Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(59)

My phone rings. It’s Tony again. I decline the call just as we all hear the front door slam and someone come in.

“Suri, before I forget, can I get your last name? And your age?”

“Goldblatt,” she says. “I’m seventeen.”

“You can use mine, too, if you want,” says Dev. “Devorah Kletzky. I’m twenty-two.”

Whoever is coming up the stairs shakes the house. A man appears at the bedroom door. He is breathing heavily, and he is drunk. Pickled. The alcohol has a sweet-and-sour smell as it seeps as sweat out of his pores. He looks at Dev and Suri and then he looks at me. I’ve got my notebook out but he doesn’t seem to notice. Just another Jew girl in the house at Coney Island.

“I need to take a nap,” he says.

“You stink, Baruch,” says Dev.

Baruch does stink, but he is nonetheless incredibly attractive. He has olive skin and dark wavy hair. He’s months past a haircut and thick curls fall in front of his eyes. He is lean, but seems powerful. The veins in his hands are thick with blood. I don’t really know anything about how Rivka Mendelssohn felt about her husband, but looking at the man she was considering leaving him for, I can’t help but wonder if sheer chemistry wasn’t part of it. Baruch is f*cking hot.

“Moses wants to talk to you,” he says. I’m not sure which of them he’s talking to.

“Tell Moses he can come get me if he wants to talk to me,” says Dev.

“He wants to talk to you, too,” says Baruch, looking at Suri. “He doesn’t think we’re taking it well.”

“What?” says Suri.

“He doesn’t think we’re taking it well,” he says, louder.

“Clearly you’re not taking it well,” says Dev.

“How could I take it well!”

“He seriously wants to talk to us?” asks Suri. Her eyes are darting between Dev and Baruch.

“Fine,” says Dev. “We want to talk to him, too. We’ve got something to show him.”

“Dev…,” says Suri.

“Look!” Dev says, grabbing the photographs from me and shoving them at Baruch. He doesn’t catch them all and several fall to the floor. He fumbles for a moment with the photographs, then, recognizing their subject, straightens up. His breathing slows.

“This is Baruch,” says Dev, introducing him to me.

“Where did you get these?” asks Baruch, his voice quiet now.

“Heshy’s drawer,” says Dev.

Baruch looks at Dev. His eyes are liquid with drink. Bloodshot and cloudy.

“Yank material starring your girlfriend,” she says, enjoying her crude explanation.

Baruch frowns. He’s trying to put the pieces together with a spinning mind.

“I think Moses should know about these,” says Dev. “I mean, if he’s going to make us talk about our feelings…”

“Moses knows about this?” says Baruch.

“No,” says Suri, standing up. She’s a smart girl. This conversation is about to get ugly. “Moses doesn’t.…”

“Why don’t you just ask Heshy? He’s right downstairs,” says Dev.

This gets Baruch’s attention. “He’s here?”

Dev shrugs. “You didn’t see him? He’s been here all day.”

Baruch turns and runs down the hall. Suri and Dev follow. I bend down and grab one of the photos he dropped, sliding it under my coat as I go after them.

Downstairs, Baruch is shouting in Yiddish, and Dev and Suri are standing in the doorway between the hallway and the kitchen. A tall man whom I take to be Moses is standing inches from Baruch, trying to keep him away from Heshy, who is cowering on the sofa. Next to him sits Saul.

He doesn’t see me at first; like everyone else in the room, he is focused on Baruch. But I see him, in a moment unguarded, and something seems wrong. Why didn’t he tell me he was coming here?

“Who’s that?” says Dev, pointing at Saul.

Saul looks at Dev and sees me standing behind her. He stands up, leaving Heshy to sink farther into the sofa.

Baruch shakes the pictures at Heshy. “What did you do to her!” he shouts.

“Baruch,” says Saul, stepping toward him. “Heshy is…”

Baruch runs at Saul, his hands up like he wants to fight. But Saul, twice his age and several inches shorter, is ready. In a swift, easy motion he grabs Baruch’s left wrist and twists his arm down and back, hard. Baruch screams in pain, falling to his knees.

“You’re hurting him!” shouts Dev. “Let go!”

Saul does not let go. Dev runs at Saul, and he pushes her aside. She stumbles back, then falls on her ass with a thud.

“Saul…” I say, stepping forward.

“Rebekah, I have this under control,” he says.

“I’m calling the cops,” says Suri.

“I am the cops,” says Saul, glaring at her.

Suri looks at me. I don’t know what to say. Saul looks like a different person. The dumpy, tired cop I met on Friday is gone. In his place is a man confident with his physical strength. Baruch is no longer fighting and Saul lets him go, but Baruch stays on the floor, slumping to the side. He brings his hands to his face and begins to weep.