“You’ll die young from the tailor’s disease,” his father had said, discouraging Meyer from the needle trade. “Get a job where you can use your mind. You’ll be better off.”
It was the only good thing his father had said during Meyer’s entire childhood. Sweatshop conditions were the cause of the tuberculosis Jews were thought to breed. Just like Italians were said to breed polio and Irish caused cholera.
Meyer shakes off the memory. He stops to listen to the silence of the park. He lights a cigarette. The possibility of Repeal is a bitter pill to swallow especially now that the greasers are gone. If it wasn’t for the beer war, the life of crime would be downright peaceful.
If Repeal does pass, legitimacy will return and the bootleg business will fold. Anne has a point. Her father is a grocer. Distillers will need supplies once Repeal passes: grains, hops, and sugar. Sugar from the Caribbean is profitable. The bootleg business has created inroads in the Caribbean.
Meyer passes the pond where Waxey Gordon and Maxie Greenberg made their deal with Arnold Rothstein in a bid to control Manhattan’s bootleggers. They didn’t count on Emory Buckner’s trial, which disrupted Waxey’s connections and sent him fleeing to New Jersey in search of a new headquarters.
At 59th Street, the Plaza shines like a beacon in the night sky. Meyer leaves the park, heads down Fifth Avenue to 58th, and crosses over to Bergdorf Goodman’s where the fur trade shows off the latest collection: a white fox drape, a collar of mink, two fox jackets, one in white and one in black, and a brown fox fur shrug.
“It’s enough to make a girl faint,” says Flo Alo, coming up from behind him.
Meyer turns. Jimmy Alo and his wife are on their way home from a play.
“The Devil Passes,” Flo says to Meyer. “Don’t bother.”
“All right,” Meyer says. “I’ll be sure to miss it.”
The Lanskys, Siegels, and Alos are fast friends. Flo, Esther, and Anne are constant companions with very few secrets between them.
Flo says, “I hear you’re going to Boston to see that doctor for Buddy.”
Meyer says, “I guess that’s the plan.”
Flo says, “I thought I’d stop in and visit the boy. Are they home now?”
“Last time I checked,” Meyer says. “By the way, Anne is pregnant again.”
Flo smiles. “I know.” She turns to Jimmy. “Do you mind?”
He doesn’t mind. He never minds. Flo bids the boys farewell and heads to the Lansky house while Jimmy hails a cab to go home.
Meyer says, “When I go up to Boston to see this doctor, I would like you to ride along. There are some guys there you should meet.”
As long as there’s going to be a trip to Boston, it might as well include some business. Meeting Hymie Abrams and Charles “King” Solomon, the major Jews that hold sway in New England, will bump up Jimmy’s reputation. Solomon, a Russian Jew, is well established in gambling and narcotics and bootlegging. Abrams is one of Solomon’s lieutenants.
Jimmy says, “I’ll pack a bag.”
* * *
Coll makes late-night excursions regularly from his hotel to the pharmacy across the street, where he connects with his mates via the pay telephones lined up in a series of booths at the back of the store. This is convenient for Owney Madden, whose job it is to deal with the Mad Mick.
“You got the opera crowd to think about at some times of night,” Tough Tommy says to Madden. “But Coll ain’t no fool. He don’t go out in a crowd. He hot-foots it over to the pharmacy when there ain’t too many people around to identify him.”
“You know what needs to be done,” Madden says.
Madden hangs up with Tough Tommy and calls Charlie. Charlie sends Eddie McGrath to the Cotton Club to cover for Madden should things go wrong. Eddie reads the New York Times and the Daily News and gawks at the chorus line.
Madden pours a couple of whiskeys and hands one to Eddie. Madden sits on the edge of his desk, one leg supporting him, the other dangling down the side.
He says, “You gotta hand it to Coll. He gave the Dutchman a helluva run for his money. Son of a bitch won’t listen to a word I say. I was just like him when I was a kid. Then I wound up full of holes and landed in Sing Sing. It changes a guy. Puts a little more sense in your head.”
Eddie says, “So they tell me.”
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” Madden says. “I didn’t.”
Eddie shrinks back to the newspaper. After years with the Dutchman, all the bullshit, all the craziness, he hates what is about to happen mostly because he hates that he is powerless to have any control over the consequences Coll has brought upon himself.
Music rises through the club as Cab Calloway and his orchestra tune up.
“Hi de hidee hidee ho,” Calloway sings out.
Madden dials the Cornish Arms Hotel and asks for the honeymoon suite. Coll answers the phone.
Madden says, “Are we gonna talk or what?”
Coll hesitates. The rhythm of the orchestra wafts through the phone’s receiver. The Hi-De-Ho man belts out another chorus.
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes,” Coll says.
Big Frenchy slips away from his duties and joins Madden and Eddie in the office.
Outside the honeymoon suite of the Cornish Arms, Mike Basile waits for Coll to appear. Lottie stands in front of the suite’s door. Coll comes to the door and kisses Lottie hard on the lips then takes her shoulders and moves her to the side. He opens the suite’s door and nods to Basile. It is Monday night. The opera house is silent. Ice lines the street and sidewalk. A cab pulls up and drops four guests at the hotel. From the looks of it, they’re part of the theater crowd.
Coll hikes up the collar of his jacket, pinching it closed around his chin. He nestles his nose into the thick wool, tugs the brim of his hat down over his eyes, and strolls over to the pharmacy.
Coll says to Basile, “You might as well get a cup of coffee. I don’t expect he’ll ante up right away.”
“Maybe he’ll throw in the Duesy,” Basile says.
Basile takes a seat at the long soda fountain counter where two men eat pie and mourn the state of the economy and the ongoing Depression. Basile keeps one eye on Coll and the other on the front door. Coll rifles his pockets for loose change. He throws two dimes, a quarter and five nickels on the metal shelf just below the phone. He’s in no hurry to call Madden. Something doesn’t feel right. He thinks Madden is too eager and then dismisses the idea.
Madden is always eager. He’s a nightclub man.
Coll lights a cigarette and sits in the small booth blowing smoke rings. He twirls the quarter through his fingers. A customer pays for bicarbonate of soda and mooches a glass of water from the soda jerk behind the counter. Basile nods an “all’s well” to Coll. Coll drops a nickel into the phone’s coin slot. The coin chimes its way through the phone’s innards. Coll dials the Cotton Club from memory.
Madden lets it ring a few times before picking up.
Coll says, “Whadya say we drop the bullshit and talk about what really matters. I know you hate this double-crossing Jew bastard in Harlem as much as I do, so why don’t you give me the hundred grand I need to do the job and I’ll give Harlem back to the Irish.”
Madden says, “The Dutchman has a big web. What makes you think you can waltz in and make him go away?”
The Cotton Club clamors with Calloway’s music, the dancers on the stage, and the rowdy crowd.
“I blew a goddamn hole the size of Lough Neagh in the Dutchman’s beer operation with a lot less,” Coll says.
“You took down plenty of my guys, too. What’s to prevent you from a repeat performance?”
“Give me the cash,” Coll says. “I earned it.”
“What assurances do I get?” Madden says.
There is an uneasy silence between Madden and Coll. Coll shifts in the small booth, dangles his feet outside. He wants to go into a tirade, hang up on Madden, but he’s made a promise to Lottie. He is going to take d
own the Dutchman.
Outside the pharmacy, Tough Tommy and two of his boys spill out of their car into the early morning chill.
“What’s the matter, kid?” Madden says. “Cat got your tongue?”
Coll says, “I’ll tell you something about these guinea friends of yours. When the chips are down, they’ll sacrifice you quicker than ale turns to piss. They ain’t your friends. Don’t you get it? They’re in business for themselves. They don’t give a shit about no mick.”
Coll watches a tenement kid working a ten-finger discount for a can of pomade.
He says, “The Irish have a saying. I’ll put it into words you can understand. Marry a guinea and you marry the whole bunch of them.”
Madden doesn’t respond. Coll says, “You don’t think the dagos and kikes give a shit about your sorry arse, do you?”
Madden says, “I could buy the whole of the Irish Republican Army for a hundred grand.”
Coll says, “And then what? Where’s ‘the Killer’ now? Fat and happy and sucking on the tit of success.”
“That ain’t so bad, kid. Listen to me when I tell ya, it ain’t the years that wear you down, it’s the lead you collect getting through them.”
“You sound like an old washerwoman.”
Coll scans the pharmacy. The lunch counter is empty. Mike Basile is gone. The dawdlers who have been milling about the store stand frozen in fear, a scattering of cemetery statues gazing at the only moving figure in the whole store. Tough Tommy, Thompson machine gun held high, is moving fast toward Coll’s phone booth.
Coll screams into the receiver, “You dirty bastard.”
Tommy pulls hard on the Thompson’s trigger. A steady stream of bullets slams into the phone booth. The first few bullets scatter through Coll’s legs, then a short burst fills his abdomen with bullets and then his heart. The Baby Killer bounces like a tin target in a shooting game. Fifteen steel-jacketed bullets riddle his body. Before Coll’s lifeless corpse hits the floor, Tough Tommy is gone, out the door and swallowed by the darkness.
The pharmacy’s customers shake and jitter. The tenement kid fills his pockets with candy and makes a quick escape.
Sirens wail as police race to the scene of the crime. They interrogate the witnesses but nobody is either willing or able to identify the shooter although some are fairly sure it is the Baby Killer slumped over and bleeding all over the phone booth.
Lottie runs into the pharmacy just as the local police flood the scene. She is frantic. Screaming for her husband. She is held back. Flashbulbs pop. The mass of mangled flesh is hoisted onto a stretcher and hauled away. Police prod Lottie with questions. She stares blankly into the distance.
Morning dawns and finds Lottie still walking the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in a state of shock. Coll is examined and catalogued. Each bullet entry and exit wound is graphed on the outline body that fills the coroner’s worksheet. All pertinent information is attached to a clipboard and hung on the end of the coroner’s exam table. Coll is gone and there is no bringing him back.
Meyer Lansky, away in Boston to meet with Dr. Carruthers, picks up the morning edition of the New York Times. Vincent Coll is front and center.
It is done.
The sun bathes Boston with a warm glow. Meyer meets Dr. Carruthers at the children’s hospital. Carruthers turns out to be quite charismatic. He describes a series of medical procedures developed to help children overcome illness just like Buddy’s. As a Christian Scientist, for him this means changing Buddy’s mind.
“He’s two years old,” Meyer says.
“Age doesn’t matter. It’s the mind that matters. I bet this little boy of yours is smart…smarter than you think.”
“He’s smart, all right. How exactly do you convince a two-year-old that his illness is all in his head?” Meyer says.
The doctor lets out an all-knowing smile.
“You must trust me,” he says. “All things in due time. Now, when can I see this young man of yours?”
Meyer makes an appointment for Buddy to meet the doctor and calls Anne with the news.
“When are you coming home?” Anne says.
“Soon,” he says.
“When, Meyer?” Anne repeats. “When are you coming home?”
“Soon,” he says.
The line goes dead, as usual these days when Anne doesn’t like the direction of Meyer’s conversation.
Meyer picks Jimmy Alo up at the hotel and they join the hordes of workers who swarm the streets in search of beaneries, hash-joints, eateries, nosh bars, and greasy spoons, anything that will alleviate the gnawing in the pit of their stomachs. They stop at a small diner downtown where they indulge in roast beef sandwiches.
“Did you see the paper this morning?” Meyer says.
Jimmy shakes his head.
Meyer says, “Hoover’s got the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service searching for gangsters. That’s how Capone and a lot of his boys were taken down. The greasers brought all that attention to New York with the war.”
They pay for lunch. A cab ride away is the Charles River Esplanade where they meet up with Charles Solomon.
Solomon is neatly dressed in suit and tie. His eyes are bright. He blends easily with Boston’s elite, who find the esplanade an escape from the rigors of business.
“Who’ve you got here?” Solomon says.
Meyer says, “Jimmy Alo.”
Jimmy stands tall, his shoulders back.
“What do you do?” Solomon says eyeing the Italian.
“A little of this. A little of that,” Jimmy says.
“Booze?” Solomon says.
“Beer,” Jimmy says.
Solomon says, “I hope you have more than that. We’re all going to feel the crunch when Roosevelt steps into office.”
“I’ve got my eye on a few things,” Jimmy says.
“He’s got a friend in the William Morris Agency,” Meyer says.
“Ah,” Solomon says. “I see how that could be useful.”
They stroll along the river and then across the stone bridge to a narrow strip of land that runs parallel to the shore. They stand alone under barren trees. Boston fans out from the giant hub, reaching its tentacles into neighboring towns.
“Are you ready for Repeal?” Solomon says.
“Does it matter?” Meyer says.
“Gambling, Meyer,” Solomon says. “That’s where the money is. What do you think, Jimmy?”
“We’ve got the numbers in White Plains and those little towns up there.”
“Small time,” Solomon says. “Abe Zwillman has the right idea. You need a roadhouse, a place where people can come and spend money all night long.”
Jimmy says, “We were makin’ so much with the numbers that we had to cut down the percentage. You can’t lose even if you try.”
Solomon jingles the change in his pocket, “If you can do that with small change, think of what can be done with millions.”
They while away the afternoon in speculation. Meyer and Charles Solomon go back nearly to the beginning of Prohibition. They have protected each other and scratched each other’s backs.
At the end of the day, Jimmy and Meyer sit by the pool and talk about whatever comes to mind.
Jimmy says, “I did a favor for a guy. His name is Julian but everybody calls him Potatoes. Nice guy. Son of a millionaire. No mob guy but he got in trouble with the Outfit. He was running a ritzy joint in Irish territory, kicking back to Bugs Moran to stay in business. Capone wanted to take out his beef with Bugs Moran on Julian. They woulda killed him. I talked to Charlie. I figure the only way this guy can keep breathing is if he starts up a new joint and cuts the Outfit in on the profits. Spread a little good will, you know. Charlie talks to Charlie Fischetti who could see the value in the move. They cut Potatoes a break. Now he’s in Florida. He’s got a sheriff in his pocket. Wants me to come down and take a look at the operation. You wanna come? We can get out of the cold for a few days.”
“Florida?
” Meyer says. “Mosquitos.”
“Not so bad this time of year. The whole state is depressed. Julian bought an old tomato packing plant. He wants to fix it up and call it the Plantation. He’s got the idea of bringing acts down from New York. The snow birds go for that kind of thing. George, that’s my friend at William Morris, can get all kinds of acts. Whatever we want. You, me, Charlie, the Fischettis. We cut this up like a Christmas pie. Julian won’t have no more worries about the Outfit coming after him.”
It sounds interesting but Meyer prefers to let Jimmy go it alone. Besides, he hasn’t packed for the humid tropical weather.
Jimmy takes the morning train from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale, a day and a half of travel. Julian is waiting at the station when he arrives.
The Plantation is a big barnlike structure that once served as a packing shed for cabbages and tomatoes. Julian has given the place a facelift. The gambling consists of a roulette wheel, a few crap tables, a blackjack table, and poker tables. Off to one side is a bingo parlor.
“People down here love bingo,” Julian says.
“Where’s the stage?” Jimmy says.
“I got a guy coming in over this afternoon to lay it out,” Julian says.
“A good act can pack the place,” Jimmy says. “Where’s the kitchen?”
“What kitchen?” Julian says.
“You gotta feed ’em, Potatoes. There ain’t no place else around to take care of this much business.”
Julian scratches his head and looks around. The joint was never meant to be fancy. He worries about the competition up the road, Capone’s joint.
Jimmy laughs. “Don’t you read the papers? Capone’s in the can.”
It’s true. The Big Man is cooling his heels in the Cook County jail, where he enjoys an oversized cell in the fifth-floor hospital ward. Charlie Fischetti is the man in charge until things shake out for the Outfit. Capone expects to beat the rap.
“He’s got a long reach,” Julian says. “Nobody knows that better ’n me.”
“Don’t worry. I told you that Charlie Fischetti worked it out. You no longer have a problem with the Outfit. Let’s get this joint up and running. Put in a dance floor and a kitchen and a stage. We’ll get Sophie Tucker down here as an opening act.”
A Bloody Business Page 53