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

bet for learning what happened between him and Landauer. My father claims they’re still in the warehouse. I’ve got no choice but to find them. Maybe there’s something there I can use to force my father to face Abe or Landauer—or the police.

The neighborhood’s even more blighted now than it was five years ago when my father retired and sold his business to a cocaine dealer who now calls federal prison home. The grass swale along the road is a patch of weeds. Paper cups, newspapers, and condom wrappers clog the gutters.

It’s ten in the morning and the encampment of cardboard and makeshift tents on the lot across the street from the warehouse appears deserted. Within minutes of my arrival, though, a woman with a leathery, cracked face emerges from a pile of cardboard boxes and limps in my direction. Her clothes are a shabby assemblage of skirts, shirts, and more sweaters than I can count but the red coat that engulfs everything lends a note of cheer to the overcast wintry morning. As she draws near my car, I get out to greet her. Her hair is longer and grayer than I recall, but I recognize her as Mashed Potatoes, the name my father assigned her for her lumpy cheeks. His office adopted the lady, in a manner of speaking, years ago—bringing her food, clothing, and books to make survival on the streets more bearable. I’m not surprised she doesn’t recognize me. The drugs that landed her here in the first place left her in a fog.

“Bless you,” she says when I hand her five singles and ask how she’s doing. “The good Lord will watch over you.”

I’m tempted to ask if she and, perhaps, the good Lord, will watch over my car. But it’s probably wasted breath.

The building’s enclosed by a rusted chain-link fence that’s four feet taller than I am. Once Mashed Potatoes hobbles back to her cardboard cottage, I walk around the fence looking for a way through. Apparently, I’m not the first person who’s wanted in. A few feet from my car, a sprung metal lock lies on the ground where someone jimmied the gate open. When I push the fence, it slides reluctantly, emitting an arthritic groan. I slip through and walk to the building.

Bags of garbage rot against the back wall and I jump when a rat scurries across the parking lot. I approach the back door gingerly fearing what else may crawl from the disintegrating mass of wooden pallets to its left.

When I called Esther this morning and told her what I’d planned today, she said I was crazy. But this is something I have to do. Waiting for Tootsie to act is pointless; he doesn’t answer when I ask if he’s contacted Abe or Landauer. And after the lies he’s handed me so far, I suspect the newspaper clippings hold all sorts of surprises.

The door appears to be securely closed but, when I turn the knob, it gives. Damn. Someone’s been in there. Most likely, homeless people have broken in and I’m intruding—which they may not take too kindly. I draw a breath and inch the door open. It glides easily. I look over my shoulder and fight an urge to run to my car. I’ve come this far. There’s no way I’d muster the guts to return.

The acrid odor of dead rodents accosts me when I step inside but no one responds to my loud “hello.” I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark. It’s at least ten degrees colder inside the warehouse and I shiver as much from the temperature as from nerves. After a few minutes, I make out the shape of large brown puddles on the floor. I look up and notice that rain has seeped through the roof, leaving blotches of mold on the acoustic tiles on the ceiling. At the sound of scratching I hold my breath, expecting a herd of rats to race across the floor. When nothing moves, I tiptoe farther inside. The place is a disgusting mess.

The warehouse feels strange, familiar and foreign at the same time, as though I’ve come home to find my house ransacked by strangers. I spent hundreds of hours here during high school, helping my father take inventory. Half of the pots and pans, serving pieces and knives in my kitchen came from these shelves. The dark pools of shadow and raw cement-smell of the abandoned building fill me with sadness and dread.

The wooden pallets my father placed in the central section of the warehouse to keep equipment dry are still there, but sit empty. To my left and right, rows of metal shelving extend ten feet high, almost reaching the ceiling, and thirty feet to the wall.

I don’t know where to begin. Thin rays of sunshine pierce ragged holes in the ceiling, providing enough light to see where I’m stepping, but the warehouse is a large empty space with shadowy corners that could hide full-sized men. I pull a flashlight out of my purse and run its beam across the shelves to my right. The bottom two are empty, but the top ones hold huge stockpots that glare down at me like squat malevolent ogres. My father’d need a ladder to put anything that high so I rule against searching the upper shelves.

The middle shelves hold metal baking sheets, industrial cooking pans, and giant stainless colanders. I run the beam between them, reaching with my hand to feel if there’s paper stuffed where I can’t see it. After a half hour, my nose itches from the dust and my hair is soaked in sweat. I’m dying to go home to a long hot shower.

I’m pushing a set of pans aside to look beneath it when I hear a door click. I freeze and keep my breathing shallow for a few seconds, then pop my head around the corner. The warehouse door is closed and no one moves. I consider making a run for