The Gonif (Amos Parisman Mysteries, 5)
“‘We’ve got a man down on the floor. Security guard. The paramedics are working on him right now, but he’s lost a lot of blood.’”
Meet the odd characters in this book, written with humor and satire. A mystery with a difference.
The title, Gonif in Yiddish is thief. However, some Yiddish expressions are more than simple definitions. A gonif is also a scoundrel who can convince his unsuspecting audience to invest in illegal “get-rich” schemes. “You make money because very few investors walk around a factory floor to see what is really like. They look at numbers-overhead, projections. . . . That’s when you get out.” Harriet Reines’ husband was such a man. “He was an evil man.” But his wife wants to make amends by giving money to charitable organizations. One is the Anshei Amunim, (Men of Faith), a dilapidated synagogue on Beverly Street in Los Angeles.
Harriet hires Amos Parisman, private investigator, an agnostic, aging gumshoe, to thwart a thief from stealing a rare Torah at this synagogue. She explains her reasons for her interest in catching the burglar before the Torah is absconded. The Torah is the holiest book in Judaism. It comprises the five books of Moses.
In 1941, a resident of a small town in Algeria, decided to rescue this Torah from the Nazis. He hid it in his wine-cellar and snuck it out. Afterward, the town was burned to the ground by the Nazis. It travelled through several continents until it reached this practically unknown synagogue.
Parisman decides to visit Rabbi Josef. Benjamin Josef tells him that a window was smashed and believed the crook couldn’t fit into the narrow space. He decides to enlist his friend, Omar, who used to be a wrestler. He tells Josef that they are hired by Mrs. Reines to investigate and try to ensure that this priceless item stay here. The rabbi doesn’t know how this Torah found its way into their synagogue. He wags his head from side to side and postulating about God’s will. “I can’t read his mind, but I’ve spent more time than I care to remember in the company of rabbis. The truth is they are given to arguing.”
“This Torah,” he says, “is important historically. What matters are the words. The words and the wisdom they contain. Etz chaim, huh? A tree of life.” Parisiman answers that the one who wants it is not because of the words. Rabbi Joseph utters his unwavering belief in God’s will. He also believes that none of his congregants would steal this tree of life. “Everyone? The whole fucking church?”
Omar, a Catholic, gets impatient; he doesn’t know anything about Judaism and is not even interested. His only goal is to find the person who broke in last night. Both men are skeptical of their religious practices, but both realize that this Torah is priceless to the Jewish community. When the rabbi unwraps it to show the deerskin covering, even Omar is impressed. “Maybe I’m wrong, maybe this isn’t about the Torah at all. It won’t shake his faith in God one iota if it gets ripped off. On the other hand, who can say what a thing like that is worth on the open market these days.”
Meanwhile, Parisman has to juggle his challenging homelife with his busy workload. Home life was happy once upon a time. His wife, Loretta, used to have many friends and was involved in many hobbies. Now, because of her Alzheimer’s, her friends are no more. She watches the same shows on television. He goes home every afternoon to make sure that Carmen, her caregiver, is in control. He cuddles his wife in bed every night and doesn’t have to think about heists of stolen Torahs and thievery. Until one night . . .
He is awakened by Lieutenant Bill Malloy, his boss. “We’ve got a man down on the floor. Security guard. The paramedics are working on him right now, but he’s lost a lot of blood.”
The security guard of the Anshei Amunim was shot and the perpetrator got away. But he did not find the Torah. When Parisman arrives, he hears the rabbi shaking and mumbling the prayer of mourning. The rabbi agrees to take the Torah home for safekeeping. He says that we don’t know what God has in mind. He believes that this theft is ordained by God. “Perhaps, when’s all’s said and done, we’re simply not meant to be the custodians for such a Torah.” Malloy laughs at him. Then . . .
An invader breaks into the rabbi’s home, hurts both him and his wife and wants the hiding place. Parisman and Malloy pump them for a recognition of the perpetrator. Meantime, when the rabbi learns of the death of his guard, he postulates about his belief in God again. Later, when he learns the stabbing of the invader, he still says the prayer of mourning, thinking that all men make mistakes. Finally, Amos Parisman learns wisdom from Rabbi Josef and thinks about the difference between the material world in which he lives.
Determined to solve this unusual case, he enlists a number of his friends, one of whom is an art and antiques dealer, to track down the Torah. They begin a caper on the internet to the underworld of stolen international art and antiquities from Canada to Russia—and meet some of those ruthless murderers in person even at the risk of losing their own lives. They realize that these criminals will not stop until they get what they want.
The author tells the story with humor and full of Yiddishisms, with explanations in English. “He thinks I’m a luft-mensch. A cloud person. A dreamer. “Boychik”, he says, “this is your lucky day.” (An older man is calling a younger man “little boy”). It’s beshert, fated.
This book is a different kind of mystery. A Jewish private investigator is hired to find a stolen rare, priceless copy of the holiest book in Judaism. The reader, while the suspense grows every day, will have fun figuring out the bad guys—even while the good ones may be the bad ones. Enjoy the adventure.