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 146 – 196:

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(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com)  Chapter 17. That Friday night Landsman eats a lonely dinner at the Polar Shtern Kafeteria. He recognizes a fellow diner: Buchbinder, a dentist who transformed his weird hobby of making miniatures into an even stranger museum featuring full-sized, hand-made replicas of ceremonial tools and objects straight out of the Book of Leviticus in the Bible. 

Landsman says hello and asks about the museum, which Buchbinder says he has closed down.  Buchbinder then claims to be immigrating soon to Jerusalem. Landsman doubts that a religious lunatic like Buchbinder would ever get let into Palestine.  He asks if Buchbinder knows anybody there to sponsor him, and Buchbinder claims to know the Messiah. Landsman nods and humors him, but then wonders if Buchbinder really is crazy. The dentist says good night, and departs.

Chapter 18.  Bina comes in as the dentist leaves.  Landsman considers pretending not to see her.  But she comes over and sits with him. He's still terribly attracted to her.  He thinks about their marriage and past history together.  He thinks about Jewish women in general.  They bicker harmlessly about what topics to steer clear of, which leaves them with the safe subject of the noodle pudding. She admits that she's staying with her parents until she can find her own place. She happens to see a pamphlet on the table that he picked up from Verbov Island, and realizes that he's disobeying department orders and continuing to investigate the murder case.  But she's too tired to fight about it. She finishes her food, tells him to be in her office at 9am the next day, and then departs.

Chapter 19.  Upon getting his 6am wake-up call from the night manager at the Hotel Zamenhof, Landsman finds himself in his underwear, sitting in his armchair with his loaded pistol in his hand. He shifts over to the bed and falls back asleep. Nine a.m. passes, and Bina shows up and lets herself in to his room. She scolds him for its squalor, and demands to know if he and Berko went to Verbov Island yesterday.  He admits it and tells her that he can't give the case up because he takes it extremely personally that someone would murder one of his fellow residents at the Zamenhof Hotel. She gives him the autopsy report on the murder victim. He tells her the victim was the son of the rebbe of Verbov Island, and she is shocked and intrigued. She says she'll try to cover for him when Baronshteyn the lawyer inevitably calls the police department to complain.  Landsman tries to talk Bina into approaching Mendel's mother at Mendel's upcoming funeral because he knows it will be impossible for a man to talk to the rebbe's wife. Bina refuses.

Chapter 20.  Landsman reads the autopsy report, which tells him nothing he doesn't already know.  He pays a visit to Benito Taganes, an informer of his who is also the Filipino donut king and owner of Mabuhay Donuts. Landsman has some donuts and thinks about how he first became friends with Benito:  years ago as a patrolman, he stopped a rapist from attacking Taganes's transsexual lover Miss Olivia, and he beat up the rapist.  Miss Olivia is now dying in the hospital, and Benito – while still married to a colorless wife – is struggling with his grief.

Landsman has some donuts and asks questions about Mendel.  Benito confirms that he noticed some young, bearded, religious Jews who were not black hats asking around about Mendel two or three months ago.  They were looking for Mendel but got no information from Benito. That's all Benito knows about Mendel, but he does give Landsman a tip on an unsolved murder of a loser named Viktor Zilberblat. Apparently the prime suspect, Zilberblat's brother Rafael "Rafi" has been seen sneaking around a big empty department store at Granite Creek. Perhaps Rafi is living in the abandoned store. Landsman thanks him and says he'll check it out.

Chapter 21.  Landsman drives straight to the abandoned department store with no backup and no one other than Benito knowing where he is. He parks his car and marches towards the locked doors only to have someone start shooting at him. He drops to the snow and shoots back, killing his attacker who is a woman near the doors. Rafi Zilberblat comes out of the store with his own gun; he and Landsman struggle, and Landsman manages to shoot him. Finally a younger Zilberblat man exits the store as Landsman passes out (from a glancing bullet wound to the head).  Landsman wakes to find himself in the snow without badge, wallet, cell phone, gun, or car. He passes out again.

Chapter 22.  Landsman wakes from a dream of his lost baby son Django to find himself recovering at Berko's apartment in Berko's bed.  He has slept away all of Saturday.  Berko and Ester-Malke know Landsman hates hospitals so they brought him home.  However, as he stays through Sunday, they ask him impatiently when he's going to leave. Berko tells him that the two criminals he shot were wanted for various crimes. Bina calls and confirms that she caught the younger Zilberblat and retrieved Landsman's gun, phone, wallet, and car. 

She tells Landsman, against his piteous protests, that he's suspended with pay, which is the standard procedure after a shooting.  Berko brings Landsman the newspaper which has a story about Mendel's death and the fact that he was the thought to be the potential Messiah. Apparently Mendel was supposed to get married 23 years ago when he was fifteen, but he skipped out on his own wedding. Landsman wonders if Mendel was trying to escape the burden of being the potential Messiah.
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