Requiem for Moses by William X. Kienzle Page B

I’ve learned of your father—actually just in the past few minutes—I wouldn’t assume that he’d take much interest in your getting married.”
    “He wouldn’t. Not ordinarily—not if it didn’t affect him. Not unless he objected to my choice.”
    “Your choice?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “The wrong ethnic background?”
    “I guess you could say that. Actually, the wrong color. He’s African-American. Very black.”
    “Hmmm. I wouldn’t have guessed that would upset your father. Racially mixed marriages aren’t that uncommon these days.”
    “I know. And by this time you must know his objection has nothing to do with me or my fiancé. He was worried about what his gang would say. He didn’t want anyone laughing or making fun behind his back.”
    “Does that possibility exist?”
    “With Dad’s group, probably. There’d be jokes about the wedding in white and black, the super sexual prowess of the groom, and, of course, my father’s grandchildren.”
    “I wouldn’t have guessed. Not in this day and age.”
    “Oh, sure, Father. Years ago, Sammy Davis Jr. based part of his act on his being black and Jewish. He used to say he found the combination confusing: When he woke up in the morning he didn’t know whether to be shiftless and lazy or stingy and mean. And that, from someone like Davis, was comparatively high class. From there, and in the mouths of Daddy’s cronies, it would be straight downhill.”
    Koesler looked about the church. The crowd had grown. And eulogy time neared. But he couldn’t leave Judith with her account half told. “So, what did your father do—threaten to disown you?”
    She shook her head. “Not much point in that. Bill—my fiancé—had just passed the bar, and he’s being romanced by some of the larger Michigan firms. He’s the right color at the right time, and his marks were high. We won’t need any financial assistance.”
    “Then what?”
    She seemed to flinch. “The tapes.”
    “Tapes?”
    “I didn’t even know they taped the thing. It makes sense now. I guess at the time I refused to even consider it—think about it. Jake and I …”
    As far as Koesler was concerned, she didn’t have to complete the sentence. Cameron had told him about receiving a copy of the tape from Green. But she had no way of knowing what Cameron had told Koesler. “You see … the seduction … when I was … with Jake … they filmed it. They taped it. I didn’t know. I never knew. Not until Daddy and I had our final confrontation.”
    “Final?”
    “I considered it to be. I think he did, too. It was blackmail, I guess. He showed me the tape. He didn’t have to spend much time on that. I couldn’t stand to watch it. But he threatened that if I went ahead with my marriage plans, not only would Bill see the tape, the copies would circulate to most of the people we know.
    “I didn’t know what to do. There was no serious problem as far as Bill was concerned; he’s well aware of Daddy’s cruelty, lack of any kind of conscience. But, what would it do to his career? We knew that whichever firm interviewed him would immediately receive a copy of the tape. If the managing partner and the hiring committee could overlook my … indiscretion, then clients and prospective clients could receive a copy. It was a threat that just hung over my head.”
    “And now,” Koesler concluded, “that threat is gone.”
    “Yes, it is!” Her tone bordered on the defiant. “At the time my father and I parted, after he made his threat, I considered that our final confrontation. There was no room for any compromise. Either I married Bill or I called it off. Depending on that decision, he would either sit on the tapes or circulate them. Now, of course, there’s no doubt. That was, for sure, our last confrontation.”
    So , Koesler thought, the pattern remains intact.
    First Cameron, then Claire and Stan, now Judith. Each had reason to hate Moe Green. But, more than that, each had recently been