Island of the Damned (2 page)

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Spike MacCormick, accompanied by Mickey Marcus, followed by a dozen other vehicles, drove at top speed, sirens wailing, lights flashing, along Second Avenue up to East 59th Street and turned right onto Queensborough Bridge. Before 1930 the only access to Welfare Island had been by boat: ferry services ran from the shores of the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens to the East and West sides of the island. Although the Queensborough Bridge opened in 1909, the island remained marooned until 1930 when flights of stairs were finally built from the bridge as well as a lift, big enough to hold four cars, making it relatively quick and straightforward for visitors to make the journey. Midway along the bridge, the Commissioner’s retinue pulled up at the side of the road. As MacCormick and Marcus drove into the lift with some police cars, the rest of their team parked on the bridge and scrambled down the steps to the island. There they headed immediately to the administration building beneath the bridge on the edge of the sprawling prison complex. To his surprise, MacCormick came across Deputy Warden Sheehan relaxing in his office, feet up on his desk, dressed with inappropriate informality in a grey tweed suit instead of his regulation uniform. As police vans and ambulances started pulling up in the driveway outside, the startled Sheehan muttered: “What the Hell is going on?”

Without
replying, MacCormick ordered Sheehan to accompany him into the warden’s office along the corridor. Dispensing with niceties, he motioned to him to sit down and spoke curtly. “Sheehan, you are under arrest – what is technically known as a military arrest. You are to remain in the correction hospital and communicate with no one.” The deputy, nicknamed “Conkey” by the inmates, went pale, fumbled for a cigarette and lit it with trembling hands.

By
9.30 MacCormick and Marcus summoned their “raiding party” and reminded their deputies of the sections of the prison to which they had been assigned. The commissioner handed the men pages of typed instructions listing their various duties. Keepers working full time at the prison were asked to guide them to the various locations and unlock the gates and cells ready for inspection. Four senior narcotics officers had been picked for their experience by the recently appointed New York Police chief, Commissioner John O’Ryan: the detectives were to accompany MacCormick on his personal investigation of the west wing, where 150 prisoners, 100 of them drug addicts, were reportedly being held. As the team reached the wing, the fetid stench of unwashed bodies and soiled cells gripped the men’s throats, causing several to retch. Amid a chorus of hoots, hisses, cat calls and jeers from the inmates, the commissioner turned to his squad.

“Open
the cells, search every man, and throw everything out on the corridor,” he ordered. Within minutes, the corridors were piled high with a jumbled assortment of contraband retrieved from the four tiers of cells. Many prisoners, reacting in panic, added to the chaos by hurling objects from their cells in a bid to avoid punishment for hoarding forbidden items. The cache, as well as the variety of weaponry and other articles, astonished even the commissioner and his team. Among the paraphernalia were electric stoves, cooking utensils, light bulbs, magazines, loaves of bread, canned food, slabs of steak, and an 8lb piece of corned beef – food that the prison keepers claimed had been stolen from the catering stores by the addicts to be used as barter for drugs.

The
variety of dangerous weapons in the cells was just as shocking. These included stilettos, butchers’ knives, scissors, a surgeon’s scalpel, paring knives sharpened on both sides of the blade, jagged razor blades, lengths of lead pipe and large hatchets. None of the investigators were prepared for the sheer scale of the find: as the
New
York
Times
crime reporter noted: “enough weapons were taken from prisoners to equip a good-sized Mexican army.” Next came the drugs search. Pleading and shivering, the addicts were taken from their cells and their clothing systematically picked over by the detectives. A grey haired wreck of a man with sallow skin and sunken eyes, wearing only a ragged undershirt and trousers, begged pitifully for “just a little shot” as police searched the blankets draped around his cadaverous shoulders. Among the drugs, detectives found large wads of paper soaked in a heroin solution, several pellets of dope hidden in a tobacco tin, and a large ration pressed into a lipstick container.

More
sickening was the paraphernalia of drug use, revealing how much pain, infection and self-mutilation these men were prepared to inflict on themselves in their desperation for a fix. Apart from numbers of blackened spoons used to cook the drugs, the addicts had collected glass droppers to dribble substances directly into their eyes; hypodermic syringes were repeatedly re-used without sterilisation for intravenous injections; extra sharp needles served to scratch the skin before drugs were rubbed into bleeding tissue. Worst of all, men who had no syringes resorted to needles and gouges, even broken bottles, with which they gashed themselves before letting the drugs directly into their veins. The majority of addicts displayed classic symptoms of drug abuse including feverishness, weeping and infected sores, glazed eyes and nervous facial tics, shaking limbs, uncontrollable spasms of coughing and breathlessness. Later, when Dr Louis Berg, a doctor from Manhattan employed by the prison service, examined the addicts, he found most of their bodies were deeply scarred from top to toe: many of the men’s wounds were new and raw, indicating the scale of drug abuse in the prison. The priority now was to provide prompt medical care for these extreme casualties ; without delay, they were marshalled downstairs and into several ambulances which transferred them to the island’s Correction Hospital outside the prison grounds. One question that seriously disturbed Commissioner MacCormick at that point was why these gravely sick men were, until now, confined to their cells instead of being treated in the hospital wards. Why were these men not receiving medical care?

Entering
the mess hall for lunch, MacCormick and his squad were shaken by an even more bizarre scene. A large crowd of prisoners had arrived ahead of them in the hall, their appearance and behaviour so outlandish they resembled the cast of a burlesque drag show. The investigators watched incredulously as fifty or so men, nonchalantly swinging their hips and wiggling their buttocks, sashayed around the hall in a grotesque parody of a Broadway chorus line. Wrists bent, fingers fluttering, they minced to and fro between the canteen service counter and their tables, their cheeks garishly rouged, eyebrows pencilled, pouting lips painted crimson. Giggling and shrieking, they swapped lewd jokes. Many were drenched in cheap perfume and wore their hair long, in some cases to the shoulder. They were the prison’s “sexual perverts” - a common term for homosexuals at that time - who, according to prison regulations, should have been segregated but in fact had the run of the premises.

After
lunch, MacCormick sent for Dr Berg and asked him to help with a search of the south annexe, otherwise dubbed the “perverts’ quarters.” As Dr Berg appeared in the annexe with several detectives, he was greeted by cackles and mock endearments uttered in swooping falsetto tones. Lolling against the bars of their cells in the manner of rent boys showing off their bodies at some red light “meat-rack”, they screeched invitations to “come up and see me sometime” and on entering the cells, the officers were almost assaulted by the inmates. Inside, they discovered almost every conceivable article of drag, from dozens of compacts, powder puffs and coloured cosmetics to various makes of perfume. The cells were strewn with silk slips and briefs, stockings and garters, lacy nightgowns and other items of negligee, fur-trimmed satin slippers and stiletto heeled shoes. One man owned a blonde wig in the style of Carole Lombard; another clung hysterically to a set of false eyelashes. Despite their shrieks and tears, the articles were confiscated.

Next
on MacCormick’s agenda was what the wardens wryly termed “Politician’s Row”. Technically, this consisted of two separate prison hospital dormitories intended for the care and recuperation of sick prisoners. MacCormick was about to discover why sick prisoners, including the drug addicts, had been denied a bed in those wards. The first dormitory, on the second floor, had been appropriated by an Irish gangster, Edward “the Wolf” Cleary, previously an inmate of Sing Sing, who had been sent to Welfare Island on charges of assault and burglary. A large, swaggering drunk whom prison wardens explained was in charge of the distribution of alcohol in the prison, Cleary insolently drew on a cigarette as MacCormick’s team walked into the dormitory. Cleary’s chief “lieutenant” Peter Kenney, another gangster previously incarcerated in Sing Sing and recently imprisoned in Welfare Island for extortion, lacked his boss’s assurance. A blond, slightly built effeminate middle aged thug, Kenney was clearly rattled by the investigators’ presence: in short order, Cleary and Kenney were taken out of the dormitory and locked in separate cells. As the squad began searching the dormitory, the extent of Cleary’s privileges and his status as “top brass” in the prison began to emerge.

In
one corner of the 12-bed room, a pigeon cote built of wire and wood was fastened above the top of the bathroom door. About a hundred birds congregated inside and outside the coop. Cowering under Cleary’s bed was a German Shepherd puppy, whose name was “Screw Hater” according to one of the keepers - screw being slang for prison warden. The animal was tethered to the bed, and hid underneath clearly terrified; it only emerged when given a pat and something to eat. Behind the bed, Cleary had stuck a dagger, fashioned from a kitchen knife, into the window frame. On a rafter, a large can of home brew was in an advanced stage of fermentation. In a nearby locker, Cleary had stored half gallon cans of sliced peaches, tomatoes and spinach: a keeper explained to investigators that these were stolen from the storage house. Cleary had also collected knives and forks, cleavers, a radio, boxes of cigars, a large “deck” of heroin and other utensils. In a special kitchen off the dormitory detectives broke open the door to a large cupboard to discover crates of fresh cranberries, gallons of milk, fresh meat, pickled herrings, bags of potatoes and other vegetables not on the usual prison menu.

As
Cleary’s lair was raided, David Marcus, MacCormick’s deputy, took charge of the other wing of “Politicians’ Row”, another hospital dormitory on the second floor of the administration building. This was the domain of the acknowledged “monarch” of Welfare Island, the notorious gangster Joseph “Joie” Rao, leader of the ruling Italian gang and identified by prison staff as controller of the prison narcotics ring. Rao, Marcus learned, was by far the most powerful presence on the whole island. He was tall, dark, stickily built, with heavy eyebrows and a gloomy expression which made him look older than his thirty-one years. Another striking aspect was that he was impeccably well groomed. When Marcus arrived in the second dormitory, on the top floor of the administration block, he immediately recognised Rao, who was shaving in a leisurely manner in the bathroom, wearing a silk dressing gown over his pyjamas. Realising what was happening, Rao turned coolly to Marcus saying: “You’re taking us out in two sections. So I’ll go in the second group.”

Astounded
at Rao’s insolence, Marcus barked : “No you don’t Joe, you’re going now.” Calmly, Rao took off his dressing gown, put on a jacket and walked out, followed by his chief lieutenant, gangster Frank Mazzio, known to all as “Bosco”.

It
was only as Marcus and his team began searching Rao’s quarters that the full picture of Rao’s pre-eminence as monarch of the jail became clear. Rao was obviously more of a peacock and wealthier than Cleary, his Irish rival. Across his bed lay a maroon lounging robe of fine wool, and a radio had been fixed to the top of the bedstead, with earphones running out to the beds of the gangster’s favoured henchmen, including Frank Mazzio, who shared the dormitory. As in Cleary’s quarters, Rao’s bed was tidily made up with fresh cotton sheets and good quality pillows: his colleagues’ beds were similarly orderly. Two pairs of newly shined shoes, fitted with shoe trees, stood neatly at the foot of the bed. Rao, who was addressed by rank and file prisoners as “ward captain” also had a well-stocked cupboard, where he kept six boxes of expensive cigars, six dozen bars of soap, several packets of condoms, half a dozen tubes of toothpaste, and a box of fine chocolates. Among his food stores were tins of lobster, chicken and shrimps, jars of shelled walnuts, soups, olive oil, jams and sauces. One corner of his annexe resembled a theatrical dressing room: stored in an elegant armoire was a collection of coat hangers, a box of monogrammed stationary bearing the initials JR, a black silk shirt, silk underwear, dozens of boxes of powder, different makes of face cream, fancy handkerchiefs, two pairs of finest leather gloves and lilac toilet water. Hanging neatly on a rail were several mohair and silk suits and a cashmere coat. A crucifix lay on a locker; rosary beads dangled from the wall.

Only
now, when Cleary’s and Rao’s quarters had been searched, did the hideous extent of the scandal begin fully to dawn on MacCormick and his men. They realised that Joe Rao and to a lesser extent Edward Cleary, with their respective gangs, ruled the prison, which had become their fiefdom. Rao, and his deputy Mazzio, ran the drugs racket and both had free access to all parts of the island. Their deputies and captains were scattered throughout all areas of the prison, though always answerable to Rao and Mazzio. “Wolf” Cleary, in charge of the distribution of alcohol, wielded slightly less authority, delegating many responsibilities to his own deputies and henchmen. The number of Rao’s and Cleary’s many foot soldiers, lieutenants and enforcers totalled sixty eight, out of a current prison population of 1700 inmates. As Marcus and MacCormick slowly learned, Rao’s and Cleary’s teams kept the organisation running like clockwork and saw to the distribution of favours and privileges to those members of the gang who remained in good standing . Later that afternoon, when talking to the gathered journalists and photographers who had accompanied the raiding party, MacCormick admitted: “This vicious circle of crime and depravity transcends imagination.”