A Bloody Business Read online

  Meyer snuffs out the butt of his cigarette on the frozen sidewalk and then slips deeper into the hollow of the doorway from which he’s been watching the operation.

  Tommy reaches for the roll of fifty-dollar bills he keeps in his inside pocket and peels off two, three hundred worth. He props the unconscious shooter against the wall.

  “Shush,” he says to the Kraut. “Don’t say a word until I give you permission to talk.”

  Four cops form a circle around Tommy, nightsticks in hand.

  “We heard a shot,” Tommy is informed.

  Tommy crosses each of their palms with greenbacks.

  “Everything is under control.”

  The coppers check the damage, one clocked shooter, one silent Kraut, and a case of lost income. Nothing to get in a twist over.

  Tommy folds another fifty and stuffs it in a flatfoot’s uniform pocket.

  “For good measure,” he says. “I’ll put aside a few bottles of Bushmills for you.”

  The posse swaggers back to the precinct. Tommy kicks the broken whiskey bottles into the gutter. He knows Charlie might be watching at this very moment from his second-story office window. If he is, from his vantage point, the whole thing will have looked to him like a Keystone Cops skit.

  Meyer emerges from the shadows and passes by Tommy.

  “Rough morning?” he says.

  “Hotheads,” Tommy mutters.

  Daylight creeps up from the horizon. Pushcart vendors clamber along the streets to claim their territories. Meyer grabs a bag of hot pretzels from one of them and makes his way through the car rental garage that serves as the backdrop to the Curb Exchange and then up two flights of stairs to Charlie Luciano’s office. The door is wide open.

  Meyer says, “Is it always this volatile?”

  Charlie says, “Tempers get hot. The hotel bars are shut down but that ain’t stopping nobody from wantin’ a drink. They serve booze in them little teacups now. Have you seen that? People call room service just so they can drink before they go to dinner. The city has gone wild.”

  Charlie Luciano recently changed his name to Charlie Lucky because, as he explained to Meyer, “It sounds good, like I’m a lucky guy, which I am, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  Staying lucky requires some care. The blocks known as Little Italy are run by a guy named Joe “the Boss” Masseria. Joe started shooting his way to the top as soon as he stepped off the boat from Sicily in 1903. He hasn’t stopped yet. He is a killer and proud of it. He walks the Italian neighborhood as the victor who defeated the Black Hand and took over the Morello family in 1916. He started bringing in new recruits taken from the splintered crime families of the Black Hand war. Discontent always makes for strange bedfellows. Charlie Luciano was brought in for his fiercely loyal and ruthless mob. Other little gangs followed. In that way, Joe gained strength. He stays strong by ruling with impatience and fury. The younger boys don’t mind the hothead if they earn.

  “You got any whiskey?” Charlie says. “I got a big order for one of them speakeasy joints around Broadway.”

  “I can get it,” Meyer says. “The good stuff.”

  “I don’t care what it is,” Charlie says.

  Meyer says, “You should. Broadway means it’s fat cats.”

  “Since when do I give a fuck about fat cats?”

  “They have political clout. You make one of them sick and we’ll all be thrown under the cart.”

  Meyer tosses the bag of pretzels to Charlie. Charlie is twenty-three, five years Meyer’s senior. In this business, five years is a lot. That’s why Charlie plays it close to the vest. He refuses to give the thirty-four-year-old Joe the Boss reason to doubt him unless you consider his relationship with a Jew. Joe tolerates the Jew because he makes him money and because Meyer is tough, but he also suspects his every move. Joe is old-school Sicilian, except for adopting the title Boss to sound more American. The truly Old World Sicilians hate him for this.

  Meyer says, “When did you start up the Exchange?”

  Charlie says, “It’s these guys fresh off the boat. They got no way to make a livin’ so they make wine or set up stills and come whining to Joe the Boss for help. What else are they gonna do? Joe gave me the word. I got trucks running in and outta here all the time and now all that crap out there on the street. I put Tommy the Bull on the curb to keep things orderly. You know Tommy.”

  “Sure,” Meyer says. “But what’s the logic in putting business out on the street? Illegal business.”

  “The coppers get their cut. What do they care?” Charlie settles back in the chair behind his desk. He pulls a pretzel from the bag. “Who’s your connection for whiskey? The Yids in Ohio?”

  Meyer says, “Arnold Rothstein.”

  Charlie says, “That fancy-pants Yid who runs an antique shop uptown? I hear he’s paper rich but cash poor ’cause he gambles like a son of a bitch.”

  “He has his own pot to piss in which is more than I can say for us. We’re barely removed from the outhouse. He must know something about getting ahead. He plays poker with distillers and mingles with the upper class. He could be useful, Charlie.”

  Meyer lights a cigarette. Below them, the street buzzes with morning traffic. Tommy the Bull heads to the garage and then pounds his way up the stairs. He pokes his head into Charlie’s office and waves an envelope.

  Charlie says, “Check out that problem in Staten Island we were talking about, eh, Tommy? I’ll get with you later.”

  Tommy nods, drops the envelope on Charlie’s desk and then leaves Charlie and Meyer to their business.

  Meyer says, “The Yids in Cleveland have been bootlegging for over a year now. That’s how long Ohio has been dry. One year and already they’re getting rich running the stuff. Liquor is big business. The distillers everywhere will feel the pinch. We get connected, then we call the shots. What we have going now is nothing compared to what we could have going if we organized this like Rothstein did with gambling. We take the Tenderloin lock, stock, and booze barrel. Joe the Boss will be rich. He won’t complain.”

  Charlie smiles. “Big Bill Dwyer, a stevedore over on South Street, has deals back home in Ireland, Irish whiskey.”

  “We’ve got connections with Canada,” Meyer says. “How long does it take to get from Canada to New York? How long does it take to get whiskey from Ireland to New York? I say we have the better deal. And we have European connections, too. We’re gonna need guys we can trust. You get Vito to use a couple of his guys who are around him, who are closed-mouth, and I’ll do the same.”

  Charlie thumbs through the bills Tommy the Bull left behind in the envelope.

  He raises an eyebrow, “The Exchange ain’t doin’ half bad.”

  “Small potatoes,” Meyer says.

  Charlie opens the cigar box on his desk and takes out two Romeo y Julieta cigars. He glides the Cuban under his nose and savors the sweet smell.

  “They roll these on the hot thighs of Cuban women,” he says.

  He performs the ritual of circumcising the cigars then passes one to Meyer. Meyer strikes a match and holds the flame under the torpedo-shaped smoke.

  “Forget the hot thighs,” Meyer says. “Let’s grab the whole megillah while we can.”

  “The whole megillah?” Charlie says.

  “Yeah. Importation, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors.”

  Over the aroma of hot, Cuban thighs, they start working out the details.

  Meyer says, “Remember why we moved the craps games indoors?”

  Charlie gives a chuckle.

  “Who needs the publicity?” Meyer says.

  * * *

  Red Levine’s cousin in Cleveland, who knows the Yids running bootleg from Canada, has news to share. “Did you read the paper this morning?”

  “Why?” Red says. He made the trip to Cleveland by train and will make the trip back again to New York tomorrow. A pain, but for some things you can’t use Western Union.

  “They raided a garage in
Red Hook where they were making wood alcohol. The gang sent it to Connecticut and all those people got poisoned. Half a glass and you can go blind…or die. Everybody is scared. At least up here bootleggers know our liquor is clean. I can hardly keep up with the demand.”

  “Who is the main guy up here?” Red says.

  “Moe Dalitz,” his cousin says and scribbles a phone number on the inside of a matchbook.

  Dalitz uses the family laundry business to shuttle booze around Cleveland. Nobody questions the laundry as it circulates between hotels and restaurants. Booze flows across the Canadian border like water over Niagara Falls. According to Red’s cousin, Dalitz floats his laundry trucks across Lake Erie on barges, loads them with Canadian whiskey, then floats them back. The mob delivers to Cleveland, Detroit, and Ann Arbor.

  “But you gotta be careful,” Red’s cousin says. “If the customs guys get you, they take your booze and your truck.”

  Red sees Dalitz and makes the case. Then it’s back to New York and to Meyer, who has just opened a speakeasy on Broome Street. The speak is not the kind of place that Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald would frequent, even if they were slumming. It is a rundown joint in need of a good fumigation. But with a new coat of paint and scavenged tables and chairs from a failed restaurant, it’s not half bad.

  Harvey, a broad-shouldered man with a thick moustache, tends bar and oversees a stack of sandwiches, making sure the pile never runs low.

  Sammy slides in the back door and lifts a corned beef from the large platter on the sideboard.

  “There go the profits,” Meyer says.

  “I’m hungry,” Sammy says.

  Meyer gives him a look. Then they all hear a knock at the front door. The bouncer steps up to the door and slides open the small window. One glimpse of Charlie’s face is all it takes. The bouncer opens the door wide. Charlie and his boys walk in and fan out.

  Harvey hauls a tray of teacups and saucers from the back room.

  “It looks like snow,” Harvey says, setting the teacups around Meyer’s table. “I shoulda taken up baseball. The Yankees and the Robins are in Jacksonville, you know. Jacksonville, Florida. The paper says they’re worried about the weather. They’re worried about the weather! What’s the worst can happen? The sun don’t shine for thirty minutes?”

  Charlie pulls out a chair and brushes the sawdust from the cuffs of his pants.

  “Is this really necessary?” he says.

  Meyer says, “It’s friendly. Makes the common man feel comfortable. Listen, my guy from Cleveland is coming in tonight. I’d like you to meet him. They’ve got so many boats running back and forth across Lake Erie people are calling it Jew Lake.”

  “Sure thing,” Charlie says.

  Red Levine walks in with Moe Dalitz, the Cleveland connection. He points to Meyer and Charlie. Dalitz strides through the room with the confidence of a man who makes money too easily. He ignores the sawdust clinging to his gray slacks, unbuttons his checkered sport jacket and extends his hand to Meyer.

  “You got a nice little concern going here,” Dalitz says.

  Harvey goes into action with teacups and booze. The piano player slips behind the tall upright catawampus along the wall and dives into a tune. His straw boater bobs along the top of the piano like a target in a shooting gallery. His heavy hands don’t tickle the ivories as much as pulverize them.

  Dalitz groans, “Warn me if he’s going to play Swanee.”

  Meyer says, “What have you got against Swanee? That’s Gershwin.”

  “Gershowitz, yeah, I know. He sold a million copies of the sheet music and two million records. I still might kill the guy that wants to play it.” Dalitz grins and slaps Meyer on the back. “Next time this year, you’ll be as rich as Gershowitz.”

  Red leans into the conversation, “You’re not going to believe this. Moe has bought up a lot of freight cars. Now he’s finagling a piece of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad.”

  “A little grease at the rail yard and you’ll be pulling in more booze than you can shake a stick at,” Dalitz says.

  “The line ends in Jersey,” Meyer says. “We have a warehouse in Jersey at the end of the line.”

  “Buy another one,” Dalitz says. “You guys interested in the cheap stuff? I know a couple of guys that run a string of brothels in Manitoba. They want into the liquor business. With a name like Bronfman, they probably have the yikhes for it, you know what I mean? The trouble is it takes three years to age whiskey so they’ve been hurrying the process along with formaldehyde. I can get all you want. You could make a bundle.”

  Meyer stiffens. Bronf is Yiddish for whiskey, not formaldehyde.

  He says, “I’m not looking to embalm my customers. We want first-rate whiskey.”

  “Okay, okay. I been thinking. There’s a guy in Jersey named Abe Zwillman. Maybe you heard of him. He can keep an eye on things on that side of the Hudson.” He looks at Charlie. “Abe’s having a little trouble with an Italian mob in Northern Jersey. Do you have any influence with the Italian mobs in Jersey?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Charlie says. “I might know somebody over there. Who’s the guy giving him trouble?”

  Dalitz snuffs out a cigarette. “I’ll let Abe tell you all about it. I’d probably screw up the facts. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding that can be straightened out with a little persuasion. You’ll like Abe. He’s a smart guy.”

  “I know Abe,” Charlie says.

  “Then you know,” Dalitz says and takes another look around the speakeasy. “Nice place you got here. Only don’t you think you’d be better off up around Broadway?”

  Chapter Two

  Trust Your Mother but Cut the Cards

  NOVEMBER 1920

  The Little Jewish Navy opens the Canadian whiskey pipeline wide. While Dalitz loads freight cars and sends them on their way to rail yards in New Jersey, Meyer puts feelers on the street to keep track of speakeasies opening in the Tenderloin district of New York but it is an impossible task. Even the government can’t keep track, which is a good thing. Among enterprising capitalists eager to serve the rich, the thinking goes like this: the government has no jurisdiction over a private club. We can do what we want. Just keep it under wraps and don’t give out the password to every Tom, Dick, and Henrietta. That’s why we call these clubs a speakeasy. Speak softly so the flatfoot on the beat isn’t tipped off and we got trouble on our hands. Got it?

  The Blind Pig is something else altogether. A Blind Pig is purely lower-class. It’s a place where any Joe can pay to see an attraction, like a blind pig, and receive complimentary alcohol. Nobody is selling alcohol. Case closed.

  New Yorkers prefer the speakeasy. If you want a quick overview of the city in all its glory, you visit the Woolworth Building. 233 Broadway offers a bird’s-eye view of the city. Depending on your economic standing, you can see either how much or how little of the Big Apple you own. The plain farmer’s boy, as the papers affectionately call him, thrust the steel frame of his limestone building 761 feet into the air a stone’s throw from Wall Street. He modeled the top floor after Napoleon’s Palace in Compiègne and then burrowed into his Cathedral. The view from the 57th floor is stunning, breathtaking, and dumbfounding.

  It’s midday. A heavy, slushy snow hounds the city for the fifth day in a row which leaves the observation floor devoid of visitors, save Meyer and Charlie.

  “Ain’t that somethin’!” Charlie says, taking in the view.

  Twenty-two-point-seven square miles sprawl like an anxious lover, shrouded in a cool, gray mist and filled, at last count, with two million souls. Charlie eyes the man-made maze below. Just five miles north sits the Tenderloin.

  Meyer says, “There’s a lot of escarole out there.”

  Charlie says, “I saw the labels them Yids in Detroit are putting on their whiskey. Old Grand Dad. Clever bastards. You can’t tell their Old Grand Dad from the American Medicinal Spirits’ whiskey.”

  �
�Where did you see that?”

  “When I was in Brooklyn. Frankie Yale peddles the stuff. You know Yale?”

  “Never paid too much attention,” Meyer says.

  “You might wanna,” Charlie says. “He ain’t gonna bother the Yids, but the Italians, that’s a different story.”

  The round-faced, Brooklyn-based Yale is moving up the food chain. Like the oil cookstove, he’s been increasing his presence in Brooklyn since 1901 and is just as likely to explode. He prizes his prowess and cunning. In the recent war between the Sicilian Morello family and the Neapolitans who were trying to scoop up gambling in Manhattan, Yale kept his distance. His Calabrese ancestry provided a convenient cushion in the largely Sicilian/Neapolitan cleansing. When the fireworks settled, the opposing factions had nearly killed each other off. Yale won by default.

  Charlie walks around the bank of windows. Below, the East River snakes under the Williamsburg Bridge and flows out toward Hell’s Gate and the Atlantic Ocean.

  Charlie says, “You know how the Irish got strong in America?”

  “Politics,” Meyer laughs.

  Charlie says, “They started with the docks. Then they branched out into politics.”

  Half a dozen visitors drift in from the elevator.

  Charlie says, “Whadya say we get somethin’ to eat.”

  The high-speed elevator descends quickly to the lobby. Meyer and Charlie step out into the slush and mud. A kid, no more than ten, darts across Broadway causing the driver of a delivery truck to slam on his brakes. The truck skids through the soft mud barely missing the young runner before plowing headlong into oncoming traffic. Three trucks ram into each other forming a mangle of windshields, headlights, and metal spokes that stymie a backup of horse-drawn wagons.

  The kid barely notices. His military cap is tucked hard under his armpit. The cap’s broad band holds the paperwork he is ferrying from a Wall Street broker to a client. His hands are numb from the cold, his uniform soaked from the freezing rain. While other kids opt for a glorious ten cents an hour, this kid works by the piece. By the piece, at a full gallop, he can clear eight dollars in a twelve-hour shift. That’s the difference between a pound of beans and a lobster dinner. The kid has chutzpah.