The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter (A Becks Ruchinsky Mystery Book 1) by Joan Cochran (popular books of all time .txt) 📗

of the nineteenth century to raise funds for East European Jews migrating to Milwaukee and includes basic recipes for steak, chicken, and the like. But it’s too American. Mrs. Dupree included five charity cookbooks by the National Council of Jewish Women and Hadassah, but these date back only to the 1970s.

The most valuable find is a stack of recipes assembled by a group of Jewbans, Cuban Jews who moved to Florida, most after Fidel Castro’s revolution. The yellowing pages are stapled together to form a small booklet and many look promising, certainly more exotic than the bland Ashkenazi matzo balls and gefilte fish on which I was reared. The oldest item on the pile, a booklet entitled Crisco Recipes for the Jewish Housewife, is written in English and Yiddish and dates back to 1930. I smile at the idea of immigrant women—in babushkas and flowered aprons—debating what to do with this big metal can of vegetable shortening.

I take the Jewban collection back to the room Mrs. Dupree indicated and copy three recipes, dropping three dimes into the rusted Maxwell House coffee can on a table by the copier. It hasn’t been a productive morning and I’m anxious to head across the plaza to the library to check their cookbooks. But I don’t want to leave without thanking the librarian and informing her page thirty-five of The Settlement Cookbook was ripped before I touched it. The problem is, I have no idea where to find her. I decide to nose through the archives and leave if she doesn’t return in fifteen minutes.

After making sure that the spines of my cookbooks are as perfectly aligned as Mrs. Dupree left them, I wander over to the nearest bookcase. Each shelf is labeled with a tiny handwritten sticker. The top two shelves contain maps and books on the Miami River and the two below are packed with similar materials on Biscayne Bay. I make my way down the wall, leafing through collections on Florida’s Tequesta, Seminole, and Miccosukee tribes.

I’ve given up on the likelihood of Mrs. Dupree’s imminent return and am ready to leave when I spot a smudged label at the bottom of a shelf. I have to squat to read it. “Miami crime.” That’s intriguing. Not a topic I’d expect to find in a museum celebrating South Florida history. Mrs. Dupree still hasn’t returned so I poke around for information about the 1940s, when my dad’s story about Fat Louie took place. The documents don’t seem to be in any special order and, after leafing through a few magazines, I pull out a book about Murph the Surf, which sounds like a reasonable name for a gangster. But the book’s about a jewel thief and murderer. I pick up a few books about rum runners and cocaine cowboys, but find nothing about gangsters.

I’m about to give up when I spot a large photo album bound in forest-green tooled leather. It looks promising so I bring it to the desk and prop it on my lap. There are no identifying signs on the outside, which is odd given the amount of work that obviously went into assembling the book. It’s filled with newspaper clippings, arranged chronologically, about the Kefauver investigation into organized crime in Miami. I’d heard about the investigation, but didn’t know much about it. The articles date from 1950 to 1951.

It’s pretty scandalous stuff, though dry at times, and most of the articles cover testimony about racketeering and gambling dens. I get a thrill when I recognize the names of characters I’ve heard about from gangster movies — Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis. Then, as I’m reading an account of a hearing, the name of one of the men called to testify catches my eye. I read the sentence twice before it registers and stand so abruptly the album topples onto the floor. Newspaper clippings scatter all over the ground and I drop to my knees to gather them.

I’m breathing heavily, as much from shock as the effort of crawling around on the ground to collect papers, when a pair of tiny black pumps appear on the floor in front of me. I look up. But not far. The tiny librarian scowls down at me, hands resting on her narrow hips.

I rock back on my heels and stare at her.

I should apologize.

Tell her I was killing time while waiting for her to return.

Thank her for letting me use the archive.

There’s a lot I could say.

But the words that escape my mouth are, “Holy cow, it’s Uncle Moe.”

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6

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The old man’s full of piss and vinegar tonight. When I arrive at his apartment for Sunday dinner, he’s standing with the door open, squirming like a kid with a secret. I figure he’s been sitting by the window for a half hour, watching for the so-called “classic” Mercedes my husband Daniel left behind when I threw him out. Unlike his Volkswagen, which spends its life in the shop, the Mercedes Daniel bought secondhand twenty-five years ago refuses to die.

I called Tootsie Monday after getting home from the library and he told me I was nuts. It couldn’t have been his brother in the article. Sure, Moe had friends in the mob. But by the time Kefauver held his hearings in the early fifties, Moe and Tootsie were running a legitimate restaurant supply business. And didn’t I have anything better to do with my life than read about dead criminals?

“I’m not mistaken. I saw his name, clear as could be,” I insist. “It said he testified about this outfit, S and G, that ran bookie operations.”

“And what did your uncle have to say about S and G?”

“Not much. Just that he’d heard of the group and thought they were legitimate businessmen. That he’d met with members of the company at various hotels to discuss their restaurant supply needs.”

“I don’t remember anything about that. But we did business with a lot of parties. If the newspaper says your Uncle Moe testified, it may be