revenues from the New House was simply too great to walk away from. Then there were the fringe benefits, which were hard to define, not the least of them being the tonic, almost joyful attitude that Julius’s association with the rebbe had instilled in his wash-and-wear breast. To say nothing of the peace of mind that Mrs. Karp had found since coming under the rebbe’s influence, in particular his Zen Judaism seminars. Truly, their relationship with Rabbi Eliezer ben Zephyr had opened a compelling new chapter in the annals of the Family Karp.
But now Sandy Grusom, Julius’s trusted accountant, who had taken such an active role in promoting the House of Enlightenment, was seated on the opposite side of his desk advising his boss that the time had come to cut their losses.
“What losses?” Julius wondered, because the proof of the New House’s bullish fortunes was winking at him in fiscal radiance from the computer screen. He swiveled the screen toward Grusom, a droopy-jowled fellow with a torso like an onion bulb, who swiveled it back without looking.
“The losses we’re about to suffer when the shit hits the fan.”
Julius knew his accountant for a cautious man who never spoke out of turn, but still in denial himself, he refused to believe that the rabbi’s marvelous mumbo jumbo had had its day.
A week later the appliance maven was sitting in his office, still turning over the situation in his mind, when there came a knock at the open door. Shoving his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, he saw in the doorway a slender, high-cheeked girl with particolored bangs like the teeth of a rainbow comb. She was wearing a braided military tunic like something out of a comic opera, drawing a bead on him with her forefinger as she accused him of being Bernie Karp’s dad.
“Who wants to know?” he replied, wondering what this peculiar young person could have to do with him. Not by nature a suspicious type, however, he softened. “Okay, you got me dead to rights. What can I do for you?”
“Ain’t you heard?”
“Guilty as charged,” he added, still playful. “Heard what?”
She lurched uninvited into his office and plunked herself down in the only available chair, where she began to rock restlessly back and forth—this despite the chair’s immobility. “The Mayor’s been on TV,” she announced a little breathlessly, studying the turquoise toenails at the tips of her sandal-shod feet. “He’s ordered the House of Enlightenment shut down till further notice. Seems they mounted an investigation into the affairs of Rabbi ben Zephyr, whose place of bidness is s’posed to stay closed pending the findings.” At which point she stopped rocking and stared up at Mr. Karp with heavily shadowed eyes.
This was troubling news indeed. The Mayor, Gaylord by name, a beetle-browed throwback to the apartheid South, had already been heard making veiled references to the New House’s imprudent mixing of the races. But Julius couldn’t get past the fact that the bearer of these ill tidings had yet to present her credentials.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“A bunch of the Rabbi’s followers,” the girl went on, “hacksawed the chain across the front door, and now they’re holed up inside the auditorium, which it is presently surrounded by cops. They want to arrest the lot of them, Rabbi included, for trespass and unlawful entry. The shit’s done hit the fan.”
“Is there an echo in here?” inquired Julius of the ceiling, loosening the knot of his tie. He wasn’t sure what he found more disturbing, the news of the event itself or the instrument of its communication. “I repeat, who are you?”
With a hint of uncalled for defiance, Lou Ella stated her name, adding almost inaudibly, “I’m Bernie’s girl.”
“What’s that?”
She repeated her avowal.
“Bernie? My son Bernie?”
“You maybe know another?”
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady,” snapped Julius more or less on principle, since reproach was never his strong suit. Then he tightened his tie again, musing out loud: “Bernie’s got a girl?” It was a confidence he needed to digest at his leisure, but the girl went right on talking.
“He’s playing with fire, your boy. He thinks he’s some kind of a saint, which maybe he is, but that ain’t the point.”
“You’re talking about my Bernie, the couch potato of Canary Cove?” But even as he said this, he was aware that the kid had changed, changed utterly, though he was damned if he knew exactly how.
“He’s my Bernie now,” murmured Lou Ella, straightening her spine