A Bloody Business Read online

  “Don’t judge too harshly until you have the facts,” the rebbe says.

  Meyer waits for the rebbe outside of the Black Hat café. Eventually, the rebbe arrives, Meyer hands him the key to the winery’s padlock, the one thing not broken in the raid.

  Meyer says, “We didn’t need the key after all.”

  The rebbe says, “You couldn’t have stopped them before they jimmied the door?”

  Meyer says, “It wouldn’t have made any difference. You won’t have any more trouble.”

  The rebbe says, “You didn’t take the wine. I put it aside for you. You didn’t take it.”

  Meyer says, “Do me a favor.”

  The rebbe says, “What kind of favor can I possibly do for you?”

  Meyer writes an address on a piece of paper and hands it to the rebbe.

  “Make sure this family always has wine for Shabbat.”

  The rebbe looks at the paper and nods. The address is a small flat in Williamsburg that belongs to Red’s family.

  * * *

  A week later, the gang is flexing their collective muscle on a new idea. The government is storing plenty of liquor in warehouses for doctors’ prescriptions for medicinal use. Red works feverishly to repair the dead engine of an abandoned truck he picked up alongside a country road. He intends to use it for the night’s excursion to the warehouse. Mike Wassell watches Red work.

  Mike says, “Yids in Cleveland bring whiskey across the border. I got a cousin in Cleveland. We could set something up.”

  Red says, “You wanna know somebody in Cleveland, ask me. I was born in Toledo, ya know.”

  “And you were raised here, just like me,” Mike says.

  Meyer strolls out from his makeshift office.

  “God took less time making the earth than you’re taking with this engine,” he says to Red.

  Red steps back from the truck and slams the hood. He wipes his hands across the thighs of his trousers.

  “Forget it,” he says with no small measure of disgust.

  Sammy wanders over to look at the problem. He raises the hood. He has a way with mechanical beasts.

  “Try to start it,” Sammy says.

  He watches the levers and gears go through their process. He signals to Red to do it again. The engine is simple, by all counts. He fiddles with the parts. Signals again. Red sparks the starter wire. The motor hums alive.

  “It needs a new ring gear for the starter,” Sammy says. “I’ll put a new one in tomorrow. The rear main thrust bearing needs attention, too.”

  Sammy drops the hood. He and Mike hop in the truck bed and huddle under a canvas tarp. Meyer and Red jump into the cab, Red at the wheel.

  “Worth the wait,” Red says, shifting into first gear.

  The truck rolls out of the garage into a moonless night. Snow blankets the city. The boys are in search of a government warehouse in Brooklyn where a cache of Kentucky whiskey is stored for medicinal purposes only. The anti-salooners believe a government certificate will control the flow of booze to the masses. Meyer and his gang bank on the idea that it will not.

  The truck snakes along Delancey to Bowery, sliding through large patches of ice. Red crosses Canal and makes his way down Broadway until he reaches the sixty-story Woolworth Building. He drives respectfully past the looming Cathedral of Commerce, then floors the gas pedal and heads across the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Wind gusts lift the truck and shove it from side to side. Three hundred and fifty-four feet below, whitecaps pock the surface of the East River. The bridge spills into Brooklyn’s warehouse district as they leave behind the line of docks and factories and water towers that fuel Manhattan’s various appetites. Farms dot the passing landscape. The truck skips a beat of pavement. Red guns the engine but a patch of black ice sends the truck into a skid. The back immediately overtakes the front. Red stiffens. He turns into the skid. Nothing happens. He turns away from the skid. The truck spins in two long ellipses before plowing into the fallow field that runs alongside the road. The truck hops twice before the engine dies leaving only headlights that throw a cockeyed beam across the highway.

  Red beats the steering wheel. He looks back at Sammy who motions Red to spark the wires again. It works. Red eases out the clutch. The truck lurches and sways and then pulls free of the muddy bog.

  “Goddamn farmers,” he says. “They flood these fields on purpose, you know, just to trap guys like us so they make a few bucks hauling us out.”

  It is 2 A.M. The temperature has dipped another five degrees since they left the garage. Mike and Sammy sit numb and chattering. Red rolls up to the guardhouse of a government warehouse. He flashes his headlights three times and then cautiously pulls forward. He slides the walnut handled pistol close to his leg.

  “I thought you boys got lost,” the guard says, his red cheeks pinching into a forced smile.

  “We’re here now,” Red says with a hard edge.

  The guard has a sagging paunch and drooping eyes. He pants when he speaks, the consequence of a bad diet and too much sitting in a poorly heated box.

  “There’s one guy inside,” he mutters. “We got hit last week. The controller called Washington. They put on another guy as a safeguard. He’s up in the parapet. Shouldn’t be a big deal for guys like you.”

  “Parapet?” Red says.

  “An office, like, that overlooks the warehouse floor. He can see everything. There’s a staircase goes up one side. Just look for the light,” the guard says drawing a map with his finger on the palm of his hand. “You can’t miss it. One more thing. Under the circumstances, I want another two hundred bucks. I’m takin’ a big chance with the guy in the parapet.”

  Red throws out a scowl as he slides his finger around the trigger of his Smith & Wesson. The price of larceny was agreed upon, five hundred dollars. Meyer passes five one-hundred dollar bills to the guard.

  “Five hundred,” Meyer says. “Take it or leave it.”

  “What the hell is this?” the guard says. “I can’t use hundred dollar bills. I ain’t no Rockefeller.”

  “You’re a clever fellow,” Meyer says. “You’ll think of something.”

  It’s too juicy a payoff to pass up. The guard grabs the cash.

  “Make it look legit,” he says.

  Meyer signals to Mike who jumps from the truck. Mike slides the slapjack from his inner coat pocket, a gift from his grandfather who got it from a prison guard.

  “This is how you deal with men who won’t cooperate,” his grandfather had said pointing to the vulnerable spot just above the knee. “Slap him here. He’ll buckle and drop like a fly.”

  Mike spent the afternoon whacking everything in sight with the rounded leather head attached to the flexible metal stem. “Wind it up and it will slam a guy with enough force to put him in the hospital,” his grandfather had said and then patted Mike on the head approvingly.

  Red rolls the truck forward and into the loading dock. Mike whips the slapjack hard and lands it just above the guard’s knee. The guard buckles in agony. Mike rips the ring of keys from the belt loop on the guard’s uniform. A few minutes later, the gang stands silently inside the warehouse. A dimly glowing desk light reveals the location of the new guard on duty. Sammy sneaks through rows of barrels. Mike follows closely behind. Sammy climbs the wooden stairs. They creak under his weight. The guard stirs. Sammy slides a bottle of chloroform from his coat pocket and douses a handkerchief.

  “Harry?” the guard calls. “Is that you?”

  “It’s me,” Mike grumbles.

  Sammy creeps up the creaking stairs. The guard, weighing in at about two hundred pounds of sheer muscle, comes to the edge of the stairs and peers down into the shadowy background. Sammy is on him like a monkey on a greased pig but he’s hit with a left hook. He fumbles the bottle of chloroform and sends it sailing along the floor. Mike double-steps his way to the top of the stairs and whips the slapjack. It hits the guard’s arm. The man rounds to face Mike, his whistle at the ready. The whistle scre
ams. Mike swings the slapjack and misses. The man lands another left hook and Mike flies backward. Sammy still clings to the greased pig. Mike jumps to his feet and swings again this time landing his blow. The guard goes down. Sammy gets the chloroform cloth over the guard’s nose. It is enough to make the guard woozy. Mike rescues the bottle, dousing the man and the handkerchief. This time it’s enough to knock the guard out.

  “Jesus,” Sammy says.

  Mike says, “What the hell was that?”

  Sammy stands, grabs the dime novel from the guard’s jacket pocket, Zane Grey’s The Man in the Forest, and shoves it in his back pocket. The boys descend the stairs and snake back through the maze of whiskey barrels and wooden crates. The warehouse stinks of a heady blend of eau de Jack Daniels and eau de Jim Beam.

  “Like old times,” Mike says while helping Red heft cases of whiskey into the back of the pickup.

  Red laughs, “This ain’t nothin’ like the ice business. A guy can get frostbite if he ain’t careful. There ain’t no real money in it, either, workin’ for somebody, I mean. The guy with the business takes it all. Thinks he’s doin’ you a favor by letting you do all the fucking work.”

  With the truck loaded, they squeeze into the cab with Meyer and Red.

  “I heard the guys in Cleveland get counterfeit permits and withdraw the booze. It’s legit that way plus the warehouse guys do all the lugging. How come we didn’t do that?” Mike says.

  “What’s with you and Cleveland?” Red says.

  “I’m just telling you the way it is,” Mike says.

  “Counterfeit permits don’t make it legit,” Red says.

  “I know,” Mike laughs. “But you slip the guards a few bucks to play stupid and they load the booze for you.”

  Meyer says, “The guys in Cleveland are more sophisticated. They’ve been dry for a year. You can learn a lot in a year.”

  Red says, “The Cleveland Jews bring whiskey across the border, from Canada. My cousin is coming down for Goldman’s kid’s bar mitzvah. You can ask him about it.”

  Meyer pulls up the collar of his coat and sits back for the cramped ride home.

  * * *

  The day of Hymie Goldman’s kid’s bar mitzvah arrives. The thirteen-year-old boy becomes a man. The sour smell of overcooked cabbage no longer hangs like a gas cloud over the neighborhood. Meyer sucks in the morning air with relief. He pours water from the pitcher on the dresser into the large bowl next to it and then stares into the cracked and yellowing mirror that hangs on the wall. The bare light bulb sears his eyes. He lathers the bristle of his beard and then drags the straight razor along his face. He’s eighteen now and making enough money to have his own one-room tenement flat. This brings joy to his father. No son who robs and steals for a living should succeed, not in this world or the next, and he certainly shouldn’t rise above his father.

  Meyer dresses and heads for the temple to make connections.

  Young Levi Goldman stumbles through the singsong reading of the Torah. The joy of the Sabbath has given way to a dry throat and a morbid dread of his father’s disappointment.

  Red Levine takes a seat next to Meyer. The flame-haired shtarker fiddles with the fringe of his prayer shawl. It’s no secret that Red dreams of orthodoxy while quietly admiring the boys with unshorn sideburns, long black jackets, and big round hats. Meyer doesn’t hold it against him. Levitical ancestors aside, somewhere between Red’s eighth birthday and the moment he jumped ship in the Navy, the streets of the Lower East Side claimed Red’s soul and Meyer knows it.

  Levi Goldman looks up and announces to the congregation, “Today I am a man.”

  The Torah now rests squarely on Levi’s shoulders. The celebration moves to the Goldman home where kosher wine flows freely.

  Hymie pats Arnold Rothstein on the back and says, “No wine for you? One day I enjoy a glass of wine with my wife. The next day I’m a criminal for doing the same thing as I did the day before. What kind of sense is this?”

  Rothstein is a gentleman’s gentleman who, nevertheless, never drinks alcohol.

  Meyer says, “It’s illegal to transport, manufacture, and sell alcohol. There’s no law against drinking. There’s a lot to be made from this new opportunity.”

  Rothstein says, “Have you got the chutzpah for the game?”

  This is a strange question from an uptown guy in his uptown brown tweed suit and shiny new shoes. What can Arnold Rothstein possibly know of the chutzpah it takes to survive on the street? Survival is not a game. A gamble, yes, but not a game.

  An old man shimmies a moth-eaten coat over his sloping shoulders.

  He says, “You should check out the Curb Exchange.”

  Arnold says, “Who needs Wall Street?”

  The old man says, “What does Wall Street have to do with this? The Curb Exchange, I said. Every morning I hear the Italians under my window. They make such a racket. Kenmare and Mulberry. See for yourself. But go early. By daylight everybody is gone. Or don’t and let the Guineas get the jump on you.”

  Hymie says, “Prohibition is all about Germans. They’re the biggest brewers in America. Overnight they’re out of business. No more dollars for the Jerrys overseas.”

  The old man says, “The war’s been over for a year. This is special-interest morality. Social Darwinism. Who are they kidding, these meshugenas? A sober worker is a productive worker.”

  The old man shuffles out of the house.

  “Smarter than he looks,” Rothstein says, punctuating the point with a raised eyebrow. He turns to Meyer. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “Wet blankets,” Hymie butts in. “It’s in the name. Protestants. Protest. They protest what you want to do, and then they turn their protests into laws.”

  Meyer shrugs, “We’ve been making laws for centuries. Six hundred and thirteen of them just landed on Levi Goldman’s shoulders.”

  “What the Protestants lack is the ability to enforce the law,” Rothstein says.

  “Tell that to the Irish cops,” Red says.

  Rothstein says, “Fact: There aren’t enough cops to stop people from doing what comes naturally. There aren’t enough courts to settle the suits even if they could arrest them all. You see where I’m going with this? The rich expect this whole thing to blow over in a year. I’m the guy with connections to the distillers. Let’s make haste, gentlemen.”

  Rothstein slips Meyer his card. It simply says, “Arnold Rothstein,” below which is penciled a telephone number.

  After the bar mitzvah, Meyer calls his gang together.

  “Arnold Rothstein has got contacts with European distillers. They all play poker together. Rothstein is looking for tough guys to move the liquor,” he says.

  “We’ve got contacts with Canadian distillers,” Mike says.

  “I don’t know, Meyer,” Sammy says.

  “It would take us years to get to know these guys,” Meyer says. “We don’t have years. Rothstein is already their pal.”

  Red says, “The Irish are bringing in beer. The Italians got wine. These guys got ties to the old country. Wandering Jews. What have we got?”

  Meyer says, “One thing, we’re going to be the guys providing quality booze, not this bathtub gin or homemade wine. Got that? We get the real thing and sell to people that know the difference. We get our own distributors and make sure they toe the line. Let the little mobs take the small stuff.”

  Mike looks around, “We’re not little?”

  Meyer says, “The Italians are still hanging out in the neighborhood. Half of them don’t speak English. We’ve got the edge. We can maneuver uptown. Take the Tenderloin. You can’t manufacture, sell, or transport intoxicating liquors. That’s our job description. We’ve got a car and truck rental business. It’s a start. If the Jews in Cleveland figured it out, so can we.”

  The next morning, Meyer rises before the sun, dons a fine wool coat, and makes his way toward the old man’s tenement building. Sure enough, voices pierce the darkness as the Italian C
urb Exchange bustles. How had Meyer never seen this before? Tommy the Bull is at the center of the action. Tommy is a fireplug of a guy with the musculature of a professional boxer and a blackjack he keeps tucked in his waistband. He answers to Charlie Luciano directly.

  Meyer stops in a shop doorway and smokes a cigarette. A man, fresh off the boat by Meyer’s estimation of the guy’s immigrant wardrobe, waddles past him lugging two five-gallon cans. The guy drops them in front of Tommy the Bull.

  “My cousin runs the still,” the guy says. “I drink it myself.”

  “Yeah?” Tommy the Bull says. “I heard it makes good paint stripper, too.”

  Tommy the Bull laughs. His good nature keeps the peace, most of the time. He counts out the going rate for homemade wine and sends the immigrant packing.

  A truck rolls up and unloads three cases of whiskey. The driver talks with Tommy who whistles and motions another truck halfway down the block forward. The drivers make an exchange, the three cases of whiskey for half a dozen kegs of beer and some rum.

  Tommy jots a note on a piece of paper that he stores in the brim of his hat.

  The guy picking up the whiskey says, “Hey, Tommy, what do I owe you?”

  Tommy hesitates, says, “Gimme a quarter and we’ll call it even.”

  And so goes the tangle of cars and trucks swarming the corner of Mulberry and Kenmare in the wee hours before daylight. Just as Tommy is about to get his break and head in to warm his frozen limbs, a dispute erupts on the sidewalk. A right jab leads to a left hook that sends a trader flying backwards into a case of whiskey. Bottles break and booze spews across the sidewalk. Tommy tries to control the outbreak but he is too late.

  “You stupid Kraut!” yells the guy on the sidewalk.

  He scrambles to his feet and pulls a revolver held under his belt. The gun explodes, sending a furious echo reverberating along the brick buildings. Tommy clubs the shooter with the worn blackjack. The shooter falls to the sidewalk, splayed in unconsciousness.

  “Did you see what he just did!” the incredulous Kraut screams.

  “Can it!” Tommy says as the flatfoot brigade pours from the precinct a block away.