The Bootlegger’s Legacy (8 page)

Pat had married Elizabeth Ruth Hall—known to everyone as Bugs—twelve years before. Pat had been fifty and she had been twenty-nine. Bugs was tall at five foot seven, and very slender, with long dark hair. She had only one goal in life: to be someone’s wife. Once she was pregnant, she discovered her other talent: being a mother. She never involved herself in “man stuff” and seemed to always be happy.

Pat was almost the perfect husband for Bugs—he left her alone. He went about his business and she went about hers. She had a complete life devoted to her social activities and her son’s needs. She was on various committees at church and at Mike’s school. She managed the house with military precision—meals were preplanned for weeks. Bugs lived in an orderly world under her control, or so she thought.

Even in his sixties, Patrick Allen was still a very handsome man. He was six foot one, with a muscular body. His hair was full, though completely grey. Pat had never made any extra effort to stay in shape—it was mostly just good genes. He had always been aware of his appearance and he spent a considerable sum on clothes in order to look his best. The role in life that defined him was salesman—not husband or father—and a salesman had to look successful to be successful.

Pat’s son, Mike, was an okay kid. Pat just wasn’t all that interested in hanging out with the boy. He was busy putting together the next big money-making deal. He felt like he owned Oklahoma City and much of the state. Every day it seemed like more good things fell his way. For many years it had seemed to Pat that everything he touched turned to crap, but lately he had the old Midas touch—it was all golden, all the time. He had fallen into the bootlegging business more or less by accident, supplying some of his friends. Now he was riding high.

For many years Pat had been an insurance salesman. He’d traveled extensively all over Oklahoma selling insurance policies to farmers, town officials, and sheriffs. He knew everybody in the state who mattered. He had made a connection with a guy in New Mexico and started bringing in some booze, using it as a sales incentive to get people to buy insurance. Buy a big life insurance policy and Pat would show up with a case of hooch. Before he knew it, he was spending more time selling whisky than insurance. He had always been a good salesman, so selling people something they already wanted wasn’t much of a challenge. Soon he was moving a lot of booze and it just kept growing.

He had become the number one bootlegger in Oklahoma. Prohibition had ended many years before, but with a wisdom rooted in spiritual values, all of Oklahoma and many parts of Texas remained dry. From Pat’s point of view this was absolutely divine intervention. Glory be to the Bible Belt’s penchant for screwing things up for the ordinary sap while praising misery and pain as the path to salvation.

Pat didn’t think too much about whether what he was doing was right. He knew it was illegal, but in Pat’s view that was just because the politicians lacked the backbone to stand up to religious groups. The rest of the country had legal liquor—it was stupid that Oklahoma didn’t. He felt almost like he was providing a public service, giving his customers what they wanted and could have had if they lived just over the state line.

Bugs and he, along with the boy, lived a modest life style. No need to flash the bucks. But Pat was stockpiling a shitload of cash. One of his challenges was what to do with it without looking like a big spender. He wanted the money, there was no question about that—and he found some interesting ways to spend his ill-gotten gains—but he also wanted a stable life for his family. Bugs was not involved in his real life. She seemed oblivious to where the money came from. If he jumped into the big bucks lifestyle he could now afford, she wouldn’t understand. And there was no question that she’d be shocked to know what he really did for a living. Jeez, why did he put up with this shit? The answer, as corny as it was, was that he loved her.

Pat and Bugs had never had a fight. She was always attentive, and she was pretty damn sexy when she wanted to be. They didn’t talk much about anything except the house and the kid. She never asked him where he was or what he was doing. If he forgot to tell her he wasn’t going to be home, she never got upset. If he showed up for dinner after he’d said he was going to be out, she acted happy to see him. He couldn’t imagine a more perfect person to be his wife and the mother of his child.

Pat bought Mike a too-expensive gift for his birthday and had it wrapped at John A. Browns, his favorite place to shop. The gift was the largest Erector set they sold. Since his knowledge was a little limited, Pat wasn’t sure if it was something his son would like or not, but it was big and impressive—the perfect gift from a traveling dad, seldom home.

John A. Browns & Company was the largest department store in Oklahoma and, excluding Dallas, probably in the region. Pat guessed it was 300,000 or 400,000 square feet, on five floors, right in the middle of downtown. There were even rumors that Browns was going to take over the building next door and connect the two, which would almost double the square footage. He couldn’t imagine what they would add to fill that much space. It seemed like they already had everything you could want.

Pat’s sometime companion worked at the restaurant in the basement, The Colonial Lunch Room. Browns’ somewhat hidden restaurant was a favorite of daytime shoppers for its selection of special sandwiches and cream sodas.

He thought he might as well drop in and test the waters. You could never tell with Sally exactly what sort of mood she’d be in. If it was bad, he’d quickly move on to calmer waters.

“Hey Sally, how’s the world treating you?”

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Patrick Allen, world famous asshole. And you know how the world is treating me? Like shit!”

Sally was about five foot two, blonde, and gorgeous, with a body to die for—and she was used to being treated better by younger, better looking men. Every aspect of Sally attracted attention from men—her looks, her smile, her walk, her laugh—she was what men dreamed about when their wives weren’t around. Pat knew that one of these days she was going to tell him to take a hike.

“Sally, you should watch your mouth. Browns is a respectable business.”

Apparently that was not the thing to have said. Pat’s smile didn’t help either. She gave him the finger and went into the kitchen. Fearing that she might be retrieving something sharp, he gathered his bags and quickly headed for the elevator.

Once on the main floor, Pat exited through a side door into an alley where Browns had valet parking service. He gave his parking ticket to the attendant. Within a few minutes the parking attendant pulled around his pride and joy: a 1952 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible—cream outside, with a burgundy interior. Pat just stood there and stared. Other people in the area also glanced over with admiring looks.

Of all of the things he’d spent his money on, this was the one that meant the most. He knew it was a little over the top and didn’t fit his “modest means” lifestyle. He just couldn’t help it—he loved this car. He had told Bugs that it was a special bonus from the insurance company because he’d closed a large deal, and said that if she thought they should sell it and spend the money on something else they could. She didn’t hesitate for a moment, saying that he deserved the car, that he’d always taken good care of his cars, and that she was pleased he was so happy. She was easy to manipulate on this kind of stuff, but he felt bad that her reaction was always the same—whatever made him happy made her happy.

His wife was almost too good. Pat wanted to scream at her “Bugs, honey, I was just down at Browns to see my girlfriend and I decided to buy you a little something.” My goodness, he was such an asshole. He didn’t even know why he did the things he did. He liked to go out and raise hell occasionally with a little drinking and dancing, and it had never seemed right to take his wife—and the mother of his child—to the places he liked to go to. So there was Sally. He was just getting too old to be doing this sort of nonsense.

Pat lived off of Walker Avenue and 17th. This was an area of nice homes, some pretty large. As a matter of fact, the mayor lived in the neighborhood. Pat and Bugs’s house was one of the smallest in the area, but it was convenient and it felt like home.

Pat went into the house through the back and stopped in the kitchen to fix himself a bourbon and water. Naturally, only the best bourbon for the number one bootlegger in Oklahoma City: Wild Turkey. It had just been introduced and had become an immediate success. Pat thought it was the best Kentucky bourbon he’d ever tasted—and he had tasted a lot.

Not hearing any movement in the house, Pat figured Bugs and Mike were out, probably getting something for Mike’s birthday. He went into his office and shut the door. Opening his small safe, he took out the ledger where he kept track of the payoffs to various officials that ensured that his business ran smoothly. He’d made a run to El Reno today and given Sheriff Tubbs a nice little present and wanted to enter it into his book before it slipped his mind. He hated keeping anything in writing, but there was no way he could keep all of the bribes and kickbacks straight if he didn’t have some kind of system. He’d recently hired a new guy in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Emerson, who could maybe take over some of this record-keeping shit—once Pat decided if he could trust him.

That was one of several reasons to get back to Las Cruces in the next few weeks. His primary source of product was currently in Juarez, Mexico, and Pat had established a base of operation in Las Cruces, a quiet little college town of about 25,000 people. Just perfect for his needs—and it wasn’t in Texas. He had a few employees there and in El Paso, Texas, who helped him manage the shipments coming from Mexico. The operation had just become too big for Pat to keep it all in his head. This was very troubling—he felt like he was becoming too visible.

After he’d outgrown his original supplier he’d started dealing with an Italian Texas family, headed by John Giovanni. He knew almost from the moment the deal was set up that this was probably a mistake. The Giovanni Texas group made him nervous—very nervous. He was sure they knew he was buying from the Mexicans and no doubt didn’t like it. The Texas guys were different. Pat realized a little late that he should have stayed away from them. While most of his dealings were casual and friendly, these guys were really bad people. If it hadn’t been for the network of county, state, and city officials who would only deal with him, he was sure those crooks would have buried him a long time ago. His operation ran smoothly, with little interference from the feds or the state cops, all because he greased a lot of wheels. As a matter of fact, Pat’s business was probably one of the biggest contributors to government corruption—right after the oil industry.

His Texas connection was the reason he was starting to plan a way to get out. Those hoods seemed more like New Yorkers than Texans, and it was making Pat really nervous. The Mexican guys, by contrast, seemed like gentlemen. They were always very gracious and they seemed to genuinely care that everything was going the way he wanted. He’d been to the homes of the two main owners, down in Juarez, and met their families. He thoroughly enjoyed their company.

As it turned out, the kid was nine and the birthday party was—well, a birthday party. Cake and ice cream, gifts—Mike liked the Erector set—relatives, neighbors and a bunch of other kids being annoying. Bugs was in her element, as excited as the kids were. Pat snuck off into his office and poured another Wild Turkey, straight up. Much better way to enjoy a kid’s birthday party.

While sitting and enjoying his drink Pat decided that he would go to Las Cruces the following week. He had his own plane—a Beech Twin Bonanza, a model that had just been introduced the year before. After World War II, it had taken some time for the domestic aircraft industry to come back to life. Pat had learned to fly in the early thirties and seemed to have a knack for it. The plane was something of a secret—Bugs knew nothing about it. It was registered in the name of his company, Blue Devils Development, and it was kept in a hangar at Wiley Post Airport, just a little northwest of the city.

On his business trips, he always told Bugs he was flying out of Will Rogers Field on Braniff. She never questioned this and had no idea he was flying himself in his own plane—she would have worried herself sick. The plane also usually held some special cargo on the return trip for some of his more discerning customers.

The next few days were uneventful for Pat—boring, really. He made some rounds to be sure all of his big customers were getting timely shipments and everyone was happy. He called Sally and begged forgiveness for whatever he’d done wrong. He suggested they should go out on the town that night and visit some nightclubs. Sally played hard to get, but eventually relented and said she would meet him at the Lincoln Club—her favorite club and one of his top customers. It was located a couple of blocks from the state capital, and there was always a big delegation of politicians and celebrities.

Pat pulled his big Cadillac into the Lincoln’s parking lot. Passing up the valet service, he parked the car himself. He wanted to make sure the idiot kid who parked at the Lincoln didn’t dent his pride and joy. Entering the Lincoln, he headed toward the bar. While Oklahoma was dry and selling liquor was illegal, the bar at the Lincoln couldn’t have been more out in the open. It always amazed Pat that there wasn’t more scandal about this than there was. Cops, politicians, and rich businessmen—especially the oil industry tycoons—openly flouted the law without suffering any consequences.

There were probably more liquor-selling clubs in Oklahoma City per capita than in Vegas or New York City. The newspaper people didn’t care and never reported on this double standard. The bulk of the population was religious, with a strong belief that alcohol was evil and ruined the lives of good people. Many of them were shocked when
Look Magazine
listed the twenty-four worst cities in the nation for “vice and sin” and included Oklahoma City on the list. It was as if two entirely separate worlds existed in the same place, ignoring one another.