The Cobalt Weekly

#58: Fiction by Robert Sachs

THE RING ON RUBY RIFKIN’S PINKY

When people in the old neighborhood mentioned Howard “Ruby” Rifkin, it was with a whisper.  He was in the mob, they said, a protégé of Hymie Weiss. He had done hard time. When I was ten and living in Chicago, he was my neighbor, although neither I nor anyone I knew had ever seen him. Ours was a street of two-and three-flat apartment buildings, common on the Northwest Side, but there were a couple of modest houses in the middle of our block and Rifkin lived in one of those. My father claimed he never left his bungalow. Burly, grim-faced characters and heavily-rouged women were often seen going in and out, but never Rifkin. Which was why everyone was shocked that time when he showed up for Saturday morning services at our synagogue.

He was a squat man with gnarled features who used a cane and moved slowly, with obvious effort. Deep vertical lines stretched from his cheekbones to his chin that gave the impression of a woodcarving. He was wearing a fur coat and a black felt fedora. When he entered the sanctuary, a hundred stunned and curious pairs of eyes followed him as if Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself had wandered in to pray. He sat down next to me. There was a heavy-duty scent of cologne. I’m not sure how, but I instantly knew who he was. His aide, a large, rough-looking goon, motioned for me to move away, but Rifkin waved him off. “Tsawright,” he growled. “Just a kid.” He patted me on the knee. “Relax, kid.” He made an effort to smile and I could see a front tooth outlined in gold. I knew Rifkin had put up the money to build the synagogue and it was named after him: Beth Ami Rifkin. The sanctuary was named The Howard Rifkin Sanctuary. 

I wasn’t a synagogue regular. In fact, this was one of the few times I had been to a Shabbat service that didn’t fall on one of the high holy days. Neither of my parents attended services, but they made it clear I was expected to attend Hebrew school and become a bar mitzvah. I objected, and called them hypocrites. 

“Go to a service,” my mother pleaded. “For a few months. See how you like it.” 

I reluctantly agreed.

The Torah service began, and the rabbi took the holy scroll out of the ark. We all stood as the rabbi held it up. Everyone but me chanted the Shema prayer. I was ashamed not to know it. Rifkin was holding onto the seat back in front of him for balance. I noticed a large gold ring with a blood-red stone surrounded by diamonds on his left pinky. It was hard to miss. About halfway through the service, Rifkin began to sweat heavily. The handkerchief he used to wipe his face and neck was soggy. He rubbed his left arm and began twisting the ring as if it were strangling him. He was having trouble getting it off his fat finger. He signaled for his aide who had been standing at the back of the sanctuary, but Rifkin had the ring off before the goon arrived. He grabbed my hand and put the ring in my palm, closing my fingers around it. 

“Take care a dis for me, kid,” he whispered before he growled something in Yiddish and passed out. I had neither the time nor the presence of mind to say anything. His aide caught him before he hit the floor and gently laid him on the carpet in the center aisle. Then he headed off to find a phone. The service stopped and the congregation, standing, was completely silent. One man, perhaps a physician, blew in Rifkin’s mouth and pounded on his chest. He continued to pound until a paramedic rushed in, checked Rifkin, and pronounced him dead.

When I got home from services, police cars were massed in front of Rifkin’s house. His front door was open and cops, some in uniform, were moving in and out. My father was standing in front of our apartment house. I told him what had happened, leaving out only the part about the ring. He took me upstairs. 

“Flo,” he yelled. “It’s Ruby Rifkin. Listen to this. Butch, go ahead.” So I told my mother what had happened in shul–about Rifkin walking in, sitting next to me, and then passing out. About him dying right there in front of me. Again, I left out the part about the ring. To this day, I’m not sure why I kept it from my parents. It’s probably because I knew what they’d do: Turn it over to the police.

My mother put a hand to her mouth and sighed. “Poor man.” 

“We should be so poor,” my father said. “He could buy and sell all of us on the block ten times over. That ruby ring of his alone must be worth twenty, thirty thousand.” I tried not to scream. Twenty thousand dollars to a twelve-year-old in 1956 was a vast fortune. But I didn’t have twenty thousand dollars or even twenty dollars. I had the ring. Was it even mine? Did Ruby Rifkin mean to give it to me when he said, “Take care of this for me, kid?” I kept it hidden, told no one. 

I decided going to Shabbat morning services wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be and I became a regular until the day after my bar mitzvah.

***

In the mid-1960s, Milton Serchuck published a biography of Rifkin. It chronicled his early life on the West Side of Chicago, his run-ins with the police, his rise in the mob, and his final heart attack at the synagogue bearing his name. It also mentioned the ring and its mysterious disappearance. I learned from the book that the ruby itself was almost 25 carats, and it was surrounded by half-carat diamonds. People who knew him claimed Rifkin never took off that ring. Some believed his bodyguard snatched it from his finger at the synagogue while waiting for the ambulance. Others thought it was one of the paramedics or even the coroner. There was also a rumor that Ruby had hidden the ring somewhere in his home, perhaps buried in the cellar. No mention of it was made on the inventory of his belongings at the hospital. After the book came out, the mystery of Ruby Rifkin’s ring was the talk of our neighborhood. WGN did a segment on it. “Who has it?” they asked.

Some years later, my father and I were talking about the old days and he asked if I remembered seeing the ring on that fateful day. 

“I think I might have seen it on his little finger. But I’m not sure it’s a real memory. Wonder who took it.” 

I hid it in my closet for years. I took it with me to college, and when I was twenty-two, I put it inside a satin-lined velvet bag in a safe deposit box at Northern Trust Bank. I guessed at the time it was worth at least $150,000.

The issue of to whom the ring belonged gnawed at me from time to time. I treated it as if it were mine, but was it really? Rifkin had said to take care of it for him. He could have said, “This is for you, kid,” or “It’s yours now,” but he didn’t. I wrote to Serchuck, the biographer, asking if he had a view on where the ring ended up. The note he sent back said he didn’t, but added, “My money’s on the kid sitting next to him at the synagogue.”

I was stunned. He had done his homework. How much more did he know?

But the letter ended by saying, “I couldn’t even get a name. I guess we’ll never know.”

If it occurred to Serchuck that the boy sitting next to Rifkin that morning in the synagogue might have the ring, it may have occurred as well to some of Rifkin’s underworld associates. Would they be more likely to discover my name? I began to worry about my safety and thought seriously about getting rid of the ring. But more than a decade had passed and I convinced myself that if someone was on the case, they would have found me by now.

Rifkin’s house was sold for unpaid taxes in 1969, bought by a young couple with three children. When the synagogue Beth Ami Rifkin was sold to developers and torn down in 1970, I relaxed. It would be difficult for anyone to discover I was the kid sitting next to Rifkin. 

Over the years, there were times when I could have used the money that ring would bring. School. A family. But I kept it hidden and never said a word about it to anyone.

When the call came, I was living in Arlington Heights.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

The nice lady sitting behind you that day, may she rest in peace, lived down the block from you on Troy Street. She knew who you were, remembered your name. Where can we meet?” His name, he said, was Gittelman. 

When the corned beef sandwiches came, he asked me if I had the ring. Not waiting for an answer, he leaned across the table, grabbed my forearm and squeezed. “No bullshit now, understand?” He was short and stocky, not unlike Rifkin.

I pulled away. “Of course I understand. I don’t have the ring. Never did. Yeah, I saw it back then, but I didn’t take the damn thing. I was a ten-year-old kid for Chrissake. I’m going to steal Ruby Rifkin’s ring? In the synagogue? Did you talk to his henchman, the guy that was with him that morning?”

“He had an unfortunate accident and died,” Gittelman said. “The ring has great sentimental value to my associates. I’d be willing to give you five grand for it.”

“If I had it, I’d give it to you.” 

We finished our sandwiches and he paid the bill. “You look like an honest guy,” he said. “I’m inclined to believe you, but maybe the boss isn’t so trusting. We’ll be in touch.”

When I got home, I found the door to our apartment open and the rooms ransacked. Every drawer had been pulled out and the contents spilled on the floor. Every closet emptied. Our beds were overturned. Thank God my wife and son were not at home. The search was thorough, but not thorough enough. The key to the bank safe deposit box, taped to the bottom edge of the door to my bedroom closet, was still there.

Now I assumed I was being followed. I stayed away from the bank. Years went by like this. I decided to leave the ring just where it was. Forget about it. If necessary, my heirs would discover it after my death and deal with it. 

***

Fifty-five years have now passed since Ruby Rifkin put that ring in the palm of my little hand. Nobody remembers Rifkin these days. I read he had a son, a lawyer who often represented mobsters. When the son died, there was an article in the Tribune about his father and the long lost ring. 

I hadn’t looked at it in decades, rarely even thought of it. When I did, I felt guilty about keeping it a secret for so long. My parents died without ever knowing I had it. Gittelman died twenty-five years ago. In the article about his death, they said although he was suspected of at least twelve homicides and charged with eight, he was never convicted. 

***

I don’t tell Ellen, my wife, until a month before our fortieth wedding anniversary. “It’s our ruby anniversary,” I say, “and I have a surprise for you.” 

I bring out the ring. 

“That’s quite something,” she says.

“It’s a ruby surrounded by diamonds.”

“So I see. It’s enormous.” She was smiling, but cautious. She looked at me as if to say, “What the fuck is this?” I manage a shoe store and while we are comfortable from a financial point of view, there is no way I could have afforded such a gift.

“I thought we might put it in a new setting, hang it from a necklace.”

“Where on earth did you get it?” she asks.

I tell her the whole story. “It was Ruby Rifkin’s ring.”

“A mobster.”

“Well, yes.”

“I won’t wear it,” Ellen says, no longer smiling. “It’s gaudy. It belonged to a mob boss. In forty years you never said a word. Where was it when we needed money to send Joey to college? Where was it when we wanted to take a vacation to Italy, but couldn’t afford it?” On and on. She is livid. “And who would work on such a thing? Any reputable jeweler would consider it stolen property and call the police. Are you going to put it on eBay? The mob would be here in a second. What the hell are you thinking?”

She is right, of course. I’ve been naïve in assuming the ring would be our nest egg. Even leaving it to our son might put him in harm’s way. If I donate it to some charity, they will have it appraised and its provenance will be discovered. I feel stuck. I never should have kept it. I should have given it to Rifkin’s goon. Or to Gittelman. Or to my parents. My father would have seen that it got to the right place. 

I resolve to put it back in the safe deposit box and try again to forget about it. It’s a warm spring day and I decide to set out walking to the bank. On the way, I pass an old man, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of a vacant storefront. His hair is gray and uncombed.  His clothing is also gray and wrinkled. “Spare change,” the man whispers, not bothering to make eye contact. He’s holding out a cardboard cup, his hand shaking. I drop the ring in his cup and continue walking.

***

Robert’s fiction has appeared in The Louisville Review and the Chicago Quarterly Review. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Spalding University. His story “Vondelpark” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.