I was standing at Keeler's Men's Bar in Albany a week after the trial, talking to the barman about Jack, and I resurrected a story he told me about a day in 1927 when he was walking in Central Park with his brother Eddie and Eddie's baby boy. Jack had the boy in his arms, and they'd paused on a hill which I can picture even now. Jack was tossing the boy and catching him when he saw a car coming with a gun barrel sticking out its window, a vision to which he had been long sensitized. He tossed the baby feet-first into a bushy blue spruce, yelling the news to brother Ed, and both dove in the opposite direction from the baby as the machine gun chopped up the sod where they'd been standing.
Nobody was hit: the baby bounced off the tree and rolled to safety under a lilac bush. And after I'd told this tale, a fellow tippler at the bar asked, "How many people did he kill?" I said I didn't know, and then, without apparent malice, without actually responding to my baby story, the fellow said, "Yeah, I remember a lot of otherwise intelligent people used to think he was a nice guy."
I told the man he was a horse's ass and walked to the other end of the bar to finish my drink. Intelligent people? The man was an insurance salesman. What could he possibly know about intelligent people?
I am bored by people who keep returning life to a moral plane, as if we were reducible, now, to some Biblical concept or its opposite, as if all our history and prehistory had not conditioned us for what we've become. It's enough to make a moral nigger out of a man. The niggers are down there, no doubt about it. But Jack didn't put them there and neither did I. When we get off the moral gold standard, when the man of enormous wealth is of no more importance to anybody than the man in rags, then maybe we'll look back at our own day as a day of justifiable social wrath.
Meantime, the game is rising, not leveling.
Jack taught me that.
Cured me.
(Brother Wolf, are you listening?)
Dove Street runs north and south in Albany through what for years was the rooming house district on the fringe of downtown. Number 67 sits on the west side of the street between Hudson Avenue and Jay Street, a two-story brick building with a six-step wooden stoop, a building not unlike the house on East Albert Street in Philadelphia where Jack lived as a child. The basement shoemaker, the druggist up the block, the grocery and garage at the corner of Hudson Avenue, the nurses and the masseuse next door and across the street and all other life-support systems in the neighborhood were dark at 4:15 A.M. on Friday, December 18, 1931, when Jack pulled up in front of 67 Dove in his hired cab, Frankie Teller at the wheel.
Teller parked and ran around to open the passenger door, took Jack's arm, helped him out. Teller held the arm while Jack stood up, and together they walked raggedly up the stoop. Jack found his key, but it remained for Teller to open the door with it. The two men then walked up the stairs together and into the room at the front of the house, overlooking the street. Jack took off his hat, and then, with Teller's help, his coat, and sat on the side of the bed, which was angled diagonally, foot facing the windows that looked down on the street.
"Frankie," Jack said. And he smiled at his driver.
"Yeah, Jack."
"Frankie, I'll duke you tomorrow."
"Sure, Jack, don't worry about it."
"Duke you in the morning."
"Sure, Jack, sure. Anything else I can do for you? You all right here alone?"
"Just get outa here and let me sleep."
"Right away. Just want you settled in all right."
"I'm in."
"Tomorrow, then."
"Tomorrow," Jack said.
Frankie Teller went downstairs and got into his car and drove south on Dove Street, back to Packy's to carry the news that Jack was tucked in. A block to the north on the west side of the street a dark red sedan idled with its lights out.
During the eight hours and fifteen minutes that elapsed between his acquittal and the moment when he sat on the bed and looked into the mirror of the scratched and flaking oak dresser in his Dove Street room, Jack had been seeking an antidote to false elation. The jury foreman's saying not guilty created an instant giddiness in him that he recognized. He'd felt it when he saw Streeter's truck in front of him on the road, and he felt it on the ship when he decided not to give Biondo back his money. He could drown in reasons for not yielding the cash and for giving Streeter the heat. But none explained why a man would keep anything that brought on that much trouble, or why a man would jeopardize his entire setup in life for a truckload of cider. And so he feared the giddiness, knew it was to be resisted.
When he'd tossed his forty-dollar brown velour hat onto the bed, it had hit the threadbare spread and rolled off. He folded his brown chinchilla coat (two grand, legitimately acquired) over the footboard, and it too slipped to the floor. When he left the courthouse and saw the newsmen backing away from him in the corridor, saw them on the steps and in the streets with their cameras, he had the impulse to reach into his coat pocket and find the rotten eggs to throw at the bastards. And this was the Jack Diamond who once hired a press agent to get his name around.
He sat on the bed, unable to see the condition of his eyes, which were heavy-lidded with whiskey—too little light in the room and in his brain. He squinted at the mirror, but saw only his squint returned. He felt an irritation of the penis from his lovemaking and adjusted his shorts where they rubbed. He remembered Alice's kiss before he left the party, a wet one. She opened her mouth slightly, as she always did when she had a few whiskeys in. He reached into his pocket, felt a card, and looked at it. Packy's speakeasy card. The Parody Association, members only. Jack had seen it on the bar during the party, never owned one, never needed one, but picked it up and pocketed it out of habit. There was a time when he could enter any speakeasy on his name alone, but now people imitated him, even made collections in his name. I'm Legs Diamond. Oh sure, and I'm Herbert Hoover. He used the cards now because he no longer even looked like his own pictures. Fifty people were in The Parody when Marcus gave his victory toast, the words floating now somewhere behind Jack's squint.
"To Jack Diamond's ability to escape from the clutches of righteous official indignation, which would so dearly love to murder him in his bed .... "
Fifty people with glasses in the air. Would've been more, but Jack said keep it small, it ain't the circus. But it was, in its own way, what with Packy and Marcus and Sal from the Kenmore, and Hubert and Hooker Ryan the old fighter, and Tipper Kelly the newsie, and Flossie, who came with the place.
Jack told me to bring Frances, my secretary, who still thought Jack was the devil, even though he'd been acquitted twice. "Show her the devil face to face," Jack said, but when he saw her he mistrusted her face. Lovely Irish face. Reminded Jack of his first wife, Katherine, he married in '17. Army bride. Prettiest Irish kid you ever saw, and she left him because he used coke. Crazy young Jack. Crazy Jack owes Marcus. Five grand. Coming in the morning from Madden. Where would Jack Diamond be without Uncle Owney? Pay you in the morning, Marcus. Meet you at your office at eleven. Cash on the barrelhead. Jack would be a semifree man, walking Albany's streets, a little less intimidated by the weight of his own future. Maybe his head would clear now that he'd won a second acquittal. They could go on trying him on gun charges, but Marcus said the state boys were whipped, would never try him again with Streeter the adversary witness. The federals were the problem, with four years facing him and no end of other charges pending. No end, even if he reversed the conviction with an appeal. But Jack would worry about the federals when he got well. The immediate future lay in South Carolina. A beachfront spot where he'd holed up when Rothstein and Schultz were both gunning for him in '27. Beautiful old house on a sand dune back from the ocean. Sea air good for the lungs.
Lung talk: Do you know why Jack Diamond can drink so much whiskey? Because he has TB and the fever burns up the alcohol. Facts. Left lung is congested. But, Jack, really now, you never had TB in your life. What will jail do to your lungs? What will it do to your brain, for that ma
tter? Bore you? You'll have to play a lot of dominoes in jail. Boring dominoes. But you knew that. You were always ready to play dominoes, right? That's part of the game, right?
Wrong. Not part of Jack's game.
Jack took off the coat of his lucky blue suit and hung it on the back of the chair. Suit needs a pressing, Marcus told him, even before the trial began. But Jack told Marcus, told the press boys too: "This is my lucky suit and I'm not parting with it. If we win, I'll get it pressed to celebrate."
The suit coat fell to the floor in a pile.
Jack took the change out of his pants pockets, his nail tile and comb, his white monogrammed handkerchief, and put them on top of the dresser that one of his obituary writers, Meyer Berger, would describe as tawdry. Jack's ethereal mother, starched and bright in a new green frying pan apron, held up Jack's bulletproof vest. "You didn't wear this," she said. "'I told you not go out without it, Jackie. Remember what happened to Caesar?" They rendered old Caesar, Jack was about to say when he felt a new surge of giddiness. It was bringing him a breakthrough perception. I am on the verge of getting it all wrapped up, he said to the steam heat that hissed at him from the radiator. I hear it coming. I have been true to everything in life.
"I toast also to his uncanny ability to bloom in hostile seasons and to survive the blasts of doom. Jack, we need only your presence to light us up like Times Square in fervid and electric animation. You are the undercurrent of our lives. You turn on our light .... "
Freddie Robin, the cop, who stopped in for a quick one, had the glass in his hand when good old Marcus started the toast. And Milligan, the railroad dick alongside him, had a glass in the air, too. Pair of cops toasting Jack's glorious beswogglement of law and order. Hah! And alongside them the priest and the screwball.
"Who the hell is that screwball, anyway?" Jack said to Hubert, who began sniffing. The screwball was talking to everybody, wanted to meet everybody at the party. Looks like a killer to you, does he, Jack? No. But maybe like a cop. Like a federal stooge. They like to crash my parties. Hubert got his name. He was Mr. Biswanger from Buffalo. A lightning rod salesman. What's he doing at your party, Jack? Trying to hustle you a sample to wear behind your ear? He came with the priest, Hubert reported. And the priest came to Albany to see Marcus. Is that true, Marcus? Marcus says yes, but adds, "He just tagged along, Jack, after a legal chat. I didn't bring the clergy. But they have an affinity for you, like cops. The underside of everybody's life, is what you turn out to be, Jack."
Jack undid his tie, blue with diagonal white stripes, and hung it on the upright pole of the dresser mirror. It slid off. Priests and cops toasting Jack. It's like those Chinese bandits, Jack. Nobody can tell the good from the bad. China will always have bandits, right? So, fellow Chinks, let's sit back and enjoy them.
"To his talent for making virtue seem unwholesome and for instilling vicarious amorality in the hearts of multitudes .... "
* * *
Alice gave Flossie the fish eye when she kidded Jack about pigeons in the loft and fondled his earlobe. Then Frances gave Flossie the fish eye when the Floss kidded Marcus about pigeons in the loft and fondled his earlobe. The Floss moved alongside the piano, and while the pianoman played "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie," she shook her ass. to that sweet and gracious waltz, turning, pivoting, shaking. Disgusting. Gorgeous. Oh, Floss, ya look like Mae West. Harpy. Sweetmeat. Goddess of perfume.
"Who is she?" Alice asked.
"Flossie, she works here," Jack said
"She knows you pretty well to play with your ear."
"Nah, she does that with all the boys. Great girl, the Floss."
"I never knew anybody who liked ears like that."
"You don't get around, Alice. I keep telling you that."
"I know you think I'm jealous of all the harpies in the world, but I'm really not, John. Just remember that the truest love is bright green. Avoid substitutes."
From Buffalo the hunger marchers began their walk toward Washington. John D. Rockefeller, in Ormond, Florida, told newsreel microphones that "better times are coming," and he wished the world a Merry Christmas. In Vienna a grand jury unanimously acquitted Dr. Walter Pfrimer and seven other Fascist Party leaders of charges of high treason stemming from an attempted putsch. A speedy recovery was predicted for Pola Negri.
Jack took off the signet ring that no longer fit, that had been bothering him all day. He wore it because it was lucky, like his suit, gift from the old man in high school: D is also for Dear Daddy. Dead Dad. Defunct Diamond. Sorry, old fellow. Jack listened to the candles burning on the altar of Saint Anne's church. They made the sound of leaves falling into a pond where a calico cat was slowly drowning. In the shadow of the first pillar the old man cried as the candles danced. When the mass was ended, when Jack the small priest had blown out the authenticating candle of his mother's life, the old man stood up and turned to pity, politics, and drink. And, oh, how they laughed back in Cavan. Publicans did not complain when the laughter died and you threw your arms around yourself in a fit of need. "Nobody knows what it's like until they lose their wife," old Jack said. "Then you eat Thanksgiving dinner alone." Young Jack looked on. "Just a weak old man. He cried more than I did. I cried only once."
Jack dropped the signet ring with a clunk into the tawdry dresser alongside two holy pictures (Stephen and Mary) Alice had brought him from New York, alongside the letters, the holy fan mail. Jack kept one letter: "God bless you, son, from a mother with a large family." And God bless you too, mother, going away.
The giddiness was turning to smiles. Jack looked at himself in the mirror and smiled at the peeling mercury. His smile was backward. What else was backward? He was. All. All backward in the mirror image. Nobody would ever know which image was the real Jack. Only Jack knows that, and he giggled with the knowledge that he alone was privy to the secret. What a wonderful feeling! A vision of the Jack nobody knows. Fuck that stupid Legs, right Jack? What'd he ever do for you?
One of Marcus' law partners came to the party to meet Legs Diamond—a kid with wide eyes when he shook the hand that shook the Catskills. Hubert brought two poker players from Troy, and they talked to Jack about a little game some night. Love to, boys. Packy had rounded up the musicians, piano, banjoman, drummer. Marcus asked Alice to dance and then Jack took an armful of Frances and foxtrotted around to "Ain't Misbehavin'."
"I must say you're a wonderful dancer," said Frances. And why, miss, must you say it? Jack dancing with yesterday in his arms. Thank you, young woman out of yesterday.
"You know I never think of you as dancing or doing anything like this."
"What do you think of me doing?"
"Terrible things," she said. She spoke sternly. Scolded, Jack relaxed, touched her hair with his fingertips, remembering his Army bride.
"Your hair reminds me of Helen Morgan," he said. Frances blushed.
Doc Madison pulled his wife to her feet, stepped into a snappy foxtrot with the same certainty he revealed when he removed the filling from Jack, all those double-ought pellets, restoring life to the dying frame. We're all so full of life now, Doc. And ain't it great? So many thanks, Doc. . . perhaps you all noticed the lofty stained-glass windows of the court house annex this afternoon as the sun streamed through, as the light fell about our Jack's frail but sturdy shoulder, illuminating in those windows both New York's and Jack's splendid virtues . . . industry, law, peace, learning, prosperity. . ."
The courtroom felt like a church still, old Presbyterian palace desanctified years ago; choir loft over Jack's head, judges sitting where the pulpit used to be, truncated suns over the door, ecclesiastical fenestration and only the faces on the walls different now: clergy and the Jesus crowd replaced with jurists. But retributionists all.
Frankie Teller, of course, came to the party, and so did one of the Falzo boys who ran four houses on The Line in Troy, squiring one of his beauties. Jack asked Johnny Dyke, the Albany bookie, to come by, and Mushy Tarsky too, who ran the grocery on Hudson Avenue wher
e Jack bought ham and cheese sandwiches for three weeks when he and two boys never went off the block because of The Goose. Jack's Uncle Tim, who had hung on at Acra since the roof fell in, waiting for Jack to return to the homestead, came up for the celebration.
Tuohey and Spivak, the bagmen detectives from the gambling squad, dropped in for a look and brought greetings from the Democratic organization.
Marion did not come.
Couldn't do that. Alice would've blown up if she showed. Jack sent Hubert and Frankie Teller up with a pint of whiskey to keep her happy, but she was gone. Note on the door: "Going to Boston to see Mama. " Frankie brought the note back, and Jack said, "Go look for her, she's on the street. Try the station, and find her. She wouldn't go without seeing me." It took Frankie and Hubert an hour, and they found her walking back up Ten Broeck Street toward her apartment house, Number Twenty-one, upstairs. Hubert says he told her, "Jack is worried about you, Marion," and then she said, "You tell him I'm goddamn good and mad. I'll stay till the morning, but then I'm leaving; I'm not putting up with this. One of the biggest nights of his life, and he leaves me alone four hours while he sits around partying with his cow, and I have to go to the talkies to keep myself busy. The talkies on a night like this."
So Hubert called Jack with the news, and Jack went back to the table and told Alice a fib. Bones McDowell, a newsman, calling with death-threat information. Gotta go see him, Al. But she'd been waiting for this, Jack. She knows you, Jack, you and your fake excuses. Then Jack said, "Listen, Al, I know you're having a good time, but why don't you come with me? It's business, but Bones is only a newspaperman with some maybe important dope, and it ain't big business or trouble, and I won't be long. Come with me."
Legs - William Kennedy Page 27