William Landay - The Strangler

A wide shot of a storefront. The picture was in black and white, though the TV set was a new four-hundred-dollar color console model, one of Ricky’s mysterious lavish gifts. In front of the store hung a sign in the shape of a key, its teeth facing up. The sign read,

SWARTZ’S KEYS MADE WHILE U WAIT

Cut to a tighter shot of the storefront: People sauntered in and out of the front door, men and women, white and colored, in suits and T-shirts. Then an interior shot, blurry, the frame jerking around, the perspective a low angle, elbow height, as if the camera was being held under the cameraman’s arm. Cigar-chewing men behind a counter. Amid the ambient chatter, a voice was overheard: “Gimme number six in the fifth, for one.”

Cronkite’s voice again, grave and rhythmic: “The men behind the counter are called bookies. They are taking off-track bets on horses and dog races and selling chances on the numbers game, a form of lottery. What they are doing is illegal in every state of the union except Nevada. They are among thousands of bookies engaged in a nationwide multibillion-dollar-a-year business, a business that has been called ‘the treasure chest of the underworld.’”

Onscreen a cop in uniform-police cap, white shirt, dark necktie, jacket, and slacks-strolled out of the key shop. He got into the passenger seat of a marked BPD cruiser which was parked directly in front of the shop.

“Shit,” Ricky said. His hair was still damp and tendriled from the basketball game.

Cronkite, still in voice-over: “How does organized gambling operate? How does this business continue despite laws against it? And when the laws are not enforced by police officers, how does this affect the community and the nation?”

The police cruiser pulled away from the shop. Music swelled, Copland’s Appalachian Spring. The cruiser froze onscreen, and a title was superimposed over it: BIOGRAPHY OF A BOOKIE JOINT.

“ CBS Reports: Biography of a Bookie Joint is brought to you by pink-lotion Lux Liquid, the liquid for lux-lovely hands and sparkling dishes…”

“Hey, Joe,” Michael called from the couch, “you better get in here and see this.”

“Mikey, we’re in the middle of something here.” Joe and Kat had been arguing in the kitchen, in shouting whispers. No doubt she was reaming him out for losing it with Ricky during the basketball game.

“No, you better come watch this.”

Joe came out with a scowl. What now? He saw the slack-jawed gawp on his brothers’ faces. He glanced at the screen, which still displayed an ad for dish-washing liquid. “What? You guys look like someone just farted in church.”

“They’re doing a show on The Monkey,” Ricky explained, “that key place on Mass. Ave.” The Monkey was the locals’ name for Abe Swartz, the old man who ran the bookie shop as part of Doc Sagansky’s operation.

“Get the fuck out,” Joe said skeptically.

“Just sit down, Joe,” Michael said.

Joe shooed Little Joe off the couch and sat down. The house, which had never seemed small to the boys growing up, now felt comically miniature. Joe and Michael contorted themselves on the couch so as not to touch each other. Little Joe arranged himself on the floor in front of the TV.

The show resumed with Cronkite in a wood-paneled studio, sitting on an unseen stool, his shoulders at an angle to the camera. He wore a gray suit, white shirt, dark tie, handkerchief folded in his coat pocket. Hair Brylcreemed straight back, bushy eyebrows, a thin mustache. He was not handsome-his chin was weak, his nose drooped-but maybe that was his secret. That sonorous, earnest, authoritative voice, the voice of Truth Revealed, issued forth from a guy who looked like your barber. Over Cronkite’s shoulder, in the upper left corner of the screen, was a still shot of the exterior of the key shop.

“This is Walter Cronkite. Experts agree that organized gambling is the most lucrative, most corrupting, and most widely tolerated form of crime in the nation. This huge business pits the government of the underworld against the government of the people. The corner bookie, to be found in most American cities, is at the base of the problem. He is the so-called Little Man, but he is the funnel through which billions of dollars a year flow into the underworld. It is our purpose tonight to examine the consequences of the nickels, the dimes, and the dollars wagered with the corner bookie. He and his associates might operate out of a hotel room in New York or a tavern in San Francisco or, as in the case of this report, a key store on Massachusetts Avenue.”

The brothers stared.

On screen, a blank map of the United States. A line sprouted from Boston and stretched to a point that might have been Chicago. Then another, to Vegas. Another to L.A. To Miami. Montreal. New York. Soon the map looked like an airline route map, with every line originating in Boston. “…In August 1961, testimony at McClellan Committee hearings on illegal gambling alleged that Boston itself is one of the major layoff centers in the nation…”

Amy wandered in from the dining room. “What’s this?”

“Shhhh!”

On screen, smoke rose from a trash can on the sidewalk in front of the key shop. A bettor came out of the shop and casually dropped a piece of paper into the smoldering can. “…It is a violation of a city ordinance to burn trash on the sidewalk, but here the smoke of burning betting slips remained a common sight, a beacon for bettors.”

Kat and Amy and finally Margaret joined the group. From the men’s faces, they knew this program was not leading anywhere good.

A narrator’s voice, over grainy footage of people placing bets in the back room of the key shop: “The bettors at this bookie shop are not breaking the law; the bookies are. Most of the bookies’ business in the afternoon is in bets on horse races. The minimum you can bet on a horse race at a racetrack is two dollars. Here the minimum is one dollar and fifty cents. We watched some of the customers bet as much as fifty dollars; we’re told that a one-hundred-dollar bet is not unusual. The bookies claim that they pay the same betting odds as the racetracks; it’s generally reported that most bookies pay lower odds than the track. According to some of the customers, bookies at the key shop have never been known to welsh on a bet. As one customer put it, ‘This is a first-class bookie joint.’”

The program cut from the bookie shop to a montage of horse-racing scenes: a bugler calling the horses to the post, crowds milling, money thrown down at the betting window, horses racing.

Cronkite again: “Here the bettor who has the time and inclination can bet his entire bankroll legally. Pari-mutuel horse tracks are licensed in twenty-five states. Total attendance at these tracks last year: forty-eight and a half million persons. The handle, or total amount of money bet: three and a half billion dollars-one billion dollars more than the nation spent last year on new schools, classrooms, and textbooks. From the three and a half billions in bets on horses, the states received two hundred and fifty-eight million dollars in tax revenue. For every bet made here legally, it is estimated that at least three bets are made off-track, illegally, at places like the key store.”

Another montage: an establishing shot of the entrance gate to the Wonderland dog track, more crowds and betting windows, dogs racing.

Cronkite, in voice-over: “By seven-thirty P. M., Boston’s Wonderland, the world’s largest dog track, is open for business. Here gambling on dog races is legal. Attendance at this track during the racing season averages twelve thousand persons a night. Total yearly attendance: over one million, two hundred thousand. Pari-mutuel wagering on dogs is legal at thirty-five tracks in eight states. At Wonderland, more than six hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars was wagered in one night. The total amount wagered at dog tracks throughout the nation exceeds two billion dollars a year. Two hundred million dollars of this went to the states in tax revenue. It has been estimated that for each bet made at a pari-mutuel dog track, at least one other bet is made off-track. The states receive no tax revenue from off-track bets made with bookies at places like the key store.”