Eight Very Bad Nights, by Tod Goldberg

"Eight Very Bad Nights," by Tod Goldberg,  in Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir, edited by Tod Goldberg, Soho Crime, 2024.

This is the fourth appearance in this space by Tod Goldberg.  A short story? I think it's a novelette, but that counts.

Jack Katz runs his late father's furniture business, which was a sinking ship long before he took the helm.  Now it's Hanukkah and he doesn't have the money to met payroll.  This leads to him making a series of increasingly worse decisions as the nights of the holiday pass.

How bad? Well, there's confronting gangsters, drugs, theft, more drugs, sex, arson...   It's a satisfying roller coaster ride.