A Bloody Business

by Dylan Struzan

  Meyer is torn. His sympathy lies with Coll, the underdog, but the situation favors the Dutchman. Coll has gone over the edge. In the public eye, he is the Baby Killer. The war has brought the governor’s threats down on them. The real question is whether Coll’s death will cause commotion among the Irish.

  “Coll ain’t never gonna walk a chalk line,” Jimmy says. “Not after what they done to his brother.”

  Charlie says, “The cops are hot on his trail. The Governor is threatening to bring in troops. It’s Madden’s game but we’re gonna have to work together to get Coll off the street.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Jimmy says.

  “Jimmy,” Charlie says. “Me and Meyer would like you to bring Eddie McGrath and Johnny Dunn in on this situation. We want to make sure there’s not going to be trouble with the Irish.”

  Jimmy nods.

  * * *

  It turns out that Vincent is hiding in plain sight not far from McSorley’s Old Ale House. Eddie becomes a regular fixture at the place, waiting and watching for Vincent or his boys. His patience pays off and he contacts Jimmy with the news. They meet at the Claridge.

  Eddie takes in a deep breath and exhales the betrayal: “Mike Basile is ready to play ball. Since his brothers were shot, he doesn’t have the stomach for it anymore. I could see it in his face. Here’s the number.”

  Eddie hands off a piece of paper to Charlie. Mike’s phone number is scribbled across the sheet. Charlie notes the number and puts the paper in his jacket pocket and thanks Eddie. They’ve got their inside man.

  Charlie thinks long and hard about the logistics of Owney Madden getting the jump on Vincent Coll. He sets up a meeting with the principal players who now congregate at the Cotton Club. It’s midweek and hours before the club opens. Madden is in the middle of a renovation. Duke Ellington has flown the coop now that his radio broadcasts have given him a national audience. Madden works a series of new acts into what he is calling the Cotton Club Parade. Carpenters whittle a new look for the stage while Cab Calloway breaks in a new singer.

  The club’s chef works on lunch for Madden and his guests. The members of the quorum file in randomly: Meyer Lansky, Ben Siegel, Charlie, Joe A., Arthur Flegenheimer, Bo Weinberg, and Big Frenchy.

  Madden pours whiskey. They sit around a large round table in the back quarter of the club, far enough away from prying ears but close enough for Madden to keep an eye on the new show.

  “I welcome your suggestions,” Madden says, only somewhat facetiously.

  Benny says, “The guy is desperate for money. Ain’t that right?”

  Frenchy’s voice is cold: “You could say that.”

  Benny says, “Put word out on the street that you think he’s gotten a bum deal and that you’d like to help out.”

  The Dutchman snarls at the accusation.

  Madden says, “Let’s say he didn’t smell a rat and shows up on my doorstep. What do you want me to do, shoot him in the middle of the third act?” Madden gestures to the club.

  Benny says, “He ain’t gonna just show up. It’s too dangerous. Everybody is lookin’ for him. He’s gonna call you first, to make sure the offer is legit. You keep him talkin’. Our guys will get to him before he hangs up the phone.”

  A round of clam chowder graces the table.

  Madden says, “It’s a damn shame. I like the kid.”

  The Dutchman snarls, “I’ll be glad to get this scab off my back.”

  The Dutchman has a way with words. He’s been hiding ever since he found out that Coll was walking around town with a machine gun strapped to his arm. He knows the kid will go anywhere to kill him. He doesn’t regret Coll’s big mistake, that of grabbing Big Frenchy for ransom. He knows Madden would have given him the money anyway but the blunder was better. It made Coll the fly in everybody’s ointment.

  The club’s singer takes the stage. She is nervous. She holds the microphone too tight, scoots in too close, and clears her throat. Calloway holds the orchestra until she is settled then he waves his wand. The first few words wobble but then her voice clears, the song smooth and brilliant.

  “The kid had potential,” Madden says with no small measure of regret. “He’s fearless. Coulda made somethin’ of himself.”

  Two young men take the stage after the singer. They confer with Calloway and then the boys take a seat at a table close to the stage.

  “You gotta see this,” Madden says. “Couple o’ colored guys from Philly. I caught their act in Lafayette. Just watchin’ ’em wears me out.”

  Calloway waves the conductor’s wand and the band blasts a rousing introduction that rolls into a number called “Bugle Call Rag.” Calloway sings and with infectious energy introduces the Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold. The boys stand. Fayard jumps up onto the table and begins a tap dance; Harold does the same on the chair. Calloway scats while Fayard jumps across to another table and Harold leaps from the chair to the table. Fayard jumps down to the stage where they tap and flip and spin using chairs and stools as props. Then they work their way through the orchestra pit jumping across a series of platforms in front of the orchestra. All the while, Calloway is scatting and the orchestra is rolling through their number.

  Harold is barely ten years old. His acrobatic finesse and his ability to sync with his brother’s moves boggles the mind. Madden watches with a showman’s interest. Calloway dismisses the orchestra and the room clears of talent.

  Madden turns to Big Frenchy, “Remind me later that the stage needs to be higher.”

  The Dutchman groans, “A couple of kids stompin’ their feet. What’s the big deal?”

  Big Frenchy’s eyes roll hard in their sockets.

  Charlie says, “We got a guy willin’ to give us Coll’s location.”

  Madden is almost disappointed.

  “You think you can keep Coll on the phone long enough for us to get to him?” Meyer says.

  “I run a nightclub, don’t I?” Madden says. “I got the gift of gab.”

  Meyer says, “Make sure there’s enough cash in the safe in case he gets here. We’ll be following his every move.”

  “I’ll be sure,” Madden says.

  Charlie says, “Eddie McGrath and Johnny Dunn can be here while everything goes down, in case.”

  Madden considers the offer and declines. He doesn’t need Coll spooked should he come to the club. It’s bad for business when the shooting starts.

  Madden thinly hides his disgust that the Bronx will again belong to the Dutchman when this is over. If you’re rich and you don’t live on Madison Avenue or Park Avenue, you live in the Bronx. It’s where the wealthy have always lived, a little slice of country smack in the middle of civilization. But these days, the Bronx resembles the Wild West more than it does the cradle of civilization, and the Dutchman’s a big part of why.

  “Are we settled?” Charlie says.

  Madden resigns himself to the end of Coll’s possibilities.

  “We’re settled,” Madden says.

  * * *

  From the time Coll’s name appeared in the newspapers in August, the boys in blue have been in hot pursuit of the Irishman. Almost by chance, they find a witness, a drug dealer turned useful informer, who can identify the shooters behind the drive-by that killed little Michael Vengalli. The informer names two of Coll’s men, Dominick Odierno and Frank Giordano. The cops gloat. The informer tries to press charges against them that he had been kicked and beaten into the confession. Nobody seems to care. The fact that Vincent Coll and Joey Rao were absolved of the boy’s murder has everyone hot and bothered.

  Police Commissioner Mulrooney smiles at the press conference and declares war on the gangs. Mulrooney introduces a new squad of sharpshooters armed with pump guns who will cruise each of twenty neighborhoods known to be hot spots for gang violence. The sharpshooters form a line with their heavily armored Harley-Davidsons, each with its sidecar where the sharpshooter will sit.

  “The problem must be attacked at its roots,�
�� Mulrooney says as photographers snap away. “It’s all in a day’s work, boys.”

  The first tip the sharpshooters get takes them to Greene County where someone claims to have seen Vincent Coll trying to take over Jack Diamond’s beer and applejack racket. Jack has been convicted on a charge of second-degree assault and sentenced to four years in prison. But the lead falls flat.

  Still clutching their pump guns, they return to the Bronx and hang around Coll’s house on Randall Street. Their due diligence nets little more than saddle sores. While the sharpshooters chase phantoms, the undercover squad busts open the case on Coll’s gang. In an unlikely tangle of conflicting eyewitness accounts, a license plate number appears that belongs to two separate crimes, once in the shooting death of Joseph Mullens and once in connection with a pipe bomb lobbed into the Majestic Garage, known as a Schultz beer drop. A general alarm goes out for a green Buick bearing those plates. A patrolman visiting the Penn Post Garage on Ninth Avenue spots the Buick and the plates. Undercover detectives swarm the garage. When Vincent de Lucia calls to pick up the car, he is arrested. De Lucia quickly spills his guts.

  From then on, Coll’s gang falls like pins at a bowling alley.

  Police find Mike Basile and Patsy Del Greco at the Ledonia Hotel.

  Then they grab Frank Giordano along with five pistols at the Mason Apartments.

  Odierno and the Baby Killer himself are picked up at the Cornish Arms Hotel.

  Giordano and Odierno are put on trial for the Mullens murder. By the end of November, they face the chair at Sing Sing. Coll and Giordano go on trial for the murder of Michael Vengalli while the Dutchman, the Broadway mob, and Owney Madden watch from a safe distance. Samuel Leibowitz, the lawyer that got Capone and his men off in the murder of Peg Leg Lonergan, tries for an acquittal for Vincent Coll.

  The Dutchman grins. “I’d like to be in the audience when these guys ride Sing Sing’s hot squat.”

  Two thousand volts. Fifteen seconds. That’s all it takes.

  But Leibowitz is good and Coll is back on the street by Christmas. The Dutchman can’t believe his bad luck. He handpicks half a dozen guys and sends them forth like apostles with nothing to do but find Vincent Coll. Coll proves as difficult to find as a black mamba on a moonless night. Not even the fifty-thousand-dollar bounty the Dutchman has put on Coll’s head yields results.

  * * *

  By mid-December, Jack Diamond faces his third jury in four months. This time, he is under the gun for kidnapping James Duncan. The news of Jack’s trials has been read, examined, debated, scoffed at, envied, abhorred, and otherwise received by a vast web of his enemies. The Dutchman gets word of where Jack’s living and ruminates over the double-crossing he received at Diamond’s hands. He promises revenge for the death of his partner, Joey Noe.

  Diamond, riding high on his two previous acquittals, dresses in a blue pinstriped suit, gray spats, and checkered cap when he faces his jury.

  The Dutchman yells for Bo Weinberg.

  “Get me Spitale and Bitz,” he barks.

  Salvy Spitale and Irving Bitz had, at one time, partnered with Diamond only to find their investment spirited away by the son of a bitch. The fact of Diamond’s poverty is inescapable now that he has moved from the luxurious Kenmore Hotel into an ordinary and quite seedy boarding house where he has two rooms, one for himself and his wife, Alice, and another for his younger brother and sister-in-law. Kiki, his mistress, is stashed in a rooming house not far away. This is good news for the Dutchman who figures Spitale and Bitz will jump at the chance to get back their missing cash.

  “He owes you eleven grand,” the Dutchman says. “He’s holed up in a boarding house in Albany, 76 Dove Street. The bastard has fifty-seven thousand tied up in bail. He ain’t got nobody left around him and he can’t afford to hire nobody. I got fifty grand on his head. You can’t lose.”

  Spitale and Bitz are speechless. It has been over a year since they last shot Diamond, after which he had taunted them to everyone within earshot.

  They don’t bother to pack, just head straight to Albany. They make it to the Kenmore Hotel in a record three hours and fifteen minutes. They cruise by 76 Dove Street.

  “You sure this is the right address,” Spitale says in disbelief.

  Bitz looks at the Dutchman’s scrawl.

  “This is Dove Street, ain’t it?” he says.

  Spitale nods.

  “Then this is it,” Bitz says.

  “The Dutchman said he was livin’ in a hole. Holy shit, he wasn’t kiddin’.”

  Spitale pulls the car around to a side street and parks. It is nearly nine before Diamond drags home from his day in court with Alice, Kitty, and Eddie Jr. in tow.

  Bitz nods at the parade. With Diamond safely inside his new dump, Spitale and Bitz return to the hotel for a good night’s rest. They wake in the morning and enjoy bacon and eggs with hash browns for breakfast. Spitale peruses the newspaper for the details of Diamond’s trial. They drink coffee and chat. The radio informs them that the jurors have gone into deliberation. An hour passes. Two hours. They find a place for lunch. The jury remains in deliberation.

  “He ain’t goin’ to jail. That’s good news for us,” Spitale says.

  “How do you figure?” Bitz says.

  “No jury would take this long to find a guy like that guilty. They’re gonna let him off. We’ll be able to collect on his debt. I wonder if he will get his bail money back before he leaves court.”

  “Sure he will,” Bitz say. “The law can’t hold your money once you’re acquitted.”

  Spitale smiles. This is just getting better and better.

  It takes the jury five hours in all to find Jack “Legs” Diamond not guilty. Diamond leaves the courtroom with his bail money in hand and a lilt in his step. He chats with reporters. Says he’s going to move to the Carolinas for his health. He poses for a few photos before he imagines he’s seen the Dutchman in the crowd. He ducks behind a policeman just as the pop of a flashbulb explodes.

  Diamond heads for a local speakeasy. Long about midnight, plenty of drinks gone, Jack blinks back sleepy eyes. He has more holes in him than a moth-eaten sweater, but he’s alive and he’s free.

  Jack flees around the corner to Kiki’s bed where he entertains his dancer mistress with the story of his courtroom victory. She keeps the Champagne coming. By 4:30, spent and satisfied, Jack dresses and leaves Kiki to sleep off her stupor.

  “Take me home,” he tells his driver. Even in his poverty, Diamond has held on to this one last luxury, his car and driver.

  “Livin’ in a dog house suits him,” Spitale says as Diamond and his driver pass by where they’re lying in wait.

  Bitz unhinges the cylinder of his .38 and rotates it clockwise, double-checking that each chamber is fully loaded. Satisfied, he snaps the barrel in place and sights the front door of 76 Dove Street.

  “Nervous?” Spitale says.

  “I’m gonna unload everything I got into that cocksucker. I picked up dumdums,” Bitz says, meaning the bullets that expand on impact. “Good for dumb-dumbs like Jack.”

  Diamond stumbles from the back seat, then wobbles to the front door, pulls it shut behind him. Spitale checks his watch. Much longer and the people of Albany will be waking.

  “Let’s go,” Spitale says and Bitz agrees.

  They leave the car and cross the street, their breath visible in the cold morning air. The boarding house is unlocked. Bitz steps into the entry hall and takes out the bare bulb that hangs from the ceiling, casting the stairs into darkness. The men climb the darkened stairs to Jack’s room. Apparently, Jack was too drunk to close this door behind him, or maybe Jack just doesn’t care anymore. He’s sprawled sideways across the bed.

  The wife isn’t with him, a small mercy. Though they would carry out the job just the same if she was.

  Bitz drags a pillow over Jack’s head to contain the mess and fires. The dumdum rips through Jack’s right ear. Bitz fires again, from the other side. This bullet pier
ces Jack’s left temple. He fires again. The dumdum rips through Jack’s right jaw and lodges in his spinal cord. Blood runs everywhere. So much for containing the mess.

  The noise shakes the boarding house residents awake. Spitale starts for the door.

  Bitz yells, “I got three more bullets.”

  Spitale says, “That’s fucking enough.”

  They race down the dark staircase and past the boardinghouse proprietor who stands in stunned silence at the bottom of the steps. An hour passes before the police arrive. They catalogue the crime scene and send Jack’s dead body to the morgue. The list of suspects is long and ignominious, yet not one of them can be tied to the murder.

  Two weeks later, the Dutchman sits in his ramshackle bar quietly enjoying a cigar. He’s already counted the take from an operation that once belonged to Jack Diamond. Abbadabba Berman is busy counting cash and entering numbers into a ledger.

  “Not bad for a pretzel, eh?” the Dutchman says.

  “A pretzel?” Abbadabba says offhandedly, more interested in the figures in the book than a conversation with the Dutchman or an illumination on what being a pretzel might mean.

  “A German,” the Dutchman says. “Ain’t you ever heard that expression before?”

  “Never,” Abbadabba says scratching his ear and rechecking his figures.

  “Well you heard it now,” the Dutchman says. “What’s our take?”

  “Enough,” Abbadabba says.

  “Don’t ever tell me it’s enough,” the Dutchman says. “There ain’t no such thing as enough. There’s only how much we got and how much we can get. That’s what I want to know. Ain’t you some kinda genius with numbers? Ain’t that what I pay you for?”

  Meanwhile, over on 52nd Street, Jack and Charlie, the two guys that own the 21 Club, pour themselves a drink.

  “Here’s to freedom from fear,” Charlie says.

  “There’s always fear,” Jack says. “Here’s to no more Jack Diamond.”

  * * *

  Meyer Lansky drives out to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to deal with a matter of no small importance. He knocks on the front door of a modest apartment. His mother answers.