Jimmy the Stick (11 page)

The other men around Rothstein spoke to one another in low buzzing voices, waiting their turn for his attention. Some of them tipped their hats as Mother Moon approached. They paid no attention to me, but made room for another boy, a ragged-looking kid about my age who kicked up his legs in some kind of silly dance that made Mr. Rothstein smile. They stopped talking and he stopped smiling when Mother approached the table.

“Nice to see you,” Rothstein said in a low voice that was hard to hear.

“A. R., this is the lad I told you about.” She tapped my head, and I took my hat off before stepping up to the great man. I paid no attention to the others or to the foolish dancing boy, and tried not to look at Monk Eastman. Mother Moon had told me not to say a word unless I was asked a direct question.

Mr. Rothstein looked me up and down. I curled my fingers around the knucks in my pocket and stared back at him. In doing that, I forgot one of the things Mother Moon told me: “You can look at Mr. Rothstein, but you don't stare at him.”

Now she said, “First, the boy won't steal from you. Not ever. I've taught him who he can steal from and who he can't. He's smart but not smart enough to be a problem. He can do sums with a scrap of paper and a pencil, even long division, and you can see this adorable little Mick phiz.” She squeezed my cheek and turned my face so he could see that it was adorable. “He can walk into any office or station house and nobody will look at him twice. Anything you need delivered or retrieved, he's your boy. He hasn't done any work in Brooklyn. Doesn't know the streets but he's fine in most of the neighborhoods around here.”

“I can always use another runner,” Rothstein said. “And as it happens, I'm involved in an enterprise where such a lad might be useful.”

I had no idea what they were talking about. But Mother Moon knew what he meant, and that was the reason she'd asked for the meeting. Later, I learned that the government was promoting the sale of Liberty Bonds to pay for the Great War. Everyone said the bonds were almost as easy to deal with as money, with hundreds of them moving between Wall Street banks and brokerage houses every week. A. R., as I came to call him, knew exactly which messengers were handling the transfers. For the right price, some of them tipped him off about their schedules and routes, later “suffering” mild beatings and robbery when they were held up. Rothstein and his partners had already made off with more than two million dollars. He didn't want a connection between the muscle who stole the bonds and the guy who cashed them in. That's where his runners came in.

A. R. leaned forward to whisper, “You know how much I hate violence, but these things get rough from time to time. Shots have been fired. I hesitate to involve such a young lad.”

“Not to worry. He can take care of himself.” Mother Moon shrugged. “And there are other boys.”

Mr. Rothstein took a fig out of the open paper bag, chewed, and then swallowed. Turning to me, he said, “Do you know the Hotel President?”

“On Forty-Eighth.”

“That's right. There's a man in Room 457. Go there and tell him that A. R. wants the second number. That's important, ‘the second number.' He'll give you something. Bring it back here as fast as you can.”

“Be quick,” said Mother Moon.

I ran.

I couldn't understand what was so hard about this. Out the front door, go east, squeeze through the clotted sidewalk, always looking a few feet ahead, watch for cigars in hands that could burn, swivel around other kids who might stop in front of me. I knew I could move faster than foot traffic but only so much faster. I couldn't run at full speed when there were too many people. If I was too fast, I'd knock adults off balance, they'd yell, and that could get the cops involved. I never wanted that. But when I moved at a fairly quick pace, a sort of weaving trot, I could pass everyone on the sidewalk and most of the traffic in the street.

When one place became too thick with crowds, or the traffic slowed to a creep, I'd cut across to the other side, looking for an easier flow.

I was so engrossed that I didn't notice Monk Eastman and another guy following me out of Reuben's, trying to keep up for two blocks. After that, foot traffic thinned and I could really make time.

Then I was approaching the Hotel President, moving up the steps and through the doors into the busy lobby. What was that room number? Oh, yeah, 457. I slowed to a walk. Kids couldn't run in hotels without attracting attention, but I was still able to take the stairs two at a time.

The fourth-floor corridor was crowded with men and so at first I couldn't read the room numbers. It took long, frustrating minutes to reach 457. I knocked on the door and waited.

“Yeah,” snarled the lanky young fellow who answered the knock. He wore a stained undershirt with loose suspenders hanging around his waist. He had a heavy stubble and a big plug of tobacco stuck in his right cheek. A card game was going on behind him.

“A. R. wants the second number.”

“Huh! What the hell?” He was surprised to see a kid and hear the kid saying what I was saying.

I didn't know what else to do, so I kept my mouth shut, and stared fixedly at the man.

He scratched his blue jaw and looked down at me, probably wondering if someone was pulling his leg. He made a gruff noise and shut the door.

What to do? I hesitated, raising a hand to knock again when the door opened once more. The young man thrust a folded piece of paper at me. He muttered, “This better be on the level.”

I grabbed the message and dashed down the corridor.

By the time I returned to Reuben's, both Monk and his associate were back inside the restaurant. The guys had tried to explain how I disappeared, slipping past everyone. And then I arrived and put the folded paper on the table.

Mother Moon allowed herself the smallest of smiles. “I can have him on call for a flat weekly rate, or would a per-job fee be more to your liking?”

I don't know what they agreed upon, but I soon became Mother's best earner. The work was wonderful and only sometimes terrifying. My part in the bonds business was simple.

I'd go to Reuben's around midnight and wait around until Mr. Rothstein called me to his table. A. R. would explain what to do the next day in a voice so soft I had to lean really close to hear.

He might say, “Be at the corner of Nassau and Pine tomorrow morning. Wear a tan cap. A man will give you a package. Take it to Room 715 at the Delmonico.”

The next day I was at Nassau and Pine promptly at ten, with a tan cap and a bag of peanuts to stave off the constant hunger I felt in those days. I was eight, maybe nine. Shelling and eating the nuts also kept my hands busy and burned off the nerves. Countless hours later—that's what it felt like anyway—a blond guy who didn't look like much of anything sauntered out of a doorway. He was trying so hard to act nonchalant that everybody on the street gawked at him, or so I thought. He passed me a messily folded newspaper wrapped around a thick-clasp envelope and then ran like hell. So much for nonchalance.

I tucked the paper under my arm and melted into the crowd on the sidewalk. Moving fast, I felt through the newspaper without taking my eyes off the people around me. I found the envelope, and slipped the package into a wide pocket that Mother Moon had sewn inside my coat. I made sure it lay flat before buttoning the pocket. My pace quickened as I headed for the El.

I had no idea about what I was carrying, and didn't understand the business of negotiable bonds, but I knew they were valuable. Mother Moon told me some men might try to take these packages from me, and my inherently suspicious nature served me well. I noticed adult males who paid too much attention to me, or looked away too quickly when I stared at them. I learned different routes to get across town. Streetcars were better than subways. The El was OK but still a potential trap. I was most comfortable in my Keds on a crowded street, where no grown person had a hope of staying with me.

Three guys brought me the stuff, and it began to worry me that I recognized them so easily. If I knew who they were, so did other people. One of my contacts was a dark, hungry-looking young fellow with gaunt, hollow cheeks and eyes that were never still. Then there was the blond guy who didn't look like much of anything, always trying to be very cool, unruffled, and sure of himself. My third connection was a taller blond guy, very nervous, always chewing on a toothpick stuck between his teeth. He tried to act snappy and sharp but even I could tell he was afraid. Mr. Rothstein was sending me out three, four times a week. My part went off smoothly. One of my guys would show up at the right place within an hour or so of the proper time, and then I was off. It was all silky smooth—until one particular day.

I was waiting at the southeast corner of Union Square, bored with the posters in front of this movie theater, impatient and hungry as the sun rose higher and I was running out of peanuts. I was thinking, Just give me the damn thing so I can deliver it to the Chatham Hotel, which is twenty minutes away if traffic is what it ought to be on a Thursday. Then I can get something to eat, a dog with mustard, and a Coke. . . .

But there was a commotion on Seventeenth Street, and I saw my messenger stumbling forward, arms flailing with bright red blood on his face and his white shirt. Panicked, he ran straight into two old ladies and sprawled ass over elbows into the gutter not five feet away. I could see the wild look in his eyes and the bloody toothpick sticking through his upper lip. Two guys were chasing him, and they ran over the old ladies too. The women screamed as blood spurted from my man's face. His wide, frightened eyes locked on mine. The last thing I heard was the sickening crunch of a sap on a skull as I backed away.

The two men were ripping through my guy's clothes, evidently looking for the clasp envelope. But an outraged street crowd fell on them, helping the old ladies and yelling for the cops.

I threaded through groups of people, hopped the wall that bordered Union Square, and went straight to the room at the Chatham Hotel, where I was supposed to make the day's delivery. The place was empty, nobody there. It was too early to find Mr. Rothstein at Reuben's. But I knew he had offices on Fifty-Seventh Street, so I headed there, and found the Rothmore Investment Company on the building directory. I could read well enough for that.

Upstairs, a woman sat behind a desk in the front room. I knew her name was Freda Rosenberg, though I'd never met her before. She looked startled when I came through the door, like she knew who I was and what I did—and if she knew that, she also knew I wasn't supposed to be there. I could see Mr. Rothstein on the other side of a glass partition. He was talking urgently with a couple of other men. The woman at the desk nodded toward the door, meaning I should scram out of there. I did, with a crushing worry that gnawed at me all day. Had I screwed up? If I'd failed A. R., what would they do to me?

Around midnight, I went to Reuben's, trying to act like nothing unusual had happened during the day. I figured if I showed up with a long story of what I'd seen, I'd sound like a kid. Better to wait and be quiet, let the man ask what he wanted to know.

An hour later, the longest hour of my life, Rothstein beckoned me over to his table. He said, “I know what happened. Did you see it?”

“Yes.”

“Did Berkowitz put up a fight?”

Berkowitz must have been the toothpick guy. “He was running but already bleeding when I saw him. He didn't have a chance.”

He nodded, looking kind of sad. “Were they cops?”

I started to answer no, then stopped. “Yeah, they coulda been.”

A. R. nodded again and murmured, “All right then.” Relief washed over me though I tried not to let it show as he gave me a tightly folded bill from his vest pocket. “Tomorrow's going to be different. I've got something new for you. You know my friend Mr. Heller. Come here at two o'clock. He'll have something for you to deliver to Abe Attell at Jack's place. We've got a lot of work to do with the Series.”

I didn't know what he meant, but the next month was really busy.

THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 1932

VALLEY GREEN, NEW JERSEY

That evening, I woke up still seeing the bloody doll and the pale figure and Fordham Evans's cold, naked body hanging by his hands, and I was no closer to understanding what the hell any of it meant. Another hot shower and shave revived me, but I was still worried and confused. It was almost fully dark by the time I'd dressed in a warmer turtleneck and my good charcoal gray double-breasted. I put my notepad and fountain pen in a breast pocket, dropping the Detective Special in the right-hand coat pocket, knucks in the left pants pocket.

Mrs. Pennyweight called as I opened the door, and I went down the short hall to her suite. Across the balcony, the door to her daughter's room was open. I could see an empty bottle of Veuve Clicquot upturned in an ice bucket and two more on the floor.

The door to the nursery was open too. It looked and smelled like a cleaning crew had been at work. The bloody table and curtains were gone, and the wall had been scrubbed clean.

In Mrs. Pennyweight's rooms, a wall of louvered windows and French doors opened onto a terrace with a view of the lake. The wallpaper, furniture, and carpets were pale blue and light tan. Everything looked new. She had a desk, a low table, and a sideboard for her sherry and console radio. Her armchair faced a crackling fireplace. The tray that Connie Nix had been preparing that morning was on the table. Scattered around it were sections of the New York newspapers. I took the
Daily News
, the
Mirror,
and the
Times
. She had a robe tucked around her legs and wore a heavy sweater. She looked at me over glasses that had slipped down to the tip of her nose. I could see a bit of her bedroom through an open door. They'd moved the crib up to her room from the library. The baby was in it, playing with his feet.