Daughter of the King (17 page)

Daddy, on the other hand, went to West Point twice a month. The unspoken deal between them was that Daddy could come up as much as he liked, as long as Teddy wasn’t in tow. So Daddy would drive up to West Point by himself, sit in the reviewing stands, and watch Paul and the other cadets drill for hours. Daddy knew how Paul felt, and he didn’t inflict his new wife on him. Instead Daddy began taking me with him on weekends.

We’d get a suite at the Thayer Hotel right on campus, with an amazing view over the Hudson. Daddy refused to use the phones. He once said that the biggest stool pigeon in the world was the telephone.
He was convinced that since we were on federal property they must be tapped. And there was no way any of my fed-fearing uncles would be caught dead at the place. Without any business to transact, Daddy was all mine, which was great. He seemed at home here, even more than he did at Dinty Moore’s. Because of his love of American history, he was right in his element. I learned a lot more from him on his weekend tutorials than I did at Calhoun.

We had Cokes on the hotel’s Thomas Jefferson patio and watched a cotillion at the George Washington ballroom. Daddy reminded me of my dancing lessons that I had dropped in favor of riding and teased me about what I would do if one of the handsome cadets in their gray uniforms asked me for a waltz. I was actually nervous one of them would. Wishful thinking. I was dressed in a skirt and sweater and white bucks, hardly waltz material. Daddy rarely teased me, but he did here. I think West Point made him relax. He showed me plaques honoring some of the Thayer’s many famous guests. Daddy pointed out one for General Sherman, who burned down Atlanta. “Too bad he missed Tennessee,” Daddy said, referring to his nemesis, Kefauver.

Daddy showed me a sign on a room where General MacArthur’s mother lived while he attended West Point. Daddy didn’t say anything, though I couldn’t help but wonder why, if Douglas MacArthur’s mommy could live at West Point, Paul Lansky’s mommy, my mother, couldn’t even come for a little visit. During the day we toured the austerely grand Gothic campus. Daddy told me it looked a little like Oxford, in England, though centuries newer. I could see how much he longed to have had a different life, one that would have enabled him to attend schools like this.

Daddy also took me to visit the grave of his Brooklyn friend, Colonel David “Mickey” Marcus. Daddy told me that Marcus had been one of the rare Jewish graduates of West Point and went on to become a lawyer and served as an assistant U.S. attorney. In that position, he had worked with crime-buster Thomas Dewey to send Lucky Luciano to prison. Daddy had hated him for that. It took New York’s most
famous rabbi and Zionist leader, Stephen Wise, to change Daddy’s mind. The anti-Nazi work Daddy had spearheaded before and during the war had brought him into the circles of New York’s highest and mightiest. He just didn’t brag about it, but he was in the loop. Totally.

A highly decorated World War II hero, Mickey Marcus had left New York and the law for the battlefield, leading Israel’s Haganah, or freedom fighters. Rabbi Wise urged Daddy to forget the Luciano past and think of Israel’s future and provide backing for Marcus. Daddy put aside his grudge and stepped up to the challenge. Daddy donated a lot of money to the cause of Israeli independence and provided the soldiers there with stores of weapons. Tragically, Colonel Marcus was accidentally killed in Israel by his own sentry in 1948. Kirk Douglas would later star in a movie about him,
Cast a Giant Shadow
. Having learned the Marcus story, I could see how Daddy might have wanted to lead same kind of hero’s life, but if he couldn’t do it, Paul, he was confident, would do it for him.

I finally saw Paul marching on the parade ground. It was hard to tell him from all the other cadets, and that was a good thing, a wonderful thing. He fit in. No one could have been prouder than my father. Meyer Lansky’s son was at West Point. The family was now part of the American ruling class. We weren’t “you people” anymore. We were
the
people, the chosen people. We met Paul’s roommates. One, Jaime Ortiz, was a handsome boy from Puerto Rico. He reminded me of a very proper version of Lucille Ball’s husband, Desi Arnaz, on the
I Love Lucy
show. Paul’s other roommate was Eddie Freeman, whose father was the colonel in charge of the Old Soldiers’ Home in Washington, D.C.

Colonel Freeman was a real military bigwig and liked Daddy so much that he sent us special VIP invitations to Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953. Daddy refused. He told the colonel he didn’t want to do anything to embarrass anyone, but the one he would have embarrassed, just by showing up, was Estes Kefauver. Yet that was Daddy, low-profile, low-key. Never show off, even when you have the advantage.

The boys at West Point all looked handsome. Obviously I was presold, because of Paul, and because of Gordon MacRae in
The West Point Story
. Too bad none of them noticed me. Actually one did. Kind of. I met him in the Thayer gift shop, where he was buying some souvenirs for his parents in Buffalo. His name was Gabby Hartnett and he was two years ahead of Paul, graduating in 1952. He was a star athlete, earning four letters, in football, baseball, skiing, and boxing. The summer of his graduation he was going to the Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, to represent America in the pentathlon.

Was this guy ever fantastic. It was almost as good as meeting Gordon MacRae. I thought about telling Gabby that I knew Champ Segal and Frankie Carbo, the big fight managers, but I was sure a proper West Pointer wouldn’t have approved. Then again, maybe he would have. He wanted to know all about me, my school, where I lived, my last name. Naturally I told him. I had nothing to hide. My brother went here. I belonged. Then Daddy walked in and gave me the dirtiest look,
that
look. Gabby seemed to want to meet Daddy, but I didn’t dare.

“You have a friend?” Daddy asked.

“I wish,” I said.

“Who is he?”

I told him his name, that he was going to be an Olympic champion.

“You believe that?” Daddy was raining on my parade. Daddy didn’t believe anything.

“He goes here, Daddy. He’s going to graduate.”

“You believe that?’

“Look at his uniform. What do you think he is, some kind of spy?”

“You never know.”

“Daddy!”

“I never saw him with Paul,” Daddy said.

“He’s an upperclassman.”

“Then why was he talking to you?”

That stung. Why
not
talk to me? I guess Daddy thought this heartthrob was way out of my league. And he was right. Who was I, who
couldn’t even get Jimmy C or Curtis, to go after a West Point Olympian? “Just nice, I suppose,” I answered Daddy. Father knows best.

Me in Havana, age 2, 1939. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Mommy in 1938, shortly after I was born. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

From left: Paul, home from military school; Buddy, looking elegant; Me; Mommy: Daddy, the Big Businessman, Boston, 1941. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Daddy, in his trenchcoat, with me in New York, 1940. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Me, at Birch Wathen School, age 6, 1943. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Mommy and Daddy’s West Coast palace, 1933. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Ben (Bugsy) Siegel’s wife Esther and daughter Millicent, Los Angeles, around 1946. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

My first friend, Wendy, with me in the Boston Public Garden, 1941. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Daddy and I on the hospital grounds of the county jail outside Saratoga, N.Y., 1953. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Cutting the wedding cake with my new husband Marvin Rapoport, 1954. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Top Row: Daddy, Marvin, Harry Rapoport. Bottom Row: Me, Anna Rapoport, 1954. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Me, on Sunday Swing, Madison Square Garden, 1955. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Me, at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida, trying to look sophisticated for Dean Martin, 1958. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Me, all dressed up, 1954. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)

Daddy and his old pal Ben Siegelbaum in Israel, 1971. (C
OURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
)