Teddy shook his head vehemently. “Mr. Lieber gave Mr. Ephraim the inventory because Mr. Jaime hated to do it. It is boring, counting this and that. Ephraim don’t mind it. That was Mr. Jaime. He always gave Ephraim the long and boring jobs.”

“Why not?” Marta questioned. “Mr. Ephraim only work mebbe two years. Mr. Jaime worked years and years when Mr. Ephraim was… well, you know.”

“He do the drugs,” Luisa whispered to Decker.

Decker nodded. “Was Mr. Ephraim angry about doing inventory?”

Just then, the Community Hall doors opened, the black glob of human mass splitting like a dividing microbe. From the opening yawn came the pallbearers, lumbering through the crowd, hoisting a pine casket on their shoulders.

Decker pointed to Jonathan. “That’s my brother. The one in the far left corner.”

“Vaya con Dios,” Luisa whispered. Then she started crying. “Vaya con Dios.” She found Marta, and the two of them hugged each other as they wept together.

Decker spotted his wife, sobbing into a handkerchief. “I’d better go to my family.”

“Your gloves, señor.” Luisa began to peel them off her hands.

Decker stopped her. “You can send them back to me when you get home. Mr. Lieber will send them to my brother. He knows my address.”

“You are berry nice.”

He thanked her, then thanked them all. He pushed his way through the thickness and went over to comfort Rina.

19

It was after five by the time Ephraim was laid to rest, the sunlight withering like yesterday’s prom corsage. The experience was emotionally wrenching, and Decker needed a good stiff scotch before meeting with Donatti. Plus, he had yet to find the exact location of the meeting spot because all Donatti had given him was an address. It took him over an hour just to deduce that the place was in New Jersey.

Decker had suggested a quick dinner before he went out, but Rina had other things in mind. The proper thing to do was to make a shiva call, to personally express condolences to Emmanuel Lieber and his four remaining children, one of them Decker’s sister-in-law. As much as Decker wanted to talk to the old man—he wanted to get the father’s perspective on his son’s new life as a sober man—he couldn’t deal with Chaim and Minda Lieber and Christopher Donatti in the same evening. Because Shayndie’s welfare outweighed protocol, he told Rina to go without him.

“But Jonathan’s expecting you.” They were outside the cemetery gates, at the ritual washing fountain. The sky had turned from ashen gray to deep charcoal, and the temperature had dropped even further. As Rina poured ice-cold water over her hands, her fingers turned ketchup red. Silently, she recited the traditional prayer made upon exiting a graveyard.

“It can’t be helped.” Decker took the washing cup from her. “With the new scheduling, I’ll have time to pay a shiva call to the family tomorrow. Can you bum a ride from Jonathan?”

“That’s not a problem.” Rina dried her stiff hands with a damp paper towel. “If I can find him.”