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

an innocent woman? It’s hard to believe Abe would pull off a break-in. But how well do I know the guy? We were friends two, maybe three years before everything went down the toilet. I assumed Abe mailed the clippings years ago, though I never figured out why. But how did he get his hands on Louie’s morgue photo? My mouth feels dry and my palms grow damp as one possibility occurs to me. The same way he covered up Moe’s murder.

“Tootsie.” It’s Winchell, standing at the edge of my table. I didn’t hear him approach. “You coming? We saved a seat.”

I glance toward the others. No one looks my way. “Not yet.”

“Something wrong with Becks?”

I hesitate. Winchell knows Becks is poking into my past, but doesn’t know why. “It’ll be okay. I’ll join you and the boys in a minute.”

Winchell shrugs and rejoins the bowlers.

I consider the clippings. Abe had a lot of nerve bringing them to Becks’ house. As if he never broke the law. And what kind of bullshit is that—ask your father? Now I have to tell Becks something. If I tell her the truth, I’ll be cut off from her and the boys. I can’t handle that. After what happened today, Becks will be even less forgiving than her hard-nosed sister.

I’m so fed up with this damned secrecy. It’d be a relief to tell Becks about my past, to get it out in the open before someone else blows it—like that bastard, Abe. But I can’t risk it. Becks is all I have now. I’ve got to convince Abe to get off her back.

I get up from the table and join my friends. Five minutes later, we head back to the Schmuel Bernstein. No one notices my anxiety as I say good night and head upstairs. The minute I hit my apartment I dial Abe.

“What the hell were you thinking, breaking into Becks’ house and leaving those clippings?” I say the instant he picks up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t hand me that bullshit. She came to see me tonight. Told me everything. So what are you after?”

“Nothing. I don’t want nothing.”

“It’s been, what, fifty years? What do you have to gain by frightening my daughter?”

“You don’t give up. I’m telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. If someone broke into your daughter’s house, it’s not my problem. It had to be somebody else you screwed.”

I hesitate. Abe sounds convincing. But he’s the only one who knows Becks is poking around. He could’ve broken in. Lord knows breaking and entering was one of the skills he developed back in Bayonne. But he’d have needed help, a younger guy, to do that much damage. That wouldn’t be a problem. No, it had to be Abe.

“You have a beef with me, see me,” I say. “But you bother my daughter again and I’ll break your legs.” I slam the phone into the receiver.

I thought I’d feel better after the call. But I don’t. Images of Becks alone—watching television, working at her desk, asleep in bed—haunt me. She has a big house with lots of doors and windows. I think about calling her, telling her to make sure everything is locked and secured. But I can’t do it, not this late. I’d scare her more than she already is.

I turn on the television and watch fifteen minutes of a late night talk show before abandoning the effort and picking up a book. It’s hard to concentrate on the words but I keep trying. Every time I look up from the page, my chest constricts and I go back to reading to drive away the fear. It’s three in the morning before I rise from the couch and enter the bedroom. Even then, the image of Becks’ frightened, angry face returns, keeping me awake. I catch a glimpse of sunlight filtering through my bedroom blinds before I finally drift off.

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19

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I arrive at the synagogue at nine thirty the Saturday morning after my meeting with Tootsie and slide into the last row, stepping around three sets of knees before dropping into the plush velvet seat next to Mindy. The flowery scent of expensive perfume fills the air, creating a heady counterpoint to the musty odor of the prayer books that lie open on congregants’ laps. From back here, the room is an ocean of black shoulders draped in undulating waves of blue-and-white tallits, the fringed shawls worn by Jews during prayer. Here and there, the pastel of a woman’s dress breaks the dark pattern of men’s backs.

Many of the worshippers, myself included, are here for the bar mitzvah of Zach Birnbaum. He sits on the raised dais at the front of the congregation, a small figure in an oversized wingback chair between the larger forms of his parents, Aviva and Noah. The rabbi’s just led the congregation in the prayer honoring Judaism’s founding fathers and mothers, and it’s growing close to the moment when Zach goes to the lectern to read from the Torah. I smile when he brings a hand to his face and Aviva pushes it away. I’ve seen those gestures hundreds of time. The poor kid’s nervous and needs to bite his nails. Aviva won’t let him. Today he becomes a man—at least, according to Jewish law.

I hate arriving late for the service but I overslept. I’ve had trouble falling asleep all week. My father’s assurance he’d contact Abe did little to convince me I’d be left alone and I startle awake at every little creak in the house. I wonder if I’d feel so skittish if Daniel were living at home. He was a good sport about running downstairs to check the doors and windows when I imagined noises at night. In the two months he’s been gone, I haven’t felt his absence as strongly as I have since the break-in. It’s not just his physical presence either. I felt a certain confidence around him, a knowledge that whatever happened,