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

“I’m not hiding her,” I said, trying to make a joke.

“Can’t you convince her to take me back?”

“I’ve tried. But I’m the last person she’ll listen to. What does she say when you call?”

“Nothing. She won’t pick up the phone when she sees my number. I’ve tried calling from different lines, but it’s no use. She hangs up.”

The two of them are a mess. She won’t talk to him. He wants her back.

“Keep trying. Send flowers and candy. It worked with Bernice.” I try to come up with something encouraging. “She seems lonely too.”

A half hour later, Daniel leaves, shuffling off like an old man. I’m afraid he’ll start crying in the hallway. There’s nothing I can do.

I sip my coffee and gaze outside. The rain’s let up though the wind’s still blowing. The lousy weather does nothing to ease my sense of doom. The past is closing in like a tiger stalking me in a nightmare. At least Landauer is out of the picture. Last I heard, he escaped from jail and skipped the country to join Lansky’s gambling operation in The Bahamas. No one’s heard from him in decades. He’s supposed to be buried at Mount Nebo. His wife and children abandoned him years ago and he had a lot of enemies so I doubt many people showed up.

It’s a miserable end but no worse than what I’ll have if the girls learn the truth. It seems an awfully high price to pay for mistakes I made before they were born.

I go into the kitchen and fill the teakettle. There must be some way to convince Becks to leave well enough alone.

When I glance toward the sliding glass doors to see if the rain’s stopped, I notice the directory of Schmuel Bernstein residents on my bookshelf. I walk over and pick up the thin blue booklet. Winchell said he’d done time in his twenties for breaking and entering. Maybe he could help me break into Becks’ house and toss a few things around. It might convince her to back off.

It’s a lousy thing to do. She’s got enough problems with Daniel and the extra work she’s taken on with that cookbook she’s writing. But it might put a stop to her nosing around. It’s worth considering. And it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. She’d feel a hell of a lot worse if she learned the truth about her old man.

The teakettle releases a long, shrill whistle. I turn the heat off and shift the pot to a back burner. Then I return to the living room, open the blue directory, and pick up the phone.

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14

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I’m up early on a damp Sunday, banging around in the kitchen, when the phone rings. Normally, I’m a late sleeper, but the staccato hammering of rain on the roof awakened me. I finished my book last night and didn’t want to begin another this morning so I got up and started the chicken soup I promised my father. He loves when I make it with flanken, the way my mother did.

Less than an hour after I’m up, a rich, intense aroma of simmering onions, chicken, and fatty meat hovers over the kitchen. It’s still dark and rain is blowing hard from the east, creating a clatter as heavy wet drops bounce like ping-pong balls off the Chattahoochee floor of the patio before splashing against my French doors.

I’m having a hard time balancing the heavy pot over the sink, so I ignore the phone and continue straining the soup through a colander into a large glass bowl. When the ringing starts again, I pick up. It’s my father. I’d planned to wake him with a happy birthday call, but he rises earlier and earlier each year.

“Hi, Dad. Happy birthday.”

“I checked the obits this morning,” Tootsie launches in. “My name’s not there.”

“That’s great.” I try to sound amused. He’s made the same joke every birthday I can remember. This is his eighty-sixth.

“Outlived that old bastard, Schatzi Lipschutz. Can you believe it?”

I search my memory. Schatzi Lipschutz? Not a cousin. Maybe one of the old man’s business associates? I don’t think so. I’d remember that name.

“Haven’t got a clue,” I concede, which is exactly what he wants. “Who’s Schatzi Lipschutz?”

“I’ll hold on while you run outside and get the Herald.”

He buys his paper on Saturday night. It lets him wake me up Sunday with the latest news.

“It’s only six. I don’t think my paper’s come yet. I’m still in my house robe.”

“You got a minute,” Tootsie says, “I’ll tell you about my old friend, Schatzi.” The way he pronounces “friend,” I’m pretty sure he means anything but. Tootsie doesn’t concern himself with such niceties as refusing to speak ill of the dead.

Without waiting to hear if I have time, he continues. “The son of a bitch got me mixed up with the Nazis.”

My neck’s already cricked from holding the phone with my chin while I wash out the pot, so I stop him. I’m curious. But once he starts in with the stories, he doesn’t stop. “How about you give me an hour, I’ll come get you,” I say. “Your chicken soup’s ready and I’ll bring it over. We’ll have breakfast at Rascal House and you can tell the story there.”

He agrees readily. The old man never turns down a meal at Rascal House. I transfer the soup into the plastic wonton containers I save from Chinese takeout and load them into a cooler with ice packs.

Tootsie’s standing in the portico when I arrive, a section of newspaper neatly folded and clasped in his hand. He scurries over and opens the car door.

“You can’t comb your hair for the old man?” he says before easing himself into the passenger seat. He offers his cheek for a kiss, then slams the door and stares at me. It’s a purposeful look, deliberate and cynical. I wait for the zinger. It comes. “I don’t like being seen