In Chap­ter 25, titled “The Deal,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds in Philadel­phia at the Blitz The­ater, where a blonde sec­re­tary mis­takes Mar­vin Skrupske­lis for a union man. Mar­vin, a mid­dle-aged Jew­ish man in over­alls, is indeed seek­ing Mr. Isaac Moskovitz with­out an appoint­ment, lead­ing to a first impres­sion of brusque­ness. When Moskovitz meets him, he briskly engages Mar­vin, reveal­ing a tense but func­tion­al rela­tion­ship between the two.

As they dri­ve through Broad Street in Isaac’s heavy Packard, they exchange ban­ter. Mar­v­in’s demeanor is con­de­scend­ing­ly auda­cious, jok­ing about Roman­ian the­ater own­ers and their obscure knowl­edge, while Isaac remains prag­mat­ic and seri­ous through­out the dia­logue. The con­ver­sa­tion fur­ther delves into com­mu­ni­ty pol­i­tics, where Mar­vin express­es con­cerns regard­ing Moshe, Isaac’s cousin, indi­cat­ing a con­nec­tion to the strug­gles with­in their shared cul­tur­al con­text.

Mar­vin dis­cuss­es Gus Plitz­ka, a fig­ure in Pottstown who wields con­sid­er­able pow­er, han­dling local gov­er­nance and engag­ing in shady deal­ings. The ten­sion esca­lates as Mar­vin implies that Plitz­ka might be vul­ner­a­ble due to his ques­tion­able access to water supplies—a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that Mar­vin sees as a lever­age point against Plitzka’s influ­ence, thus link­ing this to a broad­er nar­ra­tive of jus­tice and sur­vival for their com­mu­ni­ty.

Isaac, how­ev­er, appears unen­thu­si­as­tic about direct con­fronta­tion and prefers to nav­i­gate these issues qui­et­ly. He acknowl­edges the com­plex­i­ty of com­mu­ni­ty ties and the pit­falls of involv­ing author­i­ties. Mar­v­in’s request for help is met with skep­ti­cism, yet both men are entwined in a nar­ra­tive of loy­al­ty and sur­vival com­mon with­in their Jew­ish her­itage.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with a spe­cif­ic request from Isaac: he needs two union men to assist in a covert oper­a­tion involv­ing the release of a child from the Pennhurst insti­tu­tion. Despite the under­ly­ing ten­sion, their cama­raderie reveals the essence of their negotiations—balancing prin­ci­ple with prac­ti­cal­i­ty in a chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment. They con­clude with an under­stand­ing that both men must oper­ate with­in the com­mu­ni­ty’s intri­ca­cies while hint­ing at deep­er, unre­solved ten­sions relat­ed to their past, fam­i­ly, and iden­ti­ty .

Mar­vin Skrupske­lis, a mid­dle-aged man mis­tak­en for a union orga­niz­er, sought an unex­pect­ed meet­ing with Isaac Moskovitz at the Blitz The­ater in Philadel­phia. Despite ini­tial reluc­tance, Isaac agreed to meet Marv and embarked on a dis­cus­sion dur­ing a car ride down Broad Street. Marv, reveal­ing him­self to be a cob­bler from a work­ing-class back­ground, ini­ti­at­ed a dia­logue about a press­ing issue indi­rect­ly relat­ed to Isaac’s con­nec­tions and influ­ence in the city.

The con­ver­sa­tion swift­ly dived into com­plex entan­gle­ments involv­ing a local power­bro­ker named Gus Plitz­ka, who was engaged in illic­it deal­ings and exploita­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to the local water sup­ply in Pottstown. Plitz­ka, owing sig­nif­i­cant debts to a shady char­ac­ter named Nig Rosen, appeared vul­ner­a­ble to manip­u­la­tion, prompt­ing Marv to sug­gest lever­ag­ing this vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to attain jus­tice for a pre­vi­ous, unnamed griev­ance involv­ing Chona.

Isaac, while ini­tial­ly dis­mis­sive of the poten­tial to cor­rect injus­tices through direct con­fronta­tion or legal chan­nels, was intrigued by the con­nec­tion to Chona, sug­gest­ing a more per­son­al stake in the mat­ter. Despite a shared his­to­ry and the evi­dent moral com­pass dri­ving Marv, the con­ver­sa­tion tran­si­tioned into a prag­mat­ic dis­cus­sion on how best to nav­i­gate the local polit­i­cal and crim­i­nal land­scape to achieve their ends with­out draw­ing undue atten­tion or caus­ing pub­lic scan­dal.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a covert plan orches­trat­ed by Isaac, requir­ing the assis­tance of union men to under­take a dar­ing act— to “snatch” a key indi­vid­ual con­nect­ed to Chona’s lega­cy from a men­tal insti­tu­tion dur­ing a rou­tine sup­ply drop-off. This plan, while auda­cious, high­lights the depths of Isaac’s com­mit­ment to pre­serv­ing Chona’s mem­o­ry and influ­ence, lever­ag­ing both his resources and the sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in the union­ized Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly those work­ing on the rail­road.

Through­out the exchange, Mar­v’s and Isaac’s con­ver­sa­tion reflects a dense weave of per­son­al loy­al­ty, cul­tur­al ties, and the shad­ows of past deeds, show­cas­ing a nar­ra­tive rich in under­world deal­ings, com­mu­ni­ty pol­i­tics, and the pur­suit of justice—or per­haps recompense—within the murky eth­i­cal bound­aries of their envi­ron­ment.