Deconstructing Sammy

by Matt Birkbeck

  Now the Judge was gone, and Sonny was faced with a decision. He had devoted the last five years of his life to the Hillside, shutting down a thriving law practice, abandoning his investments, and pouring in $1 million of his own money to make it work. But it wasn’t working. The hotel was mired in debt and behind on its taxes and bills. Worst of all, Sonny believed, its mainly black clientele failed to appreciate the Hillside, its fifty-year history as the longest-operating black-owned hotel in the nation, and most important, all that his family went through to keep their dream alive.

  Guests were often demanding and rude while their children cursed at will and showed little respect for their elders. Their attention was clearly focused not on individual improvement but on the cultural amenities of the day, from video games to music to high-end sneakers, which infuriated the Judge until the end. He was a black man’s black man, strong and proud, but he hated what he was seeing from his guests and their children. Blacks remained consumers, not owners, he argued, and for years before his passing he’d lecture his guests on the benefits and necessity of ownership to improve their condition in America. He implored his guests, especially their children, to finish their educations, and his words were forceful and had meaning. But they were lost in translation, and Sonny could only shake his head in resignation, knowing that a simple lecture from his father couldn’t change years of ingrained behavior.

  Following the poignant memorial at East Stroudsburg University, Sonny said good-bye to his many guests and visitors, his aunts and uncles, his distant cousins, and he returned alone to the Hillside and walked slowly to his parents’ empty home. The red two-story colonial Sonny built for them in 1977 was situated on one of the 109 acres of pristine property they had come to own nestled in a green valley. Deer regularly grazed on the grass during the summer, while the fall brought a burst of color from fading leaves that provided a spectacular sight for visitors from the city. But the home was empty, the hotel business was fading, and Sonny was ready to finally make the decision to give it all up, to sell the Hillside, its 109 bucolic acres and everything with it. No one cared anyway, he thought.

  He opened the door to his parents’ home and stood in the foyer, closing his eyes, hoping to hear Mama’s welcoming voice.

  “You hungry? You sick? You need to talk?”

  Mama was a rock, even during that year with the cancer, and she was sorely missed. Sonny walked into the first-floor bedroom where she died and he gazed at the empty bed. He could see her smile and he could feel her soft hand. Pictures of the Judge and Mama ringed the bedroom, along with photos of Sonny accepting an award during his days as a federal prosecutor. One photo, of Sonny and the Judge playing golf, caught his attention. It was one of the handful of times Sonny gave in to his father when it came to golf, and the color picture of Sonny holding the flag while his father readied a putt memorialized the rare moment. Sonny reached for the picture, turned it over with its frame facedown, and sat on the bed. He closed his eyes and dug deep into his memory, and long forgotten and disturbing images of his father surfaced. Sonny remembered the Judge suddenly appearing in his bedroom door with fire in his eyes after returning from some local meeting, and he recalled the beatings and how senseless they were.

  “I brought you in this world,” the Judge screamed, “and I can take you out!”

  Sonny cried as the leather belt whipped across his bare back. The Judge often forced Sonny to take his clothes off to keep them from getting ruined, and each time Sonny screamed, the Judge hit him harder.

  As Sonny contemplated his painful past and challenges ahead, his eyes drifted slowly across the bedroom. Along with the many photos, there on the walls were numerous framed newspaper and magazine articles honoring his parents and the Hillside. Sonny continued to pan the room but stopped when his eyes fixed on boxes in the open closet, stacked six feet high. On the sides, in black ink, each box was inscribed: ESTATE OF SAMMY DAVIS JR.

  Sonny reached over and dragged one of the white boxes to the side of the bed. He blew off the dust, pulled out a file, and opened it. Memories rushed to the surface as his thoughts traveled back in time to Sammy, Altovise, Frank Sinatra, and the Rat Pack, to another day, another time, and another troubled black legacy.

  CHAPTER 2

  APRIL 1994

  The early spring sun cast an unusually warm embrace on the Hillside Inn. The weather in the Poconos was always tricky. One year could provide a final, heavy, wet snow in April or warm, suitable for golf, temperatures in December. For more than a hundred years, the Pocono Mountains, or what the locals called “rolling hills,” tucked behind the Delaware River, provided a peaceful retreat for the not-too-distant city dwellers in New York and Philadelphia.

  The train stopped running here twenty years earlier, but people still came by the carloads, following Interstate 80 west across New Jersey or north on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and filled up all the local hotels and motels each weekend from fall through spring, and then every day during the summer.

  The cold winter months provided plenty of snow for skiing at Camelback Mountain, Jack Frost/Big Boulder, and Shawnee-on-the-Delaware. And when the snows finally melted, there was golf, hiking, fishing, and other outdoor activities in the spring, summer, and fall. Once upon a time, celebrities often came to the Poconos to play and to entertain. Jackie Gleason enjoyed a game of golf at the Shawnee Inn. Mount Airy Lodge, a sprawling resort known for its tacky, red, heart-shaped tubs, drew blue-collar honeymooners willing to plunk down big money to bathe in overpriced, overgrown champagne glasses, and watch the likes of Tony Bennett, Alan King, Julio Iglesias, and Dionne Warwick perform in the Crystal Room. Other resorts, like the Tamiment, once hosted Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Danny Kaye, and Carol Burnett. Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca perfected their act at the Tamiment before they became a national sensation on Your Show of Shows in the 1950s. Two decades later, Pocono Raceway hosted performances by Bob Hope, the Osmond Brothers, and the Jackson Five, while in the 1980s Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld entertained audiences at the Caesar’s resorts long before they became national celebrities.

  But the circuit that drew the performers, which included stops in New York’s Catskill Mountains and Atlantic City, New Jersey, soon vanished, after casino gambling was introduced in Atlantic City in 1980. Instead of performing for fees as low as $5,000 a night, the same top-name entertainers could bypass the Poconos and Catskills and earn $25,000 and more in one shot in Atlantic City. There was talk of bringing casino gambling to Pennsylvania, even a $50 million investment in a new resort by Jilly Rizzo, a restaurateur known for his close friendship with Frank Sinatra. But gambling never came, and as the talent pool evaporated, the resorts began to close. Only those with a dedicated clientele survived, such as the Hillside Inn.

  The upcoming weekend was the first of the new season to welcome a full house for the thirty-three-room resort, and Sonny decided it was time to remove the dead weeds, trim bushes browned by winter snow-mold, and cut the emerging grass. Sonny had no problem with manual labor, something he learned as a child. A football player in high school, Sonny was muscular, his five-feet, ten-inch frame chiseled and hard. He worked out regularly, lifting weights, running, and playing tennis. Sonny pulled the rope to start the lawn mower and he proceeded to cut the grass in straight, horizontal lines in front of the indoor pool area when he noticed a woman and three men standing in a circle in the parking lot next door.

  The woman was tall, thin, and black. She appeared somewhat disoriented, her head bobbing softly back and forth. Two of the men were white, one tall and large while the other much smaller, perhaps Hispanic. The third was a light-skinned black man, who appeared to be controlling the conversation. There was something odd about the men, but Sonny focused his attention on the woman. She wasn’t talking. She just stood and listened as the animated black man continued to lead the conversation, which grew louder, then stopped, with the foursome entering a car and driving away.

  Minutes later the car returned and it bypassed
the parking lot and drove up the road and into the driveway of one of the thirty-six privately owned homes on the Murray property. The bi-level home belonged to Calvin Douglas, a retired New York City transit worker who settled here years earlier. Sonny could see the rear of the car hanging out from the driveway. His curiosity piqued, he turned off the mower and watched as a man exited the driveway onto the road, heading toward the Hillside. It was Calvin. A Jamaican immigrant who became fast friends with the Judge and Mama soon after moving to the Poconos in 1987, Calvin was a sprightly seventy-year-old and walked with a quick step. Sonny saw him waving, and then heard him yell out, “Sonny!”

  Sonny pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket, wiped his brow, and then walked up the road.

  “Mr. Douglas. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’ve had better days,” he replied, his voice punctuated by his Jamaican accent.

  “I saw those people drive into your driveway. Is anything wrong?”

  “Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. That woman,” Calvin said, pointing toward his driveway. “That’s Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr.”

  Sonny smiled.

  He heard whispers that Altovise Davis was living on the Murrays’ property. No one knew why, and no one thought to ask Calvin about it, figuring if he wanted to tell people, he would have.

  “Sonny, I didn’t want to do this, but we need you. I can’t take this anymore,” said Calvin, desperation in his voice. “She’s sick, very sick, and needs legal help.”

  Calvin told the story of how Altovise arrived at his home. Her father, Joe Gore, and Calvin became best friends working together for the New York City Transit Authority, and after Calvin moved to Pennsylvania, they remained in close contact. Whenever Calvin visited the city, Joe Gore and his wife, also named Altovise, provided him with a place to stay in their Queens home. During one visit in 1992, Calvin saw the Gores had another guest—their only daughter.

  The Gores said Altovise was broke, their home the last stop before a homeless shelter. She lost all her possessions following Sammy’s death in May 1990, including their Beverly Hills mansion, to pay off massive and unexpected debts. But the fire sale didn’t come close to resolving the situation and the IRS was after her for back taxes, said Calvin.

  Depressed and despondent, Altovise spent most of her waking hours in an alcohol-induced daze. Her preferred drink was vodka, and her drinking incensed her father, who threatened to kill her if she didn’t leave. When Calvin arrived for one of his regular visits, Mrs. Gore tearfully begged him to take her daughter to live with him in Pennsylvania. Calvin agreed and he informed his wife a guest was arriving. When he returned home with Altovise, he brought her to an upstairs bedroom, where she remained hidden for days, venturing out only for trips to the liquor store to buy more vodka, which she stored in small mayonnaise jars that fit in her purse, and to answer phone calls from old friends.

  “She asked Bill Cosby for help but he said he’s not going to give her any money to buy liquor,” said Calvin. “I’ve been trying to get her to go into rehab, but she won’t go. She was in the Betty Ford clinic once before, but it didn’t work,” said Calvin.

  “Does she have any money?” said Sonny.

  “I don’t know. She uses my car when she has to get around, and I have to give her five or ten dollars every now and then,” said Calvin, nodding toward the men in the driveway. “She said she had jewelry, furs, a Rolls-Royce. That one guy, Al Carter, used to come by with some money in bags. He’d also bring her alcohol. Now they fly in from California and take money from her parents to pay for their bus ticket here. It’s ridiculous.”

  Sonny looked over at the men.

  “Who are those guys?” he said.

  “That’s her advisor, Al Carter, and his bodyguards. They were supposed to be taking care of her money after Sammy died. He calls every day and keeps telling her everything is going to be fine and not to worry, because it’s only a matter of time before she gets her money back,” said Calvin, “but I don’t like them.”

  Sonny could see that Calvin was frustrated and couldn’t do anything more.

  “I don’t know where the money is going to come from, but we need you, and we need to put her in rehab,” Calvin said.

  Sonny looked over at Altovise, who stood in the driveway, staring into the woods. She was thin and bony.

  “How much does she owe?”

  “I’m not sure. I know it’s a lot. She often mumbles about having money hidden here, and personal items hidden there. Then she drinks more vodka and stumbles back into her room. Sometimes she stays there for days. I put my ear to the door and I can hear her groaning and gasping for breath.”

  “So there’s no income from her estate?” said Sonny.

  “There is no estate. Whatever she makes the IRS takes,” said Calvin.

  Sonny was alternately shocked and saddened. Sammy Davis Jr. was an international celebrity, a cultural hero adored by white America for his talent and loathed by a generation of black America for being just another Uncle Tom, a minstrel who forgot his roots. He even married a white woman, May Britt, to validate himself. Sonny shared this view, and like many other blacks he couldn’t stand Sammy’s music or his politics. “The Candy Man”? Awful song. Embracing Richard Nixon? Absolutely traitorous.

  Sonny’s parents, on the other hand, loved Sammy.

  Sammy was, in the words of the Judge, a black man who learned how to “make it” in this white world, and the Judge respected any black man that could rise to the top of his profession. Sonny didn’t agree, but he couldn’t help but admit that Sammy was arguably the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century. He appreciated Sammy’s immense talent, a polished triple threat of singing, dancing, and acting. Through his genius, the man became an entertainment icon, regularly mingling with presidents, kings, and queens. And Altovise, who Calvin said had been married to Sammy for twenty years, was right there with him, at his side, a living part of history.

  It was a shattering, almost inconceivable fall, thought Sonny.

  Sammy Davis Jr.’s wife living here, in poverty, in the Poconos?

  “You can help her. You know this kind of stuff, working with finances and numbers,” Calvin pleaded. “Sonny, you did it with Hutton.”

  The prosecution of E. F. Hutton led to the fall of one of the nation’s largest financial institutions. And Sonny was at the center of the investigation.

  In December 1981, an auditor at the Genesee County Bank near Buffalo, New York, was presented a check for $8.1 million from E. F. Hutton. The financial services giant, known for its catchy advertising slogan—“When E. F. Hutton Talks, People Listen”—intended to cash the check against two other checks totaling $8 million drawn by other Hutton offices and deposited at the same bank. Only one check was good. The other had yet to clear.

  Genesee Bank was one of hundreds of local banks used by E. F. Hutton’s four hundred branch offices across the country. Some $200 to $400 million in customer funds was deposited daily, and the money was then sent to regional accounts, one of which was at the United Penn Bank in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Officials there, notified of the overdraft at the Genesee Bank, looked at their Hutton account and were astonished to find they had $23 million in uncollected funds outstanding. Hutton had already removed the money, but the checks had yet to clear, which was a violation of U.S. banking law. United Penn Bank contacted the U.S. attorney’s office in Scranton, and the case was pursued by a young prosecutor, Albert R. Murray Jr.

  Sonny was thirty-one years old when, full of energy and resolve, he joined the U.S. attorney’s office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. His appointment was greeted with great pride by his parents, especially the Judge, whose son was now a U.S. prosecutor. There wasn’t any more honorable or noble profession, the Judge believed.

  Sonny, too, was proud and happy, particularly that he was able to finally please his demanding father. And, like his father, who was the first black judge appointed to serve on the bench in Brookl
yn, Sonny was the first black prosecutor appointed to serve in the U.S. attorney’s office stationed in Scranton, a depressed, former coal-mining town that was predominantly white and Catholic, a blue-collar community populated by Irish and Italian immigrants and their descendants, who spent generations underground. The mines had long closed and the city suffered a downturn, but the federal prosecutorial district, one of three in Pennsylvania, remained busy, covering a vast area that reached from northeast Pennsylvania, including Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and the Poconos, down through the center of the state to Harrisburg, the state capital.

  It took some time, but Sonny discovered that E. F. Hutton was “kiting,” or taking money from the bank accounts before the checks cleared, in effect receiving daily interest-free loans. Given that it was kiting at only two small banks, it wasn’t much of a case. But as Sonny followed the trail, he found that Hutton was kiting checks at other banks in the region. The scheme was complicated and illegal, and the abuse, he discovered, was more widespread, leaving the banks in vulnerable positions, even if only for a day. Sonny opened a federal grand jury investigation in 1982 and, to fully understand the depth and scope of Hutton’s cash-concentration system, the workings of the Federal Reserve, and bank check-collection systems, Sonny moved his prosecution to Harrisburg.

  Since the investigation appeared to involve mail fraud, Sonny was given space in a basement at the postal headquarters building and together with more than two dozen inspectors from the U.S. Postal Service, the young prosecutor spent three years probing Hutton, issuing hundreds of subpoenas and amassing more than 7 million documents. Sonny spent whole months, often eighteen to twenty hours a day, seven days a week, hunkered down in his bunker, reviewing each document, which was placed in a filing system kept in a large, specially constructed and locked area next to Sonny’s small office. Review meetings with postal inspectors would sometimes begin at four A.M., and new words such as “insufficient funds on deposit,” “drawer of check,” and “bank float” became part of Sonny’s vocabulary. His personal life was nonexistent, and he lived in a cheap hotel and ate at an even cheaper diner next door, both to spare U.S. taxpayers. During his rare free time, Sonny, a devotee of the Chinese art of Tai Chi, worked out on the banks of the Susquehanna River, where he’d watch the rats scramble up from the water and into the hotel, which he dubbed the “River Rat” hotel.