Button Man

by Andrew Gross

  “And if you take a quick fall,” the sergeant said, with an earnestness that made Morris sure he meant it, “be sure I’ll step in the ring myself and you’ll have to deal with me. Fershtayst…?”

  “Farshteyst.” Morris looked at him and nodded. I understand.

  So one by one he took them on. All. And each who came up cockily went down just as quickly, staggering sideways back to their corner, rubbing their jaws. The last to go was the corporal who had pushed him into the latrine and run the wire brush across his back, who turned out not to be so tough without his unit to back him up. At the end, his nose broken, his eyes puffed out twice their size, Morris himself could barely stand. He staggered back to his corner and collapsed onto the mat. He looked at the sergeant, blood streaming down his face. “You said all, right?”

  “Yeah.” The sergeant finally smiled and nodded. “All.”

  Soon after, the army found out Morris’s true age and sent him home. Which turned out to be a good thing in the end, since his unit ended up wiped out to a man at Belleau Wood.

  But from then on, Morris was a man who others knew had the will to stand up for himself, and the means to back it up. And he operated his firm with the same conviction. There were pressures in the business, things that could sink a company every day. And not just the teetering economy, which had put enough of his competitors on their backs. The unions, which were no longer unions in any traditional sense, but rackets, taken over by the gangsters, who squeezed companies for payments—worker benefit funds, they were called, ostensibly for the slow periods, but everyone knew exactly what they were. Protection money. Protection from the unions themselves. And they had taken over the suppliers as well, forcing firms into agreements to buy only from them, adding a nickel here or a dime there to their costs, which went straight into the union’s pockets. And anyone who refused to pay up or play by the rules didn’t stay in business very long.

  So far Morris and Sol had been left alone, but they both knew it was only a matter of time.

  As he turned onto Thirty-sixth Street, where many of the garment firms had moved now, the block buzzed with activity. Pushcarts piled high with bolts of fabric manned by beige-smocked warehouse workers, wheels clattering on the pavement; trolleys of dresses and coats being rushed from factory to warehouse that could knock a careless person on his face. On the corner, O’Malley’s, the Irish bar where the owner booked bets in the back room, was doing its usual lunchtime trade, salesmen at the bar trading stories, swigging a last rye before their next call.

  That was where Morris first caught sight that something was wrong.

  A crowd had formed halfway down the block toward Broadway, people staring upward. Three police cars were pulled up in front of a gray stone building. His building, he could now see. Blocked, trucks and cars were honking to get by. Edging his way through the crowd, Morris looked around to see what had brought them there.

  On the street he kneeled next to Buck, the vagrant in the ragged wool coat who camped out near their entrance. Morris often stuffed a dollar in his hand when he left at night. “What’s going on, Buck?”

  “It’s Mr. Gutman, Mr. Raab, sir,” the down-on-his-luck black man said. “Some men went up there for him. And they didn’t look like any men you want to mess with.”

  A knot of worry tightened in Morris’s gut. Manny Gutman had been a friend of his for years—as much a mentor as a friend. And Morris didn’t have to ask which men, or from where.

  He knew damn well what had happened.

  The Isidor Gutman Fur Company was started in 1883 by Manny’s father, who peddled furs out West and to New England in towns so small they had no retail stores, then, in the ’20s, rode the wave of raccoon coats and ankle-length beavers to become one of the largest makers on the block. An Isidor Gutman signature woven in the lining of a coat was a mark that it was only the very best quality. Manny had taken over from his father and been running the firm for thirty years.

  The past two years, they’d been forced to buckle under to pressure from the International Fur Dressers Protective. Since the days of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911, Isidor Gutman was always a union shop—“I’m a garment maker, not a union crusader,” Manny would declare. But since then the gangsters had seized control, first demanding protection money, then forcing them into buying cooperatives which pushed lesser-quality pelts and trims and drove their prices up, even in the teeth of the Depression. To stay afloat, Manny came up with a plan to buy some furs from the union suppliers forced on him and some from his own resources, firms they had been doing business with since his father’s time and who sold only the finest quality. Those of lesser quality they shipped to accounts who might not appreciate the difference, the finer stock to their longtime accounts who would know. But the union seemed to have ears everywhere, and what had begun as mere threats—intimidating phone calls, strong-armed people coming around—soon escalated into hijacking their delivery trucks, defacing finished inventory with red dye, and warning them to get in line or else. Still, Manny tried to keep on a few of his old suppliers in secret—off the books, so to speak, without purchase orders—dressing the furs himself at his own expense. “I mean, how would they ever know?” he said to Morris, “if there’s no documentation.”

  But apparently they did know. An ambulance drove up, siren blaring.

  And this was their response.

  “How many were there?” Morris asked Buck, watching a medical team with a stretcher rushing in.

  “I dunno, six or eight, Mr. Raab. They all ran out and climbed into two cars. Maybe twenty minutes ago.”

  “Thanks.” Morris pressed a five into his hand. “I’d get off the street if I were you. Things are going to get hectic.”

  He headed inside. He didn’t even stop at his own floors, three and four, but, adrenaline pushing him, bounded up the stairs to Manny’s offices on seven, hearing the slow freight elevator clattering on every floor. When he got up there, there were cops milling around in the hall and the wooden door to the Isidor Gutman Fur Company was open.

  A young cop manning the entrance put an arm out and stopped him. “Whoa, what’s your business, fella?”

  Morris knew the police were the last people you needed in these situations. The precinct captains were squarely in the mob’s pocket. They had usually been paid off in advance not to find a thing by the very people who had done it.

  “I’m a friend,” Morris said, pushing past him.

  The cop grabbed him by the shoulder. “You wait right there, buddy.”

  One of Manny’s employees, his bookkeeper, Mr. Leavitt, white as a ghost, his tie undone, came up to the cop, seeing Morris’s position. “It’s okay. Mr. Raab is Mr. Gutman’s friend. You can let him through.”

  There was a receiving area in the front, where raw materials were diverted to the warehouse area; those who had business with the firm came in through a separate wood-and-glass door. Morris went in. When he looked around, at the proud business that had prospered for two generations now in shambles; at Manny’s workers, many who had been with the company since his father’s time, glassy-eyed, huddled together, Morris’s heart sank.

  Where piles of expensive and neatly laid-out furs were normally stacked on tables in line to be cut, there were now mounds of torn and mangled skins that had been sheared into worthless strips and scattered akimbo. And not just inexpensive squirrels like Morris used for collars and sleeves, but once-luxurious beavers and minks that would have been in the windows of Altman’s and Saks. Now worthless. Many of the pelts had bald spots on them and were singed as if they had been lit by a flame or doused with something corrosive.

  A sharp, acrid odor filled the room.

  Many of Manny’s staff huddled around. Some of the seamstresses were still whimpering as if they’d just witnessed something horrible. The old cutters and sewers seemed dazed, and when they saw Morris, just shook their heads in a blank way, as if to say, Can you believe what you see here?

  In the stock roo
m, racks of finished garments and excess pelts were similarly defaced. Expensive furs and fur-trimmed coats torn, shredded into jagged strips from neck to hem, linings slit, many giving off that same bitter smell. A few cops stood around, perfunctorily interrogating the employees with their pads open. But Morris knew no arrests would be made.

  One of the staff, an old cutter named Oscar, came up to Morris. “Mr. Raab…” was all he could mutter, somberly shaking his head.

  “Where’s Mr. Gutman?” Morris said. He didn’t see Manny anywhere.

  “It was terrible, Mr. Raab,” was all the cutter said. “They came in like back in Russia, handkerchiefs over their faces, knocking people to the floor.” He wiped a hand across his face despairingly, as if he was gazing at bloodied bodies, not ruined garments. Morris knew Oscar had fled the pogroms back in Russia and likely survived the most terrifying attacks and slaughter. Still, he was always an upbeat man. Morris had never seen him look like this before.

  “Where’s Manny, Oscar?” Morris asked him again.

  The old cutter pointed toward the rear. On the floor, behind one of the two large cutting tables, Morris saw the doctor from outside kneeling, two cops nearby.

  He went over. Manny was sitting upright on the floor. At least he was alive. He was dressed in an open vest, his tie undone, sleeves rolled, his face covered. Morris kneeled next to him.

  “Manny…”

  His friend looked up and dropped the towel. Blood trickled from his right ear, where he’d clearly been struck, and there was a deep purple bruise on his cheek, his white hair all disheveled. But what Morris then saw on the left side of his face made him wince and hold his breath.

  A bright red blotch, like a spreading rose, stretching from cheek to eye. The doctor dabbed a wet rag to the eye, which Manny closed. “Morris, is that you?” He held up a hand. “I’m sorry, I can’t see a thing out of this eye.”

  “Manny, what the hell did they do to you?” Morris took in a breath, his chest tightening with rage. But he knew just by looking at him what had been done to him.

  A large oil tin was on its side at Manny’s feet and Morris picked it up and smelled inside.

  “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” the doctor warned.

  Sulfuric acid.

  “Who did this to you?” Morris said, gazing around in anger. He set the tin back down.

  “What does it matter who did this?” Manny opined. “Look around. Fifty years we’ve been in business. Fifty years. Now … It’s over for me, Morris. I’m done. I’m glad my father’s in his grave not to see this.”

  “Who was it, Manny?” Morris said again, his gut as stinging and raw as if he had taken a swig from that can of acid himself.

  But he knew precisely who had done it. And who was behind it as well. The same people who had walked over all of them with the same brutality and indifference to the law. One by one, every business on the street was being forced to knuckle under to the mob’s rule or face the same consequences.

  “Fifty years, Morris…,” Manny kept muttering. “My father used to carry these coats in a sack from town to town. Now…” He looked around numbly and shook his head in dismay.

  “Try not to talk,” the doctor said.

  Morris put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. He got up, took a last look around, letting the scene of destruction sink in.

  He picked up the can of acid again.

  “You stay out of it, Morris,” Manny looked up and warned him. “You’ll only get yourself killed.”

  “You’ve been telling me that for a while,” Morris said, “and look around.”

  “It’s not your fight. Be smart. And what are you going to do anyway by getting involved except get your own business ruined, and I’ll end up at your funeral.”

  “It’s too late for that, Manny.” Morris placed the tin of acid back on the floor. “It is our fight now.”

  “Don’t be a fool, son. You can’t win this. Just let it be,” Manny called after him. “Morris, do you hear me? Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  Morris had heard him. He’d heard a dozen fellow garment men make the same plea. All desperate and futile, and nothing changed.

  But by that time he was already out the door.

  Chapter Two

  An hour later he was under the elevated IRT line at the corner of Livonia and Saratoga Avenues in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

  Rosie’s Tobacco Shop was known as the headquarters of Louis Buchalter. From the back room, he and his partner in crime, Jacob Shapiro, ran their illicit operations, which everyone knew included gambling, murder for the mob, and control of the corrupt garment unions. Murder, Incorporated, they had named it. No matter how many front-page headlines and photos of bloodied bodies crumpled in the street or ruined businessmen like Manny pleading to the cops for protection, they paid off whomever they needed to and operated with free rein in the city.

  One of their goons in a check suit and fancy black-and-white wingtips stood watch outside.

  Morris had no idea just what he was here to accomplish, only that it was time someone did something. There had been too many bodies and too many businesses ruined, and the ones that remained had been bled dry by thugs who didn’t care who they drove out of business and who they didn’t.

  Don’t be a fool, Manny had called after him.

  Morris got out of the car.

  He knew, this was as foolish as it got.

  But it had to end.

  It had to end because it was destroying the business. These men didn’t care who stayed afloat and who didn’t; they were just milking their millions till the end.

  It had to end because innocent people were being killed and maimed.

  And it had to end with him today, because there was no one else able to stop it.

  Not the police. Not the DA. Not the Feds and the fancy commissions they had set up to put an end to organized crime.

  The truth was he had known Louis Buchalter a long time.

  As he crossed the street, Morris’s thoughts went back to the streets he’d grown up on. To an alley off of Delancey, twenty years ago, where in some ways, he’d become a man. He had tried to stay out of it as long as he could, but he could no longer remain on the side.

  But once he went through those doors, he didn’t know if he’d come back out alive.

  He crossed the street and went up to the tobacco shop door. The goon in the check suit came over to block his way.

  “What do you want here?” the man said, sizing Morris up as someone who hadn’t come for a box of White Owls.

  I got a rule for you, Morris Raab, Louis Buchalter had always told him with a wag of his finger. You just remember, there are some lines you just don’t cross. Even you.

  But he was crossing one now. Crossing it, in a way he might never turn back from. In a way he might live to regret.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Buchalter,” Morris said.

  PART TWO

  CHERRY STREET

  Chapter Three

  1915

  The boy stood in front of the large oak desk piled high with bulging folders of fabric and boxes of buttons and trim, his tweed cap clasped in his hands.

  “You’re tall for your age.” The man behind the desk looked at Morris and removed his wire glasses.

  Menushem Kaufman, owner of the Majestic Garment Company on Chrystie Street, was short and balding, with bushy gray eyebrows. He wore a tie and suspenders, with his sleeves rolled up. His wife, a gray-haired woman in a heavy sweater who made her husband look tiny next to her and who oversaw the company’s books, sat at a desk to the side.

  “So what’s your name?” Mr. Kaufman peered at him. He closed the leather-bound accounting book he’d been paging through, filled with columns of numbers.

  “Morris Rabishevsky,” the boy answered, dressed in knickers and a brown hand-me-down sweater.

  “Rabishevsky. That’s a mouthful. And you’re twelve? By the looks of it, you haven’t even begun to shave.”

  �
��Still, he’s no child,” Morris’s mother said in Yiddish, her hands on his shoulders. Then, in broken English, she added, “He doesn’t want the school no more. He wants a trade.”

  “A trade? Very noble,” the man behind the desk agreed. “Still, a boy your age ought to be in school, not on a factory floor.”

  “I’m almost thirteen,” Morris said, correcting him.

  “Ah, thirteen.… Oh, well, that makes all the difference in the world then,” Mr. Kaufman exclaimed. “Still, I suppose if you’re old enough to be considered a man in shul, why shouldn’t you be one in the world, right?” He looked up at Morris’s mother. “I’m told you’re recently widowed, ma’am…?”

  “Last February.” She’d barely removed the black mourning shawl from her husband’s yahrzeit. “He was shammash of our temple on Chrystie Street. He helped to rebuild it after the fire in 1905 you may remember.”

  “Meyn simpatye,” Mr. Kaufman said in Yiddish. “I know well the strains such a thing puts upon a family. Well, you’ve come to the right place, then, young Mr. Rabishevsky, if it’s a trade you want.” He switched back to English. “Yesterday, every woman in America wore a fitted jacket and skirt. Today, it’s a cotton lawn shirtwaist blouse with pleats and fancy collars. Tomorrow…? Your guess would be as good as mine, boy.” He looked at Morris, studying his face the way a dentist might inspect a questionable set of teeth. “Can you read?”

  “I can read,” Morris answered bluntly.

  “Good. The truth is, we can use a hand to sweep the trimmings off the cutting room floor and run things back and forth from the fabric houses over on Grand Street. You seem strong enough—at the end of the day you can lend a hand with loading the truck. The job calls for five dollars a week. I hope that will be sufficient.”

  “Five dollars…?” Morris turned back to his mother. He said in Yiddish, “I can make six on the street selling The Jewish Daily Forward. Chaim Fineman does, and he doesn’t even have to work Saturdays.”