Jimmy the Stick by Michael Mayo

Author:Michael Mayo [Mayo, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-4532-6587-1
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-08-30T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

1923

NEW YORK

Oh Boy took over the day-to-day running of the shooting gallery. Spence and I stole cars. We used Mother Moon’s connections with the police to figure out which neighborhoods were safe and worked out payoffs with beat cops, desk sergeants, and party bosses. They told us which cars were good for us to take. I assumed that the owners had done something to piss them off, but I never really knew.

As Lansky and Lucania’s booze business prospered, they accepted every car and truck Spence and I could provide. Things changed in the fall of 1923. We’d just brought in another Ford half-ton and found Lansky, Siegel, and Lucania looking grim in the garage. Charlie brightened when he saw us. “Jimmy, Walter, you come at the right time. Meyer, what do you think, should we let them in on this deal?”

That was Charlie Lucky, always trying to charm you.

Meyer said, “No need for the soft soap. This is the situation, boys. We know that two trucks full of scotch will be leaving Atlantic City late tonight heading for Philly. We’re going to take them.”

Lucky muttered, “We gotta.”

Lansky glared at him. “Yeah, because of Mr. Bigshot here, we’re low on cash and product.”

I knew what he was talking about. Charlie was in hot water with a lot of people, including the high-society golf buddies he’d been hanging out with. Since he became one of the city’s better-known bootleggers, he was a popular guy for the muckety-mucks to be seen with. But he was also one of the city’s better-known dope dealers, and the cops had caught him with a dozen packs of heroin. To keep his ass out of jail, Charlie made a deal. He told them where Chink Sherman’s stash was hidden, in a closet in a Mulberry Street basement. This turned into a double good move. The cops let him go while he screwed his biggest competitor. But when word got out about the double-cross, he had to buy two hundred ringside tickets at top dollar for the Dempsey-Firpo fight, and he passed them out to anybody who could help rebuild his reputation.

“Hey, you agreed we had to do it,” he protested now, unembarrassed, still smiling. “And those tickets worked, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, they did, and now Charlie’s so popular that both Masseria and Maranzano want him.”

Joe “The Boss” Masseria, the guy I’d seen dodging bullets years before, and Salvatore Maranzano both wanted to be the boss of all the Italians in New York. They’d been fighting each other for years and both of them wanted Charlie and his booze business as part of their operation. He had held them off so far, but they wouldn’t wait any longer.

“So now he’s got both goddamn old bastards mad at us,” Lansky complained, “and it’s no coincidence that three of our liquor shipments were hijacked in New Jersey.”

“Four,” said Charlie.

“Four shipments of scotch,” Lansky repeated. “And two of our warehouses were raided by the goddamn feds. We need more whiskey right away.

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