Four or five days was about how much I figured I had before the cops caught up with me, and about the time I needed to put my plan into action.
Here’s the way I had it figured: First, Roosevelt was going to beat Hoover standing on his head unless the country saw him as too New York, too Tammany, which it wasn’t going to do. Second, he’d have to show he was tough on crime, by which he mostly meant bootleggers like me—a cheap ploy that didn’t cost him nothin’, seein’ as how Repeal was right around the corner. Third, the Outfit was going to be under a lot of pressure, and I knew us well enough to know that we didn’t handle pressure very well. There were too many hoods like Charlie Lucky and his gunners, too many crackpots like the Dutchman who got mad and got even pretty much in one motion, and not enough brains like Lansky or diplomats like Costello. Temper had always been our weak spot, going back as far as Monk and his club. Our instincts were to slug first and worry about the cops later, and I include myself in that roster as well.
Fourth, with the heat on, Charlie and the boys would try to grab for everything they could right now. Dutch may have been nuts on the subject of Dewey, but he was onto something. Dewey was a humorless little prig with a mustache who wasn’t above shaking down campaign contributors himself, as I heard and believed it. What we were witnessing was nothing less than a reversion to the old days, when the pols ran us instead of us running them. Only this time, they were adopting some of our tactics against us: cutting deals and then welshing, shaking us down for protection, muscling in our rackets. I guess it’s easy to be a ruthless sonofabitch when you don’t have to worry about the Law, when you are the Law, but if you ask me, it’s dishonorable too. Honor is one thing and trust is another, but when both of them break down, you got chaos, which is what I could see coming like the old Death Avenue express.
Thoughts of persons such as Mayor Walker and Jimmy Hines floated through my mind. The Seabury johnnies were after the Mayor full-time now. Beau James! The mug who, when he was Al Smith’s right-hand man in the state Senate, had legalized prizefighting and allowed the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers to play baseball on Sunday! And saved the nickel subway fare when he was Mayor, takin’ his argument all the way to the United States Supreme Court! What had all them other bums in fancy suits done for the people compared to Jimmy? And what had he ever done to them? But Jimmy’d been too deep in the rackets for too long for them to spare his hide. Between the gangsters and the politicians there was going to be a bloodbath for sure, and whether the bodies were blown apart by bullets or the newspapers was a distinction without a difference.
So here was my agenda: save as much of my businesses as I could, try to keep as much of the peace as possible and get the hell somewhere safe to enjoy my old age. I’d already been as close to death as I ever wanted to be, and had no intention of repeating the experience anytime soon.
It seemed to me Dutch was the key. He had the shooters and the territory. If the two of us worked together and stayed together, we could keep Charlie Lucky and his troops at bay, long enough for us to salvage whatever the crooks in the federal and state governments were going to let us keep.
I sat in the backseat, low, and when we got to Queens, I hit the floor and stayed there until Hiram told me we were in the Bronx, 543 Brook Avenue to be exact, where the Dutchman and Joey Noe had started in the rackets and Dutch still kept a private pad for sentiment’s sake. Brook Avenue was a street rendered innocuous by its proximity to Webster Avenue to the west and the railroad tracks to the east in darkest Morrisania.
I told Hiram to wait a block or so away and as my car glided up and idled for a moment I jumped out and hit the buzzer for Dutch’s place. After just a couple of punches the door buzzed me in and there I was face-to-face with Abe Landau and Lulu Rosenkrantz. Abe was bald and looked like a college professor; Lulu was balding and looked like a mug. But they was both tough eggs, as good in a fight as anybody I ever saw. Which is why when I hear folks talking, especially down here in Bubbles, about what pansies the sheenies are, I just wish they could have known Dutch, Bo, Abe and Lulu, could have seen them in action like I did.
We were all old friends, but they seemed very surprised to see me when I told them I had to see Dutch in a big hurry.
“He ain’t in,” said Abe.
“He’s busy,” said Lulu.
Since they spoke simultaneously, I knew right away something was up. “I don’t care if he ain’t in or he’s busy, this is real important, can’t wait, and since when did either of you yeggs know me to give ya malarkey when it wasn’t completely called for?”
Abe and Lulu looked at each other and I could see in their eyes they had to admit I was right.
“Yeah, but—” said Abe.
“—even if he was in—” said Lulu.
“—and he wasn’t busy—”
“—it probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” finished Lulu.
Now my suspicions were raised pretty high. “I know he’s got a dame up there, if that’s what’s bothering you,” I said. “I don’t care. I seen plenty of dames, in and out of their knickers.”
“But you haven’t seen this one,” blurted Lulu.
“At least we don’t think you have,” modified Abe. “Not in a long time anyway.”
“Think I care about some old girlfriend?” Abe and Lulu looked at their scuffed shoes. Everybody knew my reputation for looking askance at mugs what tried to make time with my girls. “Forget it,” I said. “I’m a new man.”
They still seemed pretty dubious. Lulu even started to move in front of me, blocking my way up the stairs. And then Abe did something that caught me completely by surprise: he patted me down and found the .38 that Monk had given me so long ago. Talk about sentiment.
“Kinda old, ain’t it?” said Abe.
“I can’t believe you done that to me, Abie,” I said.
“It’s for your safety.”
“It’s for everybody’s safety,” said Lulu.
“Okay,” said I, “but I want that back. When I come down, you give it to me.”
Abe and Lulu were still lookin’ dubious as they buzzed Dutch.
“Boys, I give you the solemn word of an Irishman on the head of his mother and his sister that I will not hold you personally responsible for anything that occurs upstairs, and that furthermore I will keep my Irish temper and emotions in check come what may. Deal?”
Abe and Lulu musta been getting tired of looking at each other, because Lulu stepped aside to let me pass.
“Who’s he up there with?” I joked. “Mae West?”
As I climbed the two flights of stairs to Dutch’s hideaway I was going over in my mind the business proposition I was going to present to him. How we’d combine our beer operations, our nightclubs, to take ’em legit once Repeal hit. How we’d introduce slot machines and card tables into the back rooms of all our clubs for special members. How we’d do our best to keep running the numbers but to keep the dope away from the coloreds, because being Irish I’d had plenty of opportunity to see what the Creature could do to a family, and I didn’t want to find out about coke or horse or whatever they call it.
I had it all figured out, see. I had even figured the next step, which was to let Roosevelt have his fun, and to give myself up to the parole board, with suitable fiduciary assurances that I wouldn’t have to do much time. To take Frank’s advice and put myself on ice for a while, until the storm from Washington and Albany blew over, and then to be there, the last mug standing, to pick up the pieces and to go on with business as usual, as usual.
All these thoughts were in my head and plenty more I’ve forgotten about, and frankly it’s a miracle that I can remember any of them because at that moment I rapped sharply on the door and I could hear laughter from inside and then all of a sudden a pretty girl not wearing much of any clothes opened the door and at that instant I knew why Abie and Lulu had taken my heater away from me because there I was face-to-face with my sister, May.