So we set out, the whole brain trust, me and Goo Goo, Newburgh Gallagher and Marty Brennan and twenty or so Gophers, plus my lads Art Biedler and Hoppo McArdle and Billy Tammany and Eddie Egan and Chick Hyland, all strolling over to the rail yards west of Tenth just as pretty as you please, like tourists on a sight-seein’ expedition, except that I would estimate that the amount of weaponry we was carrying that day was nigh enough to fight a small European conflict or two.
The sun was heading down over the Palisades as we made the yards. Imagine if you will a feast spread out before a starving prisoner. That was the Central Yards to us. I gesticulated in the direction of a handful of railroad cars, hooked up to an engine. “Ain’t that a Jew’s eye, lads,” I said. “Riches beyond compare. Just sittin’ there waitin’ for us to take it.”
Goo Goo looked around suspicious. “Where’s the bulls?”
“Shorthanded tonight,” I replied. “Go on, Georgie—show ’em.”
Little Ranft scooted out from behind me, tossed a glance over his shoulder and then vanished down into the yards. It wasn’t easy—to get near the cars you had to climb down halfway to perdition, exposed as a baby’s bum, which was why we generally staged our raids in the pitch-dark. But Georgie could move like nobody’s business and in a trice there he was, down below. He picked the first lock he saw so sweet it made your mouth water, dashed inside the car, and the next thing we knew there he was, standing back on solid Tenth Avenue ground with a fur coat in his hand.
Goo Goo was impressed. “Nice work, Raft,” he said.
“The name’s Ranft,” said Georgie, trying to sound like a tough guy.
“Too hard to say,” says Goo Goo.
“Go to it, lads,” says I, gesturing. I didn’t have to say nothing. The Gophers was already clambering over the fences and down the drops and heading for the cars with lockpicks and bolt cutters. Goo Goo’s eyes were ablaze and even Happy Jack had a genuine smile on his face for once.
Billy and the lads could hardly believe I was dawdling. “Hey, hurry up, there won’t be nothin’ left for us,” etc., they more or less chimed. But I just stood there, waving encouragement to the troops below until every last man jack of ’em had vanished into the booty.
Weren’t my lads even more astounded when I led them across the street and right back over to good old 352. Them mugs was wonderin’ pretty good by this time, but they was well trained and, even better, loyal as death, and so up the stairs we went on the double, right to the roof, where May was waiting, like I told her to do.
“Hurry up,” she said. “It’s startin’.”
We could hear the sounds of gunfire even before we reached the railing. The muzzle flashes down below looked like lightning bolts in the gloaming, followed quick enough by the pop pop pop sounds of the .38s and .45s and the shrill sound of the police whistles and once in a while the thunk of a club on skull. I could hear our lads firing back, but the resultant return fusillade was something to behold, and I made a mental note to try and never be caught against odds like that and if I was, then at least to give as good an account of myself as I could before they finally got me.
In the twilight, the last of the sun still visible behind the Jersey hill, it was hard to see, but see we could, or at least imagine. Maybe it’s memory and maybe it’s just fantasy, but to this day I have a vivid picture of Happy Jack, the smile finally wiped off his face at last as he falls with a couple of slugs in him; of Newburgh and Brennan dying twin deaths; of the rest of the gang beat up, head-busted and collared in a way that would have made old Monk proud, and if you tell me that I couldn’t have seen it from where I was, why then I’ll tell you you’re a liar, because what’s bein’ there got to do with it?
The Centrals was waiting in the cars of course, just like I suggested, and I wish I could have been close enough to see the look on Goo Goo’s puss when he hammered open a lock and found a gat sticking in his ribs.
It was about this time that the reinforcements arrived, motorcars with sirens, tires screeching, whistles blasting. More cops than I ever want to see come pourin’ out of the vehicles and go charging down into the yards, clubbing my mates from hell to breakfast.
The sun dropped out of sight behind Jersey, a big ball of orange flame. “I guess this means you’re the big cheese now,” May said.
That realization was just then sinking in on the rest. I could see the looks in their eyes, congratulating themselves on being so wise as to have thrown in their lots with me. Tammany had taught me well: the only thing that counted was power, and it didn’t matter how you got it, as long as you kept it.
“As a great man says: I seen my opportunities and I took ’em,” I said grandly, turning my back on the rail yards and the carnage and the North River and directing my attention east, where it now belonged.