“Get in,” says Eli Leibovich. “My wife is making lunch.”
Saul has learned about Eli Leibovich the same way he learned every other piece of relevant information for his job: by keeping his mouth shut and listening; by spending his sleepless hours connecting one small scrap of information to another; by replaying conversations.
In this way he has come to know that Eli Leibovich is the son of Lithuanian immigrants who fled the Russian Empire’s increasingly anti-Semitic policies just before the new century. Eli himself was born in a ragged tenement building on Orchard Street. His mother bore ten children, six of whom survived to adulthood, and told fortunes to make ends meet. His father had been a physician in Lithuania. In New York, Eli Leibovich’s father became a foreman in a garment factory. Eli was raised in the bloody belly of the Lower East Side, in a rear-facing three-room apartment with a shared bath. He decided, like so many before him, that he could use the skills he needed to survive there in more effective ways.
By 1940, Eli Leibovich was the coordinator of a citywide gambling syndicate. His games had high buy-ins and high payouts and invitations were widely sought after. Like in any gambling enterprise worth its chips, the house always won. Sometimes, after participants had been plied with snacks so salty they couldn’t help but drink too much, the house won by a lot. And the consequences for being unable to pay a bill at a Leibovich game could be deadly.
Saul once heard a story about a man who showed up after Leibovich sharks got ahold of him with no skin on one of his arms.
In the old country before Eli Leibovich’s parents fled for America, bouncing down a dirt road in a hidden compartment of a horse-drawn cart, Russian Orthodox authorities had stood by and watched while Jewish babies from a nearby village were torn limb from limb. They learned it is possible to tear a baby.
* * *
—
Violence was spawned with human beings in the primordial stew. It makes us less human, and yet.
* * *
—
Eli Leibovich lives with his wife and two daughters in a sprawling apartment overlooking the south curve of Prospect Park. It is lined with parquet floors; it is bordered by grand old windows, thick glass running down in the frames. One of the daughters takes Saul’s coat; the other offers him a drink. Saul demurs, but Eli walks into the room just then, and claps Saul on the back as though they are good friends and says, “Come now, we’re celebrating,” and so Saul finds himself sitting with a cognac-heavy sidecar in the parlor, where the windows afford a panoramic view of the park to the north, and west, toward Manhattan. He feels hyper-aware of his posture, his skin; he tries to plaster a neutral expression onto his face but worries his nerves betray him.
Saul has never been to a meeting like this: unplanned, unannounced, not condoned by Joey or any other high-ranking boss. It is so forbidden it has never been expressly forbidden; so inconceivable no one has conceived of warning Saul against it. It is treachery, treason. Saul knows this. But curiosity races through him as he sits and sips his drink. He excuses himself to call Antonia’s and tell his family he got caught up with work. Back before dinner, I think, he says.
Saul compliments the view; the drink; the subsequent meal: pickled beets and brisket, new potatoes immortalized in caramel schmaltz—he feels dizzy, but the room around him is in sharp focus. He is a child in flashes; each bite transports him and he can smell woodsmoke, bitter Berlin air, the musty inside of his school knapsack. His mother’s skirt, unfolding around him. He feels the transition from Fianzo hostility to Leibovich hospitality like whiplash. His head spins.
After lunch, Eli brandishes two thick and fragrant cigars and he and Saul retire to a study at the end of the hall. The walls are lined with books; the desk stacked with papers.
“Thank you for coming,” says Eli. His face is impossible to parse. Saul nods. “I’ve been interested in you for a while.”
“Oh?” says Saul.
“Of course. A man of your—history. A man of my—cultural background. We’ve been working on opposite sides of this thing, haven’t we? And I just can’t make sense of that.”
“Begging your pardon,” says Saul, tiptoeing through a field of land mines, “but have we been opposed?” If he remains neutral, there is a way out of this trap: he can always tell Joey he was gathering information. It was unplanned, boss, he will say, but I thought I might learn something useful. His hands are sweating.
“If we aren’t united,” says Eli, “what are we?” Saul opens his mouth to answer and Eli stops him with a wave of his hand. “As much as I love to argue semantics, Saul, that isn’t why I asked you here today. I wanted to offer you a job.”