by Andrew Gross
So they talked.
One by one, over weeks. At first in back rooms of restaurants and watering holes. Eventually at Dewey’s offices on Center Street, rushed out of unmarked cars, accompanied by their lawyers. It took about three visits each; over months. Each time convincing them a little further of the task force’s seriousness of purpose and the depth of the cases they had assembled to put those who ran the unions away.
They were assured their identities would remain secret, even through the grand jury hearings, until a trial. Accusation by accusation, the special prosecutor began to map out the case against Lepke and Gurrah. Price fixing and extortion. Pressuring clients through force into buying only through the union’s directive. Violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Gradually, more small operators came on board, each with their own stories. For the first time they had actual witnesses, not just whispers and innuendos. The evidence against Lepke and Gurrah was clear cut.
“We just need one more case,” Irv said. “A witness who could sway a jury in a way that’s beyond the numbers.”
In the end, Morris went back to the most convincing witness he knew. The one who had suffered most.
“Manny,” he said one afternoon, when he’d gone up and visited his friend at his apartment, “it’s time to tell your story.”
This time Morris’s friend didn’t say a word.
“Just talk to them,” Morris said. “You’d be one of seven people pointing fingers. They can’t fight us all. You’ll be fully protected. Dewey promises it. And I’ve seen, he keeps his word. Only the prosecutors will know your name. Anyway, just talk to them. Let them convince you, not me.”
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Manny said, “and I know you have a grudge to bear against these people. But these things always have a way of leaking out.”
“I know that better than anyone,” Morris said. “And we both have a grudge to bear. But it’s different now. They’re going after all of them this time. And it’s not the local police. These men haven’t been infiltrated. Manny, I know you’ve already paid a huge price. But your testimony would put it over the top. Just think about it, okay?”
Manny knitted his fingers together and finally let a blast of air out his nose. “Okay.”
“That’s all I’m asking, my friend.” Morris patted him on the shoulder and got up to leave.
“Morris, sit down. Don’t go yet.”
“All right.” Morris sat back down.
“You see The Times yesterday?”
“I might’ve. What about?”
“Albert Schoenberg died.”
“Albert Schoenberg . . . ?”
Schoenberg was an Orthodox rabbi who was well known for his efforts to organize a Jewish state in Palestine. Both by raising money through the Jewish community here and putting pressure on international governments. Morris had given money to the cause himself at industry fund-raisers.
Manny shrugged. “The mishnah states that the world will be sustained no matter what tragedy as long as there are thirty-six tzaddikim left in the world. You know tzaddik, Morris?”
“Saints, I think,” Morris said. “Right?”
“Kind of. You would know if you went to temple more. Anyway, it’s more like a truly righteous person. People devoted to doing good deeds. Rabbi Schoenberg was surely one of them. It’s said that, as long as at any time there are still thirty-six such men left in the world, the world will not perish. No matter what evil is let loose in it.”
“What does any of this have to do with the union, Manny?”
He got up. “I may live to regret this,” he said, “but if you’re gonna go the distance on this, which it seems that you are, I may have something that can be of help to all of you.” He went across to a dresser and dug to the back of a drawer. He came back out with something wrapped in a white handkerchief.
He handed the bundle to Morris. “Here . . . It’s not doing anything in here, except collecting dust. Might as well put it to some use.”
Morris unwrapped the cloth and removed whatever was inside.
It was a cigarette lighter. A nice one. Silver. On the front, there were two initials engraved.
O.H.
“Whose is it?” Morris looked at him.
“It belonged to the little prick who led the raid on my company. The one who did this to me.” Manny put a hand to his cheek. “He was about to set fire to our pattern library. The bastard wasn’t just content with destroying our skins and machinery, he wanted to drive the nail in the coffin and put us out of business for good. I must have pried it loose when I grabbed on to him and tried to stop him.”
Morris looked at it. The lighter could connect someone there that day. It could convict someone.
O.H.
“This is good, Manny.” Morris held it in his hand like a weight on a scale. “You’ve had it for over a year.” He started to wrap it back up. “Why now?”
“You came to me.”
“I came to you before, Manny.”
“So you did.” Manny nodded. He took a breath. “Thirty-six tzaddikim, Morris. Thirty-six good men. That’s all the world needs. With Rabbi Schoenberg gone, I guess I figured maybe they’d need one more.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Oscar Hammerschmitt was five foot nine, with fists like meat hammers, thick lips, and dull, droopy eyes. He had boxed a bit as a youth at the Jewish clubs, but was far too short to really go anywhere, so he took a job as a butcher. He started doing odd jobs for the mob when they needed something done that involved his special skills. First, with Little Augie. Then as a full-fledged member of Lepke’s gang. Not that he was ever a threat to rise too high in the organization. Brains weren’t Oscar’s specialty. But if you needed something done that required his form of persuasion and not too many questions asked, Oscar was the one you called.
He sat in the small interrogation room staring at the mirror at the 19th Precinct station in Bensonhurst.
He’d been picked up outside the hotel where he boarded, the Hopkins, in downtown Brooklyn. Two detectives had taken him in after breakfast, pulled him right off the street into their car.
“What’s the charge?” Oscar asked. They could have gotten him on a hundred counts, but not these guys. These guys were errand boys. Bunko and fraud. Plus, his boss had them all in his palm anyway. Whatever they wanted with him, by lunchtime he’d be back on the street.
“You got a license for that gun?”
“Yeah, I got a license,” Oscar said.
“You drive a car?” the other detective asked.
“Sure. I drive a car.”
“Then double parking.”
These rubes had no idea what they had walked into with him. All he’d have to do was make one call.
But they didn’t offer him a call. They took his possessions and booked him on the traffic charge and let him sit in the station room for nearly an hour. Finally, two men came in. One was short and pudgy, in a gray suit, lawyer written all over him.
The other, which made Oscar sit up and do a double-take, was none other than Thomas Dewey.
“Guess by now you’ve figured out,” the famous prosecutor smiled thinly, “this isn’t really about double parking, Mr. Hammerschmitt.”
“If it is, you guys must really be hard up for a conviction.” Oscar grinned.
“I’m Special Prosecutor Dewey,” Dewey said, taking a seat across from Oscar.
“I read the papers. My mom’s a big fan.”
“Tell her hello then. This is Assistant Special Prosecutor Irving Weschler from my staff.” Pudgy opened a file and took out a pad and pencil. “We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s okay?”
“Maybe I want my lawyer,” Oscar said.
“You’ll have every opportunity to call for one.” Dewey opened a file as well. “But in the meantime just hear us out. I predict in a matter of minutes your life is about to change. And decidedly for the better.”
“For the better, huh?” Oscar sat back and lit up
a cigarette. He might as well hear what they had to say. They’d made a point in getting him here. “It’s a free country.” He shrugged. “At least that’s what they say. Fire away.”
“Good, Mr. Hammerschmitt. I agree, it is.” He nodded to his chubby associate.
“You work for the Lepke and Gurrah crime organization,” the lawyer started in.
“Uh, that’s not how I would say it exactly.”
“Let’s not play around with each other, shall we? You do jobs for them. And for the Amalgamated Needle Trade Workers and the Fur Dressers Union. You’re what’s known in the trade as a slammer.”
“I work for the fur dressers union.” Oscar nodded. “But you got it wrong. I’m a field organizer.”
“A field organizer . . . ?” Dewey squinted, as if just to be sure he heard him correctly. “You specialize in labor relations.”
“Yeah, labor relations.” Oscar laughed. “When they have an organizing problem they call me in. I do my best to get it solved.”
“Like we said, you mean you’re muscle?” Dewey clarified. “You strong-arm people when force is needed?”
“I would say I can be very persuasive.” Oscar grinned. “When it comes to solving problems.”
“All right, let me ask you.” Thomas Dewey turned the page. “Have you ever heard of something called ammonium sulfite?”
“Don’t think I have, Mr. Dewey. I didn’t do so well in science class back in school.” The gangster smirked.
“Me either, actually.” Dewey nodded amiably. “My worst subject. But to speed things up, it’s a compound that when exposed to the air emits a strong sulfur-like odor. It’s commonly used in stench bombs, Mr. Hammerschmitt. You must know of these, in your work?”
“I know what they are.” The gangster shrugged and glanced at his watch. “This going anywhere?”
“It will, Mr. Hammerschmitt. Count that it will. So have you ever been asked to deliver a stench bomb?” the prosecutor asked. “Say, as a warning. To a stubborn client, who wouldn’t come around? From the union perhaps. Or maybe as a message from Mr. Lepke and Mr. Shapiro themselves? In your capacity of solving organizing problems so persuasively?”
“No, I don’t think I have,” the gangster said. “But can we cut to the chase, Counselor? I have appointments. You said this was gonna change my life.”
“And we’re getting to that, Mr. Hammerschmitt. I promise we will. Just hear us out. So, changing subjects ever so slightly, what about sulfuric acid? Have you ever heard of that?”
The gangster lit up another cigarette and took in a drag. He shook his head.
“Very potent, I understand. It has a hundred chemical uses, I’m told, but one of them, a bit out of the ordinary, and pertinent in the particular field you’re in, is to have a harmful effect, say, on fabric or even fur or skins. Have you ever come across that, Mr. Hammerschmitt?” Dewey stared. “In your line of work?”
“What did you call it?”
“Sulfuric acid.”
The gangster rubbed his mouth with his hand and shook his head.
“I didn’t quite hear that, Mr. Hammerschmitt?” Dewey said.
“No, I don’t think I have, Mr. Dewey. Sorry.”
“It would surely be dangerous work if you had, so I’m sure you’d remember. You can only imagine what might happen if such a substance came in contact with your skin? The result would be very bad. Or, say, a client’s skin. In your union activities. That might be looked at as a form of assault, not just persuasion. Assault with intent to injure. And with a deadly weapon. If some came in contact with you, say by someone throwing it on you, liberally,” Dewey thrust his hands forward like he was tossing a basketball, “I bet you’d look at that as an assault, wouldn’t you?”
Oscar wasn’t the swiftest boat in the marina, but he began to see where this was going.
“I didn’t hear your answer, Mr. Hammerschmitt. Can you say it again for me? I bet you’d be downright incensed. If someone threw it on you. Wouldn’t you look at that as an assault?”
Oscar shifted in his seat. He flicked off an ash. “I might.” He nodded slowly.
“Fortunately it doesn’t specifically matter what you think, because as far as the New York State penal code is concerned, intent to injure with an object capable of doing bodily harm is regarded as a Class A felony and I don’t think anyone would have much difficulty thinking sulfuric acid, especially if they saw photos of the harmful result of such an attack, was such a weapon.”
“You know you told me my life was about to change for the better.” Oscar looked back at them. “So far, I only have the feeling it’s getting worse.”
“Ah, and we’re about to get to just that, Mr. Hammerschmitt,” the special prosecutor said. He nodded to his partner.
“On May fifth, two years ago, at approximately ten fifteen A.M., the offices of the Isidor Gutman Fur Company were broken into by a gang of club-wielding thugs with concealed faces,” the pudgy lawyer started in. “When asked why they were there, the leader of this group claimed it was in response to the company, after repeated warnings, not adhering to an agreed-upon directive to buy raw materials only from union-approved sources. In other words, not on the open market, by their own choice, but from a supplier chosen by the union who maintained a higher price. Did you happen to be among that group of intruders that day, Mr. Hammerschmitt?”
“Never heard of the company.” Oscar shook his head. “Now if we can—”
“After the company’s president, one Emmanuel David Gutman,” the lawyer pressed on, “tried repeatedly to convince the group to leave, he was struck, thrown to the floor, savagely beaten in front of his staff, and the company’s inventory of finished goods and raw materials, as well as expensive machinery, destroyed. They’re in the fur business, Mr. Hammerschmitt, so pelts and hides which were quite valuable were mutilated into worthless strips. And expensive sewing machinery was destroyed by lead pipes. You still claim no knowledge of this event?” the lawyer asked.
“Yes, I do.” A stream of sweat wound its way underneath Oscar’s collar. “And I’m getting ready to leave now,” he went to stand up, “unless you’re intending to charge me with something. . . .”
“I’m saying we’ll be happy to give you that choice in just a minute,” the lawyer said. “So, please sit down.”
Oscar remained standing.
“Sit down.” Special Prosecutor Dewey narrowed his eyes at him.
Oscar lowered himself back down.
“After the skins and pelts were rendered useless,” Pudgy continued, “the leader of this band of thugs took a container of sulfuric acid and doused the finished coats and uncut hides, damaging them beyond repair. As Mr. Gutman was on the floor begging them to stop, the leader of the group took what remained of the sulfuric acid and threw it at Mr. Gutman, causing severe burns over his face and neck, permanent skin discoloration, and extreme pain. You can imagine how being doused with such a highly corrosive form of acid would feel?”
“Not so good, I would think,” Oscar said, clearing his throat.
“That’s right. Not so good, I think too, Mr. Hammerschmitt. By definition, an act of physical assault with intent to cause bodily harm. Maybe even death, it might be construed. Which would make it attempted murder. But this is all just hypothetical, anyway, of course, since you were not there.”
“Yeah, hypothetical, of course,” the gangster chuckled. “So if I can—”
“One more thing,” the special prosecutor said. “In the tussle before he was assaulted, as Mr. Gutman tried to stop the man he identified as the leader of the group from lighting an assortment of his clothing patterns on fire, something fell out of the intruder’s hand. Mr. Gutman picked it up. Which is why we asked you here.” The lawyer went into his case and came out with something wrapped in a white handkerchief. As he slowly unwrapped it, Oscar’s heart started to thump loudly. The second Oscar’s eyes fell upon it, he looked away and stared glumly at the floor. He had known for months it might resurf
ace one day and come back to haunt him—but he’d not wanted to ever go back and look for it, as it would make him appear like a dumb lug.
Dewey placed it on the table between them.
It was a silver cigarette lighter. With a monogram engraved on it.
The initials O.H.
“There’s a lot of people with those initials,” Oscar said. “Doesn’t prove shit.”
“Yes,” Special Prosecutor Dewey nodded, “I admit, left to itself it doesn’t prove ‘shit,’ as you say. A hundred people could have the same initials. O.H. Even in your specific line of work.
“But of course you already know what was among your personal items taken off you today, when the detectives took you in?”
This time it was Dewey who dug into his jacket pocket. He took out a lighter, almost identical to the one on the table, with the same filigree scroll and engraved initials. O.H.
Oscar’s throat went dry.
“I guess you must have sincerely missed it,” the prosecutor smiled, “after it fell out up there. I commend you on your taste.”
“Still don’t mean fuck-shit.” The gangster stared at Dewey, a baleful glare in his eyes. “Only way you can convict me on that is if that guy wants to own up to it at trial. And that’s never a sure thing. Otherwise, it’s just a lighter. But on reconsideration, I think I will take that lawyer now.”
“That’s your option,” Dewey said. “But I would beg to differ on a point. I think it does mean ‘fuck-shit,’ Mr. Hammerschmitt. In fact, what I think it means, just to lay it out for you, is extortion, assault with a deadly weapon, criminal vandalism. Manslaughter in the first degree, at the very least. Maybe attempted murder. I wouldn’t think there’s a jury in the country that would have trouble placing you directly at the scene where these incidents took place based on what we have on that table, and more, as the chief perpetrator of these charges. A conservative estimate at trial, if we were to convict, would say thirty to forty years. And the indictments of this committee are under federal time. You’re how old, sir?”
Oscar rubbed his meaty face. “Thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two. You may indeed get out, at sixty or seventy. But I did promise that if you stayed here to hear what we had to say, your life could dramatically change for the better.”