by Andrew Gross
He asked the commission to approve the murder of Thomas Dewey.
Though the Dutchman was known as a man who harbored no reservations about spilling blood, with over 130 murders attributed to him, even the commission members, the most hardened crime bosses in the city, were taken back.
“It’ll solve all our problems,” Schultz argued. “You don’t think when this country hick is done with me, he’s not gonna turn his attention to all of you? How are your union rackets going to hold up?” he asked Shapiro. “Or you, Albert . . . ?” He turned to Anastasia. “When he’s turning your pimps and hookers into government informers. Every weekend he goes up to his farm in Putnam County. A baby could do it with no problem.”
At first, Shapiro and Anastasia, who shared no qualms themselves about killing anyone, voiced their approval. They said the Dutchman was right on one thing: they had to show this ambitious lawman where to draw the line. “In the past, they always knew: they stay on their side of the street, we stay on ours,” Shapiro said.
But the rest felt such a plan was far too reckless, and could bring the wrath of the entire legal world upon them. It would turn the deceased federal prosecutor into a martyr. Right now, people liked their gambling and their whores and even their drugs, and the quieter the better.
“This isn’t like icing some stupid cop who doesn’t get the message,” Luciano said. “Dewey is the most visible lawman in the state. In the country. There’s talk he may even be next in line for governor. We kill him, the government’ll come down on us with a vengeance like we’ve never seen before.”
“If you don’t, when he’s governor, this guy’ll be in your guts like a bad piece of fish,” Schultz said. “Best get it done now.”
The members told Schultz they’d mull it over and get back to him in a few days. But everyone at the meeting knew the Dutchman would likely go through with it no matter what they said. They figured he was probably already plotting it in secret.
The world was shifting, Luciano, Bonanno, and others, like Meyer Lansky, knew. Once-flamboyant figures like Dillinger and Capone, Baby Face Nelson, and Bonnie and Clyde were all riddled with bullets or living out their days in prison. It was becoming more of a business. Giving the people what they wanted. Gambling. Prostitution. Even drugs if that’s what it was. Reckless killers like Schultz were becoming a thing of the past. They just didn’t understand how the game was played now.
Not to mention, they all knew the Dutchman had the richest crime racket in the business to carve up if something happened to him.
A day later, Albert Anastasia met with Louis Buchalter again. He told his friend he had another favor to request of him, this one straight from the commission.
They owed Schultz an answer, Anastasia said, and he asked Lepke to deliver it.
It just didn’t come back exactly how the Dutchman was expecting.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Harry was working in one of Mendy’s pool halls on Forty-sixth Street off Times Square, a block from the giant flashing Hydrox Ice Cream sign.
It was the only steady work he could get these days. Opening and closing the place, handling the front-of-the-house receipts—the real money came from one of Buchalter’s bookies who operated out of the back room. Since his separation from Morris, Harry could barely afford the apartment on East Twenty-eighth Street. He even had to take little “gifts” of twenty to thirty dollars from his mother, just to cover the rent. The mother who for years had barely looked his way and called him a pudding-head and Mr. Upside Down. “Ma, please . . . ,” he would beg her, “don’t,” fighting back shame. But still she would fold a bill she’d saved up and stuff it into his jacket and go, “Just take it. What am I to do with it? It came from your brother anyway.” It made Harry feel like a child all over again, but he had no other choice. He put it in his pocket.
He wanted so badly to tell Morris that he hadn’t betrayed him. He’d screwed up, sure. Royally. He knew he should never have left that night, even though he’d locked up before he left, just like Morris had instructed him. But both Sol and his mother said that just wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. She said, one day the family would heal and come back together. “Nor Got veyst,” she would say with a wistful wave about when that time would be. Only God knows.
At four P.M. Harry was polishing the tables for that night’s crowd, mostly down-and-outers who lived on the street in the neighborhood and gambled to afford a drink, when Mendy came in.
Harry balled up his cleaning rag, surprised to see him. “Mendy.”
“Listen, I have a job if you want it, ace.” Mendy invited him over to a corner of the floor where no one was around. “A way to put a little cash in your pockets. I bet you could use that, huh?”
“The last time you said that you and Maxie Dannenberg robbed Sheffler’s jewelry store and left me hanging there,” Harry said. He knew who Mendy worked for now—he was no longer a petty hoodlum who never hurt anyone. Now he was a known lieutenant for Lepke, the most notorious killer in town. And while Mendy had clearly suckered him out that night, the night of the fire, he always claimed he had nothing to do with what had happened up at Raab Brothers; he’d seemed genuinely sorry to hear about it. Besides, he had given Harry this job.
“Yeah, and how’d that work out for you in the end?” Mendy grinned. “Anyway, you decide. But I’m talking some real cash in your pocket. And all we need is a ride. A real breeze, out in the country to New Jersey. Our regular driver’s under the weather. You know how to drive, don’t you, chief?”
“I can drive,” Harry said. “I used to chauffeur my brother around.”
“Well, that’s all we’re looking for,” Mendy said. “And it pays pretty well.”
“How well?” Harry asked. He could use a little holdover, of course. Rent was due and there was this suit at Raleigh’s he’d had his eye on.
Mendy shrugged. “I dunno. Say a grand.”
It was like a lightning bolt rippled down his vertebrae. A thousand dollars would pay his rent for the next three years. He wouldn’t have to keep taking handouts in secret from his mother, which filled him with such shame. But it also meant something had to be up for them to pay that much for just a ride.
“What’s going on, Mendy? A thousand dollars doesn’t just fall in my hands every day.”
“Don’t you worry about it, ace. You just be here. Around seven. Tonight. We’ll be in touch. And if you like, what do you say I give you a down payment, just to whet the appetite, so to speak.” He dug into his pocket and came out with a wad of bills, and peeled off three one-hundred-dollar bills and folded them into Harry’s palm. He’d never held such an amount at one time—at least, that he could keep.
“Just a ride in the country, you say, that’s all?”
“That’s all we’re talking, chief. It’s Jersey. What’s even there? And don’t you worry, we’ll even supply the car.”
For that kind of money Harry was well aware something big had to be going on. He was no fool. But working for his brother, doing the nine to five, getting a steady paycheck every week, well, that hadn’t worked out so well either. So the hell with it, he thought. He knew he was crossing a line somewhere, one he might not so easily climb back from. But for a grand! He looked at the three Ben Franklins. “Okay, Mendy.” Harry stuffed the cash in his pocket. “I’ll be here.”
A little past seven, Harry’s nerves were getting the best of him, and he was almost wishing whatever it was he had agreed to would turn out to be a false alarm, when he got the call.
Hop a cab, Mendy said, and meet him up at 178th and Fort Washington Avenue, right near the George Washington Bridge. He’d see them outside a liquor store on the corner.
“Who else is coming?” Harry asked. Sometimes you could tell just from who the players were what was going on.
“Ah, don’t spend your time on that one now, sport. Just wear your driving shoes.”
“I don’t have driving shoes, Mendy.” Harry looked down at his brown leather o
xfords.
“Just get up here on the double.”
Harry threw on his jacket and straightened his tie. He wanted to look presentable, as he might be driving someone important. He told Bert he might be gone for the night, that Mendy said he was in charge, and he’d try to be back to lock up around midnight. He hailed a cab outside. The whole ride uptown, he had the edgy feeling in his gut something wasn’t on the up-and-up. Just a ride in the country, huh? It’s in Jersey, what else is there? He knew what his friends did. Maybe they were going to bury a body out there. Or maybe threaten someone, outside the city. He could always drop out, he surmised. It wasn’t too late. He could just give Mendy back the cash and say sorry, it wasn’t for him after all. They could find someone else. It was like the cash was burning a hole in his trousers.
But when the cab pulled up to where Mendy said to come and he saw Mendy leaning on a black Plymouth, Harry paid the fare, leaving the driver a respectable tip, and got out, saying only, “Hey, Mendy, I’m here.”
The Plymouth was about as inconspicuous as a car could be, with Connecticut plates. Which seemed strange to Harry. Whose car was it? It had a large backseat, set back from the driver. Someone was already in the back. Almost a shadow. He tried to see who it was.
“Ready?” Mendy slapped him amicably on the back. “Right?”
“Right as Eversharp,” Harry said, parodying the advertisement, though in fact he was nervous as hell.
“That’s good, chief,” Mendy said. “Climb in.”
Harry opened the driver’s door and climbed in behind the wheel. The keys dangled in the ignition. He glanced behind him to see who was there, and that’s when his heart bounced against his rib cage. Charles Workman was sitting there in a long coat. He gave Harry a perfunctory nod. Harry knew something bad was up tonight if Charles Workman was part of it.
Workman was a known button man for Mendy’s boss, Lepke.
Mendy climbed in next to Workman and shut the door.
“So what’s going on tonight, fellas?” Harry asked.
“Don’t you worry about that part, Harry. All you have to do is drive.”
“Okay. Where, then?” he asked.
“Start with across the bridge.”
The George Washington Bridge was just a block north of them. Harry took a glance behind him, trying to make out what they might be carrying. There was a black satchel on the seat between them. He felt a bead of sweat wind down his neck. It was too late to back out now, no matter what was going on. “Okay, gentlemen.” Harry turned the ignition. The engine rumbled. “Over the bridge it is.”
He did a U-turn back down Fort Washington to 179th Street and onto the bridge.
“Take Route 2.” Mendy leaned forward. “South.”
“All right. How far we talking, Mendy?”
“Just take it. We’ll tell you when.”
It was eight thirty P.M. Traffic was light. Harry cracked the window a bit to cool himself off because he was sweating through his shirt. It was October; there was a chill in the air. Mendy and Workman were talking, low enough that Harry couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. He kept watching them in the rearview mirror. They were stoic, looking out the window. “Want to clue me in where we’re heading?” he called back.
“Just watch the road, Harry.” Even for Mendy, he seemed unusually tight-lipped.
Harry knew he had gotten himself in something that even a grand wasn’t enough to cover.
They drove another thirty minutes. A ride in the country, Mendy had called it.
“Get off at the Newark Turnpike,” Mendy instructed. “Then continue straight. Onto Kearney Avenue.”
“Newark Turnpike. Okay.” Harry nodded. What was going on in Newark?
“You said go straight?” Harry called back.
“Yeah. Onto Kearney and then Fourth Street.” Downtown Newark. Harry had been there once or twice before. It no longer sounded like a ride in the country. And that was worrying him.
He followed Fourth to Broad as they approached downtown. Warehouses and office buildings jutting into the dark sky. Banks. Hotels. The occasional lights flickering.
“Turn left on Park Place,” Mendy directed him. “Then a right onto East Park.”
“East Park, you say?” Where the hell were they heading? Harry also understood enough about the business to know this was well out of their territory, if something was really happening.
By now, it was nine thirty. They found themselves in a quiet corner of downtown Newark. There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic around. Not like in New York. Harry saw the façade of the Hotel St. Francis up ahead, the name lit up, maybe twenty stories tall. That’s when his heart started to pound. He knew from reading the papers just who was holed up there these days.
What did they have to do with someone like the Dutchman?
“Slow down,” Mendy leaned forward and directed him. “You see that restaurant straight ahead?” A sign outside said The Palace Chop House. Steaks. Seafood. It was a small, two-story, stand-alone building. The sign was lit up in lights. Just down the block from the St. Francis.
“I see it.”
“Pull up across the street in front of that truck.” Mendy pointed. “And you can ditch the engine.”
“Okay.” His heart pumping, Harry did as he was told. There was a vacant lot to his left. A few people lingered on the sidewalk, maybe heading to or from the restaurant. He stopped, took a deep breath, and switched off the ignition.
They sat there for a while, across from the restaurant.
Then Mendy leaned forward. “So the thing is, we’re going to be going inside there for a couple of minutes, Harry. As soon as we’re out of the car, I want you to pull around and wait for us right in front. Keep the engine running. We shouldn’t be too long, only a few minutes. Just wait for us to come out.”
“What’s gonna go on, Mendy?” Harry asked, his voice cracking. Every instinct inside him told him he already knew.
“Don’t you worry yourself about it, chief.” Mendy patted him on the shoulder. “We’re just gonna have a little talk inside, that’s all. Nothing to get all worked up about. Right, Charlie? We’ll be back out before you know it. Everything’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” Harry cleared his throat and caught Mendy’s eyes in the mirror. “This ain’t no drive in the park, is it, Mendy?”
Mendy smiled. “All you have to think about is to come around and wait for us outside with the engine on. You got it, Harry?”
“Engine on.” Harry’s hands were now covered in sweat. “I got it.”
He felt Mendy squeeze his shoulder. “That’s my man.”
It was quarter to ten now. A few people were emerging from the chophouse, couples walking back toward the hotel. Some businessmen, who maybe had one too many gins and tonics, loudly saying good-bye. One or two searched down the block for vacant cabs.
At ten sharp, Charles Workman glanced at his watch and said to Mendy, “Time to go.” He grabbed the door latch, just as a cab pulled in front of the restaurant, so they just sat back and waited for it to leave. The cab looked like it was waiting for a particular fare. They all sat there in the darkened car, Mendy and Workman waiting. Harry perspiring. “Fuck it’s doing there?” Mendy grumbled.
“Relax,” Charles Workman said to him. “He gets to make a living too.”
Finally a man and a woman came out, waved their good-byes to someone still inside the place, and climbed in. The cab turned the corner a block down.
Harry heard Charles Workman sigh and utter, “All right, then?” In the rearview mirror he could see the two men stuff their guns into their belts and close their jackets and coats over them.
They opened the rear doors.
Harry sat there, his hands fixed to the wheel, his body rigid as stone. Outside, Mendy rapped his knuckles against Harry’s window. Harry rolled it down. “Remember, pull in front,” Mendy said again. “And whatever you might hear, just stay calm and wait until we come out.”
“I�
��ll be here, Mendy.”
“Knew I could count on you, ace.” Mendy winked. “Oh, and one more thing, just so you know . . .” The gangster’s grin disappeared. “You drive off with us in there, you’re a dead man, Harry. You understand that, don’t you?”
Harry nodded. This was no ride in the country. That was clear.
Chapter Forty
Once inside, Mendy and Workman nodded hello to the maître d’. Workman said, “We’ll just take a drink at the bar.”
The bar was long and ornately carved, with a large glass mirror on the other side, behind the booze. They sat down. “Two scotches,” Workman said. They glanced in the mirror. In the dining area, there were about five tables still occupied, diners chatting, laughing, some with napkins in their collars, cracking into lobsters or cutting steaks.
They could see the Dutchman. He was sitting at a round table near the back with three others. One, Mendy could see, was that accountant guy, Berman. Everyone called him Abbadabba, who the fuck knew why? He had a white napkin stuffed in his collar and he was happily cutting through a large hunk of meat. The other two were Abe Landau and Lulu Rosenkrantz, Schultz’s longtime bodyguards. He was sad to see Lulu there. They went back a ways.
“Gentlemen, we stop serving at ten thirty, will you be dining with us tonight?” the bartender asked, sliding across their scotches.
“Give us a minute,” Workman said. “We’ll see.”
“Take your time. Just to let you know, that’s all. To your health, gentlemen. . . .”
“L’chaim.” Workman tipped his glass to him and took a gulp.
Mendy too.
They listened to the din coming from the tables, waiting for the right moment. Then they watched in the mirror as Schultz, in a gray suit and flowery tie, got up, glanced their way a second—Mendy’s heart jumped almost as if the killer recognized the two of them sitting there—and then headed to the rear of the restaurant and down a small corridor leading to the men’s room. Workman elbowed Mendy. “I’ll take the Dutchman,” he said. “You take the table.”