And All the Saints

by Michael Walsh

  The thing about the hole and about time itself in stir is that it don’t go the same for us on the inside as it does for the folks on the outside. It goes both faster and slower, and here’s why.

  On the outside people go about their daily business, rising in the morning, working a full day or more, returning in the evening to scan the papers and have dinner with the family. Or so I’m told, anyway. Each moves along at a prescribed pace, not differing much one from the next, and so it is that you go from youth to married to the grave without hardly noticing what’s happening to you until it’s too late.

  True, on the inside, things are plenty regimented, but it’s a different kind of regimented. There’s a lot of petty rules about rising and shining, lights out and whatnot (and how is that different from the outside?), but because your world is so closed, the effect is even more pronounced, which means that once you get into the rhythm, the days whiz right on by. Which is why when I hear a fella’s been sentenced to such and such much time, I have to laugh, because unless it’s life, that kind of time you really can do standing on your head. Because you’re just a clown in the circus, and the circus is the only game in town.

  Therefore, after the first few months the time went sailing by, which is why it’s hard for me to now recollect exactly what happened when. I knew a war had broken out back in Europe, and there was talk we’d soon be in it. I even heard a crazy rumor from one of the Jewish punks fresh up the river that my old friend Monk Eastman had enlisted in the Army. I could hardly imagine anything barmier, but he swore it was true.

  Anyway, the next thing I remember is this:

  “Dame here to see ya, Madden,” said a screw.

  I rose up off my bunk. Doc Sweet had been keeping a pretty careful eye on me and my Duster souvenirs, which were still giving me some considerable discomfort.

  I was looking mightily forward to seeing my sister again and so it was that I made my way over to the visitors’ room and caught sight of a dark-haired girl I expected to see, except that it wasn’t the dark-haired girl I expected to see, but another, and that other was none other than Mary Frances Blackwell, my own dear nurse.

  She was in uniform, Mary Frances was, and she greeted me like I was her long-lost brother, only closer. I wanted to kiss her right then and there; instead I sat down.

  “Hiya, kid,” I said. “How’s tricks?’

  She just laughed in my face. “Still the tough guy, eh?” she said. “Look at you—ventilated, incarcerated…least you’re not incinerated.”

  I got the joke. “Not yet, baby.”

  “Thought you might like to say hello to an old friend.”

  I gave her a good up-and-down. “Who you callin’ old?”

  She blushed. “How’s about dear friend, then?”

  “Deal.”

  We chatted a bit, catching up on old times. I didn’t really care what she was talking about, I just liked talking to her. Rather, I liked watching her talk. Watching that pretty mouth I knew so well as it made its way around the words. Forming vowels and consonants and whole syllables like God creating the world. I could have watched her talk all day.

  She’d quit Flower Hospital recently, I finally realized she was saying.

  “Got a better offer.”

  “One of the big city hospitals, no doubt. I always had you pegged for big counselor things.”

  “Actually, no—it’s out of town.”

  I wasn’t happy to hear that, since I was looking forward to seeing M.F. again once my counselor sprung me from the joint.

  “Gee, that’s too bad,” I said. “Hope it ain’t far.”

  “Not too far—thirty, forty miles from town.”

  “Where is it?”

  She flashed me a blinder. “Right here, stupid.” It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about. “I’m Dr. Sweet’s new nurse.”

  My time was about to get a lot easier. “You don’t say.”

  “Try me.”

  I didn’t mind much going in for treatment after that, which I did quite a lot. Mary Frances and I were able to spend some very pleasant hours together, especially when the doc got me made an infirmary trusty.

  One evening Mary Frances and I were lying together on one of the cots. The chop shop was closed, and unless anybody got caught in a mangle or met with an unfortunate accident, we was home free.

  She brought it up first. “Do you love me?”

  “What kind of a question is that to ask a married man?” I remembered her reaction to Loretta in hospital.

  “Did you ever love her?” she asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “Then why—”

  “Oldest reason there is.”

  I poured us both a stiff drink of some sacramental wine I’d filched from the Catholic chapel. “Here’s to love,” I toasted.

  “Hey, you don’t have to make fun,” she protested.

  “I ain’t makin’ fun,” I said, kissing her. “I’m making love.”

  Here was the best news. Them Dusters had more or less done me a favor in that while my johnson was back functioning more or less as before, it was shooting blanks forever after.

  We got that over with in half an hour or so, and during the next several years Mary Frances never brought up the subject of love again. That was one of the things I liked about her.

  So it went. May came to see me pretty often, sometimes with Frenchy, sometimes with Georgie, sometimes alone. There was never another harsh word between us, and I thought to myself how good she looked, how happy, how her cheeks were full of color and life and how her eyes sparkled.

  “And that’s the lay of the land,” said Frenchy, giving me a report. We spoke in code. Frenchy would tell me about his travels hither and yon and from that I could glean the direction of our businesses, which unfortunately had started heading pretty much south as far as growth was concerned. Pilfering the railroads was not as lucrative as before, and while we were still makin’ money supplying the various saloons, blind pigs and tigers, that racket was leveling off. Frenchy was doin’ a helluva job preserving capital, squirreling it away in banks and drops all over town.

  “You didn’t tell him the best part,” coached May.

  They put their heads together and had a quick conversation that clearly made Frenchy uncomfortable. The thought flashed through my mind that maybe there was something between them, that maybe the big fella had betrayed my trust with her, and then I cursed myself for my suspicion and felt like a regular heel.

  “One more thing,” said George, trying to figure out how to put it.

  I hate suspense. “Hurry up, I ain’t got all day.” A lie.

  “They just passed a law that says no more booze,” said May. “No more manufacture or sale, effective first of the year.” That would be 1920.

  “We’re outta business,” says Frenchy.

  There had to be a loophole. There always was. “Drinkin’ okay?” I asked.

  “Totally legal,” replied May.

  It came to me in a flash. “Then what’s the problem?” I asked. One look at May and I knew that she knew that she and I knew which way was up.

  “Get ready,” I told Frenchy.

  “For what?” the big lug asked.

  “For more than you ever dreamed possible,” said May.

  We spent the next couple of years planning, and while some of the other gangs got the jump on us, by the time I was ready to hit the streets, we were ready to go—bigger and better than any of ’em.

  “Not less than ten” meant, in the parlance of New York State, somewhat short of ten, as far as years was concerned. Good as his word, Joe leaned on the girls, who modified their stories in exchange for certain emoluments. Joe leaned on the Tiger and in particular on Jimmy Hines, who, in exchange for certain emoluments, leaned on the Mayor, who, in exchange for certain emoluments, leaned on the Governor, who…

  The appeals court knocked eighteen months off my minimum, which meant that, combined with time off for good beh
avior because Warden Lawes had taken such a shine to me, I was out in eight, on parole. Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith, a favorite of the grand sachem Charles Murphy his own good self, personally signed the order.

  Those were the days when the Irish took care of their own.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  There was a fleet of cars waiting for me when I strolled out the gates, wearing the same clothes I had on my back when I went in, which weren’t exactly fashionable now that it was 1923. Buick six-cylinders, a couple of Franklins and a Hupmobile they might have been, but they was all tricked out alike, with shiny chrome trim and a string of lights across the roof like they was some kind of tribe or something.

  There was a human welcoming committee as well: Joe and Chick and Billy and the two Georges great and small, Marty and of course May, glorious May, in a sundress and a fetching little cloche bonnet and didn’t she look swell.

  Mary Frances saw me off at the gates. She was older now, which I couldn’t exactly hold against her, me being at this time thirty-one years of age, but the wrinkles around her eyes most distinctly gave me a sense of time having passed, especially in the harsh sunlight of the outside, my own time ticked off on a pretty girl’s face.

  “Am I gonna see you again?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “How long we both live.”

  I thought she was gonna slap me. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

  “Realistic.”

  “Tell me you love me.”

  I looked around. “With all these mugs watchin’?”

  Her face fell a little, but she was a brave gal, I had to give her that. “I get the idea.”

  I started to head out the gates.

  “One more thing,” she said, and it was the way she said it that arrested me. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” I said.

  “For doin’ what I asked ya.”

  If there’s one thing I like, it’s gratitude. “Thanks, pal,” I said, and left the Big House behind me.

  May threw her arms around me and kissed me, and Marty shook my hand, right after Joe and Frenchy, and then we all piled in the automobiles. I drew the Hupmobile, which was decorated with funny crisscross thingies I later learned were called swastikas, an old American Indian sign for good luck, or peace, or some such sentimental nonsense.

  “Where to, boss?” said the driver, who turned out to be Georgie Ranft. He looked sharp.

  “Am I glad to see you,” I said, and boy did I mean it.

  Shalleck sat in the front with Georgie, May in the back with me and a fella I didn’t recognize, who’d been sitting there all along.

  “Who’s the mug?” I asked. The mug introduced himself. “Larry Fay,” he said. “These are my taxicabs.”

  I’d never ridden in a taxicab before. “Pretty swell,” I said, admiring the leather upholstery and the curtains the passengers in the back seat could draw for privacy.

  “Watch this,” said Georgie. He hit the horn, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t play “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.”

  “That’s somethin’,” I admired.

  “That’s nothing,” says Fay, and gives a high sign out the window, triggering a symphony of melody like he was Toscanini or somebody. “Somebody Stole My Gal.” “Toot Toot Tootsie.” “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans.” We were a right regular chorus line.

  “We change the tunes every couple of months or so,” said Fay. “Keeps the customers happy.”

  I was impressed with all this musical culture, but even more did I want to see the last of the Big House. “Step on it,” I said to Georgie, who floored it. The force of the acceleration threw me back into the seat, but May just laughed and held my hand as off we went.

  “Some bucket a rust, huh?” she said.

  As we tore along the Westchester roads, Shalleck handed me a bottle of something wet and almost cold. I took a swig and nearly puked. I fumbled for the window and managed to spit the shite out Everybody laughed.

  “Needle beer,” says Shalleck. “Pretty awful, huh?”

  I was still wiping my mouth off but managed to mumble, “I thought beer was supposed to be illegal.”

  “It is,” said Fay.

  “This sure as hell ought to be,” says I.

  “Comes from a brewery in the Bronx owned by a guy—” says Georgie.

  “—who calls himself Dutch Schultz,” finishes Fay.

  The name was familiar. “Used to run the old Frog Hollow gang,” I recalled.

  “Not that Dutch Schultz,” said Fay. “He’s been dead for years.”

  That made sense. “I remember Monk talking about him. How is Monk, anyway?”

  A brief silence.

  “Fought like a tiger,” said Fay.

  “You shoulda seen the medals he brought back,” said Joe.

  “Got his rights back,” said Fay. “From Governor Smith himself.”

  “He’s dead,” said May.

  Another silence.

  “How?”

  “Bought it from a Prohibition agent,” said Shalleck. “Couple a years ago. Found him lyin’ on the sidewalk near the Wigwam at 14th and Fourth. Buried with full military honors. It was in all the papers.”

  “That’s what he got for goin’ straight,” said Fay, who I liked already.

  It took me a while to get the whole story, but what happened was this: After he got out of jail, Monk really did join the Army and fought with O’Ryan’s Roughnecks in the Great War. He was a hell of a soldier of course, killing jerries left, right and center, the upshot of which was that when he got back stateside, Governor Smith restored him to full citizenship. The lure of the chisel was too strong, though, and after the Noble Experiment got launched, Monk started running booze in tandem with one of the agents, a mook named Jerry Bohan, who put five bullets in him.

  The idea of Monk Eastman dead took some getting used to. Especially at the hands of a copper. Especially on the steps of Tammany Hall. “How much time’s this Bohan doin’?” I asked Joe.

  “Minimal.”

  “Find him.”

  “Already have,” supplied May. “He’s hanging out in a dive on the Lower East Side.”

  I flung the beer flask out the window, having made my first rehabilitated appointment. “Who’s the new Dutchman?”

  “Kraut kike from Yorkville named Flegenheimer, moved up to da Bronx when he’s a kid, gives the rest of us a bad time and a bad name, yids like him,” said Shalleck. “Just gettin’ started in the rackets, but he’s throwin’ some pretty good muscle around already. Never guess who’s workin’ for him.”

  “I’ll bite.”

  Georgie turned around. “That little mook what took a pop at you that night outside Nash’s.”

  I could feel May stiffen from the memory. “Missed me. I got him in the leg, I think, I dunno, it was dark.” He’d be my second appointment.

  “Harp name of Jack Diamond,” said Fay. “They call him Legs.”

  “I call him dead.”

  “Easier said than done,” said Shalleck. “Kid knows how to move. Light on the pins, easy on the eyes, smooth as a silk shirt. Quite the ladies’ man, I hear. Ain’t that right, Miss Madden?”

  “How would she know, Joe?” I snarled.

  “Hey, holy cow fer chrissakes, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, it’s just that your sister is a lady, in case you haven’t noticed lately…”

  “Let’s don’t talk about it, all right?” said May, and how could we say no to a lady. “We’re supposed to be celebratin’ today—ain’t that right, Larry?”

  “You betcha,” says Fay. “Pull over, George.”

  We were in a deserted stretch of Westchester nowhere, north of Yonkers somewhere along the Hudson. Georgie played “My Sister Kate” again and the cars pulled over, one after another, off the road and down to the water.

  When we got to the shore, Fay jumped out and May jumped with him. “Close your eyes, Owen,” she said, and I wouldn’ta done i
t for nobody but her.

  “Hold it…” I could hear the boots of the cars openin’, stuff rustling around.

  “Hold it…” I hate surprises.

  “Hold it…Okay—open ’em up!”

  There was the most perfect picnic you ever saw, laid out for a lord. And at every place, a bottle of champagne.

  May and Fay was already poppin’ the corks. The bubbly was flowin’ like the great river itself and two seconds or so later my glass was filled to overflowin’ and toasts was being proposed all around.

  “To success!” said Georgie, who was marked for it.

  “To freedom!” said Shalleck, whose people lacked it.

  “To the future!” said Fay, who wouldn’t have much of it.

  “To us!” said May.

  The champers tasted like real frog, not like the treacle we sold at the Winona. I asked Fay where he got it.

  “France,” he said. “Didn’t have to cross no ocean to get it neither.”

  I didn’t know much about geography, but I knew there was an ocean between here and Europe, having crossed it once. “France ain’t part of America.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, smart guy,” said Fay, laughing at my ignorance. “Look at a map sometime. There’s an island up Canada way, called St. Pierre.”

  “So?” I hated it when people made fun of my ignorance.

  “So it’s a part of France the way, say, New Jersey’s a part of America.”

  “He’s right, Owen,” said Big Frenchy, who knew about such things, or should have. “Listen to Mr. Fay.”

  Larry told his story. About how he was a taxi driver in New York and one day this drunk says to him, “Montreal,” and Larry says, “Hey, mister, that’s pretty far, ain’t it?” but the mug don’t care and forks over a wad and Larry drives him to Montreal and dumps him and never sees him again, but it don’t matter, because the whole point of the story is that Larry’s in Montreal now, where he sees booze goin’ begging. So he takes the opportunity to fill up the boot with whiskey and drives it back to New York, where it sells for a buck on the dime, and before you can say Seagram’s 7, Larry is makin’ money hand over fist, expanding his taxi fleet, buying a small armada of speedboats to scoot up and down the coast, working with a Boston paddy named Kennedy, a New York mick named Big Bill Dwyer and a wop named Costello to land the booze on the Cape, or in Jersey somewhere, and everybody’s bakin’ up some serious dough, and the long and the short of it is that he wants to cut me in.