West Palm: The Complete Novel (10 page)

“M
orning, Rabbi,” said the volunteer assisting at the ticket booth.

“Good morning to you too, ma'am,” he solemnly answered, counting out his money.

He looked kind of suntanned and young for a rabbi, but everybody looked young to her lately. Seniors with titanium hips were beginning to look young to her.

She observed that he didn't have a full-length beard, so maybe he wasn't a full-fledged rabbi. Still, he had a holy expression on his face. And he struck her as more monkish than those big-hatted guys who came to the zoo with a troop of pale kids in tow. All in all, she gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“Enjoy yourself,” she said, handing him a map. She liked to divide her volunteer work among several animal organizations. Mondays were the alley cats. Wednesdays were Save-A-Greyhound. Saturday she visited her daughter, whose husband was an animal. And Sunday was the zoo.

He took the map from her with a funny smile. Saintly, she supposed.

She was forced to turn to the next visitors, but the personable young rabbi remained in the back of her mind, giving her a blessed feeling.

Rabbi Kikenberg entered the zoo and was confronted by children running back and forth screaming under the sprinklers. He regretted killing the second kid, but the boy had seen him, so it had been necessary.

He headed past the flamingos in their pond, the birds of prey on their perches, and the carousel where more kids were circling past on wooden ostriches and zebras.

To the left of the carousel was the reptile house.

Inside the reptile house, Dottie was saying, “This is my Sunday treat?”

“It's educational,” said Smoker.

“Parents have to come to dumps like this when they've got kids. Our kids are out of college.”

“You don't like snakes?”

“What's to like in a snake?”

“If we had a snake, we wouldn't have geckos. You always complain about the gecko crap in the house when we come home from a vacation.”

“We're not getting a snake. Your Humphrey Bogart bar is bad enough. What the hell is wrong with you these days?”

“I think snakes have something to do with a case I'm working on.”

“If a snake commits a crime, you hit it with a shovel. You don't take your wife to the reptile house.”

“Do you know that the Everglades are filled with pythons? People buy them for pets, and when they grow too big they let them loose. They're eating everything in sight. They'll destroy the entire Everglades if we're not careful.”

“Does this mean we're not getting a python?”

“Next time the termite man comes around, you should spend some time with him. He told me he killed a rattlesnake with an old pail that was close at hand. The rattler kept coming, and he had to hit it a second time. Guy's an ex-Marine, he can take care of himself, but he's afraid someday he'll get under a house to inspect for termites and a giant python will be there. That's it, he's finished. They can crush your lungs in seconds. Pest Control's been removing twelve-foot pythons from people's yards. This is what we're up against in the Sunshine State.”

“We live on Twenty-ninth Street. There are no twelve-foot pythons.”

“Wait and see.”

“So we're preparing ourselves today, at the reptile house?”

“I'm trying to get a feeling for this perp.”

“What's his connection to snakes?”

“He wears snake bracelets. People who wear these things, it's meaningful to them. It's part of their character.”

“You think you're going to find him here?”

“I'm attempting to get into his head.”

“But why does it have to be on Sunday? I never liked zoos. They're prisons.”

“You get important information out of prisons. A guy who's into snakes, what does that tell you about him?”

“It could just be a cosmetic thing. He likes the way snake bracelets look on him.”

“I think his attachment to snakes is deeper than that.”

Turning her back on the reptiles, she stepped outside and sat down on a bench facing a glass wall behind which a pair of otters were swimming and cavorting. “Now
there's
an animal,” she said as Smoker joined her.

He watched the sleek acrobats slide off a rock into the water, then stretch their bodies out and perform an amazing exhibition of skill whose only purpose seemed to be the joy of swimming. “They don't mind living in a zoo,” he said.

“They mind. They're making the best of the situation. Like me.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I'm making the most of my Sunday at the reptile house.”

He looked down at her stoically sitting on the hard bench, and saw that she really was making the most of it. She'd gotten dressed up for the occasion in a red scoop-neck blouse, white linen skirt, and gladiator sandals whose straps showed off her muscular cyclist's legs. A slit on each side of the skirt didn't hurt either. His eyes returned to the low-cut blouse. She knew he liked her in red, because he used to claim she made him think of a cherry. He realized he hadn't told her that in a while, even though she still looked like a cherry, with the same luscious roundness in the right places and the same black cherry eyes that sometimes shone at him and other times bored right through him.

He sat beside her for a couple of minutes, admiring the hint of cleavage revealed by the red blouse, then dragged her into a dark room marked
CREATURES OF THE NIGHT.

Kids were holding their noses and demanding, “Why does it stink?”

Dottie covered her nose, and followed Smoker from one murderous snake to another, until they came to a little tree boa that appeared to be living peaceably with a bunch of frogs without eating them. “One decent citizen,” she said.

An entire wall was given over to bats, but they were hard to spot in their nighttime environment. A fluttering made Smoker raise his eyes to the ceiling and the farthest corner where something hideous was hanging with a dozen thrashing wings. It looked like a deadly bat gang bang.

“I forgot they have mammary glands.” Dottie squeezed his hand. “Aren't they sweet?”

A Hasid in a big black hat and suit walked past, and Smoker cast him a vaguely troubled glance. There was something about him. In the dark hall with his dark glasses he seemed like a creature of the night himself.

B
ecause there were never any parking places on Clematis Street around showtime, the garages in the neighborhood sent out teams of valets to work the traffic. When a valet saw a driver looking for a spot, he approached to offer the services of his establishment. Then the driver handed over cash and was given a ticket to be redeemed at the end of the evening.

When exactly evening ended fluctuated like the tides.

The Dramaworks Theater had let out two hours before, and since it was Monday, the bars and dance clubs were already closing. Fernando Rios, valet, had only one unclaimed car left. Without any qualms of conscience he decided to go home to bed. The likelihood that some driver would be stranded carless for the night didn't make its way to that segment of Fernando's brain committed to his fellow man. Where there should have been content, there was a void; that driver didn't exist.

That driver did exist. She and her girlfriends had been to see
Menopause the Musical,
which was touring Florida again by popular demand. They'd had a few drinks afterward, and were now air-kissing each other good night and going off in various directions.

Nina walked alone along an unusually dark and empty Clematis Street, looking for her valet.

After a thorough search up and down the avenue, she faced the fact that there were no parking valets to be seen. She took out the ticket she'd been given, but there wasn't any phone number on it. The question was: had he really been a parking attendant, or had she given her car to a clever thief?

A voice came from an off-duty cab. “If you're looking for your car, they're gone for the night.”

“Goddammit. How could they do that?”

“Didn't they tell you you're supposed to show by a certain time?”

“If they told me, I wouldn't be stuck like this.”

“I can take you home, but only if you live nearby because I'm done for the night.”

“I live in Palm Beach Gardens.”

“Too far.”

“And what about my car? How do we know it's in a garage and not a chop shop?”

“Chances are, it's not in a chop shop,” he said, and drove off.

She was now the only person on the street. She took out her BlackBerry to call her friends before they got too far away, and found she had no signal.

A couple of drunks pulled up beside her. “You look like you're lost.”

“My car is lost.”

“Wanna party with us?”

She refused this generous offer, and they pulled away with a screech of tires, a male comment on female caution.

Her parking garage had to be around here somewhere, but she'd have to walk half a mile in every direction until she found it. The problem was she was in high heels, which was why she'd used the expensive street valet service in the first place.

She paced the sidewalk in a fury, high heels clicking angrily, and saw no signs of life. Her temper was doing her no good. How would it help her if someone mugged her, which was a possibility, because downtown was only safe at night when it was crowded. What would the stars of
Menopause the Musical
do if they were mugged? They would swing their bags, but Nina was sporting a chic little clutch purse for the evening and it had no strap to swing. She'd have to poke him in the eye with the clasp.

A bicycle approached along the empty avenue.

As it drew near, she noticed that the rider was wearing a big black hat and black suit. His face came into the light, the unshaven face of a religious Jew. So far as she knew, religious Jews weren't known for mugging women.

He dismounted from his bike. “Are you in some difficulty, ma'am?”

The one word,
ma'am,
said it all. He was a gentleman.

She told him her problem, and he asked, “What kind of car do you have? I could pedal around and check the different garages.”

“That's very kind of you, but I don't want to be stranded here alone. Could we go together?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He tipped his hat in a courtly manner, and she thought of converting to Judaism.

“These shoes are killing me.”

As she lifted her foot to take off her shoe, her skirt rode up over her thigh, and Zach felt the old excitement move inside him. Aunt Emmy began to croon one of her lugubrious hymns.

Silently, silently, Sleep the peaceful dead . . .

“Are you a rabbinical student?” she asked, walking beside him with her shoes in her hand.

“I'm studying under a famous rabbi in Palm Beach.”

This added to Nina's relief. She was being protected by a person with religious values. Whether those values would help her find her car remained to be seen, but at least she had a trustworthy man escorting her through the barren wilderness of the entertainment district after hours. She could see the strength in his hands; he wasn't an undernourished scholar.

She attempted polite conversation. “The challenge of walking barefoot on the sidewalk is not to step on chewing gum or some other disgusting item.”

He looked down at her bare feet, which, after tonight, would walk the earth no more.
They shall bear no more life's burdens,
sang Aunt Emmy,
Sickness, sorrow, death, or pain . . .

“You were probably on your way home,” she said. “I appreciate you keeping me company like this.”

“It's my pleasure, ma'am.”

They turned the corner and she noticed, on the sidewalk, an A-frame sign for a parking garage.

The ticket collector's booth was empty, but there was a number on the bottom of the sign. “My phone's dead,” she said.

“I'll call.” He pulled out the TracFone he'd gotten from the kid he'd killed in John Prince Park, and dialed the number of the Lantana Public Library. Holding the phone close to his ear, he listened to the library's hours being recited. “Nobody's there.”

“That figures.” She stepped around the gate. “We may as well take a look.”

“What kind of car is it?”

“A white Mercedes,” one of two cars her ex had been obliged to give her.

They walked together up the ramp. I'll wait till we get to the top, he decided, for the top floors of these garages were open to Heaven.
When we'll rise to the skies, Victors over all,
sang Aunt Emmy.

She was wearing a short-skirted suit with a kind of tuxedo jacket nipped at the waist to accentuate her hips and ass. Underneath she wore a shirt that was so thin it was almost transparent. It would be a joy to slowly remove such elegant clothes and reveal her secret beauty to God. As they progressed up the ramp, he let the pleasure wash over him, the sure anticipation of that moment when her gaze would turn to terror and she would enter her final rapture with him to guide her.

She smacked herself in the head. “I just realized, I don't have the keys. Even if we find my car, I won't be able to open it.”

She turned around and started back down. “I guess you think I'm pretty silly.”

“I don't think you're silly, ma'am,” he said, disappointed that it wouldn't happen outside underneath the stars. But he knew he would find a suitable spot, because she was a gift to him, a lone woman stopping him in the night to ask him to send her soul to glory, where Great Aunt Emmy would receive her, singing,
Cease thy sorrow and thy weeping, Brush away the falling tears . . .

“Got any ideas?” she asked.

“If you don't live too far away, I can walk you home.”

“No way we can walk to Palm Beach Gardens. Can I ask you to call me a cab?”

I guess I'll have to do it here, he thought, behind one of these parked cars. It's not perfect, but it has to be.

“Sorry I wasn't here,” came a voice from down below. A tall, young black man was entering the garage, holding a container of coffee. “You lookin' for your car?”

“Thank God,” said Nina, and handed him her ticket.

They accompanied him to his booth, where he examined the ticket under better light. “This isn't from our lot.”

“Which lot is it from?”

“I don't know. It's just off a roll of tickets. Our tickets say our name on them.”

Headlights shone along the street, and a black-and-white patrol car could be seen approaching. Nina ran out in her bare feet, waving her shoes.

The cop lowered his window, and she explained the situation, jotting the number of her license plate on the ticket.

“Wait here,” he said and drove away.

She returned to the booth. “What happened to the guy with the bicycle?”

The attendant pointed up the empty street.

Nina waited with the nice young attendant, and learned that he was from Jamaica, that he loved playing basketball, and that he had a girlfriend whose picture Nina felt obliged to admire. She could've done without the girlfriend, because he was cute.

As the minutes dragged on and became half an hour, she realized that the cop, like the valet, had simply driven off into the night.

And then he returned. “I found it,” he said casually, as if he hadn't just performed a prodigious public service. “I'll take you to the lot.”

Nina climbed into the patrol car and waved her thanks to the young basketball player.

The policeman drove her through the silent streets. He too was nice to look at—slender, young, and coffee-colored. I've met all these charming men tonight. Maybe I should lose my car more often.

“I made some calls,” he said, “and got hold of your asshole valet. He told me he was in bed and had no intention of working at this hour. I told him if he didn't, I'd be in his face.”

Depositing her at the lot where her car was parked, he said, “The asshole's driving over from Haverhill. He shouldn't be too long.”

“I don't want to wait here alone.”

He gestured toward the booth, and she saw an attendant, who proved to be as cute as everyone else she was meeting on this enchanted night. She learned he'd been an X-ray technician in Colombia but didn't have enough English to pass the Florida exams; he showed her the textbook he was studying and his English dictionary. How admirable, she thought. She couldn't wait to tell her friends about this network of admirable young men.

But when the asshole, Fernando Rios, came, he wasn't admirable. “I had to get out of bed.” He handed her the key through his car's open window. “I should get a big tip for this.”

“You should get a brain,” she said and told him where to put his request for a tip.

Driving off in her Mercedes, she waved to the nice garage attendant from Colombia.

The only nice guy she hadn't thanked was the rabbinical student, but she didn't feel guilty, because she knew that religious Jews, like Boy Scouts, were supposed to do good deeds. She remembered the word on her way home.
Mitzvah
. She had been his
mitzvah
.