The Yiddish Gangster's Daughter (A Becks Ruchinsky Mystery Book 1) by Joan Cochran (best authors to read .TXT) 📕

A busty Latina in a thigh-hugging skirt seats us at a booth across from the revolving dessert display. I can’t keep my eyes off the chocolate layer cake. My father’s eyes are on the waitress’s rear. After much debate, we agree on corned beef sandwiches, which is living dangerously in a Cuban diner that serves pork chops five ways.

“So you liked the show?” Tootsie asks after the waitress takes our order.

“It was okay. A little schmaltzy.”

“What do you know? When I was growing up on the Lower East Side, that’s what we listened to. The old guy I showed you. Fleishman. He was huge. We’d go to the Yiddish vaudeville to see him every year for my parents’ anniversary. When I was in New York after Esther was born, I heard him again.”

“With Meyer Lansky?”

He shrugs. “In the same room.”

“What were you doing in New York? Shouldn’t you have been in Miami with Mom?”

“What I was or was not doing at home with your mother, may she rest in peace, is none of your damn business.” He looks over his shoulder. “I was in New York. On a job.”

My father’s told me so many stories I can’t keep them straight, but I remember something about his working as a nightclub bouncer while my mother was pregnant with Esther. I mention it.

“That didn’t pan out. I got fired when this big shot claimed I made advances on his Doll. Truth is, the broad came on to me when he went to the can. I turned her down so she told her boyfriend I was fresh. The manager had to let me go.” He shakes his head. “Esther was born a week later.”

“That must have been tough.”

“You don’t know from tough. I didn’t tell your mother until after Esther was born. I needed a job, and fast. I told your Uncle Moe and he asked around. Found out some of his friends needed help in New York. Someone strong who could work on the docks and keep his mouth shut.”

“That would be you.”

He grimaces and nods. “I’d have taken anything. A week after your sister was born, I was on the Orange Blossom Special heading to New York. I felt like a heel leaving your mother but what was I going to do? I had a wife and a kid to feed. Moe said a guy named Sammy would meet me at the station. I should look for a redhead.”

He stops talking when the waitress returns to tell us they don’t have rye bread. Her accent is so thick I can barely understand her. My father has no problem and tells her to bring whatever she’s got.

“Sure enough,” he continues, “the train pulls into Penn Station and this skinny red-headed guy is waiting for me. Short fellow. Old enough to be my father.”

“What’s this got to do with Lansky?” I ask.

“Keep your mouth shut and I’ll tell you.” He glares at me. “I introduced myself as Moe’s brother and he gave me this tough guy handshake, like he’s got something to prove. I figured he’s the boss and don’t squeeze back. He hailed a cab—my first time in a New York taxi—and took me to a classy hotel. Sammy told me to come upstairs once I’d dropped my suitcase in my room. And to shake a leg.

“I had a quick shower and shave and headed up to the room he told me to visit. When I got there, I heard men talking, but the sound died out after I knocked. I’m not going to lie to you. I was nervous. When I tried to make conversation with Sammy in the cab, he ignored me. And I knew your Uncle Moe had some questionable friends. Sammy finally let me in.”

The waitress drops off our diet sodas. They come in huge, plastic, blue-pebbled glasses.

“It was a big room, a fancy hotel suite,” my father says after taking a sip. “A man with movie star looks, a little older than Sammy, leaned against the desk at the front of the room, talking to a couple of guys my age. Dark hair, dark eyes. I figured him for an Italian, maybe Mafia. Sammy introduced him as Yehuda, though, and I realized he was a Jew. He didn’t crack a smile the whole time I was there. And I could tell he was in charge from the way no one interrupted when he spoke. He talked to the two guys in Hebrew. But different from what I’d heard in shul.

“Yehuda asked me a couple of questions about my work. Being polite, I thought. Then he got down to business. Asked if I’d I heard of the Haganah, the Israeli underground. I told him no. Remember this is 1947, nobody knew from the Israeli army back then. He explained it was a secret defense force set up by the Jews to fight the British and Arabs. My job, he said, was crucial to the future of Israel. I had to work on the docks and keep my eyes open. When I asked what I was looking for, he wouldn’t say. Just told me to make sure the Italians and Irish dockworkers did what they were told. And to report to Sammy if they didn’t.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with Lansky,” I break in when he stops to blow his nose.

“You want to let me tell the story or not.”

I nod.

“I spent a miserable winter loading cargo from piers along the Hudson River, mostly from the Jersey side. None of the dockworkers talked to me, probably thought I was a spy, which I was. They had to be stupid not to figure something’s up. Here’s this Jew, new to the union, working with the Italians and Irish.

“I kept my eyes open but nothing suspicious happened. I worked like a dog, loading whatever the bosses told me to load and freezing my ass off in the process. Everyone did their jobs, kept their mouths shut