Jake took a long look at the house under construction on the former Swedge lot. Snow and ice caused a complete secession of work leaving the 4,000 square foot monster half framed. “They should’ve kept the old girl,” Jake said as he negotiated Joe’s ice laden walk.
“It’s the Westfield disease. Tear ’em down and build ‘em bigger,” Joe said, firmly griping the railing on the front steps.
Joe kicked fallen icicles off the threshold and unlocked the door. Roxy, waiting in the entranceway, gave Jake a wag of her tail. “Like old home week,” Joe said. “She’s normally wary of strangers until she gets to know them. How many times did you let yourself in?”
Jake ignored the question. “Why do still have him?” he asked. Preston’s face affixed to the top of the coat tree smiled from the dining room. Jake had circumvented the security system and searched the house on a half-dozen forays.
Roxy, drooling, stared at Jake’s pocket where a trove of treats had pacified the beast. “I ask again, how many times?” Joe said.
“You don’t want to know,” Jake replied, giving Roxy a piece of kibble.
“And all the time I thought it was mice trashing the place,” Joe quipped.
“I was respectful,” Jake said, sounding wounded. He followed Joe who walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light. It was 3:30, the sun was setting.
Joe removed a shoebox hidden in the rear of a corner cabinet. “While I’m getting the diaries, take a gander at these.” He placed the box on the kitchen table and disappeared down the basement steps.
Jake sorted through the box containing maps and other military paraphernalia found in Preston’s basement. He was holding the map detailing the route to the I. G. Farben plant dated 20 August 1944 when Joe returned. “The navigator on Paul’s plane had one like this?”
“All navigators at the mission briefing received one,” Jake said. “I had these in the wall behind the hot water heater if you’re wondering.” He handed Jake the diaries.
Recognizing Paul’s school composition books, Jake reverently caressed their covers. “What are these?” he asked, holding Preston’s leather bound journals.
Joe lit a Marlboro. “They’re Preston’s, covering the years ’38 to ’44, the same as your brother’s. I’m surprised you didn’t know about them.” He had just thrown four aces on the table. From the look on Jake’s face, the hand he was holding was a pair of deuces.
“If you don’t mind,” Jake said, his hands tremoring imperceptibly. He began to read.
“I’ve got a few things to do in my office.” Joe signaled for Roxy to follow. “Don’t steal the silverware.”
“Stainless crap,” Jake grunted. Roxy snuggled at his feet. “One heck of a watchdog. At least the Russian broad screamed.”
Joe settled at his desk, working on the required reading list for a course at Rutgers. A sob story written on Dr. Headcase’s letterhead aided his sweet talking an admissions counselor into reinstating him. The spring session would begin in a week.
Clicking of Roxy’s nails on the hardwood broke Joe’s concentration. Two hours had passed. Jake stood in the doorway, holding a can of ginger ale with the dog at his heels. He had removed the turtleneck. An athletic undershirt accentuated his chiseled upper body. “I helped myself.” Gone was his Ted Steele tough guy persona. “McCloy played us like a concert violinist handling a Stradivarius.” He sat on the couch, flexing his arthritic knees. “I was a naïve schmuck to think we could have outsmarted the powerbrokers. McCloy knew when we farted. Maybe the lips I thought were sealed, weren’t.” He threw up his hands. “Who knows?”
Roxy changed sides and sat in the cutout of the desk. “Playing with the big boys is and will always be rough.” Joe shut down his computer. “Did you get an official explanation concerning Paul’s death?”
“We received a note from his commanding officer about how Paul was such a great pilot and a credit to his country, and his wallet with a few personal effects. Nothing else. In Sing-Sing, I met Otto Schrup, the B-17 waist gunner who accused Vinnie of shooting down one of their own planes. Schrup was in the joint for a piddly confidence scheme. If a guy ever was a bullshitter, he was the ultimate.
“Schrup was in the upper layer of the formation. Smoke was coming out of two engines on Paul’s plane, and he fell behind the rest of the group. One of the escort fighters followed Paul to provide defense against enemy attack. Clark Johnson flew that fighter and claimed a Messerschmitt came out of the sun, catching the Brooklyn Avenger with a burst of machine gun fire. Schrup swore there were no enemy fighters in the area. Without proof that Johnson was lying, the episode was swept under the rug.” Jake was breathing hard. “In my wildest dreams, I never thought that he would get shot down by one of our own planes.” Jake wiped his eyes with his undershirt. “You still have the Johnny Walker in the bottom drawer?”
Joe handed him the bottle of scotch. “Did Shep Peterson ever get in touch?”
“Sent a letter that clued me in on Paul’s missing diaries,” Jake said, pouring more than a tumbler into the near empty soda can. He took a long sip and placed a forearm over his eyes.
Joe removed a pack of cigarettes from the center desk drawer. Puffing on the Marlboro, he gave Jake time to compose himself. “Dave Cohen fed me nothing but bullshit.”
“Nah, not all.” Jake took another pull on the ginger ale scotch mixture. “He might have left out a few details, but the background was factual.” A pained smile broke across his face. “I was sitting a table away and heard the entire conversation. Dave waited for my signal. We learned as much as we needed, and his leaving like he did, I figured would get into your head. We succeeded on all points.”
“Sticking me with the bill was your idea?” Joe asked, taking the last puff on the cigarette down to the filter. He tossed the remains into the coffee can on the desk.
“Dave never needs to be coached on being a skinflint.” Jake poured two more fingers of scotch into the can. A ruddy complexion crossed his face.
Joe propped his leg on the desk. “What about your family? Dave left me hanging.”
Jake swirled the can, now one-hundred percent alcohol. “My father passed away right after Paul married Sarah. Alex was conceived in Florida, the last leg of Paul’s training mission before flying to Italy. Vinnie had the inside shake on their schedule, and I got Sarah a flight to the Sunshine state for nothing. My brother never had the chance to hold him. This is going to sound like a soap opera, but my mother was stricken with a heart attack when she read the telegram from the War Department. She didn’t last two months. Sarah and Alex lived with me in the Brooklyn apartment because her parent’s place was too small.”
Jake cleared his throat. “The Greenbaums didn’t own a car and took a bus to the Catskills for their summer vacation. The bus got creamed in an accident. Luckily, Alex was sick and Sarah didn’t make the trip. Her parents, aunt and uncle, and her cousin were crushed to death.”
“The gal you got off the St. Louis?”
“Yeah, Minnah the whiner. Sarah was left with no one but me. A couple of years later, she met and married an engineer who worked for General Electric and moved to Schenectady. Her last name is Blumberg. Sam died in 1972. A damn good man. He raised Alex as his own. Their daughter Phyllis is named for Paulie. My nephew became a physicist and works for NASA. Phyllis is a pediatrician. Both have two kids.” Melancholy had taken over his voice.
Joe scooted his chair to the bookcase and removed Winston Churchill’s The Hinge Of Fate. From the mid-section of the book, Joe plucked the two photos rescued from the scrum in Preston’s basement. “Alex?” He handed one of the photos to Jake.
“This is Alex’s bar mitzvah picture,” Jake said, bolting upright. “Where did the prick get this?”
“I don’t know.” Afraid of Jake’s reaction, Joe hesitated handing over the picture of the young girl. “Do you have an idea who this is?”
Jake held the photo at arms length. “It looks like Alex’s daughter who is a spitting
image of his wife Rebecca.” He looked stone cold at Joe. “Is it possible?”
“I suppose it is. Preston’s daughter came cross country to attend Columbia. Where did Alex go to college?”
“You know the answer, Columbia.” Jake flipped the pictures onto Joe’s desk.
Joe raised an eyebrow. “What are the odds that Preston’s daughter would marry the son of the man he murdered?”
“I’m getting too old for shit like this.” Jake took the last slug left in the can. “Drive me home. I’m too blitzed to get behind the wheel.”
“When we’re finished,” Joe said, lighting a second cigarette. “Did Sarah ever learn the truth?”
“Paul died in combat like a bunch of guys who lived in the neighborhood.” Jake looked down at the floor. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth.”
“Among the papers I hauled out of his basement were canceled checks made out to the local temple and drawn for money orders. All were written at the time of the year when the Jewish high holidays fell. That in itself piqued my curiosity.”
Jake nodded his head indicating that Joe was on the right path. “Sarah began receiving checks in 1960. At first, I didn’t know why, but after putting two and two together, I figured that they were coming from Swedge. I told them my inquiries led down a dead end.” He drained the can. “It’s news to me that he was sending money to the temple. Just proves even a low life can have some sort of conscience.”
“How was it that you held Paul out for placement with the Fifteenth Air Force? The truth about Auschwitz didn’t break until June 1944. He had been in the air force since his graduation in 1942. That’s a long time to evade action.”
“Despite what the history books say, the Jewish political wing in the United States was in contact with the Jewish Committee operating out of Geneva. We received reports from all over Europe and knew about the deportations. The Nazis had a plan to make the soon to be dead seem like they were in re-settlement villages, making them mail postcards to their families still living in the ghettos. Having our people transferred to the 8th Air Force in England to bomb Germany cities would have proven nothing.” Jake’s head bobbed as he studied Joe’s Wall of Honor. “Impressive.”
“You should have received a few medals for what you did for the Israelis,” Joe said.
Jake, glassy-eyed, looked at Joe. “Where did you hear that?”
“I know a guy in the FBI. Your file is chockfull of running guns to Palestine while Preston was working for the State Department trying to stop the flow of supplies to the fledgling Jewish army.”
“Swedge’s name circulated among various Jewish groups working to break the British blockade. It was proposed to knock him off and make our job easier.”
“Why didn’t you?” Joe asked, repeatedly opening and closing the cover on his Zippo.
“Truman was leaning to support the creation of a Jewish state. If a representative of Uncle Sam was murdered, and the murder was traced back to an American Jew, Truman would have cut our legs off.” Jake stretched out on the couch. The scotch had hit with its maximum punch. “Why does it always come down to the same thing?”
“I don’t follow,” Joe said, reaching for the bottle of Johnny Walker.
“Don’t touch it,” Jake said, slurring his words. “I’m not finished killing my pain.” He drank from the bottle. “I’m referring to oil. It set policy then as it does today. People are willing to die sucking it from the ground, and many more are sacrificed to maintain the supply.” He closed his eyes.
Joe pried the bottle away from Jake. Holding the cap under his nose, he repeated the mantra, “My name is Joe and I’m an alcoholic.” He carried the bottle to the kitchen sink and poured it down the drain. “Son of a bitch.”
Chapter 43
WESTFIELD, NJ MARCH 2001
IT WAS 8:15 IN THE MORNING AND JAKE’S Corolla was in the detached garage set in the rear of the Garwood property on Spruce Avenue. Joe hadn’t seen or heard from Jake for almost three weeks. In their last conversation The Man of Steele said reading the diaries had ripped out his heart and put him in a “mood.” Joe lied when he told his new friend that he understood, wanting instead to smash him out of his funk. It wasn’t as though the diaries dumped new information on Paul’s death in his lap. It didn’t take a PhD in clinical psych like Dr. Headcase to know what Jake’s “mood” was about—for almost half a lifetime, Jake suppressed the fact that his plan for bombing the concentration camp had a snowball’s chance in Hell to succeed.
“The senile old fool,” Joe cursed as he began climbing an outside staircase. Repeated calls to Jake beginning at 6:00 went unanswered. His breath, steaming in the ten degree air, froze the hairs inside his nose. Winded, he paused on the second floor landing, looking up through the railing’s balusters to his target on the floor above. Dragging his leg, Joe counted away the next fifteen steps. Stumbling on the last riser, he crashed against the railing of the third floor wrap around porch.
A weathered, peeling gray door snapped open the width of its safety chain. “Go away. I bought from the Avon lady last week.”
“God damn it Jake, open the door,” Joe said, wanting to shove the muzzle of his Glock into Jake’s face. It was a scenario he fantasized over when he was hunting for the big man. “I’ve got verification of where Paul went down.”
The door closed and then re-opened. Jake, in his black workout shorts and sweatshirt with the sleeves cutoff, barred the threshold with his arm. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s freezing,” Joe said, doing the limbo under Jake’s arm. He stepped inside. This was his first foray into the twenty by twenty apartment that originally was the garret of a one family built by the president of Garwood’s largest employer in the early 1900s. The residence was converted to a three family when Garwood Metal Fabrication went bankrupt during the Depression.
Joe stood in the center of the space. The galley kitchen’s two burner stove hadn’t been updated since the Hoover administration. Doubling as a dining table, a simple pine desk held a computer, a large blue ceramic mug, one box of saltine crackers, a jar of grape jelly, and a three-quarter empty bottle of Chivas Regal. Two pairs of dungarees were draped over the foot of a standard bed Joe thought to be too short for its owner. Flowing wood hippie beads suspended over an alcove next to the kitchen failed to hide the toilet and stall shower. The lone piece of self-indulgence was black leather recliner positioned at arms length from a 13-inch television atop a red plastic milk crate.
“Comfortable…,” Joe said. His eyes widened as he guestimated the number of books sagging makeshift floor to ceiling shelves surrounding the periphery of the room. The titles ranged from Greek and Roman history to Euclidian geometry. “A thousand?”
“Twelve hundred and sixty three to be exact,” Jake said without emotion.
“Paul considered you a Renaissance man, he wasn’t lying,” Joe said, unzipping his coat. If Jake was made of steel, his superstructure was rusting. The man, who looked half his age less than a month before, now looked haggard and spent.
“Reading is a habit I picked up in the joint,” Jake said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Now what’s this business about Paul?”
“I’ve been trading e-mails with a Polish historian documenting crashes of American bombers on Polish soil,” Joe said, sitting on the recliner. “Mike Mulskawicz confirms the Brooklyn Avenger went down in a field twenty miles from Manowitz. The pastor of the local parish has the dog tags that were removed from the bodies. After the war, the Russians blocked all attempts to forward the tags to American representatives and were placed in a hiding.”
“Americans are buried all over Europe. What’s your point? I’m too old to travel to the only country where the largest of the concentration camps could have been built with nary a word of protest. The Poles didn’t need any incentives to shove their Jews into the ovens.”
“It means that we could bring him back if you want.”
“Of course I would wan
t him home,” Jake said, indignantly. “But how?”
“A colonel at the Pentagon assured me the Air Force will exhume the bodies and bring them back for DNA testing. After positive identification, Paul’s remains will be released.”
Jake powered up. “I’m hungry as a bear. Let’s go to breakfast.”
“I’ll have to take a rain check,” Joe said, “I’ve got a class at noon.”
Chapter 44
BROOKLYN, NY JULY 2002
“I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE,” Joe said to Kim Angreen, as he steered her Honda CRV through the narrow lanes of Mount Hebron Cemetery, the largest Jewish cemetery in New York City. Two-hundred thousand graves stretched as far as he could see. “This isn’t Westfield’s pastoral Fairview. It’s a tsunami of tombstones.”
Kim checked the card given out at the main entrance listing the location of the internment for Paul Rothstein. “Slow up,” she said, reading the address markers on the curb. “We’re looking for block 25, section D, line 9, grave 1. This is block 23. Keep going.”
Two hours of driving from Princeton to the borough of Queens had riled Joe’s nerves. Chewing a piece of Nicorette gum hadn’t cut into his urge for a cigarette since crossing the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. He wanted to jump out of his skin as they approached Coney Island in the Belt Parkway’s Brooklyn traffic. Lighting up in the “SUV for wimps” as he called Kim’s mini-truck was verboten.
“Funerals are still depressing even if the man of the hour has been dead for sixty-eight years. It’s times like this, a drink would be welcomed,” Joe said painfully. Six months of marriage had soothed the savage beast and kept him on the wagon. Exchanging cans of Bud for unsweetened ice tea translated to thirty pounds off the scale and four inches from his waistline.
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