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

himself on the table with both hands. He leans in until his nose almost touches mine. “Bullshit. I don’t know what you and Moe got out of it, but there’s no doubt in my mind you ratted.” He takes a step back. Perspiration glazes his forehead. “It was stupid of me to come here. I thought you were ready to apologize. To admit you’d turned my men in and wanted forgiveness. But you haven’t changed a bit. Still out for yourself.”

“Hold on. I took care of Landauer’s family. And I did what he—” I start, but Abe interrupts.

“Did you know Betsy left me?”

Stunned by the man’s sudden flare up, I shake my head.

“That’s right. She was working in lady’s undergarments while I sold shoes. She couldn’t handle it. Went home to her parents.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Abe waves away the sympathy. “We got back together again. No thanks to you.”

“Abe, I swear we didn’t—”

“Just leave me the hell alone, will you? And keep your daughter out of my hair. I’m not promising anything.”

He releases his grip on the table and stands back. “So if you need anything, like silence about your past, don’t call me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a load of horseshit.” He turns his back on me and leaves, moving slowly. His shoulders are stooped and his right leg drags.

I rise from my seat and drop a ten on the table, then wait so Abe can reach his car before I head to the parking lot.

Once I get to my car, I reach for the jar of antacids in my glove compartment. Damned heartburn’s acting up again. I don’t know whether to curse Becks. Or that bastard, Abe. Either way, I need to come up with a plan for stopping my daughter. If she finds out about my past—well, I can’t let it happen.

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12

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Two nights after my father and I visit the mall, the phone rings. I’m scouring a pan of burned noodle pudding but rip off my gloves and grab the receiver. I’m expecting—well, hoping for—a call from Gabe. When we spoke earlier in the day, he sounded nasal, a sure sign he’s coming down with a cold. He was in the middle of exams so I offered to drive to Miami to bring him cold medicine, soup and Vitamin C. He told me his health was fine but if I wanted to make him feel better, I could let his dad move back in. That threw me. After a second during which I didn’t know how to respond, I tried to explain how devastated I was by his father’s affair. Gabe didn’t seem to care. I should know better. The Asperger’s prevents him from having any idea how I feel.

The caller is Tootsie.

“You remember Ari Plotnik? Uncle Moe’s grandson,” he says, jumping into conversation without a hello. “I just got an email. Kid says he’s a kosher butcher in some ferschtunkena Iowa town, I can’t remember which. He wants to know if our family has any Kohanim blood. I’ll email it to you.” Then he clicks off.

I finish the dishes and read the email. Ari’s wife has traced her family back to Rabbi Gamaliel or some other Hebraic bigwig and Ari is hot to enhance his own pedigree. You get more face time at the bima, the podium at the front of the sanctuary, if you can prove you’re a member of the Kohanim, the priestly tribe.

I email my father that I don’t know anything about our tribal history. Then Tootsie copies me the email he sends Ari claiming that the only relation he can find is a Plotnik in Lodz who served as the synagogue’s shamus. I suspect Tootsie’s lying. Either way, the old man gets a huge kick out of telling the kid that his treasured ancestor was the guy who cleaned toilets for the rabbi.

It turns out to be family reunion week because the next day my cousin Sella—Ari’s sister—emails that she’d like to get together. I’m thrilled to hear from her. No one in my family has seen Sella since fifteen years earlier, when her father, Zvi—Uncle Moe’s son—demanded we depart his synagogue. We were there for Sella’s bat mitzvah, or the nominal recognition that passes for one in an orthodox synagogue where women can’t read from the Torah.

Zvi’s wife, Leah, hadn’t bothered to tell her husband she’d invited us in what turned out to be a botched attempt at family reunification. My father has refused to tell me the cause of his rift with Zvi, but that day my cousin announced we weren’t Jewish enough to set foot in his precious orthodox synagogue. As he saw it, we were practically gentiles, Reform Jews who’d committed the grievous sin of abandoning the ritual he considered critical to claiming one’s rightful place as a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Sandy Koufax.

Sella writes that she hasn’t seen her father in six years and her mother’s moved to New Jersey. Sella still lives in South Florida, though, and wants to meet us. I’m delighted and figure this is an opportunity to reunite with Zvi’s family, if not Zvi himself. She accepts my invitation to lunch the next Sunday. Of course, I invite Tootsie.

Sella and her husband, Craig, show up just after noon with a two- and a three-year-old who fall asleep in their stroller minutes after arriving. I try to be subtle about studying Sella, seeking traces of the little girl I last saw in her pale purple bat mitzvah dress, all freckles and curls. She has red hair like Aunt Irene, my father’s sister, but missed out on the Plotnik eyes, which tend to be a little close-set. Hers are beautiful, green and almond shaped. I can’t remember what her mother looks like but figure the eyes came from that side of Sella’s family. My father keeps elbowing me and trying to whisper in my ear. I refuse to listen.

“So what happened between your father and mother?” Tootsie asks once