A Bloody Business

by Dylan Struzan

  Charlie says, “Remember the guy that was gunned down in front of the doctor’s office? Al Mineo organized that hit. Mineo wanted to move up the ladder. He bided his time while Joe the Boss made his moves and got stronger. Mineo’s boss refused to submit to Joe the Boss’ demands. Mineo made a quick alliance with Joe. In turn, Joe gave him the nod to take out his boss, which he did. The guy’s wife and kids watched from the car as the whole thing went down.

  “Suddenly, Mineo becomes Joe’s constant companion, advising him about the Castellammarese in Brooklyn. And—” Charlie pounds a fist into the palm of the other hand. “Jesus, I didn’t realize it until just now but that move Mineo made on my cousin, Mike…I bet he knew Mike was my cousin. He wanted to get something over on me. Like a dog marking his territory. Son of a bitch!”

  Charlie turns sullen and stares out at the river, allowing the revelation to sink in.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he says looking at his watch. “I asked Jimmy to stop by the garage. I want you to meet him. He’s the guy I was tellin’ you about that came to me about Mike. He’s a stand-up guy. Did three-and-a-half out of a five-year stretch in Dannemora for a jewel heist. Never said a word to nobody. Remember when we wanted to stir up a little trouble on the docks for Frankie Yale? He’s the guy I sent to take care of business because of his ties with the Irish. He knows how to move among them, Meyer. I told him to come by the garage ’cause he’ll be getting his whiskey from Red. Mostly, he’s in the beer business. I want your guys to get to know him.”

  Meyer looks up and down the street.

  “We’ll never get a cab in this neighborhood,” he says.

  They hustle north along the river. Cabs line the streets next to the ocean liners’ berths. They hand the taxi hailer a dollar and make it to the Cannon Street garage with time to spare.

  Moe Sedway is busy with the car and truck rentals in the front office. Moe is eight years Meyer’s senior, small and understated except for his heft which makes him self-conscious around the younger, fitter boys. He is relaxed under the heat of business which makes him a valuable player.

  Meyer says, “Keep your eye out for an Italian guy. His name is Jimmy Alo. Show him to my office when he gets here. After that, let Red know I’d like to see him.”

  “Sure, Meyer,” Moe says.

  Meyer and Charlie disappear into the small office with the potbellied stove. Meyer throws a log into the stove. He and Charlie hover over the flame and try to divine the meaning of the Cleveland meeting as the winter freeze loses its grip on their extremities.

  Charlie says, “There’s more to the greaser story. A few weeks ago, Aiello came to see Joe the Boss demanding Al back off. Aiello said he offered Al the East side of Chicago. He seemed surprised that Al told him to take a hike. Aiello is demanding Joe the Boss put a collar on Al like it’s some kinda test of Joe’s leadership. Joe is smart enough not to take the bait, naturally, so Aiello hightails it back to Chicago and sends word back that it ain’t safe for Joe the Boss to come to Chicago no more. Aiello was at the Cleveland meeting. Porrello wants to head up Cleveland. What does that tell you?”

  Meyer says, “You said Joe the Boss is using Mineo as his consigliere to keep tabs on the Sicilians?”

  “I guess I ain’t on his dance card anymore,” Charlie says.

  The news is disappointing. Charlie has been the voice of reason, mitigating Joe’s otherwise volatile nature, but even more than that, his position as confidante has provided him and Meyer with vital information for making their own moves. Joe the Boss benefited from this, too. His take of Charlie’s business increased. However, Mineo’s position has weakened Charlie’s strategic influence.

  Meyer says, “If Mineo counsels war…the Sicilians can’t blame you if Joe the Boss listens to Mineo, nor can they blame you for following the orders of your boss. Should the wannabe Caesar get the upper hand, he will be forced to take that into consideration.”

  There’s a knock. Moe brings Jimmy Alo to the door. Charlie motions him inside.

  Charlie says, “Jimmy, you know who this is?”

  Jimmy is no fool. Everybody knows Meyer Lansky. He speaks for and to the Jews. He is razor-sharp with ideas and connections around town and across the Eastern seaboard.

  Alo nods.

  Charlie says, “Tell Meyer how you wound up with the Irish, Jimmy.”

  Alo shrugs. “Things just worked out. I done a few things with some of the guys, we made a few bucks, I never tried to cheat nobody. I guess they trust me.”

  Meyer says, “What happened with the guys that were bulling Mike?”

  “I told ’em Mike’s with me. What are they gonna say? They seen me around. I told ’em a move against Mike is a move against me. I gave ’em my name and suggested they check around before they make a move that ain’t in their favor. I guess they did ’cause they didn’t bother Mike after that.”

  Charlie says, “Jimmy, some of the guys are getting together later tonight at the Cotton Club. After that, we’ll go to Polly Adler’s joint for breakfast. You wanna come along?”

  “Sure,” Alo says and then Red Levine pokes his head in the door.

  “Show Jimmy around,” Meyer says. “He’s gonna be coming around now for whiskey.”

  Red nods, catching the drift. He leads Alo out.

  “How’d you find this guy?” Meyer says.

  “He found me,” Charlie says. “He knew Mike was my cousin. He saw what was going on with the greasers. So he asked one of my guys to talk to me. He wanted to come around and tell me about Mike. Mike ain’t no gang guy. Those bastards woulda killed him to get his business. I give Jimmy the O.K. to do what he had to do. Jimmy ain’t the kind of guy to back down when he’s got a .38 in somebody’s ribs. The greasers didn’t want to mess with Jimmy, so they left Mike alone. There’s easier game around every corner. Later, I find out Jimmy’s with the Irish, Johnny Dunn and Eddie McGrath, them guys. Tough sons of bitches, the Irish.”

  Meyer opens the front of the potbellied stove and throws on another log. Embers fly. He attributes the latest surge of greaser interference to the moves of Maranzano. Add to that Mussolini’s purge of the Italian Mafia which amounts to little more than exporting Italy’s violence to other countries, and there’s trouble on the streets of New York, as if there wasn’t enough trouble already. The problem for a guy like Meyer is that he sees the greater value in being invisible where these guys imagine being seen is the same as being powerful.

  Meyer says, “I don’t get guys like Yale. Street violence is bad for business.”

  Charlie says, “You’re preaching to the choir.”

  Meyer says, “How do we put an end to it?”

  “It’s gotta be a purge of the old greaser thinking. Sooner or later Joe the Boss and Salvatore Maranzano will square off. They don’t back down. They win or die tryin’.”

  “Then that’s the move we wait for,” Meyer says, and then responding to Charlie’s look, “It’s a chess game.”

  Charlie laughs. He’s Italian, not Jewish. He plays cards. Scopa, most of the time, as a kid, around the kitchen table with his siblings when he wasn’t occupied with something more important like robbing or stealing. As the name suggests, the object of the game is to “sweep” all the cards from the table. Skill and chance are the defining elements.

  Chess, Meyer never tires of explaining to him, is a game of strategy.

  Meyer says, “In chess, you want to control the center of the board. The Tenderloin is the center of our board. Our guys earn. Other guys see that. They want a piece of the pie but they gotta come through us to get that piece. We know that the guys who earn have an interest in protecting their territory. It’s the Americanized Italians that see the lay of the land. The greasers’ biggest mistake is thinking they’re the only game in town. They’re still playing Scopa. They forget about the Jews and the Irish. That’s to our advantage. They call it chess blindness when a player misses a good move or fails to see an obvious danger. Look at the board, Charlie. Then we’ll d
ecide how to make the best move possible. I say we should let this conflict come to a head between the greasers. When they declare war, they will disrupt the boys who are earning. The Americanized guys will want the war settled.”

  “You think so?” Charlie says.

  Meyer says, “We have the connections to make a stand against the violence. Costello brought the Irish around with his Tammany connections. Jimmy is connected to the street Irish, the guys on the docks. We must make sure we make our move before the government shuts us all down but not before the boys see what these greasers are really doing. Otherwise, the reformers will come out and bootleggers won’t be able to walk down the street.”

  “Don’t forget we got an ally in Capone,” Charlie says.

  “Let’s talk,” Meyer says.

  Arranging a face-to-face with Capone proves fortuitous. Capone has fled the mind-numbing cold of Chicago to winter in Miami, Florida, where he has purchased a Spanish Mediterranean home built in 1922 by Clarence Busch, the beer baron. It seems only natural that the current beer baron of Chicago fork over the forty grand for the purchase. He puts the house in his wife’s name, just in case. His tropical bliss, in the form of seven bedrooms, seven baths, and 30,000 square feet of waterfront property, sits on its own little spit of land.

  Capone surveys the landscape and concludes that 93 Palm Avenue is the only place to be when the midwest gets hammered with cold. His Floridian bliss convinces him that he is now the generous benefactor of paradise. Capone thumps his chest with his thumb. Ash from his stogie falls on his shirt. He sweeps off the ash and then gestures toward the blue-green water of Biscayne Bay. He looks Jack McGurn in the eye.

  “I want the New York boys to know they have my personal invitation to come down anytime. Anytime. I could use a little company.”

  McGurn nods. The boss is uneasy. A visit from Charlie would be a welcome relief. He calls in Tony Accardo, his latest recruit, to travel to New York and extend Capone’s invitation to Charlie Lucky and his top aides. Accardo packs an overnight bag and heads north.

  McGurn, born Vincenzo Antonio Gibaldi in Licata, Sicily, came to America in 1906. When Prohibition rolled around, he set up a speakeasy, the Green Mill, in the middle of Bugs Moran’s territory and used his boxing skills to acquire entertainment. Last November, Jack persuaded Joe E. Lewis not to move his act to another speakeasy by slitting his throat and leaving him for dead. His ruthless nature makes him a valued player in the Chicago outfit. Currently, both Capone and McGurn are seething to take the North Side from the Irish. They sit around the pool and toss ideas back and forth. So far, a doable plan has not been forthcoming.

  Tony Accardo reaches New York City and heads straight to Charlie Luciano’s apartment. He waves two rail tickets and tells Charlie the boss extends his deepest wishes that he will come down to Florida and enjoy a break from the cold.

  “It’s Miami Beach, for god’s sake,” Accardo says. “You can walk around in a bathing suit. Bring whoever you want. If you ain’t got nobody, there’s plenty of broads down there.”

  For appearances, Charlie doesn’t want to jump at the invitation.

  Accardo says, “Look outside. Miami is seventy-six degrees and balmy.”

  He places the rail tickets on the table next to the golden reindeer.

  “In case you’re in the mood,” Accardo says. “The boss calls it ‘the Sunny Italy of the New World.’”

  Charlie sits down in the overstuffed chair and smokes a cigarette. He and Accardo shoot the bull.

  “I been to Florida,” Charlie says. “It ain’t Italy.”

  Accardo says, “Then you know about the goddamn Palmetto bugs.”

  He means the cockroach with black spots for eyes that look more like sunglasses. A grown man will pull a weapon in self-defense. It happens all the time.

  Charlie picks up the rail tickets and reads the fine print, passage from New York to Miami, first class.

  “I might just go for this,” he says.

  Accardo is relieved. He moans about Chicago and the Canadian winds that whip across Lake Michigan and freeze to the bone. He says Miami ain’t really that bad when you consider a Chicago winter.

  When Accardo leaves, Charlie calls Meyer.

  By evening they’re settled in a Pullman car on the Florida East Coast Railway heading for Miami. Meyer and Charlie kick back and kill time. They take meals in the dining car, after which they play cards in the recreation car where fake palms stand guard over small card tables. When boredom sets in, they return to the private car to talk shop. The twenty-eight-hour journey transforms the landscape from sheet white to impenetrable green.

  When Meyer steps from the train, hit with humidity and temperatures in the 80s, he says, “I over-packed.”

  Capone has drinks and food set out around the pool. He is particularly fond of a new concoction picked up from Havana, a Cuba Libre.

  “If you want, I’ll take ya down to Cuba. It’s the rage for hot shots.” Capone runs a Cuban cigar under his nose. “I got just the boat to take us there.”

  He nods to a 36-foot V-bottom Robinson Seagull dubbed the Flying Cloud.

  Meyer eyes the chop on the ocean with suspicion. “We just got off the train.”

  “This baby don’t pound over the waves,” Capone says. “It’s a real smooth ride.”

  Capone takes a long series of contemplative puffs on his cigar.

  “Americans are crazy over the place,” he says. “Gambling is legal. Hell, everything’s legal. You should see some of the side shows they got in different clubs.”

  Mae, Capone’s wife, makes her way from the house to the pool sporting a mock-sailor top and white linen pants. Her blonde hair, combed to one side, falls to her shoulders. The glow of a budding suntan makes it obvious that she has taken to the Floridian lifestyle with ease.

  “Why don’t you take your guests out on the boat, dear?” she says. “I’m sure they would enjoy a little fresh air after being confined on a train for that long.”

  Al smiles. He pulls out a roll of cash from his pocket and puts it in Mae’s hand.

  “Buy the boy some toys,” he says. “And a new outfit for yourself.”

  Mae looks at Jack McGurn and says, “See that he gets some exercise, will you, Jack?”

  “Yes, Mae,” Jack says with a convincing smile.

  When Mae is well out of earshot, Charlie says, “You heard about the Sicilian meeting up in Cleveland?”

  Capone nods, “Just another headache. Lolordo was there. He’s headin’ up the Unione now.”

  “I heard,” Charlie says.

  “I told him he should go. Be my eyes and ears. He said it was some big hoopla on the part of Porrello who wants the backing of the Sicilian fathers. Porrello wanted to impress these yahoos so he booked the conference at a fancy hotel. If there was more to it than that, they never got around to discussin’ it before they all got pinched. Apparently, they don’t like the Unione being called Italo-American, like Lolordo made it, at my suggestion. These guys don’t get it. They want to keep it an exclusive club. They ain’t got no vision, these Sicilians.”

  Capone draws on his cigar and watches his reflection ripple across the surface of the water in the pool.

  “Goddamn Sicilians, eh Charlie? Goddamn schemin’ Sicilians. You better have both your pockets sewed shut when you meet with those bastards. Come on, I got something to show ya.”

  They board the Flying Cloud and settle into the seats at the stern. Capone fires up the engine. Jack McGurn throws off the bowline. Capone noses the boat northward. McGurn releases the stern line and jumps aboard. Capone motors away from the shore then opens the engine wide. The hull slaps the water hard before the nose rises, allowing the V-hull to break the waves and smooth out the ride.

  “Where the hell was this boat when we were running out to the mothership?” Meyer shouts over the roar of the engine.

  Capone yells back, “I’m gonna show you my little secret. I’m puttin’ in a gambling joint up the Interc
oastal, a town called Deerfield.”

  “What’s in Deerfield?” Charlie asks.

  “My own peninsula,” Capone yells.

  It takes nearly forty minutes for them to cover the distance from paradise to Al’s gambling dream. He shows off a 53-acre, triangular-shaped tract of land. He plans to build a $250,000 nightclub/casino. Capone slowly navigates the waterways on either side of the land: the Spanish River on the east and the Hillsboro River on the southwest. Red and white mangroves filled with egrets pack the site. Turtles slog through the wetlands. A long, black snake zips through the undergrowth and around the trees to the water’s edge and then it is gone.

  Capone kills the engine.

  He says, “I’m gonna put a joint here just like the one I put in Lake Arrowhead. You know the place? A hundred miles east of Los Angeles and straight up the mountain. The Hollywood set vacations up there. You ever see the movie Mantrap with Clara Bow? The whole thing was filmed up there. All them New York Jew directors moved to California for the weather. They film all year round. Smart sons-a-bitches. They’re making a bundle off all that sunshine. George Raft thinks he’s gonna be the next Casanova. There’s lots of broads and they’re all hopping from bed to bed. Joe and Benny would be in hog heaven. We put in a tunnel that runs between the brothel and the casino up there so guys can slip from one place to the other for a little action without disturbing the wife, if you know what I mean. It’s a helluva place. Show ’em the brochure, Jack.”

  McGurn pulls a folded pamphlet from his pocket. Club Arrowhead of the Pines, with its Olympic-sized swimming pool and private casino, outshines Saratoga’s glory, not quite as lavish, but easily as romantic.

  “This will be even better. This is my own private island. All we gotta do is dredge out some of this land. These resort towns are real money-makers. Easier than runnin’ bootleg, eh? It’s the future for guys like you and me. But, if you want my real opinion,” Capone says, “the big money is in the Hollywood unions. You should be thinkin’ about gettin’ into that business.”