American Gangsters

by T. J. English

  Jimmy Coonan thought he was the fucking Godfather!

  At 12:30 on the morning of November 22, 1978, Featherstone, Coonan, and Jimmy McElroy arrived at the Plaka Bar, a saloon connected to the lobby of the Opera Hotel at 2166 Broadway, between 76th and 77th streets on the Upper West Side. It was a bar not unlike those in Hell’s Kitchen, only slightly cleaner and less populated. As you entered, a long wooden counter ran the full length of the left wall. At the far end of the bar a doorway led into the kitchen. On the right wall another doorway led into the lobby of the Opera Hotel. There were no restrooms in the Plaka Bar. To go to the can, you had to pass through the hotel lobby and go down a flight of stairs.

  It had been a long day for Featherstone, Coonan, and McElroy, and they were beat. Most of the day had been spent trying to find a union official they were supposed to whack. In fact, they’d been trying to whack the guy for months without any luck. It was fast becoming a contract hit they wished they’d never taken.

  The whole thing began as a favor to Billy Murtha, the guy whose shower Jimmy was hiding in the morning he got busted in his underwear for the Canelstein/Morales hit. It was Murtha who drove the car the night of the shootings in Queens twelve years earlier. Both he and Coonan had done a few years in prison for that one. Since then, Murtha had gone into the construction trade with two good friends from Hell’s Kitchen, Buddy Leahy and Mickey Cahill.

  With his old buddy Jimmy Coonan now firmly established as the premier gangster on the West Side, Murtha and his sidekicks had approached him with a proposition in July 1978. They were having trouble with a guy named James Maher, who had just been elected business manager for Local 46 of the Metal Lathers Union. Murtha, Leahy, and Cahill were members of the Local, and during an acrimonious campaign for the business manager’s position, they had supported Maher’s opponent. Now, to add insult to injury, Maher was promoting a collective bargaining agreement they were bitterly opposed to.

  What they proposed was this: $10,000 if Coonan and Featherstone killed Maher, and $20,000 more if they made the body disappear. Jimmy and Mickey agreed to do the job and accepted $5,000 as a down payment.

  As Jimmy would say later, “We shoulda known from the start it was a turkey.” The day after they agreed to do the hit, they were sitting in the restaurant area of the Hyatt-Atlantis Hotel, across the street from the union hall at East 76th Street and 3rd Avenue. Coonan, Featherstone, and McElroy were there, as was Billy Murtha. They were waiting for the union official, Maher, to come out of the Local 46 offices so that Murtha could identify him. But they wound up sitting there for a long time drinking, and everybody got a little stewed.

  When Maher finally came out of the union offices, Billy Murtha, in a moment of drunken bravado, grabbed McElroy’s gun. “You guys don’t think I got the balls to do it myself? I’ll do it right now, goddammit.”

  Coonan, Featherstone, and McElroy didn’t know whether to laugh or be pissed off. “Just sit down and stop being a jackass,” Coonan finally said.

  Over the next four months there were a number of harebrained attempts to kill this guy Maher. Once, Billy Murtha sketched out a map of Maher’s home and the route he took to drive into Manhattan for work. The idea was to ambush him in his car. But that was too elaborate a plan and it never panned out.

  Finally, they got tired of playing cat-and-mouse games and decided to wear disguises and just gun the guy down right in front of the union hall. That’s where they had been that very day, before they walked into the Plaka Bar. They’d waited across the street from Local 46 in the red van they’d used to stake out Danny Grillo at the Gemini Lounge. It was an invaluable vehicle for transporting weaponry, disguises, and the various dismembered body parts of murder victims. Coonan was especially fond of his red van. As a joke, he’d started calling it “the Meat Wagon,” a nickname even some of his own people found a tad ghoulish.

  “That’s the guy,” Coonan blurted out when a man who looked like James Maher, partly obscured by other pedestrians, crossed the street and headed towards the union hall.

  “You sure?” asked Mickey.

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  Coonan and Featherstone got out of the Meat Wagon on East 76th Street, leaving McElroy behind the wheel. They crossed the street and hurriedly tried to catch up with the guy Coonan had identified as Maher.

  Mickey was having a hard time moving very fast. As a disguise, he’d worn a pair of shoes a couple of sizes too big over his regular shoes. He’d also gotten a pair of dirty old pants and worn them over a pair of clean pants. Topping off this grungy ensemble was a long black trenchcoat, also a few sizes too big, that hung all the way down to the ground. The idea was to do the hit in this getup, and then if need be, shed it and escape in his regular clothing.

  Jimmy was also dressed down-market, in a pair of dungarees and a blue windbreaker with a hood on it to hide his blond hair.

  When they finally caught up with the guy in front of the entrance to Local 46, Jimmy began to ease the .32-caliber automatic with silencer out from under his windbreaker.

  “No, no,” said Mickey, tugging on Coonan’s jacket from behind. “That ain’t him.”

  “What?”

  “Forget about it. It ain’t the guy.”

  They watched as the man they had been following opened the door to the building. Before he disappeared inside, he glanced up the street and they got a good look at him. It was definitely James Maher.

  “What the fuck?” asked Coonan, dumbfounded. “What’d you do that for? That was the guy.”

  Mickey shrugged sheepishly. “I thought it wasn’t.”

  By the time they arrived at the Plaka Bar, all three of them were in a foul mood. They’d been trying to do this goddamned killing for months. Today, once again, they had whipped themselves into the kind of emotional frenzy that was required to kill someone in broad daylight. Now they had to suppress these emotions and deal with the frustration of having again bungled the job.

  Once they were inside the Plaka Bar, the mood lightened somewhat. There were a number of familiar faces there. William Comas, a career burglar and hustler in his fifties who they knew as “Billy Uptown” was there. Comas kept a room next door at the Opera Hotel and frequently drank at the Plaka Bar. It was Comas who’d first introduced Coonan and Featherstone to the Plaka Bar years earlier.

  Featherstone, especially, liked Billy Uptown, who was short, with longish gray hair on the sides of his head and nothing but skin on top. Although Coonan didn’t know it yet, Mickey had even hatched a little something with Comas all on his own: a counterfeit operation that was beginning to look like it might pan out.

  Also there with Billy Uptown was the solidly built Bobby Huggard, the same Bobby Huggard who helped Jimmy and Jackie Coonan knock over a bar in the Bronx in the spring of ’66. At the time, they’d plotted many other crimes together, all in anticipation of a planned showdown with Mickey Spillane. Those plans all went down the drain when Jackie gunned down a bartender in Brooklyn. After that, Jackie went to prison and Huggard went on the lam. Now, thirteen years later, Huggard had reappeared on the West Side.

  After everyone said their hellos, Comas introduced Coonan, Featherstone, and McElroy, who was wearing a red painter’s cap, to a friend of his named John Crowell. Crowell was a former heroin addict and small-time criminal whom Comas and Huggard had met at the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Short and slight, with stringy black hair, Crowell spoke in a whiny Bronx accent. Although he had traveled with tough guys most of his adult life, he looked like a little weasel, with shifty eyes and a shifty manner to match.

  The group proceeded to drink convivially, sharing prison stories and waxing nostalgic about days gone by. Occasionally other patrons came and went, but for the most part they had the bar to themselves.

  After thirty minutes or so they were joined by yet another Clinton prison alumnus, Harold “Whitey” Whitehead. Whitehead had grown up in Astoria, Queens, along with Bobby Huggard. He knew Crowell and Comas f
rom prison and assorted other criminal ventures. Years ago he’d done some drinking at the 596 Club, so he knew Jimmy Coonan and some of the other Hell’s Kitchen crowd.

  Coonan recognized Whitehead as soon as he walked in the door. Thirty-eight years old, with curly brown hair, Whitehead was remembered at the 596 Club as a loud, arrogant prick. One night he even got in a fight with Richard “Mugsy” Ritter, one of the bartenders. When Jimmy’s brother Jackie intervened, Whitehead ran outside and called the cops from a phone booth at 44th Street and 10th Avenue. Whitey Whitehead had been on Jimmy Coonan’s shit list ever since.

  After a while, Coonan walked over to Whitehead and began chatting him up. It started out civil enough, but before long it seemed to be getting heated—at least on Whitehead’s part. The only person close enough to hear anything was John Crowell. Crowell heard Whitehead telling Coonan, “Mugsy’s fulla shit. He’s a fuckin’ fag.”

  Then Whitehead said: “And your brother Jackie, he’s a rat bastard. I got no beef with you, Jimmy, it’s that brother of yours.”

  The conversation continued a while longer, then Jimmy walked back over to Featherstone and McElroy. Coonan had remained calm so far, but his ears were a bright red. Featherstone knew what that meant. Jimmy’s ears always got red when he was mad enough to kill.

  “What’s that guy sayin’?” asked Featherstone.

  “He called my brother a rat,” replied Jimmy.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Scumbag,” interjected McElroy.

  “Yeah,” said Jimmy. “My brother may be a fleabag, but he ain’t no rat.”

  Crowell could also see that Coonan was steamed. He’d brought some marijuana along to smoke and figured now might be a good time to torch it up. It might chill people out.

  “Hey,” he said to Whitehead, Huggard, and Comas, “let’s go downstairs and smoke a joint.”

  While the three Irishmen stayed at the bar, the four Clinton prison alumni headed through the lobby of the Opera Hotel and downstairs to the men’s room.

  Dank and musty, the men’s room in the Opera Hotel was in bad need of repair. The tiling on the floor and walls was dingy and the low ceiling was stained, with peeling paint and corroded plaster. There were two sinks to the left as you entered, and beyond that, separated by a marble partition, two porcelain urinals. To the right was a slop sink, with a mop and a bucket nearby, then three wooden toilet stalls. There were bare waterpipes running from the floor to the ceiling, and the cheap lighting cast a sickly yellow pallor throughout the room.

  Crowell and Whitehead stood with their backs to the urinals. Across from them were Comas and Huggard. They fired up a joint and passed it around, laughing and getting stoned.

  After a few minutes, Jimmy Coonan walked into the men’s room. The group acknowledged his presence, but nothing was said. Coonan walked around them and went to the urinal.

  Crowell was standing the closest to the urinals. Once the joint was passed his way, he leaned over and offered it to Coonan. Coonan glanced at him, then reached down to zip up his fly—or so Crowell thought.

  Suddenly, from his crotch area, Coonan produced a black .25-caliber Beretta. He took one step forward, put the gun to the base of Whitey Whitehead’s skull behind his right ear and BAM! The shot reverberated throughout the men’s room.

  John Crowell was looking directly at Whitehead when the shot was fired. The life didn’t drain from Whitehead’s face—it evaporated instantly. Then he slumped to the ground.

  Coonan, his eyes ablaze, stood over Whitehead’s rumpled body. “There, you bastard,” he snarled. “Now you can burn in hell.”

  With the noise from the shot still echoing in their ears, Crowell, Comas, and Huggard ran frantically for the door.

  Mickey Featherstone and Jimmy McElroy, meanwhile, had been sitting at the counter of the Plaka Bar, sensing that something heavy was about to go down. Coonan had smoldered quietly after the others had gone down to the men’s room, then headed off in the same direction. Featherstone and McElroy knew that Coonan, unlike them, wasn’t into marijuana. He definitely wasn’t going downstairs to get stoned. They sat sipping their drinks for a few seconds, then decided to go see what the deal was.

  As they went down the stairs leading to the men’s room, they heard a sound they immediately recognized as a gunshot. They looked at each other, pulled their guns, and started running down the stairs. By the time they reached the base of the stairs, Comas, Huggard, and Crowell were practically tripping over each other trying to get out of the men’s room.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” yelled Mickey. “Up against the fuckin’ wall!”

  As Featherstone and McElroy hustled Crowell, Comas, and Huggard against the wall, they heard two more shots from inside the men’s room. Mickey opened the door to see Coonan, gun still in hand, standing over Whitehead. Blood was percolating from Whitehead’s skull, forming an expanding pool on the dirty tile floor underneath his body.

  “C’mon,” Billy Comas said excitedly, “there’s a dumpster out back. We gotta get rid of this goddamn body. Now!”

  There was a lot of confusion after that. Coonan told McElroy to watch the stairwell to make sure nobody came downstairs. Featherstone was told to mop up the blood in the men’s room. The others, with no choice but to go along, grabbed Whitehead’s body and began dragging it towards the back of the basement.

  Whitey Whitehead was only 175 pounds, but dead body weight can make a corpse seem twice as heavy. Even with three people, they were having trouble. Crowell had Whitehead’s left leg and his belt. Coonan was on the right side, holding the body around the right shoulder. Huggard had it by the right leg. Comas had let go of the body and was leading the way through a basement hallway.

  The basement of the Opera Hotel had once been a restaurant, and they passed a dusty old counter with stools, vinyl booths set against the wall, and a decrepit kitchen area. To get to the exit, they had to go up a short flight of stairs and through a set of double doors. Crowell got winded quickly, huffing and puffing before they had even reached the stairs.

  At one point, Whitehead’s pants began to rip apart at the crotch. Crowell lost his grip entirely and the body fell to the floor.

  The others cursed him and regrouped, this time dragging the body instead of carrying it, leaving a trail of smeared blood behind them. When they got within a few feet of the stairs, Comas heard a muffled voice.

  “The cops!” he yelled instinctively, touching off a spasmodic reaction. Crowell, Huggard, and Coonan dropped the body, tripping over it. They ran for cover, smacking into each other like they were in some kind of slapstick movie routine.

  By this time, Featherstone had appeared, mop and bucket in hand. “What the fuck?” he shouted, as the others seemed about ready to run him over.

  Comas had put his ear against the back door. “No,” he turned and announced. “It’s alright; it ain’t the cops.”

  Through the door, the muffled voice identified itself as being that of a resident at the hotel. As Comas and the others listened, the person explained how he’d attempted to leave the hotel by way of the basement, but there was a metal gate just outside the door, and it was locked. When he exited the basement, the double door had closed behind him. It too was locked—from the inside. Now he was stuck in the area between the double door and the gate.

  “Oh shit,” cried Comas, pointing at the door. “How do we get the body to the dumpster with this fuck out here?!”

  Featherstone volunteered to run outside and see if he could get the guy out.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Comas, “you do that.” After Featherstone left the room, Comas turned to the door and spoke loudly. “Don’t worry, pal, we’re gonna have you outta there in no time.”

  Comas, Crowell, Huggard, and Coonan waited downstairs for a good eight or nine minutes, each glancing nervously at Whitehead’s body as a stream of blood now trailed aimlessly away from his head. There was another moment of panic when they thought they heard someone from a
freight elevator down the hall.

  “Fuck this,” said Coonan, finally. “We’ll leave him here. Pull his pockets out, take his pants down. Make it look like a robbery.”

  And that’s how they left Whitey Whitehead—his pants down around his ankles, his pockets turned inside out, a pool of blood beginning to congeal on the floor underneath his head.

  Coonan, Comas, Huggard, and Crowell—joined now by McElroy—went back upstairs to the Plaka Bar. They were drained from the excitement and the tension, and exhausted after dragging the body through the basement of the hotel. They avoided looking at each other, and no one spoke as they walked through the lobby of the hotel and back into the bar.

  Just two hours had elapsed since Coonan, Featherstone, and McElroy first entered the Plaka Bar. It was now 2:30 A.M. and the bar was empty. Jimmy Coonan took the money they had pilfered from Whitehead’s pocket and tossed it on the counter. “The bastard only had $5,” he said, “but let’s have a drink on Whitey.” They all gathered around for a much-needed shot of whiskey.

  Featherstone, meanwhile, had gone out to the back of the hotel, just like he was supposed to. When he got there he pulled the collar of his coat up and spoke in a fake Spanish accent to the guy who was locked behind the gate. But there was nothing he could do, since the gate had a chain lock on it. So he went back into the hotel and told the desk clerk that there was a guy locked behind a gate out back, and he’d better send someone to help him.

  Then he went back into the bar. Coonan and McElroy were seated at the counter. The other three sat at a table, still in a mild state of shock and uncertain whether they were allowed to leave now or what.

  “Who picked up the shells?” Mickey asked Coonan.

  The cold-blooded determination Coonan had shown during the shooting was gone now. The adrenaline had left him. He looked shaken, more shaken than Featherstone had ever seen him.

  “The casings?” Mickey asked again when Jimmy hardly acknowledged the question. “The casings from the bullets, did anybody get ’em?”

  Jimmy shook his head.