He came back to the table and sat down. “The rest of us are in business,” he said. “Now the first step is to pick a headquarters. I’ve got a place over in Jersey City….”
“Christ!” Fennelli thought bitterly as Kane elaborated on his plan. “The son-of-a-bitch has an organization ready!” And mixed with this thought was a certain amount of reluctant admiration.
“No one would believe the story the stoolie told,” Jerry said, watching Marty’s face closely, hoping to catch an expression of surprise there. Marty’s face remained impassive, a doctor hearing a case history. His opinion would be formed later when he had heard and assimilated all the facts.
“It was ridiculous, the police claimed. They wouldn’t believe ‘Fats’ Crown was rubbed out by an organization of all the big operators in the city. They tried to find a way to pin the rap on Tony Luigerro but couldn’t make it stick.
“After the killing of ‘Fats’ Crown the city grew quiet. The mob wars seemed to stop, and gradually the public’s attention turned to other matters. The pressure turned off, and the idea of a special prosecutor fell by the wayside for the time.
“And all the while Frank continued to consolidate and build his empire. He started his organization in a two-room office in a building in Jersey City. The name on the door read: ‘Frank Kane, Enterprises.’ But it was growing. From that little two-room office, tentacles were reaching out all over the country, to Chicago, to St. Louis, to San Francisco, to New Orleans. North, east, south, and west, they were reaching out in all directions, blanketing the country. Organized gambling became one of the biggest and most powerful businesses in the country.
“By late 1940 the two-room office had expanded into fifty rooms on four floors, had employed over two hundred people, bookkeepers, secretaries, clerks. Their eight operator telephone switchboard had direct wires to every gambling center in the country. It was big business in the American concept. There was nothing small about it.
“It had department heads, minor executives, top executives. It had an expensive and elaborate legal department. At its head was one of the top legal business counsels in the country. It had a public-relations department, with a man from one of the leading public-relations agencies heading it. This was the department whose job it was to maintain public interest in the venture. I know it sounds odd, almost crazy, to believe that a business as illegal as this one was interested in publicity, but it was true. This department saw to it that stories appeared in the newspapers and columns about killings made at the track, at the fights, at all games, by personalities that the public was interested in. They planted stories on how the bookies wept when so and so laid down his bets. They had competent sports writers writing articles on all angles of sports. They didn’t miss a trick.
“And at the top of it all was Frank Kane. Under his direction the organization called Frank Kane, Enterprises continued to expand. A department was set up having miniature tote boards for every important track in the country. The pari-mutuel machines at the track were duplicated in this office by electric calculators, operated by trained men, which reflected at every minute the bets received in his office on any one race in the country. It was a routine matter to check his play against the track by telephone, and if the prices weren’t right, a man at the track would begin to tumble money into the machines to get the price to where a profit could be made by the organization.
“He set limits upon which the bookies would pay off. Twenty-to-one to win. Fifteen-to-one to place. Ten-to-one to show. Fifty-to-one on parlays. One hundred-to-one on daily doubles. Before that, the prices bookies would pay were on a competitive basis, depending on how much business they needed or wanted. Sometimes one or the other would go over his head and fail to pay off. Frank Kane stopped this. A limit was set for the bookies according to their financial basis; all over that limit had to be turned into the organization, which would then split the profits with the bookies on a commission basis. It was a place where bookies not only could, but had to, lay off their bets if they went in over their heads. This had a stabilizing effect on the business. They began to brag that not one of them had failed to pay off in two years. It was a great deal like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation guaranteeing the deposits in banks.
“Perhaps the most amazing thing about the entire setup was that, despite its size, comparatively few people outside those connected with the organization knew about it. And even less people knew about Frank Kane, when suddenly one day the newspapers broke forth with the news. A joint interview with the governor and the mayor resulted in the statement:
The City and the State of New York, even the country, is in danger of falling into the power and hands of one man. One man, who has so organized gambling as a business that it is vitally affecting our entire economic welfare, whether we gamble or not.
He has so involved many of our citizens in economic bondage, forcing them into debt to small and large usurers and bookmakers, that the amount of money involved is greater than we can imagine.
His business has led him into fields of corruption never before equaled in our history. He does business in millions not in pennies. He had bribed or attempted to bribe large and small public officials. He has so organized nefarious activity that no longer is murder necessary as a threat to those that would oppose him, though there can be no way to estimate the murders and suicides that have resulted from his activities. He has substituted for this another weapon. The threat of economic enslavement for those who dare to oppose him. This man must be stopped.
Within a few days the governor will announce the appointment of a “Special Prosecutor” whose sole function it will be to stop this man and put him where he belongs. Behind bars.
This man’s name is Frank Kane.
The job of the special prosecutor will have but one function.
To get Frank Kane.
“The newspapers were in an uproar. They had long been aware of the fact that a great story was to break, but this caught them almost unprepared. They searched frantically in their files for pictures of Frank Kane and couldn’t find any. He was described variously as tall, short, fat, thin, and so on. To the public, he was a ghost, a wraith, a name without a body. He had never been arrested, never fingerprinted, never described. The question on everyone’s lips was, ‘Who is Frank Kane?’ ‘Where is Frank Kane?’
“Frank was in Chicago when the story broke in New York. He had gone there alone for two days, and for reasons no one seemed to know. There was never any business involved that we could find out, no woman, none of the usual things that would take a man to another city halfway across the country for only two days.
“I don’t know whether he was aware of what had gone on in New York after he had left, but I rather imagine he was. Anyway he boarded the train with his usual nonchalance, took his seat in the Pullman and opened his copy of the Chicago Tribune to the first page. And there I came back into his life—or rather he, into mine.
“Right there on the bottom of the page, next to an item that told of the accidental death of a Chicago railroad detective, was a small squib which read—
New York, N.Y.
September 9, 1940 (A.P.)
Jerome H. Cowan, son of the former mayor, A. H. Cowan of New York, has been appointed to the position of Special Prosecutor by the Governor of New York. It will be the job of Mr. Cowan to get Frank Kane who is designated as the currently top man in the gambling racket of the country by New York’s Governor.
“Yes, that was my job—to get Frank Kane. A funny way to get your big chance—nail your friend to the wall and let the buzzards pick at his carcass!
“I didn’t want the job, really. But my father, who had wangled it, said: ‘This is your opportunity. Friendship be damned! You may never get another like it.’
“So I took it. I was a fool, I guess, but then I couldn’t know what was to happen. My first order was to bring Frank in for questioning. You know what happened to that. He stood politely across the river in Jersey an
d thumbed his nose at us.
“At the end of three weeks of intensive investigation, we had gotten nowhere and I was getting frantic. The newspapers were slugging away at me. They thought I had been given a wrapped up case, that all I had to do was get it into court. They were wrong. I had nothing to start with and nothing after three weeks.
“I decided to see him and talk with him. So one afternoon I picked up the private phone on my desk, not the one that went through the switchboard, and dialed the number of Frank Kane, Enterprises. If I couldn’t get him over here, maybe I could make him see the hopelessness of his position and get him to quit before it was too late. ‘After all,’ I thought, ‘he was my friend.’
“A voice answered the telephone: ‘Frank Kane, Enterprises.’
“‘Mr. Kane, please,’ I said.
“‘Thank you,’ the voice replied. I heard the clicking of the transfer then another voice came on: ‘Mr. Kane’s office.’
“‘Mr. Kane, please,’ I repeated.
“‘Who is calling?’ came the voice over the phone.
“‘Jerome Cowan,’ I said.
“I could hear the faint note of surprise in the voice as it said: ‘Just a moment please’; then a click, then the voice again: ‘Mr. Kane, Mr. Cowan on twenty-fi-uv’, then another click and—
“‘Kane talking.’ His voice came expressionless through the receiver. It was like talking to a ghost.”
Jerry put his half-finished drink on the side table—he had long forgotten that he held it in his hand. He got out of his seat and walked over and stood in front of Janet and Marty, looking down at them.
Janet looked up at her husband with slightly widened eyes. He had never mentioned this before. He was agitated and nervous as he seemed to relive the moment in his mind.
He began to talk again, his voice was harsh and nervous. “‘This is Jerry Cowan,’ I said.
“‘I know,’ came Frank’s reply through the phone. His voice exhibited no more emotion than if I spoke to him every day; he didn’t seem affected by the strangeness of my call, by the fact that I had been appointed to put him in jail. It betrayed no curiosity as to the reason for my call; it was polite, casual, disinterested.
“I spoke quickly. I was afraid he might hang up and cut me off before I could finish what I wanted to say. From the way I acted, one might think that I was the accused, not the accuser. ‘Jerry Cowan,’ I repeated. ‘Remember?’
“‘I remember.’
“‘I want to talk to you,’ I said foolishly.
“‘You are,’ he pointed out in the same cool, casual voice.
“‘You’ve got to get out of this,’ I said. ‘You know people are gunning for your scalp and that you can’t beat them forever. We were friends once. Take it from me—get out while you can.’
“‘Is that all you called up to say?’ he asked.
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Frank, for Christ’s sake, listen to me!—’
“‘I have listened,’ his voice replied, and now a hard note had come into it. An underlying quality of steel crept into his inflection. ‘Mr. Cowan, I know you have a job to do. It’s your job. You took it. You do it. Don’t expect me to do it for you.’
“‘But, Frank,’ I protested, ‘that’s not it. I want to help you.’
“He laughed shortly. ‘You can start in helping by minding your own business.’
“‘All right,’ I said, ‘if that’s the way you want it.’
“‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Cowan?’ he asked. There was a hidden quality in his voice that I couldn’t understand.
“‘No,’ I said, suddenly exhausted, ‘nothing. I was just thinking. When we were kids, everything was so simple and we were friends and you and Marty and I were—’
“‘I know,’ he answered. Suddenly his voice had changed; it was gentle and friendly. ‘I was thinking too.’ He rang off and left me staring at the receiver in my hand.
“I put it back on the rocker and sat there in a sort of daze. I must have sat there for almost an hour, while a feeling of despair slowly crept over me. I was licked and I knew it. It was the same old story, and he was always better at it than I. I had the feeling I would never beat him down—never.
“I looked around the office. I hated it, everything it stood for, hated everything I wanted to be ever since I was a kid. What a fool I was, wanting to be something I wasn’t! I had to get out of the office, had to go out in the air by myself and think. I grabbed my hat and left. ‘I’m going out for the afternoon,’ I snapped at my secretary as I passed. ‘I won’t be back today.’ I jumped into my car and drove up into the country, and—and—” His voice seemed to choke up in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He stood there looking down at them silently, his throat working convulsively, his Adam’s apple jumping up and down.
Janet reached up and took his hand and drew him down to her. He sat between them, his face in his hands. “You know the rest of the story,” he muttered between clenched fingers.
Janet looked at Martin over his bowed head. There was a look of understanding of love and sympathy for him on her face. She spoke to Jerry, but it seemed to Martin that she was talking to him. “We know, darling,” she said softly. “And that’s why we’re going to do what we are.”
A strange look came into her eyes; they seemed to be seeing far ahead into the future. Her voice took on a mystical quality. She spoke to Martin. “What would you do if you had your life to live over again? What would you do for Francis?”
For a moment Martin thought he was crazy. He jumped to his feet. “Why, that’s preposterous! We all know that Francis is dead.”
The flame in Janet’s eyes glowed brighter. “What would you do if I told you he wasn’t?” she asked softly.
Part VI
60
Fennelli was waiting in my office when I got back from lunch. He jumped to his feet when I entered the room. I crossed the office and sat down behind my desk. I turned the switch down on the inter-office phone so that my secretary would know I was in—I had entered by the private elevator. The one o’clock report was on my desk. I picked it up and looked at it before I spoke to Fennelli.
Then I looked up at him; he was standing in front of my desk. He seemed to be a little nervous. Perhaps someone who didn’t know him as well as I did wouldn’t detect it, but I did. There were little signs: the studied stillness of his hands, the slightest pressure of his lips—little things that gave him away.
I smiled. “Sit down, Silk.” I lit a cigarette and watched him seat himself. “What’s on your mind?”
He jumped to his feet again. “The pressure’s really on, Frank.”
He was telling me! For the last six weeks I didn’t dare cross the river into New York and he was telling me the pressure was on! I didn’t speak.
He put his black Homburg on the desk. “I mean it, Frank. They’ve really turned on the heat. Cowan saw the governor the other day and got permission to start on us first since they can’t get to you.”
I knew that too. I was paying a guy right in the governor’s office two C’s a week to keep me posted. I knew when Cowan made the appointment and when he kept it. I even had a transcript of their conversation in my desk. There was still nothing for me to say, so I kept my mouth shut and smoked my cigarette.
Silk was watching me. When he saw I didn’t speak, he spoke again. “We’ve got to do something. The boys are worried.”
“What boys?” I asked.
“Madigan, Moscowits, Kelly, Carvell, the whole bunch.”
“You too?” I asked.
He sat down again and nodded his head. “Me too.”
I laughed. I remember when I used to think these guys were tough and that nothing fazed them. Now I knew different. They were tough enough in their own cute way, but if anything went wrong they came running to papa.
“What do you want me to do,” I snapped, “hold your hands?”
Silk flushed a little. “Can’t you get to Cowan in some way?”
“How about the guy himself?” Silk asked. “Maybe he’s got something hidden away somewhere he don’t want anybody to know about?”
I laughed again. “That guy’s led so decent a life it’s disgusting. There’s nothing there.”
“How about his family?”
“You know his old man yourself,” I pointed out. “Do you think you can hang anything on him that would stick? New York’s grand old man of politics!” I laughed derisively. If they ever started in on the old man, they would pull themselves down with him and they knew it.
“His wife?” Silk asked.
“No dice there,” I said. “I checked that too. They’ve known each other a hundred years—ever since they were kids. They were engaged since they left high school. There’s never been anyone to nail there.”
“There’s got to be a way to stop him,” Silk muttered.
I stood up and walked over in front of Silk and looked down at him. “Sure, it’s very simple. All I got to do is walk into his office and say: ‘O.K. boys, here I am, what can I do for you?’” I stopped for a second and ground out my cigarette in the ashtray. Then I turned back to Silk. “Just like that!”
Silk held up his hand. “You know we don’t mean that, Frank.”
“How do I know what you bastards mean?” I snarled. “All I know is that you guys come whining over here every goddamn time something goes wrong.
“Can’t you dopes see that that’s what they want you to do—play you around till one of you cracks wide open? Then they’ll have all of us.
“Sit tight. Keep your goddamn mouths shut! Leave the thinkin’ to me and stop crappin’ in your trousers every time the wind blows cold!
“You guys put me here to do a job for yuh and I’m doin’ it.” I turned and looked him straight in the eye and put a different inflection in my voice. “That is—unless you guys ain’t satisfied?”
Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double Page 36