This chapter-by-chapter summary contains plot spoilers!

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Navigate the Summary Parts: Part 1: Beginning Part 2: to Chap 6 - meet Berko Part 3: to Chap 9 - bar hopping Part 4: to Chap 11 - the black hats Part 5: to Chap 16 - Verbov Island Part 6: to Chap 22 - the shoot-out to be continued ...

Summary of The Yiddish Policemen's Union
by Michael Chabon
Pages 82 – 100:

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(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com)  Chapter 10. Landsman and Berko move on to the Hotel Einstein where the Einstein chess club meets, and question some players about the murder victim:  an older Russian and a young guy with a greenish complexion.  The two detectives describe the murder victim, and the Russian admits that he knew him as a heroin addict named Frank.

The two detectives notice two other players, "black hats" (Orthodox Jews), nearby trying to eavesdrop. Berko asks them directly what they know about Frank. One admits he knew Frank as a talented chess player. Landsman wonders how the Russian knew the murder victim was a heroin addict – and then suddenly recognizes the Russian as a former drug dealer, now retired.  The Russian declares that he's no lunatic: he wouldn't sell to Frank. Landsman realizes that something about Frank scares the Russian.

Meanwhile, the black hats piteously ask if they can leave. Berko makes them write down their names and addresses and phone numbers for him.  They scurry out, and Landsman reflects on how untouchable the black hats are: protected by political influence, secrecy, and aggressive lawyers, they are not the average citizen that one can drag down to an interrogation room at the police department. He and Berko decide to go after the black hats, and shake them down for more information.

Berko rushes after them out the door.  Landsman gets distracted at the sight of an old man, Alter Litvak. Litvak, once a chess buddy of his father, now sits with his chess board as if waiting for a game.  Landsman introduces himself.  The old guy, obviously having survived some kind of throat operation, can only communicate by writing notes.  Landsman asks if he knew the murder victim Frank.  Litvak scrawls that he did know the man slightly, and did Frank die of an overdose?  Landsman says it was a shooting, and asks where he can find Litvak if he needs to talk to him further.  Litvak's great-nephews show up to play chess with him, and they confirm that Litvak will be immigrating to Madagascar next week. Berko hollers from the alley for Landsman to join him.

Chapter 11.  Out in the alley, one of the black hats starts sniveling and the other threatens a lawsuit. Berko reluctantly lets them go, and they hurry away. Landsman and Berko wonder why everyone seems to know the murder victim, and what about him would make both a Russian criminal and two black hats scared to death. They realize that they'll have to go to the secretive Orthodox Jewish community on Verbov Island to talk with the rebbe (the rabbi who is also the spiritual and secular leader of the Hasidic community). 

Landsman remembers tales of the ninth Verbover rebbe, the father-in-law of the current rebbe, who fled the devastation of the Second World War upon Ukraine, and immigrated with his daughter to Sitka in 1948. Since then, the rebbe has built a vast empire founded upon organized crime. Berko and Landsman are afraid to visit Verbov Island, but they know they must. They decide to contact a fellow outsider who lives there, Itzik Zimbalist.
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