Once We Were Brothers (21 page)

“Yes, ma’am. They say it involves Mr. Solomon and that you’ll want to talk to them.”

Curious, Catherine walked to reception. She recognized the older of the three, F. Gerald Jeffers, past president of the bar association and a legal force in Chicago. The other two were much younger, clearly in their late twenties, and were introduced as associates.

“We’d like a few minutes of your time,” said Jeffers. He wore an expensive hand-tailored blue pin-striped suit, Brioni tie and contrasting pocket square. He carried a cashmere coat, folded over his arm. “It concerns your client and his recent activities.”

Catherine led them back to the conference room. Jeffers carried no briefcase. He left the toting to his two juniors, one of whom carried a business case large enough to house a laptop and a projector, which he proceeded to unload and set onto the conference room table.

“What’s this all about?” Catherine said.

“As I said, it’s about your client. May I turn off the overhead lights?” Jeffers said.

A surveillance video began to play out on the conference room wall.

“You’re looking at the rear of the Rosenzweig estate,” Jeffers said. “The pool and cabana are on your right, the living room windows are on your left. The steps to the beach are directly ahead. The time is noted on the bottom – it’s nine p.m. This was taken Saturday night, two nights ago.”

Catherine watched as a darkened figure approached the windows from the side bushes. It was Ben. He peered into one set of windows for a while, took pictures with a small camera and then walked outside of the surveillance area. The video paused and then resumed with a different view. The scenario was similar: Ben peering into the windows and taking pictures. Three different cameras, all recording Ben snooping around the massive home, taking pictures and then running to the steps.

The projector was switched off and the lights turned on.

“We understand that you represent Mr. Solomon,” Jeffers said with a beneficent smile. “Stalking, burglary, trespassing, harassment – take your pick. Mr. Rosenzweig has had quite enough.” He nodded to one of his juniors, who took a folder of papers from his briefcase and laid them on the table.

“Here are four copies of a proposed Order of Protection that we’ve prepared for Mr. Solomon to sign. After he affixes his consent, we intend to present the order to a judge and have it entered forthwith. As you can see, the order restrains Mr. Solomon from stalking, harassing or bothering Mr. Rosenzweig or his family in any way. In fact, it prohibits him from coming within one-half mile of the Rosenzweig property. He may not contact Mr. Rosenzweig, confront him, speak publicly about him, accuse him or denounce him in any way. As the order recites, violation of its terms will be punishable by contempt – a fine or punitive incarceration. If Mr. Solomon refuses to sign this order by tomorrow, we will immediately file an action against him.”

Catherine was speechless.

Jeffers walked around the table and stood next to Catherine’s chair, looking down at her and speaking solicitously. “Miss Lockhart, this is really not the kind of messy business that’s good for you or your firm. How old are you? You look very young.”

She responded meekly, as though she were being addressed by her elementary school teacher. “I’m 39.”

“Well,” he said in a sickly-sweet tone, “to me that’s very young, indeed. You have a long career in front of you, many years as a fine lawyer. But this matter, representing this deranged character, would surely brand you as a pariah in the legal community, if you know what I mean. The leaders of our profession, the judges and lawyers that I know, would not be receptive to one who risks her professional stature on such a man.”

He turned to his junior and held out his hand. As though rehearsed, the young lawyer quickly handed Jeffers a DVD and shot a smug grin in Catherine’s direction. Jeffers set the DVD on the table in front of Catherine.

“You may have this copy. Show it to your client. Get him to sign the order and then send him on his way. By the way, it may interest you to know that Mr. Rosenzweig has spent a considerable sum of money himself, looking into this Nazi issue, this Otto Piatek.”

Jeffers and his two associates walked to the door.

“Call me when the order is signed. You needn’t get up, Miss Lockhart. We know the way out. Good day.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ben arrived punctually at noon carrying a paper bag.

“I stopped by the farmer’s market at the Daley Plaza. I brought us some apples. Last of the season.”

He smiled, but Catherine did not.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Sit down, Ben, I want to show you something.”

Ben watched the video play out on a computer screen.

“I should’ve figured. Okay. I agree, that was dumb. I thought maybe I’d see something in his house, maybe some of my mother’s jewelry. Maybe the silver tea service. Maybe I’d find the physical evidence, the solid proof you’re always talking about.”

“Mr. Rosenzweig’s attorneys brought this video over today along with a proposed Order of Protection. It’s a restraining order, Ben, to keep you away from Rosenzweig and stop you from accusing him. They want to file this as an agreed order or they’ll pursue it through the court,” she said, handing the document to Ben.

He read the proposed order. “I’m not going to sign this.”

“Ben, they have you on video. You have no defense.”

“To get this entered by a judge, he’d have to go to court and testify against me, wouldn’t he?”

“You mean Mr. Rosenzweig?”

“I mean Otto.”

“Yes, he would.”

Ben sat back with a Cheshire grin. “He’ll never do it. He doesn’t want to confront me in a courtroom. Remember, his life is built on lies and cover-ups.”

“He’s retained a powerful law firm. They’re not afraid to battle it out in court.”

“If I signed this order, the case would be over, wouldn’t it? I’d be enjoined from accusing him.”

“Essentially, that’s correct.”

“No way.” Ben shook his head. “Let me ask the question a different way. If I don’t agree to sign this order and Otto decides to take me to court, would the judge enter the order?”

“Maybe. He’d certainly enjoin you from trespassing on the Rosenzweig property and from harassing him. I have my doubts as to whether he can enjoin you from accusing him in a lawsuit.”

“Then I’d be no worse off than if I signed it, right?”

“I guess not. I might also tell you that Gerald Jeffers urged me to drop you as a client on the threat of ruining my reputation.”

Ben looked concerned. “I’m sorry. Does he have that kind of power?”

Catherine shrugged. “Jeffers is influential.”

“Are you dropping me?”

Catherine shook her head. “I don’t take well to intimidation. My natural reflex is to say, ‘screw you.’”

Ben leaned forward, smacking the table with his palm. “I knew I was right about you. And I’m right about Rosenzweig. That’s one issue you don’t have to worry about. Rosenzweig is Piatek and of that I’m one hundred percent positive. And it will all come together. That I promise you.”

“There’s something else. Jeffers told me that Rosenzweig has spent considerable money looking for Piatek.”

“He said that?” Ben wrinkled his face in a sarcastic smile. “Very clever, Mr. Rosenzweig. I suppose after he throws a few dollars around, he’ll come up with a story that Piatek died in the war, or maybe disappeared in Casablanca. Nice try. He is Piatek and I will prove it.”

Catherine sighed. “You won’t sign the order of protection?”

“Nope. Don’t you see, all this pressure, the baloney about trying to find Piatek, it’s all about the lawsuit. They know we’re planning to file a lawsuit and they’re trying to scare off my lawyer.”

Catherine shook her head. “I don’t see that. They don’t know that we’re planning to file.
I
don’t know that we’re planning to file. At this stage I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is about them catching you trespassing on a surveillance video.”

Ben smiled and shook his head. “Have faith, young lady. Hear me out, listen to my story and you’ll understand. I promise.”

Catherine looked weary. Picking up her pen and paper, she said, “All right, last week you told me that you left your sister and Hannah in the cabin. You took Buttermilk and the wagon back to Grandpa Yaakov’s and found the wooden chest full of jewels but no money. Am I right?”

Ben nodded.

Zamość, Poland 1941

“It was late in the afternoon when I walked from the farm to the outskirts of Zamość and took the bus back to our home on Belvederski Street. The July sun was high in the skies and weather was warm.”

“Why did you go back to Belvederski Street? I thought you said your family was being resettled to New Town.”

“Well, I didn’t know where they would be. Maybe they were still in the house. Maybe they hadn’t vacated yet. I hadn’t had any contact with them for several months. So I thought my home would be the logical place to start. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. A stout lady with a bulbous nose and tightly permed white hair answered and stood in my doorway. She had on a black wool dress, a formless thing that draped over her stocky body and hung down to her shins and she stood with her arms folded across her chest in a defiant posture.

“‘I’m looking for the Solomons,’ I said.

“‘They don’t live here anymore. They’re Jews. They all live in New Town now. Who are you?’

“‘No one,’ I said. She gave me a nasty look and slammed the door.

“I walked down the steps and headed for Kozmierski Street to catch the bus to New Town, but as I reached the corner I saw two German soldiers standing at the bus stop. I turned and walked across the street, melting into the pedestrian crowd. One of them saw me, followed me and confronted me at the next corner.

“‘
Dokumente,
bitte
,’ he said.

“‘
Nicht verstehe,
’ I replied. ‘I don’t understand.’

“He grinned at me and shoved me back against a building with his rifle. ‘Papers,’ he repeated.

“I just shook my head. I had no papers and I wasn’t wearing an arm band, so I was immediately arrested and taken to a warehouse near the town hall where they locked me in a tiny windowless room. All during that dark night I was tormented by my bad decisions. Why did I leave the mountains? What was I thinking? If I were killed, who would care for Hannah and Beka? If they send me to a concentration camp, who will protect them? How I regretted my decision to return to Zamość. I should have budgeted our money more carefully and left for Slovakia when my parents didn’t show up. I should have listened to Beka when she begged me not to go.

“After an eternity, the door was opened and two guards stood in the doorway silhouetted by a blinding light. They pulled me up by my armpits and shoved me down the hall to an office where they sat me in a metal chair before a lesser-ranked SS officer.

“‘What is your name,
Saujude
?’ the SS corporal said. He was a beastly man, so fat he couldn’t fasten the bottom two buttons of his tunic. His blemished forehead was covered in sweat.

“‘Benjamin Solomon,’ I answered.

“‘Who sent you to Frau Maudsten’s yesterday afternoon?’

“‘Who?’

“A guard slapped me and the officer repeated the question.

“‘The only place I’ve been to is my home on Belvederski.’

“The officer snorted. ‘That’s not your home and you know it. It belongs to Frau Maudsten. Your family has been resettled. Why did you go to Belvederski?’

“‘It was an innocent mistake,’ I said. I didn’t want to tell him I had been out of Zamość. ‘I was on a work detail. I forgot we had moved. Without thinking, I walked up to the front door and then I remembered that it wasn’t my house any more and I left. I didn’t cause any trouble, sir.’

“‘You have no papers and no work permit. You have no arm band. You’re not permitted outside of New Town. Did you forget all that, too?’

“‘No. I lost my work permit and my arm band, or maybe I left them at my new apartment.’

“‘I thought you said you were coming home from a work detail?’

“‘That’s right. I’m very tired. I get confused.’

“He gestured to a guard to take me out. ‘Too many mistakes,
Saujude
. You are to be sent with the next group to the new camp at Majdanek.’ I was grabbed again and hustled to the door.

“‘Wait!’ I said quickly at the doorway. ‘I didn‘t tell you the truth. I was on a special assignment.’”

“Special Assignment? Why on earth did you say that?” Catherine said.

“I was a dead man anyway. Either he’d kill me for lying or I’d be sent to Majdanek and nobody ever returned from there. I had nothing to lose.

“‘Oh. I’m sure.’ He laughed at me. ‘And what was this special assignment,
Saujude
?’

“‘I can’t tell you,’ I said.

“‘Oh, you’ll tell me, I promise you that.’ They closed the door and brought me back to the chair. The corporal took a knife from his desk. “You’ll tell me right before you die.”