Arluck wasn’t the only one singing the blues. Dutch Schultz was too, because a few of his mugs got themselves killed, including his partner, Joey Noe. I think if Joey hada lived, things mighta turned out different, although maybe not, because Joey was smart, although obviously not smart enough. But he didn’t live—Legs killed ’im, ambushed him, and so the trap that Dutch thought he was setting for Legs turned out to bite him on the bum, and boy did the Dutchman ever hate that.
Life in gangland was startin’ to turn violent, which was always bad for business. The problem with most of the gangsters was that, unlike me, they didn’t have no memory of the bad old days of the shoot-outs under the els—hell, the els was on their way out themselves—or the big fight between Monk and Paul Kelly, or the Arbor and Nash’s.
That’s when I realized that I was nearly thirty-eight years old. Thirty-eight was already old for anybody, but for someone in my line of work it was ancient. I attributed my longevity to a number of things, including smarts and savvy, but truth to tell, the eight years I spent up the river didn’t hurt, neither. Bein’ on ice isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you, especially when the ice was as relatively pleasant as mine was, and hitting the sidewalk smack-dab in the midst of Prohibition was the luck of the Irish, if you ask me.
To give you an idea of the kinds of things I was involved in, I’m going to share something with you no one has ever seen, and that’s my private notebook. George kept the books, several sets of them: one for us, one for prospective investors and one for the tax man. There was one other book that not even George saw, and that was my book. It was just a little harmless-looking date book, small enough to keep in a man’s breast pocket, which is where I kept mine.
In it, I maintained a running tally of our cash on hand, adding and subtracting as necessary until the product got too big to hide, and then I sent it somewhere nice and safe. You’d be amazed at how quickly numbers can add up, so just in case you think I’m bragging, here are a few choice entries from 1929:
George and Owen, $5,000. That was our cut of the various operations. We always made sure that, no matter what happened, we got paid and we split it square. That’s why there was never no trouble between us. Everybody should have a friend like George. George lived pretty frugally, but he had a beautiful girlfriend named Jane. I mean she was some dame, a dame and a half, and he swathed her shape in ermines and furs, and I mean mink and beaver and rabbit and fox, until pretty soon she started referring to herself as Mrs. Fox, and that’s how George got his alias, Mr. Fox.
Back, Jack Diamond, $500. Maybe I was a soft touch and maybe I was a born diplomat, but one of the ways I kept the peace for so long was to always lend a mook a nickel or a dime if he needed it. I never let a guy get too deep into me, nor I into him, because serious indebtedness leads first to gratitude, then to resentment and finally to murder. But I did believe in keeping guys on a string, in order to ensure civility. No mug worth a mother’s tears would welsh on a little debt, nor would he kill for one. If Dutch wanted Jack dead, that was his problem—well, so did I, but not after I was good and through with him, which meant through making a buck off him.
Loan, Harry Block, $5,000. Harry was my manager at the Cotton Club and I wanted him to be happy. He was making me too much money for him to be otherwise, and if he liked dames and ponies, well, didn’t everyone? His boss was Herman Stark, who also oversaw the Abbey, which was in the Hotel Harding, and later on the Stork, where that Okie Sherman Billingsley was our front man.
Rent, Silver Slipper, $506, and cheap at the price. The Slipper was a money machine; after the theaters let out, folks would come pouring in for a glass of champagne and a show of near-naked girls. Cover charge was two bucks, three on Saturday, the food and drinks were good and expensive and the floor show…Granny found the girls and wrote the revues, whose highlight was always an “Oriental Slave Ballet,” which mostly consisted of getting the girls into as little clothing as the law allowed. Bunny Hill, Virginia Magee, Myrtle Allen, Ripples Covert. Best of all was Beryl Halley, all class even when she was practically starkers. Which was the way I liked her.
Loan, George McManus, $10,000. You may have read about Hump McManus, a good friend. He was in the poker game at the Park Central with Nigger Nate Raymond and Titanic Thompson the night Arnold Rothstein welshed on $320,000. A few weeks later—the night Hoover beat Al Smith, in fact—Arnold laid down half a million bucks on the Republican, then never collected on account of he went and got himself shot in Hump’s rooms at the Park Central and died over at the Polyclinic Hospital. Hump and Nigger Nate both beat the rap, and I was there to help them out. No sense any more trouble. Besides, I didn’t want anyone to think I had something to do with it. I liked Arnold. I really did.
Israel Levy, $10,000. A business partner and good friend who helped me operate the Hydrox Laundry on Hooper Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The tax man said I needed a job to explain my income so I bought one.
For Laundry, $72,000. It was amazing how handy laundries were when it came to laundering money.
Loan, Van Higgins, $2,000. Vannie was a “lobster fisherman” from Brooklyn. I never saw no lobsters in Brooklyn, and I suspect Vannie didn’t neither. He’d worked for both Legs and Dutch in the rum-running enterprises and was now laboring for me. He and I were taking aeroplane flying lessons together. I never really got the hang of flying, but Vannie was pretty good.
Downtown, $8,915. What the Tiger owed me that week for services rendered.
Father Cashin, $500. I believed in taking care of the padre, even if I hardly ever went to Mass.
Loan, Frank Costello, $10,000, about whom more later. We were getting mighty chummy, even though he was a wop with an Irish name.
Flowers, $100. I sent a lot of flowers.
Hiram and Maid, $2,000. Never spent money better in my life.
Joe Shalleck, $5,000. Lawyers were expensive, but they were worth it, until they weren’t.
Owen, Yonkers, $200. Rent on Loretta’s place. Margaret was seventeen years old that year. I wondered what she looked like, whether she looked like me, and what her mother told her.
Duesenberg Car, $7,000. A Model J Murphy, J-211 to be exact, a bargain (the dealer was a friend, plus he owed me), and you can just eat your heart out. They didn’t come any better than a Doozy, especially in our line of work, and this one was a real dilly. Two hundred and sixty-five horses squeezed into eight cylinders, two overhead camshafts; that little darlin’ could do 89 miles per hour in second gear, and once I hit a top speed of 116 on the open road. Complete with speedometer, ammeter, tachometer, brake-pressure gauge, altimeter and barometer, plus a stopwatch that worked right down to the split second. You could have her fitted out however you liked, with gold fixtures, leather interiors, vanity case, passenger instruments, radios, bars. Some of them were even upholstered in silk. And quiet? You could sneak up on a mug so softly that he’d be dead before he heard the motor. I loved that baby. Still miss her.
Sent Away to Europe, $124,000. I also parked money in Florida, mostly in the racetracks.
Loan, Jim Braddock, $500. One of my fighters, along with Primo Camera and Maxie Rosenbloom. The first two became heavyweight champs of the world. Slapsey Maxie was a light-heavy who couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag, but beat Slattery for the title in 1930. They both always needed money. All fighters always need money. Everybody needs money.
Cops, $200. I rest my case.
Trenton, $10,000. We owned Jersey then. Still do.
But the thing that made 1929 such a truly swell year was this: that’s the year I finally realized my dream of all us immigrant boys—harp, hebe and dago—stopping battling for a while and getting together. The place was Atlantic City and there we changed this country forever. You may not read about it in the history books, so that’s why I’m tellin’ you now.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Although business was sure enough good for me, it wasn’t much good for my family life. I mean, without Lor
etta and Margaret, the only family I had was my Ma and Marty and May, but things had got so busy that I frankly was neglecting my duties. I guess I made the mistake that most men make, that of thinking that just because you’re working hard for your womenfolk, they don’t need something else as well.
I was deep in conversation with Stark and Harry Block one early summer afternoon about the upcoming meeting of the Seven Group down on the Jersey Shore. This was a gang of gangsters comprised of Frank Costello and Lucky Luciano from Manhattan; Joey Adonis, who thought he looked like a Greek god, representing Brooklyn; Longy Zwillman, who was my man in Jersey; Waxey Gordon and Nig Rosen from Philly; Lansky and Siegel; Johnny Torrio, the old Five Pointer who had trained Capone in Chicago; and Nucky Johnson, who was a hood who happened to get himself elected Mayor of Atlantic City, which is why the meeting was going to be held on his turf.
“I dunno, Owney,” said Stark. “What if it’s a setup?”
“They’re all friends, Herman.”
“You don’t have any friends. Nobody does, in our business.”
“What about you?”
“I’m different. I can’t do what you do. They can.”
“And do,” added Harry Block.
“It ain’t just gonna be them,” I said. “We’re inviting the Dutchman—”
“That crazy sonofabitch,” grunted Stark.
“Capone, Greasy Thumb Guzik and their pal Moe Annenberg are comin’ in from Chi-town—”
“Annenberg the newspaper shtarker?” asked Harry.
“He ain’t sluggin’ no more. Moe’s a big shot now. Cooking up a race-wire scheme that I want in on. Plus Abie Bernstein and his Purple Gang from Detroit, Moe Dalitz from Cleveland—”
“Great, more Jews,” said Harry Block. Harry was of the opinion that there were enough Jews in the rackets already, without there being more.
I looked over at him. His seegar was working overtime. “When are you going straight, Harry? Be sure to tell me in advance so I can get a new manager.”
“Too late for me, but one of my kids is going to City College.”
“You call that goin’ straight?” asked Herman.
I continued my litany. “Danny Walsh from Providence, John Lazia fronting for the Pendergast operation in K.C.”
Herman whistled. “Quite a group. What about Maranzano and Masseria?”
Now, there was the big question. The M&M boys were currently battling each other for supremacy of the old Italian Black Hand. They thought it was a big deal, but as far as I was concerned that was yesterday’s news.
I liked Joe the Boss, I did business with him. To my mind, he was far smarter than that preening popinjay Maranzano, who thought he was some kind of Sicilian don, and who disparaged Costello because Frank was from Calabria instead of Sicily. That’s the kind of chump Salvatore Maranzano was, goofy for Sicilians when he should have had an eye for talent from anywhere. It was an expensive mistake to make for a guy Whose dream was to be capo di tutti capi, boss of all the bosses in woptalk.
“Ain’t coming. Too old-fashioned.” I settled back into my chair. “I remember the days when the politicians used to pull us around by our ears. Burn this newsstand, slug this ape, keep these fellas away from the polls, make sure this guy votes early and often. Now we call the tune and they jig to it. Look around. Nobody gets elected in Kansas City without Tom Pendergast’s say-so, Capone has Big Bill Thompson in his waistcoat pocket and Tammany’s got its claws so far into Al Smith and his boy Frank Roosevelt that it ain’t funny.”
“I don’t trust that cripple,” said Stark. “Look what he’s done for Al, and us, since he got elected governor last year—nothin’.”
“Aw, he’s okay. In fact,” I said proudly, “I’ve written to him, asking for a complete pardon for my manslaughter rap. Clean jacket, that’s what I’m lookin’ for, and I have every reason to believe I’m going to get it.”
“Never happen,” said Herman. “Bet you a hundred bucks.”
We shook hands on it, and I steered the subject back to Atlantic City. “Nucky’s hosting, puttin’ everybody up at the best hotel—the Breakers.”
“I thought that dump was restricted,” said Harry. “No Jews, no Catholics.” He looked across the table. “None of us could get in there, that’s for sure.”
“Nucky’s got it all fixed,” I said, looking at my watch. “George and I’ll leave next week and when we come back—well, things is going to be different, all over the country.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Harry, lighting another seegar from the glowing stub of the old one.
The Duke and his orchestra were sounding great, we had a swell lineup of talent and our girls was prettier than ever. The Dutchman was having some serious trouble with the colored policy makers he was tryin’ to displace—I’m talking about Brunder, Pompez, Joe Ison and their muscleman, Bumpy Johnson—not to mention that hex queen Stephanie St. Clair, who some said put a spell on Dutch, but to me lead poisoning is lead poisoning and voodoo has nothing to do with it. I didn’t want any of our coloreds getting involved, because I knew most of ’em played the policy rackets—colored people always did—and I also knew sure as shooting that Dutch and Abbadabba were cheating them blind, and when word like that gets out, that is a surefire way to start trouble.
One day I’d caught Hiram with a bunch of policy slips in his hand. “Where you goin’ with those?” I asked.
“Droppin’ ’em off for my mama.”
“Shouldn’t ought to play policy, you know that.”
“I know that, Mr. Owney.”
“Then what the hell you let your mama play for?”
“She jes’ likes to is all.”
“Well, don’t let me see you throwing away my money on stuff like that.”
“Okay, Mr. Owney.”
I don’t know whether Hiram paid me any mind, but one thing I did know was that you couldn’t win at policy, which was also called the numbers racket. Poor Negroes picked a three-digit number from 100 to 999 and put a penny or a nickel on its nose. If you hit, the payoff was 500 to 1. So that was a gyp right there. The winning number was supposed to be the last three digits of the handle at one racetrack or another, which was published in the newspapers the next day. Otto Berman figured out a way to pay off only on penny-ante stuff, and cheat big winners, by checking all the policy slips and then getting a bet down by wire and changing the tote at the last minute. The suckers never knew what they was missin’.
Anyway, I didn’t want this policy war between Dutch and the colored boys getting any wider. Ever since Little Patsy, I’d tried to keep my irish in check whenever possible, but when Bert the doorman give me a sign, and then Harry all of a sudden stopped talking, and I saw Legs Diamond and his brother Eddie in my club, well, I thought about firing Bert on the spot, except I figured he was scared of Legs, and you’d be too, in his place. Legs had been pointedly not invited to our little beach party, and the last thing I needed was to have him spotted in here.
I was up and out of my seat in a flash, just as Legs and Eddie sat down at a table. One of the waiters saw me coming and vamoosed pronto, which left Legs waving his hands in the air, and I was just hoping and praying he’d start to shout or something, because then I could throw him right out on his arse, but he kept his gob shut just long enough for me to get there and for him to see me.
“No Irish need apply,” I said as unfriendly as possible. I still hadn’t forgotten that shot he took at me when he was just a punk, even though I was one slug to the good as far as he was concerned.
Legs just about laughed in my face. “You know my brother, Eddie.”
“He can’t apply either. Only colored in the band, on the stage and in uniform. Plus we don’t hire geeks, spastics or cripples.”
Legs looked around the room at all the beautiful girls getting ready for the evening’s acts. “Thought I might find our mutual nonfriend the Flegenheiming Dutchman in here instead.” I swear he was about to put his feet up on one o
f my tables, then thought the better of it. I wished Frenchy and his shotgun were both here.
“Why don’tcha try one a his joints?”
Legs gave me that nasty little smile of his. “Yours are better.”
“If it’s Dutch you’re looking for, take it elsewhere, Jack,” I said. “I don’t allow trouble at the Cotton Club. Besides, ain’t you got enough lead in you already? You’re the only guy I know’s been shot more than me.”
“Just a little friendly chat,” said Eddie.
“You don’t know how to have a friendly chat, Eddie,” I said. “The only thing you know how to do is exchange gunfire, which I’m not particularly in the mood to do with you right now. Maybe later.”
A waiter hovered. “These gentlemen are leaving soon,” I barked and turned back to Legs.
“How the hell could you shoot Red Cassidy and his pals right in the Hotsy-Totsy? Your own club? And then rub out your own bartender and waiter so they couldn’t testify? No wonder nobody trusts you—Jesus, he’s spitting up blood.” Eddie had TB, as everybody knew, and everybody knew it was going to kill him unless everybody else did first.
Eddie’s coughing spell was terrible. Blood was coming out of his mouth and dribbling down his chin. Legs threw his arm around his brother to help him through the spell, and I guess the only nice thing I can say about Jack Diamond was that he was a family man, like myself.
At last Eddie managed to get himself under control. “He’s okay,” said Legs, “just needs a little fresh air is all. We’re going up to our place in the Catskills tomorrow.”
“I’ll have one of the boys drive you. Every cop from here to Albany’ll be on the lookout for your cars.”
Legs looked at me crossways. “We’ll make it.” Then he glanced up and over my left shoulder.
“I think maybe you boys ought to beat it,” said big George, and was I ever glad to see him, looming over skinny little Legs. He was wearing his greatcoat, which meant his shotgun was cuddled up alongside his right leg.
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