Stolen Away

“You broke and entered through a second-story window, once. And you held up two women wheeling baby carriages—with a gun. Add those two crimes up, and…”

“There were no babies in those carriages! In Germany, at that time, they use those buggies as shopping carts. You know what I stole? Nine bread rolls and some food ration cards. No babies did I frighten.”

“And the second-story job?”

He shrugged. “It was the mayor’s office, as much a prank as a robbery. I stole a silver pocket watch and a few hundred marks. I’m not proud of this—I knew I was doing wrong. I quieted my conscience with, ‘Oh well, others do it, too.’”

Reilly should’ve brought this stuff out at the trial; Wilentz killed Hauptmann with the baby-buggy stickup—which shouldn’t have even been the hell admissible!

“I understand all this, Dick,” I said, “but you have to understand how it worked against you. Just being a German works against you, frankly. And hell—you were a machine gunner in the war—which makes you a killer.”

He sneered a little, and his response was justifiably sarcastic: “Oh—so no American machine gunners were in the war?”

I shook my head. “When the killing’s on your side, it doesn’t count—particularly when you win. And I don’t think your popularity’s been helped by these Nazi bund-type rallies, either, raising money for your defense fund.”

The sarcasm evaporated. “What choice have I? The state confiscated our funds, Annie and me. Are you a Jewish man, Nate?”

“My father was. I’m not very religious.”

“I am.” He smiled nervously. “Religious, I mean. Do you hate me for being German? Do you think I think I am the ‘master race’? Do you think I would hate a Jewish man?”

Wilentz, maybe.

“I’m an American,” I said, “whose forefathers came from Germany. Why should I hate you, or make such assumptions?”

Rather shyly, he touched my shoulder. “Mr. Heller—why weren’t you on the jury?”

“Dick,” I said, “you don’t have to convince me that a lot of the evidence was tampered with or invented. You don’t have to tell me that Hochmuth was blind, or that that movie cashier who said she remembered you was full of shit. I used to be a cop. I know all about that stuff.”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“Tell me about Isidor Fisch.” I smiled gently. “Your Jewish friend.”

He laughed soundlessly. “The ‘Fisch story,’ they call it.”

“Everybody did say it smelled.”

“It sounds bad. But it’s true.”

“Tell me. Take your time.”

He drew in a breath, let it out slowly. “I meet Isidor Fisch at Hunter’s Island in Pelham Park. Annie and I and our friends go there many weekends in the winter and summer both. We have enjoyed a wonderful outdoor life there, boating, swimming, fishing…” A small private smile appeared, and a distant look came to his eyes. “…cooking over a fire, playing music and singing…Annie bought me field glasses. I loved to watch the birds.” That brought him back to reality. He got up from the cot and moved quickly to the bars and looked out.

“It’s still caught,” he said, shaking his head. “They give up. Damn. A free thing like that should never be in there.”

“Richard,” I said. “Dick. Tell me about Izzy Fisch.”

He shuffled back over and sat on the cot. He said, “Fisch I meet three, four times at Hunter’s Island. Once he mentions that he is interested in the stock market, like me. But he tells me he is in the fur business, and that there is good money in it. He knows of what he is talking, was a furrier in the old country. I buy some stocks and bonds for him, he bought some furs for me…I start with five hundred dollars I give him to buy furs, and keep reinvesting, until I finally have seven thousand dollars in furs.”

“Where were all these furs being stored?”

“In the fur district in New York, Fisch said, but we never got around to going to where they were in a warehouse. Fisch was sickly, had a bad cough.”

So did Jafsie’s Cemetery John, I recalled.

“One day he said he was going to Germany to visit his parents. He asked me to keep four hundred sealskins at my home, while he was gone. Later on, he asks me when he goes to Germany if he can leave with me some of his belongings, and he brought to my house two satchels, a big one and a small one.”

“What about the money?”

Hauptmann motioned for me to be patient. “The Saturday before Isidor left for Germany, my wife and I give for him a farewell party. He brought along under his arm a cardboard box, wrapped up with string, and asks me to put it in a closet for him and keep it until he comes back. I thought maybe in the box were some things he forgot to put in the satchels, maybe papers and letters. I put the package for him on the upper shelf of the broom closet. It was too high there, for my wife to see, although they try to make her look bad at the trial, because they claim the shelf was low and she cleaned in there and she should see it. But she never did. Anyway. After a while there were rags and things on the shelf, covering up the box, and I forgot all about it. Fisch, he told me he would be back again in two months.”