Israel (90 page)

“Do you believe the Arabs will go to war?” Becky asked.

“It'll be a fight to the death. I am sorry for that, but there's no help for it. Let's not talk about death tonight, Becky, not when the homeland has at last been born. I have more good news. What you and I began here together
is also practically finished. In another couple of weeks, I believe, my work in Canada will be done.”

“That's wonderful. I'll be in Canada on business in two weeks. Will I see you?”

“I'll be here. We'll celebrate together,” Herschel said quietly. “Becky I . . . I miss you very much. I have missed you these last few months.”

“We can talk about it when I see you.”

“No, it's easier for me to say these things on the telephone tonight. The grand news has given me courage. Do you believe me—will you, if I say now what I said that night? I love you.”

Becky gazed at her reflection in the gilded mirror above the mantel. Why didn't she feel anything? She wanted to, so why couldn't she? Why was she so frightened?

“I understand,” Herschel said listlessly after an eternity of crackling silence over the wires. “Yes, I understand.”

“I'll see you there,” Becky managed, her voice cracking. Don't be a fool, she thought. You mustn't let him think that you don't care.

He hung up.

Becky listened to the static for a moment, then set the receiver down in its cradle. She lit a cigarette and watched the blue smoke curl into nothingness. I'll see him in a few days' time, she told herself. It'll be different then.

The sad sound of Herschel's voice came back to her and she wondered why God had given her so much and yet seen fit to curse her. She wanted to surrender herself to the passion she felt for Herschel, but something about him made her hold back.

On Saturday night Benny Talkin listened to the UN proceedings over his car radio as he drove out to Stefano's home in Sheepshead Bay. He didn't want to make this trip—not that he ever wanted to go there—especially not tonight, just two days after a torturous Thanksgiving holiday
there. Stefano had been impossible the entire time. He and Tony Bucci spent most of the day behind the closed door of Stefano's study, excluding Benny from their discussions. He knew how worried Stefano was about the D.A.'s vendetta against him, but his father-in-law still should have been more considerate of his feelings. How humiliating to have to sit with the women and children while Stefano and Tony discussed business. All of them, including Dolores, treated him like a second-class citizen.

He nosed the Caddy convertible along the driveway. Tony was at the open front door before Benny switched off his engine.

“Nice of you to come out on such short notice,” Tony Bucci said, for all the world as if he were the host and this his house. He was wearing a dark business suit and a tie. Benny at once regretted showing up in casual clothes.

“What's going on, Tony? Trouble?”

“You could say that,” Tony removed his glasses to polish them on his tie, squinting like a mole in sunlight. “Stefano's upstairs in his study. I gotta warn you, Benny, he's been acting a little crazy since he found out.”

“Found out what?”

“Who the rat is. Who's been informing on us to the D.A.”

“No shit!” Benny exclaimed. “Who?”

“I'll let him tell you. Just remember, don't act like you think anything is unusual with him, all right?”

Benny thought that he detected a note of pleading in Tony's voice. “Sure, Tony.”

He followed Bucci into the house. The hallway was dark and there seemed to be no one else around, although Benny thought he could hear a radio faintly playing. He began to grow increasingly apprehensive as he followed Bucci upstairs. He didn't want to face a Stefano who was able to upset a stalwart like Gemstones.

The door to the study was closed. “Okay,” Tony sighed, taking a deep breath. He opened the door.

The mahogany-paneled study was dimly lit. Stefano was sitting in a massive leather armchair drawn up to the wide picture window that looked out over the bay. He was funereally attired in a black double-breasted suit.

“Hello, Benny.” It seemed an effort for Stefano to tear himself away from his view. He stood up, offering his hand. “Would you like a drink?”

“Maybe later,” Benny said. He was intrigued by Stefano's sudden cordiality. It had been years since Stefano offered to shake hands with him.

“Make yourself comfortable, then.” Stefano sat down in his armchair by the window. Benny took off his jacket and he and Tony took opposite ends of the long leather sofa.

“I've asked you to come here for a very important reason,” Stefano began. As he spoke he continued to gaze out the window at the dark bay. His grey hair and mustache, along with the gold buckles on his black patent-leather loafers, gleamed in the faint light cast by the lamp on his desk. “Benny, you know that we've been plagued by traitors in our midst. They are a blight, like—like gangrenous flesh that must be ruthlessly carved away if the healthy part is to survive. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Benny slowly nodded. “Anything I can do to help.”

“Thank you, Benny. There is something you can do,” Stefano said, at last turning away from the window to stare at Benny. “You must kill one of these traitors.”

“It's Louie Carduello,” Tony Bucci interjected.

“Louie?” Benny issued a short bark of nervous laughter. “This is a joke, right? You guys are kidding me.”

Stefano shook his head.

“Louie's worked for you since—Jesus, 1925,” Benny
insisted. “He's been running that meat packing plant on Washington since—”

“Louie has had it in for me all these years because of a trifling misunderstanding a long time ago,” Stefano intoned. “I was going to put Abe Herodetzky in charge of that plant and make it up to Louie with cash payments. Louie
said
that would be all right, but he held a grudge.” Stefano paused and nodded calmly. “Yes, a grudge. Even when my plans for Abe fell through, Louie didn't forgive me. He never has. It's Louie who has been betraying me.”

“How could he?” Benny asked. “I mean, he's not in a position to know all that much about you.”

“He knows certain things. But you're right. There are other traitors. They're jealous. They want to bring me down. It takes many to bring down a great man.” Sweat appeared upon Stefano's forehead and drops of it glistened in his mustache. “Louie is one of the first who must die. I want you to kill him for me, Benny.”

Benny stared back at his father-in-law. He's crazy, he thought. “Stefano, I can't. I never did anything like that—”

“‘I can't, I won't,'” Stefano mimicked crossly. “That's all I've ever heard from you, Benny. You're a weakling. Before all these betrayals your incompetence didn't matter to me. Now I can no longer afford incompetents.”

“Not ever having shot a guy in the back of the head doesn't make me an incompetent,” Benny snapped. “Right, Tony?” Bucci pretended not to hear him.

“Ever since you and Dolores got married you've been holding back on me,” Stefano said accusingly. “I had big plans for you, but that's not the issue now. Loyalty is the issue. I got to know who is loyal and who isn't. I want you to kill Louie Carduello for me. Then I'll know that I can trust you. You want me to trust you, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Jesus, sure.” He grinned uneasily. “I think I could use that drink now.”

“Get it for him, Tony,” Stefano instructed. As Bucci rose Stefano added, “Tony will help you with this if you'd like.”

Benny repressed a shudder. “No. If I'm going to do this for you, let me do it myself—to prove myself, understand?” He tried his best to smile and then gulped the neat whiskey Bucci handed him.

“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.”

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.