November 30, 1939

Jennifer felt like she was about to scream. She pushed the rage down as best she could, but her body was shaking with it. If this bastard said one more word, she was going to…

"Hey now, kid, I think that's enough."

Detective Ryan, Jen's new partner, intervened. They were interrogating a suspect in the murder of a delivery boy at a bakery. And the suspect in question wasn't happy in the least that a woman detective was daring to ask him questions. Most of them were like this, not taking Jen seriously as a detective. Asking for coffee or trying to cop a feel or calling her "dollface" or any other patronizing little names. She was used to it, and she hadn't been really bothered by it as a private eye. But now she was a police detective, and the gold shield should have earned her more respect. Apparently it didn't.

But at least Jen didn't have to deal with all of that with the men she worked with. Well, most of them. Captain Wolfe took her under his wing and gave her good assignments, and her partner, Matt Ryan, was good about treating her as an equal and defending her when it was necessary, like now. Matt coming to her rescue had been a kindness she'd not expected. Part of her was annoyed that he kept trying to be her savior, but she couldn't be too upset about it. After all, the kind of men who treated her like some bit of stuff were the kind of men who would listen to Matt just because he was a man. And Matt knew it.

If only everyone at the precinct was like Matt. The other detectives on the Homicide squad, Simon Joyner and Duncan Freeman, weren't as bad as they might have been, but they certainly weren't happy to have Jennifer join their squad. Those two were off at the jazz clubs every other night competing with each other on how many pretty girls they could take home. Jen knew if she was at one of those clubs, standing by the bar, they'd pick her up just as they would anyone else. Her presence in their squadroom threw them off. Jen thought that was just too bad, but it did hurt her feelings to be excluded from the comradery, as much as she wished it wouldn't. Matt always tried to make sure she wasn't left out too obviously, but there was only so much he could do.

Simon and Duncan weren't as bad as Sergeant Wilton Sparkes, though. Sparkes was as bad as the suspects. He traded off between calling her "sweet cheeks" and "Jenny baby" which more than once required Jen to go to the bathroom and kick a door. But what was she going to do about it? He was her superior officer, and he wouldn't listen if she tried to push back and it might even lead him to do worse. Let him say what he wanted. She was a damn good detective, and she knew it. This was her big shot, and she wasn't going to blow it by knocking the sergeant's teeth in.

Jen took a slow, deep breath to calm herself down, and she got right back to work. "Tell me again," she commanded. "Go through the day. Every single minute. Something happened to that boy, and you haven't told us what."

Later, after they'd finally twisted a confession out of the bastard and called the district attorney to charge him properly, Jen found herself a hole in the wall bar with Matt, Duncan, and Simon. Once again, the boys were eager to blow off steam after their shift, and they would have been happy to do so without Jennifer there, but Matt made sure they waited for her to finish typing her report so she could go with them. He was sweet like that.

"So tell us, Mapplethorpe, where'd you come from?" Duncan asked.

Jen wasn't sure if he was being kind, offering an opportunity for friendship, or if he was going to turn this into a way to tease her and try and force her out of Homicide. She couldn't quite tell about Duncan yet. Simon, she had a better sense of. But Duncan was still a dark horse.

And so Jen took a healthy swig of her beer, just to prove she could hold her own with the men. And then she answered him.

"I grew up in Hell's Kitchen and then worked up in Harlem before getting transferred down here," she said. And that was true. The background the FBI gave her was that she'd been a uniformed officer in Harlem before she passed the detectives exam and continued on another three years there before getting the job with Homicide. Easy enough for her to stick with, since it was pretty damn close to her actual life. Easier than having to be someone else entirely. Easier than being Trish Claybourne.

A pang of longing went through her at the thought, much as she wished it wouldn't. She hardly ever thought about Nick anymore, what with being so busy these last six weeks with Homicide. But he was always there, lodged deep in her heart, filling her with the yearning for the joy and love they'd shared, sometimes overwhelming her with the bitter metallic taste of regret for what could have been.

She was brought out of her maudlin musings by Simon's astute comment of, "Hell's Kitchen and Harlem? That's a rough go."

Simon grew up in Great Neck. He had the air of a guy born and raised with a happy family in a house with a white picket fence and backyard with a swing tied in an old oak tree.

"Growing up rough makes for a good cop," Duncan interjected with a tone of approval. "Helps you see more clearly."

That was the first vaguely praising thing Duncan had ever said to or about Jennifer, and she felt herself start to glow a little with the feel of it. Matt had let it slip that Duncan grew up in an orphanage in the Bronx and he didn't talk about it much. He spent all his money on fancy suits and picking up beautiful women to make up for his upbringing. Matt never bothered with any of that. He was a nice, honest kid from Astoria who spent every Sunday visiting his father. But maybe Matt wasn't the only good guy on the squad.

Well, jury was still out, as far as Jen was concerned.

December 14, 1939

"Ma, this is Wesley Claybourne."

"Avram, did you bring a goy into my house!?"

Nick smirked to himself. He'd gotten the same thing for most of his childhood every time a new friend or neighbor met him. The Jewish communities in New York—and most places, he assumed—kept to themselves. They kept to their own kind. They interacted with outsiders as a necessity, but welcoming gentiles into their homes was a bridge too far.

"No, Ma, he's a member of the tribe. His mother's a Rothstein," Abe explained exasperatedly.

But Mrs. Reles wasn't too convinced. "And she called him Wesley?" she asked suspiciously.

"My goy father called me Wesley before he left us. My mother used to call me Yitz, when she was alive. My middle name is Isaac." That was close enough to the truth. Nick's middle name wasn't Isaac, but his mother had called him a diminutive of his Hebrew name.

And that was enough for Mrs. Reles. She threw open her arms and pulled Nick inside. "Then in honor of your dear departed mamma, you're welcome in my home, Yitz."

Even if she was the mother of the murderous gangster that Nick was trying to flip to be a federal snitch, being hugged by a plump five-foot-tall Jewish mother was a very welcome comfort.

"Come, we light the menorah," Mrs. Reles beckoned.

Nick turned to Kid Twist as they followed his mother into the house. "Thanks for this, pal," he said quietly.

Reles shrugged. "I gotta see my ma, and it's the last night of Chanukah. No guy should be alone all eight nights. Besides, I can't imagine that shikzah wife of yours could fry up a latke for you," he added with a laugh.

Of all the things that Nick had tried to ingratiate himself with Reles over the last three months, pouring out his sob story of his wife, Trish, leaving him after they got arrested and lost the store in Bushwick, seemed to do the trick. And in the last few weeks, Wesley Claybourne and Abe Reles had become the best of friends. Reles knew Claybourne by reputation, and it was easy for Nick to keep his knowledge of Reles to himself. And somehow Nick was actually starting to like the guy. Reles invited him to have dinner on the last night of Chanukah at his mother's house.

That didn't change the fact that he was a mark and Nick was methodically ingratiating himself in order to turn over information to the FBI and to convince Reles to become a witness for the federal government. And Nick certainly didn't forget about the brutal slaughter this man had brought on the Shapiro Brothers. Nick's own brothers. And some homecooked latkes wasn't going to change that.

But just for tonight, Nick could let all that take a backseat. After all, Reles didn't know how right he was when he teased about Wesley's wife not being able to properly celebrate Jewish traditions. Nick had no wife, obviously, but he hadn't had a shred of Jewish culture in his life since his mother died more than three years ago. And even before that, she'd bring him matzo ball soup on Passover and latke on Chanukah and apple loaf on Rosh Hashanah, but he otherwise hadn't really done much celebrating of the old holidays once he'd moved to Manhattan fifteen years ago. Even in the old neighborhood, holidays hadn't felt the same after his grandfather died. All relics of a life that he'd left behind long ago.

Nick stood behind Reles and his mother at the menorah. She struck a match and lit the shamash and used it to light the other eight candles on the last night of the holiday. Reles started to recite the prayer in Hebrew, and Nick joined him. The words came back to him as though they'd never left. And a little warmth of the Festival of Lights started to fill him.