“Why we gettin’ the air?” snarled Legs. “Ain’t I buying my beer and booze from you now?” That part was true. The fight between him and the Dutchman meant I was now his major supplier, and I appreciated his business.
I turned to George. “Keep an eye on Eddie. Legs, let’s you and me go upstairs, where it’s nice and private.”
Legs and I walked to the back of the house and then up my private staircase, which led out onto the roof. I always had two men stationed there, to prevent anybody from sneaking up on me. They grabbed Legs as he came through the door.
“What’s the big idea?” There was no fear in Legs Diamond’s eyes, I had to give him that.
“Relax. If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.” The boys had come up with two pistols, a blackjack and a throwing knife. “They’re just going to relieve you of your artillery for a while.”
It was a clear, cool evening up on the roof. The lights of the city glowed bright to the south, fading away as Manhattan stretched north. To the east, the Bronx twinkled, and for some reason in that instant I thought about Monk and his battle with Kelly way back, and hadn’t the Bronx changed since then. Everything had changed, but everything was still the same and I was trying like hell to hang on to it.
I made my way over to my pigeons, with Legs following, and took out a bird. It was a Giant Runt, sort of like Legs himself, or maybe Dutch. Diamond and Schultz may have hated each other, but they were birds of a feather just the same. I tossed him up in the air, and off he flew, circling the roof and then heading south, disappearing into the night.
“He’s on his way down to the Lower East Side,” I told Legs. “The old Five Points. I keep some coops down there, visit the birds from time to time, get a whiff of the old days. You don’t remember the old days, Legs.”
“I worked for Little Augie Orgen, didn’t I?”
“Fat lot of good it did him too. I guess you couldn’t help it Lepke and Shapiro shot him so hard his hat flew off his head.”
“They shot me too.”
I was still looking out over the roof, to the south. “That’s just my point. You’re slowin’ down. You been hit too many times.”
“Bullet ain’t been cast with my name on it.”
“I used to think that. Then I got eleven of ’em, special delivery.”
“Didn’t kill ya, did they?”
I thought about what Dr. Sweet had told me, about the pains I still felt. “Not yet.”
I turned back to Jack, who looked bored. “Listen to me closely, Jack, because I’m only going to say this once and I’ll deny that I ever said it if anybody asks. This thing between Schultz and you is going to end badly, for both of you and for all of us. Do you know why? Because Lepke and Gurrah Shapiro and the Bug and Meyer Mob are tougher and hungrier than we are—”
“Buncha Jews, running with the guineas—”
“—and in this business it’s the hungry and wise who eat the foolish and well fed. You got your rackets upstate—hell, you practically own Albany—so my advice to you is get back up there and leave the rackets down here to people who can handle ’em. I don’t plan to stay forever, but I sure as hell do plan to get out alive.”
Legs bristled. “Think I’m going to let a few sheenies push me around?”
“It’s not just the Jews, Jack. They ain’t long for the rackets themselves. You’ve seen their kids, smart kids, who work hard and are goin’ places. How long do you think they’ll want to stay in the rackets, killing and being killed, when they take their law degrees from City College and relieve mugs like us of our cash, right up to the minute they strap us to Old Sparky and fry us?”
Legs snorted. “You scared, Madden?”
That offended me. I didn’t have to prove my courage to this punk. I kept my temper as I replied: ‘No, I’m not scared. I’m smart. Smarter than you, leastways…”
“Sounds to me like it’s you who should be thinking about retirement.”
I took a deep breath and gave him one last chance. “Long time ago I worked for Monk Eastman. ‘Prince of the Gangsters,’ the newspapers called him. Toughest guy I ever met, who’d put you in the hospital soon as look at ya. Like a father to me…”
“Ancient history.”
“Shut up and listen, you dumb harp. Monk and his gang fought that wop Paul Kelly and his Five Pointers to a draw. There were tough Jews in those days, and there still are tough Jews. Benny Siegel is as tough as they come, and little Lansky is even tougher, you wouldn’t know it to took at him. But they’re on the wrong side of history. The Italians are coming—”
“You talking about Maranzano and Masseria? Them Mustache Petes? They’re too busy killing each other off to give us grief.”
“Eventually they’ll succeed. There’ll be a power vacuum on the East Side. And who’s going to take their place? Not an Irishman or a Jew. No, it’ll be someone like Frank Costello or Joey Adonis or even Masseria’s boy Lucky. Guys like us, we gotta decide whether we’re going to go graceful or go bloody.”
Legs ground his cigarette into the roof. “I was right—you are yellow.”
“Have it your way, smart guy.”
“Tell that punk Schultz I want to see him.”
“Watch out for Dutch. He’s meaner and crazier than you are.”
“Ever hear of the luck of the Irish?”
That almost made me laugh. “Sure I have,” I said. “We got plenty of luck. Only problem is it’s all bad. Good or bad, in the end it’s all bad. A real Irishman knows that. A stupid one forgets it.”
“Forget it,” said Legs, looking at his watch. “I gotta go get my girl. She can’t sneak out until her mother goes to bed.”
I chuckled. “Ma thinks she’s still a virgin, I bet.”
He chuckled harder. “Not just Mom.”
So there you have it. I tried to warn him, but some harps are dumber than others, and Jack Diamond was sure one of ’em. So was I, because I didn’t figure it out until a few days later, after I got back from Atlantic City, when I went to visit my Mother.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The famous Atlantic City conference got off to a comic opera start. Nucky Johnson may have been the Mayor, but the desk clerk at the Breakers had all the clout the day we checked in.
I was in the lobby talking with Frenchy when I saw Capone and Jake Guzik coming through the door. Al wasn’t all that tall but he was plenty big, and besides, how could anyone miss the scar? Frank Galluccio gave it to him free gratis when the Big Fella made a smart remark to Galluccio’s sister at Frankie Yale’s Harvard Club. We had gallantry in them days. Of course the Big Fella ended up hiring Galluccio and murdering Yale, born Uale—that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
The Thumb was nattering on about something in that thick Chicago-Russian-Jewish accent of his. How Capone, who didn’t speak so good himself, understood him I’ll never figure out. I featured the food stains on the Thumb’s tie, and I knew there’d be trouble as soon as they came toe-to-toe with Osgood, a little chicken in a bow tie who was manning the reception desk and even now giving them the old fisheye as they approached.
“Mr. Brown from Chicago,” smiled Big Al. “And my associate, Mr. Smith.”
Osgood—it didn’t matter whether that was his first, last or middle name, he had to be Osgood—pretended to look through his reservation book, but I saw him slip his hand under the desk where I assumed the buzzer was, to summon help.
“Get Nucky. Fast,” says I.
No matter if Frenchy could’ve run like Bronko Nagurski, he wouldn’ta been fast enough, because at this moment along comes Luciano and Little Man Lansky, who greet the Big Fella like long-lost friends, and the clerk just shakes his head and then whispers something in the ear of the manager, who’s showed up by now, and the two of them make a big fuss of flipping through the reservation book and finally the manager looks up just as Capone turns his attention to him, and I’m wondering if the manager has his life insurance paid up good and proper, how many next of kin
he might leave behind, etc., and then I see the manager shake his head, sorrowful, and he says:
“I’m terribly sorry Mr., er, Brown, but—”
“Who the—who’re you?” asks Al.
“I’m Mr. Billinghurst, the manager,” says he. “Unfortunately we have absolutely no record of any reservation in that name.”
“Must be some kinda mistake on your part,” says Capone. “Fix it, before I—” Greasy Thumb jabs him in the side with his elbow, because we’re not supposed to put the finger on Nucky, for appearance purposes.
“You’re certainly right about that,” agrees the manager, working hard to save his life and not even knowing it. “Brown is a, er, common name and…let me see…Brown, Brown…”
“Before I get unhappy,” says Al.
The manager gives him a big phony Protestant smile. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we, Mr. Brown?” says Billinghurst, drawing out the diphthong. The best part of this farce is that Billinghurst is probably the only man in America who doesn’t recognize Al Capone. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre had been just a couple of months earlier. Everybody in the land had seen the photos of the seven stiffs lyin’ in puddles of blood against that garage wall on Clark Street, and everybody and his sister Sadie made Capone for the brains behind the rubout, and still this mug doesn’t get the picture. Well, they say ignorance is bliss.
The manager shakes his head like his dog just died. “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m afraid we’ll have to make other arrangements for you, at a hotel more…suitable.”
You don’t think of Capone at a loss, but here he was. Lansky says:
“Somethin’ wrong?” Luciano says:
“This mug givin’ ya a hard time?” while Guzik says:
“C’mon, Al, let’s take a walk,” and just then who but Johnson comes struttin’ in like he owns the dump, which he unfortunately don’t. Johnson was a big fella, bigger than the Big Fella himself, which was a good thing for him considering what was about to occur.
“…I’m fairly certain that the Ritz or the Ambassador will have accommodations that will be to your liking,” Billinghurst is saying. Johnson is sidling up, real smooth, like he’s going to take care of everything, but Capone steps in front of him and blocks his path. I see Al’s scar is gleaming white, which it did when he got mad, which was pretty often.
“What the fuck are you tryin’ to pull here, Nucky?” says Capone, loud enough to freeze blood.
“Calm down, Mr. Brown,” says Johnson, still trying to pretend everything’s jake.
“Relax, Al,” says Jake, hoping that everything’s gonna turn out ducky.
“I ain’t gonna calm down, you miserable piece a shit,” says Al to Nucky.
“Settle down, Big Fella,” says Luciano, trying to intervene.
“We’re businessmen, with business to transact,” reminds Lansky, trailing behind.
I guess Nucky didn’t like Al’s choice of words. “Who are you calling a piece of shit, you fucking gorilla?” he replies, and then I thought the two of ’em was going to go at it, right there, and let me tell you, hand-to-hand, no weapons, I think Johnson might’ve taken him. “This is my town and I ain’t gonna let no guinea goombah from Chicago push me around.”
“Jesus, I ought to put Nucky in the ring with Camera,” I said to George, who was once again by my side.
“You’ll need a good undercard,” said Frenchy calmly. “Take him out in one punch.”
So you got all these big guys and all these little guys screamin’ and yellin’ and the manager is shouting something about calling the cops and Johnson is shouting something about being the Mayor, he owns the fucking cops, and now the manager finally figures out who the hell he’s dealing with and what little color he had in his face drains all the way down to his shoes, whereas Osgood is nowhere to be seen, no dope he, and all the guests are heading for the exits as fast as they can and meanwhile more gangsters are showing up, including the Purple Gang Jews who let me tell you do not look anything like Osgood or Mr. Billinghurst and then here comes the Dutchman and I figure that’s all we need, it’s just a matter of time before somebody breaks out his heater and then we really got trouble.
’Twas Lansky what broke it up. The little yiddeleh somehow manages to interpose himself between Johnson and Capone and like a sheepdog starts shooin’ ’em both toward the front door, where the limousines are still idling. He steers Capone into one just as the cop cars pull up, sirens going full blast, and there’s that fool Billinghurst, who’s got more guts than brains, pointing, and Johnson waving at the cops to stand down. Meyer gets the back door of the limo open and Nucky gives Al a shove into the backseat and slams the door. “The Ritz,” he says, and the car roars off.
That was the first day.
I heard that when they got to the Ritz, Capone was still ape, even after they got him up to his room, rippin’ the pictures off the walls and generally carrying on. I think that’s when it struck me that maybe he was going a little squirrelly on us, which turned out to be true. Dose of syph he got from one of the teenage whores he’d made into a mistress back in Cicero. Some said it was the tax-evasion case that drove him over the edge, turned him into the Wop with the Mop on the Rock, but you ask me it was her. Beauty-and-the-beast type of thing.
Speaking of which, once everybody was settled in, I sent for Mary Frances. Dutch had turned his attention to some other woman not his wife, and what the hell the kid really loved me, or said she did, so I brought her down on the train and who should show up with her but Georgie Ranft and one of my pugilists, Maxie Rosenbloom. They all spent most of the time on the beach, very sharp in their new bathing costumes, and Georgie turned so many pretty heads that I really didn’t have to worry overmuch about his getting his paws on my frail. I introduced Mary Frances around the gang, and so she met Meyer and Frank Costello and of course Charlie Lucky.
The next day, once everybody was set up at their rightful hotels, and the damage at the Ritz had been repaired, we met stag at one of Johnson’s dumps near the Boardwalk. It was a big banquet room in the President Hotel, the kind you seen in the movies about us, with a head table and a bunch of hoods including myself sitting at the wings. By agreement, Lansky and Johnny T. were the hosts. Torrio even led us Catholics in a prayer before we started. Then Lansky got up, took a sip of water and spoke.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we stand today on the precipice of a new order in America. The world is ours, if only we got it in us to take it.”
“Not to mention keep it,” said the Dutchman, who was already drinking.
Lansky ignored him. Even though they were all brother Hebrews, there was no love lost between Dutch and the rest of the Jews. Dutch was a pretzel, the kind whose folks came from Germany, while Lansky and the rest had come out of villages in Poland and places even worse. I never heard Dutch say a nice word about any of ’em, called ’em kikes and whatnot, which was a mistake, as things turned out.
“Lemme tell you a little story,” continues Lansky. “Happened back on the Lower East Side when Benny and I were kids.”
“Where is Benny?” shouted someone, maybe Joey Adonis, maybe Lepke, I dunno.
“Prob’ly banging some broad,” said somebody else, maybe King Solomon from Boston, mighta been Nig Rosen, I forget.
Lansky held up his hand for quiet. “He’s traveling. The point is Benny was entertaining a young lady in some old warehouse—”
“What a romantic,” says Chuck Polizzi, Dalitz’s partner in Cleveland.
“—when in walks Charlie Lucky, back when he was still Salvatore, fresh off the boat. You all know what a gentleman Charlie is. Well, he sees Benny on top of this broad and he mistakes her squeals of delight for cries for help, so he grabs a two-by-four and starts remonstrating with Benny about his head and shoulders.”
“Beat some sense into the Bug, maybe,” says my old pal Boo Boo Hoff, which gets Meyer’s attention.
“Out of him is more like it,” says Abie Ber
nstein. “Jeez, that guy—”
“You know Benny don’t like nicknames, Boo Boo,” says the Little Man. “Anyway, Charlie is whacking Benny pretty good, and the dame really does start yelling now, so in I rush and see Charlie whaling on Benny.” I noticed Luciano smiling at the memory.
“I’m on top of Charlie in a flash. I don’t care if Charlie starts beating on me too, as long as he lays off my friend Benny. Charlie turns to me and is about to conk me a good one. Then he gets a good look at me and starts laughing at the little runt who wants to fight him.”
“I was laughing so hard I never seen the punch from Benny coming,” says Lucky.
“Benny popped him a good one and they both went down,” says Meyer. “When they got up, we all decided to shake on it, be friends, and we have been, from that moment on.”
“What happened to the broad?” asks Vince Mangano.
“Who cares what happened to the broad?” says Lansky. “She was just a broad. The point is, even back then, we realized that we had to work together if we were going to get anywhere. What was the point of Charlie Lucky shaking down Jewish kids for protection when we could all join up and really make things happen? And you know who watched over all of us, gave us counsel, wise advice? This fine man on my left, Johnny Torrio. Take a bow, Johnny.”
Johnny stood up and everybody broke into wild applause. He was a mild, dapper sort of fellow, the kind of guy you’d expect to find running a shop somewhere, or maybe selling you a life assurance policy. Everybody liked Johnny, even his former protégé Capone, who had tried to kill him in Chicago but just ended up retiring him back to Brooklyn, best thing that ever happened to him, really. Johnny bowed and then indicated Capone, who’d motioned to be heard. “Go ahead, Al,” said Meyer.
Capone rose and scratched his nose for a minute. “You all know how much I like baseball,” he began.
That got everybody’s attention. Just a month or so earlier, Capone had personally beat to death two of his best triggermen, Giovanni Scalise and Alberto Anselmi, and another mug named Hop Toad Giunta—some say with a baseball bat, others with an Indian war club. Anselmi and Scalise were the torpedoes who popped the great Dion O’Banion right there in his North Side flower shop. That had pretty much decided the war between the Irish and the Italians in Chicago, and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was the icing on the cake. They say in Chicago that Scalise and Anselmi were the best, even better than Machine Gun McGurn and Golf Bag Hunt, of the North Side mob.
And All the Saints Page 30