Robert Tanenbaum - Act of Revenge

“Were you interviewed by the police at the time?”

“Me? Nah, I told you, we weren’t that close. But they did people I knew, and it was naturally, such a thing, a subject of discussion around the courthouse. No one could believe it, no one!”

“Except Panofsky.”

“Aha!” Abe raised a finger in the air, as if he had discovered something. “Smart girl. Except Panofsky.”

“But eventually everyone went along with the suicide finding, nobody objected.”

Abe sighed. “Darling, the family accepts it, the law partner accepts it, what can you do? We all figured there was stuff, disgraceful things, we didn’t know about. You know, back then some people wouldn’t say the word ‘cancer.’ This other business, what you see on the talk shows, people wouldn’t even confess to their closest friends.”

“But his secretary didn’t accept it, did she?”

“Oh, well, that was different, the poor woman! See, that was Jerry again, he would make people love him. Charming, even if you would have lunch with him, a casual thing, you would go away thinking what a guy! And to tell the absolute truth, you would think you were closer to him than you really were. Anyway, Jerry took in this kid, Shirley, just out of high school, a nice girl, plain but nice, very efficient. She was with him years, never married, devoted, totally, you know? And, you know how it is, that kind of thing, she thought the sun shone out of his tuchas . So it was a killer for her when he died, she couldn’t understand it. And she would go around with the appointment book, showing it to everyone, to prove that he couldn’t have done what they all said he did, jump like that. Panofsky, the momser , threw her out right after the funeral. He didn’t have the balls to do it himself even, is what I heard, he got Jimmy Nobile to do it.”

“Who?”

“Nobile. They called him the office manager, but he was a, what they call a gofer, he did a little investigation work, collections, like that. If he’s still alive, he’d know a thing or two.”

“Any ideas on where to look for him?”

Abe shrugged. “No, no idea. You know, after I said to you, I mean there in the hospital, I could help you on this, I got to thinking, Who really knows the story? And it occurred to me, the people who know if there even is a story, they’re either dead or they probably won’t talk. Panofsky-”

“What’s the book on him? I don’t like that he was the only one who thought Fein was despondent.”

Abe leaned back and rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t get me started on Heshy Panofsky! What can I say? You know the man from the bench. You know what he looks like, how he acts?”

“You mean arrogant?”

“Yeah, not unusual among judges, but Heshy was arrogant when he was a pissy little shyster with a walk-up office on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn. There was some family connection, in-laws or something, I don’t know what, but in the early fifties it must have been, Jerry took him into the firm. And he found out-and you know, this was a litigating firm, pardon the expression, balls of brass, sue their ass, that kind-anyway, Jerry found out that Heshy was from hunger in the courtroom. It was all front with Heshy. It came time to put it on the line, he shut down. So, and this shows you what a decent guy Jerry was, he still kept him on. Him and Bernie Kusher took the court work, and Heshy became the fixer.”

“What kind of fixer?”

“Oh, you know-traffic tickets, drunk driving, getting a contractor’s license. He knew all the pols, all Tammany back then. The machine. Heshy moved a lot of fat brown envelopes around town, and a lot of the money wasn’t so clean, if you catch my drift.”

“Panofsky supplied Mob cash to politicians?”

Abe smiled. “You didn’t hear it from me, darling. Which is why it was so ironic and so fishy that when somebody finally got caught moving one of those fat envelopes, it was Jerry and not Panofsky. Makes you think, don’t it?”

“Panofsky framed Jerry?”

“Go and prove it.”

“Jesus! How did he ever get to be a judge?”

Another smile, this one more patronizing. “Darling, listen to what you’re saying. I told you he had the politicians by the you-know-whats. What, you think you get to be a judge because of your legal brilliance?”

“I stand corrected. Okay, forget Panofsky for now, who else besides this Nobile would know something?”

“Well, that’s like I say, the problem. Mulhausen the cop, but he’s dead. The judge in the tampering case, Mohr, and the prosecutor, Currie, also both dead. Bernie Kusher, who knows? Probably dead already-”

“Tell me about Bernie. He was the third partner, right?”

“Right, Bernie Kusher, the third partner. He defended Jerry in the tampering case, or he would’ve if Jerry hadn’t copped out. Another character. Bright, tough, a damn good lawyer. Very close to Jerry, very close: they went to Columbia Law together, started their practice together. I didn’t know him well, but the pair of them were devastating in a courtroom. They won a lot of big cases back in the fifties. Sophie socialized with them more, the Feins and Bernie. He was divorced, I seem to recall. You could ask her. I don’t have to tell you Panofsky hated him; they were poison together.”

After that they talked desultorily about the tampering case, for Abe Lapidus recalled only the broad outlines of the plot, which centered upon the famous zippered bank envelope full of cash (the envelope itself amply stamped with Fein’s prints) and a note typed on Fein’s office typewriter, indicating that a vote for acquittal in the Gravellotti case would earn double what was inside.

Abe began to maunder again, supplying unwanted details about some peripheral courtroom figures.

“Oh, hell, Abe,” Marlene broke in with heat. “You’re telling me everything but what I want to know. Why didn’t Jerry fight the thing? Why did he cop on it?”

Abe poured out some water, rattled the ice cubes, took a long drink. He gave her an odd look, compounded of assessment, affection, cynically exhausted humor.

“You’re a smart cookie, Marlene. That’s the big one. We all wondered about that too. Why did one of the sharpest courtroom jockeys around go into the tank when his own tuchas was on the line?” Another long pause.

“And? And?”

Lapidus chuckled dryly. “You remember the old Lamplighter? It was a saloon on Baxter. A courtroom hangout. It shut down.”

“Yeah, in the early seventies. What about it?”

“This was the evening after Jerry pleaded. Bernie was there in the Lamplighter. He was falling down drunk, which we never saw before, believe me. All of us were what you would call hard drinkers in those days.” He tapped his glass with a fingernail. “They didn’t move much Italian seltzer in the Lamplighter. You drank scotch. Or martinis. But controlled. You got out of hand, they’d call a cab and stick you in it. Anyway, Bernie was there, buying rounds for anyone who’d yell, ‘Fuck you, Panofsky!’ And pouring Chivas down as fast as they could set it up, all the time raving about Heshy. How he wasn’t going to let Heshy get away with it, he’d confess, he wasn’t going to let his pal take the fall, cursing out Heshy and also Frank Currie. .”

“He was the D.A. in the case?”

“Yeah. Not an ornament to the profession, if you want to know. Bernie was saying things like, ‘I’ll confess, and Frank Currie can kiss my ass!’ People were looking at each other, you know, like when there’s an embarrassing drunk. But trying to ignore it. The man was bellowing. And then Jerry walks in and goes right over to him. I figure Pete Demaris, who was behind the bar at the time, must’ve called him. They did stuff like that in the Lamplighter all the time. It was a club, like. So Jerry goes up to him and puts an arm around him and tries to lead him out, but Bernie won’t go, he’s holding onto the edge of the bar. He’s saying things like, no, no, Jerry, you’re not taking the fall for me, I’ll confess, and Jerry, angry, telling him to shut the fuck up, excuse my French. Everybody pretending it wasn’t happening, but ears flapping like Dumbo. And then Pete came around the bar, this was a real bulvan , if you know what that is, and he just tucked Bernie under his arm and they all walked out and stuffed Bernie into a cab and Jerry got in, too.” He took another drink.