“I had a gun when I robbed the jewelry store,” Jimmy says.
“Having a gun is not the same as conspiracy,” Meyer says. “With the right judge, you may not do any time. Like Charlie said, we’re not telling you what to do but we would like to use you when we make our moves. Can you do a year?”
Jimmy says, “Standing on my head,” but he doesn’t sound like he likes the idea. What ex-con would?
Charlie says, “Take a couple of days to think about it. If you want to go through with it after that, call me and let me know when you’re coming into town. We’ll set you up with the lawyer.”
They board the Chris-Craft and motor back to Westchester looking much more like tourists than gangsters. Charlie and Meyer bid Jimmy goodbye.
* * *
Election Day in New York draws near. The theatrics continue to play themselves out. Fiorello waves his hat and promises food, housing, schools, parks, and sunlight. If he is elected, he will rid the city of dirty politics and focus on the corruption of Tammany Hall. And then he criticizes Jimmy Walker’s wardrobe. Jimmy Walker disregards the Little Flower’s allegations. He struts around Broadway entertaining the crowds with song. The crowds applaud. It’s what New Yorkers do.
When the vote comes in, Jimmy Walker walks away with 865,549 votes. LaGuardia garners a mere 368,384. It is a clear victory for Beau James Walker, who is sworn in as mayor for another term, and for Frank Costello, who helped him get there.
With the election finished and Gentleman Jimmy back in the seat of power, the McManus trial gets underway. The case of Jimmy Alo is small potatoes by comparison.
Alo decides to take Meyer and Charlie’s offer. He calls Charlie and reports to his parole officer. He hands the guy a cock-and-bull story that, for some reason, the guy accepts. Jimmy wonders if he was bought off or just resigned to the fact that more powerful men than him will make the choice about what to do with Jimmy Alo.
The lawyer sits by Jimmy’s side while he is questioned by the police. In the end, they concede there is no case. The book is closed, the event over. Jimmy Alo stands a little taller. He calls the redheaded Eddie McGrath.
“We gotta talk,” Jimmy says.
* * *
The East Village fills with drunken joy emanating from McSorley’s Ale House. Eddie McGrath and Jimmy Alo head into the bar to join the rowdy celebration. It’s Johnny Dunn’s birthday. Eddie throws his arm around Jimmy’s shoulder.
“Come on,” he says. “This is a great day. You want the Irish with you, you gotta become Irish. Let’s get inside before all the real beer is gone.”
A sign posted on the wall reads: “Good Ale, Raw Onions, No Ladies.”
Jimmy looks at Eddie dubiously.
“The fellas think more of speaking freely than making love when they got a belly full of beer,” Eddie says.
A Rockefeller Christmas couldn’t be any sweeter than the environment in the Ale House. Kettles of soup simmer on the potbellied stove. A sea of inebriated brawn sways between the pub’s long, narrow walls. The atmosphere is as raw as the onions.
The boys steer to a back table where Johnny has already been celebrating. Eddie signals to the bartender for more beer. A waiter loads a tray and whisks it to the table. Charlie Lucky comes in a few minutes later and picks his way to them through the crowd.
Charlie buttonholes Eddie. “I heard a lot about you and Johnny on the street. Jimmy here says you guys are O.K. I believe him.”
Eddie looks at Jimmy.
Jimmy nods.
Charlie says, “I heard you’re with the Dutchman. What do you say you stop by the Claridge tomorrow? We can talk there. Bring Jimmy with you. You know the place?”
Eddie finishes his pint, then knocks back another. Everybody hates the Dutchman, including him. But it wasn’t always wise to admit as much to someone you just met, no matter who gives him the nod.
“I know the place,” Eddie says. “You know the Dutchman?”
“I heard of him,” Charlie says with a smile, “but that ain’t the main thing. I’m always interested in reliable guys. Jimmy can vouch for that.”
Jimmy says, “This is Charlie, I told you about him.”
The name rings the bell in Eddie’s head it was meant to. This is the Charlie, the guy with the cousin whose life Jimmy saved by standing up to the greasers on his behalf, shortly after he got out of the can. Eddie relaxes. He figures the meeting is a good thing. Maybe a very good thing. Mostly the Irish don’t trust the Italians and with good reason. The two sides have fought for control over the docks around town for too long. But this Charlie isn’t like most Italians. He has managed to develop a good reputation among many gangs. He runs an equal-opportunity mob.
“I’ll give Jimmy the details,” Charlie says. He stands and throws down a fin on the table, walks off.
Eddie asks Jimmy, “Is he always like that?”
“He don’t beat around the bush much, if that’s what you mean.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says. “It’s different.”
Jimmy says, “If you don’t mind, I been outta town for a while. I wouldn’t object to going someplace where they got broads.”
It’s a good call. The beer joint is just that. It lacks sophistication and doesn’t care. Uptown are finer clubs with booze and music and all the other things Jimmy is looking for. The night runs late. The next morning, Eddie wakes with a pounding head. He shakes Bromo-Seltzer into a glass of water and then looks at his face in the mirror. He frowns. This is not the way he wanted to look for a business meeting with Charlie Lucky.
He calls Johnny Dunn.
“I’m coming with you,” Johnny says.
“You weren’t invited,” Eddie says.
“Do I give a shite? You ain’t goin’ to see a guy like that without me!”
Johnny is small in stature by comparison to Eddie. Maybe that’s what made him angry and tough, long years with bigger boys in Catholic reform schools.
Johnny says, “First a Jew and now an Italian?”
“And so what?”
“You can’t trust any of them. The eyes give everything away. You didn’t look in the Dutchman’s eyes when you got involved. If you did, you wouldn’t have gone with his mob. You’d a just delivered the beer like we talked about. Look this guy straight in the eye and ask ’im what you want to know. If he turns away and don’t look back, don’t trust him.”
“Jimmy Alo knows this guy. They are very friendly,” Eddie says. “You’re not coming with me.”
“I’m coming or you ain’t goin’. If I gotta wait in the hall, I’m comin’.”
Johnny has his eye on the piers in Greenwich Village and it’s going to take strength to hold on to what he intends to take. Another Irish guy named O’Mara runs the docks to the north, the Chelsea District, down to around Twentieth Street. Chelsea isn’t prime real estate but it is better than Greenwich. The best docks are above Forty-Second Street, where the big passenger liners come in. If Charlie Lucky is on the level, grabbing that big dream might come sooner rather than later.
Eddie stops at Johnny’s warehouse on his way to the Claridge.
“Will ya come on?” Eddie says. “But get this straight. You ain’t comin’ in with me. Got that?”
Johnny pulls on the camelhair overcoat hanging on the hook in his office. The light brown coat makes him look like a pine box with legs. He grabs a blackjack from the shelf in the closet and slips it into an inner sleeve sewn into the coat for this purpose.
“Fer Christ’s sake,” Eddie says.
Jimmy is outside the Claridge when they arrive.
“Wild horses,” Eddie says nodding toward Johnny.
Jimmy doesn’t catch the drift.
“Wild horses couldn’t stop him,” Eddie says. “You never heard that expression?”
“Never,” Jimmy says.
“There won’t be no trouble,” Eddie says.
“There’ll be plenty of trouble if you need me,” Johnny says.
Johnny stands guard in
the hall. Charlie is enjoying coffee with Meyer, Joe A. and Benny in the Claridge office when the boys come through the door. Eddie’s heart leaps into his throat. He recognizes every man there.
Jimmy says, “Johnny Dunn is waitin’ in the hall if you’re interested.”
“Bring him in,” Charlie says. Jimmy ducks out for a moment, returns with the other Irishman. “We got a shipment comin’ in and we’d like to run it through you. Can you handle it?”
Meyer says, “We don’t want to step on anybody’s toes. If you have an exclusive agreement with the Dutchman…”
“We don’t,” Eddie says. “We can handle it.” He looks to Johnny who nods his approval.
Benny looks at Johnny, “I heard you’ve been making moves on the docks.”
“You heard right,” Johnny says.
“Maybe we can help each other out,” Charlie says. “Have you got enough guys to do the job?”
“There’s plenty of guys willing to play deaf and dumb to avoid the soup lines,” Johnny says.
“The Italians are making moves on the docks, too,” Benny says.
Eddie doesn’t flinch, “We still get things done, if that’s what you mean.”
Charlie says, “That’s what we mean. I’ll give you the details of where and when our shipment arrives. Keep a dozen cases for yourself. That’ll be your cut. If it works out, there’s plenty more where that came from.”
That’s how the conversation begins, a slow build in a frank discussion on what it takes to take over the docks. Benny weaves through a commonality with Johnny and Eddie, the strong belief that the only way to achieve one’s goals is through force.
Meyer provides diplomacy.
“Sometimes you gotta sit down and talk it out,” Meyer says. His eyes intense. “Like a little League of Nations.”
Eddie says, “Sometimes you gotta get rid of the troublemakers.”
The boys stand on common ground. Charlie gives the Irish guys the specifics, a load of fine wine and Champagne coming in from Europe. Eddie wonders privately what he will do with cases of wine and Champagne since his customers are more partial to beer and Irish whiskey.
As the morning shapes up, Eddie hand-picks the guys who will offload Charlie’s shipment and make sure it gets to the right trucks. The ship makes its way to the dock. The captain stands at the rail looking for his contact. Once moored and with the paperwork out of the way, Eddie sends Johnny to meet the captain.
“The sooner you get this off my ship, the happier I’ll be,” the Captain says. “There is nothing easy about sitting in a New York harbor with a thousand cases of illegal booze dribbling out to a stream of delivery trucks.”
“You whine like a woman,” Johnny says, passing off an envelope. “Point the way. I ain’t got all day. I got the clerk to look the other way until we’re done.”
The Captain shouts orders to his crew. Eddie’s longshoremen move into place. Using a system of pulleys and slides, cases of European wine are offloaded and transferred to waiting bakery trucks. Johnny keeps the Captain company on the bridge.
“No funny stuff and we’ll get along just fine,” Johnny says.
“You’re the gunman?” the Captain says.
Johnny takes exception to the tone of the Captain’s remark. He pulls a revolver, a Luger, the German choice of the world’s deadliest weapon. The Captain frowns and pours two glasses of whiskey.
“I ain’t in the mood,” Johnny says.
The Captain slugs back the shot. “I am.”
Whitey, a freelance bootlegger, gets wind of the shipment and stops by the docks. He finds Eddie and tells him he has an order for Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns. Whitey is a small-time operator with a long overcoat lined with pockets sized for bottles. He deals only in what he can carry and delivers no further than he is able to walk.
“How the hell…?” Eddie says.
“I got my sources,” Whitey says tipping his hat. “You ain’t gonna make me tell you who it is, are ya, Eddie?”
“Hold on, Whitey,” Eddie says. “As soon as I get this truck loaded, I’ll load you up.”
Whitey takes a roll of cash from his pocket and counts out the cost of a case of whiskey. Eddie helps load Whitey’s jacket. Whitey balances his load and then waddles off in the direction of the Puncheon Grotto.
The shipment rolls through New York in the innocuous trucks. Charlie’s guys are at the wheel. The wine settles into a New Jersey warehouse from which it will eventually be dispersed to fine clubs in New York’s Tenderloin with a little extra set aside in case Samuel Bronfman is right and Prohibition ends.
With the success, Charlie and Meyer throw more work to the Irish. By the time Detective Sergeant Cordes is suspended for alleged laxity in the McManus case, Johnny and Eddie have offloaded Italian wines, Canadian whiskeys, and Caribbean rums.
They are part of the Claridge’s well-oiled machine.
* * *
Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns hold a party for the demolition of No. 42. It is New Year’s Eve, a fitting time for celebrating the end of a great club, as well as the impending move three blocks north. Jack and Charlie insist their new “21 Club” will not only maintain the reputation of the 42, it will exceed it.
The bartender cranks out mint juleps and planter’s punches and all manner of sours. Grown men strut through No. 42 wearing grass skirts and strumming ukuleles while singing “Aloha ‘Oe.”
While the elite hula the night away downtown, Al Mineo makes his way to the penthouse of Joe the Boss. Joe has his own party in motion. Mineo bides his time avoiding the opium and indulging in Champagne. When Joe finally takes Mineo aside for a serious chat, Mineo doesn’t waste any time.
“I don’t like what I’ve been hearing about Tom Reina,” Mineo says, one schemer to another. “He is listening to the Castellammarese. He says, and please pardon me for what I am about to say but I think you should know how the Castellammarese are talking, he says you an incomplete man, a glutton feeding your belly, and a bully feeding your ego. We must quiet their tongues.”
Joe looks out over Central Park. The trees are bare. Branches stab at the night sky. The party bellows behind him. Mineo’s report stings his greedy ears. How dare they?
“Who is Tom Reina that he should take airs with me?” Joe says.
Mineo agrees. Reina is treading on dangerously thin ice. Mineo wonders out loud whether Charlie Lucky has also become a liability.
“What do you mean?” Joe says.
“The beating he took,” Mineo says. “The police were looking for Jack Diamond, because he deals in drugs. They know Charlie is in that world. And you know the Sicilian fathers look down on drug dealers. They wonder if you know of Charlie’s business in drugs and find further cause to mock you.”
“What business is it of theirs what Charlie Luciano does?” Joe says.
Mineo backpedals.
“I’m only thinking of your reputation,” Mineo says. “Charlie should be more careful. You cannot afford to let him lead the police to your doorstep.”
Back at No. 42, as the hands of the clock creep toward midnight, Charlie Berns hands out crowbars, pickaxes, and hammers to writers, poets, and politicians who take to the walls of the Puncheon like a horde of drunken construction workers.
Charlie strolls by the Puncheon on his way to Polly Adler’s, sticks his head into the club to see what the ruckus is all about, and decides Polly’s is the better place to spend his holiday cheer. When he arrives, he finds Polly at the kitchen table, chin in hands, moaning.
Charlie takes a seat next to her. He reaches for the whiskey bottle next to her glass and pours a shot for himself and, upon making an estimation of Polly’s misery, pours one for her.
Polly says, “I’m done. If it isn’t the cops it’s the petty thieves or the drunken johns or the damned stock market.”
“You run the oldest business known to man,” Charlie laughs. “You’ll never be done.”
Polly raises her glass to Charlie and blinks back
the tears of life.
“Jesus, now there’s a sad commentary on society,” she says and faints dead away.
“Lion!” Charlie yells to Polly’s maid. “Give me a hand, will ya?”
Charlie lifts the slight Polly from the kitchen chair.
“This way,” Lion says, hefting Polly’s arm around her shoulder. “She just needs some sleep and she’ll be just fine. She had a big vacation planned but not no more on accounta the crash. I guess we all been hit real bad. You see the men sittin’ around here drinkin’? That’s all they do. Not much work for Polly’s girls as long as everybody is short on cash. Maybe that’s the plan, Mr. Charlie? They take all our money so we can’t do what we want to do. You know what I mean?”
Charlie nods in agreement.
“Miss Polly don’t usually drink but today she clean hid herself in that bottle.”
“It ain’t permanent,” Charlie says, easing Polly into her peach sheets and down-filled comforter.
Lion sighs. She’s seen Polly through raids and scandals, through hoodlum ransacking and ruffians. She knows how to handle Polly’s excesses but this…this is something else.
“I’m a paying customer,” Charlie says.
“Maybe you’re the last one. And, yes, don’t I know Miss Polly is grateful to you!”
A new girl steps into the room.
“Mr. Ross?” she says.
Charlie smiles and passes fifty dollars to Lion. The Ziegfeld dancer leads Charlie to the apple-green room.
“Polly is fond of fruit this season,” she says. “All the rooms are some kinda fruity color. What do you like, Mr. Ross? I’m here to please.”
She loosens the ribbon on her black lace teddy. The straps fall from her shoulders and the teddy slips to her ankles. She does a little Ziegfeld kick sending the garment flying across the room.
Charlie drops his pants to the floor. The dancer comes forward. Charlie grabs her hips and throws her on the bed. He is on top of her. She is warm and tight. She moans her pleasure in time with Charlie’s thrusts.
The clock strikes midnight. A swell of cheers and bells and horns echoes through the cavern of Upper Manhattan’s architecture. Blocks away, Anne Lansky sprawls on the floor of her Manhattan apartment. She rolls on her back and strokes her bulging belly.
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