The dealer once again flipped all three cards face up, then face down. He repeated the quick swirling motion from before, shifting the three cards around on the box. But this time he did it even faster than before, and I truly had a difficult time keeping up. I honestly didn’t know which one was the queen anymore.

  And then the dealer stopped. To my amazement, the card with the bent corner was nowhere to be seen.

  The dealer’s thoughts betrayed the trick. He’d purposefully bent that card to lure a victim in. As he’d shuffled the cards, he’d removed the bend, and with his practiced sleight-of-hand he was able to shift the cards around so that only he knew where the queen was.

  “There you go, my man, turn over the queen and we’ll have a winner.”

  As the bettor stared helplessly at the cards, I felt my anger rise. This was a con. I decided to teach this dealer a lesson.

  I leaned in close to the gas station attendant. “I watched closely,” I said. It’s the middle card. I guarantee it.”

  The bettor looked at me, his face full of doubt.

  I nodded confidently. I may have lost track of the queen, but the dealer hadn’t—and I could read his thoughts.

  The bettor flipped over the middle card, revealing the queen of hearts. The others who’d gathered around the box cheered as the bettor collected his twenty-dollar profit.

  The dealer pasted a false smile on his face and yelled, “Winner winner, chicken dinner! It’s as easy as that folks. Any more bets?”

  The bettor patted me on the back. “Thanks, buddy, the name is Max. Hey, wanna try again?”

  A quick one-note whistle sounded from around the corner, and the dealer almost instantly collapsed the cardboard box. “Game over,” he said, hurrying off.

  The man who’d won his bet laughed and moved on. “Oh well, maybe next time. Thanks again, pal.”

  I grinned as I continued my walk. That was something I’d never seen in Miami.

  As I was walking down the next block, my mental early-warning system kicked in. I looked over my shoulder and saw the bearded guy in the backpack following me. I studied his thoughts—only to realize that by helping Max with his bet, I hadn’t won any friends with the neighborhood thugs who were running the three-card monte game. My heart began to race and I quickened my pace.

  And then I saw a tall man standing on the corner ahead of me, looking directly at me, like he was waiting for me to arrive. Was this another part of the gang?

  Not taking any chances, I crossed the street, almost getting hit by a taxi in the process. When both the bearded guy and the tall guy cut across the street as well, I began to run.

  I soon found myself racing down side streets, chased by footfalls. I couldn’t believe all this was happening over a measly twenty bucks.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to run too much longer. I’d never been much for exercise, and my stamina was terrible. I turned into an alley, just barely avoiding some overflowing garbage cans, and put on one last burst of speed.

  But as I shot out of the alley, my face smashed into a fist.

  It seemed the card dealer had looped around and was waiting for me.

  I reeled backward and landed hard on the pavement, my breath whooshing out of me. I felt blood flowing from my nose.

  The dealer kicked me hard in the ribs. “I’ll make sure you remember never to mess with my game! I own these streets.”

  The other two guys came out of the alley, and the three of them laughed as they rained kicks on me from all angles. All I could do was pull myself into a fetal position.

  A day that had started off so promising had suddenly taken a horrible turn.

  The Baker’s Men

  The pain in my ribs burned like hot pokers as my beating continued. Then suddenly I heard a shout, followed by a thud—and the kicking mercifully stopped. My eyes were closed, but I heard the pounding footsteps as my attackers ran away.

  I looked up to see the wavering image of a heavily muscled man.

  “Wszystko w porządku?” he asked.

  He’d spoken in Polish. It took me a moment, but my mind cleared enough to find his meaning. Are you okay?

  I nodded and pushed myself to my knees, groaning with pain. That was when I saw the dealer. He was lying a few feet away, passed out, with a big red mark on his face.

  As the Polish stranger helped me to my feet, I sorted through his mind to piece together the sentence I needed to say.

  “Nie dobrze mówić po polsku, ale ja to rozumiem.”

  I don’t speak Polish well, but I understand it.

  “That is not bad,” he said, still in Polish. “Your Polish is better than my English. But you can speak English; I understand it well enough.” He pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to me.

  I pressed it against my bloody nose. “Thank you.”

  He looked at the dealer and shook his head. “Only a coward fights three against one. But let’s not stay here. We don’t know if these cowards have more friends.”

  I agreed with the man’s logic. My ribs still aching, I followed my savior from the scene. He was an older man, and short, probably a few inches over five feet tall, but he was a good two hundred pounds of solid muscle. It didn’t surprise me at all that he’d been able to knock the dealer unconscious.

  I explained to him what had happened. How I’d been on the way to look for a job when I saw the con and helped someone avoid losing twenty dollars. Of course, I didn’t mention the mind-reading; I just said I had a sharp eye.

  “What kind of job were you looking for?” the man asked.

  I shrugged. “I was going to apply to be a waiter at a restaurant, but I’ll take any job I can find. I’m new here, and need to earn enough to rent a room.”

  The man stopped, studied me for a second, and then looked me in the eye. “I can’t afford to pay you much, but if you want to learn how to bake breads, danishes, and other things—I’ll make an opening for an honest hard-working Polish boy like yourself.”

  I hadn’t expected to be offered a job by a total stranger, so I blinked dumbly for a moment. I also felt a bit guilty that he thought I was Polish. But I couldn’t explain the truth of how I understood his language, so his assumption would have to do.

  The man swept his arm toward the building we stood in front of. It was four stories and occupied an entire city block. Stenciled on the side were the words Paryzer & Sons.

  “I’m Jacek Paryzer,” he continued. “If you work for me, I can also offer you a tiny place to stay. It’s not much—no TV or fancy things—but you’ll have a bed, and I have showers here. And we have lots of food. So, are you interested?”

  I couldn’t believe my fortune. At least for now, I wouldn’t have to worry about food and shelter. “Y-yes, Mr. Paryzer. I’m very interested. Thank you so much.”

  “Bah, call me Jacek. Everyone else does.”

  “Thank you, Jacek. My name is Jeremiah.”

  He held out a beefy hand, and I took it. “Jeremiah, are you ready to learn why everyone who works for me sleeps well every night?”

  And then he put his hand on my shoulder and escorted me into a building with wonderful smells pouring out of it.

  By the end of my first week at the factory, every muscle in my body was crying out for mercy. The smelly ointment that was supposed to help with the aches did no good whatsoever. Working in the factory was seriously hard work. The hardest work, physically, I had ever done in my life.

  On my first day, Jacek had handed me off to Eli and Chaim Paryzer, two brothers who evidently were Jacek’s distant cousins. They had been working in Jacek’s factory for only a year—prior to that they’d lived in Warsaw—and like Jacek, they were an intimidating pair; they looked as if they were part of the Polish wrestling team. Eli, the younger of the two, was very outgoing and friendly, but his brother was quiet and had moments of grumpiness. They argued with each other about nearly anything and everything.

  Including what to do with me.

  Virtually every waking hour had seen them introducing me to some new piece of equipment in the factory. I’d always thought of factories as being automated, and they were, but there was also plenty of manual labor—like feeding the machines thousands of pounds of flour, butter, cheese, and other ingredients. There was also plenty of stuff that had to be made by hand, since some special orders required things that the equipment wasn’t set up to do. I learned how to knead fifty-pound batches of bagel dough, roll out giant orders of danishes, and scoop backbreaking amounts of fruit or cheese filling from giant vats onto the rolled-out dough. Every one of these tasks I did over and over again under the brothers’ watchful eyes, and if I made a mistake, the Polish swear words would come out—at an impressive volume and speed.

  It was exhausting work. And yet I found a camaraderie with the other factory workers that I’d never experienced before. None of us were judged by anything other than our work, and that’s what everyone was here for—to work, and work hard.

  The sleeping arrangements were cramped, but added to the feeling of camaraderie. The two brothers and I shared a room with two metal-framed bunk beds. It didn’t matter that there was no TV; by the time we got to our room each night, I generally didn’t want to do much other than fall asleep.

  Now I shifted under the covers and let out a groan. Even a tiny movement awoke aches all over my body.

  Eli chuckled in the darkness. “Believe you me, that your feeling much terrible will be soon better.”

  Eli had been practicing his English with me, and it was getting better. My Polish was improving much faster. For the first two days all I learned was Polish profanities, since I heard them so often, but soon I found myself capable of saying nearly anything I wanted to in Polish, as long as I gave it some thought. I wasn’t fluent, but I could hold a passable conversation. That was pretty important, since nearly everyone here spoke Polish.

  “When you first started working here,” I asked, “did you feel like a train had run over you?”

  “Ha. Two trains and an autobus. Don’t worry. Soon it just be hard working and the pain won’t really be hurting. It will be feeling good.”

  I hoped he wasn’t exaggerating. At the moment, the throbbing ache seemed like something I would never recover from.

  “Also, tomorrow is Saturday,” Eli said, “and we work only half day. It time you get out of this place. I show you a good place I liking to go.”

  “That would be great, Eli. Thanks.”

  Eli was always worried about whether I felt at home here. He went out of his way to make sure I sat down with the rest of the factory workers to eat meals and socialize. I was grateful. If it had been just me and Chaim, things would have been much more difficult. Chaim was fine, but apparently he’d recently acquired a girlfriend, and was too preoccupied with her to think about anything else.

  I closed my eyes and stretched my tightened muscles one last time. Then, as I’d done every night since leaving Miami, I sent a silent prayer to whoever might listen.

  “Almighty, I hope Mom is okay. I pray that she remains healthy and succeeds in whatever she’s trying to do. And if it isn’t too much to ask, I’d really like to see her again someday.”

  Billowing clouds of noxious smoke flowed all around me, and the smell of burnt sulfur filled the air, irritating my nose and throat. I couldn’t see a thing, but I knew someone was nearby; I could feel their presence.

  And then I sensed movement within the yellow-gray smoke—a frustrated intelligence locked behind a gate I couldn’t see.

  Something about that intelligence both scared and intrigued me. I couldn’t sense their exact thoughts, but I could tell they were a prisoner. They wanted out.

  Suddenly a pair of flaming eyes appeared within the smoke, accompanied by the crackling of electricity… and gravelly laughter.

  The intelligence had sensed my presence, too.

  I lurched out of my sleeping position, barely holding back a frightened yell. Cold sweat covered me from head to toe.

  In my mind, I could still hear the haunting laughter.

  I was lifting a tub of dough into one of the bagel-forming machines when Jacek came by. He was carrying a package laden with stamps, and was muttering in Polish. “That lazy bastard is never early, and today he’s gone before I even have a chance to see him!”

  I yelled over the noise of the machine. “Which lazy bastard is it this time, Jacek?”

  Jacek’s sour expression transformed into a smile as he looked over at me. “Ah! Jeremiah! I need you to take this to the post office.” He then yelled across the factory floor. “Chaim, get someone to watch the bagels. Jeremiah’s going on an errand.”

  Apparently I’d just volunteered.

  I removed my flour-coated coveralls, and Jacek gave me the box and a five-dollar bill. I looked at the five questioningly.

  “The money is for you,” Jacek said. “You’ve been doing well.”

  And as he walked off, I enjoyed the warm feeling of an unexpected compliment.

  There was a long line at the post office. As I waited, I closed my eyes and listened to the spoken and unspoken conversations around me. Some people were thinking about their business at the post office—one woman was particularly worried about paying a late bill that needed a postmark with today’s date—while others were daydreaming about other things, like what they would have for dinner that night.

  And then I picked up on a Russian speaker’s thoughts, and my heart threatened to beat out of my chest. Was this the KGB? Had they found me?

  But I couldn’t look back without drawing attention, so I willed myself to be still as I concentrated on the Russian, delving into his thoughts. His name was Yevgeny, and he was a Ukrainian immigrant. He was worrying about whether the clothes he was sending to his son would fit.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t a KGB operative. He had no interest in me.

  Yet my heart continued racing, and a tickle at the base of my neck told me that something was wrong. Not with the Ukrainian, I was sure of that—but there was something…

  And then I saw it. The man at the front of the line, having finished his transaction, turned from the counter.

  It was the bearded partner of the three-card monte dealer. He had tape over his nose and a black eye. Both a gift from Jacek.

  He looked up from the receipt he’d been studying and his eyes opened wide as his gaze settled on me. He gave me a chilling smile of recognition as he walked past and out the door.

  I heard his thoughts. “I gotta find Jimmy. He’s gonna want to hand another round of whoop-ass on that jerk for his broken jaw.”

  After that, the line couldn’t move fast enough. And when I had mailed Jacek’s package and left the post office, I scanned the sidewalks warily. I saw nothing, no ambush waiting for me, but just to be safe I took an unexpected route, cutting through an alley. I was on full alert as I came out onto Kings Highway, but still, the toughs were nowhere to be seen.

  I was safe—for now.

  But at the same time, I was angry with myself for running. If I was going to live here, then eventually, I would need to learn how to face these people.

  The Hacker’s Challenge

  “Where you boys off to?” Jacek asked. “Lots of us are going to play cards.”

  Chaim, Eli, and I were headed for the exit. Eli answered.

  “I promised Jeremiah I would show him something outside of these walls for once.”

  “I’d rather play cards,” Chaim said.

  Eli jabbed his elbow into his brother’s ribs. “No you wouldn’t. You’ll like what I have planned.”

  With Chaim still grumbling, we stepped outside, and Eli led the way down the street. As we passed an intersection, Chaim looked down a side street and sighed.

  “I should visit Rivka,” he said. ‘It’s been two days since I’ve talked to her.”

  He spoke in Polish, as he always did; Chaim’s command of English was terrible. And though Eli was trying to learn English, he and I spoke in Polish as well when we were with Chaim. It was good practice for me, anyway.

  “Big brother,” Eli said, “she’s got you twisted around her finger.”

  “I do whatever I like,” Chaim protested. “It just so happens that I like to do what she wants.”

  Eli shook his head as he looked at me. “What do they call it in English? Henpecked! My brother is a henpecked fool.”

  “I am not!”

  “Chaim, you’re so henpecked I think you might be dating a woodpecker.”

  I burst out laughing, and even Chaim chuckled.

  We turned onto Ocean Parkway, and I asked Eli, “So are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “The Brooklyn Library,” Eli replied, sounding excited. “They just got in a collection of Polish movies.”

  Chaim groaned. “My muscle-brained brother loves movies. That’s all he ever did back in Warsaw.”

  “Oh, I’m the muscle-brain?” Eli retorted. “All you did for the last ten years was wrestle other guys at the gym.”

  “I wasn’t wrestling, you idiot, I was practicing karate. And you’d know that if you weren’t always at the movies.”

  As the brothers continued their good-natured argument, I stretched my sore muscles, which, now that I thought about it, weren’t as sore as they had been. Still, it felt good to be taking a day off—and I found myself looking forward to finding out what movies Poland had to offer.

  As we sat in the library’s viewing room, watching the end credits of Schindler’s List scroll up the TV screen, I felt a mix of emotions—utter disgust at the Nazis, pride in the actions of the main character, and sadness for all the lost lives that I barely knew about.

  Chaim wiped a tear from his cheek. “I hate that you made me watch this movie.”

  “It is a true story,” Eli said. “I cannot imagine living in such times, but that Oskar Schindler was a hero. And to think, so much of this happened only hours from where we were born. One day I want to visit that man’s grave.”

 

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