LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I’m alive, Dad. I’m alive and healthy. Here, listen real close.”

      He heard muffled sounds over the line.

      “You know what that was, Daddy?” she went on. “That was my heart beating.”

      “It’s good to hear.”

      “I’ve got a really strong heart by now because I jog every day. And you know what else, Daddy? I’m not in any trouble. I’m not on drugs like the runaways you pick up. And I’m doing well in school. And I’m not pregnant. You have nothing to worry about. So why don’t you take care of yourself instead of worrying about me?”

      “I’m not worried about you, I just like to—”

      “Bull, Daddy. No disrespect meant, but bull. Every time you get a case with a girl my age, you get that tightness in your voice. How are you going to cope when I go away to college?”

      “I’ll call you long distance.”

      “After you get my tuition bills, you won’t be able to afford it.”

      Decker laughed.

      “Seriously, Daddy, I think I have a very good chance at getting a National Merit Scholarship. I think I did very well on the test.”

      “Great!”

      “I mean I’d like to help you and Mom out as much as possible, but going East is just so expensive.”

      “Listen, honey, we told you not to worry about it. Just get the grades, and your mom and I will work out the rest.”

      She paused.

      “You know, I’ve been thinking,” she announced.

      “Uh oh.”

      “Well, uh …”

      “What?”

      “Uh, you know that Eric is back east at Columbia and, uh …”

      “Go on, Cindy. I’m not going to faint.”

      “Well, maybe it might be a bit more frugal if we kind of …”

      “You two want to live together?”

      “That was sort of the idea.”

      Sort of, he thought.

      “Did you tell Mom?”

      “God, no! At least, not yet. You know Mom. I love her dearly, but she hasn’t come to grips with the fact that my age is in double digits. I thought maybe you could kind of break the idea to her …”

      Silence.

      “Dad, are you there?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Well, you know how much safer I’d be living with a boy.”

      “Uh huh.”

      “And with splitting the expenses, it would be so much cheaper.”

      “Uh huh.”

      “So maybe you’ll talk to Mom?”

      “Uh uh. If you’re old enough to make your own living arrangements, you’re old enough to face your mother. But I’ll support you, although knowing your mother, my support will work against you. If anyone asks my opinion, I’ll back you up.”

      “I guess that’s fair … fair you angry, Daddy?”

      “No … No really.”

      “You’re worried.”

      “You know me. It takes me a while to adjust to something new. Don’t concern yourself about me. Just take care of yourself, huh?”

      “I will. You do like Eric, don’t you?”

      “Yeah, he’s a good kid.”

      “It’s hard to find good boys these days, Daddy.”

      “Well, he must be special if he hooked you. Go back to your work.”

      “I love you, Daddy.”

      “I love you, too, honey.”

      “Bye.”

      She hung up. He stared at the receiver and shook his head in confusion.

      Decker sat upright in his solitary bed. It was an extra-long California king with an extra-firm mattress—good for holding a lot of bulk. But lately the only bulk it’d been holding was his own.

      Four fucking months.

      What the hell was he doing, surrounding himself with foreign words, strange symbols, and mystic concepts which were supposed to bring him closer to God. In his own way, Decker had always felt close to God. They’d reached an understanding based on mutual tolerance: God was tolerant of Decker’s human foibles; Decker was tolerant of floods and earthquakes. Why was he doing this?

      Rina, he thought. Was he just doing it to please her? At first, he didn’t think so. He was very curious about Judaism. He wanted something more spiritual, something antithetical to his work. But now he wasn’t so sure that Orthodoxy was the answer.

      He looked down at the primer in front of him.

      Shalom, yeladim, the first line said.

      He could read it. He could actually read and understand that sentence in Hebrew. Whoopee! None of the guys at the station house could read and understand Hello, children in Hebrew.

      He went on.

      Mi ba?, the book continued.

      Four whole months. He was going crazy. Love does have its limitations. If he was willing to accommodate her by subjecting himself to first-grade Hebrew lessons, she should damn well accommodate him a little.

      Abba ba, he read.

      But it wasn’t stubbornness that was causing her to hold out. It was deep belief. He knew he could probably talk her into sex, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted sex with sanctification. There was something to be said for those ancient Midianite fertility rites.

      Mi ba’ah?

      She was religious. In a world full of transient morality and situational ethics, her spiritual values—which were good and just—remained absolute. How could he expect her to give up something so essential to her being just to accommodate his physical desires?

      Eema ba’ah.

      And what about her physical desires? It was chauvinistic to assume he was the only one suffering physically. If she could suppress her sex drive—she being much younger than he was—certainly he could show a little restraint. Give it a year, he said to himself. Priests do it for a lot longer.

      He translated the Hebrew in his mind, proud that he could understand it. Who is coming? Father is coming. Who is coming? Mother is coming.

      Well, he thought, at least someone is coming.

      4

      The detective squad room of the Foothill Division was undersized and overcrowded. The furniture could have come from a garage sale, and that made the people in the neighborhood feel right at home. The detectives rarely complained about the outdated equipment or the makeshift desks and chairs, but the lack of elbow room got to everybody, especially when the weather was hot.

      Decker was on the phone, explaining to a local dentist why a girl’s X rays were needed, when his second line rang. He put the dentist on hold.

      “Decker,” he said.

      “Hi—”

      “Rina, I’m on another call. Can you wait a minute?”

      “It’s nothing important—”

      “Honey, I’ll be off in a second.”

      “Go

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