House of Ghosts

by House of Ghosts (epub)

  “They were just following orders,” Manny said with disgust. “The same defense used at the Nuremberg war trials.”

  Veins in Joe’s neck stood, stretching against his skin. “Clark bragged he and Preston saved the world,” Joe charged. “From what?”

  Gloria fiddled with the string of pearls around her neck. “From having to deal with the European Jews after the war,” she murmured.

  “Despite McCloy’s machinations, Israel became a state,” Manny seethed. “Clark’s participation in the scheme to prevent immigration to the area was for nothing.”

  Stretching for the ashtray in the center of the table, Gloria smashed out her cigarette. Joe leaned against the center island. In a way he felt sorry for Gloria. Her long deceased husband had been a down to the bone bastard. She knew it. Having it thrown into her face after forty years couldn’t be pleasant. “Did Clark ever express any remorse for killing Rothstein, the other nine men on his plane, and to what happened to the innocent on the ground?”

  “Clark weighed the consequences of what he did, whether it was on the job, or if he was buying a garden hose,” Gloria said with a faint smile. “I never heard him say he was sorry about anything.” She struggled to her feet. “I’ll be right back.” With measured steps, she crossed the kitchen to the hall leading to Clark’s room.

  “We better lighten it up,” Joe said. “I don’t want to be responsible for giving her a heart attack.”

  Manny snatched another cookie. “Gloria is a tough old bird who can take it as well as she can dish it. She wouldn’t have admitted anything if we didn’t bash her over the head.”

  Gloria returned with a paper shopping bag. “I’ve been saving these since 1960,” she said, dumping the contents on the table.

  Joe picked an invitation size envelope off the chocolate chip cookies. Gloria’s name and address were in a clean rigid script of a man’s hand. There was no return address. The stamp was cancelled on August 19, 1972 at the main post office in Manhattan. He opened the envelope and read aloud, “Happy anniversary.”

  Manny opened another envelope. “The same.”

  “I received one this year. They’re identical and always are delivered on the 20th of August.” Gloria said, lighting her second cigarette. “I was afraid to call the police, but it doesn’t matter any longer. Lieutenant, can you make them stop?”

  Gloria’s vinegar was gone. She was aging before their eyes. “I’ll make it a priority,” Joe said.

  Chapter 41

  WESTFIELD, NJ JANUARY 2001

  ARTIE SHAW’S BEGIN THE BEGUINE blasted from Joe’s cell phone. Without opening an eye, Joe searched the night table. “Bob Driscoll here, go ahead and say it for old time’s sake.”

  “Fuck you,” Joe complied, sitting up.

  “Now I feel whole,” Driscoll said with an imperceptible laugh. Joe’s carping was wearing thin. “I’ve finished digging around.”

  Joe picked a cigarette from a pack on the night table and chewed on the filter, fighting to light up. He was smoking two packs a day. “You were…”

  Driscoll cut him off. “Meet me at the diner on North Avenue in fifteen minutes.”

  “You were supposed to get back to me weeks ago,” Joe said. He waited for a torrent of expletives. The special agent could invent anatomical positions unknown to the Kama Sutra. There was nothing but silence. Joe looked at the face of the phone. He was talking to himself. Driscoll had ended the call. “Shithead.”

  “Jozef,” Alenia cooed. “Lie down and cud-dle. This is the last day before Harry comes home and…” She buried her head in her pillow.

  Harry was on his way back from someplace Joe heard mentioned in a geography bee Emily participated in the seventh grade. Harry’s plan was to spend a day in Westfield before whisking his bride to Palm Springs for three or four months. Joe had no doubt that Alenia would find a new diversion, someone discreet to pass the time. “Sugar, I have some business to do.” He pinched her under the covers. “Keep things warm, I’ll be back in the time it takes for a bikini wax.”

  “I won’t miss this Swedge craziness,” she sobbed.

  Joe threw on a sweatshirt and a pair of flannel lined jeans that had hung in his closet for four mild winters. This winter was breaking the streak. An accumulation of eighteen inches of snow from four storms over ten days was on the ground. He stepped into his waterproof Wellingtons, slipped on his all-weather coat and grabbed the five-iron next to the door.

  Dodging snowplows and salt spreaders, Joe worked his way to Populopulos’s North Avenue Diner at the intersection of North and Elmer. The twenty-four hour eatery’s loyal crowd wouldn’t miss the $.99 breakfast special if a nuclear attack decimated the eastern seaboard. Joe squeezed the Volvo between a black Mercedes and a rat colored Land Rover in the ice spotted lot.

  “Lieutenant Joe,” owner Eusebio Populopulos said, holding a stack of menus. Flecks of filo surfed on his thick black mustache. He scoured the packed dining room for a vacant table. Clanking dishes and fifty plus conversations melded into an ear aching din. “There’s a seat at the counter.”

  “Not today Sebi,” Joe said, looking down the rows of booths for Driscoll. “I’m meeting an old friend. Six-two, crew cut, and a nose that took a few too many right hands. He should’ve arrived a few minutes ago.”

  Populopulos held his finger to his lips. “Let me think. Ah…He’s been here more than half an hour. Back room.”

  Joe unzipped his coat and skirted around the line waiting at the cashier. With a nod to the blonde manning the counter, he aimed for the rear of the rectangular dining room and an archway bedecked with a coterie of Greek gods. For the past year, Joe rehashed the events leading to being shot at the Westchester, NY FBI safe house supervised by Driscoll. He had prepared a speech and honed it to a rapier edge to cut down the special agent’s flippant attitude and gargantuan ego.

  With a foot inside the non-smoking area, Joe zeroed in on the tips of a gray flecked crew cut peeking over a copy of The New York Post. Driscoll sitting with his back to the corner had a natural field of fire. Flipping the tabloid’s pages, the twenty-five year FBI veteran saw Joe slip through the line at the register. Driscoll looked at the five-iron and said, “Playing through? Personally, I use an orange ball in this weather.”

  “I’m doing just fine, A-one, fit as a fiddle. Thanks for asking,” Joe said, taking a seat.

  Driscoll lowered the paper and ran a hand across the stubble on his chin. He appeared to have cracked an all-nighter. A master of wringing information from detainees, his sweat-streaked white shirt told the tale of a nasty interrogation. “I’ve been following your ongoing saga via Manny.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” Joe said, looking at Driscoll’s dirty dishes. Toast crumbs, remains of the breakfast special spoke volumes. The meeting wasn’t going to be a pat on the back, glad to see you, kiss and make up occasion. “Manny had to tell you that I’m seeing a shrink.”

  Driscoll folded the paper and took a sip of his coffee. “He’s mentioned something.”

  “I’ve changed.” Joe signaled a waitress for a cup of coffee. “My first impulse was to bend the shaft of this club around your neck. I’ve learned to control my anger. Now, I’d like to ram it up your…”

  “Here you go, Joe,” the saucy waitress said, placing a steaming mug before him. She gave him a wink. “Anything else I can get for you?”

  “Not now darling,” Joe replied with a tap to her bottom. He tore the seal on a creamer, pouring it into the steaming brew.

  Driscoll shook his head at Joe’s attempt to bait him. “I said I was sorry a million times. What happened at the compound was my responsibility despite the circumstances. If it’s not good enough, you can go to hell.”

  Joe stirred his coffee, dropping the spoon on the table. “Listen…”

  “Grow up!” Driscoll snapped, leaning across the table. “Shit happens and it happened to you. Wipe it off and get on with your life. I went through a period in my life when Jim Beam and J
ohnny Walker were my best friends. Keep going like you are and you’ll be one of the bums outside Bellevue begging for quarters.”

  Joe took Driscoll’s counterpunch without flinching. “I’ll write it down as soon as I get home.”

  Driscoll popped the latches on his black attaché case and placed two 8 x 10 photos on the table. “From Jacob Rothstein’s booking in 1947 and his release from Sing Sing 1960.”

  “He didn’t change in thirteen years, but for the gray in the coal-black hair,” Joe said, examining Jake’s front and profile shots. He read from the weight notation, “Two-fifty when he went in and two-fifty when he stepped into the sunshine. His reputation was a tough guy strong man. He looks the part.”

  “I found six New York City addresses in his parole records. I don’t know where he’s living now, not having to report for a long time. His social security checks get directly deposited. The address on the account is a box in a Mail Boxes Etc. The same for his tax returns.

  “This stuff wasn’t lying around. It’s cost me a few favors, and I hate owing.” Driscoll put on a pair of readers sold in a dollar store and shuffled through the file. “After the war, Jake became involved with Meyer Lansky the Jewish Mafia wiz who set up the initial operations in Las Vegas and Havana. Lansky took a sabbatical to procure army surplus for the Holocaust survivors in Palestine in their battle to form a Jewish state. Rothstein was his right hand, using his network setup before and during the war. Lansky scoured the salvage yards, buying munitions and airplanes wherever he could find them, while Rothstein’s minions drove through Jewish neighborhoods in the cities collecting everything from old army boots and uniforms to souvenir German bolt action rifles. The Bureau was only concerned that he was going to use the weapons in the country and kept its hands off.”

  The waitress refreshed Driscoll’s coffee and placed the check on the table. Driscoll waited for the girl to walk away. “According to memos I’ve run across, there were serious disagreements between the Bureau and State,” Driscoll said, taking a slurp from his mug. “State was determined to prevent the shipments, and insisted that Hoover arrest Rothstein and his crews. Hoover hated the Arabs more than the Jews and ordered Rothstein be let alone.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows. “The Mafia having the goods on Hoover’s cross-dressing and his close relationship with his deputy Clyde Tolson have something to do with the hands off order?”

  “Who knows?” Driscoll wet his index finger with his lips and flipped through the papers. “One more thing you will find interesting. If State couldn’t stop Jake Rothstein’s collections in the United States, then they still could try to interdict the goods overseas. Mercenaries were hired to hijack and destroy the cargo ships. Take a guess who was in charge. I’ll save you the trouble, Preston Swedge.”

  “According to those acquainted with Preston, he was involved with oil issues while at the State Department,” Joe said. “What you’re telling me, doesn’t jive.”

  “The simple answer is, he was CIA with a diplomatic cover,” Driscoll said, tossing the tip for the waitress on the table. “I’ve got to be going. The stuff between Swedge and the Rothsteins happened a long time ago.” He put the documents back into his attaché case. “This country has new problems, like the radical Muslims who want to destroy New York City. You keep the pics.”

  Humbled, Joe said, “Thanks for your help.”

  “A bullet wound is worth only so much. We’re all square.” Driscoll put on his coat. “Next time you need something, don’t call.”

  Chapter 42

  WESTFIELD, NJ JANUARY 2001

  LIFE CAME DOWN TO WALKING THE AISLES of the reinvented Stop and Get It grocery in the middle of town. Gone were canned fried onions stacked to the ceiling for Thanksgiving green bean casseroles. Wide aisles with overhead mood lighting, shelves stocked with organic products, display cases of imported cheeses with names labeled in languages only translators at the U.N. would recognize, and employees in uniforms worthy of haute couture combined to make Stop and Get It a Yuppie destination.

  After twenty-one straight days of staking out Duke’s Deli from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. parked in the train station lot on South Avenue, Joe gave up. Playing hunches and trusting his gut instincts never before failed to pay off. He hit the lottery on his lucky numbers and risked his reputation by putting the fugitive homicidal maniac John List on America’s Most Wanted. He would have bet the ranch that it wasn’t by chance that Jake grabbed a tuna sandwich at Duke’s the day Preston died—everyone has a favorite sub-shop, including octogenarian ex-cons. Joe didn’t believe Jake was living in Manhattan. The mail drop in Mail Boxes Etc. was a ruse. Jake was living in the area and one day he’d find him.

  Dr. Headcase said his depression was understandable given the circumstances. No Jake equaled no closure, and despite his denials, he missed Alenia. He should go to Arizona to see his daughter Emily and lay it on the line with Elaine. He controlled his future. If their marriage was over, he needed to face it. Did he want to move on or live in suspended animation?

  Joe circled aisle two. Six packs of imported and domestic beer beckoned, bringing his salivary glands to peak production. He jerked his hand away from a Beck’s cardboard handle. “My name is Joe and I’m an alcoholic” jabbed him in his conscience. It had been four days since the start of AA meetings and his last drink.

  Wandering through produce, he cut down aisle five. “My name is Joe and I need some pickles and tuna fish,” he chuckled to himself, grabbing four cans of albacore packed in water off the shelf.

  “Chunk light, solid white, in water or oil,” came from his left. “I never can make a decision, so I go to Duke’s for a sub.”

  Placing the cans in the cart’s jump seat, Joe turned to face a silver haired gentleman with the height of a professional basketball player. No coat was in sight on the coldest day of the winter. He wore a heavy beige gabled fisherman’s turtleneck sweater and a pair of well worn ‘60s style desert boots. From the mug shots provided by Driscoll, every crease, pockmark and freckle on Jake Rothstein’s face was burned into his memory. “Solid albacore in water is the only way to go,” Joe said. In the forty years since his parole photo was taken, Jake Rothstein hadn’t changed but for the silver mane. “Mr. Rothstein.”

  “Jake will do,” he said. “You’ve been looking for me. Freezing your ass off in that Volvo rattletrap had to be fun.”

  “Ringing my bell instead of playing cat and mouse would’ve saved me a boatload of trouble,” Joe said, gripping the five-iron.

  “How about a cup of coffee? I’m buying,” Jake said, moving out of the way of a woman with three kids hanging onto her shopping cart. “I’d say we go for a drink, but I know you’re on the wagon.”

  Joe wondered what other personal info Jake had, chasing the thought that he had been tailed by the suspect he was searching for. Jake had the advantage and Joe knew it. “Let’s go.”

  They walked to the coffee bar in the rear of the store. Jake ordered two regular coffees and found a bistro table away from a keyboard player pounding out a Billy Joel song to the delight of the mostly female latte drinkers.

  “Why did you leave the sandwich?” Joe asked, carefully taking a sip through the plastic lid.

  Jake maneuvered his legs under the short table. “I got rattled.” He wiped his nose with a napkin. “Swedge was grabbing his chest, gasping for air, and pressing the button on the pendant around his neck as the mailman was shoving his delivery through the slot. I knew when I got out the back door, leaving the sub would become a problem.”

  “Why run?”

  “I’m an ex-con, it’s a tough habit to break.” Jake removed the lid and slurped an inch off the near black coffee. “They never put in enough milk.”

  “It was a game with Preston, wasn’t it?” Joe asked.

  Jake laughed. “At first, I traveled in from the city to bust his chops. It was tricky when his wife was alive. After she passed, I took an efficiency apartment in scenic Garwood to screw with his mind.
I’d get right behind him in the bank, in the grocery store, and even at the town council meetings he loved so much.”

  Garwood, a blue collar town with multiple unit housing, bordered Westfield. It was an ideal location for a single guy to lose himself. Joe had shown the mug shots in the only gin mill in the borough and the mom and pop stores on the one block business district, but not to the Garwood cops who wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. Hard feelings refused to die after Joe refused to drop DUI charges against a Garwood detective who had sideswiped four parked cars outside Westfield High during school hours. “Why didn’t he give you what you wanted?”

  “He was a hard ass,” Jake said, throwing up his ham-hock size hands. “I guess deep down, I’m glad he didn’t. He was my raison d’être as the French say.” His eyes followed a top heavy brunet. “I assume you’ve got them.”

  Joe nodded. “Amazing stuff. You’re mentioned a few times.”

  “Why in the world did you get involved?” Jake asked, pouring a splash of cream into the muddy brew.

  “My father hammered into me that shit just doesn’t happen. Preston was bugged out of his mind for a reason, and I couldn’t resist finding out why.”

  Jake’s neck descended into the turtleneck as he hunched his shoulders. “I waited damn near forty years to get my brother’s journals and that dried up old prune Ruth Ritchie hands them to you. Of all the weeks to take a cruise, I have to pick the one that they cleaned out his house.”

  Holding his cup to his lips, Joe was astounded that Jake made no mention of Preston’s diaries. “You can have them.” He tossed his cup in the garbage. “Follow me home.”

  “Too bad Alenia has gone to Florida with Harry,” Jake said with a sigh. “Some rack.”

  Joe kept Jake’s ’85 Corolla in the rearview mirror. The old guy was a card— on the hood “Man of Steele” was painted in blue Gothic letters. The mini convoy crossed through Midowaskin Park and passed the cemetery on Broad Street. Jake may have looked half his age, but he drove like Joe’s father in his last years. He slowed the Volvo to 20 mph to keep the gap to a hundred yards, passing through the Wychwood gate to meander into Joe’s driveway.