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

“I knew you were shot, but you never told me who saved you.”

He stares at me incredulously. “You must have forgot. We went through basic training together, got sent overseas together. Fat Louie and I were together on D-day. I made it off the assault boat and on to shore but got a bullet in my gut before I’d gone five yards.” He starts to lift the front of his polo but thinks better of it.

“I can’t believe you don’t know this.” He raises his eyes heavenward as though God can explain his oversight. “Louie crawled up the beach next to me and stayed at my side. I thought I was done for. Louie kept yelling for a medic until one showed up and shot me full of morphine. I owe my life to him. I got shipped back to a hospital in England to recuperate then finished out the war pushing pencils at a base post office in France. Louie fought in Europe.”

He stops and glances at his watch. His eyes are red. “Jeeze, it’s getting late.” He grabs the chair arms as though to rise. “I’m heading upstairs.”

“But you haven’t finished the story.”

“It’s ancient history.”

“Not for her,” I say, looking at Mrs. Karpowsky.

We glare at each other for a half minute before my father lifts his hands, palms up, in a gesture of surrender.

“You don’t give up, do you? But I got to go upstairs soon. Okay, I don’t see Fat Louie for months after I’m shot. But when it comes time for our discharge, I send a letter to his parents’ home in New Jersey, asking Louie to visit me in Miami Beach.

“My father—your grandpa Leo—retired there during the war, bought a couple apartment buildings. I figured we’d have a nice place to stay, take our time finding jobs. I’d been to Miami Beach. The girls there were something else.”

He gets that sly look that means he’s going to divulge something I don’t need to know about his sex life.

“So why’d the lady call you a murderer?” I break in.

“Hold your horses. I’m getting there. You know what a wise guy your Uncle Moe was. He was discharged from the army a few months before me and landed himself a job running numbers. An operation out of Havana. Some big shot got it going in Miami. Bolita. You heard of it?”

I shrug. It’s not the first time he’s suggested Uncle Moe was dishonest. But he never said his brother, who was also his business partner, ran numbers. My Uncle Moe died when I was eight, but I remember the laughter that surrounded him when our families got together. It’s hard to imagine him a hoodlum.

“By the time we get to Miami,” my father continues, “Moe’s bought himself an Oldsmobile and has his own bachelor pad. Louie and I spend a few weeks working on our tans. A month after Louie arrives, though, your grandfather lets us know he’s not supporting a couple of moochers. We pick up the newspaper and study the want ads, but most of the jobs seem tame after what we’ve been through. Then one Saturday, we’re at a bar and Moe suggests we pay a visit to his boss, this Murray Landauer. Says the money’s a lot better than what we’d make as desk jockeys and Landauer’s hiring. Moe is pretty closemouthed about what he does for a living but assures us it’s all above board. We take him up on his offer and he sets an appointment for the next Tuesday.

“What a day that was. Moe takes us to the Sands Hotel. We walk through this fabulous lobby, everything elegant—marble floors, crystal chandeliers, mirrors on all the walls—and meet Landauer to work things out. He’s at this little cabana room off to the side of the pool sitting at a concrete table covered with chunks of colored tile. I guess he’s feeling generous because Moe gets a promotion, doing who knows what. Louie and I get routes in Overtown—it was a hopping Negro neighborhood then—picking up cash and receipts from the shopkeepers who took bets from their customers. Landauer says if we want to work together, fine by him.”

I have a hard time picturing my father and uncle meeting with a gangster at a Miami Beach hotel. When I was a kid, Tootsie talked about taking my mother to fancy Miami Beach restaurants and nightclubs when they were dating in the 1940s. I pictured them as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He never said anything about picking up bets in Overtown.

“So you and Louie . . .”

“Will you let me talk?”

I nod.

“Everything’s great for a year or so. Louie and I are making enough moolah to hit the clubs, take girls to the hotels for the big bands. Count Basie. Tommy Dorsey. You name it. Everyone who was anyone played Miami Beach. Louie met Florence that year at the Five O’clock Club on Collins and they were married three months later. Louie was a real sport, throwing money around on dames, so I was surprised to see him settle down. I met your mother, may she rest in peace, a few months later. He was the best man at my wedding and vice versa.”

He lifts a hip off the chair and wrests a neatly-folded white handkerchief from his rear pocket before dropping back in the seat. I wait for him to blow his nose and collect himself. Lately, he seems to tear up at the merest mention of my mother. I suspect it’s old age but hope it’s also regret at how he treated her. Though my parents were separated at the time, he seemed to grieve as much as my sister and I did when our mother passed away.

“About three months after your mother and I were married,” he says, “I get a call from Fat Louie. ‘Toots,’ he says ‘I got an idea. You know how some of them