Sacred and Profane

“The day before Yitzchak’s burial,” she whispered, “I turned this house inside out looking for that tallis. I wanted him to be buried in it.” She shook her head. “And all this time, Sammy had it … I’m glad he does. In retrospect, it would have been stupid to bury a treasure like that. Yitzy must have known.”

Decker walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She turned to face him.

“Sammy doesn’t talk to me about his father. Not that I haven’t tried, but he refuses to open up. Maybe I get too emotional myself. But I’m glad he talked to you.” She laughed tearfully. “You’re a good guy, Peter. I’m sure you explained the corpses a lot better than I could have.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “Let’s just say I’m used to talking about things like that.”

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then pulled away.

“I was talking to Rav Schulman yesterday,” she said.

“How’s he doing?”

“Fine. He’s impressed with you. He’s says you’re very sharp, that you possess a natural Talmudic mind.”

Decker smiled.

“That’s good to know because I sure feel like a slug sometimes, especially with the language.”

“It will come, sweetie.”

“Maybe. I’m too old for this, Rina.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Rabbi Akiva was forty when he started learning Torah. You’ve got a good year’s jump on him.”

“And look where it got him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wasn’t he one of the ten rabbis who was tortured by the Romans? The one who had his back raked open by hot iron combs?”

Rina looked at him.

“All I meant to say was that coming to religion later in life isn’t necessarily a handicap,” she said. “Rabbi Akiva went on to be one of the greatest sages of all time, and he was a total ignoramus when he started learning. I certainly wasn’t thinking about how he died.”

Decker took her hand and kissed it. “I know you meant it as encouragement,” he said. “It was a morbid association.”

“I guess it was in line with your day,” she sympathized.

“Yeah,” he said. “It goes with the territory. Cops just seem to fixate on death.”

3

The dental offices of Hennon and MacGrady were on Roxbury Drive, north of Wilshire, in Beverly Hills. Decker pulled his unmarked ’79 Plymouth into a loading zone—the only free space he could find—and placed his police identification card on the front dash. It was late in the afternoon, almost dusk, and he was tired from battling city traffic. If the meeting with the forensic odontologist wasn’t unduly long, he’d make it home before eight.

He entered the waiting room, and immediately his nostrils were assaulted by pungent, antiseptic smells that plunged him into Pavlovian anxiety. The office decor did little to comfort him. The furniture was black and gray, the table, glass and chrome, and the eggshell walls were covered by monochrome graphic art—repetitive figure-ground designs, like a black-and-white TV test pattern. It made him dizzy and hostile.

A hell of an unfriendly way to furnish a dental office.

He walked up to a glass window and knocked on the frosted pane. The window slid open, and the receptionist, a blonde girl no more than eighteen, gave him a practiced smile.

“Can I help you?” she beeped.

“I have a five o’clock appointment with Dr. Hennon.”

“Name?”

“Decker,” he said.

She scanned the appointment book.

“Yes, you do,” she confirmed. “Is this your first time here, Mr. Decker?”

“I’m not a patient.”

The girl was thrown off balance.

“Oh,” she said, then brightened. “You’re the salesman from Dent-O-Mart, right?”

“No, I’m a police sergeant.”

She frowned. “Is anything wrong?”

“Why don’t you tell Dr. Hennon I’m here and you can call me when she’s ready to see me?”

She was still puzzled.

“She’s with a patient.”

“Just poke your head in, huh?”

The girl got up reluctantly and came back a moment later.

“She’ll see you in a minute, Sergeant,” she announced, relieved.

“Thank you.”

She slid back the partition and it slammed shut. End of conversation.

Decker sat down on an unyielding ebony cushion and squirmed uncomfortably. Sorting through the magazines on the table, he settled on Architectural Digest, skimming through pages of mansions he’d never be able to afford. He heard a door open, and glanced upward to see a woman at the reception desk. She had to be at least his age, he thought, maybe even a couple of years older, which would put her around forty-one or -two. Her face wasn’t anything to write home about, but her figure was tight—a good bust and a dynamite ass neatly packaged in designer jeans. She knocked loudly on the receptionist’s window, turned around, and flashed him a mouth full of ivories.

“Nice smile,” Decker said, returning her grin.

“It should be,” she said. “It cost me five g’s.”

“Well, you got your money’s worth.” He realized he was coming on to her inadvertently and returned his eyes to the magazine. But he could feel the heat of her gaze.

“What are you in here for?” she asked, pulling out a gold credit card.