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Arnie, it s Pete Decker.
How s it going Pete?
Just fine. Could you get me a location on my last
incoming call? She hung up about a second ago.
I ll see what I can do.
Thanks.
Decker hung up.
82 / Faye Kellerman
Was she wearing two-tone pumps? You bet your
sweet ass she was wearing two-tone pumps, and only
the police were supposed to know it. The fact that that
perp was a foot fetishist had been held back from the
press. The lady knew something, and she d slipped
out of his hands.
Typical!
Fuck!
He knew he d spoken to her before. She must have
been one of the hundreds of anonymous tips that had
floated through the station since the rapes began. But
her voice stuck in his memory bank. He noted the date,
time, and contents of the call, including the background
noise, on a tip list and stuck it back in the file. A half-
empty aspirin bottle lay on his desk. Opening it up,
he popped two tablets in his mouth and washed them
down with a cold sip of leftover coffee. He sat thinking.
After a few minutes he got up, walked over to the
central files and looked up the yeshiva vandalism
episodes.
Nothing particularly illuminating. Broken windows,
garbage strewn over the grounds, swastikas and ob-
scene messages spray-painted on the walls: Kikes,
Cocksuckers, Baby Killers, Flesh Eaters, Christ Killers.
Maybe it should have bothered him more than it did,
but he had passed it off as the same old stuff. Nothing
new. Nothing that hadn t ever been said before. A few
of the local punks were questioned, no arrests were
made. Case closed. Kaput.
THE RITUAL BATH / 83
Decker put the file away, closed the drawer, and
went back to his desk.
Anti-Semitism was nothing new to him. He d grown
up a good ole boy in Gainesville, where there was little
direct contact with Jews but still a lot of prejudice. The
locals regarded decadent Miami as a pinko watering
hole for kikes, spics, and niggers. His first personal
experience with a Jew came when he was fourteen.
One of his buddies had been bumped off the first string
of the local junior high football team by a Jew a big
strong boy who defied the stereotype. Later on in the
day Decker and his friends ran into the Jew off campus.
His buddy was pissed and baited the boy into a fight
by calling him a Christ Killer. Decker did nothing as
the two boys started duking it out, standing on the
sidelines even when the rest of the gang jumped into
the melee. It wasn t until he clearly saw that the Jewish
boy was hopelessly outmuscled that he d intervened
and stopped the fighting. At fourteen, he was five ten,
170, with a developing pad of musculature that made
grown men jealous. The boys listened to him, but
weren t happy about it.
That evening at dinnertime he told his parents about
the Jew and what had happened. After an initial si-
lence, his father a large, taciturn man with broad
shoulders spoke first. Gotta fight, he had said, when
you re threatened. Gotta protect yourself, protect your
family and country. But it s no damn good to fight
84 / Faye Kellerman
someone just because of the way he was born. It s
wrong, and it s stupid.
His mother s comment was more theological. The
Lord Jesus turned the other cheek. Who are we to judge
the infidels? Leave it to the hand of the Lord.
His little brother, Randy, six at the time, smiled and
made designs in his mashed potatoes.
The discussion was dropped.
Decker s friends were cold to him for about a week,
clearly angry at his befriending the Hebe. And the Jew
wasn t any friendlier to him either, turning away
whenever their paths crossed. Eventually things re-
turned to normal, and the fight was never mentioned
by anyone again. But he had learned for a brief period
what it was like to be a pariah.
Only his father had seemed to sense his alienation
and tried, God bless him, to be more attentive. But
Lyle Decker didn t talk much, and his idea of being
therapeutic was having the two of them rebuild the
garage together.
Not that Decker had minded the absence of man-to-
man discussions. His father was a good person, a hard
worker with a gentle soul. His mother had a tougher
exterior, but she was also a good, solid person. There
was always something sad about her. Decker suspected
it had something to do with her not being able to
conceive. He d first learned of his adoption one day
after school when he came home and found he had a
new baby brother.
Where d he come from, he d asked his mother.
THE RITUAL BATH / 85
Same place you did, she d answered. God. Over the
years he d figured out the truth.
So much for sensitivity, he thought, smiling. But it
had been traumatic for him. He d made a special effort
to be open and communicative with his own daughter.
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