Hersh said, “You know if you woulda loaded the fuckin’ gun, we coulda done it much cleaner. I mean the gun was a total waste. And you bein’ there was a total waste. I spent more energy tryin’ to keep you safe than I did takin’ him out. Only thing you were good for was the element of surprise.” Hersh paused a moment. “It coulda been worse.”

Noam tried to stop shaking. “Is he…”

Hersh threw him a disgusted look. “Was he movin’?”

Noam shook his head.

“Then use your imagination, pal.”

“Oh, God,” Noam moaned. A deep moan from inside his soul. He ran to the bathroom. Bolted up his dinner in deep waves of grief.

Such an aveyrah, such a horrible sin. A sin against man, a sin against God. He was the lowest of the low. Please God, be merciful and let me die.

After vomiting, he washed his face. His head was hurting so bad, he thought someone must have shot it. His mouth was fuzzy, his lip split, swollen to twice its size. A piece of front tooth chipped off, scraping his tongue.

That man. Warm and wet.

The hole in his chest, oozing with warm blood.

Oh, God, let me die!

“Whatcha doin’ in there?” Hersh shouted. “Get in here, we gotta talk.”

“A minute,” Noam managed to say. Again he washed his face. In a moment of self-loathing, a moment of fury, he balled up his hand and punched the mirror. The glass shattered, cutting his hand and wrist. Noam didn’t care.

A pounding at the door. Hersh saying, “Dafuck you doin’, Nick-O?”

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Noam heard himself say. Still shaking, he washed his hand and wrist. Then he saw it, a glittering piece of glass. Sharp…so sharp. He picked it up. Made a practice cut across his wrist. The line instantly bled.

But suicide was another aveyrah, another sin.

Two sins. Sin leads to sin. Aveyrah gemat aveyrah.

Easier to get killed than to kill yourself.

Hersh would make him do it again. He knew it.

Let the aveyrah be on someone else. He bandaged his hand with the towel.

That was the only way.

He felt calmer, hitting upon a solution that would be good for everyone.

Him dead—no longer a burden to anyone.

But first he must make confession—vidduy—especially before Yom Kippur. To whom? To anyone who’d listen. Had to be tonight. Tomorrow might be too late.

Had to be tonight.

When he came out, Hersh was examining his knife.

“Musta broke the tip off inside the fucker. God, that makes me pissed.” He stuck the knife inside a leather sheath and looked up at Noam.

“What happened to your hand?”

“I smashed the mirror in the medicine cabinet.” Noam waited for Hersh to get mad. He didn’t care anymore.

“Why’d ya do that?”

“’Cause I felt like it,” Noam said.

Hersh smiled. That horrible lopsided smile.