He didn’t know the plan, but the idea, robbing the biggest hoodlum in Saratoga? It was one of those ideas. It was either brilliant or crazy. Brilliant because Rothstein was so powerful, so big, that no one—least of all Rothstein—expected someone to take a run at him. Like robbing Fort Knox. Rothstein’d have protection, lots of it, but it might be sleepy protection, overconfident. And, from what Cook had heard about the day’s racing, the man must have a bankroll on him that a bold man would think was worth the trouble of trying.
It was crazy, though, for pretty much the same reasons. You had to figure there would be six or eight poker players, each with a gun. Add, what, two or three coat holders or bodyguards? Hard to know. At least three. Then a couple on the front door and a couple outside. So, fifteen or so men, most of them armed, some of them good at their jobs. Not all of them would be stupid, though some would. Maybe most. Cook had never been real impressed with the reasoning powers of the criminal class. On the other side, there would be Cecil and Joshua, plus the element of surprise and what better be one hell of a clever plan.
Joshua’s plan was likely to make it tougher for Cook to look after Babe’s business. If Rothstein ever suspected it was Joshua Cook stealing his money, he wasn’t going to do any business with Joshua’s father over Babe’s IOU.
The hell with Babe. Cook would figure out some way to help Joshua—not getting in the way, but helping. He couldn’t sit this one out. Might as well get Jamie in, too, if he wanted in. He had just as much right. Actually, Cook thought, it’d be good to get Jamie in. Ever since that day, twenty years ago if it was a day, when he asked Jamie to doctor to Aurelia’s aunt, life kept throwing them together. It wasn’t like they’d been best friends from the start. Or ever since. But he knew that twice now, when things looked bad, they’d answered the bell for each other. He also knew that this time mattered most of all, for both them.
Yeah, Jamie would be in.
He rubbed his neck again and started walking back to his car. That left hand hurt like hell. He should ask Jamie if there was something could be done for it. Ought to get some advantage from having a doctor in the family.
Chapter 21
Through an afternoon and evening of shadowing Abe Attell around Saratoga, Fraser’s frustration had grown and grown. The little man was busy. He stopped at a newsstand, at a florist, in a gift shop. Everywhere he went, his derby at a jaunty angle, he ran into people. Were they chance encounters or was he passing messages, doing business? Was he running errands for Rothstein? For himself? Fraser didn’t know. Watching Attell from fifty feet away raised more questions than answers.
Fraser almost lost him at the racetrack. The festival atmosphere was infectious, the colors kaleidoscopic. Flags flapped from poles in the infield. Wide-rumped horses twitched by, bored jockeys perched like pilotfish in bright silks. Women in flowing dresses and floppy hats fluttered close to natty gents wielding flasks that glinted in the sun. The occasional hard type in the crowd, someone with scuffed shoes and dirty fingernails whose next meal turned on the next race, couldn’t dampen the gaiety of the fortunate.
At the end of the sixth race, the one where a swaybacked roan came from nowhere to win by a head and pay out at 30–1, the crowd’s elation engulfed Fraser. Thousands cheered for the perennial dream of instant riches won by shrewd betting or dumb luck. When Fraser came back to himself, he looked over at the box where Attell had been. It was vacant, suddenly stripped of touts and hangers-on. Fraser’s heart thudded as he hustled back inside the clubhouse. No sign of him.
Fraser hurried behind the grandstand where cars stood in a field in uneven rows. Still no Attell, but, damn, there was that man with a Vandyke beard. He was climbing into a blue Cadillac. Had to be the one from Brooklyn, from outside Joshua and Violet’s house.
Fraser decided quickly. He rushed to an idling taxi and ordered it back to town. The slow crawl of cars kept the blue Cadillac in sight. The taxi’s flawed suspension reminded Fraser of wooden-wheeled journeys over the rutted roads of Harrison County, Ohio, when he might ride a couple of hours to deliver a baby or patch up some unlucky farmer. He knew nowhere near as much medicine then, but he knew a lot more folks. New York, with all those people, could make you feel empty.
Back in town, Fraser caught sight of Attell, still sharp in a beige three-piece suit, walking down a side street. Fraser ditched the taxi, letting the blue Cadillac get away, and headed after Attell. Fraser felt too large for this job, that he lacked the subtlety to track Attell. It would be a miracle if the little man didn’t notice him galumphing around in his wake. But Fraser was supposed to follow Attell, so he would.
The prizefighter stopped at a bland-looking clapboard house. From across the street, Fraser resumed his newspaper reading. The traffic in and out of the house was surprising. It must be a speakeasy. Attell emerged after about ten minutes, looking no worse for wear. Fraser doubted that Attell was much of a drinker.
Attell continued through the neighborhood that bordered the center of town, stopping twice more at equally anonymous houses. These had to be business calls, Fraser decided, not social visits. Was Attell collecting shakedown money, a percent of the take? That made sense. Businesses he had an interest in.
Attell’s fourth stop was the dining room of the United States Hotel and its casino, where he joined a table of celebrants who were midway through a large meal. Fraser gratefully made his way to a seat at a side table. He longed to free his feet from his shoes or at least put them up on the chair across from him. All he could do, though, was extend his legs under the table while ordering a sarsaparilla and bowl of soup. He had to be ready to bolt whenever Attell started for the door.
After thirty minutes, the small man donned his derby and bounced out of the dining room. Fraser resumed his pursuit down side streets until Attell reached a large Tudor-style house, well-maintained, that stood apart from the neighborhood. Fraser set up his viewpoint from a half block away on the street’s far side, lounging against a tree and testing how much of yesterday’s news he had memorized. After twenty minutes, he began to get suspicious. A couple of men had entered or left, but not Attell. Until now, Attell hadn’t been much for long visits. Also, gathering dusk was making newspaper reading a pretty thin pretext.
“Aren’t you the shy one.”
Fraser looked up. The young woman was small, her head barely to his shoulder. Brown hair curled from under an ivory hat with a shallow crown, wide brim, and blue velvet bow. She smiled, holding a small bag in both hands.
Fraser reached to tip his hat. “Excuse me?”
“We noticed you standing over here, you know. We keep an eye on the neighborhood.” Fraser nodded, unable to dredge up anything useful to say. “Lots of fellas get shy,” she said, giving her shoulders a flirty twist. “The neighbors don’t much like it, having fellas on the street. So it’s better if you either come in—we don’t bite, not unless that’s what you want—or else you go on your way.”
“Uh, no—sorry—no. Really, I wasn’t planning to come in. I was, you know, waiting for somebody. I guess he’s been delayed.” Fraser conspicuously checked his watch. He gave the young woman a perfunctory grin. “I certainly don’t want to cause trouble with your neighbors. I’ll look for my friend around town.” He tipped his hat again, then put his newspaper under his arm. “Sorry for any inconvenience.”
“You are a shy one.” She giggled softly as Fraser moved off, stumbling on a level stretch of pavement. He hurried toward Broadway. Had Attell slipped out the back door? Fraser gritted his teeth over the waste of his time, half a day spent learning nothing. Then he remembered the bearded man. He had learned one thing.
At Broadway, Fraser ran through the alternatives he’d worked out with Cook. He had insisted on a backup plan if he lost track of Attell.
“Where can I try to pick him up again?” he had asked.
“The Brook,” Cook had answered, no hesitation. “It’s the swankiest joint, casino, what have you, way out in the country. One that
the New York smart guys set up. I think Rothstein owns most of it now. It’s the place to go for high-end card games that’ll skin you quicker’n you can say ‘Jack Robinson.’ ” Cook told him how to get there.
Fraser headed for his boardinghouse, where he fired up the Stutz. He didn’t much care for the car, a brute that had to be wrestled with more than driven, but Eliza insisted on it. She took comfort from its weight and density. After getting flipped from the Babe’s car the summer before, she preferred a car like a dreadnought. Fraser tried to argue that it was the driver that mattered, not the car, but they still had the Stutz.
He eased it under a tree, giving himself a view of the big lot behind the Grand Union, one the hotel used for its guests’ cars. He was playing a hunch, and it paid off fast. After only a few minutes, Attell strutted down the sidewalk, spats flashing. He climbed into a bland-looking Olds and set off in the direction of the Brook. Fraser made no effort to hurry or follow closely. He figured he knew where Attell was going.
The ride took only twenty minutes. Fraser killed his headlights when he realized the lights up on the left came from the Brook. The casino presented a wide porch to the road, then reached back in two perpendicular wings. The second story glowed with yellow light and dangerous secrets.
Fraser drove by slowly. After the road curved away, he nosed the big car in front of a large bush. People coming from the direction of the casino wouldn’t see the Stutz until they were almost past it. If then. He killed the engine.
With no moon, the stars stretched like diamond chips almost to the western horizon, where the sun left a silver glow. His head filled with the scrapings of crickets and katydids. He fought down a surge of fear. There were a lot of men with guns at the Brook, and Joshua was going in there to take their money.
Fraser couldn’t remember ever feeling brave. A few times, pushed hard by events and by Speed Cook, he had done things that might have seemed brave. But it wasn’t his nature. Right now he felt old and afraid. The night could be violent. No way around it.
He clenched his teeth and stared back toward the Brook.
Chapter 22
Two tall figures entered the woods behind Clover Farms. Each carried a canvas sack. Without a moon or a flashlight, they walked gingerly, protecting their tuxedoes from branches on all sides and from mud underfoot. If they were going to pass, even for a few moments, as waiters at a deluxe joint like the Brook, they couldn’t look like they’d crawled through the wilderness to get there.
Joshua had spent the last two nights in this forest, finding a good path and confirming that Rothstein’s gunmen, like Cecil, were city men who preferred pavement to woods. They patrolled the Brook’s open grounds without ever venturing into the trees behind them. Most of the people they were guarding against, Joshua figured, were city men, too, also uncomfortable in the woods. On both nights, Joshua had reached the back wall of the casino without being challenged. He had looked in a few windows to confirm what he had learned from a drawing of the building’s layout that he had paid one of the Brook’s workers to draw. The price had probably been half the worker’s monthly pay, but the sketch had the detail they needed, showing doors, stairs, the dining rooms, the high-stakes card room, main casino, even the closets and serving areas. No one knows a building like the people who clean it.
Joshua had heard stories about the Brook—about the luxury, the steaks, the cigars, the shows, the women. Rothstein and his partners provided every comfort that might distract the customers from the crooked gambling. Or at least soften the pain of their inevitable losses.
After twenty minutes, Joshua and Cecil stood where the woods ended. The building lay across a hundred feet of lawn. Two storage sheds provided cover for the perilous trip across.
Quietly, they set their sacks on the ground. Each man tucked a small towel into his shirt collar, then began to apply black makeup to his face, neck, and ears. In the weak light, they checked each other to make sure all exposed skin was covered, then traced on the other the white Sambo smile favored by blackface performers. They tossed the makeup and towels aside and drew long-nosed Mausers from the sacks. The pistols, their streamlined design expressing their lethal purpose, went into the rear of their waistbands, under their jackets. Cecil had so admired Joshua’s pistol that he bought one from another veteran. Joshua nodded at Cecil, then led off.
Crouching, the sack in one hand, he started across the open ground. When dog barks erupted, he crouched lower and froze.
“What’s that?” The voice carried in the moist night air. It came from Joshua’s left, toward the road.
“Ah, probably a damned squirrel,” another voice said. “That cur barks at the wind.” The second voice came from the same direction. The guards had patrolled separately the last two nights, but these two were together.
When the dog quieted, Joshua moved again, pausing behind each shed in turn, then reaching a shadowed stretch of the casino’s rear wall. Looking back at Cecil, Joshua was surprised how the painted ivory smile reflected the light from the casino’s windows. Joshua hadn’t thought of that. He angled his face down while he waited. When Cecil arrived, his breathing was steady, his eyes steady, too. Joshua pointed at the light from a window above them. They both stared at it so they wouldn’t be dazzled when they stepped in from the darkness.
A man came out of a door about twenty feet away. He strained to haul a metal trash bin against his right hip. As he had the last two nights, he left the door open behind him and headed back to one of the sheds. Joshua and Cecil stepped inside, their sacks at their sides, heads down to shield their garish makeup. They moved past the kitchen, still bustling at 1 AM. They stopped at a closet, opened its door to conceal themselves. Each took a silver tray from his sack, along with a wig and gloves.
They had used this blackface stunt before, not only for the irony of it. It worked like a jujitsu move, turning the victims’ race attitudes in favor of Joshua and Cecil. If the robbers were in blackface, they had to be white men, right? Colored men didn’t put on blackface and wigs. So that was the description that would travel from the robbery.
Joshua felt his heart begin to race. He slowed his breathing and emptied his mind. His whole life turned on the next twenty minutes. If the plan worked, then he’d be in London with Violet in a week, get married, start his business, and wait for the baby. If the plan failed . . . no point thinking about that. He’d thought through some of the dozens of ways things could go wrong and how to deal with each. But they weren’t going to go wrong.
He led Cecil down a side passage. “Hey, buddy,” a voice came from a room they passed, “how’s about a fresh drink?” Joshua and Cecil kept walking, hoping the man was so drunk he hadn’t noticed the makeup and wigs.
They stole up a service staircase and entered the upstairs corridor, advancing on their toes. A colored maid carrying towels came out of a room. She gasped and stared, wide-eyed. Joshua held a finger to his lips. She scurried back into the room and closed the door behind her. They paused at the end of the hall. Joshua peered around a corner.
The man sitting next to the door of suite 201 was studying the Daily Racing Form. His cigarette smoldered in one hand. Joshua took Cecil’s tray from him and put it under his arm with his own. He nodded. After three running strides, Cecil had the barrel of his pistol against the guard’s cheek. Staring at two armed men in blackface, the man froze as the newspaper slid off his lap. Cecil used his free hand to haul him up by the front of his suit.
Joshua reached for the doorknob.
* * *
The wind filled Fraser’s ears. It was strong enough to tilt the cornstalks, heavy with ripe ears. Feeling itchy, wondering where Speed was, he got out and walked up the road toward the Brook. He and Speed hadn’t set up any specific rendezvous. He couldn’t think of anything to do except poke around, trying not to be seen by any of Rothstein’s men. When an engine approached from behind, he ducked into the tall corn. The car curved past the Brook. Fraser resumed his exploration, crossing
to the casino side of the road.
Reaching the edge of the curve, where the front lawn of the casino began, he knelt down to take in the scene. The Brook wasn’t all that impressive from this angle. Fraser decided it must extend away from the road. A low social hum carried through the wind. Cars came and left, all in the direction of Saratoga, though it was past midnight. A porch light showed two men loitering in languid poses, cigarette smoke curling around them. In France, Fraser had heard from the soldiers that the quiet men often were the most violent, the bloodiest fighters.
“You fixing to make yourself a target?” Cook’s low voice came from behind him, from the far side of the road. Fraser couldn’t see him. “In the ditch,” came the further hiss. “Where you should be.”
Fraser did as directed. The grass in the ditch was wet. “Attell’s in there. What’s going on?” he asked.
“They’re doing it tonight.”
“Jiminy Cricket.”
Cook smiled into the night. “No cause to go blaspheming.”
“What’re we doing?”
“Not sure. The boy wouldn’t tell me much.” A car pulled down the long drive from the Brook and turned toward Saratoga. They flattened against the side of the ditch until it was gone. “How far’s your car away?”
“A couple hundred yards that way.” Fraser pointed.
“That’s good. Right direction.” After a moment’s pause, he started again. “For getting away, they must have a car stashed, be planning to head straight north to Canada. On the getaway, that’s when they’ll be vulnerable. The surprise’ll wear off. Rothstein’s probably got a dozen gunsels around here. They’ll be angry, hot to show the boss how good they are. When our boys take off, heading up to Canada, that’s where you and me maybe can help.”
The Babe Ruth Deception Page 17
