“Ezra loved people,” Howie says. “He loved ideas. He loved to eat and drink and argue. I remember the first day we met, he reminded me of Zero Mostel. You remember him—the actor from Fiddler on the Roof? You know what I mean? Larger than life.”
“Maybe he should have gone into show biz.”
“Well, he did, in a sense. I’m telling you, the congregation adored him. On Friday nights it was standing room only.”
“What about his previous doctor? Do you know his name?”
“No. Ezra said they’d had some kind of falling-out. All I could gather from him was that he was through, he was fed up. He hadn’t seen a doctor in over a year. But when you’re hurting—you know how it is. He wanted another opinion.”
“Because the old doc didn’t care for his bad habits? Is that it?”
“No one cared for his habits, Amos. But some of us put up with them.”
“And Dr. Ewing? You just pull her name out of a hat or what?”
Howie shakes his head and half-smiles. “No, no, no. Dora Ewing was leasing one of the office spaces I own in Culver City. She was new in town, not long out of college. Her name just popped into my head.” He takes another gulp of tea. “I was trying to help. He wanted a second opinion, her name came up, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, evidently last night someone else didn’t care much for her opinion.”
That startles Howie, brings him straight back down to earth. “This is terrible,” he says. The color drains from his face. And for one tender moment I think I see a different Howard Rothbart. He’s shaken; he suddenly seems all alone and vulnerable. “Where do we go from here?” he mumbles after a while.
“I dunno,” I say. “For now I’ll just keep turning over stones, see what kind of nasty creatures crawl out.”
He nods.
I stand up. I’ve hardly touched my iced tea but I’ve run out of questions for now and it’s time to leave. “Oh yeah, one other thing. I’d like to visit the rabbi’s office and poke around, if you don’t mind.”
“No, go right ahead. But what do you think you’ll find there? It’s just books, papers, sermons. You know, the usual Torah and Talmud. His office is a shambles. Kind of like the man himself.”
I shrug. “Who the hell knows? Like you say, he was larger than life. People like that, they don’t know what they’re doing. Sometimes they leave something behind, a little crumb for old trolls like me.”
Rothbart stands up and moves in three short steps to the phone. Whatever tsuris he was feeling, whatever was hurting his heart a second ago, has passed. “His secretary’s name is Sophie. I haven’t seen her since the funeral, but I know she’s come back to work. I’ll give her a call right now. Tell her to expect you.”
“Swell.”
Shir Emet is a tan stucco fortress on La Brea not that far from Fountain. Two long rows of brassy octagonal windows form a border and stretch—one high and one low—across the length of the building, which makes me think that the architect was looking for a prayer shawl motif. The name means “Song of Truth.” I remember that much at least from my days in Hebrew school. But song of truth—it’s just a pretty phrase. I don’t really know what they believe in here. Well, let me take that back: I know what they believe, but how they believe it and to what lengths they will go to demonstrate their belief—now that’s a different jar of gefilte fish. Some people, goyim mostly, they think we’re all alike. But the truth is, you put four Jews in a room together, and we’ll form five political parties.
The parking is all on the street and metered. I have to dig around in my pockets for change. Outside, a few feet away on the sidewalk, a thin homeless man crouches with his back against the synagogue wall. His greasy hair comes down to his shoulders. His body is trembling gently. His skin along his bare arms is cracked, and he’s lived so long in the sun you can’t decide if he’s white or brown or black. Not that that makes any difference. He’s beyond all distinctions. He could be thirty years old. He could be three hundred years old. He could be a beggar. He could be God. You can’t tell. His head is covered by a red cowboy bandana and he’s staring, rheumy-eyed, into space.
Twenty feet away, a number of devout-looking males in dark coats, white shirts, and yarmulkes come and go through the thick double doors. The middle school and high school here is all boys. No girls allowed. That’s how they like it. They’re carrying prayer books and briefcases, and they pay absolutely no attention to the pariah on the pavement or to me, for that matter. I’m just a tourist in their world. They’re thinking about angels. Me, I’m a mere fleck of dust. What do they care?
I stop one of them, a gawky kid with pimples and the first tentative wisps of facial hair. “Hey,” I say, “where’s the rabbi’s office?”
Somehow this shocks him. His jaw moves up and down, but nothing comes out. I’m a guy who runs on feelings, and right away I get the distinct feeling he hasn’t spoken to another human being in months. Or if he has, it was only to another yeshiva student like himself, and all they talked about was whether or not a farmer has to milk his cows on Shabbat. You know, serious stuff. He points down the hall, turns on his heel, and rushes off in the opposite direction.
“Mr. Rothbart said you wanted to look around,” says Sophie Applebaum after she glances for a moment at my business card. “But if you just tell me what you wanted, I could probably help you find it.”
“If I knew what I was looking for I wouldn’t have to ask,” I say.
“They put me in this position because I’m organized,” she goes on as if I hadn’t said anything. “Twenty-seven years I’ve been here. The rabbi, may he rest in peace, was not what you’d call organized. Not in the least. That was always me, that was my job.”
“I appreciate that. I’m sure you have everything under control.”
“Well, as much as a person can.” Her shoulders go up and down. She’s in her seventies maybe, and this is her whole life. You wouldn’t call her obese, but you probably wouldn’t call her slim, either. She’s wearing a black blouse with large black wooden buttons and a black skirt and sensible black leather shoes. Her bifocals hang from a slender gold chain around her neck. She puts them on, blinks, takes them off, blinks again. I had an owlish, overbearing teacher like her in the sixth grade, and I remember now that we did not get along. “The rabbi kept all his sermons in here.” She points out the two green metal file cabinets against the wall. “I organized them by date, but he wrote every single one himself. No help. Never copied his ideas from anyone else.”
This is a point of pride, but somehow it doesn’t impress me the way she would like it to. “You know, his sermons probably aren’t what I’m after.”
She settles into the leather swivel chair behind the desk and leans forward. “Well, I’m sorry. That’s about all he ever did, you know, give sermons.”
“He must have had other interests. I mean, it’s a big political job, being a rabbi. You’re talking to people all day long.”
Sophie Applebaum shakes her head. “Some people, sure. He made a big point of talking to the Muslims and the Buddhists and, of course, the goyim. You’re right. But that was just for show. If you ask me, his students always came first. Those kids in the hall. He loved them. Absolutely loved them. He could talk to them for hours.” She fits her glasses back on, the better to squint disapprovingly at me. “As for the rest of the synagogue, well—” She stops. Whatever dirt she was going to dish out she decides to keep to herself.
“What about the Board?”