“I made blintzes,” she says.
The apartment is simple and immaculate. Yetta Lansky doesn’t like fluff. She doesn’t like clutter. A place for everything and everything in its place.
Meyer says, “Sit down, Mama. We need to talk.”
“I sit when my work is done,” she says.
“I can’t stay that long,” Meyer says.
“You can stay long enough to eat. You spoil your wife, Meyer. You give her too much money. She doesn’t know the value of hard work.”
“Mama,” Meyer says, “I came to find out why you fire every cook I hire for you. I want to make your life easier. You deserve that.”
“I work my whole life. What, I can’t do a little more? I don’t need the best of everything. This apartment is already too much. Besides, I’m not blind. Don’t think I don’t know where you get your money.” Yetta raises an eyebrow. “The government knows, too. Every day they see you living the good life and they remember how much money they used to make on all those taxes when alcohol was legal. Don’t kid yourself. And now they’ve got sixteen percent unemployment. Someday they are going to want their money back, then what? What will Anne do if she can’t go out to eat every day and every night? All this fuss over a dry worker. There is no such thing. The government will do the Mendelssohn March with the brewers, you wait and see, and when they do, all the Germans who were put out of work when they lost their breweries will be so happy, they’ll forget what happened to them during the war. Don’t look so surprised, Meyer Suchowljanski. I didn’t get off the boat yesterday. I listen to Walter Winchell, too. And I can vote in an election, for all the good it will do. I would vote for Hoover just so you can keep your job but Tammany Hall wants to run Al Smith. He’s what you call a wet candidate. What if he’s the next president? No more Prohibition, I can tell you that.”
Meyer says, “We’ll be O.K., Mama.”
Yetta says, “I come from the old country. What politicians say and what they do are two different things. I didn’t raise a stupid son. You’ve been the Shabbat goy, Meyer. Shabbat is almost over.”
Yetta’s analogy is keen. The Jews, who are forbidden to do certain types of work on the Sabbath, hire non-Jews to do the work for them. The work gets done. The Jewish household remains blameless before God. The only catch in this whole diversion is that the goy, the non-believer, can never really be clean in the eyes of God.
Meyer says, “Tell the cook she can have her job back.”
Yetta says, “Does this cook know that a little lemon zest is the secret to a good blintz? Even Ratner, with his fancy restaurant, doesn’t know that. I know that.”
“Then teach her, Mama, but don’t fire her. Shabbat isn’t over yet.”
Yetta softens.
“Come back later,” she says. “We can play cribbage with Papa.”
“Sure, Mama,” Meyer says, but he won’t return. “I have to go.”
On the elevator, Meyer rustles through his pockets looking for the small tin of antacids he carries for emotional encounters. He checks his watch, the gold watch given to him by Charlie on the occasion of their victory over Salvatore Maranzano. It is barely eleven o’clock in the morning. Low-hanging gray clouds wrap the city in gloom and threaten snow.
Meyer climbs into the 1931 closed-coupe Chrysler and heads to 301 Park Avenue, Suite 39C, Charlie Luciano’s suite at the Waldorf. He tucks the cashmere scarf into his camel-hair coat and steps from the car. A valet whisks the car to the garage.
Meyer takes the elevator to Charlie’s residential suite. The place is littered with moving boxes. Contents spill onto the floor.
Charlie says, “I hate moving, but you gotta love the place.”
He shuffles through the kitchen looking for a coffee pot.
Meyer says, “Vincent Coll was acquitted.”
“I thought they threw him in the can for violation of the Sullivan Act.”
“They did,” Meyer says, “but he’s out on a sixty-thousand-dollar bond.”
“Madden?” Charlie says.
“Probably.”
Charlie says, “Are the guys ready?”
Meyer nods.
Charlie pokes through the refrigerator. “Hungry?” he says. “We got a lot of choices in this joint. I got room service.”
The new hotel is stunning, over two thousand rooms including three hundred residential suites and numerous ballrooms, dining rooms, restaurants, kitchens, foyers, lounges, corridors, stairways, club rooms, and private entertaining suites. The Waldorf Astoria takes up an entire city block, from 49th to 50th Streets and Park to Lexington Avenues, twenty million cubic feet of modernity in the heart of Manhattan.
Charlie slips on his shoes.
“Let’s go out,” he says. “I’m gettin’ stir crazy.”
Outside is the luxury of living, the constant din of a city always at work, at play, generating fortunes, generating sorrow. Neighborhoods bursting with Charlie’s history, uptown and ghetto all mixed into one, a heartbeat that constantly throbs “I’m alive.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
What’s Yet to Come Is Always a Gamble
1932—1933 (REPEAL)
The year starts with Vincent Coll riding high on the victory of his acquittal. Leibowitz, Owney Madden’s lawyer, has made sure no one can continue to pin Coll with the Baby Killer moniker. The NYPD maintains a different view. The police inspector tells Coll that he will be arrested whenever he is spotted in New York City.
Coll picks up his beloved Lottie and marries her in a civil ceremony. The newlyweds check into the Cornish Arms Hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Moran. The hotel, on West 23rd Street, is one stop from Penn Station. Great for a quick escape should the need arise. Although the specter of little Michael Vengalli no longer hangs over them, thanks to the sole witness admitting to lying on the stand, the Mad Dog remains a hunted man. It’s not so much that the Dutchman wants him dead. That’s a given. Nobody leaves the Dutchman and lives to tell about it. The Baby Killer and Big Frenchy abductor, however, must answer to a higher power, the New York boys, because now there are rules.
The double room in the Cornish Arms becomes their haven and their hell, thirteen stories of moderate rates (a buck fifty to be exact), comfort, courtesy, and service, or so the advertising says.
Mr. and Mrs. Moran kick back and try to relax. They shoot the breeze over current events like every other married couple.
Coll says, “After all we been through, I gotta say the Killer ain’t half as bad as I thought he was.” He means Owney Madden. “What kinda guy gives up his own lawyer to fight another guy’s battle? But that’s what he done. Madden gave me one slick son-of-a-bitch lawyer. Did you listen to him in court? Jesus. I wish I could talk like that. Make people believe me. I never had the gift of gab. Some of the guys say Madden put a price on my head. I don’t believe it. I’d believe it if somebody said the Dutchman put a price on my head. That bastard. He don’t stop at nothing. If we want peace, Lottie, I’m gonna have to get rid of the bastard. It’s gonna take planning. Don’t worry, Lottie, my lass, ain’t nobody gonna take me away from you. You give me somethin’ to live for. I ain’t never had that before. I didn’t care if I got killed. Now I care.”
Lottie gives Vincent a playful shove that topples him backwards onto their austere bed, covered in lemon-yellow chenille trimmed with a ribbon-and-bow design. It is well suited for the honeymoon suite.
“You’re a sucker, you know,” she says. “I don’t know why I married you. Only a fool would think Madden’s your best friend just because he bought you a lawyer. For one thing, the guy’s probably on the payroll. For another, Madden had no choice. Don’t you see, Vinnie? These guys gotta look good to keep the heat off. If you look bad, they look bad. If you look good, they look good. If a guy gives me a pretty dress, it doesn’t make me the Queen of England, and it sure as hell doesn’t make the guy a prince. You’re on cloud nine because you got acquitted, that’s all. Just remember: I’m your friend, not these other guys, and you best n
ot forget it. Wake up and smell the coffee.”
Coll hangs his head like a kicked dog. Lottie flings her shoes from her feet and then stands on the bed and starts a striptease. Living on the edge excites her and Coll knows it. She drops her skirt, her sweater, the shoulder strap of her silk teddy. She falls to her knees, crawls across the lemon-yellow bedspread with the raised chenille bows, and then pounces on top of Coll. Coll rolls over and plays hard to get. Lottie creeps over the top of Coll’s shoulders and slides down in front of him, a vamp move she’s learned from Anita Page on the silver screen.
“Let’s make love and order up room service,” she says.
Coll rolls over, stares at her, impassioned. Love is a go, and then it isn’t. Coll’s mind drifts to his pals, Frank and Dominic, who are still in jail on a murder rap. The electric chair has entered the discussion. Lottie sees their troubles cloud his eyes. She rises to her knees and gives Coll a stern warning.
“Don’t,” she says. “Can’t we have one day where we pretend we’re the only people in the world? You beat the rap. You’re free. Jesus Christ, just once let us act like normal people.”
Coll frowns. Lottie runs her fingers through his thick, dark hair and grabs a hank, holding his head back as she rolls over his body and kisses him hard on the lips. Coll pushes her away and then pulls her back, ripping off the silk teddy. She tears at his shirt, stripping the buttons away as they get naked and make love, roughly, wildly, and then fall apart in utter exhaustion.
Coll says, “Yeah, we’re just a couple of normal Joes.”
* * *
By February, the Dutchman is crazed that the hunt for Vincent Coll has netted nothing but rumors. He gets word that Coll and his men are hiding out in a two-story house in the Bronx. He sends out a horde of his best shooters. Five assassins bust in on a small dinner party. They hit the jackpot. Two members of Coll’s gang, Patsy Del Greco and Fiore Basile, celebrating with a group of friends. The assassins open fire. Women scream and children cry. One woman jumps in front of Patsy to save him from the bullet. The bullet shoots through her skull. Another bullet goes through Patsy and then Basile is shot. Three people lie on the floor bleeding but Coll is nowhere to be found.
The story of the slaughter hits the front page as yet another headline of the beer war raging between the Irishman and the Jew. The story speculates that there is a fifty-grand bounty on Vincent Coll’s head. No one knows who has offered the bounty.
Meyer Lansky reads the article and grumbles to Charlie, “The city will be overrun with bounty hunters. We have to find Vincent Coll and put an end to this. We have rules that need to be maintained. If we ignore the violence among our own mobs, how can we enforce violations in other mobs? It will undo everything we’ve done.”
Charlie says, “At least Del Greco and Basile won’t be any more trouble.”
Charlie talks with Jimmy Alo and Jimmy talks with Eddie McGrath. Eddie finds Vincent hanging out in a broken-down saloon in the Bronx. Eddie sips Madden’s Number One Brew and listens to the drunks trying to harmonize a song they picked up from a revue that ran for five days at the Shubert Theater.
Eddie says to Coll, “How’s Lottie taking all this?”
“Ah, she’s fine,” Coll says, staring at his beer. “The Germans are tough, you know. She’s as tough as any man I know. Tougher.”
Eddie says, “Women aren’t cut out for this sort of life.”
“Don’t you worry about Lottie. She’s been with me night and day, down by the Grand Opera, hidin’ in plain sight—how many women got that kind of steel? She calls me the Great Conqueror. Says that’s what Vincent means in Latin. She makes me laugh, ya know. The woman’s brilliant. She’s every bit the schemer Maranzano was. He had a laundry list of guys he wanted moved out of his way. All the top guys. I coulda made a fortune. He could see I could do the job.”
Eddie shakes his head, “There ain’t no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He’d a used you and then taken you out of the way. He wanted to be Caesar, for Christ’s sake. He believed his own publicity.”
Coll says, “Next thing I know you’ll be tellin’ me to play nice.”
Eddie says, “You see what’s goin’ on. Do you have any idea what kind of power the guys have that walked into Grand Central and took down the toughest guinea in New York?”
“Ach, not you, too? The trash still needs taking out. We ain’t nothing but second-class citizens. Eejits. Riffraff.”
“What about Patsy and Basile,” Eddie says.
“Cryin’ shame but it ’tis what it ’tis and I can’t change that. The Bronx belongs to the Irish. Madden will cough up the dough for the tools if I ask him.”
Eddie crushes another cigarette on the saloon floor and throws back a pint. “Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. Let me give you a little free advice, some of them guineas aren’t half bad.”
“Yeah? They ain’t half good either.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Eddie says. “Who do you think Jimmy Alo was covering for those three and half years he spent in the can? Irish guys. And he’s done all right by me and Johnny. He can do all right by you, too.”
“Sure,” Coll says, “as long as you toe the line. Run back to your masters and tell ’em I’ll be in touch. I’ll catch you later, Eddie. I gotta take a piss.”
Coll stands. He hesitates. He scribbles a phone number on a piece of paper and slides it to Eddie.
“Give this to Madden and tell him to call me.” Then he staggers away. Eddie watches him go. Eddie takes the news to Madden. Madden calls a guy named Tough Tommy Protheroe who stakes out the Grand Opera House on Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street. Across from the Opera House is the London Pharmacy and Candy Shop. Protheroe watches as Coll pads back and forth between the Cornish Arms Hotel and the pharmacy to use the phone. Tough Tommy lies low and takes notes.
* * *
Meyer looks at his watch. Anne will have had dinner on the table for…well, no doubt it’s gone by now. Buddy is playing on the floor when Meyer walks through the front door. He picks up his son and takes him to the picture window that overlooks the park. Buddy is two and still doesn’t walk. The doctors call it cerebral palsy, a disconnect between Buddy’s brain and his arms, legs, and other moving parts. Meyer calls it a “condition” and spends his days in the public library reading up on it.
“I thought you were coming home for dinner,” Anne says.
“I had business,” he says.
Anne glares. “You should spend time with your son.”
“He’s happy enough,” Meyer says.
Anne says, “I’ve heard of a doctor that helps kids like Buddy. He’s at Boston Children’s Hospital. He says he can make the lame walk.”
Meyer says, “You sure it’s a doctor and not Jesus Christ?”
Anne says, “Dr. Carruthers. I want to take Buddy to see him.”
“Do you want to go see Dr. Carruthers, Buddy?” Meyer says, jiggling Buddy into a smile.
Buddy’s eyes go wide. “Ride?”
“Ride, Buddy. We can eat hot dogs and watch the Red Sox play at Fenway Park.”
“Don’t listen to Daddy,” Anne says. “It’s a stupid game and their hot dogs aren’t kosher.”
Meyer puts Buddy back on the floor to play with his Woodsy-Wee Zoo collection. Buddy fumbles with the lion, pushing him along the carpet until the metal hook intended to link the animals together in a neat little train catches on his pajama bottoms and gets stuck.
Anne untangles the mess. Buddy’s disability is wearing hard on her nerves. She sits on the floor and connects the train for Buddy, then helps him push it along.
She complains, “God is punishing us.”
Meyer says, “What kind of god harms a child for the sins of the parents?”
“The sins of the father,” Anne quotes from the Hebrew scriptures. “Maybe if you went to temple once in a while. Gave up your gangster friends.”
Meyer says, “What would it accomplish if I went to temple? How do you know God isn’
t punishing us for Christmas? How the hell is anybody supposed to know what God thinks, if there is a God at all.”
“Shhh,” Anne says. Her guilt shudders through the room.
Meyer says, “Stop worrying.”
Anne says, “What if Hoover isn’t re-elected? It could happen. His promise to end poverty was bupkes. The democrats will bring in repeal. Then what will we do. We’ll be broke. No doctor will touch Buddy if we’re broke!”
Meyer says, “I’m telling you, don’t worry.”
“You think you’re so smart,” she says, half admiring and half despising Meyer’s boldness. “You may live on Central Park West but you’re still ghetto. You need to get into a legitimate business now.”
“I’ve never flown under any false colors. Look around.” He gestures to their creature comforts. “How do you think we got here? It wasn’t by being legit.”
She says, “Legitimate people live here, too.”
“Legitimate doesn’t necessarily mean ethical.”
“My father runs a legitimate business,” Anne shouts.
“I’m going out.”
Meyer grabs his coat and hat.
“You just came in,” she says. “We’re having a discussion. Where are you going?”
“Out,” Meyer says. “This isn’t a discussion.”
And he’s gone, through the door, down the elevator, and out onto the street. The Shabbat goy wanders along Central Park West. After yesterday’s freeze and today’s howling wind, few people have braved the outdoors. Meyer turns his back on the buildings and takes to Central Park. A thin film of ice coats the fountains and ponds. The trees huddle around him, shoving aside the world of the Upper West Side. Meyer shuffles through the hoarfrost on the pathway. He hunches his shoulders against the wind and buries his mind in thoughts of life on the Lower East Side, and before that Grodno.
The rabbis got it right. Poverty is a kind of death. It steals opportunity and quietly eats away at the soul. No one should be impoverished, they would say, and then encourage industry and cleverness. Meyer’s father came to this country with hope. How is it that the only gold street was the one paved with illegal money?
A Bloody Business Page 52