Nayles looked at him for a very long time before he decided the kid was serious.
“Make it sixty you, forty me,” he said finally. “You’re footin’ the bills.”
Keegan smiled. “Q u it your job, “ he said, “we just went into business.
In the next few years, Francis Scott Keegan, the proper Bostonian college student, split his studies between business and the arts. He read voraciously and listened to music constantly. During the same time, he also was known variously as Frank the K, Scotch Frank, and Frankie Kee, a nickname whose subtle patriotic reference was lost to most of Keegan ‘s business competitors. Keegan had studied how territories were divided among the more noted gangland mobs of the day: Alfonse in Chicago, Louis the Lep in Brooklyn, Dutch Shultz and Frankie C in Manhattan, Willie Knucks in Philly, Legs in upstate New York, Nukey Johnson in Jersey and of course Luciano, Charley Lucky, who called all the shots. Boston was wide open, nothing but nickel rollers there. Nobody in the mobs paid much attention to him. Unlike his competitors, who bought scotch from offshore freighters for four dollars a bottle, cut it three or four times and sold it for eighteen dollars a f i fth, Keegan paid three-fifty a quart and sold it to his customers uncut for f ifteen dollars a bottle.
The fact is, Keegan liked to think of himself as a connoisseur of good liquor, a booze steward to the very rich. He never thought of himself as a bootlegger. Hell, everybody he knew drank. Keegan just didn’t like the sound of the word. Besides, he really wasn’t in the shabby end of the business. No bathtub gin, no homemade poison. His specialty was Scotch whisky imported straight from Edinburgh, perfectly aged and light as mist.
His circle of friends at Boston College were all rich or near rich, a snobbish set which suited Keegan just fine. They were all potential customers—and they all had friends who were potential customers.
“I know this wonderful bootlegger but he’s shy, “Keegan would tell them. “I’ll put the order in for you. “And the goods were delivered like milk to the back door. His was definitely a select clientele: two governors, half a dozen senators, one of Broadway ‘s brightest comedy stars, half a dozen Catholic bishops spread from Jersey to Connecticut to New York to Massachusetts, and one future president of the United States. He performed a service, got rich and everybody was happy. Well, almost everybody.
When the word got around, Arthur Flegenheimer, who had adopted the name Dutch Shultz so it would fit into newspaper headlines, blew up and went to the big man himself
‘Lookit here, Lucky,” Schultz told Luciano, “we got this Irish ass- hole, this Frankie Kee, he’s sellin ‘uncut scotch less‘ n we‘re g ettin’. Uncut. The word gets around, it a in ‘t good for business, it s unfair competition, I say, and I say we burn the little shit and be done with it. An object lesson.
‘So do it,” Luciano answered around a mouthful of pasta. “Why the hell you askin’ me for? It ain’t like you re gonna bump off Calvin Coolidge.”
Keegan fit comfortably into the schizoph re nic life-style he had adopted. He read six newspapers a day, everything from The New York Times to the Boston Globe to the New York News and Mirror to the Racing Form. He studied everything from the stock market to the morning lineup at Hialeah. And he had a way with language. He could turn his Irish brogue on and off at will, and had a keen perception of the d i fferences in cadence and vernacular between the two worlds he had chosen, the social world of Boston and the underworld of the East Coast. He was as comfortable being Francis Keegan, discussing a fluctuation in the stock market with a Boston banker, as he w as being Frankie Kee, discussing the pros and cons of a gangland rub-out with a Sicilian mobster. It was one of many lessons he had learned tending bar in the Killarney Rose saloon. When in Rome, talk like the Romans, when in Boston, speak as a proper Bostonian.
The Boston Ambush, as he would refer to it later in l i fe, was a particularly cowardly act, the first perpetrated by Shultz. Keegan had been to the theater. As he got out of his car, a blac k Ford squealed around the corner and he heard someone yelling, “Shoot, shoot.” He dove behind the car as a half dozen shots rang out. He fit the ping in his side, then the burning, deep in his back, and he knew he had been shot. The shooter, a Philadelphia gunsel named Harvey Fusco, never made it back to Philadelphia to spend the ten thousand he w a s paid to do the job. When the Manhattan Limited pulled into Broad Street station, Fusco was found sitting in his compartment, the New York Daily Mirror in his lap, his eyes crossed and staring up at the bridge of his nose at the single. 45-caliber bullet hole there.
Frankie Kee was never a suspect. He w as in Boston General in intensive care when it happened. Since the authorities didn‘ t know Fusco ‘s bullet had put him there no connection was ever made. For the record, Francis Scott Keegan ‘s attack went down as an attempted stickup. As for Keegan, he was never sure who had disposed o f Fusco. It was one of those unclaimed favors one simply takes for granted, savors and forgets.
So Shultz tried unsuccessfully to give Frankie Kee the big gift - the concrete overcoat and the deep swim. But Keegan, touched with the luck of the Irish, always proved equal to the challenge. Each time the Dutchman failed, his assassins felt the sting of his Irish vengeance in strange, sometimes almost supernatural ways. One of his attempted assassins was kicked to death by a racehorse in a stable at Belmo n t Park. Another choked to death on a chicken bone during a birthday celebration in Reuben’s Restaurant in Manhattan.
“Listen, pal, I never lift ed a finger against anybody, “Keegan once told Albert A at a meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, where Anastasia had been sent to put Frankie Kee in a box a nd Dutch Shultz out of his misery. “It just that bad things seem to befall people I particularly don’t like. And Albert, I particularly don’t like you a s much as anybody I know.”
Anastasia, probably the New York mob’s top killer and a man unaccustomed to insults, was so astounded he didn‘t say anything in response. At first he didn‘t even tell anybody that this smartass mackerel snapper from Boston had insulted him. Then his anger got the best of him. When he decided to start his own Boston Tea Party, Arnold Rothstein stepped in.
A few days after the Anastasia meeting, Keegan was in The Rose for dinner, his Uncle Ned serving the best Kansas City sirloin east of the town itself Ned slid into the booth opposite him.
“I heard this rumor that you put the double hex on Albert A,” he whispered in his Irish lilt. “Tell me it a lie. Tell me yer not mixin ’ it up with them Guineas. Jesus, Francis, they’ll cut off yer jewels n’ have ‘em fer breakfast.”
“Now why would I do a silly thing like that, Unc?”
“But you talked to him, didn’t ye. Ye had a conversation with Albert A.”
“He wanted to buy my Rolls.”
“So what ‘d you tell ‘im?”
“I told him no dice. Told him it wou ld n‘t fit him.”
“You told Albert A that? That it wouldn’t fit ‘im?”
“Yeah. I told him he was too small for it. He shrank another two inches when it sank in.”
“Why ye do things like that, Frankie? Ye better watch yer step, son, them dagos have a short fuse.”
“Been tried, Unc. “He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I’ve got a meeting to go to.”
“What ‘re ye gonna do, sell a bottle a scotch to the mayor? “Ned said with a snicker.
“I’m going uptown to Central Park.”
“Central Park is it?”
“A meeting with A. R.”
“Rothstein himself’ Are ye crazy, then?” Ned shook his head. “I ‘II tell ye this, boy, when I die they’s gonna be hell t ‘pay. When I get to heaven yer old man’s gonna kick my ass to Baltimore and back fer lettin ‘you go astray.”
“And well he should,” Keegan answered with his cockeyed smile.
Arnold Rothstein, who had been known as A. R. since his teens, was a democrat in the true sense of the word. Every day he held court on the same bench in the southwest corner of Central Park just of 59th Street, listening
to deals, requests for loans, entertaining favors. W ant to shack up with a chorus girl? Ask A. R. Want to buy a load of whiskey and willing to pay the interest? Ask A. R. Want to fix a cop, bribe a judge, dispose of a witness, fix the 1919 World Series? Ask A. R. Want to lose a bundle in a poker game? Sit across the table from A.R.
Keegan had leaned on the stone wall on Central Park South watching him for about ten minutes. Not as trim as his pictures showed him to be, Keegan thought. Getting bald. But you could sense the power in the man, sitting with his back ramrod straight in his gray pinstripe and polka dot bow tie. All brains, thought Keegan. There sits the most powerful gangster in the world. More powerful than Capone, Luciano, Costello, any of them. Just sitting there in the sun feeding the pigeons. It s a crazy world.
Finally he strolled down the path and stood in front of the big man. Rothstein looked up at him for a moment through n arrowed eyes, then held out his hand.
“You must be Frankie Kee,’ he said.
A little cross-eyed, Keegan thought. He took the hand.
“Francis Keegan, Mr. Rothstein,” he a n swered.
“Call me A. R. Everybody calls me A. R. Take a load off “He patted the bench. Keegan sat down.
“Where’s Jimmy Noland?” Keegan asked, using Legs Diamond’s real name.
“Know Legs, do you?”
“Never met the man. I’ve always heard you want to meet Legs Diamond, find Arnold Rothste i n.”
Ro t hstein laughed. “That c a kick in the ass, “ he said. “The way I heard it, you wanna meet A. R., find Legs Diamond. He’s over at the Plaza having a coffee. I told you this was Just you and me. I’m not a welcher.”
“I’ve heard that too.”
“Good. We’ll get along.”
“What’s to get along about, Mis. . . A. R. ?“
“It comes to me you had this thing with A l bert A, up in the country.”
“It was in Providence.”
“Anything past 125th Street is country to me, son. So anyway, it comes to me you insulted him. Something abo u t a car.”
“What it was, Anastasia proposed a merger. I’m supposed to give up my little specialty business and pitch in with Charley Lucky, Costello, Capone, that whole Sicilian bunch, right? And they send Albert A to talk the deal. That‘ s what it was. Anyway, he got a look at my car and got all hot and bothered to have it.”
“And you told him it was too big for him.”
“Something like that.”
“That’s rich, that is. I admire your moxie, pa l The little bastard really blew his cork, y ‘know. You’re lucky he didn’t start World War Two right there on the spot. I’m sure you know Albert’s specialty is the big knockover.”
“The conditions weren’t right.”
Rothstein laughed again. “Knowing Albert, I gotta agree with you,” he said. “He ‘s not one to go face-to-face with anybody.
“Well, he was a very pushy guy, you see, and I f igure he came to me wanting something, so pushy was not the right attitude.”
“You’re large on attitude, are you?”
“No, I’m large on if you want something you say ‘please’ and ‘how about it, ‘ not ‘gimme. ‘
“I’d say that’s reasonable. Unfortunately, Albert A is not a reasonable fellow. He is definitely a ‘gimme’ guy.”
“He s a back-shooting son of a bitch. He k ills for wages. He smells like death. And he has hyena breath.”
“Hyena breath.” Rothstein laughed. “That s great. You’re full of em.
“Anyway, he is definitely not the kind of a man you send to talk business. Not f you ’ re serious anyway. You send a negotiator, somebody who talks give and take. Somebody with a greased tongue and the long schmooze. So what we did, we moved him around some before we sat down to talk. Spooked his tails. Anastasia’s a planner. He couldn’t take me on because he was out of his element, he didn’t have a plan. And his back- shooters were lost.”
“Very clever. So you think he came to kill you?”
Keegan looked at Rothstein and raised an eyebrow.
“No, I think he came to borrow a smoke.
“I must admit, sending him to negotiate anything was poor judgment. Not mine, incidentally. I’m simply here to mediate some d i fferences.”
“That’s why I don’t believe it, A. R. That ’s why I think it was not a proposal made in good faith. It was a setup that went sour. They thought they were dealing with one of the Katzenjammer Kids.”
“What exactly do you want, Francis?”
“What do I want? Nothing. Not a single, solitary thing. Zip. Just leave me alone. I’ve got a little specialty business. Hell, it’s a nothing to you guys. Somebody got a wire up his ass on this thing. I do a thousand cases a month, your people do twenty thou. If they wanted to do twenty-one thou, no big thing. See what I mean, what s the diff ? A couple of times they tried to knock me over and for what? A thousand cases a month?”
“Three times they almost pulled it off” Rothstein said with a note of fatherly caution in his tone.
“But they didn’t,” Keegan answered. “So why are we here, Mr. Rothstein? Have you got a beef with me?”
“You wanna know the truth?”
“That would be nice.”
“I wanted to meet the man told Albert Anastasia he was too small a guy to fit in a goddamn Rolls-Royce.”
“That’s the whole of it?”
“Look, Francis. . . that’s what you prefer, isn’t it?”
“That s my name. I never have gone in big for monikers.”
“Or publicity.”
“Or publicity. I’d rather have my face on the post office wall than the front page of the Daily News.”
“That’s very smart Anyway, the whole of it is this. You are doing business with some very important people. People I would like to get next to. Like the governor, for instance. So I thought maybe we could work a little something out. You wash my hand, I wash yours. You know how that works. I’ll put Albert back in his box, tell the Sicilians to lay off You got no more troubles. Shit, son, let’s see, a thousand cases a month at your price, that would be about, uh, two and a half mil a year, correct me
I’m wrong. We got another two, three years before they repeal the stupid law. We’re talking a lot of gelt here, seven, eight million bucks and nobody hassles you anymore.”
“And for this?”
“For this maybe you could put me in touch with some of your people.”
“I never met the governor.”
“You have access.”
“I n afraid I couldn’t do that, A. R.”
“Oh?”
“Look, let s get to the bone, okay? I know these people socially. As far as they know, I’ve got a damn good bootlegger. They give me the order, I take care of things for them. I never see a dime at that end. So, you see, i f I even suggested such a thing, that somebody should parlay with you, that would come down badly on me and you . You ‘ye got Tammany in your pocket, but it doesn’t work that way up in Albany. It would not just blow a good thing for me, it would have the state boys up your ass with a searchlight. So what I’m saying to you, I’m giving you some advice. It’s a bad call, A. R. You don’t want to do that. It’ll give you a headache aspirin won ‘t cure.”
Rothstein looked at Keegan with his mouth open Just a hair. He was impressed. The kid made sense to him. Keegan knew the lay of the land upstate. He’d been operating free as a sparrow for three, four years now. On the other hand, Rothstein ‘s corruption di4 not spread that far. He did not own any state cops or any upstate people that amounted to anything.
“That’s sound thinking, Francis. You ‘re fast on your fret.”
“I’m just calling it the way I see it. Why bite a tiger in the ass?”
“I must say, I could use a man with a head like yours. Most of my people think with their guns and their balls. You give ‘em two and two, they gotta take to the weekend to come up with four. Muscle they know about Brains? Shit, they think you go twen
ty miles south of Yonkers, you fall of the planet. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a little change in professional direction at this time?”
“That’s a flattering offer but I like things as they are.”
“Tell you what I’m gonna do, Francis. I’m gonna go back and I’m gonna tell Frank and Lucky to leave you alone. That I owe you one. I appreciate good advice. I give it out a lot but I don ‘t get much back. I can understand why you backed Albert A down. He did n ‘t know what to make of you. How many guns you have on him after you cut him out from his pack?”
Keegan c smile broadened. “You’ll never know,” he said.
“I guess I won ‘1.” Rothstein smiled back. “Pleasure meetin’ ya, Francis Keegan. Good health.”
“You too. Mind if I ask you one question?”
“Shoot.”
“How much did you make on the Series fix?”
Rothstein laughed. “You‘ ll never know, “ he answered.
Less than two weeks later, Arnold Rothstein, the great fixer, the man who devised the criminal blueprint for the Mafia, a blueprint they followed almost to the letter, was in a card game with “Titanic” Thompson and “Nigger Nate” Raymond, two West Coast gamblers. Rothstein dropped $320,000 and walked out without paying, claiming the game was rigged. An hour later he was dead with four bullet holes in his back. Nobody was ever booked for his murder. But Rothstein was good to his word, even in the grave. Nobody in the mob ever bothered Keegan again.
Francis Scott Keegan, Bootlegger to the Kings. He laughed thinking about it.
What the hell, he thought, why close the window. In retrospect he liked the view. How many people did he know who had snookered Albert Anastasia, the most dangerous man in America, and Arnold Rothstein, its greatest fixer, both in the same week, who had defied the mob and lived to tell about it and who had sold short in the market in September, two months before the bottom dropped out, and made a killing?
And anyway, this had all started because Vanessa had called him Frankie Kee. So if his conscience was having a problem dealing with her, forget it. Little girls grow up. And grow up she had. Hell, it was too late to worry about it and besides, his head was throbbing from lack of sleep and too much champagne and he was in no shape to deal with his conscience or his memories and here it was, dawn again, and every muscle in his body ached.
The Hunt Page 16