“Shit. Excuse me. I’m sorry.” Ace blurted out the words with sweat running down his eyes and into his excited crotch. It had probably melted his brain because now he seemed to lack a language filter. “I gotta take a piss. Excuse me.”
Sailor stood there staring at him as though he’d grown two heads. Her already-flushed cheeks turned beet red. The gay guys were looking at him like they wanted to jump him right there. The housewives looked on longingly as though they hadn’t had a boob grab in ten years. He had to get out of there.
He bolted out the door and into the men’s room, drawing in a much-needed breath of air-conditioned oxygen. I grabbed her boob. Yes, it sounded like a middle schooler who’d copped a feel for the first time, but it kept repeating in his head. He’d grabbed his boss’s boob, accidentally, but he’d done it, and now he’d be fired.
“Shit.” He stood at the sink and splashed cold water on his face, cupped his hands and captured some, then drank it down like a greedy camel.
One of the stall doors opened behind him, and an older man with a head of thick gray hair stepped out, his Mets t-shirt darkened with sweat.
“I hear ya, man.” He stepped up to the sink and started washing his hands, smiling over at Ace, who kept zealously drinking the chlorine-laden water. “I peeked in and saw you in that hot yoga class. My wife does it. Let me guess, your girlfriend talked you into it? My wife tried, but I said hell no.”
Ace stopped drinking, grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser, dampened it and wiped down his face. He shook his head. “No, she’s my boss.”
“Oh. Hope it’s not a job requirement.”
“It’s not.”
“Good.” The man dried his hands and stuck one out for Ace to shake. “Bart Guzman. Friends call me Goose. What brings you to the city, besides your boss and hot yoga?”
“You can tell I’m not a native, huh?” Ace said with a chuckle.
“It’s pretty easy to tell. Where you from?”
“Kentucky. Bowling Green to be exact. I’m a retired state cop.”
“So am I. Retired from the NYPD. You look awful young to be retired, though.”
“I retired after a stabbing. Now I work private security. That’s why I’m here, helping Sailor Kingston clean up her bar.”
“The Hole?”
“Yep, that’s it.”
“You’ve got your work cut out for you, that’s for sure.”
Ace leaned up against the sink, deciding to put a veteran cop’s knowledge to good use. “I don’t think Sailor’s trouble is just bad luck. Apparently her father made some shady business deals and may have screwed over some of the Chasidic Jews in Borough Park. I want to go over and interview a few people there.”
“Good luck getting those guys to talk.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” Goose’s grin told him he might need some reinforcements. “I’ve known several of them for a long time. Takes them a while to warm up to outsiders, especially cops.”
“Do you think they’d talk if you came along?”
Goose shrugged. “No guarantees, but it could happen.”
“You free this afternoon?”
“Yeah. I can run you down there.”
“Great. I’ll tell Sailor. Good excuse to get out of that hot yoga class anyway.”
“Need a lift back to your place? Where you staying anyway?”
“Yeah if it’s not too much trouble. I’m staying with my cousin in her apartment in Sailor’s brownstone for now.”
“I’ve got a cheap rental you might be interested in. Close to The Hole, too.”
“I sure would be interested.” It would be best to get away from Sailor as much as possible, now that he’d had a feel of her firm…shit, I grabbed her boob.
“All right,” Goose said. “We can work out the details on the way. Meet me out in the lobby.”
Ace went back to the class and looked through the glass door. Sailor was doing a downward dog and damn…her butt, those long legs…the woman was a work of art. He could just imagine how that pose would look without her workout clothes. Shit. Now he was hard as a rock, but he couldn’t peel his eyes off the view.
Until Esta’s face popped up in front of him. She opened the door. “Are you all right? I was just coming to check on you.”
“I’m fine. I need to speak to Sailor.” He guessed his voice had gotten Sailor’s attention already, since she stood and headed over to the door. Esta glanced at both of them with an arched brow and an annoyed frown before heading back to her station.
“What is it? Are you okay? Do we need to leave?” Sailor asked breathlessly. Sweat glistened on her face and her chest, ran down the visible portion of her cleavage. “Is it because of the…you know?”
Ace snapped his gaze back to hers. “Uh…no. I met a retired cop who’s going to escort me down to Borough Park so I can talk to some of the Chasids.”
She crossed her arms. Despite the heat, her expression turned icy. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Yes, if there are threats coming from there, I want to get to the bottom of it. We can toss people out on the sidewalk all night, but if someone’s behind it, it might never stop until you or someone else is seriously hurt or worse.”
He hated getting firm with her like that, but she had to face reality. She hadn’t hired him to be her friend. She had hired him to keep her and her business safe, and that’s what he’d do, whatever it took.
She held his gaze for a while before sighing and looking away. “Okay. Just don’t be late for work.”
“I won’t.” He started to leave, then turned back briefly. “And I’m sorry for…you know.”
He left before she answered so she wouldn’t notice the bulge in his sweats.
After a quick shower and a change into some dry jeans and a decent-looking button-up shirt, Ace rode with Goose out to Borough Park.
“I know just where to start,” Goose said. They parked on the street in front of a little shop called Shloimy’s Heimeshe Bakery. “Best Kosher bakery in the city.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
They stepped inside, where a gruff-looking man with a thick black mustache and unkempt beard frowned at them from behind the counter. “We’re all out of chocolate babka if that’s what you’re wanting. You gotta get here early for that before all the women buy it up.”
Goose smiled and walked up to the counter while Ace admired all the fresh selections of breads, pastries, donuts and the like through the display glass. The place smelled awesome – like hot bread, spices, and coffee.
“We’ll just get a couple of coffees and some bagels. What kind you like, Ace?”
“Any kind. Never met a bread I didn’t like.”
Goose laughed. Even the employee – Simon, it said on his crooked and flour-dusted nametag – cracked a smile. While he fetched their coffees and bagels, he asked, “What else can I do for you goyim?”
“What did he call us?” Ace mumbled.
“Non-Jewish,” Goose mumbled back. He raised his voice and addressed Simon once more. “You should know by now I was made an honorary member of your tribe back in the day, but I’ll forgive you this one time. Where’s Mendel?”
“In the back with the rabbi. Who’s your friend?”
Ace spoke up. “Ace Montgomery. I’d like to ask you some questions about a bar in Williamstown.”
Simon’s mouth clamped shut. He turned around and started wiping down a sink.
“See what I mean?” Goose whispered to Ace. “Let me do the talking for a bit.” He raised his voice and spoke to Simon. “Did I hear you say the rabbi is here with Mendel?”
Simon grumbled, “Yeah, they’ll be out soon. You can sit out there and wait for them.”
Goose and Ace took a table near the front window. Ace sipped his coffee, thankful it wasn’t grass tea. But this place and this neighborhood were like a whole other world. A few more goyim like himself walked by on the sidewalk, but most everyone else wore dark clothes. The men had long beards, while some had long, curled sideburns and black hats. The women wore dark dresses that covered pretty much everything. They reminded him of the Amish back home.
“Who is it we’re waiting for?” Ace asked.
“The rabbi is who we need to talk to. He’s a mashgiach.”
“A what?”
“Inspects kosher establishments to make sure they’re following all the kosher procedures.”
“Gotcha. But, how does that make him useful?”
“He has his finger on the pulse of this community. If anyone in this area is out to get to Miss Kingston, he’d likely know about it.”
They waited. And waited. Ace had finished off the last of his everything bagel and downed the last sip of cold coffee when a gray-haired man in an apron and a gray-haired man in the black clothes and hat of the neighborhood Jews came out from the swinging doors of the kitchen. Ace assumed the latter was the rabbi.
The man in the apron smiled and waved before heading behind the counter to join Simon. “Morning, Goose. Simon, get him a refill, would you?”
Immediately, the rabbi’s sharp gray eyes honed in on Ace, and he felt like a kid in church again with the preacher pounding the pulpit and damning him to hell if he didn’t come up there and pray right that second. Goose smiled and stood, coming up to the rabbi. Ace remained in his seat. The less he was noticed, the better. He really didn’t know the proper way to approach a rabbi anyway.
“Good morning, Rabbi,” Goose said. The old man stretched out his hand. Goose took it and did a little bow over it. Then he turned toward Ace. “Would you mind if my friend and I talked to you for a little while?”
The rabbi’s bushy gray mustache and beard arched downward in a deep frown. “It’s a busy day, Guzman. I don’t have time to talk to goyim.” He set a book he was carrying down on the table. “You saw this? What a schlump.” He pointed at the image of a sour-looking girl on the cover of the book, which was called Forgetting God: How I Freed Myself from the Shameful Yoke of Chasidic Judaism by Ariela Rabin. “She fell in love with some shagets, I bet. Everyone’s making noise about it so I got one at the book store. Wasted twenty dollars.”
The face of the angry girl looked familiar to Ace; perhaps he’d seen the book in a bookstore window.
Goose was still trying to persuade the rabbi. “It won’t take long. I’ll buy you a box of rugelach.”
When the rabbi consulted his watch, Goose turned to Ace and winked. Maybe the old rabbi had a soft spot for rugelach, whatever that was.
Finally, the rabbi shrugged and came over to their table. He sat in the unoccupied chair and frowned at Ace.
“Good morning, rabbi,” Ace said. “Thanks for speaking to us.”
The rabbi nodded. “Pinchas Milikowsky. And you are?”
“Ace Montgomery.”
“Hmm.” Simon brought some coffee to the rabbi, along with a small cardboard box of crusty, chocolate-filled pastry. The old man picked one up and bit it, closed his eyes and savored it for a moment before focusing on Goose. “What do you need to know?”
Goose looked around as if to ensure no one was listening. He leaned closer to the rabbi and lowered his voice. “Ace here is working for Sailor Kingston at a new bar called The Hole. She’s been having a lot of troublemakers starting fights. Ace got a lead that suggests someone here in the neighborhood could have a grudge against her.”
“Sailor? I don’t know a Sailor.” He took another bite of his rugelach and a long drink of coffee.
Ace groaned quietly and wished he had a refill. This was getting them nowhere slowly.
“Oh…” the rabbi said, setting down his cup. He lifted a finger and wagged it at Goose and Ace. “Kingston, you say? Is it Roger Kingston’s girl?”
“Yes,” Ace answered.
“I see. Your suspicions may be right. Kingston was a real drek, worthless, dishonest. He did many people wrong.”
“Could you tell us specifically who he may have wronged?”
The rabbi frowned, then started eating his rugelach again as though he hadn’t even heard Ace or didn’t care to talk to him.
“Please,” Ace said. “It’s important. Whatever her father did, Sailor is innocent. She’s not like him and doesn’t deserve to suffer for his sins.”
The rabbi sat his pastry down and took a deep breath. He looked at Goose, who nodded, then turned to Ace. “She may be innocent, but there is still bad energy there, wrongs that have not been righted. This is what you should do. Kingston’s daughter should talk to the Chaim Rabinowicz clan and make peace with them.”
Ace glanced at Goose, who was writing something down in a pocket notebook.
“In return,” the rabbi added, “I will send a couple of men to come help watch the bar until peace has returned.”
“That would be great. Thank you,” Ace said.
“I will expect them to be compensated fairly.”
“Of course.” Ace smiled at Goose, who chuckled quietly.
The men rose from their seats. Goose took the rabbi’s hand and bowed over it again. Surprisingly, the rabbi extended his hand, and Ace imitated Goose’s gesture.
Ace followed Goose to the car.
“That went pretty well,” Goose said.
“Yeah, but the hard part may be convincing Sailor that she needs to come talk to these folks.”