Once We Were Brothers (26 page)

“My father saw me and excused himself from the argument. He put his arm around me and walked me to the street.

“‘Did you get Beka?’ he asked.

“I could barely speak. I was always awed by my father, and in his imposing presence I couldn’t bring myself to tell him right off that Beka had died. But intuitively he knew.

“‘This will crush your mother,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how much more she can take.’

“‘We need to get out of Zamość,’ I said. ‘I have Elzie’s car. We can leave tonight. We’ll head straight for the southern border. Krzysztof showed me a route through the mountains into Yugoslavia. I have a gun and Otto’s uniform – we’ll bluff our way through.’

“Father didn’t answer immediately, and that troubled me. We started walking to the clinic. After a short while he said, ‘There is much to do before we can leave.’

“Hannah and Mother were both at the clinic when we arrived. Father pulled them aside and we stepped into a small office. He quietly closed the door and looked at them with a face that said it all. I stood next to Hannah, my arm around her waist. Father put his hands on mother’s frail shoulders. ‘Leah, our beautiful Beka is gone.
Alav hashalom
- may she rest in peace.’

“My mother crumbled into his arms and wailed. Hannah wept. I held her tightly. It was the most profound sadness I had ever witnessed. The three of us stayed in the room for several minutes without talking. Finally Mother lifted her head from Father’s chest and asked, ‘When will this end?’

“‘Now,’ I said. ‘We’re going to leave Zamość.’

“We walked slowly, arms around each other, back to the apartment. I introduced my parents and Hannah to Lucyna, who was sitting silently across the room. Mother lay down on the bed, Hannah sat by her side and my father and I walked out to the sidewalk to talk. He didn’t want to know the details of Beka’s death and I didn’t offer.

“‘I’ll have to make arrangements for someone to take my position at the Judenrat,’ he said. ‘That’ll be difficult because I dare not disclose my intent to leave. There are too many who would sell that information for a loaf of bread. If I can arrange it and if your mother is up to it, we’ll leave tomorrow night.’

“‘I’ll contact Otto. We’ll need money,’ I said.

“‘I suppose you’re right but I no longer trust Otto. Be careful.’

“I nodded and left for Elzbieta’s.”

Catherine held her hands up. “I need to stop here. I’m exhausted – physically and emotionally. I feel like I lost a friend today. I want you to finish your story, but I can’t absorb anymore today.”

“I’m sorry. You’re a good person, Catherine. Shall I come back tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” she stammered softly. “Yes, tomorrow.”

Catherine walked slowly back to her office and rocked in her desk chair staring through the window at the Federal Plaza below. The last of the season’s open-air markets was folding up. Federal employees, finished with their workday, were filing past the orange Calder statue and dispersing through the plaza. There was a beehive of energy outside the window, but inside her office, Catherine was drained. After several minutes she picked up the phone and dialed Liam.

“Are you busy?” she asked.

“Never too busy for you.”

“Can you pick me up at the office?”

“Now?”

“Please. I’ll meet you on the Dearborn street side.”

* * *

Jeffers stood by the window in Rosenzweig’s corner office, looking out over the Chicago skyline on a clear, starlit evening.

“This view makes me feel like I’m standing in an airplane,” he said to Elliot.

Elliot nodded. “Did Solomon sign the order?”

Jeffers shook his head and walked away from the windows. “Not yet. I just gave it to Lockhart today. You were right, she does represent him.”

“That’s what was told to me. Did she say whether or not Solomon would sign the order?”

“No. But if he doesn’t, I’ll bring him into court. We’ll get the order entered one way or another.”

Rosenzweig shook his head. “No court hearing, Gerry. It’s bad publicity.”

“I disagree. Solomon’s a stalker, and dangerous one at that. No one would blame you.”

“He’d use the hearing as some kind of soapbox to accuse me. I don’t want to give him a forum. The papers and TV stations would be all over it, and all of Solomon’s rantings would get air time. No thanks, I don’t need it.”

“Well, he may end up signing it voluntarily, I threatened Lockhart pretty good. I even leaned on Walter Jenkins, her boss.”

“If he does, fine, otherwise let it go. As I told you, I have an investigator on the trail of the real Otto Piatek. He told Brian this afternoon that he has a lead. Believe it or not, he thinks Piatek may actually be in Cleveland.”

“You’re kidding!”

Rosenzweig opened a walnut humidor and took out two cigars. He clipped the ends and handed one to Jeffers.

“How did he find him in Cleveland?” Jeffers said between puffs as he lit his Cohiba.

Elliot shrugged. “Friend of a friend. He’s got friends in low places, as they say. I don’t ask too many questions. The investigator’s been spreading some money around in one of those Neo-Nazi groups and seems to have come across information that Piatek was living in a bungalow in a Polish neighborhood somewhere in Cleveland. Who knows? We may find this guy. He’s tracking it. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“You trust this investigator?”

“Not entirely. But I’ll spend a few bucks and see what he comes up with.”

Jeffers examined his cigar. “Ok. I’ll hold off on the order of protection. Damn fine cigar, Elliot.”

* * *

“Thanks,” said Catherine sliding into Liam’s car. “I didn’t want to go home alone.”

“Rough day? Did Ben give you a hard time?”

“Liam, you have no idea. The story, the people, what they went through. I keep thinking, who am I to be given the responsibility for bringing this matter to judgment? How has it found its way into my lap?” She shook her head and tried not to cry. “I don’t have his strength of character. This is too lofty an assignment for me.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Cat. I have faith in you.”

“I know you do. You always have. Keep telling me to be strong, Liam. I need it.”

As Liam pulled up in front of Catherine’s townhome, she said, “Do you have time to come in for a while? I could use the company.”

“Sure,” he said. They found a parking place a block away. The street lights had come on and the November evening was blustery.

“I can cook us dinner,” she said, unlocking her door. “That is, if you don’t have plans.”

“Don’t go to any trouble. You’ve had a tough day. How about we order Chinese? Unless you’re dead set on cooking.”

“Chinese sounds perfect.”

* * *

They sat on the living room couch, eating moo shu pork on paper plates, while the stereo played softly. Catherine summarized the day’s narrative.

“Poor Beka. Poor Abraham and Leah,” Liam said. “How does anyone deal with a loss like that?”

“I have no idea. I suppose you carry the nightmare for the rest of your life. By the way, Gerald Jeffers and two of his young Storch and Bennett associates came by and threatened me today. They had security films of Ben sneaking around Rosenzweig’s house. They flung a court order at me and demanded that Ben sign it. Jeffers called him ‘deranged’ and they told me to send him on his way.”

“What did you say?”

“I just sat there doing nothing, intimidated like a busted teenager.”

“How did Jeffers know you represented Ben?”

“What?”

“How did he know? Have you filed anything? Have you sent any letters? How did he know to come to you, that you were Ben’s lawyer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I visited him at the jail?”

“Jeffers wouldn’t have that information.”

“Then I have no idea.”

“Think about it, Cat.”

She sat on the couch, looking at the floor. Then she turned and faced Liam with a look of surprise. “Ben’s notes. They were missing after the break-in. He said there were notes about conversations he had with me.”

Liam smiled. “It could be.”

“Maybe Ben’s right. Maybe Rosenzweig
is
Piatek.”

“Whoa, hold on Cat. That’s a leap. But it raises interesting questions. Even if it ties Rosenzweig into the break-in, it doesn’t necessarily connect him with Piatek. There’s an alternative explanation. It could just be that he wanted to find out about the guy who assaulted him at the opera and what information he had.”

Catherine snorted. “Hah! You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

She poured two glasses of wine, handing one to Liam. “Do you think you can find out about Rosenzweig’s insurance companies? I’d like to know how some poor impoverished immigrant becomes a billionaire.”

Liam nodded. “Now you’re talking. I’ve been thinking the same thing. There are state insurance records I can access. I’ll poke around.”

They sat together until the wine was gone and Catherine’s eyelids were heavy. Liam slipped his coat on. “Double lock your doors, Cat. You can never be too careful.”

“Do you think they’d try something?”

Liam shrugged.

“What about Ben?” Catherine said. “If Rosenzweig is Piatek and if he ordered the break-in, then he knows that Ben is telling the whole story to me. He might even kill Ben.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t think he’d want Ben to be found murdered. It’d be a media field day. Ben’s death or disappearance following his public accusation and in the midst of his meetings with you would create an unmistakable presumption that Rosenzweig was involved. I don’t think he’d take that chance. No, I think he has to continue to brush aside the accusations and treat Ben as a lunatic.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chicago, Illinois November 2004

Early the next morning, before Ben was scheduled to arrive, there was a knock on Catherine’s office door. The firm’s senior and founding partner, Walter Jenkins, nattily dressed in his three-piece wool suit and bow tie, walked into her office. His shoes were brightly polished, his nails were freshly manicured and his thick silver hair was fashionably styled.

“Do you have a few minutes, Catherine? I’d like to talk to you about a matter you’re working on.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”

Catherine shifted uneasily. “You’re going to say my hours were down last week. I’ve been spending time interviewing a pro bono case. I know it’s probably far too much time on a single case that hasn’t even been logged into the system. But don’t worry, I’ll make it up.”

Jenkins took a seat on Catherine’s couch and crossed his legs. He smoothed his trousers. “Gerry Jeffers came to see me last night. He said he paid you a visit yesterday.”

“That bastard. So he went over my head?”

“I’ve known Gerry for many years.”

“He waltzed in here unannounced with his two smug kids and put on a dog and pony show trying to scare me off a case. He told me not to risk my professional future. I was supremely offended.”

Jenkins nodded slightly. “Gerry tells me that you haven’t returned a signed Order of Protection that he prepared for you. All he wants is for Solomon to leave his client alone.”

“Mr. Solomon won’t agree to the Order. Besides, it goes farther than Jeffers told you. It prohibits him from talking about Rosenzweig in public or denouncing him or even accusing him.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s a clear violation of Ben’s First Amendment rights, his freedom of speech, among other things, and violations of that Order of Protection are punishable by contempt.”

“He was videoed snooping around Mr. Rosenzweig’s house, peering in the windows.”

“He won’t do it again.”

“What’s this all about, Catherine? Why are you spending so much time with this fellow?”

Catherine spent the next fifteen minutes outlining Ben’s story.

At the end of her summary, Jenkins said, “What proof have you seen that any of this has any connection with Mr. Rosenzweig?”

“Well, none yet. Up to now, I’m just taking background notes. But Ben assures me that he is certain of the identification.”

“I don’t want it, Catherine. I can understand your emotional commitment to this saga but we run a business and this case is bad business. You could never take on Elliot Rosenzweig without solid proof. It’s insane. It’ll cost us in money, time and reputation. Unless we have the horses, we have no business in the race.”

“What about all the contradictions in Rosenzweig’s stories, like he immigrated in 1945 after being liberated from Auschwitz, when he really came in from Argentina two years later? And how does he come to America, a poor, penniless refugee and take up residence on Lake Shore Drive?”

Jenkins shook his head. “I don’t want it. The case would cost us six figures with no hope of recovery.”