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Ed Protzel website
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: TouchPoint Press
ISBN-10: 1946920509
Type: Fiction
Pages: 300
Copyright: Nov 5, 2018
ISBN-13: 13:9781946920508
Price: $7.99 (eBook)
A pulse-pounding race to find a unique nail pits David Greenberg against religious fanatics—with humankind's future at stake!
Existential, Jewish noir, mystery/thriller set in Israel and St. Louis
New release
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9BJxrTDWIs
Excerpt
The Antiquities Dealerl
Chapter One
Aphrodite Unclaimed
Someone said Jesus Christ is alive.
Then I received a phone call that buckled my knees.
I closed my gallery, David Greenberg Antiquities, early that evening to play one of my rare but deadly chess matches against my diminutive gambler friend, Larry Finkel, a loser of epic proportions. In his daily desperation to support his local bookies, Finkel is a scavenger in the antiquities black market, preying upon unsuspecting collectors whom he can convince that vast windfalls await them at little risk. I only associate with him because, while Finkel may be a slimeball, his dragon variation of the Sicilian defense makes for breathtaking chess.
Outside in the falling dusk, the cold, hard rain dragged its feet, but I sensed a balmy April poised to elbow it aside. Muted umbrellas and raincoats rushed by my shop’s window, doomed to be relegated to closets by morning. Life in the Midwest would soon emerge from its winter dormancy renewed, stretching its emerald luster toward blue skies and sunshine.
The little English shoppe bell above the door tinkled as the five-foot-five scam artist scurried into my upscale gallery, his back-alley soiled shoes leaving schmutz on the Kashan Persian rug.
“Hey, Genius, ready for a bloody knife fight?” Finkel flattered me with my old gambling crowd nickname, although his tone was more sarcastic insult than grudging compliment.
“Bring it on, Finkel!” I replied playfully.
I was surprised to see Finkel looking like a middle-aged accountant: black hair slicked back, wearing a tan sports coat over pressed khakis and a plaid shirt. The big annual Baptist convention was in town, and I had expected him to be sporting his black preacher suit with the phony white “Father Finkel” collar, like a predatory wolf in sheep disguise. With a grimace on his skeletal face, he leaned away to block my view of his illuminated cell, rapidly fingering the miniature screen. Nothing. He checked his watch with a bitter frown, then angrily shoved the cell into his pocket.
Finkel is tightly wound.
It was an hour before post time at Fairmount Racetrack. I figured, if he wasn’t at the track, he intended to snooker me, but how? I locked the door, then, returning to my desk, poured two cabernets and pulled my hand-carved ivory chess set from the drawer. The set is nothing special, 20th Century Hong Kong, but I like the way the pieces make a solid thunk when brought down hard on the board. To make room, I cleared my desk, closed the safe, and—honored guest in mind—gave the tumbler an extra spin. I also shut down my computer so he couldn’t thumb-drive my customer base when I left the room. There’s no trusting Finkel.
During our second game, Finkel said pointedly, “Hey, somebody tells me there’s a rumor going around that Jesus—the Jesus—is living somewhere in Israel. Now there’s a chance for someone to make a buck.”
I sneered, figuring either he was trying to break my concentration or he had a bizarre hustle lined up to snag me. Finkel knows I’m a relatively honest player in the antiquities game—in spite of my reputation in some circles—and it’s difficult to cheat an even somewhat-honest man. Yet greed does spring eternal in the coldhearted, lowlife breast.
“Sure, Finkel,” I laughed. “I’ll leave the door unlocked for Him.”
His eyes narrowing, he pulled out his cell phone and tapped the screen, listened for a single ring, then cut off the call. Turning to me, he sported a smug, superior grin. I didn’t know what to make of his sudden change of demeanor.
I soon found out. Within moments, Finkel’s cell rang out the Kentucky Derby “Call to the Gate.” He noted the caller and handed it to me. “It’s for you.”
“David Greenberg,” I growled.
“Hi David, it’s Miriam,” the familiar voice of a woman I hadn’t heard in twenty years said cheerily. Instantly, I felt faint, unnerved—and at the same time, joyously aroused. It was, indeed, Miriam. My hand began to shake, and I went white blind, the ocean roaring in my ears. When I recovered from the shock, I stammered, “Miriam. Why—why are you calling me?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone, David,” she said urgently. “But we need to talk; it’s important. How about lunch tomorrow?” I quickly agreed, fool that I was.
Shaken, I returned to a won position in mid-game: a bishop ahead with the clear prospect of a passed pawn. But I couldn’t concentrate. After I made a few desultory moves, Finkel locked a knight fork onto my rooks. Shortly thereafter, the black bishop had my queen skewered!
“Death to the bitch!” Finkel cried, undoubtedly alluding to his late-grandmother whose antiquities fortune he’d inherited and summarily blew at the track and in card games at the Eastside stockyards. But he was winners now. Faster than my king could fall on his sword, Finkel snapped up two crisp C-notes and shoved them into his coat.
“Thanks, Greenberg. Got to get to the track. Lazy-Eye Lebowitz gave me a tip on the sixth race.” Then he rushed so hurriedly out the door, the tiny shoppe bell rang like a violated canary.
Little did I suspect then, but Finkel and his card-shark buddy, Fat Daddy Markowitz, an old family friend of mine, would become adjunctive to my higher, or my lower, purposes.
At last, the stupid chess game was out of the way. Screw the money. Twenty years of yearning for Miriam, twenty years! I tried a sip of wine but had difficulty swallowing. Mortified, I turned out the lights and sat in the dark, a serrated longing plunging and ripping into my chest, remembering...
There, on her parents’ darkened porch, our enduring first kiss, soft and long and tender, releasing luminous visions of a life together.
There, under the star-splashed sky by the park’s Jewel Box fountain, we embraced, our bodies melting together, her breasts against me, our every sense bursting into life.
There, in my student apartment, I awoke on a sunny Sunday morning, Miriam’s long black hair wild on my chest, her lips sensuously brushing my navel…
I drifted into consciousness, numb and despondent, absently gazing at my gallery’s locked display cases, their tarnished relics of epochs past now seemingly useless, meaningless, as I suddenly believed my life to have been. Perhaps the gods cheat us at chess, I mused.
Indeed, the mischievous Fates were playing a far deeper game than I could have imagined, about to spring a trap upon me they’d set twenty years before…or, perhaps, twenty centuries before.
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