Untitled
an excerpt

PROLOGUE
The two giants walked quietly down the street, parting the crowds in front of them never having to actually touch anyone in order to get them to move, but simply by the sheer aura of bigness they gave off; which was just too bad, in their opinion, as they would not have minded pushing and shoving a few of the clubgoers in Friday-night Miami Beach, perhaps even find a drunken dude or two to start a fight with. Ah, the simple pleasures in life. But they now had a job to do, and they were both professionals, so on they walked, focused, going up Washington, making a turn at 11th Street, and heading up to Alton Road. Night was starting to fall on Miami Beach, and the elongating shadows helped the two giants hide as best they could behind a van parked next to Flamingo Park.
Across the street, the Landaw Lubavitch Educational Center, better known as the Landow Yeshiva, was crawling with Jews making their way to Friday night prayers; Shabbat was about to start, and those arriving now were running, or at least moving as fast as they could (in the case of the elderly). Given it was a Lubavitch institution, most of the people seen around were Chabad Chassidim, though there were still a lot of the old Ashkenazi Jews who had been living in Miami Beach since it was a dump. A few kids could also be seen milling about; most were bocherim, students of the yeshiva (a safe bet being those in the white shirt, black coat and black hat), but a few were neighborhood kids who went to Hebrew Academy or even to public school and then joined the bocherim for Shabbat. As the shadows grew, everyone moved inside to do the prayers welcoming the Shabbat.
Through this all, the two giants waited patiently. They were both well versed in the traditions of the Jews, so they knew it would take about an hour before it was all done and people left to join their families and have Shabbat dinner. For the most part the two giants did not talk, but simply observed. They were very good at that, observing. Some people thought them slow and bumb because of their size, and in general they did little to discourage the stereotype. But they were anything but slow and dumb, these two; one did not get to live for three thousand years by being slow and dumb, though neither of them knew for sure how old they were, not cared for that matter. They did care about surviving, and for that one needed to be sharp, and pay attention to details, because one never knew when they could come in handy. Like today, for example. Their job was stated in the most vague of terms, and had they not understood the unsaid details that their employer had left out. Because they could read between the lines, so to speak, they knew were to go first on their quest, thus leading them to the Lubavitch building. Yes, they were very good at observing. Which is precisely how they caught the subtle but suspicious movements of the four men standing across the entrance to the yeshiva.
They were young, hoodlums in their opinion, dressed with way-too-big shirts and way-too-big pants that constantly fell halfway down their asses and which they constantly kept pulling up. It wasn’t their looks, though, that made the two giants perk up, but something about their body movement, the way they huddled to talk to each other, the concealed glances they kept throwing at the yeshiva, and then the small something wrapped in a brown paper bag one passed to the other. Two two giants looked at each other and nodded: trouble. On a regular day they would be thrilled, but now they were on an assignment, and things like this just messed up their schedule, and that made them not happy.
Wordlessly they hatched a plan, and in unison they split up, one crossing the street as if going into the yeshiva, the other going north on Alton. The one that went to the yeshiva, the tallest of the two (though not by much, just enough to be able to be called the tallest) entered the building, even though he knew full well he shouldn’t; crossing the doorway, or more accurately, crossing the mezuzah sent a sort of electric chill down his spine, a very very small reminder of the trespass. Once inside, and once the electric feeling had dissipated, the giant walked down one of the halls in search of the rabbi he knew would be praying somewhere around here. He passed a few curious people along the way, kids mostly, wandering away from prayers. If only they knew. Another time, perhaps; the rabbi had to be found.
Outside, the other giant (the wider of the two) walked down a block then crossed the street, stopping at the corner to light up a cigarrette and smoke it leisurely. This gave him enough time to study the four hoodlums a block down from him. They were still mulling around across form the yeshiva, planning whatever it was they were going to do. They missed the giant going into the building, fortunately, which meant he now had about ten minutes, top, to deal with this problem to their advantage. He finished the cigarette and pulled another one from the box, the last one, the lucky one. He patted his pockets and looked around, as if searching for a match or lighter to light up his smoke. Slowly he started to walk down Alton again; when he was about twenty feet (or as the figured it, a good three-step sprint) he called out to them.
“Hey, any of you got a light?” He held out the unlit cigarette in his right hand, so as to offer proof of why he needed a light. That and to call attention away from his left one, which slipped into his pocket and came out, almost imperceptably, balled into a fist and sporting a very shinny brass knuckle. Crude, but effective.
The hoodlums were caught aback by the giant of a man that had all but siddled up to them and it took them a few seconds to find their voice and attitude. At first they ignored him, or tried to anyway. The giant sighed and asked the question again, a bit louder this time. He was now a step closer in that mental sprint by which he was measuring distance. He took a quick glance past the hoodlums, at the door of the yeshiva, but he could not see his companion, or anyone else for that matter. As he stood waiting for his question to be acknowledged, he took a quick look around him. The street was busy with traffic, but pretty empty of pedestrians; that would make his job easier. He remember there was a kind of a prayer thanking G-d for the little details, the little miracles. If he prayed, he would have said it now.
Inside, the giant moved as best he could through the halls. He could tell prayers were coming to an end, and soon there would be dozens of Jews going about their lives; he’d rather take care of things before too many people were outside and could get in the way. As he thought, he found the old rabbi in a small office/library; his prayers finished, he was pouring over a couple of books, waiting for the rest of his family to be done as well. The giant cleared his throat so as to call the attention of the old man.
“I know you are there. I’ve known you’re here since you crossed the threshold.” The rabbi never lifted his face from the page of the Talmud he was studying at the moment. “I assume you have a good reason to have done that?”
The giant measured his words carefully and spoke in a very gentle tone. “I do, rebbe. There is a problem brewing outside.”
“And I assume that your brother is already on it, since you are here alone. Am I correct?”
“Yes. He awaits. May we proceed?”
The old rabbi finally lifted his eyes from the page of Hebrew letters to regard the giant. The look he gave him was an impassive one, almost annoyed that he had to deal with this right as Shabbat was starting. He studied the giant for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yes, you may proceed.”
The giant gave a deep bow at the rabbi, and set out for the front door, trying to avoid meeting anyone else along the way. Aside from a toddler who wandered away from his family, he managed to make it back unseen. From behind the glass doors, he could see the hoodlums and his companion engaged in a bit of an animated conversation. He fixed his gaze on his companion and waited.
Outside, the quest to get a light for the cigarette had led to a few choice words by the hoodlums, and an equal reply by the giant. There was some pushing and shoving, yes, and that made the giant happy, as he could, every so often, put some actual strength into it and really push someone aside like in the good ole days. These days it was hard enough to find a situation that truly warranted some physical force, let alone getting a dispensation to use full force if necessary (and when dispensations were given, it was always necessary), so even if this was little more than just rough play, it was a nice change of pace. That changed, however, the moment the giant spied his companion on the other side of the glass door to the yeshiva. The movement was almost impercetible, except for the giant, because he was good at observing. Dispensation had been given.
He merely pushed the first hoodlum away; he just did it with a good amount of his strength, so that the hoodlum flew some fifty feet back, falling unceremoniously on the floor, a bit more twisted than a person should be, but still breathing, which was certainly a small miracle. A second one the giant grabbed by the shirt, and he casually tossed him like a ball of crumpled paper in the direction of the first one. This one also landed, with a loud thud and a groan, and there he stayed. The two remaining hoodlums were too stunned by the speed at which the giant had striked, and that proved to be their downfall. A light punch to the shoulder sent one of the remaining hoodlums spinning like a top and onto the floor, his shoulder surely broken by the way the arm bent at a weird angle. The last hoodlum, the one holding the package, stood frozen in place, and when the giant turned his attention to him, he pissed his pants in sheer terror. The giant looked down and chuckled.
“I am going to give you one chance to tell me who sent you here tonight and who was your target. Don’t bullshit me.”
That should have been enough to get the hoodlum to talk; it rarely takes more than a threatening glance and words from a seven-foot, 340-pounds wall of muscles to get people yapping about the time they peed on the bed and blamed it on the dog, but to his credit (at least the giant was willing to give him that much), the hoodlum held his ground and gritted his teeth hard, lest his body betray the conviction he was foolishly showing now. “Fuck you.”
“A pity,” was all the giant said before he smashed his brass-knuckled fist with all his strength into the hoodlum’s chest, spearing him from side to side.
It should have been a mess of blood and bone and tissue, all splattered across the Miami Beach pink sidewalk, an honest-to-goodness scene of carnage worthy of a big budget slasher film. But it wasn’t. Instead, there was a big cloud of sawdust where pink mist should have been. Around his arm, the thing that was the hoodlum began to fall apart into a mound of sawdust speckled with a number of what seemed to be chicken thigh bones, a few clumps of tangled hair and a dead and slightly rotting rat. Any other man would have been freaking out to the very core of their being, but not the giant; he knew what this was, even if he was indeed surprised to realize that’s what he had been going up against.
“Simulacrum, great.” The two giants were now together again and examining the leftover mound of trash that had made up the hoodlum. They glanced a bit down the street at where the other hoodlums should have been but they knew full well they would be gone already, probably back to their maker for repairs and to report back about their failed attempt to…
The wider giant crouched down and began to sift through the sawdust. “How long will the cloak last?”
“A few more minutes, perhaps five,” answered the taller giant. “I didn’t have enough time to sing one correctly, but it is working fine; just not for long. Find anything?”
The wider giant sighed, exasperated. “No. Whatever he was carrying in that paper bag either vanished upon the unraveling or was magicked back. Either way, we have no idea who they were sent by and for what.”
The doors of the yeshiva opened up and out came a throng of Jews; nighttime prayers were done, and now everyone was heading home to their expectant families to celebrate Shabbat. The taller giant tapped the wider one on the shoulder, “We gotta go now.” Together, the two giants walked back down to Alton and made a left, then a right at the next intersection and lost themselves into the mini maze of Beach streets. They needed to go back to their office and make a few phone calls, not to mention contact their employer with the report of the day’s events.

The old rabbi exited the yeshiva, tightening his black coat around him, leaning his fur-trimmed shtreimel into the rare-yet-very welcomed cold air coming in from the beach a few streets down. His bones ached in the cold weather, not as bad as they had back in New York, or worse, in Poland, but he was used to that inevitable fact of life: if it’s cold, he’ll hurt. A new gust blew in as he began to take the steps down to the street level, and a peculiar movement called his attention to the other side of the street. The breeze was sweeping it all away, but enough was left on the one spot that it did not take more than a moment for the rabbi to know what had happened there. That made his shiver, and this had nothing to do with the wind or the temperature.
“Ready, Rabbi?” asked the young bocher, breaking the rabbi’s reverie. “There’s brisket tonight!”
“Very well, lead on.” Together the rabbi and the bocher descended the steps of the yeshiva building and headed south on Alton towards the bocher’s home.
“Oh, and I didn’t tell you, Rabbi. My brother Elijah just got back from Israel and will be joining us as well.”