A Bloody Business

by Dylan Struzan

  Jimmy spits blood. He throws a left uppercut that flies wild. The brawl is on. Sweat, spit, and blood spatter on a growing circle of men not the least of which is Owney Madden and his partner, Big Frenchy DeMange.

  Eddie steps back from the circle to save his suit.

  “What’s this?” Madden says.

  “A guy just outta the can,” Eddie says.

  Madden puts twenty bucks on the guinea just as Jimmy takes a devastating punch to the face. Jimmy sways and falls to the ground. He takes a deep breath and staggers to his feet.

  “Put your fists down, man,” the Irishman says. “If Eddie says you’re O.K., that’s good enough for me.”

  Benny Siegel joins the crowd as the action ends.

  “What’s this?” Benny says.

  “Some guinea just out of jail,” Madden says.

  “Jimmy Blue Eyes,” Eddie McGrath says. “He’s all right.”

  Benny says, “I heard he’s a tough little bastard.”

  Eddie laughs. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  Madden says, “Siegel, what the hell kinda dance was that you were doin’ at the club last night? You had the ladies all fired up.”

  Benny says, “The Harlem Strut? Ain’t you ever heard of it? I got another one for you.” He dangles two fingers on either side of his face mocking the unshorn locks of the Black Hats, then shuffles, Groucho Marx style, along the dock. “The Hasidic Shuffle. Drives ’em wild on the Lower East Side!”

  “Stick to what you do best,” Madden says. “And when you find the time, send over some more of that Canadian whiskey. We’re running dry.”

  Benny says, “You’re just jealous.”

  The various shipments that find their way from the twelve-mile limit to the Bronx docks are divvied-up among the bootleggers. Jimmy Alo walks away with the growing respect of the Irish. Eddie McGrath connects with a jewel thief and buys his wife the gold necklace of her dreams.

  * * *

  Eighteen people are taken away in the latest raid on the El Fey Club. Across town, Duke Ellington opens at the Cotton Club. It is December and the weather is promising a white Christmas. Owney Madden sits back and takes in the show. Fake banana trees fill the stage, posing as palm trees. No one in New York seems to know the difference.

  Plumed hoochie-coochie girls tap and sway and shimmy in a surplus of feathers. They look more like Zulu warriors than a chorus line. The Duke and his boys roll through a dozen numbers. The Duke calls his new musical style “the jungle beat” for the sake of the bohemians trying to escape the moralists’ restraints.

  Feathers fly.

  “Ziegfeld never thought of this,” Abe Zwillman says to the table of powerful Jews enjoying Duke Ellington’s opening night.

  Samuel Bronfman is on one of his goodwill tours. He uses as much as his six-month visa will allow taking in what New York offers while surrounding himself with the Czars of Bootleg, not so much for the business value but for the prestige of their company.

  Mae West floods into the club with an entourage. Last year, only fans of the Shubert revues knew who she was, but after writing and starring in her own Broadway show, Sex, and spending ten days in the workhouse on the charge of presenting an indecent public performance, she has become a public hero.

  She saunters through the Cotton Club in a black satin dress and white mink, takes a seat at Madden’s table.

  Abe Zwillman turns to Bronfman. He hints at Annenberg’s recent acquisition, a controlling interest in Mont Tennes General News Bureau. The racing wire, as the “news bureau” is called, gives the public an opportunity to bet on any race anywhere they choose. The law prohibits gambling outside the racetrack but Annenberg insists that people who can’t take time off from their jobs shouldn’t be deprived of a strand of hope.

  Zwillman says, “New York is cracking down on gambling to keep Tammany happy. It’s something to think about.”

  Walter Winchell buzzes his way into the club. Madden waves him over to rub shoulders with Mae West.

  Bronfman says, “Did you hear that George Remus shot and killed his wife? He’s calling it justifiable homicide.”

  Remus seems to be fighting a long run of bad luck. While in jail, he was won over by an undercover Prohibition agent posing as an inmate. Remus let it slip that his wife had control of his millions. The agent quit his job in favor of wining and dining Mrs. Remus. The couple liquidated all that George had acquired. Then Imogene Remus filed for divorce.

  Meyer Lansky says, “She gave him a hundred bucks. Remus, worth millions, and she gave him a hundred bucks.”

  “Every Jewish mother’s nightmare,” Zwillman says.

  “Justifiable homicide,” Bronfman says.

  Two tables away, Eddie McGrath slides an egg-blue box tied with a white ribbon toward his wife. She tugs at the ribbon then opens the box. Inside the box is a pearl, diamond, and emerald lavaliere necklace.

  She takes the necklace from the box. All anger drains from her countenance.

  * * *

  Henry Ford’s Christmas present to the Jews is an apology for a recent slew of articles printed in the Dearborn Independent asserting that Aaron Sapiro was the principal in a Jewish plot to control agriculture. Aaron Sapiro organizes cooperatives of farmers and fruit growers in California and no accusations to the contrary can change that fact. The defamatory articles bore Henry Ford’s name though he denies having penned them. Sapiro filed suit for a million dollars for the libelous allegations.

  The trial had occupied the press for months but before Ford could take the stand, he was injured in an auto accident. The trial ended with an out-of-court settlement.

  Meyer Lansky picks up the phone and calls Sapiro.

  “Congratulations,” Meyer says. “I didn’t know you could get an apology from an anti-Semite.”

  Sapiro says, “What’s a million dollars to a guy like that? He is the richest man in America. The apology is a small price to pay for the damage he’s done by the things that he wrote. That said…”

  “Yes?” Meyer says.

  “Only in America can we sue…and win.”

  Meyer says, “You specialize in corporate law? I would like to meet with you and discuss the formation of a corporation that handles grain. Can you come to New York?”

  Chapter Twelve

  It’s All How You Spin the Story

  1928

  The plaintiff, John Barrett, still in a heated rage over being shot, is in the hospital recovering. Two detectives flank his bed coaxing him to give up the perpetrators. Barrett measures out his accusations carefully. The detectives push harder. Barrett hesitates and then shakes his head.

  “No,” he says. “You don’t know these guys. They’ll go after my family.”

  “Let us worry about that,” the first detective says.

  “They tried to kill you,” the other detective says. “What good are you to your family if you’re dead?”

  Barrett looks at them with a steely eye, still refusing to talk.

  “Either you get them or they get you. That’s the jungle we live in. You tell us who to take care of and we will,” the first detective says.

  “And what good is a family to me if they’re dead? I can’t live with the guilt.”

  “It’s a little late to think about guilt, isn’t it?” the first detective says. “You’re already in the mess. Let us help you get out.”

  Barrett swallows hard. It is Benny Siegel’s fault he is in this mess. Benny flew off the handle. He slammed his car to a halt in front of an open field. Red opened the back-passenger door and kicked Barrett into the field. Barrett stood next to the car shouting wild accusations. Benny fumed. The more Barrett shot off his mouth, the less inclined Benny was to listen. Benny pulled out his Colt 1911A and took aim. Barrett began a dash for his life, running zigzag through the open field.

  Benny opened fire. Bullets flew wildly through the air, zipping past Barrett. Then two hit their mark, nothing serious, just enough to remind Barrett that crossing Benny Si
egel’s mob was a dangerous thing to do.

  That’s what really happened but there is no way in hell that he is going to tell that story to a couple of gumshoes. But sitting comfortably in his hospital bed after surgery while listening to the guys that might be able to do something to Benny has sparked Barrett’s desire for retaliation.

  “Joe Benzole,” Barrett sputters. “And Red Levine. They were in the car.”

  “An Italian and a Jew?” the other detective says. “What were you doing with them?”

  Ah, there it is, the question Barrett was dreading, the one that if answered truthfully will implicate him in a crime.

  “Driving around,” Barrett says.

  “Driving around?” the first detective says, incredulous. “Just driving around? And these guys opened fire on you?”

  “Yeah,” Barrett insists, confident that neither Benzole nor Levine are the kind of guys to spill the beans about the fur heist that raised Benny’s ire in the first place. “Just driving around.”

  “How did you wind up in the field? Was that before or after they shot you?”

  “Before,” Barrett says without thinking. “They kicked me out of the car and started shooting. What was I, a rabbit?”

  The detective narrows his eyes and bobs his head.

  “That’s how these things get started,” he says. “Anyone else in the car?”

  Barrett sits mum.

  “Who else was in the car?” the other detective pushes. “Another Italian? Another Jew?”

  Barrett curls his lip in disgust, “A Jew named Meyer Lansky.”

  “That’s it?” the first detective says. “Just the four of you?”

  Barrett blinks hard.

  “Just the four of us. I stand by that.”

  “Do you have addresses?”

  “Yeah,” Barrett says. “I know where they live.”

  The detectives jot down the addresses of the three men Barrett has fingered, stake out their homes, and haul them in for questioning. They deny the charges. Admit to knowing Barrett. Can’t imagine why he would make up a story to frame them.

  Barrett’s accusations still stick and Meyer Lansky, Joe Benzole and Red Levine, accused of attempted murder, find themselves sitting in jail waiting to see the judge.

  Benny hears of the arrests and grabs Moe Sedway.

  “Come on,” Benny says. “We got work to do.”

  The two of them drive to the factory where Barrett’s brother sweats as a cutter of men’s suits. The factory toils on. Waiting for the end of the shift, Benny and Moe occupy themselves with stories of scores gone wrong: the time Sammy took a bullet because he fell for a fake Prohibition road stop, the time Sammy got caught in Waxey Gordon’s hotel room spying on Arnold Rothstein and Waxey beaned him with an ashtray, the time the Irish kid was knocking over the kosher winery, the time Charlie went to a spaghetti dinner and lived to tell the tale, and the time John Barrett got away after stealing a load of furs and lying about it.

  “We ain’t the Musketeers,” Moe says. “It ain’t one for all and all for one.”

  “That ain’t what pisses me off with the cocksucker,” Benny says. “I would have let him off the hook but he lied. It ain’t the first time. Fucking ingrate. And then he blabs to the cops and fingers Meyer. He fingers Meyer, for Christ’s sake! What else will he tell the cops? We gotta shut this cocksucker up before he puts us all behind bars.”

  The factory bell rings, marking the close of the workday. Benny darts from the car and into the crowd pouring out onto the street. He spies Barrett’s brother, collar raised and head lowered. Benny is on him like a cat on a rat.

  “Relax,” Benny says cutting him from the crowd.

  Barrett’s brother gives a jerk and tries to run but Benny has his arm and shoves the Colt into his ribs.

  “I wouldn’t,” Benny says. “You can die right here or you can come with me and take your chances.”

  Fear courses through Barrett’s bones. He is the hard-working Barrett, the one who loves his mother. His heart pounds like a dove caught in a snare. He begins to sweat. Benny hustles him into the back of the roadster and tells Moe to hit it.

  “It’s easier if you cooperate,” Moe says over his shoulder.

  “I got nothing to do with my brother’s business,” Barrett says. “What he does, he does. I got no interest in anything. I don’t know anything.”

  Benny says, “You’re family, ain’t ya?”

  Barrett freezes, eyes forward and mouth shut, on the long haul to nowhere. Moe drives beyond the city limits through the small towns on Long Island. Finally, he stops at a phone booth set out beside the road.

  Benny ties Barrett’s hands behind his back with an eight-foot rope then drags him to the booth like a dog on a leash. He shoves Barrett into the phone booth and chucks a handful of change onto the small shelf beneath the phone.

  “I ain’t got a lot of patience,” Benny says. “You better make it convincing.”

  The blood has drained from Barrett’s body. His skin is pasty and clammy.

  “What?” he shivers. “Make what convincing?”

  “You standin’ here between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Benny says.

  Benny lifts the receiver, drops in a few coins and dials the operator. He asks for the hospital where John Barrett is recuperating and then shoves the receiver to the brother’s ear. The good son speaks.

  “J-J-John Barrett,” he says to the girl on the hospital switchboard.

  She rings the call through to the phone at the end of the ward where Barrett sits recuperating and where detectives stand at the ready waiting to catch more of the mob. The duty nurse answers the phone and then pads down the hall to Barrett’s room.

  “Your brother is on the phone. Do you want to speak to him?”

  Barrett swings his feet to the floor and slides them into a pair of well-worn leather slippers. It takes all his might to hobble down the hall. The detectives shadow him.

  “Hello?” Barrett says cautiously.

  The detectives step in close.

  Barrett turns his back and hunkers down for privacy. His brother is persuasive. Barrett’s eyes go wide. He cups his hand around the receiver and whispers a single sentence.

  “Don’t worry, Abe.”

  Quivering, John Barrett returns the handset to the cradle and gives the detective a numb stare. He shuffles back to his ward where he sits on the edge of his bed, silent and sullen.

  The detective says, “Talk to me, John. Are you going to let these gangsters get away with this? They shot you for God’s sake. Stand up to them and put them where they can’t hurt anyone else.”

  Barrett is silent.

  “John,” the detective says. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

  Barrett says, “Don’t you?”

  They stare at each other in silence. An eternity passes. Still, John remains resolute. The detective folds his notepad and tucks it into his coat pocket.

  “It’s a mistake, John,” the detective says. “You’ll regret this.”

  “I regret a lotta things,” John Barrett says. “This ain’t one of them.”

  The nurse says, “He needs to rest, detectives. He shouldn’t be under this much strain.”

  Meanwhile, the police precinct in Long Island City clamors through the daily barrage of complaints. The judge shuffles through the list of arrests. One name bleeds into another: a case for attempted robbery, another for felonious assault. It is all a day’s work. He calls Joe Benzole, Red Levine and Meyer Lansky to the bench to assess the evidence in the case against them.

  The judge looks over the top of his reading glasses at the three accused men. Joe Benzole, looking more like an immigrant than a citizen, is unrefined. Red Levine is rough-hewn. His steely eyes and arrest record convey a violent response to the ghetto’s hard knocks. Meyer Lansky, on the other hand, is well-dressed and respectable, with only one prior arrest that resulted in a paid fine. Meyer appears to be, as they say, the brain behind the brawn
.

  “I see the plaintiff is still in the hospital,” the judge says.

  “Yes, your Honor,” the prosecuting attorney says.

  “It says here he was shot while running through a field?” the judge says.

  “Yes, your Honor,” the prosecuting attorney says.

  The judge turns to the defense.

  “And these are the accused. Are there any others?”

  “No, your Honor,” the defense attorney says.

  “How do you plead?” the judge says.

  “Not guilty, your Honor.”

  “I don’t see mention of a weapon or any witnesses?”

  “No, your Honor.”

  The defense attorney steps forward and points out the obvious. Barrett admits he had business dealings with these men on numerous occasions. If it can be proved these dealings are illicit in nature, New York law does not allow the testimony of a co-conspirator in a crime.

  “Can you prove the plaintiff knows the defendants?”

  “Yes, sir, we can,” the defense attorney says. “Mr. Barrett’s character will be called into question. For all we know, he may have shot himself as some sort of reprisal. His wounds were not life threatening.”

  The judge looks over the defendants and then flips through the papers in the case folder. The court clerk steps up to the bench and passes a neatly folded paper to the judge. The judge reads the contents and sighs.

  He looks up from the paper and takes aim at Meyer.

  “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that I mistake a lack of evidence as a sign of innocence,” he says. “Gentlemen, the plaintiff has recanted his accusations. Case dismissed.”

  The court assistant gathers the case folder for processing and calls the next case. Meyer turns to his attorney and thanks him for his time.

  Joe Benzole makes a beeline for the door. Outside, his brother waits beside an idling taxi. Meyer and Red hit the sidewalk without sharing a word between them, hands in pockets, and eyes to the ground. In the distance, the 59th Street Bridge beckons to them, offering relative anonymity.

  Meyer boils at his mistake. Persuasion is better served away from the prying eyes of a neighborhood.