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

it. But it may be a rodent and I hate the idea of giving up my chance to find the clippings. It took a lot of nerve to enter the warehouse and I’m resolved to go home with them.

“Anybody there,” I call, forcing myself to sound brave.

No answer.

Then I remember. There’s another door in the warehouse—to the bathroom. Brandishing the flashlight over my head, I tiptoe down the aisle, turn right and walk past a long shelf that holds clear plastic storage bins and food carts. I breathe heavily and my knees feel weak. When I reach the bathroom, I throw the door open.

Standing there, aiming a gun at my chest, is my father.

“Jesus Christ,” we yell in unison and jump back. He trips and lands firmly on the toilet, dropping his gun on the floor. I remain on my feet and stare at him with my mouth open. He’s managed to hang on to a manila folder, but a pile of newspaper clippings are scattered across the ground. As filthy as the cement floor is, I squat and pick them up while my father heaves himself off the toilet. I can hear him panting over the pounding of my heart.

“What are you doing here?” he says once he’s caught his breath. “Don’t you know this neighborhood’s dangerous?”

“I could be asking you the same question.”

He looks toward his gun, which I’ve left on the floor, and turns pale. My God, I could’ve shot you.” He picks it up and slips it in his pants pocket. “I came to get my file. I didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”

“Who’d come to this dump looking for it?” I say, and then laugh. I’m the wrong hands to which he refers.

Tootsie shakes his head. “You are something else, Doll. Let’s get the hell out of here before the ceiling falls in.”

It’s a relief to step outside into the fresh air. After we lock up, he gets in my car and we drive around the block to the S&S diner, where he left his car. Mashed Potatoes is manning her corner at Second and Sixteenth, schmoozing the drivers for a couple of bucks. She blesses my father when he hands her a ten and he blesses her back.

“So what’s with all these articles?” I ask once we’re settled at the U-shaped counter and Irma, a waitress who knows my father from the old days, has parked cups of coffee on our placemats. My father leafs through the manila file. Some of the articles have disintegrated to little more than piles of dust and quite a few are too faded to read. As I’m leaning in to look at a photo, my father slaps his hand over the clipping.

“What’re you doing?” I say. “I spent a half hour in that filthy warehouse looking for those articles. I deserve to read them.”

“No one invited you.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

I take a moment to gather my thoughts. The clippings are his property after all. “When those articles were left in my bedroom and my house was ransacked—” I hesitate a moment—“they became my business.”

Tootsie shrugs. “Fair enough.” Then he rips the article he’s holding into small pieces.

I’m so angry that I leap out of my seat and reach for the file. Tootsie anticipates my move and flips the manila folder closed before pulling it toward him.

“You son of a . . .” I stop at the look I get from Irma. Tootsie and I glare at each other.

“That’s great,” I say. “Keep your stupid folder. And your secrets. I’ll talk to Abe and your hoodlum friends myself.”

I stomp out of the restaurant, leaving my father alone with his precious file.

Then I drive home, where I take my time showering away the cobwebs, rat feces, and nasty mood I acquired in my father’s warehouse.

----

31

----

It’s six o’clock on Friday night and my head’s pounding. I haven’t eaten since seven this morning and I’m in no mood for Tootsie’s games. He joined Congregation B’nai David a week ago and invited me to attend services with him. I figure he’s changed his mind and is letting me read the clippings. When I press him about it on the ride over, he says they’re none of my business. I’m tempted to drop him at the temple and take off. But I wouldn’t feel right about letting him walk into the synagogue for the first time alone. He hasn’t been in a temple since my mother’s funeral.

The chairs at B’nai David are deep and seductively comfortable, with wide arm rests and plush, velvet-upholstered seats in which it’s almost impossible to stay awake. But the cantor has an operatic voice and, judging from the stillness of the audience, the congregants are as enraptured as I am by his throaty baritone. His voice soars toward the rafters of the synagogue’s tall beamed ceiling then descends in a series of arpeggios as he weaves his silken tones through the ancient melodies. I feel transported in time and imagine the chant emanating from the lips of a white-robed priest on a golden hill in Jerusalem.

When Tootsie elbows me in the ribs and leans over to whisper in my ear, I ignore him. I withdraw my elbow from our mutual armrest and turn so my back is toward him. Instead of taking the hint, his voice grows louder, rising to a hoarse whisper that draws a loud shush from the gentleman behind us. I blush. My father, if he notices, doesn’t care.

“Itzhak Cohen,” he says, pointing his chin at the front of the room and drawing an angry glare from the woman in front of us. Tootsie winks at her and she twists back around. “I haven’t seen that putz in years.”

I follow my father’s gaze toward the bimah, the raised area at the front of the synagogue. An elderly man waits at the bottom of the richly carpeted purple stairs that lead to the ark, the ornamental enclosure where the