William Kennedy - Legs

He put his coat on and stood up. "Let's go out on deck. I'll tell you a couple of stories." I followed and we found our way back to the desolate spot where he'd dumped the jewels. The old lady was there, and it was still as private as any place on deck.

"How are you today?" Jack said to the old dame, who took the remark first as an intrusion, then looked at Jack as if he were invisible. He shrugged and we walked to the rail and looked down at the waves and at our foamy wake.

"I dumped a guy in the water once over marked cards."

I nodded, waited. He stared out at the ocean and went on: "A card game in a hotel. It was the first time I ever met Rothstein. I was working as a strikebreaker with Little Augie, breakin' heads, just out of jail. A bum. I was a bum. Augie says to me, 'You wanna work strongarm at a card game?' And I said all right and he sent me to this hotel room and there's Rothstein, the cocksucker, and he says to me, 'What happened to your head?' 'Nothin' happened to it,' I said. "That haircut,' he said. 'You look like a skinned rabbit, skinned by somebody who don't know how to skin. Get a haircut for pity's sake.' Can you imagine that son of a bitch? He's got seventy-six grand in his pocket, he told me so, and he tells me get a haircut. Arrogant bastard. He was right about the haircut. A barber-school job. Awful. I tell you I was a bum on the street and I looked like one. But he made me feel like a zero.

"So the game went on and there's this high roller-let me call him Wilson-who's challenging Rothstein. There's other players, but he wants to beat A. R., who's the king. And he's doing it. Wins eleven thousand one hand, eight the next, in five thousand-dollar freezeout. Rothstein has two men in the bathroom looking over the decks Wilson brought, and they find the marks, little tits on the design in the corner. First-rate work by the designer. Rothstein hears the news and calls a break but doesn't let on, and then tells me to brain Wilson if he gets out of hand, and I say all right because he's paying me. He bottom-deals Wilson a six and Wilson calls him on it. Then A. R. says never mind about bottom dealing, what about a man who brings paper into a legitimate game? And when Wilson stood up, I brained him. Didn't kill him. Just coldcocked him and he went down. When he came to, they told me to take him someplace he wouldn't be a bother. They didn't say kill him. I took him to the river with a driver and walked him to the edge of a dock. He offered me four grand, all he had left from the game, and I took it. Then I shot him three times and dumped him in. It turned out he had three kids. He was a cheater, but he was complicated. He looked at me and said, 'Why? I give you the four grand.' His life had to be complicated with three kids and I killed him. I wanted the four grand bad and I knew he had it. But I never killed anybody before and I tell you I blame Rothstein. Maybe I wouldn't have killed him if he didn't say that about the haircut, make me feel I was such a bum. I knew I was a bum, but I didn't think it showed so much. With the four grand I wasn't a bum anymore. I bought a new suit and got a haircut at the Waldorf-Astoria."

The money inspired Jack. He and his brother Eddie met one Ace O'Hagan, who drove for Big Bill Dwyer, the king of Rum Row. Dwyer had the Coast Guard, Jersey City, and part of Long Island on his payroll, and Jack gave Ace fifty to connect him to Dwyer for a job. Ace called Dwyer from the bar where he and the Diamond boys were drinking and found Dwyer was partying and wouldn't be back. Then, in the back of Jack's car, with Eddie driving, Jack had another idea and stuck a pistol in O'Hagan's ear and asked for the location of Dwyer's most vulnerable drop.

"He wouldn't tell me," Jack said, "so I smashed his nose with the pistol and he flooded himself. Bled all the way to the Bronx where I knew we could get a truck. I told him I'd burn his toes to cinders if he didn't tell me, and he told and we packed his nose with toilet paper and headed for Dwyer's smallest drop in White Plains. I cooked up a story that we were sent to load up the truck for a millionaire named Riley,a fellow Dwyer was doing business with, and Ace was the convincer. He talked the two guys guarding the drop into loading the truck with Scotch and champagne, and on the way back to the city, he says to me, 'Dwyer'll kill you.' And I said, 'Bill's a nice guy from what I hear. He wouldn't hurt a fellow with a little ambition. '

'"Then we took Ace to the hospital and I paid to get his nose fixed up. We kept him at our rooms till I figured out what to do next, and during the night he says to Eddie, 'He's going to kill me, isn't he'?' And Ed told him, 'No, I don't think so. If he was going to kill you, why would he pay for your nose?"

Jack then went to Rothstein with a proposition.

"Listen, I have quite a lot of booze. I mean quite a lot."

"What are you asking?" Rothstein said, surprised Jack had anything of value besides his pistol.

"The going rate. "

"The rate varies. Quality talks."

"Taste it yourself. "

"I drink very little. Only at bar mitzvahs and weddings. But I have a friend who drinks nicely and understands what he drinks."

Jack led Rothstein and friend to the West Side garage where the booze truck was parked. The genuine article, said the taster.

"I take it you imported these goods yourself," A. R. said.

"Since when does Arnold Rothstein worry about such details?"

"In some ways, I'm particular about whose pockets my friends pick. "

"I'll tell you straight. It's Dwyer's stock."

Rothstein laughed and laughed and laughed.

"That's quite a daring thing, to do this to Big Bill. And I'm laughing also because Bill owes me for several loads of whiskey for which he borrowed a certain sum, and so it's just possible you're trying to sell me goods with a personal interest to me. "

"Dwyer doesn't have to know you bought the stuff."

Rothstein laughed again at this devious fellow.

"If I had two more trucks, I could get you this much twice over," Jack said. "That's also part of my proposition. Fit me out with two fast trucks and I'll keep you hip-deep in booze."

"You're moving very fast," said A. R.

"Just a young fellow trying to get ahead," said Jack.

Rothstein came to an end of business dealing with Dwyer as a result of Jack Diamond, the underworld arriviste, who, the day after Rothstein bought him two trucks, went back to the White Plains drop and, with his new assistants, and their new shotguns, newly sawed off, cleaned the place out down to the last bottle.

Jack was notorious as a hijacker by 1925, Rothstein's crazy-his own man, however-nabob at his Theatrical Club by then, and making enemies like rabbits make rabbits.

"I felt the pellets hit me before I heard the noise, and I saw the cut barrel sticking out of the window as the car passed before I felt the pain. I scrunched sideways below the bottom level of the window so they couldn't fire another one except through the metal door, and while I was down heard their wheels scream, and I knew I had to come up to steer when I felt the bullet hit my right heel. I didn't run into anything because there was nothing to hit, just traffic way off and no intersection or parked cars. I was around a Hundred and Sixth Street when I looked up and saw them going away. I knew I had to stop. Make them think I was out of it. I veered off to the curb and put my head back on the seat, like a collapse. Wet with blood, and then the pain came. Bloody heel. A woman looked in at me, scared, and ran off. I saw the car away up the block, turning off Fifth, probably coming back to inspect their work. My car was stalled by this time. I started it and saw my hat on the floor, a new straw sailor, the brim half shot off. I lifted my foot, trying not to let the heel touch the floor, put the car in gear, clutch, gas. Goddamn but that pain was heavy. People were out there hiding behind parked cars. I had to get away, sol turned off Fifth then, touched my head. The blood was everywhere and the fucking pain was incredible. I headed for Mount Sinai, the only hospital I knew, a few blocks back on Fifth. 'Don't let the toes go dead or I'm through driving. Don't think about the blood. Move the toes.' You know what else I thought? I wondered could you buy an artificial heel. They weren't following me. Probably pissed now that they knew they didn't kill me. My vision was going on me, the pain getting to where it counted. 'Don't black out now, tough monkey. Here we go.' Then, Jesus, a red light. I was afraid if I ran it I'd get hit, and then I'd be dead for sure. Bleed to death. So I waited for the light, if you can believe that, a goddamn lake of blood on the floor and another lake I'm sitting in. My ass floating in blood, ruining the suit, the hat already ruined. I didn't see the face behind the muzzle of the shotgun, but I saw the driver. Ace O'Hagan. He'd be smiling, remembering the night his own blood flowed all over the seat. Ace would pay. And Ace would tell me who the shooter was because Ace couldn't take the pain. I promised I'd make him pick me out a new suit and hat before I did the son of a bitch. Then I was almost to the hospital, and I remembered my pistol and threw it out the window. Didn't want to get caught with that goddamn thing. I opened the car door and I remember thinking to myself, is my underwear clean? Imagine that? I moved the bum leg then, limped toward the door, and I started to spin. I spun through the doorway and began to topple and just inside, mother, here comes the floor.