Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set

by Bruno, Joe

  However, the official police report said Reles died “trying to escape by lowering himself down the side of the hotel using several bed sheets.”

  How this was possible with a policeman supposedly in Reles's bedroom was never fully explained by the police.

  Frank Costello later said he had spread $50,000 around the New York City police department to get rid of Reles. It was also rumored; the police guarding Reles were the ones who had actually threw Reles out of the window.

  The case against Siegel also went “out the window” with Reles, and the charges against Siegel were dismissed due to lack of evidence.

  Carbo was tried in California a few months later, but due to the lack of corroborating evidence of Tannenbaum's testimony by Reles, his case ended in a hung jury. Carbo was set to be tried a second time, but according to prosecutor Burton Turkus, New York City District Attorney William O'Dwyer, who had Tannenbaum under wraps, refused to allow Tannenbaum to travel back to California to testify at Carbo's second trial. As a result, the charges against Carbo were dropped, and no one was ever convicted of the murder of Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg.

  Still, Siegel had a stone in his shoe, and that stone was named Sholem Bernstein.

  There was a system the National Crime Commission had in place for settling matters of dispute. Bernstein couldn't be touched by Siegel unless Siegel had the permission of the boss of Bernstein's New York City territory. The New York City bosses considered Bernstein one of their best men and refused to harm a hair on his head. But Siegel was adamant that Bernstein must die, so this compelled Siegel to fly to New York City in order to plead his case in person for the death penalty for Bernstein.

  The National Crime Commission’s justice system worked as follows:

  Every man who was targeted to die by someone, was allowed to have his case pleaded in a makeshift court, usually by someone with pull within the organization. The man who took Bernstein's part was none other than Abe Reles, who had not yet turned canary and was still very much alive. As was shown when he took the stand against his old friends, Reles had a way with words, and he could be very convincing when he got the urge, which considering his career, was quite often.

  The sit-down took place in midtown hotel room, with a nine-member panel deciding on the fate of Bernstein, of which there was no appeal process in place. Siegel pleaded his case first, firmly stating that Bernstein was on a job and not only had disobeyed direct orders, but had fled the scene before his job was completed. Siegel pointed out that the penalty for Bernstein’s actions was death. Period.

  Now it was Reles's turn.

  Reles began by saying he was calling no witnesses. He also admitted that his client, Bernstein, had indeed fled California before he was able to steal the much-needed second murder car. Then Reles went on to explain why his client was completely innocent of all the charges.

  Reles told the panel, “The same day Ben gave him the contract, Sholem got word from New York that his mama is going to cash in. Sholem is a good boy. His mama is dying; he figures he should go there. You all know how a mama is. It makes it easier for her to go if her boy is sitting there by the bed, saying nice things – like he loves her and she is getting better and like that.”

  “So Sholem doesn't even think of a contract. He don't think of nothing. He lams it out of L.A. and hustles home to be with his mother when she checks out. He drives day and night. All he wants is to hold her hand. He is a good boy.”

  Reles put his chin up into the air and raised his voice an octave. “And that gentlemen,” he said, “that is why Sholem left town. Not on account of ducking the contract. But on account his mama is kicking off.”

  When Reles had finished, there was not a dry eye in the room; not even Ben Siegel's.

  Bernstein was unanimously acquitted, and Ben Siegel flew back to California, only to have his own murder contract approved by the National Crime Syndicate and summarily executed on June 20, 1947.

  Guinan, Texas -- Queen of the Nightclubs

  She was a cowgirl who could shoot a gun with the best of them, a singer of sorts, a better actress than a singer, and a gal-pal of the biggest and meanest mobsters of her time. Thanks to her underworld connections, Texas Guinan will forever be known as the “Queen of the Nightclubs.”

  Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan was born on January 12, 1884, in Waco, Texas. She was the daughter of Irish-Canadian immigrants, Michael and Bessie (née Duffy) Guinan. Called “Mamie” at the time, Guinan attended Loretta Convent Catholic School, and she sang in the church choir. When she was 16, her parents moved to a ranch in Denver, Colorado. It was on her father's ranch where Guinan learned how to ride, rope, and tame wild horses.

  A year after her family arrived in Denver, Guinan won a scholarship to the School of the Dramatic Arts in Chicago where she studied for the next two years. When she returned home, Guinan graduated from the illustrious Hollins School for Girls.

  But as much as she loved singing and dancing, Guinan was more enamored with the Wild West Shows that frequently appeared in the Denver area. Practicing at her father's farm and at local shooting ranges, Guinan became an expert with a six-shooter. Soon, Guinan was appearing in Wild West Shows, and in rodeos, which were then called “roundups.” In 1904, while she was staring in a Wild West Show in Denver, Guinan met and married John J. Moynahan, a newspaper artist of very little note. That marriage lasted five years, and it ended when Moynahan took a newspaper job in Boston and Guinan relocated to New York City to begin, albeit slowly at first, her unparalleled career.

  When she arrived in New York City, Guinan was nearly broke. She lived in a seedy two-dollar a-week hotel in Washington Square and spent her daylight hours scouring the offices of casting agents looking for a job.

  During her marriage to Moynahan, Guinan had learned the art of illustrating to add to her many skills. That came in handy, when one day as she was window-shopping in Manhattan, Guinan spotted a Great Arrow automobile in a car dealership display window, which sold for the astronomical sum of $4,500. At that time there were only 8,000 cars built in the United States. Guinan emptied out her pockets, and she came up with enough cash to buy paper and a few pencils. She then started to sketch the Great Arrow, and when she was finished she was able to sell the illustration to an advertising agency for the fancy sum of $500, more money than most people made in a year in those days.

  With her newly-found cash, Guinan upgraded her digs, and she was able to persuade a theatrical agent to take her on as a client. Almost immediately, Guinan got a part in a play entitled The Snow Man. Her performance in The Snow Man was so critically acclaimed, Guinan caught the eye of Charles Dana Gibson, who immortalized in his “Gibson Girls” pen-and-ink drawings of what he thought the “perfect woman” should look like. Gibson, highlighting the 5-foot-6-inch Guinan's hourglass figure and long shapely legs, sketched several drawings of Guinan. Guinan used these drawings as a springboard to a Broadway career, where she appeared on stage, sometimes in a basket above the stage, singing such inane ditties as Pansies Always Bring Thoughts of You.

  Guinan was now a star on Broadway, and she also appeared in several Vaudeville shows, showcasing her shapely figure and somewhat interesting singing talents. Her most famous gig was when she was one of the stars in the 1913 Shubert Brother's Broadway extravaganza Passing Show, which also starred Willie and Eugene Howard, Trixie Friganza, and Charlotte Greenwood.

  Due to her success in the Passing Show, Guinan was approached by an enterprising weight-loss promoter. Eager to make a buck any way she could, Guinan allowed the weight-loss promoter, who ran ads in Variety offering a “Marvelous New Treatment for Fat Folks,” to use her shapely body in an ad, in which Guinan stated, “I was made a star of the Passing Show on account of my glorious figure... and mind you, I was doomed to oblivion just a short time before when I tipped the scales at 204 pounds.”

  That was a slight fib, since Guinan never weighed more than 136 pounds in her entire life.

  While Guin
an was basking in the limelight of Broadway, out west in Hollywood a new phenomenon was taking place. It was called the cowboy movie, and its biggest star was William S. Hart, known as the “King of the Cowboys.” Because of her unique abilities, Guinan was the perfect woman to segue into cowboy movies.

  “I could twirl a lariat, rope a steer, ride, shoot, and beat any tobacco-chewin' cowpoke,” Guinan said.

  Guinan's big break came when she was performing at the Winter Garden Theater.

  “We poor girls were always looking for some new stunt whereby to distinguish ourselves,” Guinan later said. “So when I asked the manager (of the Winter Garden) if I might ride a horse down the runway instead of merely dancing down, he said 'All right if you don't kill too many customers.' I admit most of them got under their seats when they saw me ride my snow-white charger thundering down the runway above their heads, all dressed up in black lace chaps and swinging a lariat. After the show, the movie man signed me up for a two-reel western. And what a time I had!”

  The movie, released in 1917, was called The Wildcat. At that time, it was one and done for Guinan as a cowgirl in movies. So after shooting The Wildcat, Guinan traveled back to New York City and began appearing in Vaudeville again.

  However, Harry Aitken, who owned the Triangle Film Corporation in Yonkers, saw potential in Guinan to become the female William S. Hart. It's not clear who approached whom about the idea, but in 1917 Aitken signed Guinan to do a series of two-reel cowboy movies. In October and November of 1917, Guinan starred in three cowboy movies: Get Away Kate, Fuel of Life and The Stainless Barrier. Guinan followed in 1918 with The Gun Woman, The Love Brokers, and The Hellcat.

  Over the next several years, Guinan stared in 36 westerns (she said it was over 300, but Guinan was known to exaggerate), and she was called in Hollywood the “Queen of the Cowgirls,” as well as the “Female William S. Hart.”

  When Prohibition became law, Guinan saw the opportunity to get out of “kissing horses in horse operas.” She went back to New York City, and in 1923 Guinan got a job as Mistress of Ceremonies at the Beaux Arts, a popular (illegal) nightclub. A few weeks later, the Knickerbocker Hotel hired Guinan to be Mistress of Ceremonies at the hotel's King Cole Room. Frequent customers were such thespians as Rudolph Valentino and John Barrymore.

  Guinan decided with her new career she needed a complete physical makeover. Casting off her cowgirl image, Guinan dyed her brunette hair to a radiant blond. She also started wearing clusters of diamonds and low-cut dresses, with a Stetson hat haughtily perched on top of her new blond hair. At the King Cole Room, Guinan sang her whole repertoire of songs, with much gusto if not with great vocal talent.

  One of the men who caught Guinan's act at the King Cole Room was ex-con Larry Fey. Fey was a small-time criminal with 40 arrests on his record, mostly for minor offenses. Fey operated a cab business and all his cabs were decorated with swastikas. This was not because Fey was a proponent of the Nazi Party, but because he won a ton of money betting on a long-shot horse named Scotch Verdict, whose blanket carried the swastika symbol which was not yet associated with the Nazi Party. Fey was so enamored with the swastika, he placed the symbol not only on his cabs, but also on his shirts, luggage, and other personal belongings.

  Fey was so successful with his cab company, he tried to list it on the American Stock Exchange, which was then known as the Curb Exchange. However, due to his criminal record, the Curb Exchange turned Fey down flat. So Fey decided to use his cabs for a new branch of his business.

  As an exploratory trip, Fey traveled to the Canadian border in one of his cabs. When he got there, Fey loaded his cab with illegal booze, and he brought the booze back to New York City to serve in one of the several dive speakeasies he was involved in with known gangsters. Realizing he had hit pay dirt with his new idea, Fey then used fleets of his cabs to run booze back and forth from the Canadian border to New York City.

  Because of his involvement with illegal rum-running during Prohibition, Fey was real tight with celebrity gangsters like Owney Madden and Frenchy DeMange, who were partners in the upscale Cotton Club in Harlem. Fey, his pockets now brimming with cash, wanted an upscale nightclub (speakeasy) of his own. And in Texas Guinan, Fey saw his meal ticket to success. Fey took Guinan in as a partner (along with Madden and DeMange), and they opened a nightclub with the uninspired name of El Fey.

  Fey was the man with the money behind the scenes, but Guinan was the upfront star of the show. She sat in the middle of the main room on a tall chair and greeted every customer with her customary “Hello Sucker!” In her hand Guinan held a clapper, or a noisemaker, and sometimes a police whistle, which she was not averse to using. Before, after, and sometimes during the floor show, Guinan would engage her customers with wisecracks, and sometimes, downright insults. But it was all in good fun.

  One of her customers once said, Guinan was “Never at a loss for a retort discourteous. It was her custom to encourage heckling rather than frown on it.”

  Guinan coined the term “butter and eggs man” referring to a rich customer. And she often said when someone had too much to drink, that "a man could get real hurt falling off a bar stool."

  For her stage shows, Guinan employed 40 scantily-clad young ladies, performing in groups and sometimes individually; singing and dancing and doing other uncategorized cutesy performances. (A policeman, who raided the joint, once held a 4-by-6-inch piece of cloth which was one of Guinan's dancer's entire outfit.) The stage was so tiny, when the 40-girl chorus line went into full leg-kicking mode during an especially festive song, the girls sometimes fell into the laps of the well-heeled customers, some legitimate businessmen, some not so legitimate.

  “It's not my girl's fault,” Guinan once told the police, who said her girls were intentionally sexually engaging the customers. “It's because the place is so crowded, my girls have no place to go.”

  Whenever one of her girls finished a solo performance, Guinan always bellowed to the crowd, “Give the little lady a great big hand!”

  One day, an enterprising Prohibition Agent infiltrated the premises, and he spotted a waiter selling a bottle of Scotch to a customer. The agent immediately jumped to his feet and yelled to one of his cohorts in the crowd concerning Guinan, “Give the little lady a great big handcuff!”

  When El Fey was raided, and it happened quite often, Guinan, as she was being led from the premises by the police, would yell to her band to play The Prisoner's Song as she made her grand exit in handcuffs.

  When the joint was jumping, and it was jumping every night, Guinan would yell to the crowd, “Thank the Lord for Prohibition!”

  The crowd would yell back, “Why Tex?”

  She would smile and say, “Because I would be out of a job without it.”

  Speaking of Prohibition, at the time it was estimated there were 32,000 speakeasies in New York City alone. El Fey was one of the most expensive. Even though Guinan swore she didn't sell illegal alcohol on the premises, and she also swore she never took a drink in her life (which was the truth), a bottle of whatever booze you liked cost $25 at the El Fey. And if you brought in your own libation, setups cost five bucks a person.

  Not too shabby.

  After one-too-many busts, El Fey closed its doors for good; or more correctly, the police padlocked El Fey for good. So, Fey and Guinan moseyed on a couple of blocks from El Fey and opened the Del Fey Club. Soon, Guinan was “packing them in like sardines” again.

  However, the police, not being as stupid as Guinan and Fey thought they were, closed down the Del Fey Club in a matter of weeks.

  The New York Times wrote: “After Federal agents, fortified with writs and warrants, hauled her into court ... the indefatigable hostess moved into the Texas Guinan Club at 117 West Forty-Eight Street .... And her coterie willingly followed...”

  The Texas Guinan Club was such a success that Hollywood, in the name of Paramount Pictures honcho B.P. Schulberg, summoned Guinan again; this time to star as herself in the 1924 movie Ni
ght Life in New York. Her co-stars included Rod LaRocque, Ernest Torrence, Dorothy Gish, Helen Lee Worthing, and George Hackethorne. The title editor was Guinan’s ex-husband No. 2, Julian Johnson.

  Night Life in New York opened at the Rivoli Theater in New York City on July 12, 1924, the same week the prohibition agents and the local police shut down more than 30 New York City speakeasies, one of which was the Texas Guinan Club. Guinan was arrested at her club, put in handcuffs, and led from the premises, as the band again played “The Prisoner's Song.”

  On August 4, 1924, Guinan and her lawyer Harold Content met with Assistant United States Attorney Frederic C. Bellinger. Guinan insisted that she was not aware of any liquor was being sold in her club, and that in fact, she was only an employee of Larry Fey anyway and should not be held responsible for anything illegal that transpired at the club. Fey also appeared before Bellinger and confirmed what Guinan had said. Guinan worked for him, Fey said, and in no way did she have any real ownership in the Texas Guinan Club. Bellinger refused to press charges against Guinan, but he gave Fey a slap on the wrist by forcing him to close down the Texas Guinan Club for six months.

  Unfazed, Guinan and Fey hightailed it to Miami, where in weeks they opened the Miami Del Fey Club. Guinan immediately went to work, taking a little time off to divorce her third husband, George Townley.

  Guinan explained why she was a three-time failure at marriage: “It's having the same man around the house all the time that ruins matrimony.”

  (Author’s note: In Jimmy Breslin's biography on Damon Runyon, Breslin stated that Guinan was “a big loud lesbian.” I have trouble believing a woman married and divorced three times could be a lesbian. Possible, but not likely. But since Breslin was around in those days, and I wasn't, I'll give Breslin the benefit of the doubt.)