The Bootlegger's Confession

by Allan Levine

  By Allan Levine

  The Bootlegger’s Confession

  © Allan Levine 2016

  Published by Ravenstone

  an imprint of Turnstone Press

  Artspace Building

  206-100 Arthur Street

  Winnipeg, MB

  R3B 1H3 Canada

  www.ravenstonebooks.com

  www.turnstonepress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or ­transmitted in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or ­mechanical—without the prior ­written permission of the ­publisher. Any request to photocopy any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright, Toronto.

  Turnstone Press gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Province of Manitoba through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Book Publisher ­Marketing Assistance Program.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens for Turnstone Press.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Levine, Allan, 1956-, author

  The bootlegger’s confession / Allan Levine.

  (Sam Klein mysteries ; 4)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-0-88801-599-0 (paperback).--ISBN 978-0-88801-600-3 (epub).--ISBN 978-0-88801-601-0 (mobi).--ISBN 978-0-88801-602-7 (pdf)

  I. Title.

  PS8573.E96448B66 2016 C813’.54 C2016-904714-8

  C2016-904715-6

  For my mother, Bernice,

  who has faced life’s challenges with courage and strength

  Author’s Note

  From the 1850s to the 1930s, the consumption of liquor was paramount. In one corner were the “wets,” individuals who favoured choice, widespread availability, and a minimum of government regulations, if any at all; and in the other were the “drys,” devoted crusaders who fought for prohibition and regarded alcohol abuse as one of the great threats to men, women, and children. Supporters of each side fought for their positions with a passionate conviction and believed they were championing progress and modernity.

  In the United States, only slavery divided Americans more than liquor. In Canada, it was just as contentious. The dry side appeared victorious in Canada in 1915–16 when, for about six years, most provinces—including Manitoba—adopted some form of prohibition. Then, more significantly, in 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution instituted Prohibition, along with the Volstead Act that regulated and enforced it, though poorly.

  Prohibition in both countries was a failure. Too many loopholes were the problem in Canada. Provinces could shut down saloons and restrict the flow of liquor, but provincial governments could not stop interprovincial trade which was a federal responsibility. And the federal government was slow to respond to the issue on a national level. As a result, inventive businessmen found a way to sell whisky from one province to the other via mail order. Physicians and pharmacists were also able to prescribe booze for “medicinal” purposes. As humourist Stephen Leacock noted, to obtain a bottle of “medicinal” whisky in Ontario, a person had only “to go to a drugstore … and lean up against the counter and make a gurgling sound like apoplexy. One often sees these apoplexy cases lined up four deep.”

  In the United States, Prohibition, which lasted from 1919 until it was repealed in 1933, was a fiasco from the start. Demand for liquor never stopped, nor was it policed properly. All of this made it extremely lucrative for Canadian liquor dealers, who were not breaking any Canadian laws, to sell their product to American bootleggers and gangsters who would smuggle it across the border and distribute the alcohol to speakeasies across the US. Organized crime, murder, theft, and gangster wars were the most serious consequences of this controversial trade. Some of this mayhem took place in small, isolated border towns in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where it was easy to avoid American patrols.

  This is the story at the heart of The Bootlegger’s Confession.

  Like the previous Sam Klein Mysteries, this is a work of fiction. The events described in this book did not happen, nor are the major characters real people. There are however references to real Winnipeggers of the era such as John Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, Police Chief Christopher Newton, and Rabbi Herbert Samuel, among a few others.

  The Bootlegger’s Confession

  Prologue

  Saturday, June 10, 1922

  Vera, Manitoba

  The warm and breezy wind did not let up all evening. Each time another customer came into Roter’s General Store to buy some groceries or merely to share in the town gossip, another blast of air brought more dust and grime. And like clockwork, Rae Roter shouted at the latest visitor, “Oy gevalt, please shut the door, fershtay?”

  Rae, a five-foot-three beauty rounded at the hips—zaftig was how her husband Max affectionately described her—was generally oblivious to the fact that she and Max and their two young children, Mira and Isaac, were the only ones in the town who spoke or understood Yiddish. In fact, they were the only Jews in Vera, period, just like the Jewish storekeepers and their families in dozens of other Manitoban towns. From Flin Flon to McCreary and all points in between, you could count on three things in any half-baked village and town in Manitoba and Saskatchewan: a grain elevator, a Chinese café, and a Jewish general store merchant.

  Still, ever since Max and Rae had relocated over two years ago at her brothers’ heeding from Winnipeg to this sleepy town ten miles from the North Dakota border to operate the store, Vera’s other 773 citizens had become used to Rae’s Yiddish rants. Within months of their arrival, many of them had even picked up a few phrases. It was not uncommon to hear Vera’s Gentile farmers, cattle buyers, and shopkeepers—even Fred Lum who ran the laundry and Chinese food café—peppering their conversations with Yiddish expressions. Sometimes customers entering Lum’s laundry were startled to hear Fred complaining that one of his clients was kvetching about the starch in his shirts.

  During the weekdays, the store was open from eight in the morning to seven in the evening. But on Saturdays the hours were extended, when everyone in town it seemed came by to shop, browse, or socialize. Close to midnight, Max Roter, forty-one, tall, muscular, and as handsome a storekeeper as there was on the prairies, ushered out the only customers remaining in the store, his next door neighbours Mr. and Mrs. Smythe.

  “Still blowing strong,” said Jack Smythe, the manager of Vera’s lone grain elevator owned by the Standard Grain Company.

  “Sure is,” replied Max, fussing with the diamond stick pin on his jet black tie. “Supposed to be calmer in the morning.” He opened the door wide, staring Jack Smythe right in the eye.

  “I guess we’ll see you in church tomorrow…” Jack said, roaring with laughter.

  “Honestly, Jack,” interrupted his wife, Joannie. “Rae and Max don’t attend church services.” She was a striking redhead and in the unbiased opinion of the daily gathering of male coffee-drinkers at Lum’s, the most alluring woman in the town.

  Jack’s jovial demeanour abruptly vanished. He glared at his wife, whose face turned pale. Then, just as quickly, he started laughing again, slapping Max on the shoulder. “Of course, dear. I was just kabootzing.”

  Max brushed Smythe’s hand away. “I think you mean kibitzing,” he said, rolling his eyes.

>   “That’s it exactly,” said Jack with a loud snort.

  Joannie’s face flushed. She looked at Rae behind the counter, lifting her shoulders. Rae smiled warmly and shrugged.

  Once the Smythes finally left, Max shut the door and turned to his wife. “Meshuggina goyim,” he muttered.

  “I like Joannie,” said Rae. “She’s probably the most pleasant woman in Vera. Never has a bad word for anyone.”

  “Maybe. I always get the feeling she’s either unhappy or hiding something. I know you’ve heard the gossip about her, about them.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that right now. It’s none of our business. Isn’t that what you’ve said?”

  “It’s a husband’s prerogative to change his mind. And as for it not being my business, that’s funny coming from you. Everything in this town is your business!”

  Rae chuckled, playfully pushing Max’s shoulder.

  “He’s a fool and besides, I don’t especially trust him,” said Max. “You know that expression, a nar bleibt a nar? He’s a fool and will always be one!”

  “Now who’s being a meshuggina. Whatever Jack may have done, I think deep down he’s a decent man, though definitely not a perfect one. Who is? Not me or you, that’s for sure. All I know for certain is that Joannie always pays her bill on time, unlike some of the others around here.”

  “They’ll pay, don’t worry, my darling,” said Max, grabbing his wife around her waist and pulling her close. “You let Helen go home. I’m sure she’s exhausted from looking after the kinder. And I’ll close up.” He gave her a peck on the cheek and his right hand glanced over her rump. “And then I’ll be home to keep you company, if you know what I mean,” said Max, raising his eyebrows.

  Rae pushed his hand away. “I’ve been married to you for ten years, Max Roter. I always get your meaning.”

  Max chuckled and then looked at the store clock. It was half-past twelve. His smile abruptly vanished. “Go, dear. I promise I’ll be home soon.”

  Rae tidied the counter, tied down the spring claw that was used to bring down boxes of cereal and cans of tomato juice from the top shelves—earlier in the day she had permitted Mira, about to turn ten, to practice using the contraption—and hung up her smeared white apron. She fixed her hair bun, smoothed her navy skirt, and prepared for the short walk to the family house, a large, white home perched on a mound at the end of Main Street.

  “You be careful tonight,” said Rae, rubbing her husband’s back. “I really wish you didn’t have to conduct this business so late.”

  Max said nothing. He opened the door for Rae and urged her out into the night.

  Finally alone, Max opened the register and gingerly removed a wad of cash. He leafed through it and tucked it away in a green canvas bank bag. It had been another profitable Saturday. Farmers from the Gretna area often visited, stocking up on supplies and bartering with live chickens that Max kept in a henhouse outside at the back. There wasn’t much you could not buy at Roter’s. Besides groceries, there were hardware, pots, pans, shoes, spices, clothing, and knickknacks of every type and variety. The money was decent and from the store alone, Max and Rae made a good living.

  Still, truth be told, Max hated this one-horse town, which was literally in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention that it was no treat using an outhouse in the middle of January when the temperature froze the hair in your nostrils in seconds. The town’s one redeeming feature was the dirt road to the US border. Immediately on the other side was Hampton, North Dakota, as pathetic and isolated as Vera, perhaps more so. Yet that was the point. Or that was how Rae’s brothers, Lou and Saul Sugarman, explained it to him when they convinced, actually coerced, him and Rae to move out here.

  Lou especially had been good to him when Max arrived in Winnipeg a dozen years ago. The journey from Kiev had been arduous but Max knew he had no choice. There was no way he was going to be conscripted into the Russian army. His father had paid a trustworthy farmer sufficient funds to ensure Max got all the way to Warsaw. From there, Max had made his way to Hamburg and then took a miserable week-long voyage across the Atlantic to New York. He would have stayed there, except he had promised his father that he would travel on to Winnipeg in Canada where his third cousins, the Sugarmans, lived.

  “They have money,” his father had assured him. “They’re machers. Own some hotels. They will give you some work.” So like the obedient son he was, Max headed north.

  Greeneh, or greenhorn, did not quite describe him back then. He couldn’t speak a word of English and he had only a few dollars in his pocket. Lou had met him at the CPR station, taken him home, fed him, and given him a place to sleep. A cleaning job at the Prince Edward Hotel on Main Street, one of three the Sugarmans owned, was next. Max worked hard, learned English quickly, and before too long was working behind the desk and supervising the bar where the real money was to be made. He and Rae Sugarman had also fallen in love. Lou was thrilled; Saul, the elder brother, was less pleased, but he eventually came around. In Max’s view, Saul had no sense of humour; he was all business, each day, every day. Nonetheless, Max was impressed by Saul and Lou’s success.

  Since those foolish and moralistic Americans had brought in prohibition two and a half years ago, the flow of cash to the Sugarmans was non-stop. “We’re doing nothing illegal,” Lou had reassured Max many times. “Just taking advantage of a business opportunity.” And as far as Max understood the law, Lou was right—at least technically.

  By 1922, even Max could see that the US ban against booze was a farce. In Chicago, New York, even in Washington DC, where gossip had it that President Warren Harding served bootleg liquor to his dinner guests, demand was never higher. The Sugarmans quickly figured out a way to take advantage of this without violating Manitoba’s Temperance Act, which was poorly enforced, at any rate. They bought and stocked warehouses full of liquor near the American border and waited for US customers to find them. And the more isolated the warehouses were, the better. It didn’t take long for a booming cross-border business to develop.

  Hence, Max and Rae found themselves in Vera, Manitoba on the pretext of running a general store, but the real money derived from the barn behind the store—a warehouse crammed with whisky, rum, and gin. Corby, Seagram, Canadian Club, Booth’s Dry Gin were a few of the brands on the shelves of Max Roter’s “boozorium,” as everyone in town called it. A lot of the liquor was also homemade, as strong as 65 percent overproof alcohol, though watered down. Admittedly, it was a greedy, perhaps even foolish trick, but it worked. Lou slapped fictitious labels on the bottles—Old Highland Scotch, Shea’s Irish Whisky, and Lion’s Gin—and their thirsty American clientele were happy. Or, so they believed.

  There were two things that Saul and Lou had not accounted for. The first was that from what Max had recently heard, the provincial governments in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta were growing increasingly uneasy with this liquor trade and the booty it was generating for the likes of the Sugarmans. For the Canadian politicians, it was not so much that the Americans were upset about the flow of booze from places like Vera to towns in North Dakota, but rather that such money-making was morally repugnant. The second was that since a bottle of Scotch that used to cost three dollars was now being sold in New York speakeasies for as high as sixteen dollars a quart, the liquor trade attracted a lot of unsavory characters.

  As Max learned, a few months after the General Strike, the Sugarmans sent Lou’s friend, Sam Klein, a bit of a celebrity in the Winnipeg Jewish community for his detective skills, on a journey south. Lou later told Max that Klein had made contact with Fritz Michaels, a bootlegger in Minneapolis. Michaels had then sent him to New York to deal directly with Irv Rosen and Leo Forni. As the Sugarmans soon found out, however, these men were not to be toyed with. Business was everything to them but if you crossed them, swift and deadly punishment was meted out. There were no questions asked first.

 
Max reached for his pack of Player’s Navy Cut, took a cigarette out, struck a wooden match against the counter, and lit it. He inhaled sharply, fiddling with his gold ring, and waited. He knew he had a problem that was not going to be easily resolved. And he dared not broach the subject with Lou or Saul, heaven forbid. He was certain that neither of them would be all that understanding. And who could blame them? If anyone was playing a dangerous game, it was him. He took a long drag of his cigarette and blew a puff of smoke upwards.

  Other than a few howling dogs and the squeal of the Smythes’ tomcat always on the prowl, Vera was silent. Max stared outside wondering yet one more time how it was he lived in this chazerei of a town. And from his perspective, that was putting it nicely.

  He heard the roar of a Packard in the distance. Opening the door of the store, he was nearly blinded by the powerful spotlight Frankie Taylor had affixed to the car. He held his hand above his eyes as Taylor came to a screeching stop.

  “That six-cylinder is purring tonight, Frankie,” said Max, throwing his cigarette down and butting it with the heel of his shoe.

  Taylor’s luxurious Packard Twin Six was dark red. The auto’s white-walled tires shimmered in the moonlight and there was a gleaming silver tiger ornament affixed to the top of the hood. An extra layer of steel had been attached to the bumpers in case Taylor ever had to break through a police roadblock.

  Taylor, husky, dark-haired, and ornery, exited the vehicle, and as he did so Max caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster and gun. “Sure is, Roter. But I haven’t got time for talk. Where’s the shipment?”

  “Where it always is,” said Max, easing himself into the soft red leather passenger seat. “Drive around to the back and I’ll load you up.”

  Taylor got back in the car, fired up the engine with the wondrous electric starter, and they were off. Taylor drove half a block down Main Street then turned right into a dirt alley that led to a barn at the back of Roter’s General Store. Max hopped out of the car and pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket. First, he opened the padlock that held the iron bar firmly across the warehouse door, and then the series of heavy-duty locks on the steel door itself. Once inside, he lit two lanterns and the building was quickly illuminated. There were ten wide, sturdy shelves from floor to ceiling. On each were stacked wooden crates of whisky and other liquor. There was hardly room for a person to move.