Westies

by T. J. English

  Then Whitehead said: “And your brother Jackie, he’s a rat bastard. I got no beef with you, Jimmy, it’s that brother of yours.”

  The conversation continued a while longer, then Jimmy walked back over to Featherstone and McElroy. Coonan had remained calm so far, but his ears were a bright red. Featherstone knew what that meant. Jimmy’s ears always got red when he was mad enough to kill.

  “What’s that guy sayin’?” asked Featherstone.

  “He called my brother a rat,” replied Jimmy.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Scumbag,” interjected McElroy.

  “Yeah,” said Jimmy. “My brother may be a fleabag, but he ain’t no rat.”

  Crowell could also see that Coonan was steamed. He’d brought some marijuana along to smoke and figured now might be a good time to torch it up. It might chill people out.

  “Hey,” he said to Whitehead, Huggard, and Comas, “let’s go downstairs and smoke a joint.”

  While the three Irishmen stayed at the bar, the four Clinton prison alumni headed through the lobby of the Opera Hotel and downstairs to the men’s room.

  Dank and musty, the men’s room in the Opera Hotel was in bad need of repair. The tiling on the floor and walls was dingy and the low ceiling was stained, with peeling paint and corroded plaster. There were two sinks to the left as you entered, and beyond that, separated by a marble partition, two porcelain urinals. To the right was a slop sink, with a mop and a bucket nearby, then three wooden toilet stalls. There were bare waterpipes running from the floor to the ceiling, and the cheap lighting cast a sickly yellow pallor throughout the room.

  Crowell and Whitehead stood with their backs to the urinals. Across from them were Comas and Huggard. They fired up a joint and passed it around, laughing and getting stoned.

  After a few minutes, Jimmy Coonan walked into the men’s room. The group acknowledged his presence, but nothing was said. Coonan walked around them and went to the urinal.

  Crowell was standing the closest to the urinals. Once the joint was passed his way, he leaned over and offered it to Coonan. Coonan glanced at him, then reached down to zip up his fly—or so Crowell thought.

  Suddenly, from his crotch area, Coonan produced a black .25-caliber Beretta. He took one step forward, put the gun to the base of Whitey Whitehead’s skull behind his right ear and BAM! The shot reverberated throughout the men’s room.

  John Crowell was looking directly at Whitehead when the shot was fired. The life didn’t drain from Whitehead’s face—it evaporated instantly. Then he slumped to the ground.

  Coonan, his eyes ablaze, stood over Whitehead’s rumpled body. “There, you bastard,” he snarled. “Now you can burn in hell.”

  With the noise from the shot still echoing in their ears, Crowell, Comas, and Huggard ran frantically for the door.

  Mickey Featherstone and Jimmy McElroy, meanwhile, had been sitting at the counter of the Plaka Bar, sensing that something heavy was about to go down. Coonan had smoldered quietly after the others had gone down to the men’s room, then headed off in the same direction. Featherstone and McElroy knew that Coonan, unlike them, wasn’t into marijuana. He definitely wasn’t going downstairs to get stoned. They sat sipping their drinks for a few seconds, then decided to go see what the deal was.

  As they went down the stairs leading to the men’s room, they heard a sound they immediately recognized as a gunshot. They looked at each other, pulled their guns, and started running down the stairs. By the time they reached the base of the stairs, Comas, Huggard, and Crowell were practically tripping over each other trying to get out of the men’s room.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” yelled Mickey. “Up against the fuckin’ wall!”

  As Featherstone and McElroy hustled Crowell, Comas, and Huggard against the wall, they heard two more shots from inside the men’s room. Mickey opened the door to see Coonan, gun still in hand, standing over Whitehead. Blood was percolating from Whitehead’s skull, forming an expanding pool on the dirty tile floor underneath his body.

  “C’mon,” Billy Comas said excitedly, “there’s a dumpster out back. We gotta get rid of this goddamn body. Now!”

  There was a lot of confusion after that. Coonan told McElroy to watch the stairwell to make sure nobody came downstairs. Featherstone was told to mop up the blood in the men’s room. The others, with no choice but to go along, grabbed Whitehead’s body and began dragging it towards the back of the basement.

  Whitey Whitehead was only 175 pounds, but dead body weight can make a corpse seem twice as heavy. Even with three people, they were having trouble. Crowell had Whitehead’s left leg and his belt. Coonan was on the right side, holding the body around the right shoulder. Huggard had it by the right leg. Comas had let go of the body and was leading the way through a basement hallway.

  The basement of the Opera Hotel had once been a restaurant, and they passed a dusty old counter with stools, vinyl booths set against the wall, and a decrepit kitchen area. To get to the exit, they had to go up a short flight of stairs and through a set of double doors. Crowell got winded quickly, huffing and puffing before they had even reached the stairs.

  At one point, Whitehead’s pants began to rip apart at the crotch. Crowell lost his grip entirely and the body fell to the floor.

  The others cursed him and regrouped, this time dragging the body instead of carrying it, leaving a trail of smeared blood behind them. When they got within a few feet of the stairs, Comas heard a muffled voice.

  “The cops!” he yelled instinctively, touching off a spasmodic reaction. Crowell, Huggard, and Coonan dropped the body, tripping over it. They ran for cover, smacking into each other like they were in some kind of slapstick movie routine.

  By this time, Featherstone had appeared, mop and bucket in hand. “What the fuck?” he shouted, as the others seemed about ready to run him over.

  Comas had put his ear against the back door. “No,” he turned and announced. “It’s alright; it ain’t the cops.”

  Through the door, the muffled voice identified itself as being that of a resident at the hotel. As Comas and the others listened, the person explained how he’d attempted to leave the hotel by way of the basement, but there was a metal gate just outside the door, and it was locked. When he exited the basement, the double door had closed behind him. It too was locked—from the inside. Now he was stuck in the area between the double door and the gate.

  “Oh shit,” cried Comas, pointing at the door. “How do we get the body to the dumpster with this fuck out here?!”

  Featherstone volunteered to run outside and see if he could get the guy out.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Comas, “you do that.” After Featherstone left the room, Comas turned to the door and spoke loudly. “Don’t worry, pal, we’re gonna have you outta there in no time.”

  Comas, Crowell, Huggard, and Coonan waited downstairs for a good eight or nine minutes, each glancing nervously at Whitehead’s body as a stream of blood now trailed aimlessly away from his head. There was another moment of panic when they thought they heard someone from a freight elevator down the hall.

  “Fuck this,” said Coonan, finally. “We’ll leave him here. Pull his pockets out, take his pants down. Make it look like a robbery.”

  And that’s how they left Whitey Whitehead—his pants down around his ankles, his pockets turned inside out, a pool of blood beginning to congeal on the floor underneath his head.

  Coonan, Comas, Huggard, and Crowell—joined now by McElroy—went back upstairs to the Plaka Bar. They were drained from the excitement and the tension, and exhausted after dragging the body through the basement of the hotel. They avoided looking at each other, and no one spoke as they walked through the lobby of the hotel and back into the bar.

  Just two hours had elapsed since Coonan, Featherstone, and McElroy first entered the Plaka Bar. It was now 2:30 A.M. and the bar was empty. Jimmy Coonan took the money they had pilfered from Whitehead’s pocket and tossed it on the count
er. “The bastard only had $5,” he said, “but let’s have a drink on Whitey.” They all gathered around for a much-needed shot of whiskey.

  Featherstone, meanwhile, had gone out to the back of the hotel, just like he was supposed to. When he got there he pulled the collar of his coat up and spoke in a fake Spanish accent to the guy who was locked behind the gate. But there was nothing he could do, since the gate had a chain lock on it. So he went back into the hotel and told the desk clerk that there was a guy locked behind a gate out back, and he’d better send someone to help him.

  Then he went back into the bar. Coonan and McElroy were seated at the counter. The other three sat at a table, still in a mild state of shock and uncertain whether they were allowed to leave now or what.

  “Who picked up the shells?” Mickey asked Coonan.

  The cold-blooded determination Coonan had shown during the shooting was gone now. The adrenaline had left him. He looked shaken, more shaken than Featherstone had ever seen him.

  “The casings?” Mickey asked again when Jimmy hardly acknowledged the question. “The casings from the bullets, did anybody get ’em?”

  Jimmy shook his head.

  “Get rid of the shells.” Mickey said, turning to McElroy. “There should be three of ’em.”

  After McElroy got up, Coonan walked over to a sink between the counter and the door to the kitchen. He coughed and gagged for a few seconds, then threw up violently. Mickey was surprised. Many times in recent years he himself had vomited at the sight of murder and dismemberment, but this was the first time—and would be the only time—he saw Jimmy Coonan do it. Mickey didn’t know whether to laugh, be disturbed, or what. He watched in utter fascination for a few seconds until he was jarred back to reality by McElroy’s return.

  “You get ’em?” Mickey asked.

  “Yeah,” answered Jimmy Mac, the red painter’s cap pulled low on his forehead.

  “Where are they?”

  “Flushed ’em down the toilet.”

  “All three?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry.”

  They finished their drinks and got ready to leave. As the entire group made for the door, Huggard began to pat himself down. “Hey, my card! I had a greeting card from my girl. In an envelope. Where the fuck is it?” He looked around for a few minutes but couldn’t find it anywhere.

  “Bobby, forget it,” Comas finally said. “You probably left the bastard somewhere and it got thrown out.”

  It was late and the streets outside were nearly deserted. For a moment, the entire group stood awkwardly on the sidewalk in front of the Plaka Bar. Then, without anyone saying good-bye, the Clinton prison alumni went their way and the Hell’s Kitchen Irishmen went theirs.

  In the van on the way back down to the neighborhood, Coonan, Featherstone, and McElroy began to wonder aloud about the trustworthiness of their uptown buddies. The shock of the killing had receded, and another instinct had kicked into gear—survival. Nobody liked the idea of having so many witnesses to the killing. It was going to make it awfully difficult to get a cohesive alibi together.

  When they reached Mickey’s apartment building on West 56th Street, they went upstairs and entered quietly, so as not to wake his wife and child. As the early morning dawn cast a somber light through the apartment windows, they stood in the kitchen discussing their options.

  “I don’t think we gotta worry about Comas and Huggard,” Coonan was saying. “We’re dealing with professionals there. Real stand-up.”

  “Yeah,” said Mickey, “but what about Crowell?”

  Nobody really knew much about John Crowell. As they parted, sallow and exhausted after another long night, that was the question that dogged them the most. How could they be certain they weren’t going to have problems with Crowell?

  Later that same day, the body of Harold Whitehead was found in the basement of the Opera Hotel by a janitor. When detectives from the NYPD’s 4th Homicide Zone arrived, they found Whitehead pretty much as he had been left the night before. Only now there was a white envelope resting next to the body. On the envelope, in clear handwritten letters, was the name “Bobby.”

  Inside was a greeting card with a picture of a woman looking out at the ocean and a glorious golden sunset. “I’ve been thinking of you all day,” it read on the front.

  On a piece of paper accompanying the card was a handwritten message that read:

  “Hello my love. It’s me. There are so many thoughts going on inside of me I had to try and express a few.…

  “Honey, I can’t say in words how happy you and the relationship we have has made me feel. Dear God it feels Good! Every way. Mentally, Physically and Spiritually.

  “You know, it’s funny. I spent a year and 3 mos. with a man because of what I Believed the relationship could be. Not what it was—And you and I have it automatically!

  “Babe, I’m a fool in a lot of ways—but I’m not going to give up filet mignon for hamburger!!

  “Honey, I’m really starting to feel Close to you and it feels Good and right. I can only hope you feel the same.”

  It was signed, “Hey Babe, I love you, Elena.”

  After the area had been secured, detectives from the Crime Scene Unit traced the smeared blood and scuff marks leading from the body back through the basement to the men’s room. They found more traces of blood, both on the floor and on the doorjamb. Detective William Nasoff got down on his knees and checked behind the toilet bowls. Behind the one closest to the door he found the brass casing from a .25-caliber bullet. Later, the bullet itself would be found in one of the sinks against an adjacent wall.

  Nasoff shook his head in amazement. Some murder scenes revealed nothing, not a single shred of evidence. But on this one, in less than thirty minutes, they had already secured two potentially devastating pieces of evidence. In his more than eighteen years as a member of the Crime Scene Unit, he had learned this usually meant one of two things: It was either an incredibly sloppy murder, or the evidence had been deliberately planted.

  Judging from the way the body had been haphazardly left behind, with the bullet and casing carelessly left in the men’s room, it certainly had elements of the former. But there was also the greeting card left oh-so-conveniently next to the body. The detective figured that had to be a plant.

  Nobody, he thought, could be that stupid.

  In Hell’s Kitchen, news of Harold Whitehead’s murder wafted through the saloons along 9th and 10th Avenue like a malodorous breeze. Unlike the murders of Paddy Dugan, Ruby Stein, and Rickey Tassiello—murders that had been undertaken with a specific purpose in mind—the Whitehead killing was spontaneous and inexplicable. It was a murder unlike anything Coonan had done in recent years—totally impulsive, with a reckless disregard for everyone involved. The killing was especially terrifying to those closest to Coonan. If he was willing to stiff someone for as trivial an offense as Whitey Whitehead’s, just imagine what he would do to those who owed him, as most of his underlings did.

  Inevitably, many of them blamed it on the Italians. Since the meeting at Tommaso’s, Jimmy seemed to believe that he could kill with virtual impunity. Here, finally, was the proof: He had blown a guy away for calling his brother a “rat” or a “fag” or some fucking thing.

  Billy Beattie, especially, did not take the news of the Whitehead murder well. Formerly a part-time bartender at the 596 Club and Edna’s ex, Beattie had been on thin ice with Coonan ever since they first met ten years ago. Nothing he did, including helping Jimmy murder Paddy Dugan and Ruby Stein, seemed to make him any more secure. To make matters worse, he’d also run up huge debts with Coonan. Just a few months earlier he’d gotten Jimmy to front him $5,000 for a dope deal he wanted to make with a supplier in Florida. The deal had gone down but had yielded little or no return. On top of that was the money Beattie had been borrowing from Coonan to finance his shylock operation. All told, he must have owed Coonan at least $100,000.

  But the money was only part of it. There was another reason Be
attie knew he was in trouble with Jimmy, and the Whitehead murder reminded him of it.

  Weeks earlier, Jimmy had ordered Beattie to whack Tommy Collins. Collins, then in his late forties, was not an easy guy to kill. It had been nearly thirteen years since Collins, along with Mickey Spillane and others, had ducked into a doorway on West 46th Street as young Jimmy Coonan sprayed them with machine-gun fire. In the intervening years, Collins continued to live on the fringe of organized crime without ever doing violence to anyone. Most West Side gangsters, including Beattie, thought of Tommy as an uncle; he was universally well liked.

  Unfortunately for Tommy, he had a drinking problem that often got him into trouble. He’d developed the habit in the early Seventies, after one of his seven children was killed in a freak fireworks accident on the 4th of July. The tragedy took its toll. Within months, Tommy put on forty or fifty pounds and his hair turned completely white. Every year thereafter, around July 4th, he’d go on a drinking binge, piling up gambling debts and letting his business commitments slide. As the years passed, the drinking binges became more and more frequent.

  In early November ’78, Coonan told Billy Beattie he was tired of Collins’s always being behind on his shylock payments, and he wanted to use him as an example. The order was simple: Kill Tommy Collins and make his body do the Houdini. No payment was mentioned for Beattie. The way Billy understood it, Jimmy just considered it to be the price of their friendship.

  It put Billy in a tight spot, to say the least. Not only did he like Tommy Collins, but Tommy owed him something like $25,000. If he killed Collins, how the hell was he going to get his money? And if he didn’t get his money, how the hell was he going to settle his debt with Coonan?

  Beattie had no choice but to go through the motions. He got a .32 automatic with a silencer from Jimmy’s twenty-four-year-old brother, Eddie, a little squirt who was trying to follow in his older brother’s footsteps, but who nobody liked very much. Then Beattie drove around Collins’s apartment building a few times, not knowing what the hell he would do if he actually ran into him. But he never saw Tommy Collins. After a week or so he gave the gun back to Little Eddie Coonan and told him to tell his brother he’d been unable to pull it off.