Arluck wasn’t the only one singing the blues. Dutch Schultz was too, because a few of his mugs got themselves killed, including his partner, Joey Noe. I think if Joey hada lived, things mighta turned out different, although maybe not, because Joey was smart, although obviously not smart enough. But he didn’t live—Legs killed ’im, ambushed him, and so the trap that Dutch thought he was setting for Legs turned out to bite him on the bum, and boy did the Dutchman ever hate that.
Life in gangland was startin’ to turn violent, which was always bad for business. The problem with most of the gangsters was that, unlike me, they didn’t have no memory of the bad old days of the shoot-outs under the els—hell, the els was on their way out themselves—or the big fight between Monk and Paul Kelly, or the Arbor and Nash’s.
That’s when I realized that I was nearly thirty-eight years old. Thirty-eight was already old for anybody, but for someone in my line of work it was ancient. I attributed my longevity to a number of things, including smarts and savvy, but truth to tell, the eight years I spent up the river didn’t hurt, neither. Bein’ on ice isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you, especially when the ice was as relatively pleasant as mine was, and hitting the sidewalk smack-dab in the midst of Prohibition was the luck of the Irish, if you ask me.
To give you an idea of the kinds of things I was involved in, I’m going to share something with you no one has ever seen, and that’s my private notebook. George kept the books, several sets of them: one for us, one for prospective investors and one for the tax man. There was one other book that not even George saw, and that was my book. It was just a little harmless-looking date book, small enough to keep in a man’s breast pocket, which is where I kept mine.
In it, I maintained a running tally of our cash on hand, adding and subtracting as necessary until the product got too big to hide, and then I sent it somewhere nice and safe. You’d be amazed at how quickly numbers can add up, so just in case you think I’m bragging, here are a few choice entries from 1929:
George and Owen, $5,000. That was our cut of the various operations. We always made sure that, no matter what happened, we got paid and we split it square. That’s why there was never no trouble between us. Everybody should have a friend like George. George lived pretty frugally, but he had a beautiful girlfriend named Jane. I mean she was some dame, a dame and a half, and he swathed her shape in ermines and furs, and I mean mink and beaver and rabbit and fox, until pretty soon she started referring to herself as Mrs. Fox, and that’s how George got his alias, Mr. Fox.
Back, Jack Diamond, $500. Maybe I was a soft touch and maybe I was a born diplomat, but one of the ways I kept the peace for so long was to always lend a mook a nickel or a dime if he needed it. I never let a guy get too deep into me, nor I into him, because serious indebtedness leads first to gratitude, then to resentment and finally to murder. But I did believe in keeping guys on a string, in order to ensure civility. No mug worth a mother’s tears would welsh on a little debt, nor would he kill for one. If Dutch wanted Jack dead, that was his problem—well, so did I, but not after I was good and through with him, which meant through making a buck off him.
Loan, Harry Block, $5,000. Harry was my manager at the Cotton Club and I wanted him to be happy. He was making me too much money for him to be otherwise, and if he liked dames and ponies, well, didn’t everyone? His boss was Herman Stark, who also oversaw the Abbey, which was in the Hotel Harding, and later on the Stork, where that Okie Sherman Billingsley was our front man.
Rent, Silver Slipper, $506, and cheap at the price. The Slipper was a money machine; after the theaters let out, folks would come pouring in for a glass of champagne and a show of near-naked girls. Cover charge was two bucks, three on Saturday, the food and drinks were good and expensive and the floor show…Granny found the girls and wrote the revues, whose highlight was always an “Oriental Slave Ballet,” which mostly consisted of getting the girls into as little clothing as the law allowed. Bunny Hill, Virginia Magee, Myrtle Allen, Ripples Covert. Best of all was Beryl Halley, all class even when she was practically starkers. Which was the way I liked her.
Loan, George McManus, $10,000. You may have read about Hump McManus, a good friend. He was in the poker game at the Park Central with Nigger Nate Raymond and Titanic Thompson the night Arnold Rothstein welshed on $320,000. A few weeks later—the night Hoover beat Al Smith, in fact—Arnold laid down half a million bucks on the Republican, then never collected on account of he went and got himself shot in Hump’s rooms at the Park Central and died over at the Polyclinic Hospital. Hump and Nigger Nate both beat the rap, and I was there to help them out. No sense any more trouble. Besides, I didn’t want anyone to think I had something to do with it. I liked Arnold. I really did.
Israel Levy, $10,000. A business partner and good friend who helped me operate the Hydrox Laundry on Hooper Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The tax man said I needed a job to explain my income so I bought one.
For Laundry, $72,000. It was amazing how handy laundries were when it came to laundering money.
Loan, Van Higgins, $2,000. Vannie was a “lobster fisherman” from Brooklyn. I never saw no lobsters in Brooklyn, and I suspect Vannie didn’t neither. He’d worked for both Legs and Dutch in the rum-running enterprises and was now laboring for me. He and I were taking aeroplane flying lessons together. I never really got the hang of flying, but Vannie was pretty good.
Downtown, $8,915. What the Tiger owed me that week for services rendered.
Father Cashin, $500. I believed in taking care of the padre, even if I hardly ever went to Mass.
Loan, Frank Costello, $10,000, about whom more later. We were getting mighty chummy, even though he was a wop with an Irish name.
Flowers, $100. I sent a lot of flowers.
Hiram and Maid, $2,000. Never spent money better in my life.
Joe Shalleck, $5,000. Lawyers were expensive, but they were worth it, until they weren’t.
Owen, Yonkers, $200. Rent on Loretta’s place. Margaret was seventeen years old that year. I wondered what she looked like, whether she looked like me, and what her mother told her.
Duesenberg Car, $7,000. A Model J Murphy, J-211 to be exact, a bargain (the dealer was a friend, plus he owed me), and you can just eat your heart out. They didn’t come any better than a Doozy, especially in our line of work, and this one was a real dilly. Two hundred and sixty-five horses squeezed into eight cylinders, two overhead camshafts; that little darlin’ could do 89 miles per hour in second gear, and once I hit a top speed of 116 on the open road. Complete with speedometer, ammeter, tachometer, brake-pressure gauge, altimeter and barometer, plus a stopwatch that worked right down to the split second. You could have her fitted out however you liked, with gold fixtures, leather interiors, vanity case, passenger instruments, radios, bars. Some of them were even upholstered in silk. And quiet? You could sneak up on a mug so softly that he’d be dead before he heard the motor. I loved that baby. Still miss her.
Sent Away to Europe, $124,000. I also parked money in Florida, mostly in the racetracks.
Loan, Jim Braddock, $500. One of my fighters, along with Primo Camera and Maxie Rosenbloom. The first two became heavyweight champs of the world. Slapsey Maxie was a light-heavy who couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag, but beat Slattery for the title in 1930. They both always needed money. All fighters always need money. Everybody needs money.
Cops, $200. I rest my case.
Trenton, $10,000. We owned Jersey then. Still do.
But the thing that made 1929 such a truly swell year was this: that’s the year I finally realized my dream of all us immigrant boys—harp, hebe and dago—stopping battling for a while and getting together. The place was Atlantic City and there we changed this country forever. You may not read about it in the history books, so that’s why I’m tellin’ you now.