American Gangster

by Mark Jacobson

  Frantically, Krimer and Waldroup attempted to connect to the Webcam security system Itzler had installed so he could watch the activities at 79 Worth Street from his Hoboken apartment. The cam was available from any wired-up computer. But no one could remember the password. “Fuck!” screamed Krimer. Eventually the connection was made.

  “The place is being raided, and we’re watching it on the Internet,” says Waldroup. “The cops were like ants, over everything, taking all the files, ledgers, computers. On the couch were these people I’d worked with for months, in handcuffs. It was very weird.”

  Jason wouldn’t find out about the bust until sometime later. “I was shopping for rugs with Ed Feldman, who is kind of a legend in the fashion business,” Jason says. It was Feldman who, years before, had given the young Jason Itzler a copy of Budd Schulberg’s all-time delineation of the Hebrew hustler, What Makes Sammy Run?

  “Read it,” Feldman said. “It’s you.”

  Jason says, “I immediately checked into the Gansevoort Hotel and began partying. Had a couple of girls come over because I figured I wouldn’t be doing that for a while. When the cops came, I thought, ‘Well, at least I’m wearing my $2,800 rabbit-fur-lined sweater from Jeffrey’s, because who wants to look like a guy in a sweatshirt when they lead you away?’ All I remember thinking was how I thought NY Confidential would last for twenty-five years.”

  Almost six months later, Jason is still in jail. In the beginning, he was confident that his lawyers, Sachs and Bergrin, after all that money and all those free drinks, would bail him out. That did not happen. With none of his regulars, the trust-fund babies and famous artists Itzler considered his friends, rushing to his aid, Jason wound up in front of Judge Budd Goodman at the 100 Centre Street courthouse, penniless and lawyerless, tearfully asking to defend himself, a request that was denied.

  “Ask me if I feel like a sap,” Jason says.

  Down deep, he always knew that when all was said and done, after everyone had had their fun, he’d be the one to pay for it. With the Bush administration coming down heavy on sexual trafficking—the religious right’s top human-rights issue—Robert Morgenthau’s office is not of a mind to offer deals to loudmouthed brothel owners, not this election year. As a “predicate” felon from his ill-considered Ecstasy import scheme, Itzler’s facing a four-and-a-half-to-nine-year sentence. Even if he beats that, there is the matter of his busted parole in New Jersey. Sitting in Rikers, playing poker for commissary food, once again Jason has a lot of time on his hands.

  One of the things to think about is what happened to all the money that was made at NY Confidential. A common theory, one Itzler advanced in a recent Post story, is that Clark Krimer, who may or may not be cooperating with the D.A., took it all.

  “He stole $400,000,” Jason says. “He should be in jail. If anyone laundered money, it’s him.” Asked if it was possible that he, Jason, had managed to spend a good portion of the missing money, Itzler scoffs, saying, “Who could spend all that?”

  When it comes down to it, however, Jason says he doesn’t want to think about Krimer or the fact that Waldroup remains in jail even if he only answered the phones. “I’m staying optimistic,” Jason says, free of bitterness. “It is like I told the girls, if you smile a fake smile, keep smiling it because a fake smile can become a real smile.”

  “The problem with NY Confidential was it didn’t go far enough,” Jason says now. “If you really want to put together the elite people, the best-looking women and the coolest guys, you can’t stop with a couple of hours. It has to be a lifetime commitment.” Jason has consulted his prison rabbi, who presided over the recent Passover ceremony during which Itzler got to sit with recently arrested madam Julie Moya (of Julie’s) during the asking of the Four Questions. The rabbi told Jason that as a Jewish pimp who sold women to Jewish men, he was liable for the crime of kedesha. The rabbi did not, however, think this transgression necessarily prevented Jason from becoming a shadchan, or a traditional matchmaker.

  “I’m thinking about the future, the next generations,” Jason says from his un-air-conditioned prison dorm. “I think I have a chance to do something good before I die. Who knows, the answer to the question ‘Who is John Galt?’ could be ‘Jason.’”

  As for Natalia, she is “keeping a low profile.” Last week, she went to see Jason again. Thankfully he didn’t talk too much about getting married inside the prison. Mostly they talked about the strange times they’d been through and how, even if it turned out the way it did, somehow it was worth it.

  “I was a young actress who came to New York like a lot of young actresses, and I wound up with the role of a lifetime. I was the Perfect 10. I totally was. It wasn’t the rabbit hole I expected to tumble down, but Jason and I … we were happy … for a time, really happy.”

  Since she received hardly any of her booking money and is pretty broke these days, people ask Natalia if she’s planning on coming back to “work.” The other night, a well-known provider, who said she used to hate Natalia when she was getting those 10/10s, offered to “pimp her out.”

  “That would be a feather in my cap,” said the escort. “To be the one who brought back the famous Natalia.”

  “No, thanks,” said Natalia, which is what she tells her old clients who call from time to time. “I say I’m retired, in repose. They say, ‘Come on, let me buy you a drink. I’ll be good.’ I tell them, ‘Look, we had fun and I love you. But that is over.’ Mostly, they understand. Some are willing to stay friends, some can’t wait to get off the phone. They’ve got other numbers in their book.”

  That doesn’t mean a girl has to stay home at night. New York, after all, is a big place, full of opportunity. In a way, things have gone back to the way they were before she met Jason. “Wiser, but not necessarily sadder,” Natalia says. Tonight she’s going downtown. It is always good to look good, so Natalia goes through what was a familiar ritual back in the days when she was the Perfect 10—getting her nails done at the Koreans’ on Twenty-ninth Street, combing out her wavy hair. For old times’ sake, she’s got on what she used to call her “money dress,” a short satin pink number with gray jersey inserts, with the shoes to match. About ten, she’s ready. She goes out into the street, lifts her arm, gets into a cab, and disappears into the night.

  Afterword

  I like to keep up with people I write about, the ones that are still talking to me. That’s most of them, because truth be told, I try to find the good in my subjects, no matter how difficult that may be to locate. As for the bad stuff, that will ooze out on its own. This said, I regret to report that George Schultz, and, alas, my mother, have passed away in recent years. Marta Bravo’s cigar storefront has closed. Ditto Mustafa Hamsho’s deli. Dover garage is long gone. Father Sudac has returned to Croatia. Nicky Louie apparently lives on, last seen in Toronto. Patty Huston was never, ever apprehended. Natalia, the Perfect 10, spent a month on Riker’s Island and is now back in her Montreal hometown. Jason Itzler remains in jail, currently in the state of New Jersey, which did not appreciate him running a whorehouse while on parole. But that’s how it is in the Big City: here today, gone tomorrow. You should see the corner of Fourteenth Street and Third Avenue now; the whole block is NYU dormitories.

  As for Frank Lucas, he called me just the other day. Now seventy-seven years old, more or less permanently in a wheelchair, but still sounding like Satan, Frank wanted to complain that the American Gangster movie people were running him ragged, dragging him around for “some publicity shit.” He had to talk to some radio people and some “other motherfuckers from the TV.” The whole thing had him pooped out, Frank whined, adding that if this is what it took to make him big again, maybe it wasn’t going to be worth it. What he wanted—because Frank Lucas is not the sort of guy who calls you just to say hello—was that I should come with him on his next PR junket.

  “You should come with me. Give me someone to talk to,” Frank said. It would be like old times, when I used to drive over to Newark thr
ee times a week to write down the old gangster’s life story. It was the least I could do, Frank said. “Because it was you that got me into this shit to begin with.”

  I could have argued that point, but what would have been the use? So I said, sure. If Lucas wanted someone to talk to, I could listen. I told him to call me anytime. He had my number.