by Richard Ayre
Sean grinned. ‘It’s a poor diet we have back in the auld country, Uncle Mick. I’ve had no chance to grow.’
Mickey laughed and hugged him again, noticing me for the first time over the boy’s shoulder.
‘And who’s this one?’ he asked, releasing Sean.
‘Uncle Mick, this is Rob Deakin. We met during the war. Rob, this is my uncle, Mickey Donovan.’
Mickey stuck out his hand.
‘Any friend of young Sean here is a friend of mine, even if you both met fighting for the bastard English. Where are you from? Deakin doesn’t sound like an Irish name to me.’
I glanced at Sean and he nodded imperceptibly.
‘It’s Scottish,’ I said.
Mickey, as I have said, sounded suspicious.
‘Whereabouts in Scotland? I’ve been there a few times. Glasgow and such like.’
‘I’m from the Lowlands, near the Borders. A place called Eyemouth. It’s on the East coast, just north of Berwick.’ I’d decided on Eyemouth on the way to Mickey’s as I’d been there on a few occasions and didn’t think the East coast was somewhere he would know much about.
Mickey nodded a couple of times, then went back to his desk and sat down behind it, lighting a cigar.
‘What’s in Eyemouth, then?’ He still didn’t believe me. He was a naturally cunning man, was old Mickey Donovan, as I would find out to my detriment a few years later.
‘Fish and seals and flat-chested women,’ I said. ‘That’s why I got the hell out of there and came to America.’
Mickey stared at me for a second. Then he roared with laughter and the two big men who flanked him, joined in a moment later. They all seemed to relax.
‘Well, Mr Deakin of Eyemouth,’ Mickey said. ‘Welcome to the USA.’
He then turned to business. I was to find out quickly that Mickey’s moods were mercurial.
‘We’ve got you all lined up, Sean,’ he said to his nephew. ‘I didn’t realise there would be two of you, though.’
‘I’m sorry, Mickey,’ said Sean. ‘Rob and me met on the boat and he hasn’t got anything sorted, jobwise. I was wondering if there was anything he could do, even if it’s only until he gets himself a permanent job sorted.’
‘I thought you knew each other from the army,’ said Mickey, quick as a snake.
Sean didn’t miss a heartbeat. He could lie as good as any man I have ever met.
‘We did. Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves on the St Agnes together!’
Mickey stared at him suspiciously before relenting. ‘I’ll sort you out with something, Rob,’ he said. ‘But for now, I want to spend a bit of time with my nephew. This calls for a drink.’
With that, he got up and nodded to one of his men, who disappeared out the door. Mickey picked up his coat and hat and then indicated for us to follow him and we went out to find a car waiting. We got in and coasted along Central Park until we got to West 67th Street. Here the car pulled up outside an innocuous-looking brownstone building.
We got out and Mickey and his men made their way up the steps. One of the men pressed a buzzer. I noticed a policeman standing on the corner and I watched him turn and walk away when Mickey glanced at him.
The door opened to reveal an old woman who smiled and held the door open when she saw Mickey. We went in and marched down a corridor towards the back of the building. As we did so, I began to notice the muted sound of music playing from somewhere.
We got to another door and another buzzer was pressed. There was a darkened window set into the door and I got the impression someone was staring at us from the other side. The door opened and the sound of the music got louder. We stepped into a small foyer-like room, with a padded door at the far end. The goon who had opened up nodded at us and then opened the far door.
And we stepped into paradise.
The Prohibition years were something I have never forgotten. It was such a grand time to be alive. It was freedom, it was hedonism, it was wonderful. Of course, it was also a time of murder, chaos and heartache but in that moment, at that point in time, it was the best thing that had happened to me in my, so far, short life.
The room was ablaze with light. Tables were laid out all around the floor, and waiters moved between them smoothly, filling the glasses of the raucous people who sat at them. Brightly coloured ticker-tape ribbons flew everywhere. At the side of the huge room was a bar doing a very healthy trade, and at the far end was a small stage where a band played lively jazz behind some dancing girls whose costumes left very little to the imagination. In front of the stage, couples danced enthusiastically. The noise was incredible.
A waiter scuttled over as soon as he saw who had come in and showed Mickey and the rest of us to a table set aside from the others. Champagne was poured and Sean looked at me in disbelief, laughing as he saw the same look on my own face. The waiter brought us menus and we chose food. I ordered steak as Mickey said to get what I wanted. I was starving because I hadn’t eaten since the previous day.
We ate our meals, drank illicit booze, and got chatted up by the girls paid to do just that.
I had encountered my first prostitutes in the cafes and bars of Belgium and France during the war and, like all the other virginal boys there, was at first shocked and dismayed by what we considered to be the loose morals of those exotic girls. However, daily life and death in the trenches soon made us realise that we had to take everything we could before we were obliterated, and we had all became enthusiastic students of their teachings.
Some of those prostitutes had been beautiful, some of them pug ugly, but the hookers in Drew’s Bar were something else. They wore their hair in short bobs, as was the fashion of the day, and draped their long legs and uncovered arms all over the willing customers, blowing smoke into their faces from their ebony cigarette holders.
Sean and I got plastered that night, as did Mickey. His goons stayed sober, however: eternally vigilant for any danger that might present itself to their boss.
I’d quickly come to the understanding that Mickey’s ‘business’ was not what one could exactly call legitimate. He was obviously involved in bootlegging, as well as prostitution and illegal gambling if the roulette wheel over in a far corner was anything to go by.
I didn’t care. I was a young man on an adventure. At the time, it all seemed to make sense. What harm was it doing to allow people to let their hair down once in a while?
The Volstead Act of 1920 had banned the manufacturing, transportation and selling of alcohol. It never banned the consuming of it and that had maybe been its mistake. The gangsters moved in to fill the hole the government had left, and to them it was just a business. As I laughed and caroused with Mickey and Sean on that, my first night in New York, I had no idea of the ugliness and murder and brutality behind the smooth facades of the criminals who ran the various activities.
I would soon find out.
*
Mickey got me a job on the wharfs of Manhattan.
The duties were simple enough: I unloaded the carefully blank boxes from the ships when they came in and transported them via truck to the various illicit drinking holes situated all over New York. It was easy money, well paid, and it meant I got to know the city very well. I was received enthusiastically wherever I went—as long as I kept away from the territory of the other gangsters littering the mean streets of the city—as it was generally known who both I, and Mickey, worked for.
William ‘Big Bill’ Dwyer owned the docks where the supplies came in. Whiskey from Canada and rum from the Caribbean were brought in on a regular basis and dispersed throughout the city by me and men like me, very much ignored by the police who were well recompensed for their inattentiveness.
We never got to meet Dwyer. He just owned everything. It was Mickey, his commander on the docks, who was our boss. We heard the stories about him, however. Tales of people ending up floating in the Hudson with their throat cut, or simply disappearing mysteriously if they got in his way. I don’t thi
nk I really believed all the accounts at the beginning, I thought them little more than tall stories concocted out of boredom or jealousy. And anyway, what did I care if some other bootlegger got chopped off at the knees, or a rival Italian ended up wearing a concrete overcoat? They were all villains so they all probably got what they deserved.
As long as I had a little money in my pockets and was not involved in any of the darker elements, I could live with the thought that it wasn’t all fun and laughter. I was already a cold man back then. The scars of the war ran deep, but there also seemed to be a dark, brooding miasma inside me that had first reared its head when Greene had sacked me back at Longwood and had never really disappeared. At the time I simply thought it was just a trait of my character. I know better now, of course. I simply enjoyed what I did and didn’t care all that much about the consequences of the work.
I liked the people at the Speakeasies, I liked making good money just driving trucks around and I enjoyed the fact that the local coppers kept out of my way. I enjoyed New York.
And there was one more reason I was pleased I got a job working for Mickey Donovan.
It made me rich beyond my wildest dreams.
*
I had been in America for just over a year when, whilst delivering my illicit goods around the city one afternoon, I met a young Bostonian named Percy Drebham. And he changed my life.
Percy was the manager of one of the Speakeasies on my rounds. It happened to be that first one I had visited with Sean and Mickey when I first got off the ship: Drew’s Bar on West 67th.
I was trolleying in the goods when Percy came outside to stand in the sun for a smoke. He nodded at me and I nodded back. We knew each other a little by this time, but had only really talked about where I had to drop off the booze.
It was July 1924, and it was a warm day. I stopped for a rest in the shade of the porch and wiped the back of my neck with a handkerchief. Percy and I watched the cars and trams clattering by, listening to the chatter of the people on the sidewalks and the sound of bright jazz music coming from an open window somewhere. He offered me a cigarette and we smoked companionably for a while. He was reading a newspaper.
‘Electric irons,’ he murmured.
‘Sorry?’
He smiled up at me from the paper. ‘Electric irons. In fact, electrical goods of all shapes and sizes. That’s what I’m investing in.’ He returned to the paper and did some mental calculations. ‘I believe I have made just over $2,000 this morning.’
I was mightily impressed. It was a king’s ransom.
‘How?’ I asked, interested.
‘Stock market, my friend. Stocks and shares are the new future. Anyone can make a fortune if they invest in the right things. And electricals are the right things. They’re only going to go up.’
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I’d heard of the stock market but had assumed it was something for bored highfliers and millionaires to play with on their time off. I knew nothing about it, and I said as much to Percy.
‘You don’t have to understand it, friend; you just have to play it.’ He smiled, secretively.
Percy was a dapper young fellow. He wore a finely tailored suit, Homburg hat, and spats on his perfectly polished shoes. His cigarette case was gold, and his cufflinks and tie stud were glittering diamonds. Maybe he was on to something.
I asked more about the ins-and-outs of stocks and bonds, and he gave me a quick rundown of what he thought might be worth investing a little money in. He seemed eager to share his knowledge.
It would have to be only a little money for me. I made a decent amount working for Mickey Donovan as I was employed, in essence, in an illegal trade but I didn’t have a lot of disposable cash. However, after questioning Percy a little more I found out what I had to do and he put me in touch with his stockbroker. I put my few dollars down to see what would happen.
It’s incredible to think now, how much money I made in the next couple of years. As Percy said, it seemed everyone was at it. Shoeshine boys, barbers, shopkeepers. They were all indulging in the glories of Wall Street.
Once I became more knowledgeable, I learned that a lot of people were buying their shares on what was called the “margin”. This meant they only had to stump up about ten percent of the worth of the shares they bought, the other ninety percent being funded by banks as a type of loan. It seemed there was no real downside to the stock market, but a cautious part of my nature baulked at doing this and I made sure I only bought shares I could afford myself. What if something went wrong?
It didn’t seem to be going wrong though. My investments went up and enabled me to invest more and more. Within a year-and-a-half I had made enough money to move out of the shared apartment I had been renting and into a very nice place of my own in Greenwich Village, not far from Washington Square.
I became a minor expert, and even began to give tips myself, like Percy had done for me. Sean made a little extra cash from my advice, although I think he spent most of it in Drew’s. Still, he seemed happy enough with it.
Apart from the new apartment, I kept my dabbling to myself. I didn’t start wearing flashy clothes or buying cars or diamond cufflinks or anything stupid like that. I invested, I sold, and I banked. By 1927 I had almost $120,000 in my account, an enormous sum of money in those days. And by 1927, I needed it.
Because by then I was a marked man.
VI
The apartment in Greenwich was owned by a certain Mrs Molly O’Brian. She was aged about forty or so, with a thick mane of jet-black hair that the grey had yet to mar. Her eyes were huge and dark, in a face that was careworn but seemingly carefree too, and her smile was warm and wide and welcoming.
I found her instantly alluring and, before too long, I also found out that the body beneath those rather staid clothes was firm and smooth and voluptuous. She was a rare beauty, was Molly O’Brian.
Donovan himself had put me on to the apartment. He knew I’d been making some money and he also knew it was not a threat to his own, much more lucrative, business. I think he even admired me a little for making my own way, and he never had any cause to complain about my work. I enjoyed what I did. The stock market was simply something I participated in on my time off. It was a sort of perverse version of the American dream.
When he heard I was looking to upgrade my housing situation he called me into his office in Hell’s Kitchen. He asked me how much I was willing to spend on rent and then told me about the apartment block Molly owned.
Of course, what he didn’t tell me at the time was that he and Molly were lovers. If he had then things may not have got out of hand; although even if I knew I probably would have done what I did anyway. I was getting cocky by then.
I found the apartment and rang the bell, and Molly answered. I was attracted to her immediately, despite the fact she was about ten years older than me. I think that was actually part of the attraction; she was all woman.
When the door opened I was confronted with a vision of dark, wild beauty. She was so different to the Flappers of the time, with their short hair and ironing-board figures. She wore a simple, ankle-length skirt and white blouse, and her thick black hair was piled on her head in what had been the height of fashion a decade or so before. I don’t think she wore any make-up on that first meeting. Then again, she didn’t need to.
‘Mrs O’Brian?’ I asked, taking off my hat.
‘You must be Mr Deakin,’ she answered in a thick Irish brogue, smiling a smile that made my heart jump. ‘Michael said you would be stopping by.’ She pronounced his name ‘Moichael’.
She opened the door wider and showed me in.
‘You’ve come to look at the apartment, is that right?’
I nodded and she smiled again.
‘Please, come upstairs.’
She turned away and I grinned to myself as I closed the door. It sounded like a very good idea.
She showed me the apartment and it was very nice, as I knew it would be, but to be hones
t I’d have taken it even if it had been infested with trench rats. Mickey had said Molly lived in the apartment block on the ground floor. Any chance to catch a daily glimpse of her was enough of an incentive for me to take it.
After showing me around the apartment—I lingered in the bedroom with her for far too long—we came to a mutual understanding. I paid the deposit then and there and arranged for my belongings to be moved over.
A week later I was sitting in a comfy chair, listening to Whispering Jack Smith singing Gimme a little kiss, will ya? Huh? on a gramophone, smoking a cigar and sipping an illegal whiskey while gazing out of the window over Washington Square.
I loved it there in my apartment on Bleecker Street. The place was a haunt for Flappers, and there were plenty of Dwyer’s Speakeasies within easy reach.
A picture palace was only a twenty-minute walk away and I often visited it to watch Harold Lloyd or Mary Pickford. I particularly enjoyed Charlie Chaplin films and it was at The Roxy I first saw The Gold Rush one of my favourite movies ever. I’ve seen it many times since and it always brings back memories of my time in New York. They’re bittersweet memories now: fading, but somehow still relevant.
I had only been there a couple of months when things went, as I thought at the time, unexpectedly well but, in reality, terribly bad.
I’d been out. It was a Saturday, and Sean and I had been to Drew’s. We’d danced to the Black Bottom and the Charleston with some of the girls there and had drank our fair share of booze.
Sean had a little spare cash, earned with one of my market tips, and had decided to take up the offer of the attentions of one of the working girls. He asked me if I was doing the same, but I politely declined. I had looked upon the faces of some of those girls when they thought no one was looking, and they always seemed to exude a melancholy that killed any ardour in me. They all looked so incredibly sad. Tired and sad. I just felt sorry for them.
Anyway, I’d had enough for one night. My head was swimming and I just wanted to go to bed. I hailed a taxicab and it dropped me outside the apartment.
