by Michael Mayo
Oh Boy retraced the route we’d taken on Wednesday night, through Newark and past the construction of the elevated highway. It started to rain as we entered the tunnel. When we got into the city, I slid open a section of the dividing glass, and told him to go north. It felt familiar and kind of comforting to be back in the slow, honking traffic.
We went uptown on Broadway. The electric signs got larger, taller, and brighter until they almost created a false daylight. Even Mrs. Pennyweight gawked like a tourist. Holding the happy boy tightly, Connie Nix leaned forward, craning her neck to see as much as she could through the light rain. To me that night, imagining the gaudy clutter through her eyes, the city looked a little cheap and bedraggled. For the first time, I didn’t see the glittering theater marquees and looming commercial signs. Instead there were chop-suey joints that claimed to be nightclubs, with crowded penny-a-dance halls, cheap pitchmen, and screwy preachers in front of the arcades.
We passed dozens of movie theaters, half of them, it seemed, turned into grind houses that were open twenty-four hours a day, still showing stuff I’d watched years before. And there, in Times Square, the middle of the famous Great White Way, Minsky had turned the Republic Theater into a burlesque house. If only she’d seen the place a few years ago when it was really something. The only thing that remained as impressive as it had ever been was the Wrigley’s sign—a full block long, filled with neon peacocks, fountains, and chewing gum. To me, it had always been the grandest thing on the street and it still looked pretty damned good.
We drove by two places where Charlie Lucky and Lansky sometimes hung out, a drugstore and an office building. But they weren’t there, so I told Oh Boy to head for the Waldorf-Astoria.
Sounding impatient, Mrs. Pennyweight said, “What are you doing?”
I leaned forward and tried to explain. “The people I work with, we’ve got ways of doing business. I don’t belong to anybody’s mob, but like I told you, I do a fair amount of work with a couple of guys named Charlie Luciano and Meyer Lansky. I don’t exactly have to get their OK to take care of my problem, but they need to know what I’m doing. It wouldn’t be so good if they were surprised to hear about it after the fact. That’s just the way things are handled.”
She didn’t seem to understand but I couldn’t make it any clearer.
The Duesenberg pulled up in front of the hotel, with bellboys in monkey suits even fancier than Oh Boy’s dashing up to open the back doors. The big car looked like it belonged there.
I slid open the glass. “I don’t know how long this is going to take. Why don’t you run the ladies once around the park. If I’m not here when you get back, run ’em twice.”
Getting out, I turned back to Mrs. Pennyweight. “Don’t worry. You aren’t missing anything exciting.”
I walked around the corner to the entrance to the Waldorf Towers on Fiftieth Street. In the lobby, I picked up the house phone and asked for Charles Ross, the name Luciano used at this grand place.
Charlie Workman answered.
“Charlie, Jimmy Quinn. Is Mr. Ross there?”
“Yeah, but he can’t talk now. He’ll be busy for another thirty, forty minutes.”
It was Saturday night. Charlie liked to take the edge off with one of Polly Adler’s girls before he went out for the evening.
“Is Meyer there?”
“Yeah, he’s here. You wanna talk to him?”
“Ask if it’s OK for me to come up.”
A few seconds later, “Sure. I’ll call the desk. It’s 2910.”
Luciano’s apartment faced the East River. This was the first time I’d been in the place, and I was impressed. It was pretty swanky. The carpet was thick, and the room smelled of perfume and the flowers sitting on a round table. There was a fancy mirrored cabinet on one wall, with its own soft amber light. I could hear a shower running in another room. I knew that Charlie had done all right for himself, but not this good. The suite was a hell of a lot nicer and newer than my room at the Chelsea, providing the kind of class that Rothstein always talked about. This was how rich people lived.
Charlie Workman let me in. He was a big horse-faced guy who always looked kind of sad. In those days he worked as a driver for Luciano, and killed people, should the need for that come up. Sometimes he drove me when I had payoffs to distribute.
Lansky was reading the Sunday Times in an armchair by one of the big picture windows that overlooked the river.
“Bad stuff, isn’t it, kid,” he said, nodding at the headlines and shaking his head. “Just crazy. Did you hear that Lindbergh’s people have been calling us? This guy Breckenridge who’s running things, he was thinking about taking Capone up on his offer. But Irey, the T-man who set Capone up on the tax rap, told Lindbergh not to bother.” Lansky looked worn out. He was almost always thoughtful and worried because he was a guy who took his responsibilities seriously. But that night something else troubled him, and it showed.
“Are you saying they actually considered letting Capone out of jail?” This development was really too ridiculous for serious people to talk about.
“Not for long. Irey told them that if they really thought ‘underworld’ guys were involved, they oughta talk to us. So that’s what they did.” He pointed to the front page. “According to the paper, Bitsy Bitz and Salvy Spitale are official go-betweens.”
“They work for Mickey Rosner. He in on this?”
“Yeah, that’s what Breckenridge said when he called.”
“Who’d he talk to? Mr. Costello?” Frank Costello handled payoffs to politicians and judges. I made deliveries for him almost every week.
“Yeah, you just missed him.”
“What’d he say?”
Lansky lit a cigarette. The ashtray on the table in front of him was overflowing. “Breckenridge asked if any of our guys were involved. Frank said he didn’t think so, and he’d ask around. He made some calls, talked to Longy and some other guys. And then me and Charlie talked it over. There are a few men who might go off on their own on something like this. But nobody’s taken a powder. They’re all accounted for and they swear they didn’t do anything. I mean, hell, it’s not like we’re the goddamn Army, where everybody follows orders. I just don’t think anybody we know had anything to do with it. Frank thinks the kid’s probably dead, and I guess he’s right. Hell of a thing. You know anything?”
“No, did you hear what happened at my place?”
“Nah, I been out of town. Just got back this afternoon. Tell me about it.” There were two suitcases beside his chair.
Before I could say anything, the bedroom door opened and a cute little blonde came out, adjusting the shoulder straps of a tight pearly-white dress. She said, “Charlie, before we go back to Polly’s I gotta . . . Hi, Jimmy, long time no see.”
“Hello, Daphne.” Daphne was one of the youngest and prettiest of Polly Adler’s girls. She bent over and kissed me, making sure I got a good look down the front of her dress. We both knew I couldn’t afford her, but it was a friendly gesture. She straightened up and said, “Charlie, I need to go by that place where we went that time.”
Workman said, “Sure, Daphne,” and gave her butt a long, appreciative squeeze as they left. I guessed it would be a while before they got back to Polly’s.
I gave Meyer the quick version of what the big cop Hourigan had done, and told him how Spence had hired Dixie Davis to find me and bring me to New Jersey. “His wife, she was afraid for their kid, but since then, she’s been . . . Well, I don’t know, she’s been strange, I guess.”
Lansky smiled unhappily. “Yeah, women are like that. I know. All too well I know. So tell me, what are you going to do?” There was a glass of scotch with melting ice on the table in front of him. He hadn’t drunk more than a sip, but then that was Lansky for you.
“First, I’m going to the Drum to make sure it’s the same cop. If he is, I’m going to take care of him.”
Lansky said, “He’s a cop. You know you can’t kill him.”
&nb
sp; “Of course not. But I can’t let the guy bust up my place. If it had been a real pinch, I’d understand. Everybody knows that happens, but this, I don’t know what it was, so after I beat the hell out of him, I’ll ask.”
“Are you sure you didn’t miss a payment?”
“He’s not on my list. He’s just a customer from the Bronx. He was in with some other cops one night. I probably gave them a round on the house.”
Lansky nodded. “Has he done the same thing anywhere else?”
“Not that I know of. If he had, Dixie would’ve heard. But that don’t change the fact that he tore up my place pretty good and we had to close for a night. It just ain’t right, what he did. He cost me money.”
Again, Lansky nodded. That’s the way these things were handled. You couldn’t kill a cop but you couldn’t let ’em get away with crap like that, either.
He lit another cigarette and said, “No, it ain’t right. I think you should go ahead, but don’t let it get out of hand.”
“Maybe it’s not the same guy. I won’t know ’til I see him. I’ll let you know what happens, one way or the other.”
“OK.”
“I don’t know if you’re planning on me making any deliveries this week, but it looks like I’ll be out at Spence’s place in New Jersey for a while.”
“Don’t worry about it. The Coon can handle it. Call me when you’re back in town.” The Coon, as he was called, was Joe Cooney, an Irish mug who made his deliveries in repairman’s coveralls and carried his payoffs in a toolbox.
I pointed to Lansky’s suitcases. “Where you been?”
“California.”
“More doctors?”
“Yeah, more doctors but nothing new.” So that’s what tied him up.
Meyer’s son, Buddy, had been born crippled. He had cerebral palsy, and everybody knew that his wife, Anna, thought it was God’s punishment for the kind of work Meyer did. I thought that was just nuts, but I could tell that sometimes Meyer half believed it himself. Hell, it was easy for me to think this was nuts. I’d never been married or had a kid, so I didn’t say anything when guys talked about it.
“I’ve been to every doctor and clinic I can find, and none of them has anything hopeful to say. I can’t explain it to her.” He’d never talked about his personal life, and he really wasn’t that night either. He just needed to let off some steam.
“I don’t understand women. You can’t explain what you do. They wouldn’t understand. They spend the money you earn, and I don’t begrudge her that. But they don’t understand. They say the money is causing all the trouble, and then they say they don’t care about the money. But we know different. Everybody cares about money.”
“Anybody who says he doesn’t is lying,” I said.
“Sure he is. But this Lindbergh business made me see things in a different light. Did you know he got married just a couple of weeks before I did? Well, he did, and his son was born six months after Buddy. For two years now I’ve been thinking that somehow we were the same, only he was the good guy and I was the bad. You know, for all the laws we’ve broken and the guys I’ve had to kill. There was me and Buddy on one side, and Lindbergh and his family on the other, living the charmed life. If that’s really the case, God’s got a funny way of handling things.”
“Funny way of handling what things?” Charlie Luciano strolled into the room with the usual wide smile splitting his mug. He wore a silk tie and his collar was held down with a slim gold pin.
He buttoned his vest and struggled with a cufflink until Lansky fixed it for him, and explained why I was there.
“Hourigan,” Lucky said. “Yeah, I know him. Big guy. Loud bastard but a fucking straight arrow. You can’t talk to him. Nobody likes him. Sounds to me like he was so shitfaced maybe he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing in your place. A man like that can’t control himself, it don’t matter he’s got a badge. Nail the bastard, Jimmy.”
Chapter Seventeen
SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 1932
NEW YORK CITY
I waited on the steps of the hotel until the Duesenberg pulled up, then told Oh Boy to go to my speak. He stopped by the front door and asked if there was a parking garage in the neighborhood. “I can’t leave it on the street, Jimmy.”
“Stay here. This won’t take long. I’ll escort the ladies inside and we can—”
“No, you’re not going to leave us anyplace.” Mrs. Pennyweight glowered at me.
“Look, you’ve got two choices. You can go in my place, sit down, and have a few drinks on the house. Or you can keep riding around in the car. The joint I’m going to doesn’t allow women. Believe me, there’s a good reason for that.”
She was having none of it. “We’re going with you.”
“All right.” I told Oh Boy to take us down to the Bowery. As we headed south again, I saw that Mrs. Pennyweight wore a self-satisfied little smirk on her face. Connie Nix was drinking it all in. The kid smiled and dozed.
When we were close to the street I thought I wanted, I told Oh Boy to stop. It had been a long time since I’d been in this neighborhood at night, and I wasn’t sure we were at the right intersection. The truth was that since I bought the speak, I didn’t go downtown that often and got a little confused once I was away from the familiar grid of Midtown. The crowded, twisty little roads of the Bowery and Chinatown made me antsy.
Oh Boy found a place to park under a streetlight. I made sure the glass was open when I spoke to him and Mrs. Pennyweight.
“I’ve been told the guy I’m looking for has been in a place that’s a couple of blocks from here. Been there every night since he busted up my joint. Might not be the same guy. Or he might not be there tonight, I don’t know. One way or the other it shouldn’t take long to find out. Oh Boy, if anybody pays too much attention to you and you think you ought to move, do it. Just stay in the area and I’ll find you.”
I got out of the car. So did Mrs. Pennyweight.
“What the hell. I told you—”
“I don’t care what the rules of this establishment are—”
“It’s not an establishment, it’s a bucket of blood.”
“Fine, then they won’t really care about serving women. Dressed as I am, no one will know I’m female. And besides that, you can’t stop me.” She was excited and determined. And she was right. There was nothing I could do.
“What about the kid?”
“Nix is armed.”
“Oh hell.” I gave up and started across the street.
On a warmer night, I’d have been more worried. But with the rain and wind, it was raw enough to drive most thugs and drunks inside. No one paid attention to two figures walking carefully across the street, leaning on their canes. As we moved away from the street lamp, I tried to tamp down the nervous excitement building up inside.
First, I needed to figure out where I was. I’d only been to the Drum once, and remembered the place being on a corner, with old-fashioned swinging saloon doors set at a forty-five-degree angle to the street. There was no sign outside, and the windows were painted over. Inside, the walls were yellowed with decades of tobacco smoke. At one time, the Drum had been owned by a guy named Drummond. Now some Mick named Reagan ran it. The speak was roughly divided into the bar in the front section and a room full of wooden pallets in the back where the stewbums could flop or pass out. But I hadn’t actually been in the back room, I’d only seen it from the bar. And that visit didn’t tell me what I needed to know.
We weren’t alone on the street. There were burning cigars behind windows, quick movements in the deeper shadows. Mrs. Pennyweight stayed close. At the next intersection, I could see what I thought was the Drum, a short block away to the north. As we walked past it, I saw the painted windows. Now I needed to know one more thing.
We went around the corner and turned into the first alley. Picking my way carefully, I pushed garbage out of the way and swept it to the side with my stick. There wasn’t much light, just enough to see that the
alley led back to the Drum. A few yards along, it opened onto a cobblestone yard weakly lit by a single small bulb. Close to us were two overflowing garbage cans. On the far side, three wooden steps led up to a landing and what ought to have been the back door of the Drum. A reeking privy leaned against a wall. Mrs. Pennyweight sniffed, holding a handkerchief to her nose.
“Really, Mr. Quinn,” she whispered, “what are we doing here?”
“We’re waiting.” A few minutes later, the door opened and a figure stumbled out. He didn’t bother to go down the stairs to the privy but unbuttoned and let fly. Yes, this was the Drum. After he finished and went inside, we left.
Back on the street, she sniffed and said, “What was the purpose of that?”
“When you’re going into a place, it’s good to know where the back door is. And what’s on the other side of it. Now, here’s what we’re gonna do.”
It looked like Hourigan, the big cop, hadn’t changed clothes or shaved since the night he beat me up. The suit was nasty with new stains and ripped seams. He was on a stool at the bar with both paws wrapped around his drink, mumbling into the glass. The bartender ignored him.
Our wet coats steaming, Mrs. Pennyweight and I stood just inside the door and looked into the room through a haze of smoke. On the wall behind the cash register was a poster of a harp and the words ERIN GO BRAGH. Maybe ten or twelve elderly rummies were slumped at tables, nursing their whiskey. An open doorway on the back wall led to the room with the pallets.
I took off my coats and hat and handed them to Mrs. Pennyweight.
Hourigan was muttering something about “It’s a fucking shame it is when a man can’t even get it in his own home . . . ,” spraying brown tobacco spit as he talked. Everybody in the place pretended he wasn’t there. As I made my way through the tables, quick and quiet, I remembered Mother Moon’s good advice. The last thing I wanted was a fair fight. He must have heard my footsteps because he turned when I got close. I reversed the stick, caught the leg of the barstool with the crook, and yanked it out from under him. His head and elbows banged on the bar as he slid to the floor. The big man struggled to get up and I belted him in the ear with my knucks. He roared as I headed for the doorway in the back room.
