Piece of the Action (2 page)

On the other hand, twelve years in the slammer had given him a confidence and maturity he might otherwise have never achieved. After a time, somewhere in the spring of ’45, the names had stopped. No more “kike” or “sheeny.” But that didn’t mean his fellow cons had seen him as one of the boys. They’d held their tongues because they were afraid of him, not because they’d liked him.

Jake had begun to talk to himself on the day he’d realized that he couldn’t fight his way to acceptance. He would never be one of them. It was like the Italians, in a way. A Jew could work with the Italians, but he would never be equal to the lowest Sicilian. Meyer Lansky, whose name was in the papers almost every day, was a good example. He’d created his own gang because he could
never
get in with the wops, could never become an ordinary soldier, much less a Don.

“Them old Jews was tough,” Jake said. “Hymie Weiss? Bugsy Siegel? Louis Lepke? Hell, Arnold Rothstein was king of New York when Al Capone was still suckin’ on his mother’s tit.” Stepping into his bedroom, Jake began to dress. “But they musta not had kids or somethin’. The kids I come up with’re movin’ outta the neighborhood. Goin’ ta bullshit Queens or Brooklyn. Can’t wait to get away.”

He pulled a silk undershirt over his head, then stepped into silk boxer shorts. It was kind of depressing—the only luxury he could afford went on the inside where no one could see it. But that was all going to change. He’d put a lot of effort into attracting the wops’ attention. Doing a warehouse here, hijacking a truck there—fencing the loot to a Jew with a loose mouth. He and the only two pals he could dredge up—Izzy Stein and Abe Weinberg.

One day, two gorillas had arrived on his doorstep. He’d known them right away. They worked for Antonio “Steppy” Accacio. Steppy Accacio, if he wasn’t exactly Sam Trafficante, was an up-and-comer, a connected man with a finger in half a dozen Lower East Side pies.

“We only just heard about ya,” one of the gorillas, Joe Faci, had said politely.

“I understand,” Jake had responded, just as politely. “Whatta ya gotta get?”

“Ten percent. And it would be good if you would fence ya merchandise with our guy on West Street.”

“I got the money upstairs.”

“We’ll go with ya.”

“Nah, it’s my mother’s apartment. She’s home.”

Faci had thought about it for a minute, searching Jake’s face. “That would be all right,” he’d responded. “Ya won’t be long, I hope?”

“Two minutes.”

Jake had made it in one and a half, emerging with a stuffed envelope he’d been saving for months.

“How come we didn’t know about ya before this?” Faci had asked, accepting the envelope. “You ain’t such a young guy.”

Jake had explained about the army and Leavenworth and Faci had listened with respect. He would go back to his boss and pass the information over with the envelope. Jake Leibowitz had done twelve years of very hard time. He was a man you could work with. A man you could trust. He wouldn’t open up the first time the cops slapped him around.

Fifteen minutes later, his mustache as good as he was going to get it, Jake Leibowitz sat in the front seat of his mother’s 1951 Packard Clipper and studied his two companions intently. The both of them, Izzy Stein and Abe Weinberg, were top-notch in his book. Loyal and bright, they were everything good Jewish boys were supposed to be. Except, he had to admit, for the “good” part. And they weren’t boys, either, but hardened ex-cons who’d somehow failed to take advantage of the G.I. Bill.

“Ya know what to do,
right
?” Jake looked hard at Izzy who looked away. “Ya know who I’m talkin’ to,
right
?”

Izzy shrugged. “Whatta ya worried about, Jake? Ain’t I been doin’ it all along?”

What bothered Jake was that Izzy, though he’d done two short bits up in Elmira, had never worked with a gun before Jake recruited him. Not that Izzy was soft. Izzy’s prior criminal career had been characterized by a very practical truth: you could get yourself pinned for a hundred burglaries and not do as much time as an eighteen-year-old kid who ripped off the local gas station with his father’s .38.

“It’s one thing to hold a piece on some truck driver who’s crappin’ his pants,” Jake said calmly. “What we’re gonna do here is entirely different.”

The set-up was pretty simple, really. The whorehouse was run by a married couple, Al and Betty O’Neill, who’d fallen behind on their payments to Steppy Accacio. Al and Betty were making noises like they didn’t see any reason why they should pay the cops
and
the mob. Accacio wanted to teach the loving couple a lesson they should have learned before they went into the whore business. Namely, he wanted Jake and his boys to pistol-whip the crap out of the pair of them. Jake could keep whatever he found on the premises for his trouble.

“What it is, Jake,” Faci had explained, “is Steppy wants that you should put ya hearts inta ya work.”

“I get too enthusiastic,” Jake had replied, “it might be they won’t wake up. I ain’t a doctor, Mr. Faci. I can’t tell the difference between almost and dead.”

“Findin’ that line,” Faci had flatly declared, “is the difference between being an artist and a mug.”

Izzy finally raised his head. He met Jake’s eyes and held them. “You got nothin’ to worry about, Jake. I already decided to do it. I ain’t some fairy who’s gonna chicken out at the last minute.”

“How ’bout you, Abe? You hot to trot?” Jake turned his attention to a grinning Abe Weinberg.

“Ready, ready, Teddy, to rock and roll.” Abe held up a six-inch sap. “I brought my pal, Elvis, along for the ride.” He dumped the sap in his coat pocket and dragged out his .45, the one he’d taken off an MP in 1944. “I don’t wanna mess up Little Richard doin’ balop-bam-boom on some pimp’s head.”

Jake, unable to keep a straight face, broke into a smile. He wanted to ruffle Abe’s hair the way you’d rub the head of a smartass kid, but he was afraid that he’d never get his hand back out. Abe was crazy into rock music—Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ricky Nelson and, of course, the King, Elvis Presley. To Jake, they looked like a bunch of greasy-haired punks, the kind that hung out on the corner and never went anywhere, but Abe worshiped them, even the niggers. He sang all day (except when Jake told him to shut up) and combed his long straight hair into a greasy four-inch pompadour. His favorite outfit was a black leather jacket, black denim trousers and black motorcycle boots. He would have been wearing them right now, if Jake hadn’t ordered him to put on an overcoat.

Izzy was Abe’s exact opposite in every respect but the most important one, his relationship with the law. Izzy was small and wiry, whereas Abe was tall and broad. Izzy’s beak was so big it almost covered his thin mouth and receding chin, while Abe looked like a damned Irishman. Tall and raw-boned, Abe’s tiny, upturned nose and the spray of freckles across his cheekbones were almost ridiculous on a man named Abe Weinberg.

“Look here, Abe, I want ya should calm yourself down a little bit,” Jake said.

“Ya know somethin, Daddy-O, you got a way of takin’ all the fun outta life. Like, don’t be cruel, okay?”

“Cut the crap, Abe. I don’t want them people unconscious before they tell us where the money’s hid. You don’t hit nobody. Ya wave that friggin’ forty-five and keep ya distance. Understand?”

Jake’s temper was legendary. Abe understood
that.
When Jake lost his temper, it stayed lost.

“Don’t be so nervous, Jake.” Abe’s voice was soft and soothing. “It’s gonna go all right.”

“It better.” He took a second to look into the eyes of both men. “C’mon, let’s get it over with.”

They made no effort to hide themselves as they crossed the street and approached the red door marking 800 Pitt Street. This was a lesson for the whole neighborhood, a lesson from the wops to any fool who believed he could operate independently. Not that there was anyone out on the street. The light rain was mixed with ice, now. It was more than enough to discourage the locals.

Jake knocked twice, paused, then knocked twice again. The door opened immediately and the trio stepped inside. The fat man standing in the hallway, Al O’Neill, began to back up as soon as he saw them.

“Where ya goin’, pal?” Jake asked, his .45 rising until it pointed directly at Al O’Neill’s mouth. “You got a hot date or somethin’?”

“What, what, what …”

“Where’s the bitch? She in the back?”

“You want a woman?”

“I’m talkin’ about your old lady,” Jake said. He stepped forward and jammed the barrel of his .45 into the fat man’s mouth. “Don’t fuck with me.”

O’Neill brought his hand to his mouth. Blood ran down along his fingers, soaking into the cuff of his shirt. “Don’t kill me,” he whispered. “Please, don’t kill me.”

“I want the bitch,” Jake repeated. “I want the bitch right now.”

“Please, please, please.”

“Shit.” Jake drove his foot into the fat man’s crotch. “I know the bitch is in here somewheres. Take us to her or I’ll blow ya friggin’ head off.”

Jake knew exactly where Betty O’Neill was, but now that he’d demanded obedience, he couldn’t very well back down. He cocked the .45 and the sharp click of the hammer settling into place had a sobering effect on the retching Al O’Neill. The fat man pushed himself to his feet and led Jake down a narrow hallway to a door at the rear of the building.

“It’s me,” he called, pushing his way inside.

The thin, almost haggard woman sitting behind the desk was every bit as shocked by the appearance of Jake, Izzy and Abe as her husband had been. Her reaction, on the other hand, was far different.

“You coward,” she screamed at her husband. “You just
let
the bastards in.”

“I didn’t,” Al protested. “They used the signal. If you weren’t so goddamned cheap, we woulda had a peephole and I wouldn’t have to let people in without knowin’ who they are.”

Betty O’Neill rose to her feet, her eyes riveted to her husband’s. “Ya coulda
asked
,” she screamed. “Ya coulda asked who it was.”

“What’re you, a moron?” Al was spitting pieces of white enamel each time he spoke, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You wanna ask guys comin’ to a whorehouse to shout their names out? If ya didn’t squeeze every nickel until it bleeds, you woulda listened to me and paid Accacio his vig.” He suddenly turned to Jake. “Look, I tried to make her pay up. I swear. But ya can’t make this bitch do nothin’.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Jake swung the .45 in a long arc, bringing the barrel down on the pimp’s bald skull. He put so much force into it that he was sure the .45 was bent and he made a mental note to check the automatic before he fired it again. The blow, he noted with satisfaction, had split Al’s forehead, from the hairline to the bridge of his nose. The flow of blood was astonishing.

“Where’s the money?” Jake asked calmly.

“You talkin’ to me?” Betty said. Despite everything, she was still defiant.

Jake nudged her unconscious husband with the toe of his shoe. There was no response. “Where’s the money?”

“What money?”

“Whatever you got. And it better be plenty.”

“It’s only nine o’clock. We’re just gettin’ started. I didn’t take in more than fifty bucks the whole night.”

“Izzy,” Jake said, “would you talk to the woman?”

Izzy nodded solemnly. He handed his .38 to Abe and moved behind the desk. Betty, her anger suddenly transformed, put her hands up defensively.

“Hey, look at this,” Izzy said, grabbing the woman’s left arm. “She’s a dope addict.”

Jake looked at the dark scars running up the woman’s arms and shook his head in disgust. Now it made sense. Betty O’Neill was putting Steppy Accacio’s piece of the pie in her arm. It was pretty amazing. Before the war ended, nobody Jake knew had even
heard
of heroin. Sure, there were hopheads around, but they were getting opium from the chinks or morphine from the crooked doctors. The heroin had started coming into New York with the returning G.I.’s. Now, it was everywhere and the profits were unbelievable, like Prohibition all over again. Convincing the wops to give him a piece of the dope action had become Jake’s major goal in life.

“See if ya could find her stash,” Jake said.

“Right.”

It didn’t take long. Most junkies couldn’t stand being more than a few feet from their scag and Betty O’Neill was no exception. Izzy pulled twenty bags of heroin out of the center desk drawer and held them up for Jake’s inspection.

“Take ’em in the toilet,” Jake instructed. “And flush ’em down.”

“No,” Betty said. “It’s not mine. I mean it’s not
all
mine. It’s for the girls, the ones that use.”

Cute, Jake thought. The O’Neills were dealin’ dope on the side. And not givin’ Steppy his piece. Jake took the heroin from Izzy and cradled it in his palm.

“What it is,” he said, “is that you should tell us where the money is if ya wanna keep your dope. And I’m talkin’ about
all
the money, not just what you got in the drawer. I want what you got under the floorboards. Or behind the wall. Or in the ceiling. Now, what you should consider is that I’m gonna find it anyway. If I can’t beat it outta
you,
I’ll wake up your old man and get it from him. Ya can’t protect the money, but ya
could
keep ya dope. I know you Irish got potatoes instead of brains between your ears, but I think even a spud-head, like yourself, could figure this one out.”

Jake was right. Betty O’Neill, after considering his proposition for a moment, crossed the room and pulled up a section of the floorboard to reveal a small pile of banded fives, tens and twenties. Jake estimated the take at close to six hundred dollars. He put the money into his pockets, filling his jacket and his overcoat, then nodded to Izzy.

“Do what ya gotta do,” he said.

Izzy, perhaps to impress his boss, approached the job enthusiastically. He used his fists and the leg of a chair instead of his .38, but the only drawback to this approach was that he had to hit Betty O’Neill thirty times to produce the desired effect. Each time he drove his fist into her ribs, he received two rewards: the sharp crack of splintering cartilage and Betty O’Neill’s equally sharp scream.