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something he could get behind, especially this time of year, what with Christmas coming up. Back in the day, his wife Jennifer knew how to make it just how he liked. Brined in salt overnight, covered with juniper berries, a bit of garlic, maybe some thyme, and then slow roasted for three hours, until even the garage smelled like it.
    Christ.
    Fifteen fucking years and for what? He understood that his situation was fairly untenable these days, that those fucking Muslims had changed the way Family business was handled, particularly as it related to guys like David whose fake paperwork was fine in a company town like Las Vegas but wouldn’t pass muster even in Reno. David wasn’t inclined to give too much thought to the whole Israel-Palestine issue, but he had to keep abreast of shit in case someone dared ask his opinion, though he never could confide in anyone that he shared some anger issues with the Palestinians at least as it related to real estate, confined as he was to Las Vegas.
    “Can I get you something, Rabbi?”
    David looked up from his reverie and saw the smiling face of Shoshana Goldblatt. Her parents, Stan and Alta, were two of the biggest donors Temple Beth Israel had, and yet here she was busting her ass on a Tuesday morning running tables. And that was an ass, David had to admit. She was only eighteen and he’d known her since she was five, but . . . damn.

    “A cup of coffee would be fine, Shoshana, ” David said. “I’m waiting on Mr. Savone, as usual, so maybe just a toasted onion bagel for now.”
    Shoshana took down his order, but he could tell that something was bothering the girl. It was the way it took her nearly an entire minute to write the words “coffee” and “bagel” on her pad, her eyes welling up with tears the entire time. It was always like this. He’d go somewhere to just chill out, maybe smoke a cigar and catch a ballgame over at J.C. Wooloughan’s pub, and next thing he knew one of his fucking Israelites would pull up next to him with some metaphysical calamity.
    “Is there something wrong, Shoshana?” he asked. When she slid into the booth across from him and deposited her head into her hands, thick phlegmy sobs spilling out of that beautiful mouth he’d just sort of imagined his dick in, he felt himself wince and hoped she didn’t notice. He’d spent the better part of his life avoiding crying women of all ages, never really knowing what to say to them other than “Shut the fuck up, you stupid whore,” and that hadn’t seemed to help anyone, least of all himself. Whatever was wrong with Shoshana Goldblatt would invariably ruin David’s whole fucking day. First there’d be the guilt he felt hearing her secrets, and then there’d be the guilt associated with him finding it all rather humorous.
    “Oh, Rabbi,” she said. “I wanted to just come in and talk to you in private, but there’s always such a crowd, and my mom, you know, she’s always telling me to not bother you with my problems, that you’re a busy man and all, so I’m like, okay, I’ll just figure it out for myself, but then, like, you’re always saying that we should trust that the Torah has answers to all of our problems, right?”

    “That’s right, Shoshana,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if he’d ever said such a thing. Most of the time, he just downloaded shit off the Internet now, but it seemed plausible that at some point he said something like that.
    “I’m just so confused,” she said, before explaining to David a scenario that involved, as best as David could suss out, her having sex with three different black guys from the UNLV basketball team while a graduate assistant coach filmed the whole thing on his camera phone. It was hard for David to concentrate completely on the story since Bennie Savone had entered the restaurant about five minutes in and was stalking angrily about the bakery area, dragging his black attaché case against the pastry windows, like he was banging