Israel

by Fred Lawrence Feldman

  “Yes,” Stefano mused, “I like that.” His gaze turned back to the picture window. “You take time to do this right, but you do it. Understand, Benny?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tony will get you what you need. A gun, whatever . . . Oh, and don’t forget what I told you about staying away from your Palestine friends. The FBI is already breathing down our necks. We don’t need any more trouble than we already got.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll see him to the door,” Bucci volunteered.

  Benny grabbed his coat and followed him out. Once they were in the upstairs hallway, out of earshot, Bucci started to complain. “He won’t leave the house, not since late Thursday night. I had to sleep over these last two nights. He says he wants to be near the bay, near his wife. He says he’ll be vulnerable if he comes away from the house.”

  “Jesus,” Benny shook his head as they went downstairs. “Louie Carduello must be in his seventies.”

  “He’s sixty-six, the same age as Stefano.”

  “He’s no informer,” Benny stated.

  “No shit.” Bucci looked pained. “But Stefano thinks he is, so Louie is history.”

  “This is nuts. Why do I have to do it?”

  “Don’t act the sap,” Bucci snapped. “Up until now you’ve stayed clean. You could go to the cops with a song and dance about how you were just a front man and do a deal for yourself by testifying against Stefano. We intend to exterminate any rats who decide to desert this sinking ship.”

  “Is it?” Benny asked, shocked. “Is it sinking?”

  Bucci shrugged. “What can I tell you? Things are out of hand. Stefano’s been greedy and cocky. He figured his good deeds during the war were enough to keep the government off his back. He was wrong. He knew that when the Navy double-crossed Luciano, but by then it was too late to buy protection. Now the law is after him and he’s got nobody to turn to to get it called off.”

  “What about the syndicate?”

  “They’ll let him go down,” Bucci said. “It’ll make the D.A. and the Feds look good in the papers, and that’ll keep things quiet for a while. The other bosses will peacefully divvy up Stefano’s holdings among themselves.” He frowned. “Stefano is vulnerable at a thousand different points. We think his phones have been tapped since his days working with the Navy. The poor bastard thinks he can wipe out his betrayers, but it’ll never happen. There’s a whole bunch of little nobodies who’ll beg to testify against Stefano to save their own asses.”

  They were at the front door. Before Tony opened it he looked Benny straight in the eye and said, “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, this talk of ours doesn’t change anything, kid. You do have to do this; it’s what Stefano wants. You never loved him like I did. You coulda, but you didn’t. He’s stood by you, kid, and now you’ll stand by him. We’re all going to go down together if that’s the way it happens, or else you’ll go down first. I’ll see to that. Got it?”

  “Yeah.” Benny felt wretched. “Oh, God, how am I gonna get through this?”

  “You will because your life depends on it.” Bucci’s tone became oddly comforting. “Buck up, kid. You had your share of the good time. Now you gotta pay up.”

  “He’s gone crazy, you know.”

  Gemstones Bucci didn’t deny it. “He’s scared. He’s thinking about what they did to Luciano. If he gets deported like that everything that he spent his life building will vanish. He’s crazy, all right. He’s scared out of his mind.”

  “So I’m to murder somebody on the orders of a crazy man?”

  “Not just a crazy man,” Bucci corrected him, “but Stefano de Fazio. Maybe he’s been driven crazy. Maybe so am I, but that won’t make us any less lethal if you cross us.”

  Chapter 61

  There was nothing much left for Danny Herodetzky and the student volunteers to do. The instruction manuals had long since been cut and pasted; the contraband had been shipped. That was just as well, for Benny Talkin had made it clear that he could no longer help get the stuff out.

  In Palestine the Zionist leadership’s focus had long since switched from the trickle of arms and machinery coming out of America to the huge lots of ready-made munitions available in Europe. Here in the States activity was pretty much limited to fund-raising and managing legal shipments of nonmilitary goods.

  Since the UN vote for partition and the resulting headline-grabbing violence that had erupted in Palestine, the public had developed a heightened awareness of what was going on in that part of the world. This made many influential Jews very wary.

  Truman would be running for re-election in 1948. He had so far been generally sympathetic to Zionism and nobody wanted to stir up controversy over the administration’s inability to crack down on the “dual loyalties” of America’s Jews. This nasty dual loyalty business had come up before when Palestine-bound contraband was seized, and the Jewish establishment was sensitive to it.

  Danny waited until the middle of December, when his sister would be in Canada with Herschel and they would be unable to stop him, to ask his contact at Lion Airways to give him a flying assignment. As it turned out, Milty needed very little persuasion; he had a cargo plane, a DC-3, parked at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

  All over the world aircraft purchased with Institute funds were being shuffled about like chessmen in a desperate attempt to keep them from being impounded by local authorities. Right now in the States the prediction was that a storm was brewing. Rumor had it that the State Department was lobbying Truman to expand the munitions embargo to include commercial planes.

  This meant Lion Airways had to get its planes out of the U.S. if they ever were to reach Palestine. The DC-3 at Teterboro was short a copilot. Danny was not rated to fly a big twin-engined craft, but as he himself pointed out to Milty, he was a pilot, his passport was in order and he was ready to go.

  After a few moments of fidgety indecision Milty said he would make the arrangements. Danny was to report to the Lion office in New Jersey in forty-eight hours.

  Danny went back to his boarding house in the Village and told his landlady he would be leaving. He packed his bag and settled down to write three letters.

  The first two were short and to the point. They would go to Benny Talkin and Herschel Kol. The third letter was much longer. In it he expressed things he’d been yearning to say but had been keeping bottled up for a long while. This third letter would go to his sister Rebecca.

  A few hours before his departure he grabbed his bag and visited his father. He and Abe went upstairs for privacy. Danny, sitting beside his father, held the old man’s gnarled hands in his own, and explained where he was going.

  Abe listened quietly. When Danny was finished, he said, “Thank God you missed the last war, but now you must go out of your way to fight in Palestine?”

  He spoke without rancor, however; Danny was glad the strife between them had long ago been banished. “It’s a chance for me to fly, Pop.”

  “Does your sister know you’re going?”

  “Yes,” Danny lied. He felt bad about it, even though his letter would be waiting for Becky when she returned from Canada. “I told her, and while she is naturally worried about me, she gave me her blessing.”

  Abe nodded. “Well, your sister has been very active in Zionism.”

  “It’s not that I want to leave you, Pop. I’ll miss you . . .”

  “I know. What do you think, I don’t know my own son? The other day, cleaning out the closet, you know what I found? That big box of airplane comics you used to read. Your school books, your Bible, that’s what they were to you. You know what else? I flipped through those books and began to read one. Yes, me! Maybe if you remember to write me when you can, we can discuss what’s going on in them.”

  “Tailspin Tommy is the best one, Pop,” Danny murmured, deeply touched.

  “Tailspin Tommy. In my opinion the best is Tailspin Danny.”

  “I love you, Pop.”

  “This is the second tim
e my heart has been broken by a dear son going away from me to Palestine,” Abe sighed. “Someday I’ll go just to see what is the big attraction.”

  The Lion Airways building at Teterboro was a mostly unheated shack furnished with a file cabinet and a rickety folding card table and four chairs. When Danny got there, the pilot was hopping up and down in place, trying to keep warm and the navigator was busy filling in the flight plan. They would be going via fuel stops in Canada, Greenland and Ireland to an airfield outside Paris. The French, embarrassed over the Vichy government’s anti-Jewish policies, were disposed to let a few Palestine-bound planes at a time stop over for repairs and modifications.

  In Paris Danny would make contact with a Haganah operative who would get him to Rome and eventually into Palestine. Danny had been told that a flying job awaited him there.

  “You ever fly one of these Goonies?” the pilot asked when he and Danny were settled in the cockpit.

  Danny looked around. There was rust all over the instrument panel. Half the throttle sticks were missing their knobs, and the cracked lens of the radio compass was stuck together with peeling cellophane tape. “No, sir.”

  The pilot shrugged. “No big deal. You’ll catch on. And scratch that ‘sir’ stuff. Sam’ll do.”

  He played the valves, selectors and taps with the deft touch of a musician, and eventually the big engines grudgingly coughed to life. As they began to taxi it sounded as if every rivet in the fuselage was squealing in protest. The pilot got airborne in much the same coaxing, gentle method that Danny had used some hours earlier to escort his father up the stairs to the apartment.

  Once they were on their way, Sam began to explain how to work the flaps and what Danny would have to keep an eye on when Sam’s nap time came around. “Hey, you listening to me, kid?”

  “Sure, I am.”

  “Then wipe that shit-eating grin off your face. It’s hard to talk to a guy who looks like he’s getting laid.”

  Chapter 62

  Toronto

  The headlines of the Sunday newspaper told of the British refusal to supply escort protection to Jewish supply convoys trying to travel Palestine’s main roads. The beleaguered Jewish quarter of Jerusalem was attempting to survive on the meager supplies that were making it past the Arab blockade lines.

  The Arab strategy was simple: starve the Jews until they were forced to evacuate their holdings and the entire issue of partition would be moot. The British were also advising evacuation as the Jews’ best protection, even as they denied the convoys the right to carry firearms or armor their trucks, as such actions might be taken as provocation by the Arabs. About fifty Jews a week were dying in Arab ambushes of the convoys. The newspaper carried photographs of the burnt-out trucks and buses littering the Jerusalem road to Tel Aviv.

  Becky scanned the bottom half of the front page. A story there told of the street fighting going on along the Jaffa/Tel Aviv boundary.

  Shuddering, she set aside the evidence of carnage. Thank God her family was American, she thought, but what about Herschel? Last night during dinner he had told her he expected to return to Palestine as soon as this last phase of his gun project was completed.

  She’d been in Canada for a week, fulfilling her commitments to expand Pickman’s dealings with sympathetic Canadian manufacturers. They were robbing her blind, but Becky was in their debt for their support of Zionism. She stoically allowed them their due; these deals would not last forever, but still, she would have a hell of a time explaining to Phil Cooper why she was paying so much for Canadian goods.

  She glanced at the time: eleven-thirty. She’d promised to call her father at noon. As she waited for it to be time she thought about how disappointing her meetings with Herschel had been during the past week. He was in a frenzied state over his project when she arrived and had not once brought up their telephone conversation, not that Becky blamed him. He’d tried twice to break the ice. He would not try again, she knew. This time it was up to her.

  Once Herschel went home it was likely that she would never see him again. Against her will her eyes again strayed to the newspaper’s gruesome headlines. Face it, she ordered herself. Once he goes home, he’ll probably get himself killed.

  The realization shocked her. She felt moved to tears and at once ridiculed herself. Soon Herschel would go, and while she wished him well, she also wished he would go soon, even today. With him would go her heart’s longings and her hope. Then she might gain some measure of peace.

  It was time to call her father.

  “I’m very worried about Danny,” her father said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What kind of dumb question, eh, Rebecca? Don’t play games. This is serious business.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Becky? I thought—I mean, Danny said you knew.”

  The desk clerk rang up to say her visitor had arrived. When he got to her room he took one look at her and demanded, “So what’s the big problem? I got your message. What emergency? What’s going on?”

  “Shut up,” Becky snapped. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and since her telephone conversation with her father Becky’s fury had been building to fever pitch. “It was you who got my brother involved with Palestine, wasn’t it? I just know it was you! How could you?”

  “Hold it,” Herschel implored. He took off his overcoat and dropped in onto a chair. “Please, start from the beginning.”

  “Don’t take that goddamned patronizing tone with me, you double-crossing bastard. I spoke with my father earlier today. Danny has left for Palestine.”

  “I see.” Herschel looked glum. “Listen, I didn’t know about this. It is true that Danny and I have been working together for a long time, longer than you and I, as a matter of fact. I needed an American with technical training. It was Danny who masterminded the contraband past customs. It was Danny who introduced me to Benny Talkin—”

  “And in payment for all Danny has done for you, for all I’ve done for you, you talked him into volunteering to be killed in Palestine.”

  “Becky, calm down.” Herschel took a step toward her.

  “You just stay away,” she warned, maneuvering to put some furniture between them.

  Herschel nodded. “Just listen one minute. I didn’t entice Danny. It was exactly the opposite. I have consistently tried to talk him out of going.”

  “That’s a laugh.”

  “It’s true. Think a minute,” Herschel said. “Why would I want him to go when I need his help so much? The truth is, Danny is obsessed with the desire to be a fighter pilot. From the beginning your brother has demanded that I wangle him a flying job. He wouldn’t have helped me if I hadn’t promised. I’ve been stalling him ever since. Don’t you see, Becky? He’s sneaked off when neither of us was around to stop him.”

  Becky turned away, still angry, though she had to admit that that was most probably what had happened. It was just like Danny.

  “You should have told me, Herschel.”

  “I didn’t know he was your brother for a long while,” Herschel said, “not until Benny Talkin let it slip. You see, I didn’t know—still don’t know—Danny’s real last name.”

  “Stop it, Herschel.”

  “It’s true. We wanted to know as little as possible about each other. The work was extremely dangerous. Then, when Benny told me Danny was your brother, he immediately warned me to keep you two apart.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t know?” Herschel searched her face as he slowly advanced toward her. “He’s jealous of you, Becky. He wanted an accomplishment of his own to point to with pride.”

  “That’s a lie,” Becky said hotly. “You’re just trying to change the subject.” Herschel’s calm only served to refuel her rage. “He’s my little brother and I have a right to know what he’s up to.”

  “He’s a man, Becky, a man who has gone to fight for an important cause.”

  “Oh, that’s a laugh.” She fought against t
ears, furiously wiping her eyes. “I know the little creep. He’d fight for the goddamned Arabs if they’d let him fly.”

  Herschel smiled. “Lucky for me I met him first—and that I met his sister.”

  “Herschel, I’m so worried. It was enough for me to dread what you’d be confronting over there. Now I’ve got to worry about my brother as well.” She had to turn away again to get control of herself.

  “Becky, will you worry about me when I leave you?” The smug superiority was gone now. His tone was wavering and bashful. His hands touched her shoulders and seared her flesh through the fabric of her dress.

  “Of course I’m going to worry about you, but it’s different with Danny. He’s not as capable as you.”

  “You don’t know that, Becky.” His lips were almost touching her ear. “It’s true,” she stammered, finding it difficult to speak. “He’s just chasing a dream.” She felt Herschel’s lips against the nape of her neck.

  He pulled her close, enfolding her in his arms. His lips were upon hers; he was devouring her. His hands were everywhere on her body. He found the zipper to her dress and tugged it down, his fingers dancing along her spine.

  “I do love you, Becky,” his voice was husky, overflowing with plaintive longing. “Let me love you.”

  He moved upon her hungrily. Her breasts swayed as he caressed them. Her nipples swelled. He lifted her easily to carry her to the bed.

  She watched trance-like as he undressed them both, seeing only facets of him: his blue eyes, soft with love; the graceful arch of his broad, strong back as he searched out every part of her; his mouth as he nipped and licked at her tender inner thighs. A crimson flush of abandon spread from her breasts down her belly, reaching even to the juncture of her thighs, suddenly moist as she reached to stroke the rippled expanse of his stomach muscles, as she reached to draw him deep within her.

  His long strokes spread an exquisite sensation that overwhelmed her.