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

don’t ask. He’s so tense that he’s grasping the door handle in his fist. I don’t want to upset him more.

It’s Tootsie’s birthday and, being an obedient daughter, I return him safely to the Schmuel Bernstein. On the way there, he asks if I’ll arrange his funeral. He asks me this every time we attend one. I tell him I don’t want to discuss it. I’d rather talk about why we had to leave Schatzi’s funeral early. He won’t answer so I drop the subject. I’ll try another time. A half hour after we leave the cemetery, I pull up to his building and watch him shuffle through the double glass doors. He looks more stooped than usual. I’m dying to know why he became so upset at the sight of police officers at Schatzi’s funeral. I’ll ask him the next time we meet. And hope that he tells me the truth.

15

Tootsie

By the time Becks pulls into the Schmuel Bernstein, my heartburn’s killing me. It was a struggle hiding my panic from Becks. When I got inside, I collapsed into a chair in the lobby to catch my breath.

Am I going nuts? It’s been five decades since I last saw him, but the man chatting with Florence Karpowsky at the cemetery looked a hell of a lot like Murray Landauer. The bastard’s supposed to be six feet under in a grave at Mount Nebo. When I spotted him, it felt as if the devil had risen from hell.

That would explain why the cops showed up. Landauer and Schatzi worked together in New York. Maybe the police heard Landauer was back in Florida and figured he’d be at the service?

To top it all off, Becks pestered me to stay until the service was over. What was I supposed to tell her? That I’d seen a ghost? I shouldn’t have brought her to the funeral. I’m becoming too dependent on the girl.

Once inside my apartment, I make a beeline for the kitchen and toss back two antacids. It takes awhile for the pain to subside so I return to the living room to rest on the couch. As my heartburn eases, I consider the funeral. My panic at spotting Landauer. But also the loss of Schatzi. I felt it a lot more than I’d have thought. He’d been a hero to a lot of kids on the Lower East Side, myself included. Truth be told, I never would have become involved with the mob if it weren’t for Schatzi. What’s odd is that it started idealistically, with this business about the Nazis.

It was a late Sunday afternoon the winter I turned sixteen. I was already six feet tall and as strong as my brother. Moe and I had come downstairs in our apartment building and planned to run out to get a newspaper for Dad. I was surprised to find Schatzi waiting near the bank of mailboxes in the hall.

“I had a visitor last night,” Schatzi said. He grabbed Moe’s arm and pulled him toward the door. “There’s going to be some action.”

Schatzi looked at me, then Moe, waiting for my brother to tell me to scram. Moe surprised us both. “Let him come,” he said. “Time the kid grew up.” I tried to act nonchalant, to hide my excitement at being included.

The three of us stepped outside and turned left, bending our heads against the wind. The snow had stopped falling in the early afternoon, leaving a thick slush of icy water and coal dust on the sidewalk. I winced as I stepped into the raw air. It was only three in the afternoon but already dark and the windows of the tenement buildings emitted a pallid yellow glow that scarcely illuminated the sidewalk. A piercing wind spit slivers of ice down the narrow street and I shivered, as much from the arctic air as the thrill of hanging out with my brother and Schatzi. They were five years older than I was but seemed a generation removed because of their street smarts and reputations as toughs.

“You heard about the Nazis holding their meetings in Yorkville?” Schatzi asked once we were clear of the building and its prying ears.

“Rumors,” Moe said. “I heard they were pretty harmless.”

“I don’t know about that. They’re planning a pro-Hitler rally this week. Harmless or not, we’re not letting them get away with it.”

I hadn’t read anything about Nazis in New York, though I’d heard stories about Germans rounding up Jews and taking them away from their homes. A week earlier, Mrs. Gottlieb from next door came over in tears to tell my mother her sister hadn’t written in six months. Ma made me leave the apartment.

“Those big shot rabbis can talk all they want about laying low, keeping out of sight of the Christians. But that’s crap,” Schatzi said. “If someone calls me a dirty Jew, I’ll break his jaw. I’m not letting the bastards walk all over us.”

Schatzi and Moe took long strides and I had to run to keep up.

“What’re you going to do? Beat them up?” Moe said, then laughed. He and Schatzi got in plenty of fights.

“I might. There’s this guy, Lansky. Word is out that he’s looking for Jews to take on the Nazi bastards.”

We stopped at the intersection with Delancey and waited for a truck to pass before we crossed the road. Orchard Street, which was crowded with push carts heaped with vegetables and fruit in the summer, was deserted in the cold. Once across, Schatzi turned his back to the wind to light a smoke. He lit a second cigarette off that and handed it to Moe. When he eyed me, I shook my head. I was afraid I’d get sick and embarrass myself.

“Some judge gave Lansky a call,” Schatzi continued after releasing a cloud of smoke. It hung in the cold air. “Wants him to break up the Nazi rallies. Bust some arms and legs too. He called in old favors