The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter (A Becks Ruchinsky Mystery Book 1)

by Joan Lipinsky Cochran

  I try to remember what I was told about Uncle Moe’s death. He died of a heart attack. Maybe so. But only after being brutally beaten. Then the implications sink in and my stomach heaves. My father let Moe deliver the money to these animals, knowing how they’d react when he came up short. Tootsie knew his brother would be beaten, maybe killed. Intentionally or not, Tootsie sent Moe to his death. My heart races and the knot between my shoulders spasms. My God. No wonder he didn’t leave his study for two weeks after his brother died. He couldn’t face anyone after what he’d done.

  And how can I face him now?

  When I look up, Abe’s contempt is tinged with satisfaction. I feel like lashing out at him. I don’t deserve his scorn. My father’s appalling behavior has nothing to do with me. What Tootsie did was the act of a monster, not the father I thought I knew. There’s no point in challenging Abe’s story. It’s too consistent with what I’ve learned about my father. A cold blue flame dances behind Abe’s pupils. He revels in my horror.

  I grab my purse and run from the apartment, rattling the glass jalousies as I slam the door. My stomach heaves and my chest grows tight as I descend the concrete stairs. Before I reach the parking lot, I duck behind a hedge and throw up, hunched over, hands on my knees. Once. Twice. A third time. My body feels drained and my blouse is plastered to my back with sweat.

  My father sent his brother to his death.

  I can’t escape that reality. I crawl inside the car and cry for fifteen minutes before recovering enough to start the engine.

  I want to run home and hide, to collapse on the couch with a blanket over my head. But halfway there I change my mind and, instead of taking a left toward my neighborhood, continue east on Glades. My heart races as I mount the I-95 ramp to Miami. Enough already. I’m fed up with my father’s lies. I’ve made too many excuses for his behavior. Why have I forgiven him? Because I’m desperate for his love and companionship. How pathetic does that make me? Esther’s right. The man is evil. I need to cut him out of my life.

  I blast down I-95 in a whirlwind of rage. Damp hair plasters my skull and my eyes grow gritty from crying. When I arrive at the Schmuel Bernstein, the front porch is empty and I wave myself past the guard at the entrance. I get off the elevator at my father’s floor and find the long, narrow hallway deserted. The sound of my fist pounding on his door reverberates in the corridor. When Tootsie pulls it open, I collapse into him.

  “What’s the big deal?” he says, grabbing my arm and pulling me in. “What’s so awful you couldn’t wait?

  “You,” I say. “I know the truth.”

  His eyebrows rise and he steps back. “Calm down. You look like shit. I’ll get you a glass of water and we’ll talk.”

  I sit at the kitchen table and watch him fill a blue plastic tumbler. His hand trembles and my anger flags as pity takes over. But I catch myself. That’s been my problem all along. He’s old. And vulnerable. And he knows how to manipulate me. I’ve been too willing to listen and forgive—and buy into his lies.

  When he brings the glass, I take a sip and motion him to sit. He does so, slowly.

  “I went to Abe’s today.” I keep my voice even. “He told me about Moe. Everything. Including how he died.”

  Tootsie’s eyes narrow. We stare at each other for a few seconds. He leans forward as if to talk.

  I hold up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Let me finish. Then you’ll have your say.”

  He sags back in his seat and picks up a napkin.

  I repeat what Abe said about Tootsie and Moe using their mob contacts to start a business, then failing to pay Landauer. As I speak, my father tears bits of napkin and rolls them into tiny balls. He looks through the sliding glass doors and at the floor, but never at me. When I tell him about Landauer beating Uncle Moe to death, his eyes redden. I don’t think he’d heard the details before. I feel a morose satisfaction in witnessing my father’s anguish.

  When I’m through, I feel drained and empty. My father holds his head in his hands. He looks shrunken and old.

  After a few minutes, he shakes his head. “Becks. Darling. There are a lot of things you don’t know. Things you can never understand.”

  “So tell me,” I say. “Go ahead. Come up with an excuse for killing your brother. I’m dying to hear it.”

  He takes a deep breath. “Your Uncle Moe.” He hesitates before starting again. “What I did was wrong, horribly wrong, but I couldn’t raise the cash and had no idea Landauer’d kill Moe. He was my own brother, for crying out loud. I’d never do anything to harm him.”

  He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. I sit with my arms crossed on my chest.

  “Sure I came up a little short but I ran all over town and called everyone I knew. I couldn’t come up with that kind of dough in the three lousy days Landauer gave us. He had to know that. I figured he’d take the money and leave. Or wait for the extra cash. It sounds crazy now, but I thought I could come up with more—sell my car or my watch—before Landauer knew what was what.”

  “That was one hell of a gamble,” I say, “and Moe lost.” I rise to leave, but he grabs my arm. He’s crying. I’ve never seen him like this, eyes red and hands trembling. I’m shocked and drop back in my chair.

  “Listen to me. I did everything I could for Moe’s family after he died. I told your Aunt Gert we’d taken life insurance on Moe and supported her until she remarried. I paid for Zvi’s college and law school. What more could I do? Your uncle wouldn’t have taken care of my family. He was a gonif. He was doing business on the side, selling our equipment and pocketing the profits. I caught him filching cash from the safe when he thought I wasn’t looking. The bastard was robbing me blind.”

  Our gazes lock. Then he looks away, realizing what he’s admitted. Maybe he didn’t do it consciously. But he sent Moe to Landauer, intending to settle the business’s debts and avenge his brother’s thievery. And whether or not it was intentional, my uncle paid with his life.

  I rise. When I reach the door, I glance over my shoulder. Tootsie remains at the table, his head in his hands and his shoulders heaving. I burn the image in my brain, suspecting this will be the last I see him, and leave. He doesn’t stop me.

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  39

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  The next morning, as I drive to Ft. Lauderdale International Airport to pick up Esther, I consider how to tell her about Uncle Moe’s death. She may already be aware—she seems to know more about our family’s dark side than I do. She finished chemotherapy and has an appointment with Daniel at nine to decide on the next course of action. I’ve decided to stop for breakfast on the way to his office and fill her in.

  I’m killing time in front of the Delta terminal when a fat cop with a nasty sneer moseys over to my car. He wears knee-length boots and a holstered gun and walks with the bowlegged stance of an overweight broncobuster. I’m in no mood for his attitude.

  “Move on,” he says, snapping his head to the left.

  I glance around. Mine is one of two cars pulled to the curb. The terminal’s deserted at this ungodly hour. The sun isn’t up yet and no one in her right mind—except my sister Esther—flies into Ft. Lauderdale at six on a Wednesday morning.

  “I’m waiting for my sister. She should be in the baggage area.” I say. He purses his lip and crosses his arms. “She’s been ill and I’d rather she not stand too long waiting for me.”

  He doesn’t give a damn. “Look lady,” he says, “there’s no stopping here so get going.”

  I’m in a lousy mood to begin with, having stayed up most of the night. I’m ready to leap from my car and tell the officer what I think of power hungry cops hassling drivers at empty airports. Then it hits me. I’m doing exactly what my father would’ve done. Gone straight for the jugular. It’s a frightening notion and stops me as I reach for the door handle. Fortunately, the cop’s too busy harassing the other driver to notice my
anger. I put the car in drive, then leave Esther a message I’m circling the airport.

  It was torture getting out of bed this morning. My anger had subsided marginally by the time I got home from Tootsie’s but I was too charged up to go to sleep. Once I got into bed, I spent the night struggling to suppress disturbing images of my uncle’s last hours. Uncle Moe was a big man who laughed from his gut and whose unrestrained use of four-letter words made my mother blush. But he was also a kind, gentle person who told me I was the prettiest girl in Coral Gables. Lying in bed, I tormented myself with the image of him bloodied and pleading with Landauer. It was like being trapped in an endless loop of 1940-era film noir. At three in the morning, I took a sleeping pill. Now I’m groggy and confused.

  “Becks.” I look up. I wasn’t conscious of pulling up to the terminal. Esther’s standing at the open passenger door with her brows drawn together. “What happened to you?” She throws her suitcase in the backseat, then crawls in beside me. “Ever hear of a brush?”

  I laugh and slide my fingers through my hair. It’s matted. I forgot to brush it. “Hard night,” I say, then pull on to the road. “I’ll tell you over breakfast.”

  Ray’s Diner is ten minutes from the airport so we stop there. I pull up to the metal-framed structure and park between Ford F-150s that dwarf my Mercedes. It’s six thirty and the place is deserted except for a handful of bulky men on their way to construction sites. Three women in heavy makeup enter after we’re seated. I figure they’re dancers coming off work at the strip club next door. We order buttermilk pancakes from an Amazon of a blond in a pink uniform.

  While we’re waiting, Esther takes a sip of the coffee the waitress drops at our table. “So what happened?” she says. “You get mugged?”

  I grunt. “Might as well have been. You remember I told you about dad’s old mob boss showing up at my house?”

  “He came back?”

  “God, no.”

  “Then what? Please tell me you worked things out with him?”

  I grab a napkin from the metal dispenser that anchors the salt and pepper shakers and blow my nose. It could be allergies. Or relief Esther’s here. But my nose is stuffier than usual this morning.

  “Not yet. Dad told me he’d take care of Landauer, but when I asked if he’d talked to the man, he wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “I’ve been a wreck for the last few months. Each time I walk in the house, I expect to find him waiting. I couldn’t take it anymore so I went to see Abe yesterday and asked him to put me in touch with Landauer. I figured I’d tell Landauer what Dad said about killing Fat Louie and get the creep off my back.”

  “You are brave.”

  “No kidding. I never got that far though. Abe wanted to hear what I was going to say first.”

  “Did Abe know about Fat Louie’s murder?”

  “Every detail. The big shock yesterday was that there’s a lot more than Dad told us. It didn’t end with Louie’s death.”

  “What didn’t?”

  “The killing.”

  “Are you telling me Dad . . . ?” We glance up as the waitress drops platters of pancakes and stomps away. I wait until she’s out of earshot, then lean in and speak quietly across the table. I tell Esther what Abe said about helping our father and Uncle Moe start their business. About their decision to stop depositing money in Landauer’s account. And about Tootsie’s failure to give Uncle Moe the money the mobster demanded. Her eyes grow wide when I describe Landauer’s brutal murder of Uncle Moe.

  When I’m done, she stares out the window, then returns her gaze to me. Her face is pale and her expression resigned. “I should have known.”

  “Known what?”

  She sections her pancakes into neat rows, stabbing lines into the plate, then sets her fork and knife down. “Remember how Dad acted at Uncle Moe’s funeral. He couldn’t stop sobbing and embarrassed everyone, including Aunt Gert. Zvi pushed him out of the chapel during the service. I don’t know what he said, but Dad stayed in the lobby until the rabbi was through.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “The old man was sick with remorse. He couldn’t tell anyone. Mom would’ve left him or turned him in to the police if she knew. He had to live with it.”

  “What about Landauer? Dad had to be afraid the guy would come for him next.”

  “Maybe. But I’d be willing to bet Tootsie had the extra money all along. Probably gave it to Landauer the next day.”

  I stare at her, horrified. “You think he would’ve done that?”

  Esther stabs a forkful of pancake. “You bet!”

  Daniel’s waiting area is empty when we arrive at eight thirty and his nurse, Mary, escorts us to the examining room. The space looks like every other examining room in the world. Beige Formica cabinets and a sink fill one wall and a matching examining table rests against the other. I sit in Daniel’s low-slung rolling stool and Esther takes the room’s only chair. We chat about her treatment. The surgeon is confident he removed all of the affected tissue and her oncologist feels that the chemotherapy was successful. Esther’s hair is growing back and she looks striking, if a little gaunt, with her new short hairstyle. She tells me she wants to talk to Daniel about starting long-term hormone therapy.

  Five minutes after we arrive, Daniel enters the room. He leans in to give Esther a kiss and I allow him to peck my cheek. We haven’t spoken since our walk on the beach and I’m ill at ease in his presence. In any event, we have more important issues to discuss. He wraps the blood pressure cuff around Esther’s arm and takes a reading. That’s normally Mary’s job and I wonder if he feels as awkward as I do.

  Esther, no doubt sensing our discomfort, breaks the silence. “Did you tell Daniel about your meeting with Abe yesterday?”

  I stare at her, raising my eyebrows to express disapproval. I told Daniel about the vandalism to our house and, during a late-night conversation, Landauer’s visit, but I haven’t had a chance to discuss Uncle Moe’s murder. This is hardly the time to do so. Plus I don’t want more pressure from Daniel about moving home. When Daniel turns his back to us, I give a quick shake of my head, hoping she’ll understand. Esther ignores me and, after Daniel assures her he’ll consider her options and discuss them later, she tells him everything. When she messes up the story, I break in.

  “My God, it’s beyond imagining,” Daniel says when I’m through. “I can’t believe Tootsie did that. He must have been insane. It’s a wonder you two turned out normal.”

  “I’m not sure we did,” Esther says.

  Daniel laughs. Then, as usual, he gets to the crux of the matter.

  “What happens now? Perhaps it’s time you told the police about Moe’s and Louie’s murders? At least mention Landauer’s threat. Not reporting what you’ve learned could put you at risk.”

  “I thought about that last night, along with about a hundred different options. I can’t report Landauer for killing Uncle Moe. There’s no proof.” I explain about Abe’s crooked medical examiner.

  “Then you need to make sure Landauer knows what Abe told you—and that you’re aware there’s no proof he killed your uncle. That has to be what he meant with the ask your father note,” Daniel says. “Do you have Landauer’s number?”

  “Damn. I was so upset yesterday I forgot to get it. I’ll call Abe, then Landauer, as soon as I get home. That should be the end of it, but who knows.” I slide my hands under my thighs so Daniel and Esther can’t see them trembling.

  “These guys sound like sickos,” Daniel says. “Maybe you should move out of the house, leave town for a while.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I appreciate Daniel’s concern but I’m fed up with letting these mobsters rule my life.

  He’s silent a moment. “Thank goodness Esther’s here. At least you’re not alone.”

 
The two exchange glances—no doubt, agreeing Daniel should move back in.

  I pretend not to notice their interchange, but consider the possibility. It no longer sounds like such a terrible idea.

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  40

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  Esther and I have been home less than ten minutes and are carrying her bags into Josh’s room when the doorbell rings. We’re on our way downstairs when our visitor starts stabbing the bell. It creates a high-pitched racket. Then the pounding starts.

  My sister and I freeze at the bottom of the stairs and exchange frightened glances. We’ve got to be thinking the same thing. Landauer. I approach the door, stepping lightly to hide the sound of my footfall.

  When I peer through the peephole, the sight, though not entirely comforting, is a relief. Standing on my front porch in a heavy wool suit and with a dense black beard is my cousin Zvi. He looks like a throwback to a seventeenth century Polish ghetto.

  When I open the door, the scent of mothballs wafts into the hall.

  “I’ll dance on your father’s grave.” His voice is gravelly with anger.

  “Hello, Zvi. Why don’t you come in and tell me what you’re talking about?”

  He doesn’t budge. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. Your father called this morning and spilled his guts about my dad’s death. He said you’d been digging around. It sounded like he wanted to beat you to the punch.”

  Esther, who’s standing behind me, pushes the door farther open. “Come inside or leave. We’re not putting on a show for the neighbors.”

  Zvi hesitates, then steps into the hall and follows us into the kitchen. I gather up the newspaper I’ve left on the table and motion for everyone to pull out a chair. I offer coffee, but Zvi refuses.