A Bloody Business

by Dylan Struzan

  “I look like I swallowed a watermelon,” she says. “I wanted to do Times Square but here we are like some kind of old couple stuck in this stupid apartment. Pour the Champagne, Meyer. At least let us toast the New Year in!”

  The crowd at No. 42 spills into the snow-filled street dragging pots and pans, bottles and chairs, glasses and table service. They heap the contents of No. 42 onto an open cart. A tuxedoed man has an epiphany.

  “Let’s take the iron gate,” he shouts. “It belongs to us. It belongs to Jack and Charlie. We can’t leave it behind for the Rockefellers. They won’t respect it in the morning!”

  The mayhem of reclaiming the iron gate that ensues could fill an entire vaudeville show.

  Two weeks later, Anne Lansky gives birth to a son, Bernard Irving Lansky. Meyer stands at the window of the nursery and watches his son sleep. The baby is small but his sleep is sound, untroubled. Meyer admires the sleep of innocence. He wants nothing more for little Bernard than whatever the world has to offer him, even if that means becoming a tool and die worker, God forbid.

  New parents fill the ward with nervous chatter. The nursery stirs. Babies are rolled out to meet their mothers. Bernard’s bassinet is rolled to the door by the duty nurse. Another nurse checks the chart and wheels him down a long hall filled with mingling relatives of the newborns. Meyer follows silently behind.

  Anne enjoys the quiet of a private room. She holds Bernard in his comfy cocoon and looks up at Meyer who is holding a vase filled with two dozen pink Stargazer lilies.

  “It’s January,” he apologizes. “Nothing in blue.”

  The nurse smiles, takes the vase, and puts it in the window. She fluffs the chrysanthemums while Anne nervously cuddles Bernard.

  “Don’t worry, miss,” she says, “he won’t break.”

  She leaves Anne and Meyer to their conversation.

  “I guess I better call the rabbi,” Meyer says.

  Jewish tradition demands a newborn son be circumcised on the eighth day of his life.

  Anne says, “I’m sure my mother has already done that for you.”

  “We could pass on the whole thing and send him to a goy school,” Meyer jokes.

  Anne gives him the look.

  “Not funny,” she says.

  “Maybe he should make his own choice. Let him figure out who he is,” he says.

  “He’s Jewish,” she says. “He’ll always be Jewish. Soon enough he will be telling us what to do. What’s that you’re reading?”

  Meyer hands her the book he’s been carrying around, one of Dr. Watson’s collections of advice for parents.

  “It’s got some good ideas,” he says.

  Meyer drags a crinkled copy of The Mother’s Magazine from his jacket pocket.

  Anne frowns, “Children aren’t science experiments. I don’t need a book.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a good idea to read up on parenting before you try to be one?” he says.

  “What should we call him? Bernie?” she says. “That’s American.”

  “I don’t know.” Meyer sighs. “Sounds a little soft to me.”

  “Oh, Meyer, stop worrying. You don’t fool me with all this tough talk. He’s going to be a strong boy. You’ll see. He’ll be our little buddy.”

  “Buddy,” Meyer says. “That’s who he is. Buddy.”

  Meyer sits on the side of the bed and lifts Buddy’s tiny hand with his finger. It is the first warm interchange between Meyer and his wife since their honeymoon. Too soon, the nurse pokes her head into the room.

  “Visiting hours are over,” she says.

  “Get some rest,” Meyer says to Anne. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Me and Buddy,” she says. “You’ll see me and Buddy tomorrow.”

  Meyer kisses Buddy’s forehead. Buddy wiggles and his hands fly up and then settle back down into the warmth of his baby-blanket nest cradled in Mom’s arms. The scene is, not oddly, that of the woman on the cover of the magazine. The illustrator got it right.

  The next few days, Meyer spends at the Claridge talking with his boys about the possibilities confronting them. Charlie and the Italian situation is front and center. The greasers threaten to turn New York into another Chicago in sheer brutality.

  Red argues that the Italians should be left to fight their own battles.

  “Charlie is strong enough to stand up to these mobs,” Red says.

  Meyer says, “We stand behind Charlie, no matter what.”

  “We’ve got our own—”

  “We stand with Charlie,” Meyer repeats. “And we act like businessmen, not a bunch of ruffians.”

  Benny says, “Wait…what?”

  “No massacres,” Meyer says.

  “Well, maybe one or two,” Benny suggests.

  “The Italians will eat us up if given half a chance, they are powerful enough. We’re not going to win if it’s a contest of pure firepower. We stick to our approach,” Meyer says. “Take the violence off the street. No drive-by shootings. Settle differences peacefully whenever possible. And when the time comes, we will take care of the greaser that wins this war.”

  “And put Charlie in his place?” Benny says.

  “We will do what needs to be done,” Meyer says.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Yoo-Hoo, Is Anybody?

  FEBRUARY 1930

  There’s a pop. The slug from a double-barreled shotgun rips through Tom Reina’s chest, dislodging bits of flesh and imbedding the button of his shirt into his skin. He reels backwards, slams into a brick wall, and then stumbles forward. Adrenaline surges. Time slows. His mind snaps into sharp focus. Groping for the snub-nose .38 in his coat pocket, Reina searches through the low light of evening for his would-be assassin. He spots two ghostly shadows tucked behind a parked car.

  The two men step from the shadows. One flips open his coat and pulls out a shotgun, twin to the one that just fired. He takes aim at Reina and pulls the first trigger. Shotgun pellets slam Reina’s chest and stop him in his tracks. He staggers. The shooter pulls the second trigger. More buckshot. Bits of Reina’s flesh go flying and Reina goes down, face first onto the frozen sidewalk, the snub-nose still clutched firmly in his hand. The second shooter rushes the body, firing nine more slugs point blank from a .38. Blood drenches Reina’s shirt and handmade suit, floods the sidewalk, and runs down the curb.

  The first shooter tosses the shotgun under a parked car and the two men flee.

  For a moment, Reina’s mind dawdles in this world. He thinks about the ten grand he was on his way to collect and the cash behind the basement furnace that his wife will never find. He knows his outspokenness against Joe the Boss has brought on the attack. He knows but doesn’t care. His head swims in a mass of confusion as blood leaves his body and weakness sets in and then Reina’s concerns disappear along with his heartbeat and his iron-clad hold on the ice distribution business in the Bronx.

  Mrs. Ennis steps from a Sheridan Avenue apartment and screams. Her neighbors poke their heads outside their doors and shiver. Police arrive at the scene to take stock of the damage. Male, Italian descent, shot to death. He is identified as Gaetano Reina, forty years old, a wealthy wholesale ice dealer. The police interview witnesses and surmise a rival gang killing. It appears to them to be an open and shut case. A little cross-referencing back at the police station ties Reina to other crimes.

  Reporters prod the police for details. They note the deceased’s name as Gaetano, skipping the Americanized Tommy. They jot down the details of the murder that occurred outside Reina’s office two weeks earlier when an ex-convict and a young woman companion were shot and killed. No one knows why. Detective Dominick Caso makes the supposition that Reina may have been shot by someone connected to the Barnett Baff murder case. The reporters make notes and then write their columns. It’s all rather routine, nothing notable here.

  Reina’s death makes page three of the New York Times.

  Charlie Lucky stops at the corner newsstand and picks up a pape
r. He tosses a nickel to the vendor. The guy in the small wooden booth, chomping on the butt of a cheap cigar, picks out three cents change from a tin of pennies.

  “Keep it,” Charlie says.

  “‘Hit of the Week?’” the guy says.

  Charlie masks his surprise.

  “What?” Charlie says.

  The guy hands him a newly minted unbreakable gramophone record. Charlie eyes the label. Don Voorhees Orchestra plays Dubin Burke’s Fox-Trot “Tip-Toe through the Tulips with Me.”

  Charlie laughs. “A real toe-tapper.”

  “The people gotta have somethin’,” the guy says. “Built to last, they say. Plays twice as long, they say. They’re gonna put out a hit a week, they say.”

  “They say a lot of things,” Charlie says bending the record back and forth in disbelief.

  “Take it. The first one’s free.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ free,” Charlie says.

  “Ain’t that a fact,” the guy says.

  For a mere fifteen cents a week, Durium Products’ brainstorm provides three minutes of popular music promising to keep workers skipping merrily along to their factory jobs. Charlie tucks the record under his arm along with the newspaper and then heads toward Times Square. He has an appointment with Meyer at the Claridge. The temperature is a balmy 60 degrees and cloudy, a nice day to hike the dozen or so blocks.

  The doorman at the Claridge tips his hat as Charlie enters. In the hotel elevator, Charlie unfurls the paper and locates the article on Reina. He folds the paper in a neat square and gives the article a quick read.

  The elevator doors slide open and Charlie steps out, satisfied that the police have not made the connection to the real reason for Reina’s death. He swings out of the elevator and down the hall. A quick knock at Room 608 and he’s inside talking to Meyer. The “Wealthy Ice Dealer” story is face up on the table next to Meyer’s chair.

  Charlie says, “Well, the fuse has been lit. The thorn in Joe the Boss’ side has been eradicated. Expect fireworks.”

  The pastry cart near the front window beckons. Charlie grabs a bagel with a schmear before dropping into a deep leather club chair that faces Meyer.

  “Did you read the story in the paper?” Meyer says.

  Charlie nods. “I did.”

  Meyer says, “The detective on the Reina case thinks the murder has to do with Reina turning state’s witness when they indicted him for the murder of Barnett Baff.”

  “That was years ago,” Charlie says. “That was all those guys in the poultry business. That’s a lotta horseshit. It just shows they don’t know what’s really going on in the Italian mobs.”

  “They shot the bastard in the middle of the market,” Benny says. “Baff. Bunch of Italians were in on the job. They hated the guy right along with the Jews. The Italians wanted to send a message. I was there that day. I saw the whole thing.”

  A street car bell clangs on the street below, stopping conversation.

  “It’s a shame about Tommy,” Charlie says. “He was a nice guy. He didn’t deserve what he got but he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. Lots of guys don’t like Joe the Boss but they know better than to broadcast it. Reina was swayed by Maranzano’s Sicilian bullshit. Tommy said stuff he shouldn’t a said.” Charlie shakes his head. “Maranzano is like this with Vito Cascioferro.” Charlie twists two fingers around each other. “You remember, the guy who brought all that Black Hand shit into the neighborhoods and then ran back to Sicily after he stuffed a guy in a barrel?”

  The “barrel murder” was notorious. The newspapers ran the story for weeks.

  “I mention it because the two of them think alike. In the old country, Vito was like a revolutionary. He was sucked up by one of them Sicilian groups that were popular in the old days. They fought for democracy and socialism. That’s why this guy thinks he’s in the right all the time. If you listen to Maranzano, you hear the same story. He’s on a righteous crusade to free the Sicilians and maybe he is. Joe the Boss ain’t no saint but the truth is, they seen the money we’re making and plotted on getting a piece of the action.”

  Benny grumbles, “What the hell does a guy in Italy think he’s gonna do in the booze business in America?”

  “We’re making millions,” Charlie says, letting the impact of the amount hang in the air. “And don’t forget Mussolini came down on the Mafiosi so what are they gonna do in Italy? Their extortion rackets are gone. They come here to practice their trade. And here’s the icin’ on Maranzano’s cake, Joe the Boss is backing a guy named Joe Pinzolo to take over Tom’s mob because Pinzolo don’t like Maranzano. Tom’s boys call Pinzolo ‘Fat Joe.’ Just watch Fat Joe’s world begin to crumble. I’ll bet fifty bucks that Maranzano instigated the whole thing that got Tommy killed.”

  Meyer puts out his cigarette and lets the news sink in. Like a row of dominoes, the first tile has fallen.

  Meyer says, “With Tommy dead, the other Sicilians are dragged into Maranzano’s war games.”

  Charlie says, “He fancies himself a general.”

  Realizing that more soldiers for Maranzano could be bad for Charlie down the line, Meyer asks, “Do you trust anybody in Tom’s mob?”

  “Yeah. A guy named Tommy Lucchese,” Charlie says. “He’s a reasonable guy when he sees which way the wind blows. He’s looking for a way into the garment industry.”

  Meyer says, “Maybe we can help him out.”

  Charlie pours himself a coffee.

  “Joe’s got you in a bad position,” Meyer says.

  “You don’t gotta tell me,” Charlie says. “These guys wanna know if I’m gonna go along with him or them. What can I say? Don’t worry, if it comes to that I’m gonna take out my boss? Hell, even I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  It’s a chess move in the making. A pawn has been sacrificed. The next move must be Charlie’s or it will be, by default, that of Joe the Boss.

  “I understand the boys’ dilemma,” Charlie says. “What Joe the Boss done ain’t right, but these guys don’t see the big picture. They don’t understand Maranzano is just the same.”

  “They’ll understand when he puts his hand in their pockets,” Meyer says.

  “He already has,” Charlie says. “Don’t forget the war chest or the Cadillac with the machine gun. War ain’t cheap.”

  Charlie sets his cup on the windowsill and looks at his watch. He turns back to Meyer and rubs his neck. Joe the Boss’ yoke is beginning to chafe. The more money he makes, the more power he gains, the more nervous Joe gets and that’s trouble.

  Charlie grins. “I’d sure like to see these cocksuckers get what they deserve.”

  “They will. They still don’t see that there are other players beyond Sicilians. That’s an advantage. You’ve been on the street. You know what it takes to survive. Start peddling your own philosophy for peace and see how the guys respond,” Meyer says.

  Charlie finishes his coffee and chats with Benny about the day’s orders. The warehouses are full and business is brisk. Attempts to end Prohibition have failed. Thousands of clubs fill the city. Their music fills the streets. The Stork serves its debutantes while the Cotton Club serves its bohemians. The boys walk through town as gentlemen. If it wasn’t for the greasers, well, ‘if it wasn’t for the greasers’ is a long, tall tale waiting to be spun.

  Charlie hikes back to his flat. The housekeeper is busy cleaning when he arrives. The tall, slender bleached blonde that Polly Adler sent over to keep Charlie company for the afternoon is sitting on the couch, deep in the throes of Life magazine’s search for the ideal American beauty. If Life is to be believed, this month’s ideal is fair skinned, red lipped, and bob haired. She looks on the world with sultry eyes.

  Life asks, “Do you know a girl who looks like this?”

  The dancer sighs. Not her. Not any of Polly’s girls. She throws the magazine on the floor.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she says to Charlie.

  Charlie tosses his jacket onto the back of
the wingback chair. The housekeeper puts a silver tray loaded with cheese and crackers and caviar on the coffee table.

  “Will there be anything else, Mr. Charlie?” she says.

  Charlie looks around.

  “You can go, Hattie,” Charlie says.

  The housekeeper, a portly black woman in a neatly pressed black uniform and a starched white apron, picks up the magazine, reading the tagline and assessing the perfect girl’s picture.

  “Mmm mmm,” she says shaking her head at the pale-faced girl. “The wind gonna blow that girl clean away.”

  She collects her coat and purse.

  “See you tomorrow, Mr. Charlie.”

  The bleached blonde nibbles on cheese and then moves to the bedroom. Charlie follows.

  “Rough day?” she says.

  “It ain’t the day, sweetheart, it’s the people you gotta deal with,” Charlie says.

  She offers a shrug, “I guess a lot of people can say that.”

  She kicks off high heels and unbuttons her blouse. She tries out a sultry cover-girl look, loosens the starched collar of Charlie’s shirt and works through the mother of pearl buttons. Charlie unfastens his cufflinks. His shirt drops to the floor. He wrestles with his belt and zipper and kicks his pants aside and then runs his hands up the blonde’s long legs.

  They drop onto the bed. She moves across him lithely.

  He rewinds Reina’s murder in his mind and wonders about Tommy Lucchese and the other mainstay of Reina’s mob, another Tommy named Gagliano. The blonde gets between him and his troubles. She has skills.

  The phone rings.

  Charlie ignores it.

  The ringing doesn’t stop. He kicks at the phone. It falls to the floor. Someone on the other end keeps yelling “Hello?”

  “What!” he says into the receiver.

  It’s Joe Adonis on the line. His voice is urgent.

  “This ain’t a good time,” Charlie says.

  Adonis says, “Twenty minutes?”

  “Meet me at the Cotton Club.”

  The blonde throws out a pout.