And All the Saints

by Michael Walsh

  Nevertheless, good old Levy ruled in my favor and said it was up to the parole board to show that I’d never been discharged from parole, rather than me having to prove that I was. “If Madden committed all the misdeeds of which he is accused, he should have been apprehended long ago.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” said Joe as we discussed our next move. “In fact, that’s exactly what I did say.”

  “Judge Levy knows eloquence when he hears it.”

  “I’ll say he does, we’re planning to vacation together, our families, his and mine, maybe the Cape, maybe the Island, maybe the Coast, I dunno. But I’ll tell you who doesn’t know eloquence and that’s Roosevelt.”

  “He really wants that nomination.”

  “Too bad he’s gonna get it.”

  “He ain’t gonna be good for us or our thing. Not like Al Smith. And you know why? Because he ain’t a businessman, that’s why. He don’t do business and he don’t know how to do business. Never trust a rich mug.”

  “Yeah, but he’s gonna get it. Mark my words. Because he wants it more than the other guys. More than Smith, more than Mike Curley, more than Huey Long, even more than Seabury, that dirty sonofabitch.” Between Seabury and Roosevelt, it was hard to choose which one was worse. “Simple as that.”

  Frank Costello said more or less the same thing when he called a meeting a few days later, up in Charlie Lucky’s suite at the Waldorf, the one he rented under the name of “Mr. Ross.” That would be the new Waldorf over on Park, which opened in 1931, the Empire State Building having replaced it on 34th Street.

  Charlie had more names than any of us, which was saying something. Born Salvatore Lucania in Sicily, in New York he swanned around under the name of Charles Lane, which is the way he registered himself at Barbizon Plaza, Or Charles Ross, once he’d moved over to the Waldorf. Sometimes you’d pick up the phone and it was Charlie calling and he’d just say, “This is 312,” which wasn’t his room number but his way of referring to himself by his initials, 3 for the letter “C” and 12 for the letter “L.” He mostly did that when he thought the wire might be bugged. Out of town, though, he was Charles Lucania, Charles Luciano, Charlie Lucky or just plain Lucky.

  He and Meyer were both there, as was Jimmy Hines. “Bunch of us are goin’ to Chicago for the convention, make sure things run smooth,” said Frank. He looked over at Hines. “Me and Jimmy are even roomin’ together at the Drake. Nice place, the Drake.”

  “Nice place, Chicago,” said Hines.

  “Who we rooting for?” I asked.

  “Whoever gives us the best deal,” said Costello.

  “Whoever we can trust more,” said Meyer.

  “Whoever’s the least dangerous,” said Charlie Lucky.

  “I hear it’s Roosevelt,” said Frank.

  Jimmy Hines rubbed his hands together, the way he did whenever he smelled money. “Of course it’s going to be Roosevelt,” he said. Roosevelt had plenty of dough-re-mi.

  I still didn’t like it. “You’re a Tammany man through and through, Jimmy boy,” I objected. “No one’s been a better friend to the Tiger than the Happy Warrior.” That was what the newspapers called Smith, and he seemed to like it. “Hell, he’s the mug what give me my parole—”

  Hines cut me off. “I don’t think either of us is exactly a poor paddy anymore, Owney. I love Al, I really do. He’s a great and good fellow. Only one thing wrong with him—”

  “—he can’t win,” said Costello.

  “And Roosevelt can,” said Hines. “There’s been a Republican in the White House for the past twelve years. Things is dryin’ up up here; we need the patronage that Washington can provide. Them goo-goos have had their shot at the trough for the past score. Now it’s our turn.”

  “So you’re backin’ Roosevelt,” I said.

  Jimmy didn’t have to say nothin’.

  “I’m stickin’ with Smith,” said Luciano. “I don’t trust that sonofabitch FDR.”

  Costello started flapping his big hands. “None of us does, Charlie. The guy’s a weasel. But we’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissin’ in. Meaning that if he owes us and he wins, he can flap his fuckin’ jaw all he wants, just so long’s the gravy keeps comin’ down the tracks.”

  Charlie looked dubious, which matched my sentiments to a T-bone steak au jus. “Frank,” I said, “no offense, but you’re a chump. Look what this mug is doing. He’d put his own mother in the can if he thought it would help him. He’s got a bag for a wife, he’s boffin’ every broad he can get his crippled mitts on, he’s got Jimmy Walker on the run, Smith hates his guts and worst of all, he’s making us look bad.”

  “That’s one of the things we want to talk to you about,” said Frank.

  I looked around the room and realized I was alone with Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, with no gunners or the Dutchman to back me up. I figured nothing would happen, what with Jimmy sitting there and all, but for just a moment I was after flashing back to the Arbor and I tell you my stomach started to ache again, real bad, and Sing Sing all of a sudden started to look good to me.

  It started looking better when Meyer said, “You can go now, Jimmy. See you in Chicago.” Lansky waited for Jimmy to shake hands with all of us, collect his hat and find the exit. Hines flashed me a rueful smile as he left, one of those what-can-I-do-I-only-work-here smiles. Then he closed the door and was gone.

  “This Dutchman-Dewey thing is gonna be a problem, Owney,” said Meyer very softly, the way he said everything. “We got enough problems as it is, without Arthur flyin’ off the handle. We figured that since you guys is friends—”

  “You might want to have a word with him,” chimed in Lucky.

  “A friendly word,” added Costello.

  “Because, frankly, what we’re hearing is that Dutch’s been making threats. Against Dewey,” said Meyer. “To Berman, the boys, that broad he’s bangin’, whoever’ll listen.”

  The old line about being my brother’s keeper suddenly floated into my head, and I wished I knew how the rest of it went, whether you were supposed to be or not supposed to be. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “Calm him down.”

  “Be persuasive.”

  “Reason wit’ him.”

  “You got ways,” said Meyer.

  “And when we get back from Chicago,” said Costello, “we’ll all sit down, friends again, and deal with whatever we gotta deal with.” He spoke in a flat monotone, especially the “friends” bit, and I knew he wasn’t kidding.

  “I can manage that,” I said, getting up to leave.

  “Not so fast,” said Charlie Lucky. “We got one other problem.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You,” said my friend Frank Costello.

  Chapter Sixty

  We were sitting there, the four of us, very close together, speaking in low voices. For some reason it occurred to me just then how many years of my life I’d been sitting in that same small room, talking in that same low voice, and sometimes the people sitting with me were alive and sometimes they were going to be dead, but just hadn’t gotten the news yet. I wondered, at our table, who was who.

  I thought back to Luigi Mollinucci and to Willie Henshaw, and what they must have seen in my eyes just before I pulled the trigger. I thought about Little Patsy, practically wetting himself when he realized his number was up, and hoped when my time came I wouldn’t embarrass myself like he did. I thought of the bodies I’d seen in blind tigers, when a couple of gangsters got to quarreling and one would suddenly pull out a gat and put a bullet through the side of the other fella’s head; the way the victim’s head, a bullet in one ear and out the other side of his brain, would pitch back, like he’d suddenly passed out; how there would be a little trickle of blood at the entrance and a big missing piece of skull bone at the exit; how sometimes the window opposite would get blown out, or how the bullet would punch a hole in the plaster; and everyone else would still be
drinking or smoking cigarettes or playin’ cards, and pretend not to notice because after all it was none of their business, because it was only business.

  Was I worried? Yes. Was I sorry? No. At that moment, contrary to what you might think, I wasn’t thinking about Heaven or Hell. I was only thinking about how to get out of there alive, if it came to that. Because, aside from Monk’s .38, I’d left all my hardware at home. Because I was among friends.

  “…we think you should take a vacation,” Lansky was saying when I came back to earth. “For your own personal health and safety…”

  “At our expense,” said Charlie Lucky. His right eyelid, the one that got busted up so had when he went for that ride, was drooping even lower than usual, and he looked even sweatier than normal.

  “…during these times of troubles,” finished Meyer.

  “You caught a break with Levy, but I don’t know how long he can shield you from the parole board,” said Costello. “Even bought-and-paid-for robes gotta be honest sometime, otherwise the public will lose all faith in the system. And we can’t have that.”

  “Because we are the system,” observed Meyer.

  “And we’d like to keep it that way,” said Frank.

  “If Roosevelt gets the nomination, we can all look for big-time heat for a while,” said Lansky. “Okay, we can take it. We always have. And if he does get in, then he knows that we know that he knows he owes us, so maybe we got a little leverage here and there.”

  “And maybe we don’t,” said Luciano.

  “There’s something else we gotta face if it’s Franklin,” said Meyer. “Smith too, for that matter. Soon as he’s in, the first thing he does is sign Repeal. Then where are we? I think we are all agreed that the past twelve years have been the years of milk and honey. But once booze’s legal again, we gotta find something else.”

  “Such as?” said Frank, who’d be the front man in anything we did.

  “Lepke and Shapiro are running the labor rackets, and we feel this is a major growth area,” said Lansky. “The garment district is under their complete control, the longshoremen, the Teamsters…we are making inroads everywhere. Remember, if every workingman kicks us back a piece in gratitude for the contract we’ve gotten him, and if every employer comes across with a nice donation as the price of labor peace, then we are sitting pretty. So that’s an area we’ve got to look at.”

  “Dutch is already doing that, with his restaurant workers’ association,” I pointed out.

  “Your basic protection racket,” said Lansky. “Strictly small beer. Like the policy rackets.”

  “What else?” I asked.

  Charlie says: “There’s always broads.”

  We all knew how much Charlie liked dames, how he’d go through fleets of ’em at a time. I guess it was only natural that he got into the drab racket, which he did with gusto.

  “I mean, who is hurt by broads? The johns? Every guy needs a little strange once in a while. I sure as hell do—”

  “Like every night,” observes Frank.

  Charlie let that drift. “The dames? What else are some of these frails gonna do? Their father raped ’em, their old lady beats ’em, maybe some of ’em are, you know, queer for each other, they don’t got no talent for show business and they ain’t blown the right producer in the picture business, so what’s left but their backs? No foul, I say.”

  Me, I always thought running hookers was beneath a man’s dignity but I kept my mouth shut on that. I was feeling more relaxed now, more a part of the group. I had plenty of ideas about what we could do, and was happy to share them.

  And I would have too if at that moment Lucky’s private doorbell hadn’t buzzed.

  “Speaking of which,” said Lucky. His scar glowed white when he was aroused.

  “This is no time for pussy, Charlie,” said Meyer, who never had time for such things.

  “Wait till you see this pussy,” said Luciano, throwing open the door.

  And there stood Mary Frances Blackwell.

  The terrible thing about love is that you never really recognize it until it’s too late, or else you can never admit it in the first place, not that there’s much difference.

  And the beautiful thing is you don’t care.

  “Sorry, Charlie, I—” She looked at me, and she didn’t look at me.

  Nobody looked at her except me and Charlie.

  “Not now, sweetheart,” said Charlie. I said nothing.

  “I’ll call you later,” said Charlie. I said nothing.

  “Jeez…,” said Mary Frances. I said nothing. She sure looked swell.

  I guess that’s another thing. Dames, once they get under your skin, never change. Age ages ’em, sure, but when you’re in the mood, the years just melt away, vanish, and then there she is, just the way you first saw her, in the first flush, in the first rush, in the first bloom.

  “Beat it, baby,” said Charlie, and she did.

  I just never realized before how much she looked like May, until she closed the suite door behind her without another word. I said nothing.

  “What a dumb broad, bargin’ in on us like that. Gonna have to dump her.”

  “Looks like she’s still got some good years left,” said Frank, sucking on a cigar.

  “And then there’s narcotics,” said Luciano, getting back to business.

  “We disagree on this one,” said Costello.

  “We agree to disagree,” said Lansky.

  Charlie was pretty animated now. “Owney, you think the Dutchman’s policy racket makes money? How much you think it makes?”

  I knew, but in light of what just happened, I didn’t much care. “Twenty million dollars a year.” Frenchy had told me.

  “What if I told ya you could make ten times that, easy?”

  “I’d believe you, Charlie. You’re a square gee.”

  That pleased him. “Them niggers is so dumb they bet on policy and think it’s insurance. But dope is somethin’ they’re gonna love even more than policy. They got a weakness for it, I dunno why, just like the Indians and firewater. Can’t resist that shit. Makes ’em feel real good. Makes ’em forget they ain’t going nowhere ’cept jail and an early grave. Which, given their lives, is probably preferable. All we gotta do is make it available, nice and cheap, then jack up the price once we got ’em hooked. Like takin’ candy from a fuckin’ baby.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Frank. “Too much heat.”

  Luciano looked at him goofy. “Are you nuts? Maybe at first, but that’s the part that’s ridin’ on our hip. That’s our investment. Once the money starts flowin’, there’s no turnin’ it off. And say we kick back twenty percent to the Law? So fuckin’ what? They stay out of our way, and we’re on easy street like we never dreamed about.”

  “I still don’t like it,” said Frank.

  “And I don’t like Roosevelt,” said Lucky. “So we agree to disagree.”

  “And then there’s gambling,” said Meyer, stepping in. “Maybe even bigger than dope. Certainly less controversial and dangerous. Billions and billions of sucker dollars a year, for minimal outlay—slot machines, card tables, protection money. All you need is a friendly state government whose elected officials happen to be poor hillbillies and would rather be rich hillbillies, plus a police force of blind, deaf and dumb cops, and you’re in business.” He looked right at me. “This is where you come in…”

  Lansky opened an atlas of the United States and pointed to a couple of places. First place he pointed to was Nevada. “Benny is working for us here.”

  “I thought he was in L.A.,” said Costello. “I heard Benny and Owney’s buddy Raft have become great pals. I heard Benny wants to be a movie star.”

  “Bupkes,” said Lansky. “This is where the real dough is.” We could see he was pointing to Las Vegas, a little town in the southern part of the state. “Within driving distance of Los Angeles, and the state government appears to be exceptionally friendly to people like us. Plus this is virgin territory, gangw
ise. Benny feels, and I agree with him, that this could be a very, very fruitful area for us.”

  “They don’t got too many laws in Nevada,” said Costello. “I like that in a place.”

  “The other territory we’re looking at it,” continued Meyer, “is here.” He plunked a tiny finger somewhere east of Texas, right on top of the State of…

  “Arkansas. We all been there. Rednecks and hillbillies, mostly. Guys that screw their sisters when their mothers and daughters ain’t available. But it’s got some of the same advantages as Nevada.” Lansky withdrew his finger and started ticking off his points. “First, it doesn’t matter as a place, so nobody will care what we do there. Second, the state government is already a criminal enterprise, so all we gotta do is show ’em how to do it right. Third, there’s already gambling going on in Hot Springs, so why shouldn’t we grab ahold of it.” Meyer looked at me. “You remember, we talked about this.”

  “And I already been there,” I said. I’d been trying to improve my language, but hanging around with these guys, it was tough.

  “Right, that’s what I thought. That’s what we all thought. That’s what got us to thinkin’. Ain’t there some dame down there caught your eye?”

  I nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “That settles it.”

  I wasn’t sure what had been settled but I knew I was getting out of there alive. “You want me to go there and deal with McLaughlin.”

  “We want you to go down there and shove him over. If he plays along, pat him on the head. If he kicks, get rid of him.”

  “What about my interests here? The clubs?”

  Frank reached over and patted me on the shoulder. “Frenchy and I’ll take care of those for you.”