Condemned (56 page)

“Cut the light,” Supervisor Becker said curtly as they were a few blocks west of the street where Tony Balls lived.

“Ask if he's still there,” Supervisor Becker instructed Castoro.

“Bird Dog Three, this is Mother Hen. Is the subject still at the location?”

“Affirmative.”

“Oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby,” Supervisor Becker began to chirp from the backseat. Geraghty glanced at Castoro from the side of his eyes. They tried to contain their smirks.

Two blocks before the vehicle reached Tony Balls' house, Supervisor Becker had Geraghty stop the vehicle so that everyone could don dark blue slickers with the letters “D.E.A.” emblazoned in yellow. Before they began to move again, Geraghty called ahead to the two Agents in the surveillance car, advising them that Supervisor Becker wanted them to wear their slickers too.

Four D.E.A. Agents now stood in front of Tony Balls' house. Becker directed the surveillance team that had been sitting in front of the house all night, to the next block, to be sure Tony Balls didn't hop the back fence in an effort to escape retribution. Castoro was carrying a shotgun. Only one person was out on the street, an old man, walking a dog. The man stopped across the street and gawked at the proceedings.

Supervisor Becker's face was red. A wide, Cheshire cat smile played on his lips as he walked behind Castoro and Geraghty toward the front entrance.

After several loud knocks on the front door, Tony Balls, his hair awry, hanging down one side of his head, stood in the doorway. His eyes were sleepy as he pushed his hair over the top of his head.

“Anthony Spacavento,” Supervisor Becker intoned sternly, standing between Geraghty and Castoro on the crowded top step leading to Tony Balls' door.

“Good morning, Supervisor Becker,” said Tony Balls, gathering his wits. “What gets you out of bed so early in the morning?”

“Anthony Spacavento,” Supervisor Becker repeated, “I am delighted to inform you that I have a warrant for your arrest on charges that you violated the Narcotics Laws of the United States.”

“You didn't have to bring Wyatt and Virgil with you for protection, did you?” Tony Balls said snidely.

“I advise you that you need not say anything—”

“You don't want me to inform no more, Mr. Becker?”

“Anything you say can and will—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the routine. You know, there ain't a fucking thing I'm going to tell you, right? So let's get it over with, if it's all the same to you. You want me to put on pants, or you want to take me in my underwears?”

“Put on some clothes. Go with him,” Becker said to Geraghty and Castoro. “Soon as he's dressed, back cuff him—be used against you in a court of law.” Becker continued reading from a Miranda Warnings card.

“What's a matter, you think I'll grab that card out of your hand, and then you won't know what to say, Mr. Becker?”

“I have you, Mr. Spacavento, right where I've wanted you since the day you were last in my office,” said Supervisor Becker. “I have you now.”

“This is what you got, Mr. Becker.” Tony Balls pumped his groin in Supervisor Becker's direction. “Get me outta this guy's sight, before I go—” Tony Balls leaned directly toward Supervisor Becker—“
Boo
!” he shouted and laughed.

Sea Girt, New Jersey : August 28, 1932 : 2:30 P.M.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, handsome, hatless, pince nez clamped onto the bridge of his nose, sat in the first row of the flag bunted platform, almost immediately behind the speaker's lectern. He always arrived early at functions, his wheelchair being purposely placed in a position which not only made it easy for him to rise to the lectern, but would hide the fact that the man the audience had come to see was incapable of walking. Next to Roosevelt sat Louis McHenry Howe, a balding, moustachioed newspaperman from Albany who had admired Roosevelt right from his days as an upstate Senator in the New York State legislature. A hundred thousand enthusiastic people stretched around and out from the platform in order to enjoy the true entertainment of the era: politics.

Roosevelt was on the stump, the Democratic nominee, campaigning for President against the incumbent Herbert Hoover, the Depression, and Prohibition.

“I see Shouse's right there in the front row,” Roosevelt whispered to Howe, as he continuously flashed his insignia smile toward the audience.

“He's a pushy little tinker,” said Howe. “He's here to make sure you say the right things about repeal. He wants to make a good impression with his new organization.”

The National Committee had recently fired Shouse. Immediately, the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment made him their new president, thinking he had some clout with the Democrats and could ensure the Democratic candidate would be strong on their issue. Now that the AAPA had, albeit reluctantly, chosen to ride with the Democratic presidential nominee, they wanted to make sure Roosevelt didn't pull any of the teeth out of the Democrat's repeal plank.

“Where are the pages we put together on repeal?” Roosevelt said to Howe.

“You have everything, right in your hand. Pages fifteen and sixteen, I think, is where we cover repeal.”

Throughout his career, in the State Senate, then as Governor of New York, depending on the circumstances and the audience, Roosevelt had straddled the issue of prohibition repeal. The AAPA was equal to Roosevelt in straddling. It put its support only behind candidates, regardless of party, so long as those candidates favored repeal. They might have nominally backed the Democratic ticket for President, but they were equally willing to support any Republicans they could find who voted for repeal. Roosevelt wanted to hold onto the AAPA as desperately as it wanted him to stay on the repeal band wagon.

“Yes, here they are, “Roosevelt said as he leafed through the pages of his speech. He read what Howe had written for him. “Mmmm, mmm. Right to the point, Louie, right to the point. A little strong, perhaps. You figure this is the right audience to get it said and over with?” Roosevelt looked at Howe.

“It's a New Jersey audience—not a bible-belter—they're okay with repeal. And with Shouse in the audience, we kill two birds with one stone.”

“Louie, you're a wonder. Let me read this through,” he said, glancing back to the pages in front of him.

“.… and it is with great pleasure,” intoned the Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Committee—

“This is it,” said Roosevelt.

“I've got you,” Louis Howe said, taking hold of Roosevelt's left arm. Roosevelt stiffened, ready to receive Louis's lift. When it came time to be introduced, Roosevelt had to have a push from Howe or his son Franklin, Jr., to rise to a standing position. He would then push down the levers on his metal leg braces, locking himself upright.

“… the man, the candidate, the next President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt!”

The brass band, seated just to the left of the podium struck up “Happy Days are Here Again” in lively Dixie Land rhythm. The audience jumped to its feet, cheering wildly.

Louie Howe pushed Roosevelt to an upright position. With his free hand, Roosevelt locked his right leg brace, then, with Louis still holding him upright from behind, grabbed the edge of the lectern. Louie let go, and locked the left leg brace. The crowd cheered for many minutes, as the band blared Roosevelt's theme song. In the midst of the cacophony, for all to see, a wide smile on his handsome, confident, patrician face, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, stood firmly.

When the cheering subsided, Roosevelt started in his familiar way. “My friends …,” and again, everybody clapped and stamped, and the band began “Happy Days” again. Roosevelt smiled, waving, first with his left arm, then switching grips on the lectern, with his right arm. Another several minutes, silence rippled across the huge audience, and Roosevelt began to address himself to the problems that plagued the United States as a result of Herbert Hoover and the Republicans.

Louie Howe, behind Roosevelt, was silently reading from a copy of the speech he wrote, as the candidate spoke to the audience. Roosevelt was on the top of page fifteen now, having been on his feet for twenty minutes already. When he arrived at the repeal issues, Roosevelt glanced at Shouse, who was sitting a few rows back, in his shirt sleeves, his arms across his chest, holding his jacket.

“I want now to turn to the repeal of Prohibition,” said Roosevelt. Many in the audience cheered and whistled. Shouse's jacket fell to the floor as he applauded. “Intemperance in a modern, mechanized society, imperils everyone. However, we have depended too largely upon the power of the government action …”. This is exactly what the AAPA and Shouse had been beating the drum about, thought Roosevelt. He glanced at Shouse again, who was now sitting up straight, smiling appreciatively.

Roosevelt continued:
“…
the experience of nearly one hundred and fifty years under the Constitution has shown us that the proper means of regulation is through the States, with control by the Federal Government limited to that which is necessary to protect the States in the exercise of their legitimate powers.” Huge sections of the audience were applauding and shouting approval of Roosevelt's words as he spoke.

“We threw on the table as spoils to be gambled for by the enemies of society, the revenue that our government had theretofore received, and the underworld acquired unparalleled resources thereby …” Cheers and applause.

“… the only business of the country that was not helping to support the government was, in a real sense, being supported by the government.” Loud cheering and shouting. Some of the things Roosevelt said were lost in a roar of approval.

“… unquestionably, our tax burden would not be so heavy nor the forms that it takes so objectionable if some reasonable proportion of the unaccounted millions now paid to those whose business had been reared upon this stupendous blunder could be made available for the expense of the government.
”

Wild cheering now. Shouse was on his feet, his hands above his head, applauding and shouting.

In the November elections, out of roughly thirty nine million votes, Roosevelt received twenty-two, carrying forty two of the forty-eight states. Surely, the Depression had something to do with the vote against Hoover, but the Democrats also swept into majorities in both the Senate and House. Eleven states had had referendums on Prohibition on the ballots; the voters voted to abolish Prohibition in nine of those states, including New Jersey which voted more than four to one for repeal.

Roosevelt took office March 4, 1933, and within days requested in a special session of Congress that the prohibition law be amended so that 3.2 percent beer could begin to flow to the American people, even before the inevitable Constitutional Amendment condemning the Volstead Act. Congress voted overwhelmingly for the modification, and on April 7, 1933, a truck pulled into the driveway of the White House to deliver two cases of beer to the President. Close to a million barrels of legal 3.2 beer sold on the first day it was available. Shortly thereafter, Roosevelt was able to advise the people that thousands of new workers were taking home pay checks as a result of the implementation of the 3.2 beer legislation, and millions of new tax dollars had been collected by the Treasury during the first week.

After less than 10 months of consideration by the States, Prohibition was roundly denounced, the 18
^th
Amendment prohibiting liquor replaced by the Twenty First that repealed “the stupendous blunder”.

Happy Days were surely here again.

Park Avenue : August 18, 1996 : 4 P.M.

The school and medical records of Hettie Rouse that Sandro had subpoenaed were starting to arrive at his office. Those records showed clearly that Hettie, right from the outset of her school attendance, was not equipped for mainstream classes. She was treated more like a retarded incorrigible, a dunce, or a juvenile delinquent, warehoused, not taught, someone to be kept in the system until she was old enough to be released into the world. Had she been born twenty years later, she would be classified Learning Disabled, mentally challenged, in need of Special Education. Many people in Hettie's day who had been considered class clowns or dummies were, more likely, Learning Disabled.

Sandro studied his notes about Li'l Bit. It seemed long ago that Red Hardie first mentioned her and asked him to help with her case, but was, in reality, less than a month ago. Sandro lifted his eyes from the lined yellow page in his hand and glanced out the window. He saw Red Hardie and Money, Judge Ellis, the lawyers in The Brotherhood case. A lot had happened in the last few weeks.

Sandro remembered that Red had told him that he had a drink with Li'l Bit's father after he had abandoned Li'l Bit and her mother. He was sure that Red had said something about Li'l Bit having a brother who attended medical school at one of the Ivy League schools, had changed his name, and was practicing medicine somewhere in New York under that new name.

Sandro searched his notes carefully. He found the name Red had mentioned, written and circled in his notes ‘Hugh Anthony Reed'. Sandro swivelled his chair and took the Manhattan phone directory from the credenza behind his desk. Running his fingers down the “R” listings, he stopped at ‘Reed, Hugh Anthony, M.D. at 714 Park Avenue'.
Right in the heart of the Silk Stocking District
, Sandro thought as he wrote the address and phone number on a scratch pad.

“Dr. Reed's office,” said a female voice on the phone.

“Dr. Reed, please,” said Sandro.

“Are you a patient?”

“No. My name is Sandro Luca. I'm an attorney for an old friend of Dr. Reed. She asked me to call him.”