H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy (2 page)

Chapter 2

Harry Keywell stood silently at the window Collingwood Manor, apartment 211 and watched the street. After ten minutes he finally said, “They’re here.”

Irving Milberg and Ray Bernstein both joined Harry at the window. Harry Fleisher remained sitting on the couch.

“I don’t have any argument with Sol,” Irving said.

“I don’t want a witness,” Harry replied.

“Look, Sol’s alright. We leave him alone,” Ray announced.

Fleisher stood up, “You sure about that Ray? I hope Sol doesn’t bite us on the ass.”

A moment later Keywell answered the door. Joe Lebowitz, Hymie Paul and Izzy ‘The Rat’ Sutker walked in. An awkward silence filled the room. Finally Bernstein broke the tension. “Boys, take a seat,” he said and pointed to an oversized couch and easy chair.

Ray’s eyes focused on the briefcase. Maybe this would go alright. Harry turned on Izzy Sutker. “I think we all know what this is about,” he said.

“Sure Harry, we know we owe you some money…”

“Not just some, you owe us a lot of money Izzy.”

“You know we’re good for it,” Sutker continued.

“I’ve heard that before,” Ray said from across the room. “You’ve promised, and you’ve promised. You came to us and asked for a loan and I gave it to you. It makes me look like a fool. But the worst thing is that you idiots went and tried to cut us out of the business. Then you guys had the moxie to ask for another loan…”

“And we damned well gave it to you,” Milberg cut in.

Ray glanced at Milberg, then continued, “Now you’re telling us you need more time. We already gave you more time. After all that, you tell us you can’t pay.”

“What is this?” Harry demanded.

Hymie Paul concentrated on Harry’s every move.

He glanced at Milberg and Bernstein then his partners Izzy Sutker and Joe Lebowitz. Finally he said, “I think we can work something out.” He patted the case. “I’ve got half of your money right here. It’ll take us a little time, but we should have the rest of the money to you in three months.”

Keywell erupted, “Half? You come here with half?What the hell do you think this is?”

Almost imperceptibly Ray shook his head no.

Fleisher put his hands out as if to pat the air. “Boys, lets all be calm. Look, let’s not get worked up about this. I’ve got some cold beer in the basement. I’ll go get us some and we’ll work out some terms.”

The decision had been made. Ray, Irv and Harry Keywell all looked at each other.  A silent agreement was reached.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Ray said.

Fleisher walked out into the hall and headed for the street. The car would be idling in back in three minutes.

“We need it all,” Irv said a moment later.

Harry Keywell moved to the next window, his hand slipped inside his jacket and gripped his pistol.

“Look, we ain’t got that much, we’re lucky to have this,” Hymie’s throat had tightened; his voice was almost a squeal.

Irv grinned, “I don’t think you understand. We employ you, we give you a good territory, and you knock over our runs, you don’t pay your debts, you steal from us!”

Irv’s voice was getting louder, he took a breath then very slowly he said, “We…need…our…money…NOW.” His fist slammed onto the table.

Lebowitz glanced at his two partners. “Look, Irv, I understand. We’ll get you the rest. But it will take time, we’ll need a month.”

Milberg looked at Keywell and shrugged, “Seems like an awful long time don’t you think?”

Keywell pulled his gun from his pocket. “Times up.”

David stooped to pick up the silver dollar. Ezra had failed to catch it when Sol had tossed the coin. “Those guys look like gangsters, Ezra. We’ve got real life gangsters right here!”

Ezra was staring at the door where the men had disappeared. David sat down on the wet step, Ezra joined him. Still shaken neither boy said anything. After a few moments Ezra stood up and announced, “I’m going home.”

“What! You can’t leave. Neither can I. That guy gave us a dollar to watch his car. That’s a lot of money. If we leave he’ll come back and get us. We have to stay right here.” David was older and so he must be smarter. Ezra sat back on the step.

“I think those guys were the Purple Gang,” David said a few minutes later. “There was a story about them in the paper last week. I saw their picture. They’re famous.”

Suddenly a series of pops could be heard from a long distance away. Both boys jumped to their feet, eyes searching the street as they turned a slow circle. Another round of gunfire and this time the two friends could identify the location of the sound. A one they turned and looked to the second floor.

A moment later the building’s front door burst open and the driver of the car ran out carrying a brown briefcase. Taking the stairs two at a time he collided with Ezra and David knocking the boys over and falling to the sidewalk. The case flew from his hand scattering several bundles of cash on the sidewalk. The case slid across the sidewalk and under the big car.

“What the…,” David cried. Ezra rolled across the sidewalk and came to rest against the Chrysler.

“Gimme that,” Sol Levine shouted at Ezra as he jumped to his feet. Sol grabbed the newspaper bag and pulled. The boy was jerked forward and fell to the  sidewalk, landing on the side of his face with a yell. Sol dragged the bag from the boy’s grasp. Then he scooped up the bundles of cash laying on the sidewalk and stuffed them into the bag. After a quick glance at the door of the building he ran to the Chrysler. In a moment the engine roared and the car was turning the corner onto Grand Boulevard.

Seconds later three men tumbled from the door of the apartment building, each man carrying a pistol. They ran down the stairs, past Ezra and David and into the center of the street. The three men turned in circles looking for the car. It was too late. One man spotted the briefcase laying on the curb. He picked it up, looked inside then threw it back on the street. “The little shit! He took it all!” the man yelled.

“Ray, I’m gonna kill that little S.O.B.,” another whispered.

The three men then walked back into the building. It was as if David and Ezra were invisible. Ezra dabbed his bloody nose and began to cry.

Chapter 3

Detroit was an ethnic melting pot. Poles, Czechs, Germans, French, Italians, and Jews. Each had their own gang. But the meanest and easily the most feared was a gang founded by four Jewish Russian immigrants, the Bernstein brothers, Abe, Joe, Raymond and Izzy. The boys began their life of crime with simple street jobs; muggings, purse snatching and “smash and grab” robberies. They quickly progressed to shaking down local merchants. Legend had it that the gang got its name after hitting a meat market. “Those boys are rotten, purple like the color of rotten meat,” the shopkeeper supposedly said. The name stuck.

The country should have seen the rise in violence the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution would bring. Michigan had instituted its own version of Prohibition, the Damon Act, a year earlier with disastrous results. With the Damon Act’s implementation the manufacture and distribution of alcohol became illegal everywhere in the state. Within months “rum running” was the fastest growing profession in the Motor City. As one newspaper complained, “the average citizen can make a year’s wages in one month by becoming a gangster or bootlegger.”

After every arrest the rum runners invented an even more ingenious method for smuggling and distributing booze. The police tried to stop the flow of liquor to no avail. The money, the resources of the gangs, the corruption and the intimidation was too much. Liquor flowed from Windsor Canada across the Detroit River and into the nation’s fourth largest city in quantities no one could imagine.

The Purples knew a golden opportunity when they saw one. Soon they were the most powerful and feared gang in Detroit. Seventy-five percent of the illegal liquor coming into the United States from Canada came through Detroit. Its twenty-eight mile long Detroit River was just a mile from Canada and dotted with thousands of coves, boat yards, nooks and crannies - it was a smuggler’s dream.

At first, the Purples tried to keep the Detroit river front to themselves. It was an impossible task. There were too many rivals; the Purples couldn’t kill them all. But, they could impose a territorial system. Nothing moved along the docks of Detroit without the permission of the Purples. If it did, a savage lesson was taught. The Purples employed the new Thompson submachine gun as their business card. The ‘Chopper’ could cut a man in half in the blink of an eye. It ensured their rivals knew who had done the shooting and it left an impression.

The Purples dominated the Detroit underworld for years. No one went to jail. No one talked. The Purple Gang simply owned the police and killed anyone who complained. Business was business. The Detroit underworld flourished; the East Side Gang, “Singing Sam” Catalanotte, Chester “Big Chet” La Mare and the rest were, for the moment, happy with the arrangement.

The Purple Gang’s lock on the waterfront and bootlegging couldn’t last. The fall of 1931 saw an unprecedented opportunity for the competition. The American Legion was having its national convention in Detroit and the demand for liquor would surpass even the Purple’s capacity to supply it. Now rivals from all over the country were slipping into the city. Worse yet, some of the gang’s own associates began to moonlight. This didn’t go unnoticed by the Bernstein brothers.

Foremost among the moonlighters were three new members of the ‘Third Avenue Navy’. The Navy was part of the smuggling operation of the Purple Gang. Equipped with some of the fastest boats produced on the Great Lakes and armed with Thompson submachine guns the Navy made the run across the Lake and stopped others from making the same trip. The Navy’s running fights with the U.S. Coast Guard were big news and widely reported.

The Navy was a major part of the supply side of the Purple Gang’s operation. It was highly paid work, members were lost as a result of the work and to arrest. New members were recruited continuously. With the coming convention the Navy had to increase its size. New recruits were brought in without proper vetting. Hymie Paul, Isadore “Izzy” Sutker, and Joe Lebowitz were three of those new recruits.

That summer, in a show of supreme stupidity the three began diverting portions of each run. The lightened loads were not unnoticed, but good fortune smiled on the three double-crossers. A negotiation was taking place with the North Side Gang of Chicago. The Gang was losing its power in Chicago and the Purples were exploring ways of moving in on Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit. A partnership seemed possible. The Purples simply didn’t have the time to devote to these relatively small losses.

Unable to stand prosperity the three made another incredibly bad decision. They decided to start ‘making book’. They set the odds, took bets from all comers, including the opposition, and counted on the betters to lose. The scheme should have worked, but the boys were swimming with the sharks. 

A great pastime of the day was motor boat racing. Different categories of boats from sail to yacht, professional and amateur, were raced on the Detroit River to the delight of the populace. One of the more popular races was the “Gentleman’s Motor Yacht” race, and the most famous of those racers was the “Volstead Act,” a 34 foot locally built Chris-Craft.

Not knowing the monthly river races were fixed Sutker, Paul and Lebowitz bet big on the “Volstead Act.” Unfortunately, they lost to members of Detroit’s Italian East Side Gang. The East Side Gang, with its heavy New York connections and Sicilian pedigree was not in the habit of overlooking debts. To say that losing a bet to the East Side Gang was bad business was like saying Babe Ruth was just a ball player. It didn’t come close to describing the reality.

Hymie and the boys knew of only one way out. Trading on their association with the rest of the Purple Gang they bought a hundred gallons of Canadian booze on credit. They then watered down the whiskey and sold it, undercutting the Purples’ price for the same watered down booze. It didn’t cover the debt, but the boys figured to make the rest up through their gambling operation.

The big score, and their only hope of salvation, was the boat races. Hymie and his friends only succeeded in proving that stupid really can strike the same spot twice.

They again set odds on a river race, again the race was fixed, and again they lost big to the East Side Gang.

Forgetting the “First Rule of Holes”, the boys didn’t stop digging. Since the scheme had worked before they again approached their associates in the Purple Gang and again made a deal. A hundred gallons of Canadian whiskey were purchased, all on credit. Again they diluted the stock and undersold the market. It was one time too many for the Bernstein brothers. Hymie and the boys had forgotten they were cutting into the Purple’s trade. To make matters worse, they didn’t make enough money on the watered down booze. They couldn’t pay back the Purples and they couldn’t pay off the East Side Gang. They had succeeded in provoking not one, but two of the most powerful criminal organizations in the United States.

Paul, Sutker, and Lebowitz were already dead and had simply been waiting for the Purples to tell them.