?”

“You said no one in Baltimore said my grandfather made his money fair. Are you from there, too?”

“Let’s go to that convenience store over there,” Zeke said. “See what kind of newspapers they carry in this hick town.”

The convenience store at the truck stop was grand, almost as big as a real store, with all sorts of unexpected merchandise — clothing, toys, cassette tapes, even a rack of paperback books. A neon sign pointed the way toward restrooms with showers, while another sign advertised something called a chapel.

“Why showers?” Isaac asked Zeke.

“For long-haul truckers, my man. They can get pretty smelly, driving all day and night. They come in here to wash up and pray.”

“Is the chapel only for Christians?”

“Don’t worry, Isaac. I’m sure all the Jewish truckers find a way to pray, too. Your dad prays, doesn’t he? Even in the middle of making all his money, he finds time to pray, right?”

Isaac refused to answer that question, spinning the rack of books while Zeke waited in line to pay for his newspaper. They looked like adult books for the most part, but there was a copy of something called
The Amber Spyglass.
Isaac had seen older boys at school with this book. He picked it up and opened to a page. Although the type was really small, he could read most of the words. Tests at school said Isaac read at the sixth-grade level, even though he was only going into the fourth grade. He was filled with longing for this book, any book. If his mother were here, he would beg her to buy it for him. But he hated to ask Zeke for anything, and not just because Zeke almost always said no.

Back home he had a savings account and a bank shaped like an Orioles cap. He could easily buy this book for himself. Of course, if he were back home, he wouldn’t have to. His father would buy it for him.

Sighing, he started to return
The Amber Spyglass
to the rack, then saw the store’s security camera focused on him, beneath a sign that promised
SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW
. He stared back into the camera’s eye, then made a show of shoving the book down the front of his pants, smoothing his shirt over it.

“You ready to go, buckaroo?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

Isaac and Zeke were almost back to the side of the highway before a woman began shouting after him. “Sir? Sir?” Zeke didn’t turn around right away. He never did if he could help it. “Sir — I think your little boy has something of ours.”

The woman caught up with them, pink-cheeked and a little out of breath. “I’m sorry, but one of the girls thinks she saw your son put something under his shirt.”

“He’s not —” Zeke caught himself before he denied he was Isaac’s father. “He’s not a bad kid. I can’t believe he would do something like that.”

Isaac shook his head. He didn’t have much experience with breaking rules, but he was pretty sure a thief would pretend, at first, that he wasn’t one. He clutched his middle, so the book wouldn’t slip out.

“There —” The woman pointed to his stomach, and Zeke bent down, pulling the book from Isaac’s grasp the way he might yank a hair from his head, hard and fast.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I apologize for…my son.”

Isaac’s cheeks burned, and he wanted to scream,
He’s not my father.
But he didn’t want to distract the woman from calling the police, or have Zeke call him a liar.

“It happens,” she said. “Not so much with the books, though.”

“Are you going to persecute me?” Isaac asked.

“Perse — Oh, prosecute. I don’t think that’s necessary. Next time, though, you should ask your daddy if you want something, or save your money so you can buy it yourself.”

“The sign said you always” — he paused, making sure to get the word right this time — “prosecute.”

“That’s for grown-ups,” she said, winking at Zeke. Women were always winking at Zeke when Isaac’s mom wasn’t around. Winking or patting their hair. “Little boys get second chances.”

“Yes they do,” Zeke said, placing a hand on Isaac’s shoulder and squeezing hard enough to make him squirm. “Sometimes.”

They returned to the car, and Zeke said Isaac had to ride in the trunk for the next hour, maybe the foreseeable future, a phrase that seemed weird to Isaac. How much of the future could anyone see? Isaac’s mother started to argue, but Zeke told her what Isaac had done, how he had tried to attract attention, perhaps even the police. “If you show that you can be trusted, you’ll get your car privileges back, buckaroo.”

So he was in the dark again. For the foreseeable future. He almost wished he hadn’t gotten caught, given that his plan hadn’t worked. If the woman wasn’t going to call the police, he might as well have gotten away with stealing and had a new book to read. It was so unfair. When people made promises on signs, they should keep them. For some reason this made Isaac think of the time he was driving somewhere with his father and they saw a huge sign that said
JESUS SAVES
. And his father had pointed to it and said, “But Moses invests.” He had laughed, and Isaac had laughed, too, once his father explained it.

He moved his hands along the trunk’s lid above him, then felt along the sides. It was such a crummy old car that parts were always falling off. The spotty holes in the fenders, like little bits of lace, let air in, but also fumes. Did his mother realize what those fumes could do? The carpeted bit beneath his blanket was almost completely gone, and you could see through to the rear lights, which rattled, loose in their casings. Bored, Isaac placed a hand where he thought the lights might be and began to poke around, just to see what might happen.

T
ess made a game of tracking down the four local felons that Mark Rubin had met through his volunteer work, deriving a peculiarly Baltimorean pleasure in structuring the most efficient route through the chaotic city. Uncle Donald, glorying in his ability to get confidential information, had procured the men’s workplaces from Parole and Probation, which simplified things. Katzen was on the edge of downtown, Russell in downtown proper. She would then swing into SoWeBo, the southwest Baltimore neighborhood whose dilapidated row houses were more likely to evoke Soweto than SoHo, and end the day in southeast Baltimore, close to her own office. If she timed it right, she’d make Cross Street Market for lunch, pick up some fresh Utz potato chips, hot from the fryer, and still have time for a late-afternoon dog walk and coffee break.

“Good-bye,” she called to the dogs, as she headed out. “I’m off on the Jewish-losers tour of Baltimore.”

She would come to regret that joke, private as it was, before the morning was through.