The other thing that unsettled her about the holidays this year was that she didn’t spend it with Frank. Over the past five years they had established a lovely Christmas routine of The Night Before Christmas, stuffing Tommy’s stocking, and setting out the presents from Santa. Frank was alone this year. Again. All during the festivities at her parent’s home, Maggie couldn’t get rid of the image of Frank sitting alone in the cold, dark house.
To make up for it, she has planned a surprise for the first Friday after they get back. While it involves sitting in the dark, he won’t be alone.
“Excited?” Maggie asks Frank. She’s bundled up, standing in the ticket lineup outside the movie theater. He, of course, is wearing his three piece suit and bowler hat. Imperviousness to the weather is another one of those ghostly advantages.
“My dear, are you sure? This seems like quite the extravagance.”
“Banana oil, Inspector. You know, ‘In Old Arizona’ is the first talkie where the sound is part of the movie, and they filmed lots of the scenes outside in the desert rather than in a sound stage. I know you have an appreciation for modern innovations. And if that weren’t enough, we’re really lucky to get it here in Philly already. It’s just come out in California and hasn’t made it to New York yet. You can’t claim to be from Philly and not want to one-up them knickerbockers. Come on, Inspector. It’s Christmas, and I want to do something special with you.”
“But a Western, Maggie? Cowboys and Indians aren’t something I’m overly familiar with.”
“Inspector, you told me you had never been to the movies. And now there’s sound, too. There’s no way you’re not going to experience one of the marvels of the modern age. Now come on, let’s go inside. I’m freezing, even if you’re not.”
Inside the theater, Frank gawks at the ornate décor: cherubs, gilt, columns, mirrors, velvet, and crystal.
“It really is a movie palace, isn’t it?”
“I love these theaters. So opulent. It’s part of the magic.”
For the next ninety five minutes, Frank and Maggie sit enthralled as The Cisco Kid robs the stagecoach and runs off with the hero’s gal. Eventually, he gets his comeuppance at the hands of the singing sheriff. At the end of the movie, Frank joins the audience in the applause.
* * * *
The following Tuesday is New Year’s Day. Maggie had begged off joining the Duffy’s for their annual party at the Cadix the night before. It was too soon after the altercation she’d had with Mickey over Tommy, and she felt uncomfortable socializing with him. And the early night means that she’s in tip top shape for Philadelphia’s big New Year’s Day tradition.
“Hey Tommy. Want to grab your coat? I thought we could walk over to Marshall and Girard for the Mummer’s Parade.”
“Boy, would I? I love that parade. I love those crazy outfits.” Tommy rushes to grab his coat, hat, and mitts.
Bundled up against the New Year’s Day chill, Maggie and Tommy join the crowds. They get there just as the Comics Division, marchers in costume, strut past: umbrellas, silly outfits, somebody dressed up with a big head that looks like the mayor, but in prison stripes. The crowd is enthusiastic, cheering each participant. Men dressed as women tease the crowd.
The Fancy Division, decked out in satin and feathers, waltzes past next. The largest division and the most extravagant costumes, the players are sorted into different clubs, each carrying a banner and outfitted in a unique theme. Prizes will be awarded for floats, groups, brigades, couples, original costume, original character, and juvenile, making competition and rivalries fierce.
Maggie is glad she has brought mittens. She pulls up her scarf to her nose. Parade participants as well as the people lining the sidewalk to watch the parade are passing flasks offering a bit of liquid warmth. Giving Tommy a few coins, she sends him into the corner store behind them for two cups of hot chocolate. He hurries back with the cups, anxious not to miss the string bands. The crowd favorites are Trilby, Fralinger, Quaker City, and Polish American. Next to the Fancy Division, the bands are the most elaborate group, with fancy costumes and all kinds of props, depending on the music. Sometimes marching along the street, sometimes riding on a float, the musicians are extraordinary, playing banjos, saxophones, double basses, drums, glockenspiels, and violins. Maggie and Tommy keep warm, mittened hands wrapped around the steaming cups.
Sometime during the afternoon, Jimmy pops up beside them. “Wanna’ go to Two Street after? To the club houses? There’s always lots of celebrating after the parade. Especially with them that won the prizes.”
“Can I, Mother?”
Maggie thinks about Jimmy dropping out of school to work for Mickey. She looks into Tommy’s eager face. Childhood friends.
“The parade won’t finish until after dark. Why doesn’t Jimmy come by for an early supper? We’ll miss a few of the bands and floats, but you’ll get some food into you and then the two of you can go out again. As long as you’re home by nine.”
* * * *
Fed and bundled up for a chilly night, Tommy and Jimmy wind their way through the crowds. The parade is magnificent this year, and the crowd enthusiastic. The smell of roasted peanuts pulls them into a nut shop. There are also polly seeds—sunflower—walnuts and chestnuts, but the best are the peanuts. Hot from the roaster. They pool their money and share a bag for a dime. Heading back out onto the street, they leave a trail of shells behind them.
“I hear you’re not working at Mickey’s anymore.”
Tommy looks sideways at his friend. It’s a small world they live in when news about a kid like Tommy gets around so fast.
“Yeah, Mickey told me to get lost. That I need to spend more time at school. Boys’ Central is next year and he says it’s important.”
“That’s lame. What’d you do to get kicked out?”
“I dunno,” Tommy says, munching on the bag of nuts. “It musta been something. I thought we were good pals. He was always real nice.”
Another part of the Fancy Division comes by, strumming banjos. The music and the approval of the crowd drown out conversation. Jimmy and Tommy crane to see from the back of the sidewalk. Jimmy pulls Tommy up onto the fender of a car parked on a side street to get a better view.
“Hey, you kids, get outta here!” A loud, red faced man comes marching over, swinging his arms in the air. The boys laugh and scatter, tossing peanut shells at him and heading back up the street.
“It musta been swell to be hanging out over there at the Ritz,” Jimmy says.
Tommy shrugs and then grins. “My Saturdays with Mickey started at the Ritz, but we always wound up somewhere else. We played pool and drank beer sometimes.”
“No way,” Jimmy says, enviously.
“People always came by to talk to him. I liked hanging out with Mickey. He knew all kinds of stuff and would talk to me. He had me doing stuff: running papers over to people to be signed, picking up his suits at the cleaners, but mostly we just hung out. We’d go to ball games, and driving. He has this big Duesenberg that he let me drive.”
“I wish I had a car. Oh, the places I’d go.”
“When he was busy and didn’t take me with him, I’d straighten up the rooms at the Ritz. I won’t miss that. Lots of dirty ashtrays and glasses. The hotel staff would do the cleaning, but sometimes it got a bit crazy in there. One Saturday, I got to work and there were a bunch of Negro musicians sleeping on the couch and the floor. They’d been partying the night before. When they woke up, they started making music. That jazz is wild stuff, Jimmy. And a beat called ragtime. Hard to sit still when you hear it.”
“I know what you mean. When I go get the bets in the speakeasies, there’s always music. Hey, you heard that tune ‘Don’t Keep Me in the Dark, Bright Eyes? They’re playing it in all the clubs.” Jimmy sings a line or two.
Tommy claps his hands over his ears and shoves Jimmy with his shoulder. “Hey, cut that out. You’re making my ears bleed.”
Jimmy grabs hold of him and yells the lyric
s into his ear. They jostle back and forth, bumping into parade watchers. “Hey, you kids, watch it.” “Bugger off, boys.” Jimmy and Tommy laugh and, once safely outta reach, turn to make rude gestures in return.
“I’m spending more time with my grandfather, now. But it’s not the same thing. There was always something going on at Mickey’s. Exciting stuff. Interesting people. Grandfather takes me places, like museums. Those are neat, but he doesn’t talk to me much. It’s like going on a school trip.”
Jimmy hands Tommy the bag of peanuts. There’s a few left at the bottom of the bag. Tommy cracks a peanut open and tosses it in the air, catching it in his mouth. He grins at Jimmy, who cheers with a thumbs up.
Tommy sighs dramatically. “Getting kicked outta Mickey’s isn’t the only bad thing. I gotta help out more at home now, too. Mother’s working with Grandfather at his office a couple of days a week. When she’s away, I gotta turn the stove on and set the table. I miss the old days when she wasn’t working.”
“Yeah, yer ma’s a great cook.” Jimmy smacks his lips. “I love those pork chops she makes. And she brought over one of them apple pies ‘cause she thought my ma was out of town. I didn’t tell her otherwise, in case she didn’t leave the pie.”
“I miss the dough, too. I’m back at the paper route, but it’s chump change compared to what Mickey was paying me.”
“Think you can sneak away and come with me when I do my rounds for Chalkie?”
“Nah, Mickey’d find out and then I’d be in trouble.”
Jimmy throws his arm around Tommy. “I got some money. How about we go buy some cigarettes and head over to the mummers’ club house. Maybe we can sneak a peek at the gals changing outta their costumes.”
“You’re on, let’s go.”
Chapter 60
F rank looks around Maggie’s office, peering at her certificates from Drexel, the photo of Tommy, and then takes in the view from the window.
Maggie is working away at her desk. She frowns at him. “Inspector, please sit down. You’re making me nervous with all the pacing and poking.”
Frank settles in the office chair in front of her desk. “My apologies, my dear. I’m just impatient to hear what you’ve learned going through those papers of Mickey’s.”
Joe has given her two weeks, so she’s making the best of it. She’s squeezed every moment she can out of the holiday break, and is working evenings as well as days this final week, taking advantage of the exceptional opportunity to look through Mickey’s books
Accounting and auditing is a methodical process. Some would say a tedious process, but for her it is a puzzle, coaxing the numbers to reveal their secrets. And she finds it fascinating. They always have a story to tell.
In addition to the additional filing cabinet, Ron had also brought in a table for Maggie to lay out the papers. She sorts them into the various enterprises: bookie-joints, speakeasies and clubs, hotels, bootlegging sales. While she had planned her assault on the mountain of information thoroughly, once she got into it she discovered several significant challenges.
The first was her timeline; two weeks was precious little time for the task at hand. Secondly, she had to work with two sets of books. Finally, much of Mickey’s business was cash. There were very few bank statements, and she had to presume that they represented only a sliver of the actual transactions. Although, for a cash-based business, she was surprised at the thoroughness of the record keeping.
Very little of Mickey’s accountant’s records were standardized, though there appeared to be signed receipts for most transactions. That some of them were on the back of cocktail napkins, well, it just made the hunt more interesting.
Maggie had gone through the three years of ledgers. One set was obviously maintained for public purposes, primarily to show the IRS. The other set were the real accounts. Maggie was sure that the DA’s office would have compared the two sets against each other to determine the variances, and is considering Mickey’s personal ‘bottom-drawer’ ledgers to be the primary reference. Given her limited time with the books, she’s made notes, but has turned her attention to the bigger pile of papers: the receipts; invoices; the rumpled and stained cocktail napkins; the backs of envelopes with illegible handwriting; all the other financial documents gathered during the raids. Maggie applied good old-fashioned auditing work, going through those records. It was here she hoped to make a breakthrough.
“It looks like such an impossible task. Like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Frank says. He’s come around and is peering over her shoulder.
Maggie puts down her pencil. “Inspector. The impossible part is trying to get any work done with you in the room. Perhaps you could find something else to do? I only have a few days left and I want to make the most of it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was bothering you. I’ll just sit in the waiting room out front, shall I?”
Maggie gives him a tight smile. “Yes, that would be lovely.”
She turns back to the papers. She can’t actually go and verify entries—count the bottles of whiskey claimed in inventory, poke her nose into supply cupboards—which would be a critical aspect of any good audit. Instead, she is having to rely on only half the information: the numbers entered into the pages of the journals.
Maggie has taken five pages from the primary ledger, the one that Mickey would have relied on. She is busy totalling the entries and comparing totals to what invoices she has on hand. Everything seems to add up or, at least, seems to make sense.
Sitting back in her chair, she closes her eyes. She’s exhausted: the pale green pages with narrow lines numbers marching across and up and down the pages; staring at endless columns; juggling this new assignment with her regular responsibilities at home and the office; running on very little sleep and too much coffee.
Going through the ledger itself verifies the accuracy of the columns. She adds the columns herself, takes the total debits minus total credits and verifies the balance. She’s concentrating deeply when a lightning bolt strikes.
“Impossible.”
Maybe I’ve made a mistake? I’m so tired; the numbers are blurry and jumping around on the page.
She repeats the whole process, the tape on her adding machine spooling over the back of her desk, the narrow curls of paper cascading to the floor. She pulls the lever faster, and frantically flips the pages in the ledger.
Maggie smiles. “Gotcha.” She tears off the last few inches of tape, using it as a marker in the ledger, and pulls another year forward. Now that she knows what she’s looking for, it’s easy.
“Inspector. Can you come here please?”
Frank comes rushing into the office. “Have you found something? What is it?”
Maggie sits back, gesturing for Frank to take a seat in front of the desk.
“Well?”
Maggie smiles, enjoying the suspense. The shoe is usually on the other foot. Relenting, she leans forward, clasping her hands on top of the ledgers spread out in front of her.
“Mickey’s accountant is stealing from him.”
“What?”
“Yes. It’s systematic. He’s been skimming off the top every year I have a ledger for.”
“I thought that we were trying to find evidence that Mickey was the thief?”
“Oh, there’s lots of that. The differences between the IRS ledger and the private ledger are obvious. I’ve made some initial notes, and will make sure we have everything we need in that regard before I hand the boxes back to Joe.”
“And what about the mountain of paperwork in the evidence boxes? Wasn’t there anything useful in that?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a treasure trove. You remember how damaging that list we found in Eugene’s pocket was all those years ago? Joe was able to track down suppliers and customers and almost had a case built against Mickey.”
“Before his witnesses disappeared. Poor Eugene,” Frank says, with a grim look.
Maggie nods. Her brush with the underbel
ly of Mickey’s business was terrifying. “Mickey’s not had much success with accountants. Having the keys to the kingdom is too much temptation.”
“We’ll have to make sure we’ve squeezed as much as we can out of these ledgers and scraps of paper before we hand things back to Joe.” Frank gazes at the paperwork that covers every surface in Maggie’s office.
“I’ll make sure I compile a complete list of suppliers and customers based on this information. I’m sure that Joe will find it useful if the police ever do decide to investigate. No, the real secret the ledgers reveal is that Mike Malazdrewicz, the trusted accountant from Mickey’s home town in Poland, is skimming off the top. And a tidy sum, too. It’s growing larger. Maybe because Mike is confident he’s not going to get caught. Or maybe he’s taking advantage of Mickey’s illness—his mood swings and trembling. Who knows? If you come round to this side of the desk, I’ll show you what I found.”
Watch Your Back Page 24