A Cobbler's Tale

by Neil Perry Gordon

  This time Pincus put down his knife to listen.

  “I’ve learned what we need to do. In fact, I’ve written a mission statement. Here, read this,” Mendel said, handing Pincus a paper.

  Pincus took a clean cloth from his pocket and polished his lenses. He placed the spectacles on the bridge of his nose and read:

  The Landsman Society of Krzywcza will provide:

  • A social structure and support system for all immigrants from Krzywcza.

  • Assistance in finding a place to live and work.

  • A search service for locating family members and friends.

  • Education on the politics and government of the United States.

  • Financial and/or emotional support to the families in need.

  • Proper Jewish burials in a duly organized cemetery.

  “This is excellent, Mendel. How do we get started?” Pincus asked.

  “If it’s okay with you, I’ll write a letter to Rabbi Shapira back in Krzywcza with information for families planning to emigrate to America. I’ll provide details instructing them that, after passing through customs at Ellis Island, they should make their way to the Lower East Side and find the cobbler shop at 97 Ludlow Street and see either Pincus or Mendel.”

  “This is brilliant, Mendel. Yes, please proceed.”

  Six months after its inception, the society had over twenty families as contributing members. Now that the Landsman Society of Krzywcza was financially sound, Pincus no longer needed to subsidize Mendel’s salary, since the dues provided enough income to pay him and cover some administrative expenses as well.

  Mendel took the role of treasurer and administrator, while Pincus became the president and the public face of the society. Pincus cherished his role as the man welcoming the anxious families upon their arrival to the New World.

  “I’m an important man now, Mendel,” Pincus would remind Mendel more than once.

  When the Torah scholar Saul Bloch and his family arrived in America, Pincus relished telling Saul that such a learned man might have trouble finding work in America.

  “After all,” Pincus said, “what can you do?”

  Pincus knew Mendel felt sorry for Saul, but he did not.

  “Perhaps I could ask for a few favors and try to find work for you,” Pincus offered.

  Saul said he was grateful.

  Pincus smiled and said, “I’m happy to help.”

  One day a letter from the rabbi came congratulating Pincus on his hard work in getting the society organized. His landsmen owed him recognition for such an achievement. And he should expect more members of the community to emigrate soon.

  “We need to buy land for the cemetery,” Mendel said. “I was talking with someone at shul who said we should look in Queens. We can buy a quarter-acre plot for very little money.”

  Soon Pincus, Mendel, and several other founding members of the Landsman Society announced the purchase of a plot of land inside the Beth David Cemetery in the town of Elmont.

  A few weeks later, a contractor was hired to build a wall to enclose the plot. At the main entrance, a beautiful black wrought-iron gate hung off two stone columns. On these columns were installed brass plaques that would forever proclaim the names of the Landsman Society’s founding fathers. And at the top of the names was that of the society’s president, Pincus Potasznik.

  CHAPTER 22

  CAPTAIN BERBECKI

  Clara sat alongside Shmuel and the Gorens waiting impatiently to see the police captain.

  “Please, Sergeant, our boys have not come home. It’s way past sundown,” Clara said to the officer behind the desk.

  “I apologize, Mrs. Potasznik, but Captain Berbecki is finishing up a few things. I am sure he will be out to speak with you soon.”

  Clara rose and approached the desk. “Tell me, Sergeant, do you have children?” she asked with a sudden surge of poise.

  “I have two daughters.”

  “How would you feel if one of your daughters hadn’t come home last night?”

  The sergeant leaned over his desk to speak in a voice not to be overheard.

  “Mrs. Potasznik, you must understand something about the captain. Have you ever heard of a Russophile?” he whispered.

  “What does that mean, he’s Russian?” Clara said.

  “It’s a political party that supports the Russians,” he said with disdain.

  Just as Clara was offering a grateful smile for the sergeant’s unexpected honesty and explanation for the long wait, the door to the captain’s office opened.

  “What’s the commotion?” Berbecki asked.

  “Captain, this is Mr. and Mrs. Goren, and I believe you know Clara Potasznik and Shmuel Beck,” the sergeant said.

  “Indeed I do. So, Mrs. Potasznik, is your boy in trouble again?”

  “We don’t know, Captain,” Clara replied. “Moshe and his friend Max have not come home. We’ve looked everywhere for them,” Clara said with tears now streaming down her face.

  “This is not a police matter,” the captain said firmly. “You can file a report here with the sergeant. We will alert our men when they arrive on duty in the morning. Now please go home. I’m sure these boys will eventually turn up.”

  “Captain, please, we need your help now, not in the morning,” Clara pleaded.

  “There’s nothing that can be done now. Go home, and I will have an officer stop by in the morning to see if the boys turned up,” Berbecki said.

  Just as Clara, Shmuel, and Goren turned to leave, the doors to the police station swung open and in burst Moshe and Max.

  “There has been a murder!” Moshe yelled.

  The boys stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and red-faced, waiting for a reaction.

  “Moshe, where have you been?” Clara asked. “We have been searching for you.”

  Max’s mother grabbed onto him and hugged him tightly. “Max, are you okay?”

  “Yes, we’re both fine,” Moshe assured them. “We were in the woods playing after school, when we saw two men tie someone to a tree.” Moshe paused. Tears filled his eyes.

  “What happened to the man tied up?” the captain asked.

  The boys looked at each other and Max said in a whisper, “They slit his throat.”

  The mothers gasped.

  “Did the murderers see you?” asked the captain.

  “Yes,” Moshe said. “We ran and hid in the caves. They searched for us but we had the best hiding place.”

  “Caves, what caves?” asked Max’s father.

  “Yes, I know the caves,” Berbecki said. “Very clever place to hide.”

  Clara wrapped her arms around Moshe, pulled him in tight against her, and asked, “What do you plan to do about this, Captain?”

  He looked at Clara and the boys before shaking his head and walking back into his office. He slammed the door shut, leaving Clara standing there, stunned.

  CHAPTER 23

  GORPATSCH RECRUITS JAKOB

  Jakob spent every day, except Shabbat, working at the cobbler shop. With Pincus working long hours in the back, Jakob had the front end to himself. This worked out quite well for his side business with Manny.

  A few times throughout the day, a “client” would make a drop. The shop provided a perfect cover for this illegal activity. The money easily hid inside the shoes, and along with a receipt for the repair or shine, Jakob provided a receipt for the cash as well.

  The extra traffic offered more work for Pincus. Sometimes shoes came back after being done just a day or two ago. Pincus would ask, “Didn’t I just repair these shoes?”

  Jakob told Pincus, “Yes he just wants it buffed out a little more. He knows he has to pay.”

  Pincus did not ask many questions as long as the money kept coming in. The cobbler’s shop on 95 Ludlow became the busiest one in the Lower East Side. Both men enjoyed their sudden wealth.

  Pincus allowed Jakob to take care of the money, which he did happily. He arranged a weekly wire transfer of funds to
go to Clara through the Jewish-owned Jarmulowsky Bank on Canal Street.

  A few weeks later, Jakob decided that he would figure a way to casually meet up with Nita. Since she was worried that Gorpatsch would catch the two of them together, he needed to find a way to see her without detection. The only place he knew where she would regularly be was the theater.

  So one evening, he tucked himself into the shadows of an alleyway directly across from the stage door and waited for the performance to end. The street flooded with light the moment the large doors swung open, and out stepped Nita. She exchanged kisses with a few fellow performers and stagehands and wished them a good evening. As she turned to walk in the opposite direction, Jakob emerged from the shadows and called out her name.

  Startled, she looked over and saw him. “You frightened me. What are you doing, lurking around?”

  “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know how to find you,” he said as he approached.

  “Congratulations, you’ll make a fine detective. Why don’t you work for the police?”

  “Don’t be mad at me, Nita. I just want to see you,” he said, putting his hand around her waist and pulling her body against his.

  “Is that so?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, kissing her.

  She pushed him away. “Not here, Jakob. Meet me tomorrow after the performance and take me out. I don’t like being accosted in the street like this.”

  Every night since, Jakob had waited for Nita outside the stage door. Sometimes they would share a sandwich at Katz’s or a drink at a pub. But he wanted to do something special, take her to a fancy place. One of Manny’s clients had told him to take her to Luchow’s. He said it had an indoor tropical garden room with giant palm trees. Jakob never heard of a palm tree, but it sounded perfect.

  He decided that he needed a new suit to impress Nita. With Gorpatsch as his competition for her heart, Jakob needed to look good. In the newspaper, he had seen an advertisement for men’s suits. The headline read: “The Edwardian Fashion Sack Suit.” Four drawings of men in brown, black, and gray suits filled out the full-page ad. They called the style double-breasted, a term Jakob did not know. But he intended to find out.

  After closing the shop, Jakob told Pincus he had something to do. He walked down Ludlow and turned west on Delancey on his way to Walter’s Men’s Clothing Store. The store windows had mannequins dressed in the same Edwardian-style suits he had seen in the paper.

  Jakob made the thirty-minute walk to Luchow’s feeling like a peacock dressed in the latest men’s fashions. He sensed all eyes turning toward the handsome man in the double-breasted gray tweed suit, over a crisp white shirt, a black tie with white polka dots, and a gray suede hat wrapped with a two-inch band of black satin.

  They decided upon dinner at seven. Nita told Jakob that she would meet him there.

  “I can come pick you up,” he suggested.

  She insisted on meeting him. Even after several weeks of dating, she still had not disclosed her home address. Jakob suspected this was because Gorpatsch had her place under surveillance.

  He paced the sidewalk in front of Luchow’s, looking for Nita in each motorcar that pulled up to the curb. Elegant guests emerged, all in fancy dress, and entered the restaurant. Jakob pulled on the chain attached to the gold watch he had just purchased to check the time again. It was 7:20. Was she coming?

  The glare from the setting sun prevented Jakob from seeing the vehicle at first. Blocking the sun with his palm, he noticed the white Buick Model 10 Touring Sedan, and waving from its back seat was Nita. Jakob swallowed hard at the sight.

  The motorcar pulled up to the curb. Jakob stepped up to open Nita’s door before the driver could jump out to perform the task.

  Nita smiled at Jakob. “Don’t you look handsome?”

  Jakob could only mutter a meager, “Thanks.”

  “Well, Jakob, how do I look?” she asked.

  Nita wore a silk outfit in navy blue accented with white borders that cascaded in alternating layers. The tailoring of the fabric crossed dangerously low, nearly exposing the upper portion of her breasts, then draped down to follow the curves of her hips and tapered to a narrowing at the ankles.

  Jakob stood staring, his jaw hanging, saying nothing.

  “Jakob, I asked you a question.”

  “Oh, oh, you look amazing! I mean beautiful, elegant,” he stammered.

  “Thank you, Jakob. Please take me inside now.”

  With Nita on his arm, Jakob nervously observed the eyes of the room taking in the handsome couple. The maître d’ escorted them to their table next to one of the palm trees Jakob had heard about.

  Jakob woke the next morning, alone in his bed. The only sound he heard was Pincus’s snoring a few feet away. What a night—but she still refused to let me go back to her place, he lamented. But the kiss they’d shared, right in front of Luchow’s, had provided compensation and a smile.

  Jakob dressed and walked down the four flights of stairs and out the front door. As he looked down at his chain for the shop’s key, he felt a strong hand shove him from behind. Before he knew what was happening, he was in the carriage of a black, horse-drawn wagon.

  Jakob found himself sitting next to two large men. In the passenger seat sat a mustached man with black eyeballs who turned his head and said, “It’s best to sit still, Mr. Adler.”

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked, but got no reply—not had he expected one.

  A half-hour later, Jakob found himself being lifted twenty-two stories in an oversized birdcage his abductors called an elevator. The loud, clanging contraption squeaked and groaned its way to a halt, and the men stepped off. Jakob felt the hand of one of the goons pushing him down a hallway toward two large doors with a small sign that said:

  GORPATSCH INVESTMENTS

  Ah, Gorpatsch. I should have known, thought Jakob.

  “Take off your shoes,” the mustached man instructed, pointing to a chair.

  The men removed their shoes and then walked across a plush white carpet. Jakob smiled taking a careful step on the soft floor covering. The pushy hand found its place again between Jakob’s shoulders. This time, he turned and swatted it off.

  “Enough of that,” Jakob warned.

  A young brunette with beautiful brown eyes sat at a desk next to another set of closed doors. She looked up at the men and said, “Go right in. He is expecting you.”

  “After you, Mr. Adler,” offered the mustached man.

  Sitting behind a magnificent, wood-carved desk sat Leo Gorpatsch. He looked as dapper as ever, even without his suit jacket. The black suspenders and tie over a crisp white shirt outlined his slim torso. His neatly trimmed red beard was the only color in his black-and-white attire. The wall behind provided a dramatic backdrop, a series of large windows with an amazing perspective looking up Broadway. As he admired the view, Jakob found himself wondering how many men Leo Gorpatsch had threatened in this room.

  “Ah, Jakob. It is so good to see you again. It has been a while since we first met back on the train on my way to Berlin,” said Gorpatsch rising from his desk.

  “You can leave,” Gorpatsch told the mustached man and the two goons.

  As the men exited, Gorpatsch continued. “Quite a view isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s amazing. This is the tallest building I’ve even seen.”

  “It’s one of the tallest buildings in the city,” boasted Gorpatsch. “Did you also notice the building’s unique architecture?”

  “I didn’t really get a chance. Your men were in a hurry to get me here.”

  “Yes, they’re a bunch of morons. They take everything I say so literally,” he lamented. “They call this building the Flatiron because it looks like a clothes iron.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jakob.

  “It’s in the shape of a triangle. See how the walls taper in behind my desk?” He gestured. “This is the top part of the triangle,” he explained.

  “Oh yes, I see. That’s i
nteresting.”

  “Sit down, Jakob. You are wondering why you’re here,” Gorpatsch said with a smile.

  Jakob nodded and took a seat.

  “When we met on the train, you impressed me, at first,” Gorpatsch said.

  What does he mean, at first? Jakob thought.

  “I appreciated your attention to my son Simon. That’s why I wanted to help you, and I gave you Manny’s card.” He paused and looked directly at Jakob. “Now I understand that you and Manny have met, and you have an arrangement.”

  “Yes, we met,” Jakob said cautiously.

  “That’s very good. But there was something that you said to me back on that train that got me thinking. You said you were from Warsaw and you had worked for a moving company. Is that right?”

  Jakob nodded.

  “Moments before boarding the train in Warsaw, I received a message. One of my guys ran to the station to catch me before the train left. He told me that Ben Fein had been murdered.” He paused. “Some sort of disagreement had led to a fight in his office with someone named Josef Horowitz, who killed Ben and fled.”

  Jakob felt his face flush and thought, There’s no way I can deny this. He sees right through me.

  “I didn’t mean to kill Ben, it was an accident,” he confessed.

  Gorpatsch stared at Jakob but said nothing.

  “I’m guessing he worked for you,” said Jakob.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “So now what?” asked Jakob nervously.

  “So now you work for me, Jakob. You actually do already. I know about the arrangement with Manny. But I need more from you,” Gorpatsch said, leaning against his desk. “I don’t blame you for Ben’s death. Things happen. Let’s turn the page.”

  Yes, let’s, Jakob thought, though he knew Gorpatsch would want more in exchange for his forgiveness.

  “The first time we met, I liked you, Jakob. The way you played with my son gave me a sense of your character. I need men like you in the organization.” Gorpatsch now took his turn at the bank of windows wrapping around the north end of the office.