House of Ghosts (25 page)

Jake turned his back to the crowd and reached inside his jacket. From a pouch sewed into the lining, he removed a three-inch firecracker. The explosion on Fifty-first reverberated for four blocks in every direction. Unsure of what happened, the sea of protestors and counter-protestors stopped in their tracks.

Jake lit the firecracker, whirled and threw it to the left of a bus waiting to discharge its passengers. As Bernie Hershkowitz flailed his arms and shouted, “There’s a gun on the bus,” Abramowitz lit a string of midget firecrackers. The sound of rapid pistol fire filled the plaza.

The crowd snapped back to life, half running toward the main entrance of the Garden, the other half surging toward the buses. A uniformed patrolman momentarily looked at Jake but was bowled over by the rampaging mob. Without any further coaxing, the bus was rocked onto its side.

Jake slipped out of the melee and ran toward where he had last seen Hershkowitz. The near sixty-year-old had been knocked to the pavement and was struggling to get to his feet as a college age behemoth taunted him.

Jake reached into the pouch and slipped his fingers into a pair of brass knuckles, delivering a series of quick punches. The kid went down on the pavement spitting his front teeth into his hands. Jake kicked the back of his head for good measure. “Time to get the hell out of here,” Jake screamed above the tumult as he pulled Hershkowitz to his feet.

Hershkowitz wiped the perspiration from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “I saw Sheldon take a nightstick across the kisser,” he roared. “I don’t see him.”

“I’ll find him, you get going,” Jake ordered.

Police reinforcements flooded into the area from Eighth Avenue with their nightsticks buzzing. Jake turned ninety degrees to the north side of the street, spotting Abramowitz propped against a mailbox. Jake dropped any pretext of blending into the crowd and ran toward him.

Abramowitz cradled his left arm against his chest as he breathed heavily through his mouth. He was bleeding from his nose and both eyes had turned a deep purple. The sleeves of his dark green jacket were soaked with blood. Jake handed Abramowitz his handkerchief.

“That fat Irish fuck whacked me at least a dozen times,” Abramowitz said, wiping his nose and mouth. “He said that nobody gets away with shit when O’Brien is on duty.”

Jake turned to a line of police attempting to corral a dozen protestors. “Which one?”

“Not there!” Abramowitz struggled to his feet. “The one standing by himself in front of Woolworth’s.”

In the entrance of F. W. Woolworth stood a husky cop smacking his nightstick against the palm of his hand. As Jake watched Abramowitz’s assailant, Paul approached from the opposite side of the street.

“We’ve got big trouble,” Paul said.

Jake whirled around and grabbed his brother by the neck. “What are you doing here? You were assigned to watch Fifty-first.”

“Two guys got flattened by debris from the explosion,” Paul said as he tried to loosen Jake’s vice-like grip. “I got a good look at them as they passed me on the corner. I’d swear on mom’s life they’re the two schmucks from Princeton.”

Jake let go. “Alive or dead?”

“I don’t know,” Paul said, trying to rub the sting from his neck. “Two cops were clearing bricks and glass off of them. Another was calling for an ambulance
on the car radio.”

“If they’re taken to the hospital and not the morgue, Bellevue will be the place,” Abramowitz said. “I’ll call my cousin.” His cousin was a second year medical resident on emergency room rotation and a member of the Faction.

“Get out of here now. Paulie, drag him if you have to.” Jake ordered.

Paul supported Abramowitz under the arm and moved off. To Jake’s relief, one of Leon Birkhead’s legions offered to help. He watched the trio make their way toward Seventh Avenue. The commander of the Faction had a knot in his stomach—even though he didn’t give a damn whether the two Princeton schmucks were dead, the fallout was going to be brutal. With the Swedge kid’s father being a heavy hitter on Wall Street, the N.Y.P.D. response to the explosion was going to be greater than if Al Capone returned to the city to set up shop. Maybe old man Katz was correct, they should’ve greased Lindbergh.

Jake took two strides toward Woolworth’s as he lined up his target. Running like a linebacker straight at the cop he yelled, “Officer, you gotta help me.”

As the unsuspecting policeman turned, Jake’s brass knuckles found his nose.

THE FACTION’S EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE drifted into the back room of Katz’s. Jake watched as they removed their coats and gloves.
Kibitzing
wasn’t on their minds. The prior twenty-four hours had passed in a blur. The country was rallying around Franklin Roosevelt whose voice came through their radios with words they understood. Nine years before, he calmed them with his fireside chats as the Depression ripped their lives apart believing when he said “that they had nothing to fear but fear itself.”

This day Roosevelt didn’t speak from the cozy environs of the White House and tell the nation that all would be alright. The president appeared before the combined houses of Congress declaring “December 7, 1941 a day that would live in infamy” following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He warned the country was facing grave danger and the military had suffered innumerable casualties, but stated without hesitation that the United States would “win with absolute victory.”

“The Japanese are attacking Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, and Midway Island. There are reports of American ships being torpedoed between San Francisco and Honolulu,” a somber CBS staff newsman recapped the disastrous news.

“Turn it off,” Jake said. Sheldon Abramowitz reached behind him and switched off the Philco.

“My cousin’s kid was on the Arizona,” Sam Bernstein said. “He sent me a picture of the battle wagon at anchor in Honolulu. Crazy kid. Who ever heard of a Jewish boy joining the navy?”

“In a couple of days, the Nazis are going to declare war on us because of the pact they have with the Japs,” Sheldon offered.

Harold Katz wandered into the room with a tray of cups in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. A bowl of sugar cubes was in the middle of table. “Help
yourselves,” he said and wearily took a seat.

All eyes turned to Jake. “I’ve called this meeting to address what Sheldon said, the Germans are going to declare war on the United States and Roosevelt is going focus on Europe.” He poured a cup of coffee.

“I don’t know about that,” Moe Feinberg said, lighting a cigarette. The butt dangled from his lower lip. “The Japs are running through the Pacific like shit through a goose. The country is mad as hell and wants to kill every yellow bastard.”

Jake took a sip. “When the first bomb fell on Hawaii, the isolationists went kaput. Roosevelt doesn’t have to kiss ass anymore. Without direct intervention by the United States, the Brits are going to lose and Hitler will control Europe.”

Paul waved at the smoke drifting into his face from Feinberg’s cigarette. “That being said, the Faction’s mission is over. The Bund and every other fascist organization have been smashed. Now Jews can’t be blamed for the United States entering the war. The draft is going to call every Jew and Gentile able to walk. We’re in this fight together.”

Bernie Hershkowitz stuck his hand out toward Feinberg. “Give an old man a cigarette,” he said in his thick Polish accent. Feinberg tossed him a Pall Mall which was immediately rolled under his nose that bore the results of numerous fights. Hershkowitz savored the aroma before he struck a match. “Nothings changed for our brothers in Poland and all the countries the Nazis have taken. They’re rounding Jews up by the thousands.”

Jake pounded on the table. “The Faction was conceived to protect our own in this country. Now that the threat has passed, we move on to phase two.” The room grew silent waiting for Jake to continue. “With the right connections, members can be placed into positions inside the military chain of command. Right now, the top levels of our government don’t have European Jews on the top of their list, and I doubt they ever will. I’m not sure where the placement of Faction members will lead. It’s not a question of if, but when opportunity will show its face. When it does, we better be in position to take advantage.”

Sam Bernstein, pale and twenty pounds thinner since suffering a “mild” heart attack the night he assisted Jake placing explosives in the Brooklyn Bund spoke up, “Chicago and Cleveland have to be included.”

Jake pushed his cup away. “I spoke to them this morning.”

Harold Katz nervously wiped his hands on a towel tucked into his pants that served as an apron. He cleared his throat. “Who wants a piece of cake?”

Jake subscribed to the theory that morals and decency always take a back seat to the smell of dollars. He slipped an envelope into his woolen parka and waited in the hall of the family’s apartment, listening for footsteps on the cranky wood floor. It had been another long night with his father. The thought of dealing with what the doctors called hardening of the arteries made Jake sick to his stomach.

Paul stayed overnight in the Bronx, having been caught in a heavy December snow the paper forecasted to be nothing more than a flurry. Jake, once jealous of his younger brother who had found the girl of his dreams, now worried about the couple. The draft was going take them apart and one never knew what fate had in store. He carefully closed the door and made his way down the stairs to the street.

Wind gusts whipped the coarse snow into his eyes. A handful of cars made their way along Flatbush Avenue with their tire chains cracking against the pavement. The normal morning shoppers out for their papers and hot bagels were extra light for a Sunday morning. Jake crossed the street stopping to see Hymie Blankstein the Kosher butcher. What could Jake say to console a man who received a postcard from his sister who wrote a mere six lines saying she and her family had been relocated to a place called Auschwitz?

Jake shook Hymie’s hand and made his way to the corner, stepping into the doorway of Solomon’s Pharmacy to get out of the stiff wind. Across the street, a sign in a storefront window read, “Congressman Benjamin Goodman—11th United States Congressional District.” The window and its glass door were obscured by white curtains that reminded Jake of the linings of expensive caskets he had seen when attending the wakes of associates who lost their lives working both for and against his boss. A steady stream of women wearing babushkas and men braving the elements in their best clothes meant for the synagogue came and went.

Jake waited for a sanitation truck outfitted with a plow to pass down the middle of the avenue. Careful not to slip on the icy pavement, Jake crossed and knocked off the clumped snow on his shoes against a lamp post.

A brass bell tinkled as he opened the door. The twenty-by-twenty waiting room consisted of wood benches, a receptionist’s window, an American flag, and a photo of the man every Democratic politician wanted to be identified with— President Franklin Roosevelt.

Jake wrote his name on a sheet of paper handed to him by the receptionist. The audience with the twelve term congressman was on a first come first served basis. Jake took off his coat and sat on the windowsill of the storefront window. German, Polish, Hungarian, and Yiddish flowed in a current circulating around
the room. Nods and fingers touching hat brims were sent Jake’s way. Growing up in the neighborhood brought Jake into contact with hundreds he knew by sight. They had one thing in common; their worries were stamped on their weathered faces.

Benjamin Goodman catered to his constituency. An ad in the Yiddish daily announced the congressman was back in the district, and his office would be open eight to twelve Sunday morning. The working stiff and the
Shabbos
observant were the ones who couldn’t make it during regular business hours and had trekked through the snow to see their Benny, a self-made man who went to college and law school at night while working in the garment district during the day.

For an hour and a half, Jake watched the hopefuls enter Goodman’s inner sanctum with tense smiles to return to the waiting room with tears streaming down their cheeks. Jake looked away, not wanting to intrude on their mourning. They came to Goodman knowing that the possibility of obtaining a visa to the United States for their European family members was futile, but doing nothing would result in living a lifetime of self-flagellation for not trying.

“Mr. Rothstein, you can go in,” announced the receptionist.

Jake entered the rear area that had been partitioned into three small cubicles with furniture that looked like it was purchased from the second hand store three blocks away. Directly ahead was the congressman’s office. Goodman, at five foot five, was as tall as he was wide. Sans suit jacket, a gray vest covered a white shirt and navy blue tie. Sleeves were rolled at the cuffs giving the appearance of a man hard at work. Goodman’s cherubic face turned oatmeal pasty as Jake, with his coat slung over his shoulder, came into view.