Button Man

by Andrew Gross

  “Yeah, I think I know what you mean,” Morris said.

  Buchalter gave a look to Irv again. “Counselor…” He nodded. Then he headed back to his table at the other end of the room.

  “Who was that guy?” Ruthie turned back around to Morris.

  “No one you need to know.”

  “But you know him.”

  “I know a lot of people.” He looked over at Irv.

  “Well, I don’t like him. He gives me the chills. Whatever he was referring to, that almost sounded like a threat.”

  “He gives a lot of people the chills,” Morris said. “C’mon, don’t pay no attention to him.” He pulled back her chair and put out his hand. “Night’s still young, whaddya say, you still up for that dance?”

  Chapter Ten

  Days later, Louis Buchalter sat in the backseat of the Pontiac across from Blinky Cohen’s candy store on the corner of Pitkin and Bristol Avenues in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The street was dark and dimly lit, and the store, which sold everything from candy to comics and cigars, was the only thing still lit on the block.

  Buchalter watched through the window as the last customers straggled out with bottles of pop, toffee, or baseball cards, and probably a numbers ticket in their pocket. He glanced at his watch. Five of … Everyone in the neighborhood knew Blinky shut the doors promptly at eight P.M.

  “Look at this guy,” Louis chuffed to Jacob Shapiro, who was seated in the front, next to Oscar Hammerschmitt, who was behind the wheel. “He’s got more people in there than Macy’s on Christmas Eve. It’s a wonder he even shuts the door.”

  “I’d be open till midnight if I had a line like that,” Gurrah looked back and said.

  “Two things you can count on in life to put a smile on your face.” Louis nudged him on the shoulder.

  “And what’s that?”

  “A blow job. And that first bite from a box of Cracker Jacks.”

  “It’s a tough choice,” Gurrah said, seemingly thinking on it a second, and this from a man not generally given over to much reflection. “Still, I’ll have to go with the blow job.”

  “You would, huh?” Buchalter gave it a bit more reflection and shrugged. “I don’t know.…”

  At eight, what appeared to be the last customer exited the store. Through the window, Louis saw Blinky, the size of an ox so he was hard to miss, shuffle over and turn the Open sign to Closed. Louis scanned down the darkened block. No one was around. But Blinky had a lot of friends. Sometimes after closing, the police wandered by. That’s why he didn’t lock the door. They played the numbers too. But tonight, in the cold and drizzle, the street was clear. Louis nudged Gurrah that it was time to go, and opened his door. “That’s our sign, my old friend. Shall we go?

  “Keep the motor running,” he said to Oscar.

  He and Gurrah stepped out and, hands in their overcoats, headed across the street.

  Things had gone pretty well for Louis Buchalter in the past years. His star was definitely on the rise. He’d carved out his own territory down on the Lower East Side, between Rivington and East Fourth, where his gambling and protection businesses brought in a reliable income. Merchants had to ante up to keep themselves safe, which of course chiefly meant safe from him, since he and Gurrah were not above cracking a knee or two, splitting a skull, or even firebombing a store if a stubborn merchant didn’t see it their way.

  Still, it was all nickel-and-dime stuff compared to the guys above him. Pocket change. He looked at fat cats like Rothstein and Jacob Orgen and even the guineas like Luciano and Albert Anastasia, who had a temper that could go off at a moment’s notice and was known to have once put a steak knife in a suspected informant’s chest, seated across the table. And which explained why he and Shapiro were there that night. Blinky Cohen had friends—too many friends. And apparently he was handing out a lot more than just jelly beans to the local cops, which Anastasia said had landed an associate or two of his in jail and was starting to put a dent in his rackets.

  Guinea or Jew, Louis had no tolerance for snitches, no matter which language they blabbered in. He took a last look at Gurrah as they turned the handle and stepped into the store. The door chime jingled.

  “Sorry, we just closed!” Blinky called out from behind the counter, in the process of filling a cigar humidor. Then he saw who had come in. “Oh … Louis, Jacob…” His reaction was both surprised and wary. It clearly wasn’t a social call. He closed the humidor. “What brings you two all the way out here?”

  “Jelly beans, Blinky.” Buchalter grinned.

  “Jelly beans…?” Blinky went about three hundred pounds, with thinning gray hair and a constant twitch in his left eye, accounting for his nickname. He wore an open white shirt and thick suspenders, his ample belly hanging over his waist. “Whatsamatter, they don’t sell ’em no more across the bridge?” he said hesitantly, but with a laugh.

  “None like yours.” Louis and Gurrah stepped up to the counter.

  “Sure, then,” Blinky said, his eye wandering to Gurrah, who stood there with his meaty hands stuffed inside his coat pockets. “Cold in here, Jacob…? Whatcha got in there?”

  Gurrah just shrugged. “Don’t pay it no mind, Blinky.”

  “Just make sure you gimme enough of those red ones there.” Louis pointed to the glass container. “I fucking hate it when you get a handful of jelly beans and only one or two are red. And while you’re at it, Blinky, how about you make sure you keep those hands of yours above the counter where I can see them nice and clear, okay?” Everyone knew the candy store owner kept a loaded shotgun underneath the cash register, so no one ever attempted to rob him.

  “I know you’re not here for fucking jelly beans, Louis,” the candy store owner said, a film of sweat starting to break out on his forehead. He scooped a shovelful of beans out from a large glass container and put them in a dish.

  “Well, you’re right there.” Louis looked around. “Y’know, you of all people ought to know how to keep that fat mouth of yours shut, Blinky.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Louis.” Blinky shut the glass case. “You know I keep to myself. I don’t talk to anyone. I don’t know who you been talking to. In a million years, I would never give a yiddisher up to the cops, if that’s what you’re saying. You both know me, Louis, Jacob. A long time.”

  “Well, you might be right on that.” Louis nodded, as Blinky turned around with the jelly beans and put them on the counter. “Problem is,” he said, looking at him, “in this case, I ain’t talking about a yiddisher.”

  The air slowly leaked from the fat man’s cheeks, as the reason Louis and Gurrah were there suddenly became clear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the fat man said, “but I think you know, Louis, I got protection. Abe Reles. Not someone you want to fuck with. No matter whose business you’re here on. You and I been friends a long time.”

  “So I thought, Blinky. And you’re right again, Abe’s a tough macher,” Louis agreed. “Not a guy you’d want to get on the wrong side of.”

  Blinky’s bad eye started to flutter.

  “Here, I think I gave you enough red ones to fucking shit cherries,” he said, sliding the dish of jelly beans across, and as Louis reached for one, Blinky thrust his other hand underneath the counter for the shotgun there. In the same motion, Gurrah removed his hand from inside his coat pocket and drove the ice pick he’d been holding in there through Blinky’s left hand, impaling it to the counter.

  “Shit!” Blinky howled in pain. “You fucking wop pussy-licking kike.” Blood began to ooze from his hand as he tried to bring it up. But it stayed there, fixed. With his other hand, he reached under the counter for the shotgun.

  Louis removed his own gun from his coat pocket and placed it between Blinky’s eyes. “I don’t care what language you’re singing in, Blinky, a canary’s a fucking canary, you fat snitch.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  There was a pop, and Blinky’s head snapped back, a dark, crimson hole do
tting the candy store owner’s forehead.

  “Zay gezunt, Blinky,” Louis muttered. He pulled the trigger again. Say good-bye.

  The top of Blinky’s head blew open in red, and the candy store owner slumped, pulling at the ice pick impaling his left hand, until Gurrah lifted the pick back out and the fat man sank to the floor.

  In a rage, Louis ran around the counter. “You fat fucking whale snitch.” He kicked Blinky in the head. By that point the candy store owner was already dead, but Louis continued to stomp on him, mashing his face in with his heel.

  “Louis,” Gurrah called out to him.

  “In a minute.” Louis took his gun and inserted it into the fat man’s gaping mouth and pulled the trigger one more time. And then again, until what a minute ago was Blinky’s jowly face was now little more than a red, indecipherable maw. He stomped on him two or three more times until he grew flushed in the cheeks and short of breath.

  “Louis,” Gurrah said again.

  “Okay!” Louis reached and grabbed a fistful of jelly beans off the counter. “You want to use that mouth of yours so bad—here.…” He stuffed the candy in Blinky’s hanging, bloody jaw. “Chew on these!”

  “Louis!” Gurrah tried to get his partner’s attention. “We gotta get out of here. Oscar’s waiting. No telling who’s around.”

  Louis blew out a breath and wiped some of the dead man’s blood off his coat sleeve. “You’re right. I’m coming.” He came back around from the counter. Gurrah was at the door. He opened it a notch, the chime tinkling, and he waved outside. Oscar swung the car around and flung open the passenger’s side door.

  “C’mon, let’s go!”

  “All right. Just one more second…,” Louis said, to Gurrah’s irritation. He hurried back over to the candy counter like he was going to stomp on Blinky’s head one last time.

  “Louis, what the fuck you doing?” Gurrah said. “The fucker’s dead. Don’t worry ’bout him. People could’ve heard the shots. We gotta go.”

  “Not him.…” Buchalter paused at the counter and grabbed a couple of boxes of candy. He came back to the door. “These…”

  “Fucking Cracker Jack?” Gurrah’s eyes grew wide.

  “I don’t think Blinky’s gonna miss ’em too much. Anyway, relax.…” Louis stuffed a box in Gurrah’s coat. “I took one for you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Three days later

  In a barber’s chair in Guiseppe’s Barber Shop in Flatbush, Brooklyn, Louis Buchalter sat across from Albert Anastasia, who was getting a shave.

  “You know what, you Jews gotta learn the meaning of a true shave,” the Italian grinned, reclined, his face covered in shaving cream, a cigar sticking out. Guiseppe, the owner, carefully eased the straight-edged razor over the contours of the crime boss’s face. “You have no idea what you’re missing.”

  “I shave just fine, Albert.” Louis ran his hand across his own cheeks, which in fact were smooth.

  “I’m talkin’ a real shave, Louis,” the Italian gangster said, glancing over to him. “Not walking around with all this fucking hair on the sides of your face and those heavy beards. It’s unsanitary. What is it with you guys anyway?”

  “It’s in the Bible somewhere.” Louis shrugged. “Jews are not permitted to use a razor on our faces. It’s forbidden.”

  “The Bible…?”

  “Yeah. Leviticus, I’m thinking. You read the fucking Bible, don’t you, Albert?” Louis winked at the barber.

  “Last time I read the Bible, I probably couldn’t even count to ten. Least not in English.” He laughed. “C’mon, let my friend Guiseppe here have a crack at you when I’m done. On me. I promise, you’ll feel like a million bucks.”

  “If it’s all the same, Albert…” Louis sat up and looked at the Italian crime lord. “I’m gonna let someone put a razor to my neck without putting a bullet in his head—it won’t be no Guinea. No disrespect, of course, Guiseppe.”

  “None taken, Mr. Buchalter,” the barber said.

  The barber finished up, and handed Anastasia a steaming towel. The crime boss wiped off whatever was left on his face, and ran a hand across his cheeks. “You know what they say, Louis: clean face, clean conscience. You’ll sleep like a fucking babe.”

  “You know, I sleep just fine as it is, Albert.”

  “Perfect, Guiseppe.” He took out a twenty and pressed it into the barber’s hands. “Now leave us alone a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind. Mr. Buchalter and I need to talk some things over a bit.”

  “Always a pleasure, Mr. Anastasia.” The old barber folded the twenty into his vest pocket and stepped into the back room. The gangster waited until the door had completely shut.

  Anastasia swiveled the barber’s chair Louis’s way. Though he was a man linked to many violent deaths, including stories of bludgeoning and garroting by his own hands, the Italian’s face did give off the sheen of a baby’s. “I want to thank you for coming all the way out here, Louis. And for doing that job the other day. I heard you messed our friend Blinky up pretty good.”

  “He got what was coming to him. I don’t have any use for a snitch, no matter what language they’re talking.”

  “My feelings exactly,” the Italian said. “I was happy to be able to count on you. If I had to do it myself, it would’ve started a war. Trust me, I won’t forget. I can see you have ambition, Louis, though let me tell you, too much of it in this business isn’t always the best thing.”

  “I do what I can,” Louis said. He reached to the counter and dabbed a little aftershave on his hands and then onto his cheeks as well. They stung.

  “Sure I can’t tempt you…?” Anastasia asked one more time. He rubbed his knuckles across his face. “Last chance.”

  “Next time, maybe. I’ll have a shave here and you can have your dick cut by this mohel I know down on Delancey.”

  “Ha!” the Italian laughed. “That would be quite a deal, wouldn’t it? Which is what I thought we might talk about, Louis. There’s an opportunity here. You and your boys turn out to be quite good at what you do. I said to Masseria just the other day, who knew fucking Hebes could be so tough? We always thought you were a bunch of sissy bedwetters. So the idea I’m thinking is, a kind of partnership. Your people bring the poppers.…”

  “You mean we do all the work and take the risk. And you bring exactly what, Albert?” Louis asked.

  “We bring the business, Louis.” Anastasia sat up and grinned. “You know us Italians, we always seem to have grudges against somebody. There’s always someone who needs to be taken care of. I got the idea from Lansky himself. It should be just like a business, he said. And why not? Murder and Company. Or Murder, Incorporated. How’s that?” The Mafia man chuckled. “Doesn’t have a bad ring to it, Louis. I know a lot of people who’d like to be shareholders. Anyway, you and me, I know we came up the same way. We never minded getting our hands dirty. Mettendo le mani nella salsiccia, we say in Italian. Putting our hands in the sausage.”

  “Something to talk about.” Louis nodded. But inside, he couldn’t help but marvel: Lansky, Masseria, Anastasia … These were the biggest names. People were noticing. Louis felt his stock rising. “But before we start handing out business cards, I’d like to get something a little steadier going for myself. The rackets are fine, but it would be good to find something, I don’t know, a bit more day-to-day. Where I didn’t have to put my neck out all the time. You know what I mean?”

  “Day-to-day, huh…?” The Italian thought on it a second, chewing on his cigar. “You know what you ought to get into, Louis…?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Garments. If I were you I’d look very closely at the garment business. For your kind, that’s where the real money seems to be.”

  “Garments?” Buchalter let out a laugh. “I’m afraid you got the wrong Jew, Albert. What the fuck do I know about making clothes?”

  Anastasia leaned forward, looked over at him and smiled sagely. “Whoever said anything about making clo
thes, Louis?”

  It hit Louis just what the crime boss was telling him. “You’re talking the unions.…”

  Albert nodded. “That’s where the real money is, Louis. And you’ll never have to buy a fucking yard of fabric. It’s all about the dues. We got the dockworkers. It comes right out of their paycheck every month. Just like the IRS. It’s a license to steal, my friend. And you oughta have the garment makers.”

  For the past decade, since the revolution that took place in Russia, the unions had been a growing force. Workers needed to have a voice, all the papers said. You heard it everywhere. Someone had to represent them. Since the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911, the garment trade was no different. The unions had grown stronger and stronger, and with them, the money that was collected each month.

  But there was a wrinkle. Louis swiveled around in his chair and looked Anastasia in the eye. “The garment unions are Little Augie’s thing, Albert. You know well as I do, he’ll never give ’em up.”

  “You’re right. That’s something that might have to be given some thought.” The Italian shrugged and flicked an ash off his cigar. “That Augie’s a stubborn bastard. He won’t give up an inch. But from my thinking,” Anastasia looked back at him, “that’s a thing you seem to have the means to resolve, Louis. You understand what I’m saying?”

  The Italian got up from the chair, folded his face cloth, and laid it neatly on the counter. “Tell me, how many factories you think are making garments in this city these days?”

  Louis gave it some thought. “I don’t know. Thousands, I figure.”

  “My people tell me it’s the second-largest business in the city these days. That’s a lotta fucking dues, Louis. You do your job right, you’re talking millions. Week in, week out. Straight outta their paychecks. And here’s the thing, what you do with ’em…” Anastasia shrugged. “Well, that’s entirely your business, Louis. It’s totally up to those in charge. And that would be you, right? You understand?”

  Louis ran the numbers around in his head. He had no idea for sure, but Albert had to be right. It was millions they were talking about. Right in front of his eyes. And all Little Augie cared about was cracking a few heads. He wasn’t a businessman. He couldn’t see the big picture.