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they were flying bodies (or at least parts of them) in on private jets periodically from Chicago or driving them up from Los Angeles, David expected the news. Plus, David sort of marveled at Bennie’s ingenuity; the guy seemed like a dumb crook from the outside, but on the inside Bennie had a real aptitude for business. Stan and Alta Goldblatt might have been big donors, but Bennie Savone,
with his Jewish wife and three Jewish children, was like fucking UNICEF to Temple Beth Israel. He single-handedly financed the building of Summerlin’s first Jewish mortuary and cemetery behind the Temple’s expansive campus on Hillpointe, championed the new high school that was breaking ground in the spring, and, of course, regularly met with the Temple’s esteemed rabbi over at the Bagel Café to discuss the livelihood of the Jewish faith (or whatever the fuck that shit rag mob columnist John L. Smith in the Review-Journal said in one of his weekly innuendo-fests. If David ever had the desire to start killing people again, he’d start with that hack) and issues related to the regular laundering of over fifteen million dollars every year through the Temple’s coffers. David imagined that Bennie’s long-range foresight could help a lot of Fortune 500 companies—it’s not like any other mobsters had the fucking chutzpah to bury their enemies and war dead in a cemetery, nor the willingness to put all the pieces in place years before they’d even see them in action. That Bennie earned most of his living from strip clubs didn’t bother anyone at the Temple. That’s where everyone did business anyway.
    “Fine,” David said. “Anything else?”
    “Yeah,” Bennie said. “My wife wants to know what your Hanukkah plans are this year.”
    “I’ll be staying home,” David said, though the truth was that at least half the time would be spent at the Temple making sure the young rabbi he’d entrusted with most of the social activities didn’t burn the fucking place down, literally. That kid was a menace around an open flame.
    “You know you got an open invitation,” Bennie said. “Come over all eight nights. Spin the fucking dreidel. Eat
fucking pancakes. Listen to Neil Diamond sing ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.’You like Neil Diamond, right, Rabbi?”
    What David really wanted, more than anything, was to get up from the booth, climb into his Range Rover, and drive it into a brick wall, just to feel something authentic again, even if it was pain. “The Jewish Sinatra,” David said.
    Shoshana brought David his bagel and coffee and discreetly set his hanky back down on the table. He looked up at her and she seemed . . . happy. Like she’d had a tremendous weight lifted from her shoulders and now could go on living her life in perfect happiness, her every orifice filled with big black cock. David felt something shift in his bowels; something he thought might be his conscience picking up enema speed.
    “Listen,” David said quietly after Shoshana left. “I gotta get out of here. A vacation. Something. I’m about to lose my mind. Promise me, after Christmas, you’ll look at this situation. It’s been fifteen years, Benjamin.” He said Bennie’s full first name just to piss him off a little. “You realize I haven’t even left the city limits since 9/11?”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Bennie said, “sure. Talk to me again after the holidays. We’ll see what we can do. Don’t want you getting sof t . . . Sally.”
    Rabbi David Cohen looked out the window again and wondered how it was he was the only fucking person who happened in Vegas and now had to fucking stay in Vegas. Put his old mug shot on a tourist brochure then see how many people kept visiting.
     
    When David first came to Las Vegas in 1993—back when he was still Sal Cupertine—he couldn’t get over how wide open
the desert was, how at night, if you weren’t on the Strip or downtown, the sky seemed to stretch for miles unimpeded. At dusk, Red Rock Canyon