Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

“I can imagine,” said Marlene, and they had another smile all around. “You were in criminal law?”

“Mainly, although in my day there wasn’t so much of this specialization.” After that, the usual exchange of stories, the big cases, how the practice of law had changed in Abe’s forty years at the bar, Marlene’s experiences at the D.A. The possibility of mutual acquaintances was explored, and there were, in fact, a number of these, judges, a lawyer or two. Marlene was aware of Jake Gurvitz as an interested presence, but he made no contribution to the conversation.

Curious, Marlene asked, “You’re not a lawyer, too, are you, Mr. Gurvitz?”

“Nah, I always tried to stay away from lawyers. I was with the bakers’ union. Retired.”

Marlene tried to imagine Jake in floury whites popping a tray of danish into an oven, and came up blank. As the daughter of a union plumber, Marlene knew something about the New York unions in the relevant period, and what sort of folks staffed their upper reaches. So, a “union” guy with expensive clothes, living in an uncontrolled apartment off Central Park West. And a lawyer practicing criminal in the same interesting period. It was worth a shot.

She turned back to Lapidus and asked, “I was wondering, speaking of courthouse people, did you ever run into Jerry Fein back then?”

A pause. She could hear the sounds of the hospital clearly, the distant televisions, the clinking of bottles, the muffled noise of rubber heels and rubber-tired carts. Abe’s smile faded and was replaced by a made-up one, and Jake’s face went into neutral. Did they exchange a look? Maybe not.

Abe sighed. “Jerry Fein. That takes you back. Oh, sure, I knew him, to say hi to, yeah, around the courthouse, you know. A real tragedy. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, his name came up in a case I’m working on, and I remembered the, you know, the, um, tragedy. So talking about the old courthouse. .”

“Uh-huh. Well, Jerry was a character, all right. Wore a pearl homburg in the winter, and on Memorial Day he switched to a straw boater. You could set your calendar by him. That was what they said. And then Labor Day, he’d show up with the homburg on again and fly the boater out his office window. Huh! There’s irony for you. The window. . Always beautifully dressed, the rest of it, he had a special way of folding his breast pocket handkerchief, four little points, perfect — ”

“Any truth to the rumor he was mobbed up?” Marlene cut in.

Lapidus frowned, and his voice became more animated. “What’re you talking, ‘mobbed up’? What does that mean? Look, the thirties, the forties, in the city, into the fifties, nearly any legal work you did you had some contact with, let’s say, elements. You work for garment people, furriers, trucking, unions, unions ! My God, tell her, Jake! It was pervasive. Pervasive . So, what-we should close down the criminal bar? And the cops, in those days, it was hard to tell them from the crooks, this was before Miranda was even born, forget Escobedo! Rubber hoses and worse. Frame-ups? They didn’t like you-pouf! You’re in Sing-Sing. So it was rougher. And we all, I mean the criminal bar at that time, the counselors, we all did things, let’s say, on the edge. But there were lines. Suborning witnesses, jury tampering, concealing evidence in major felonies: some crossed, some didn’t.”

“Was Fein a line crosser, do you think?”

He shrugged, and then straightened his shoulders and fixed her with an eye, and Marlene understood that he would have been a formidable courtroom presence.

“Marlene, the man is dead twenty-three years, what does it matter what he did and what he didn’t?”

“It could matter to his family, if it had to do with why he killed himself. He was disbarred, wasn’t he, just before? What was that about?”

He waved a hand-New York’s own getouttaheah gesture. “Oh, don’t get me started on that. It’s a long, long story; I’ll give you the short version. Jerry got a royal screwing. His partner set him up, that momser . You know what a momser is?”

“I believe it’s a person whose ethical development leaves something to be desired.”

Lapidus let out a laugh. “Ha! You I like! I’m trying to think of the case it was, that jury. Johnny Gravellotti, yeah, a big hoodlum, they hung him from a meat hook in the old Washington Market. Johnny Shoes they called him, also a sharp dresser. .”

“Johnny Shine,” said Jake Gurvitz.

Lapidus snapped his fingers. “Johnny Shine , right! Don’t listen to a word I say, honey, I’m losing my marbles. Johnny Shine, and they had Big Sally Bollano for it-there’s another sweetheart for you-and it was a tight one: good physical evidence, ballistics, a bloody shoe print, if you can believe it. The D.A., Garrahy at that time, was slavering. And the jury walks him on it. So, of course they figure tampering, intimidation. And Jerry was the lawyer. .”

“Wait a second, Fein was Sally Bollano’s lawyer?”

“Oh, yeah, for years. Him and Heshy Panofsky, the momser , that was his partner. Jerry did the courtroom work, Heshy handled the inside, the deals. They had another partner, Bernie Kusher, also a crook, but that’s another story entirely. So the D.A. investigates, and they find somebody got to a couple of the jurors, money changed hands. Something about an envelope with Jerry’s prints on it, with the money. I can’t recall. In any case they charged him with it, and what happens? Jerry pleads guilty, cops to it for a suspended sentence. Nobody could believe it. I mean, let me tell you, Gerald Fein was a fighter, a tiger in the courtroom, and he rolls over like a poodle. Of course, they disbarred him after that. Oh, it was a complete pile of crap, excuse my French.”

“Why? Because Fein wasn’t the kind to tamper?”

“No, because Heshy was in charge of tampering at that particular firm, and everybody knew it. You want to know the kicker in this? Heshy Panofsky is now the Honorable Herschel B. Paine of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.”

“ That’s Judge Paine?”

“You know the man, I see.”

“Of course. They’re touting him for the next opening on the Appellate Division.”

“I don’t doubt it. After Jerry left, Heshy changed his spots, he fixed his name, he went with a white-shoe firm downtown, lots of political connections. . believe me, honey, some things you don’t change so easy. He’s still a momser .”

“So, wait-why do you think he set up Fein to take the fall?”

Lapidus started to answer, but at that moment, in walked Selma Lapidus, beaming, towing a forty-ish man wearing the hospital greens and the confident jock-like air of a surgeon.

“A complete success,” announced Selma, as if she had handled the knife. “And everyone, this is Dr. Baumholtz.”

Selma kvelled, Baumholtz pronounced upon the hip replacement and departed, the visitors all marched off to Sophie’s room. They were shocked at the way she looked, tried not to show it, failed, covered this with jokes, and then Marlene’s beeper sounded and she went off to call in. It was from Osborne, a complicated matter involving security at the Chelsea clinic, and when she returned to Sophie’s room, the old lady was sleeping and the visitors had all gone home.

Leaving, Marlene considered the Abe and Jake show she had just enjoyed. Some information, delivered in a tone meant for casual shopping of secondhand gossip, and there was that maybe look between the two men, and Jake’s silence. Silence while the lawyer talked-it felt to her like something he was used to, professionally. Yeah, she would talk to Abe Lapidus again, for sure, but only after she had accumulated more information on the big questions: Why had Gerald Fein rolled over for a trumped-up charge? Why had Vivian Fein waited over twenty years to try to clear her father’s name? There was no point in talking to someone like Abe unless she knew enough to know if he was lying to her or not.