Free Book of Nathan by Curt Weeden, Richard Marek

glass of an Israeli chardonnay got
me moving in the right direction. Next, like everyone else at the table, I
ordered a cup of soup.
    “What are these things?” Twyla poked at a half dozen round
objects bobbing up and down in the broth.
    “Matzo balls,” Yigal answered. “Definitely. That’s what they
are. Matzo balls.”
    “Balls?”
    I could feel the conversation degenerating. I asked Yigal to
tell us something about the leafy vegetable piled on a serving plate in the
middle of the table. It was an unappealing mush that, so far, no one had
touched.
    Doc Waters picked at the greens. “ Schav . Some people call it sour grass but
it’s really sorrel leaf.”
    “Really?” Yigal looked surprised. “Always wondered what it
was. Never knew.”
    Again, I found myself in awe of Doc’s span of knowledge. He
was a gentile and yet here he was out-koshering Yigal.
    “You think Zeus’s story holds up?” Doc asked later over
coffee.
    “Don’t know,” I answered. “It could have happened the way he
said.”
    “I’m thinking it’s too bizarre a story not to be true. Doesn’t matter. The cops
are never going to buy it.” Doc paused to glance at Yigal who was talking to
Twyla. “If this ends up in a courtroom, Zeus is history.”
    “More than likely.”
    “The college kids who saw what happened are Zeus’s biggest
problem.”
    Not that much of a problem if Zeus could afford a decent
legal defense team. The witnesses were two well-oiled Rollins College juniors
wandering around the wrong side of town at three in the morning. Dissecting the
testimony of a couple of twenty-year-olds who were half in the bag when they
bumped into Zeusenoerdorf and Kurios would be a cinch for most defense
attorneys. But not for Yigal.
    “So what happens now?” Doc asked.
    “We drop Twyla off for her job interview, and visit the
crime scene.”
    “The crime scene. Why? Every FBI agent and meter maid within
ten miles has probably been over that area.”
    “Were they looking for evidence that could prove a blue car
rammed a white van off the road?”
    Doc ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe not.”
    “Any idea what Kurios was talking about just before he
died?”
    “Father Nathan?”
    I nodded. “Ever hear the name?”
    “Never.”
    Bad news. Doc, usually good for a hypothesis or two, left me
dangling.
    I paid the bill and walked outside. It was just after one
o’clock—time to make a return trip to Nordstrom’s. Yigal asked if he could meet
us at the department store to continue discussing the Zeusenoerdorf case. The
lawyer’s ulterior motive, aka Twyla, was sliding seductively into my Mitsubishi
and even Maurice chuckled at Yigal’s excuse.
    I drove to Nordstrom’s with Yigal’s car in my rearview
mirror. When we arrived at the store, I asked for Agnes but was directed to
another saleswoman with no nametag. She informed us that Miss Tharp’s two suits
were finished and so was Agnes—at least for the day. Manny Maglio had a way of
inflicting a lot of collateral damage.
    The saleslady escorted Twyla to the same changing room where
she had been sequestered earlier. A few minutes later, Manny’s niece emerged
wearing a stylish but still sexy suit with her wild blonde hair pulled back
from her face and bunched with a stunning lacquered clip. She looked nothing
short of stupendous.  
    “I don’t feel right in these clothes,” she carped.
    “You look right,”
I shot back. Maurice and Doc nodded in agreement. Yigal was vibrating like a
pile driver.
    “You think?” Twyla studied herself in a full-length mirror.
“I look so different . ”
    Thank you, Agnes.
    We headed for Universal Studios with Yigal still in my wake.
The HR and Employee Recruitment office was easy to find—a large building
adjacent to a mammoth parking lot.
    “According to the interview schedule, Ms. Tharp is to stay
with us through five p.m.,” a receptionist informed me.
    “Okay,” I said. That would mean two hours of interviewing.
Doug had