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

myself, I looked around. Lansky sat there with a white hankie, dabbing his eyes. That big, tough gangster was crying.” My father shakes his head. “Just goes to show. Once a Jew, always a Jew.”

I don’t know that crying over “Yiddishe Mama” qualifies anyone as a Jew. But I keep my mouth shut and push my plate away. I gave up on my corned beef sandwich after the first bite.

“The next day, Sammy and I took the Havana Special back to Miami. I got to tell you it was great getting back to your mother and Esther. Your sister was a little doll.”

A shadow crosses his face and I realize how much he misses Esther.

“I learn later that Sammy was trying to get in good with the Miami Jews. That’s what brought him up to New York to help Lansky.” Tootsie laughs. “Turned out he lived in Miami Beach and had a daughter of marriageable age. Problem was the Jewish mothers wouldn’t let their sons date a gangster’s daughter. But working for Israel, that’s another story. His plan must have paid off. His daughter married a Jewish accountant, a fellow named Irving Tannenbaum. Years later, Irv told me Sammy wouldn’t let him into the business. Sammy said that working as a wise guy was fine for Sammy’s generation. But not for an American-born Jew.”

“Sounds like you went straight too.”

“You bet. After the trip to New York, I was ready for a legitimate job. Uncle Moe had connections in the restaurant business so we decided to open a restaurant supply company. You know the man I talked to in the theater, the old guy sitting in front of us?”

“What about him?”

“He ran one of South Florida’s largest bookie operations before opening a cafeteria. One of our best customers.”

I picture the wizened old man in the plaid golf hat. “You’re kidding.”

My father shakes his head and goes back to his sandwich.

I wonder how many of the old guys at the Stage Door Theater have similarly illicit pedigrees. I’m not entirely comfortable with my father’s story about Meyer Lansky. It’s as if he’s trying to convince me that being a member of the mob was a good thing, something you did out of loyalty to other Jews. I’m not buying it. Not after what his buddies did to my house. Jewish or not, Lansky and his kind were mobsters and murderers. Which, I have to admit, made Tootsie a thug. What upsets me the most is that he’s proud of it.

I’m not letting my father off the hook for the break-in. He says I’m a nag when I ask if he’s contacted his so-called friends. His condescending attitude and refusal to recognize how badly this frightens me drive me crazy.

My father chews deliberately, his chin resting on his upturned palm as his jaws labor at the corned beef sandwich. I’m about to tell him what I think of Lansky and his gangster pals when Tootsie stops chewing. His eyebrows form a vee of concentration. I expect an insight from him, maybe an admission these hoodlums weren’t the wonderful characters he paints them to be.

But no. It doesn’t happen. Instead, he spits a hunk of fatty meat into his paper napkin.

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21

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Tootsie

Becks is unusually quiet on the drive home tonight and, when we turn off the I-95 ramp for downtown Miami, I ask if I’ve said something to upset her.

She shakes her head. “I’m down. I saw Daniel this morning at Zach Birnbaum’s bar mitzvah.”

“And?”

“And we had a fight.”

“About what?”

“Everything. Nothing. Moving back in together.”

She looks at me from the corner of her eye, daring me to comment. I’d like to press her, to find out if there’s anything I can do to help. But I keep my mouth shut. I don’t need her telling me again that it’s none of my business.

When I get upstairs to my apartment, I go to the sliding glass doors and stare into the Schmuel Bernstein’s garden. It’s dark and the palm trees are scarcely visible. Across the lawn, lights flicker on in one of the upstairs windows of the nursing home. The grounds are deserted except for a raccoon trying to upend a garbage can.

I’m down tonight too, sad and disappointed. The actors put on a terrific show and it brought back great memories. Afterward, at dinner, I enjoyed sharing them with Becks. But as I spoke, I realized I was trying to convince her that the gangsters I knew weren’t the monsters she paints them to be. Lansky and his cronies did a lot of good, helping the Israeli underground fighters acquire weapons. Becks seemed unimpressed.

She didn’t say anything tonight, but she’s made no secret of her contempt for these men. I can understand it. They were criminals. I suppose I was too and regret some of the things I did. But whether she likes it or not, a lot of those men are friends I grew up with, people I admired as a kid. It seemed natural to follow in their footsteps. Although I knew what they did wasn’t kosher, it was the best option for a kid from our neighborhood who wanted to make it in the world. It didn’t occur to me until I was married with a child that I had another choice.

And now Schatzi is dead. Moe too. They had good lives. Truth be told, most of us did pretty well for ourselves. Even if our jobs weren’t entirely straight, we married and had kids who went on to legitimate careers. Some of my friends even went to college. I thought about going before the war. But that was craziness. My father didn’t have the money to send me. And by the time the GI bill came along, I’d lost interest.

Back then, the neighborhood men Ma called nogoodniks were the ones who made real money. Drove big cars like Schatzi’s, went out with good-looking dames, and dressed sharp. The guys who left the Lower East Side for Brooklyn and points