MICKEY TOLD HIMSELF AS HE LOOKED INTO one of the lobby mirrors on his way to the dining room. The derisive Yiddish expression brought on a broad clownish smile and a rumbling hysterical giggle. Of course it was crazy, he thought, but then again, wasn’t it a noble act? There were few enough acts of nobility in the world. Were’nt there? Noble shmoble, he told himself. It was love and he was being an exhibitionist, a show-off, offering this grand gesture to impress the woman he loved by saving her from a life of white slavery. “Love can kill,” he whispered to his image in the mirror. “Not only that. You don’t look so good.”Yet he continued to linger in front of the mirror as if he were searching for something beyond his visible image, trying to mine heroic nuggets beneath the crust of himself, searching for a grail even more powerful and significant than love to justify his actions. Perhaps it was also revenge for what these animals had done to his father. Or maybe it was the very idea of these gangsters, their insult toward all Jews, toward all decent, law-abiding people who played according to the rules.
