Lassiter

61 Family Ties

I headed out the courtroom door and down the corridor. Castiel was huddling with a homicide cop near the elevator. He looked up and I tossed the lighter to him. He nabbed it in one hand, then caught the look on my face. He shook hands with the cop, then joined me in an alcove where the phone booths used to be located in the days before cellular.

“After all these years, Alex, finally I understand you.”

“Meaning?”

“I always thought we had something in common. I lost my father very young. You never knew yours. Everything I know I learned from my granny, who’s not really my grandmother. You got your lessons from your uncle Max, who’s not really your uncle.”

“So?”

“You weren’t a fatherless, penniless little boy who grew up seeking justice. You had a Mafia scholarship from the day you were born.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Meyer Lansky is your father, and when he wasn’t being chased around the world by the feds, he was mentoring you. When he was gone, Max Perlow pinch hit for him. Perlow set you up with people who could get you elected. He wanted you to do for him what Batista did for Lansky. Or maybe he had bigger dreams.”

Castiel shot me a wry smile. “All this figuring, Jake. It’s above your pay grade.”

“I keep thinking about that photo in your office.”

“Careful, Jake …”

“Your mother standing between Bernard and Lansky. She was a beautiful woman who gets hit with this double tragedy. All hell breaks loose with Castro taking Havana, and then Bernard is killed. She must have been devastated. But there’s Meyer Lansky, rich and powerful, with a finely tailored shoulder to cry on. Who can blame her for falling for the guy? Unless …”

Something was nagging at me, an itch in the back of my brain. In the corridor, the bailiff was leading the jurors back into the courtroom. We had just a couple minutes.

“Unless that story about Bernard’s heroic death was total bull,” I said.

“You gonna crap on his memory, too?”

“What do you care? He’s not your father. Maybe your mother was already having an affair with Lansky, and Bernard found out. In some Jewbano rage, he confronted Lansky. Threatened him. Whatever he did got him killed. I’m betting Lansky ordered it and Perlow carried it out.”

“The Havana Post said Bernard was bayoneted by the rebels. I have the clipping.”

“Batista propaganda. If I’m right, your mother continued her affair with Lansky and got pregnant. Or she was already pregnant when Bernard was killed. Either way, that’s when you come into the picture. Castro confiscates the Riviera. Lansky gets out of Dodge, and Perlow puts you on a Pedro Pan flight to Miami. Your mother is supposed to join you, but she’s dying of cancer. Lansky was married and had kids of his own. He also didn’t want you carrying the weight of his name. Helluva lot better to be Alex Castiel, son of a supposed martyr, than Lansky’s kid. So Perlow arranges for a sham adoption with a nice family in Coral Gables, all the while keeping your real father, Lansky, behind the scenes.”

Castiel was quiet a moment, then spoke softly. “If I had a time machine, I’d go to Havana, hang out with Meyer at the Riviera.”

I understood. If I could travel through space and time, I’d go shrimping with my old man. Spend as much time with him as I could.

“I’m not ashamed of being Meyer’s son,” Castiel said. “I loved the man, and he loved me. I like to think he’d be proud of me.”

That hit me hard, and I wondered just what Castiel would do to earn that love and respect. And looking back, what had he already done?