Sitka Federal District
Unter Tage Sitka CityYuri stepped into the Pearl of the Orient and made eye contact with Sammy. The squat Filipino man behind the counter gave Yuri a slow nod that contained a multitude of meanings without a single word needing to be uttered. Samuel Matteo Gonzalez, sole proprietor of the Pearl of the Orient, had been what the Sitka populous called a
shtarker back in Manila. Rumor had it some very bad business a long time ago had him flee his home for Sitka’s cold embrace. In the time he had carved out quite a niche as restaurateur, occasional dabbler in bookmaking, and foremost knower of all the ins and outs of the Sitka criminal underworld.
He walked towards the counter as Sammy wiped the surface with a rag. Behind Sammy was a glass display case showing off the Pearl’s signature offering: The Shakoy. The braided doughnut was a staple of street food back in the Philippines, but Sammy’s secret recipe elevated the original dish to the point that it was one of the defining cuisines Sitka had to offer the world.
“If it isn’t my third favorite Russian,” Sammy said in Yiddish. He was fluent, but his accent coated every word like the cinnamon sugar that coated his doughnuts and made it sound strange in Yuri's ear. Jewish by way of the Southeast Pacific.
“Can I get two doughnuts, Sammy?” asked Yuri. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a roll of American greenbacks, all twenties, and peeled off six bills. “Also, how about a hundred and one bucks on Heshie Roth to win by KO tomorrow night.”
“It’s a fool’s bet,” Sammy said as he slipped the cash into his apron and passed Yuri a plate with two shakoys on them. “The Roth kid isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. Mitchell is going to wipe the floor with him. It's almost a crime for me to take your money... almost.”
Yuri focused on the doughnuts instead of arguing with Sammy. Part of him wanted to tell Sammy the inside scoop. But that bastard had taken him for a ride in the past on baseball and college football games, so Yuri figured he was due a string of bad luck. He bit into his first shakoy. The doughnuts held the perfect balance of crunchiness on the outer fried shell, and soft and tender in the dough beneath it.
Yuri let out a sigh of contentment after he swallowed his first bite. The shakoy doughnuts held a special place in his heart. It was one of the first things he’d eaten when he arrived in Sitka. A fresh off the boat teenager, skinny as hell and unsure of what to do next. He’d stumbled into the Pearl and Sammy, recognizing how hungry and lost the boy was, offered to front him two shakoys if he paid him back later. Yuri never forgot his kindness as well as the taste of his first doughnut.
“So you don’t just come in the middle of the night to drop some bet,” said Sammy. “What’s on your mind, kid?”
“Abe Titlebaum,” Yuri said after his third bite. “What does that name mean to you?”
What gave Sammy his knowledge when it came to his encyclopedia knowledge of
shtakers, button-men, and kingpins wasn’t his own criminal past or his current occupation as a part-time bookie. No, it was the doughnuts. Everyone in Sitka flocked to the Pearl for the shakoys, cops and criminals and politicians alike all needed that sweet and soft crunch. The Pearl was neutral ground for even the most bitter blood feuds among gangsters. Everyone respected Sammy and he in turn respected them and learned everything there was to know. He could tell you who the pit boss at the North Star was
schtupping on the side, how Charkov “The Siberian Strangler” Lebowitz liked his coffee, and he knew which current rebbe Black Hat controlled the Byzantine power structure that was the Hasidic criminal empire. In short there was not much Sammy didn’t know.
Yuri could tell Titlebaum meant a lot as soon as he saw the look on Sammy’s face. Very little made Sammy Gonzalez give pause. But the name Abe Titlebaum did just that. Sammy leaned forward on the counter. The knuckles on his big fists were tattooed with Tagalog characters Yuri couldn’t make out.
“He’s just not some
shtarker. He’s old school. One of the original
nakht mentshn that got kicked out of America and sent here. His pals like Siegel and Lanksy were well juiced enough they got to stay in the country, but not Ttilebaum. At least not back then. The guy may look like an old businessman, but that’s just a front. I’d ask why you’re asking, but I ain’t no
schmuck. The perpetually broke Yuri Rudnitsky walks through my door flush with cash and asking about some gangster seemingly out of the blue. You going to work for him?”
“Something like that,” Yuri said, wiping bites of cinnamon sugar from his mouth. “He’s looking for muscle for something and David Kotel passed my name along.”
Sammy spat on the floor and cursed in Tagalog at the mention of the man.
“Don’t get me started on Kotel. A two-bit shylock who thinks he’s a boss...”
“You don’t owe him any money do you, Sammy?” asked Yuri.
“That’s not the point,” Sammy said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “The point is Titlebaum is a very serious man and a very dangerous one. You don’t get to the top of the Stika criminal food chain and stay there without cutting a throat or fifty. He’s not some talent scout on the lookout for his heir. If he’s interested in you it’s because he can use you to either make money or hurt someone.”
Yuri finished his second doughnut and looked down at the plate that only held flakes of pastry and stray cinnamon sugar crystals.
“Let’s hope it’s just to make money.”
Goldrush HillsThe brakes on the unmarked police car squealed as Levy pulled up to 9815 Schalka Boulevard. The eight story Disraeli Hotel loomed above them in the early predawn darkness. A latke radio car was parked up front with its bubble lights on and flashing red and blue. Levy and Jake climbed out of the car and Levy’s eyes glanced up at the hotel. Most of the red neon lights outside the hotel’s front entrance were burned out, advertising it as the "D r li H t l." The sight of faded paint and dilapidated sign windows sent a wave of sadness through Levy’s heart.
The Disraeli, along with most of Goldrush Hills, had been where the upper middle class, mostly American Jews with some money, had flocked to during the early days of settlement. For the blue collar Levy family, Goldrush Hills and The Disraeli Hotel were destinations to aspire to. Its cutesy name, like all the first neighborhoods and streets of the district, was given to it by the American planners who laid out the grids and neighborhoods initially for the Jews that would come here to live.
“This used to be a nice neighborhood when I was a kid,” Jake said. “What the hell happened?”
“‘Nothing gold can stay’,” Levy said in American. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette and match. “Words to live by for a shamus as much as a poet.”
Those carefully laid plans of an orderly federal district soon went by the wayside as wave after wave of Jewish refugees appeared on the shores of Baranof Island. What was supposed to be a modest island settlement of half a million or so sprung up to a metropolis of over four million in a little over twenty year’s time. Rapid growth and expansion meant quaint little Goldrush Hills was left behind by the ex-Americans and given over to the fourth and fifth wave of poor immigrants. Urban decay and neglect followed rapidly in the wake of their flight.
Levy smoked as he and Jake approached the entrance to the Disraeli. Levy felt relief at the site of Moose Moskowitz’s beer belly as he stepped out of the hotel front entrance and hiked up his belt. Sergeant Michael “Moose” Moskowitz was around Levy’s age. The two men had started on the SPD at around the same time. Like Levy, Moose had been born and raised in America before his family relocated to Alaska. Unlike Levy, Moose had made a career out of being a patrolman. He still wore the potato brown khaki uniform that gave the patrolmen their latke nicknames, but these days he wore sergeant stripes on his shoulder. He technically outranked Levy, but in terms of investigation this would be Levy’s show. Which was why he was very glad to see Moose’s gut.
“How are ya fellas,” Moose asked in Yiddish that was tainted by his native Minnesotan accent. “The night manager is the one who found the body. I took a brief statement but figured you’d want him for further questioning. He’s in his office. I already called the coroner and sealed the scene.”
“Well,” said Levy. “I’m better now that you told me all that.”
Rule #1 to any and all homicide investigations: A victim can only be murdered once, a crime scene can be murdered many times over. The first officer on the scene has the duty to preserve the scene as they found it until detectives show up to investigate. They provided the foundation for the case the detectives would later build upon. And Levy had seen more than one of his cases go down the shitter thanks to the responding officer or coroner fucking up the scene.
One time, the latke who responded to a fatal stabbing in an
Unter Tage back alley had taken the initiative to clean the blood from the scene as he waited for Levy to arrive. When Levy finally arrived, he found a dead body devoid of blood and wiped clean of any other vital clues thanks to this latke with shit for brains. His excuse when confronted by Levy? He always felt sick at the sight of blood so he had to clean it up, less he vomit all over the place. That was almost six years ago and Levy still carried that unsolved case in his ledger, and that latke was working a foot patrol so far west of here he could probably see Hawaii.
“Do you want the manager or the body?” asked Jake.
“The body,” Levy said without hesitation. “I always prefer the company of the dead to the living.”
Levy stood at the threshold of room 614 and looked inside. Minus the dead body, the contents of the room could be best described as a one-room bachelor flop. Levy noted the Murphy bed in the down position with ruffled and dirty sheets, the hot plate on the sink that allowed the hotel people to advertise the room as having a “kitchenette”, and the toilet facing the Murphy bed with barely six inches of space between them. Over the years Levy had sent plenty of men -- and in one case, a woman -- to the federal prison on McNeil Island for murder. He was sure those tiny little cells they would spend the rest of their lives in were less depressing than room 614 at the Hotel Disraeli.
Then there was the matter of the body.
A male body of what appeared to be average height was sprawled face down on the floor of the hotel room just beside the Murphy bed with the feet pointed towards the door. The body was clad in a soiled white undershirt, black trousers, and a pair of black dress shoes that were so worn Levy was almost certain he could see the soles of the body’s feet through the worn leather. A full head of gray hair covered the body’s head. No yarmulke on the back of the head, Levy noted. Not that his piety, or lack thereof, had anything to do with his present state.
He slipped on a pair of rubber gloves from his back pocket and took his first gingerly steps into the room. There had been a tape seal on the door before Levy opened it, so he knew Moose had done his job in upholding the crime scene’s virginity. Levy was careful not to step on anything on the carpet as he walked towards the body.
Along shelves mounted on the walls were personal items, the flotsam and jetsam of a person who Levy assumed lived a transitory life: A toiletry bag, a tin of chocolates, a carton of Bulgarian cigarettes, a small collection of paperback books, and a travel chess set. Though he knew better to assume the personal items belonged to the dead body on the floor. Levy’s twelve years as murder police taught him more than once just because someone died in a dwelling, it didn’t exactly mean it was theirs.
Levy felt his knees pop as he crouched over the dead body. This close up and he could make out the rash of red bumps and bruises up the body’s forearms. To your average yid, their natural assumption would be a bad case of acne or the singles. But Levy knew the sight of track marks right away. He was sure the toiletry kit on the nearby shelf would contain a burnt spoon, a lighter, and a syringe. And just like that something of a potential cause of death began to form in Levy’s mind. More of an assumption, really. He had to admit it was the half-ass
schmuck in him wanting to not have to deal with the headaches and paperwork that came with a true homicide. If this was another junkie OD he and Jake could just bang out a quick incident report and call it a night… or day. He wasn't sure which was which anymore.
“Doesn’t look like I’ve missed much,” Jake said from the doorway.
Levy glanced back at his partner and saw him tucking a notebook back into the breast pocket of his jacket.
“I think I may have this one solved already, Jakey,” replied Levy. “The forearms are covered with track marks. Five will get you ten that I’ll find a crushed junkie works under the body.”
“Fool’s bet,” said Jake. “And I only bet money on sure things.”
“Then don’t bet on that little featherweight Jew to go the distance tomorrow night. My sister could kick Heshie Roth’s ass…”
“Your sister hunts wild bears in the Yukon,” said Jake. “She could kick almost any man’s ass.”
Levy nodded in agreement. There was little Levy feared, but Esther Levy was among those things.
“What did the night manager say,” asked Levy.
“He was pretty straight forward. He says the guy who rents the room was late on payments and he came in to start throwing his shit out when he found the body.”
Levy glanced towards the window of the hotel room. He could see the sky was beginning to lighten as night turned into day.
“Middle of the night eviction?” asked Levy. “Yeah.. that sounds about right. He get a name of the yid in question? The one he planned to evict?”
“Einstein. Albert Einstein.”
“Cute,” Levy murmured. “Too cute. Okay, now that I have a witness I want to turn the body over.”
Levy gently grabbed the body’s slim shoulders and began to turn. He began to curse in American the minute he saw the face of the dead body and the dried blood. On the dead man’s forehead was a neat little bullet hole. Small caliber so there had been no exit wound. The bullet had pinballed around the skull and shredded it into pulp before resting somewhere in the brainpan.
“Shit,” said Levy. Still holding the dead body -- victim, now -- he looked back at Jake. “Breakfast is on you, right? And you write the report?”
“You know,” Jake said with a small smirk. “Seeing Moose got me in a sudden craving for latkes so… yeah, breakfast is on me, partner.”
“Go get the manager,” said Levy. “See if he can ID the body and make sure this is the guy claiming to be Einstein dead on the floor.”
"Oh, geez," Moose Moskowitz said as his bulking frame appeared in the door beside Jake. He nodded at the dead man Levy still gingerly held on to. "That's quite a mess there, Ben..."
Levy looked at Jake and made a deadpan face. "With those powers of observation, Sergeant Moskowitz, how is it you never made detective?"
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