A Bloody Business

by Dylan Struzan

  Chapter Nine

  We Stick Together, No Matter What

  APRIL 1926

  “Hello, Sucker. Come right in and leave your wallet on the bar,” says Texas Guinan. Patrons at the El Fey buy “Champagne” made from cider and alcohol for $25 a bottle. Watered-down whiskey is a buck a shot. That doesn’t stop everyone who is anyone from coming to the El Fey to listen to the quick-witted Guinan, or Larry Fay from laughing all the way to the bank.

  Fay made his way to the top using his fleet of taxis to run beer and whiskey to the major hotels and hidden speakeasies of Manhattan. When Owney Madden came out of the can in 1923, Larry Fay joined up with him and Big Bill Dwyer. The El Fey, on 45th Street, is Fay’s latest endeavor, for which he lured the wisecracking Guinan away from the Knickerbocker’s King Cole Bar. Business has never been better.

  Still he sweats the news that Big Bill has been caught up in Emory Buckner’s net. It eats away at Fay’s confidence even though his Texan star is the darling of café society. The white-hot spotlight that the Knickerbocker bust has cast on his closest associate leaves him sleepless and irritable. With a fair degree of sarcasm, he assesses the celebrity count in his club. Rudolph Valentino. Fanny Brice. Eddie Cantor. Sophie Tucker. And then, for good measure, he stashes his booze in the house next door to the club, where Prohibition agents won’t find it.

  “Bunch of immigrants,” Fay mutters, and then counts out the politicians and judges. “Bunch of hypocrites.”

  Meyer Lansky walks Anne Citron along the awning-covered entrance of the El Fey. Benny Siegel, with his date, Esther Krakower, are close behind. The girls check their furs and then take stock of the club’s clientele.

  “You can’t fight City Hall,” Fay says showing the party to a front-row table. “All you can do is entertain them and hope they remember the favor when you land in front of the judge. So far, it’s working.”

  “Too bad about Big Bill,” Benny says.

  “Class warfare,” Fay says. “Protestants against Catholics. Wait and see. They’ll be clapping a padlock on the El Fey soon enough. It’s all a show for headlines. I’ll shut down here and open someplace else. Word gets around. These same guys will be in the new joint boozing and bragging before anyone else. Nothing ever changes.”

  Anne says, “We’re good enough to work in the factories but clean the dirt out from under your nails and see how far you get. You want something, you gotta take it when it comes your way.”

  She glances at Meyer with a furtive look and strokes Meyer’s manicured nails.

  The tuxedoed maître d’ pours Dom Perignon, the real stuff, not the cider mix parading as Champagne.

  Larry Fay says, “Amen, sister,” and whispers to the maître d’ that this tab is on the house.

  Not more than a dozen blocks away, Emory Buckner, holed up in his Manhattan office, opens an envelope that was discreetly passed to him earlier in the day. The Sergeant at Arms of the United States Senate requests the presence of Mr. Emory Buckner. He is to come to Washington D.C. to testify before a senate hearing on crime.

  “The Sergeant at Arms requests!” he says. “And what would he do if I declined? Arrest me? Can’t anybody just pick up a telephone and call?”

  “What?” his secretary says.

  “I have to go to Washington. Find out when the next train leaves.”

  “This late?” she says.

  “As soon as possible,” he says. “If that’s now, then now. It’s a train. It runs in the dark!”

  Buckner packs his briefcase. He throws in a freshly laundered shirt and clean underwear just in case his appearance should drag on.

  “You’ve got twenty minutes,” the secretary says.

  Buckner races down the hall and runs down two flights of stairs. Outside, he hails a cab. The temperature has dipped to barely forty-six degrees. He kicks himself for leaving his topcoat on the hook behind the door.

  “Grand Central. And step on it,” he tells the cabbie.

  “Just once I’d like a guy who ain’t in a hurry,” the cabbie says.

  Buckner barely makes the train bound for the nation’s capital. He falls into a commuter seat. A copy of the New York Times occupies the seat next to him. He picks up the paper and thumbs through the pages. He stops short to read about the latest debacle shaming the federal war against bootlegging.

  To control the easy money made from bathtub gin, government chemists routinely add poison to all industrial-destined denatured alcohol. The latest chemical concoction used for this purpose has bootleggers stymied in their search for a removal process that frees the alcohol from the poison. Consequently, the death toll mounts and the government, not the bootleggers, is taking the heat for poisoning its citizens.

  Buckner snaps the paper closed and grumbles under his breath. It isn’t the government’s fault. It is the brazen rebellion of the country’s citizens—that’s what is wrong with this country.

  The person sitting across from Buckner looks up from his timetable and notices the Times article.

  “Shameful,” he says out loud and goes back to his schedule.

  Buckner’s lip curls. He is of the belief that people get what they deserve when they step outside the law, and that includes the poisonings. But his logic doesn’t fly with liberals and he knows it. Furthermore, expressing such a thought could weaken his case, so he stuffs his opinion down deep and focuses on the job at hand: cleaning up New York. Which means he needs more federal money.

  He pulls a manila folder from his briefcase and reviews his notes. The president is soft on enforcing the unpopular law. Another thorn in Buckner’s side.

  The train pulls into D.C. Buckner hustles for a cab that takes him to the Capitol Building. He tips his hat to the young ladies sitting on the stone wall leading to the famous steps and ultimately the great white building where justice is served. The girls giggle and go on with their white-bread sandwiches and lightweight conversation. Birds rustle through the trees and swoop down to catch the crumbs thrown by the girls.

  The investigating subcommittee convenes in the holy of holies. Sixteen senators set apart from Buckner by tightly spaced desks that face rows of small mahogany tables arranged in neat semi-circles. Buckner settles his briefcase and takes a seat. He removes a stack of folders from the case, and then faces the senators.

  His first official act is to state his name. The senators shuffle papers and speak among themselves. Buckner waits patiently for them to get to the point.

  Mr. Codman asks if Buckner enforces the Prohibition law. After that he asks if Buckner is having any success. Buckner asks the senator to define success. He explains that enforcing Prohibition in a district like New York is nearly impossible. For two hours, a back-and-forth debate rages.

  Then Senator Means asks about the “foreign element” and wonders if they are responsible for the criminal violations. Without mentioning specifics, Means hints at prevailing attitudes: a report by Ellis Island doctors that the Italian face lacks intelligence; an article in the North American Review quoting Police Commissioner Bingham as declaring that half the criminal population in New York is Hebrew and another twenty percent are Italian; Henry Ford’s declaration that Jews are in crime because they are unfit for hard labor and that Italians are in crime because they are a “riffraff of desperate scoundrels, ex-convicts and jailbirds.”

  But that’s not the whole story, of course, and Buckner gropes for clarity. How does one explain the burden of poverty to a Senator earning $7,500 a year?

  On the Lower East Side, four square blocks of Rivington Street and Clinton Street in his Southern District contain 5,800 people, most of them Hebrew. The average garment worker’s day wage is $1.68, or 14 cents an hour per twelve-hour shift. Put another way, it takes three hours of work to buy a dozen eggs.

  Means presses for specifics of Prohibition violators with regard to trafficking.

  Buckner turns to his calculations. Sixty million gallons of illegal alcohol runs through industrial pipelines. Buckner fi
gures a plant at full capacity can produce four thousand gallons a day. That amounts to $75,000,000 a year. He calculates the profits drugstores can garner from their dealings in the trade.

  The numbers, the numbers, all the talk is about numbers. Gallons, percentages. But the thing eating away at Buckner’s cause, like a moth going at a perfectly good wool suit, is the simple fact that morale is low among his inspectors. They don’t care like they once did. The demon spirit has turned out, in most people’s eyes, to be benign. Corruption has spread through the ranks.

  Which means he needs new soldiers in the ranks. But today, the senators are not inclined to release the federal dollars Buckner needs for the fight. Buckner repacks his briefcase and returns on the next train to New York.

  Back on home turf, he hails a cab. The driver takes him past the El Fey, where Texas Guinan stands on the sidewalk securing the club’s mascot, a tiger named Mecca, while federal officers close the club. The officers shout and the tiger returns a growl. The spectacle has captured a large audience of onlookers.

  Texas turns to Larry Fay and says, “They shoulda padlocked this joint sooner. You can’t buy this kinda publicity.”

  * * *

  Meyer relaxes in his Claridge Hotel office and scans the paper. Brigadier General Lincoln C. Andres, head of Federal Prohibition enforcement, has informed the House Appropriations Committee that the cost of enforcing Prohibition during the next fiscal year will be $29,120,122.

  “He thinks that’s high,” Meyer says to Benny. “He should be working this side of the street.”

  “Everybody has a hand out,” Benny says. “What does the general think we pay for enforcement?”

  “It’s the cost of doing business,” Meyer says and moves to the next story.

  “The Irish got cops and politicians. What do the Jews get?” Benny says.

  “Lawyers,” Meyer says. “You can do a helluva lot more with a good lawyer than you can with a cop or politician.”

  “Tell that to George Remus,” Benny says.

  For Remus, who was on trial for a thousand Volstead Act violations, the jury took just under two hours to convict him and send him packing to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

  Charles Solomon sticks his head in the suite’s door. Charles “King” Solomon is the latest bootlegger to secure a series of suites in the Claridge, the gathering place for Jews unlikely to join the needle trades.

  “Is this the place?” he says.

  “The king has arrived,” Benny says. “Too cold in Boston? You gotta run down here to warm up?”

  “Stock up,” Solomon says. “I hear you are making moves in Philadelphia. I came to make sure you aren’t thinking of branching out to Boston.”

  “We’d let you know,” Benny says without a smile.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Solomon says with a nod. “You know Samuel Bronfman up in Montreal?”

  “What about him?” Meyer says.

  Solomon lights a cigar and assesses the mood of the room. Meyer folds his newspaper and lays it on the table. In fair imitation of the Lincoln Memorial, he sits back, settles his arms on the chair’s armrest, and studies the King.

  “I have a connection with him. I can get all the whiskey you need,” Solomon says.

  “We’ll keep it in mind,” Meyer says.

  It isn’t so much Solomon’s cheap whiskey that Meyer objects to as the narcotics that are his stock in trade. Solomon rarely deals in opium, the stuff of Chinese dens. He prefers heroin and commercially manufactured morphine for the simple reason that it guarantees return customers.

  “What brings you here?” Meyer says.

  “That’s it,” Solomon says. “Checking in to see how things are going.”

  Meyer nods. It is dangerous to get too close to a drug dealer but foolish to avoid all cooperation.

  Solomon offers, “There are no unwilling victims, eh? We give the public what they want. In that way, we stay in business. That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Business?”

  Meyer says, “Why rock the boat with a crime that’s publically despised when you can make as much from one that people love?”

  “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” Solomon says.

  “What’s that, advice from the Easter Bunny?” Benny says.

  Solomon says, “I’m on the fifth floor in case you want to find me,” withdrawing his head from the office.

  A long series of grunts and groans that would sound more at home in Polly Adler’s place than bootleg central emanate from a back room. A shaft of light pierces through the room. Meyer rises and closes the shade.

  Benny says, “What are we, mushrooms? We have to live in the dark?”

  “Whorehouses should be dark,” Meyer says, referring to the business in the back room. He fires up a cigarette and tries to ignore the pleasure circus in the back, a couple of Charlie’s guys going at it with a couple of Polly’s girls.

  Meyer says, “Don’t get too close to Solomon. We don’t need that kind of trouble. Who was it that Buckner busted in Jersey last week? Anybody we know?”

  “Nah,” Benny says. “Strictly a one-man operation with permits for the denatured stuff. Buckner hired some General to sniff out the guy on account of the government poisoning.”

  “General Andrews? He has no jurisdiction in Jersey.”

  Benny says, “They nabbed ten carloads full of this guy’s alcohol. The guy’s got the permits, all right. The undercover guys couldn’t make a move at the yard so they followed the shipment to a plant in Jersey. That’s where the guy turns it into bootleg. Buckner calls it an overt act. I had Dalitz send our stuff to a different yard until all this blows over.”

  Polly’s girls wander through Benny’s office.

  “We’re leavin’ now. Need anything?”

  “A little peace and quiet,” Meyer says.

  Red Levine wanders out from the back.

  “Were you part of that?” Benny says.

  “What? The girls? Jews don’t make noise when they’re having sex,” he says.

  As the girls exit, before the door even has a chance to swing shut, Charlie Lucky saunters in.

  Benny says, “Charlie, what’s with your guys jazzing it up with Polly’s girls all day and night? All that heavy breathing is steaming up the windows.”

  Charlie says to Meyer, “You know the Italian in Philadelphia, Sabella?”

  “What about him?” Meyer says.

  “He’s spreading the word among the Mustache Petes that there is money to be made in bootleg. Lots of money. These cocksuckers in Philadelphia are knocking over shipments left and right.”

  Red leans against the wall and cleans his fingernails with the tip of a switchblade.

  Benny says, “What’s it got to do with us?”

  Charlie says, “A couple of friends of mine were in a restaurant and they heard the guys at the next table, friends of Sabella, planning to jump our next shipment. Apparently, they ain’t got no respect for Jews. They’re tellin’ the old greasers that the Jews are pushing their weight around in Philly.”

  Benny snarls, “Is that right? These fucking cocksuckers. I can clean up this mess.”

  With Charlie’s blessing, Benny, Red, Meyer, and Nig Rosen board a train to Philadelphia. They settle into a private compartment. The semaphore goes green and the train lurches forward.

  Meyer says, “These old greasers are nothing but trouble. One day we’ll be forced to take them out of the picture. Maybe not today but soon. If we make Charlie the man, he can clean things up.”

  Red says, “Why make anybody the man?”

  “It’s their culture. ‘Father’ this and ‘man of honor’ that. They need someone at the top. But it’s got to be someone they respect. The Americanized guys don’t put a lot of truck in the greasers—they just want to earn, but the greasers have their hands so deep into everybody’s pocket that the guys on the street don’t make much money, yet they’re the ones out there risking their lives. That pushes these guys to do stupid things. That’s in
our favor. Remember Rothstein and the Black Sox Scandal? Play on the discontent. Same idea. Charlie is fair and square with the guys. He lets them earn, so they don’t have to take what belongs to somebody else.”

  The discussion volleys back and forth between the inadvisability of getting involved and the undeniable fact that they already are involved. The break from the greaser debate comes when Benny hands off a stack of taxpaid stamps to Rosen, who examines the small green strips of etched genius. The fine print reading TAXPAID blossoms in the middle of a four-leaf clover. The banner on one end of the strip reads “80 Proof.” The banner on the other end reads “One Quart.” Across the top of the strip are the words “Bottled in Bond Under the Supervision of the United States Government in Distillery Bonded Warehouse.” La pièce de résistance, as far as Meyer is concerned, is the undulating red type of the distillery name: Old Shylock Distributors.

  The booze comes in through Atlantic City just after midnight. The contents are loaded into three unmarked trucks and taken to a warehouse not far from the docks. The counterfeit taxpaids are affixed to the bottleneck, over the cap and down both sides, guaranteeing the contents are pure and legit. The bottles are returned to their original crates. The crates are loaded into the trucks and the trucks are sent on their way.

  Benny is behind the wheel of the lead truck. Red rides shotgun. Just outside of Philadelphia, Salvatore Sabella’s boys take the bait, hijacking the trucks and leaving the drivers on the side of the road. Nig Rosen comes up from behind and retrieves the drivers. They follow the trucks to Sabella’s drop. In a flurry of bullets that takes the lives of two of Sabella’s men, they take back what is theirs.

  Sabella is left with a nagging suspicion that Charlie Lucky is behind the rout. The accusation is a slippery slope. Accuse Charlie and you accuse Joe the Boss. Neither Sabella nor his boss have the strength to take on Joe the Boss’ mob.

  Sabella attends two funerals and fumes. He heads to New York where he meets Charlie at the Mulberry Street garage in a rage about the men who were killed in the raid.