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

gray brows furrow into a vee of angry determination. It’s an agony to watch her struggle to lift the aluminum walker, swing it forward, and take another arduous step across the patio. I rise to help her, then, taken aback by her rage, drop in my seat. Her eyes are fixed on my father.

I’m about to ask my dad if he knows the approaching woman when she comes to a halt and plants her walker squarely in front of him. Her finely-lined face contorts into a series of gremlin-like grimaces as though she’s probing the loops and tangles of her brain for a hidden memory. Finally, her features go still and her eyes focus intently on my father. He returns her stare and tilts his chin, studying her.

Then, with no warning, the woman’s lips pull away from her teeth and the perplexed look she’d directed at my father turns into a coal black glare of rage. She points a skeletal finger at his face. “Ach, ach. Murderer. Murderer. Du bist a rotseyekh.” I recognize the Yiddish term for killer. Her voice is low and raspy. But there’s no mistaking her horror at encountering my father.

A chill creeps up my spine at the venom in her voice. My father’s no angel, but no one’s ever accused him of murder. I assume she’s blaming him for the death of someone at the home—a resident they both know. He doesn’t tell me much about his life here, but I think he’d mention it if a close friend died.

I’m so stunned it’s a second before I notice my father pushing the woman’s hand away from his face. He glances to the left, then right, before returning his gaze to the old lady. No one seems to be paying attention, though she sounds like a frantic crow as she rasps out the litany “murderer, murderer.”

I reach a protective arm around my dad’s shoulders, which rise and fall as he struggles to catch his breath. His health is good for an eighty-five year old but he has asthma and I’m afraid he’ll start wheezing. After what feels like hours, but could only have been a minute or two, a male nursing assistant in a crisp white uniform comes over and takes the old woman’s elbow. He guides her across the porch; she continues to mumble “rotseyekh, rotseyekh.” I clasp my father’s hand, which is cold and clammy, and hold it until his breathing returns to normal.

“Who is that?” I ask, surprised by my father’s willingness to let me comfort him. Normally, my father would sooner die than let me be his protector.

“Nobody you need to know.” He pushes my arm away and starts hacking. It’s the cough he gets when he’s upset or angry, a series of snorts that start in his nose and gets trapped at the back of his throat in a repetitious “ung, ung, ung.” His shoulders shake and his hands grip the sides of his chair.

I’m sweating from the tension as much as the heat and when I wipe the back of my neck, my hand comes away soaked. Being careful to avoid her gaze, I watch the old lady as the nursing assistant eases her into a chair at the far end of the porch. She looks much like every elderly woman at the home, tiny and fragile as a newborn hatchling. When she leans to the left to let the assistant drape a lightweight sweater across her shoulders, I catch a glimpse of the sparse white hair that covers a balding pink spot at the crown of her head. The passion’s drained out of her, and she resembles a deflated pastel balloon. Once the assistant leaves, the old lady sits alone staring straight ahead, red lipstick and expectation splashed across her wrinkled face.

“You might as well tell me who she is,” I say once my father stops coughing and I can see he hasn’t ruptured anything. “It’s obvious she knows you.”

“The old broads here think they know everyone. Probably thinks I’m her dead husband.”

Or an old boyfriend—given his past.

I send my father a menacing glare, the one that frightened my sons into admitting when they’d missed their curfews or forgotten to do their homework.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” he says, crossing his arms.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

He looks away, then back, and compresses his lips.

“Yeah, I know her,” he admits. “Florence Karpowsky. She just moved into the Alzheimer wing. Her putz of a husband screwed me over years ago.”

My father’s choice of words is less than ideal. Growing up, my friends thought his colorful language—not to mention unusual name—was a hoot. I was embarrassed and tried to keep them away from him.

I wait for Tootsie to continue. My father tells stories in his own way and in his own time. These days, they come out in dribs and drabs, bubbling up from somewhere deep in his mind like a pocket of air rising through a pot of simmering cholent.

“You heard of Florence Karpowsky? The fancy society lady?”

I shrug and he looks at me like I’m stupid.

“They named a wing of this place for her husband. The old broad’s so senile, I’m surprised she recognized me.” He gazes at me out of the corner of his eye and snorts. “She probably doesn’t recognize herself. Which is a good thing. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she was a beauty in her day. Red hair and one of those, what do you call it, pinkish complexions. She was a little zaftig, but that was fine. We liked a little meat on the girls then. And nice. My old buddy, Fat Louie, grabbed her up the minute she moved to Miami.”

He mutters something in Yiddish. I don’t speak the language, but from the way he curls his lip and spits out the words, I figure Louie’s persona non grata.

I remind my father for maybe the billionth time that I don’t speak Yiddish and he switches back to