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eBook Category: Mystery/Crime
eBook Description: Herman Bachrach let himself be seduced by a beautiful woman never imagining that he would be suspected of her murder. He's forced to replace her in a hunt for an aging war criminal, a meeting that will force him to confront his own heritage and destiny.

eBook Publisher: Zumaya Publications/Zumaya Publications, Published: Zumaya Publications, 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2002

7 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [718 KB], eReader (PDB) [241 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [229 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [202 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [208 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [249 KB], hiebook (KML) [505 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [294 KB], iSilo (PDB) [188 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [234 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [273 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [304 KB]
Words: 69938
Reading time: 199-279 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Ever have something happen to you and even while it's happening you know that from that moment on your life will never be the same? Like you're in an auto accident and know you're paralyzed? For me, it happened at the Union Bank.

My boss is Gabe Cohen. Behind his back the staff at the office call him God. Cohen is hardly godlike in stature, but in his kingdom at the Banking Group he wields a lot of power. God wanted me to take some unusual grand opening photos for Banking Insider, one of his trade magazines. I had the Hasselblad on a tripod in the lobby with the 180-degree fisheye lens. It distorts the image, but the effect can be dramatic.

Through the viewfinder I saw the revolving door turn. A woman emerged. I waited for her to walk out of my field of view, but she didn't. She walked right up to the camera. I looked up.

That was it. It's hard for me to explain. I'm a photographer, not a romance writer. You know those clichés: "their eyes met across the room," as if eyes were flying about, giving greetings. This woman had incredible sultry eyes like Ava Gardner in those black and white late night reruns on television. That would be intriguing enough if they weren't looking right into mine.

I felt like the bird on a limb that sees the cat staring from down below and is so mesmerized that it falls right off the branch. Bye by birdie. Those eyes said, "Follow me," and God help me, I did. Nothing's been the same since.

Until then, being a photographer, I was used to seeing the world through a lens. The viewfinder makes you an observer, not a participant. After meeting that woman, like it or not, I became part of the action.

Even as I was following her out of the Union Bank part of me was asking, "Why me? Why has this gorgeous, sexy woman fixed on me for whatever?"

I'm not outright ugly, but nothing special to look at. I've a forgettable face, receding brown hair, brown eyes, a worried forehead. I'm basically insecure and uncertain of myself, probably because I know I'm not that great a photographer and don't have terrific social skills. If I had a shrink the definition would be low self-esteem. I try to make up for it by making wisecracks, but that doesn't always ingratiate you, as I found out when dealing with the police.

There's more. My name is Herman Bachrach. Your name has a mystical power. It's your karma. 'Herman Bachrach' sounds Jewish. Imagine if your name were Mohammed ben Laden and you were Catholic. Result: conflict and confusion. Same for me. I'm not Jewish, but my father is. As he would say, Oy gevalt.

Before he retired Dad sold men's suits, what they call in Yiddish the schmate, the rag business. My mother, Mary Reilly, is Catholic. She worked in the clothing store office, which is how they met. At eighteen Dad was smitten and agreed that if they married they'd raise their children Catholic.

It was a decision he regretted the day I was born. Catholic or not, he insisted that I be circumcised. Dad wanted a bris, the traditional eight days after birth ritual. They compromised on a hospital operation without a rabbi. So I got the scar but not the prayers. Being circumcised doesn't make you a Jew. If it did, half the boys in my gym class gang shower room would have been Jewish.

When I was old enough, Mom insisted on a parochial school. Dad resented what he called brainwashing by the nuns and countered by telling me a lot of jokes about Jews, Catholics, nuns, rabbis, and priests. Unwitting kid that I was, I'd tell the jokes to the other boys and the word got back to the sisters.

The last straw was Dad's bad Latin quotation, "Penis erectus non conciem habit," which translates roughly as "an erect penis has no brains," Dad's own editorial comment on the marriage trap. At the time, I didn't know what an erect penis was, but some tattletale repeated the quotation and I got expelled.

Maybe that's what Dad wanted all along. There was a huge fight complete with broken crockery and me cowering and the cringing on the stairs as I eavesdropped. The marriage ended in divorce. Mom had a nervous breakdown. Dad got custody.

At first I blamed myself for the family argument and the divorce. I felt guilty for years, but now I realize that my parents had been mismatched from the start.

One thing Dad learned from the experience was a lesson he's repeated time and time again, "Don't get dragged by your dick into a bad relationship."

So did I remember his advice when that woman walked up to me in the lobby of the Union bank and lured me next door to the Hilton Hotel? Nope. When Frederick the Dick raises his head, the brain switches off.