A Bloody Business
Page 56
Benny steps over Max and unloads what remains in the six-shooter into the slumped-over Greenberg, four extra shots to extirpate the rage over the bomb intended to kill him and Red Levine. Benny hunts through the suite but Waxey is nowhere to be found. He drops the gun to the floor and quickly exits the building through a service door before the police can be summoned.
Waxey, spooked by the commotion and hiding a few rooms away from Hassel’s suite, climbs out a window to escape the gunplay.
Benny meets up with Meyer, Charlie, and Abe Zwillman back in the Claridge.
“Waxey got away,” Benny says. “He was fucking some broad in another room. You ever try one of these goddamned silencers? Silence my ass. Piece of shit!”
Benny plots another attack while Waxey’s beer continues to flood the market in the Bronx and Yorkville in unswerving competition with the Dutchman. The Bugs and Meyer mob spreads its tentacles in all directions. The Internal Revenue Service does likewise. After two years of prepping for the case against Waxey Gordon, they aren’t about to lose their man over what they are calling a territorial dispute. Word goes out to law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout.
Waxey lies low in the Catskills. He listens to the birds sing and the wind blow through the trees, and the beating of his own black heart. Three weeks pass in quiet solitude. As far as the town knows, he’s just another tourist escaping the city to enjoy a little rest and relaxation in the Mansion House in White Lake. That’s the theory, anyway.
The trouble with Waxey’s theory is that it doesn’t take into account the uncomplicated nature of a resort town. Tourists who spend $1,500 renting a property are a curiosity. Tourists living in complete isolation are fodder for speculation. Tourists with bodyguards and fast cars and speedboats tied up at the dock in front of the lodge are definitely running from the law.
People talk. Talk gets around. The police find out. Soon enough, the IRS gets involved. The hotel is staked out. It doesn’t take long to confirm the presence of Waxey Gordon, even with a two-day growth. Troopers surround the lodge. In the early morning, before Waxey or his men stir, the police make their move. With weapons drawn, they push open the front door and find a sullen, dark-faced man who gives up readily, hands in the air. Upstairs, they find another man just getting out of bed. Under his pillow they find a .38 caliber revolver.
Moving to the next room, they come upon Waxey Gordon still fast asleep.
Waxey blinks awake, “What is it? What’s this all about?”
It’s all about, of course, turning Waxey Gordon and his men over to the Internal Revenue agents so he can be charged with tax evasion on $1,427,531.48 from the year 1931.
The broad-shouldered, thick-jawed Gordon chews on a cigar. The inconvenience of fingerprinting and mug shots annoy him, even more so the fact that he’s been caught by a bunch of yokels.
* * *
On April 27, three pedestrians are wounded in a shootout at 81st Street and Broadway in New York City. The attackers ditch their machine guns, rifle shells, and two bloody hats, one bearing a Newark store label. It’s the only lead the police have. Since the incident occurs close to the Dutchman’s known hangout, police assume the violence is related to the beer war. Therefore it must involve either the Dutchman’s men or those of Waxey Gordon.
On June 4, a cool Tuesday, William Oppenheim is found dead in front of his house. He is a big man, 350 pounds big, which explains the nickname “Big Bill.” His last rendezvous, at 4 A.M., was with friends in a confectionery shop three blocks from his house. Police say his assailants jumped from a car and fired five shots into his face as Big Bill arrived home. Bill fell onto the stone steps leading up to his apartment and fractured his skull. The shooters fired five more shots into Bill’s chest before leaving the scene. Bill died on the spot.
It turns out that Big Bill was an ex-con and was running beer as part of Waxey Gordon’s mob. His murder is quickly linked to a feud resulting over his invasion into the Bronx and Westchester beer territories. This ties him to the murders of Charles Brady and Abe Durst. The Jersey-Bronx connection confirms the police suspicion that the murders are tied to the beer war.
On June 9, with three loaded pistols to keep him company, Gus Berger uses a pair of field glasses to keep watch. Three gunmen break into his apartment. Gus fires. Someone stumbles and returns fire. Gus takes a bullet in the shoulder. His assailants flee.
Murray Marks is not so lucky. He gets his on June 30, as he steps from a city bus that has stopped in front of Pelham Bank. Five shots ring out. Three of the bullets land in the unfortunate Marks. Gordon gets the news while he waits for his tax evasion trial to begin. The annoyance of fingerprinting and mug shots pales in comparison.
Thomas E. Dewey, the new Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney, has been assigned as the prosecutor in Waxey Gordon’s case. The murders leave him guessing as to who it is that is systematically taking out his key witnesses. When Waxey’s lawyer asks for a “list of particulars,” Dewey replies with a clever rebuttal. Since Gordon claims he was an underling, and, indeed his name appears on nothing, a list of particulars is impossible to produce. This ploy keeps his list of witnesses secret.
The police theorize that the killings are being carried out by thugs once on Gordon’s payroll who used to make $50 to $100 a week. Once beer became legal and the men lost work, they started killing Gordon’s friends. It’s a long shot but they stick with the idea anyway.
Then Murray Marks is tied to the opium trade and the police shift to a new theory. This time they make a connection to a mob called “Bugs Meyers” and a guy named “Bugs Spiegel” and another thug known as “Dimples.” They believe all these men were on Gordon’s payroll.
Right gang. Wrong reason.
Waxey’s trial begins in earnest. The evidence the IRS brings against him is overwhelming. They meticulously trace everything down to the gasoline and tires purchased for Gordon’s trucks. The agents call their detective work “a footrace with Gordon’s men.” It is anyone’s guess who will get to the evidence first. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. And on it goes, the corruption, the interference, the undeniable evidence against the bootlegger and tax evader. It takes the jury a mere 51 minutes to decide Irving Wexler, aka Waxey Gordon, is guilty of tax evasion.
Meyer follows the trial in the Daily News and the New York Times. It seems Meyer’s age-old nemesis will no longer darken his path, not this side of Repeal anyway, not for ten more years. And so it is that the government, and not Meyer Lansky, delivers the final blow to what the underworld calls the Jew War.
* * *
In 1924, Clarence Darrow had debated Prohibition with John Haynes Holmes. Darrow dared to question the philosophy of government itself. Darrow had argued that Prohibitionists didn’t know when to stop telling others what to do. There was legislation against smoking. In New England, a law was passed that forced people go to church. They even picked out the church and threw people in jail if they didn’t go…to that one church approved for all.
Darrow’s argument struck a chord with Meyer. Something so small as a single law that denies a man his freedom to drink fuels Meyer’s rage over ancient wrongs levied against an entire people, his people. Prohibition provided the crucible that allowed Meyer to embrace an illicit personal freedom by defying the law. Now it’s over. The Eighteenth Amendment has been repealed. What direction lies ahead? Will Meyer embrace something as mundane as legitimacy? Or will he continue to battle the unseen enemy? Those are the questions in front of him now that this Shabbat goy is out of a job.
Jimmy Alo stops at the Cannon Street garage where Meyer and Moe Sedway are closing down shop. A fan belt and an assortment of odd tires litter the floor. The factory desk in Meyer’s cramped office sits idle alongside the relic of a potbellied stove. The smell of crankshaft oil and metal lingers in the walls and floor, a reminder of what it took to move booze through the streets of New York.
Moe Sedway looks around and says, “Kinda feels funny after all these years.”
Mo
e slides the rolling door across the garage entrance. The boys head for Ratner’s Deli.
“How’s the kid,” Jimmy asks.
Meyer says, “He’s tough as nails, that little guy, which is more than I can say for his mother. She’s falling apart.”
Jimmy says, “Women can’t take that kind of pressure, watching their baby in pain.”
Meyer says, “The doctor made her believe in miracles. They’re all religious in that hospital. Mind over matter. It’s the kid that has his head on straight. He will never walk. Let him find another way to get around. Why continue to torture the little guy? His mother wants me to repent. To her, that means going legit.”
“Will you?”
“Nah,” Meyer says. “Not entirely anyway. I’m going down to Cuba to secure sugar rights. The guy running the place is easy enough to bribe. It’s a poor country.”
Jimmy nods.
Meyer gets the sugar rights. He forms a legal corporation and calls it Molaska. The Cleveland mob and the Jersey mob are brought in on the deal. Sapiro guides them in what they can and cannot do. Meyer is in business with his father-in-law, Moses Citron, to provide molasses to distillers. Molaska Corporation is official. Anne is beside herself with joy.
But the new frontier, as Meyer sees it, is not beer or even legitimacy, it’s gambling. New York settles into a new rhythm. Freedom of thought. Freedom of speech. Freedom to buy a goddamn drink whenever one wants.
* * *
A young boy walks into a candy store and stops dead in his tracks. Beyond the lollipops, the peppermint sticks, the chocolates, the Boston Baked Beans and Licorice Snaps and Red Hots, the Valomilk Candy Cups and Choward’s Violet Mints, sits something new, a bright yellow slot machine embossed with a brilliant red eagle holding a bellyful of loose change. The boy wonders at the machine.
“It’s called the War Eagle,” the man behind the counter says. “It’s tempting, isn’t it?”
The man wears a white apron over a well-worn suit. He has a broad smile and a desire to keep his business.
“What is it?” the kid says.
“It’s called a trade simulator,” the man says.
A trade simulator avoids entanglements with gambling laws by diversion.
The boy marvels and then says, “How do I get those quarters?”
“The War Eagle doesn’t give up his bounty easily,” the man says. “You see that slot at the top? You drop your quarter in and pull the handle down. If you’re lucky, and the fruit in the windows is all the same, you get a prize.”
The boy licks his lips. “What kind of prize?”
“You trade it in for gum or candy,” the man says.
“Not quarters?” the boy says.
“You get the value of the quarters when you trade for candy,” the man says.
The boy rubs his fingers across the quarter in his pocket. The eagle’s wings spread out across the face of the machine in brilliant red and shiny silver that takes on the shape of an Indian headdress. In the center of the headdress is another red circle around a black core, each division lined by silver metal that looks like razor wire.
The three windows above the eagle show a non-paying play: cherries, a blue plum, and a yellow bell. The boy rubs the quarter again and then looks hard at the candy case.
The man behind the counter says, “You can spend the quarter in your pocket or you can take a chance. Maybe you’ll get more quarters and you can trade for more candy. What’ll it be, son?”
Judging from the coins in the Eagle’s belly, with a stroke of luck, the boy could buy the whole candy store, he’s sure of it.
“Well, son?” the man says again.
The kid drags a stool over to the one-armed bandit, holds his quarter over the slot and hesitates. He wipes sweat from his forehead and then drops the quarter into the shiny silvery machine and grabs the lever. Down he pulls it. The fruit whirls around and then clicks into place: orange, orange, bell.
“Too bad, sonny,” the man says. “Maybe next time.”
The boy hangs his head in defeat and walks out empty-handed just as Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia walks in. He’s seen it all before. With a pack of reporters, a moving truck, and a slogan, LaGuardia makes his moves.
Ceremoniously, LaGuardia confiscates the War Eagle from the candy shop and hauls it to a waiting truck. The Eagle joins a growing mountain of slot machines. LaGuardia scales the mountainous pile and waves a sledge hammer for the waiting photographers. As they trigger their shutters, he attacks the Eagle, bludgeoning the belly of change, spilling Frank Costello’s interests onto the street below.
The kid who lost his quarter smiles, grabs a handful of change, and scurries away.
LaGuardia sifts through the nickels and dimes and quarters raising handfuls high above his head. Loose change slips through his fingers. Flashbulbs pop, freezing the moment in time. The Little Flower gloats. He’s finally getting his revenge on Frank Costello for the election he lost to Jimmy Walker in 1929 when Costello split the vote.
His next cause will be the fight against all the K.G.’s.
“K.G.?” a reporter says to the cop standing beside him.
“Known gambler,” the cop says. “It’s part of his reform platform.”
The cop winks. The photographer smiles. The plundered slot machines are loaded onto a municipal barge and dumped into the sea.
LaGuardia is hailed as a modern St. George, conquering the dragons of immorality and vice.
Meyer and Charlie read the news of LaGuardia’s victory in the papers. Charlie opens a box of Cuban cigars and offers one to Meyer.
“Were they?” Charlie says.
“Rolled on hot thighs?” Meyer says. “What do you think?”
“It’s the stuff that fires the imagination,” Charlie says.
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