Button Man Page 6

  Morris said, “And why not?”

  “Let me get this straight,” Sol said, staring across the table. “You want me to come work for you?” Morris was only twenty-three; Sol was six years older and for years had been the man of the family. “And if I even entertained such a suggestion, I’m an accountant. What do I know about garments?”

  “You know business. On the factory floor, I know what we need to know. I’ve got some money saved up. All I need is someone with a little more polish than me to get us a bank line and to sell what we make. Fifty-fifty. Are you in?”

  “No, I’m not in.” Sol shook his head at his wife and went back to his brisket.

  He had a nice, steady career building. He was back taking classes at City College—Harvard for those on the Lower East Side—and doing the books for people in the neighborhood. Twice a week he helped out in his father-in-law’s hardware store. In a year or two he could be a real accountant. But he looked back at Morris and saw something twinkling in his younger brother’s eyes. Something he could not put his finger on. But he kept looking.

  “I may regret this.” He pushed back in his chair and threw up his hands.

  “You won’t. I’ll make you rich,” Morris said.

  “You’ll make me crazy is what you’ll do. That I do know. But the truth is, someone needs to look out for you.”

  “It’s the right move, Sollie,” his mother said in Yiddish. “Morris will make it right.”

  “All right…” Sol stabbed a boiled potato with his fork. “Just for argument’s sake, let’s say I’ll come. What do we call this enterprise? Just for discussion’s sake, of course.”

  “I don’t know … Why not Raab Brothers?” Morris proposed.

  “Raab Brothers, huh.” Sol spooned a helping of spinach on his plate. “You know I can’t sell for beans, Morris. Besides, my name’s still Rabishevsky. And I’m not changing it.”

  “It’ll be easy. We’ll knock off what’s in big department stores from Paris and make it at a cheaper price. And you don’t have to change anything if you don’t want. Harry, what do you say? There are three of us. Raab Brothers means there’s a place for you, if you’re game?”

  “I don’t know, Morris…” Harry shrugged. “I mean, what would I do?”

  “You can learn the trade, like I did.” Harry was twenty-seven now, working in a pool hall, picking up fives and tens here and there doing errands for Mendy Weiss, who these days was bootlegging and working for some unsavory types, way out of Harry’s league.

  He looked to their mother, who only turned away from him to their sister. “Anna, you should eat more brisket. One day you’ll have to do the cooking yourself.”

  “Yes, Momma,” Anna said.

  “Let me think about it,” Harry said. “It’s a swell offer though.”

  Morris said, “There is no thinking about it. This is your one chance, Harry. Come in with us. You’ll learn a career. I’ll teach you. It’ll get you away from those types you’re with.”

  “I don’t know, Morris.” Harry shrugged again and bowed his head. “They’re not so bad. It just doesn’t sound like me.”

  “I won’t be asking you again.”

  “I won’t expect you to.” His brother waited, hearing nothing from his mother like she’d said to Sol. “Thanks, thanks a million, Morris. But I’ve got some good things happening where I am.”

  “To Raab Brothers then?” Morris turned to Sol and put across his hand. “Just us.”

  “Just us, huh?” Sol said, shaking his head and taking his brother’s hand. “Got zol ophiten.” God help us.

  Morris looked back at Harry, just for a second. But it would be years before he could look at him again the same way.

  Chapter Nine

  Twenty-four now, and living in the height of Prohibition, Morris took his friend Irv, in law school now, to the Theatrical Room, a speakeasy up on 120th and Fifth said to be owned by the notorious gambler Arnold Rothstein.

  Rothstein had allegedly fixed the 1919 World Series in a big scandal and no one had laid a glove on him, so there was always a table or two of reputed gangsters on the premises, which didn’t exactly hurt business.

  Morris had grown into a tall, powerfully built man with thick shoulders and pressed dark hair. Women were attracted to him, but he was always at the office and never had the time for a girlfriend, only a few brief flings. He had sprung for a tailored black evening suit with a high-collared shirt and cut a pretty fine impression, though Irv, with his hair askew and twenty extra pounds in the belly, was busting through a suit he had borrowed from a taller and no doubt far slimmer cousin.

  The Theatrical Club was packed, bustling with men in fashionable evening jackets, women in glittery, short dresses, the music blaring. Glamorous people came from all over the city to dance and catch a sight of the Babe holding court, or Al Jolson, or maybe Arnold Rothstein himself, or a dozen other notorious gangsters. Smoke filled the room and drinks flowed freely.

  Morris had paid for a table and ordered a bottle of champagne for him and Irv. Someone whispered there was Jack Dempsey, the fighter, at a table in the corner, with some writer named Runyon or something Morris had never heard of. People hovering around their table were laughing; the women all seemed to be puffing on cigarettes in long holders, and a cloud of smoke hung over the room. Charlie Whiteman’s orchestra was playing “Dardanella” and the dance floor was hopping.

  “So what do you think, Irv?” Morris patted his friend on the back as they took the lay of the room.

  “It’s like a motion picture of how the other half lives.” Irv buttoned his bulging jacket, his eyes childishly wide.

  Morris took a swig of champagne and looked around for the prettiest unattached girl he could see. “It’s like diving in the East River in October,” he told Irv. “Don’t think. Just jump in.”

  “You first, Morris. You were always a far better swimmer than me.”

  “All right.” Morris got up and went over to a group he noticed near the bar and asked a pretty brunette who was nursing a drink to dance. She hesitated at first, glancing at her friends, but they all pushed her on. “Oh, go on, Ruthie.” She was short and willowy, in a shimmery jade dress above the knees and a matching beret in her hair, which curled around her ears. A tiny nose with long lashes and lively green eyes. Three layers of necklaces jangled beneath her neckline. To Morris she was about the prettiest thing in the club, her small, oval face moon-pale, but she was clearly uptown and obviously moneyed.

  “It’s just a dance.” He smiled, noticing her hesitation.

  She finally shrugged and put down her drink. “Sure, why not?”

  Morris took her hand and led her out on the crowded floor.

  He’d learned to dance as a kid from his sister Anna. As a boy, he would act as her partner as she took him around their cramped apartment trying to learn the new steps. Maybe not the most current dances—the Peabody and the Charleston. But she always complimented his rhythm.

  “So where you from?” he asked her. The dance was a Lindy and he twirled her with ease.

  “Riverside Drive,” she said above the orchestra. “On a hundred and second.”

  Probably with a view of the river, he thought. The kind of neighborhood Morris could only dream of having a place in one day. “I’m in my senior year at NYU. And you…?”

  “West Broadway. Down near Houston,” Morris answered.

  “Houston…,” she said with a kind of knowing nod. He could feel her sizing him up in her mind. He knew the very mention of Houston Street gave him away. Who he was and where he was from.

  Still, she gave him a bat of her eyelashes and a smile and seemed to be enjoying herself.

  The music picked up into a Jolson song everyone knew and he twirled her around smartly. She was light on her feet herself, with a lithe dancer’s body.

  “You dance pretty well,” she said, melding into his lead. “For a guy from Houston Street.”

  “I don’t know much of the modern stu
ff,” he said with a shrug of apology. He led her deeper onto the floor and held her hand as she twisted in a circle. “In fact, it’s just my second time to a place like this. I mostly just work.”

  “All work, huh? So what do you do, Mr. Houston Street?” She clearly wasn’t expecting him to say, I’m a lawyer. Or I work for one of the large banking companies. Not with his accent.

  “I’m in garments,” he said. “You know, schmattas. It’s what we call—”

  “I know what schmattas are,” she said, crisscrossing her hands at the knees.

  “Jewish…?” Morris asked, raising his eyes. That was the last thing he expected. To him, she looked like a picture out of Harper’s Bazaar.

  “Guilty.” She shrugged. “And you?”

  “Guilty too, I guess. I’m—” He caught her concealing a grin. “Oh, you were kidding me, right?”

  She smiled mischievously and flashed her lashes as she twirled. “Would never have guessed. Not in a million years.”

  “Well, what do you know?” He grinned, liking her even more, and led her around the floor.

  There was a world apart between the uptown German Jews (which was what Morris took her for), and those from Russia and Eastern Europe encamped in the crowded slums of Brooklyn or the Lower East Side.

  Jews from Germany had arrived in the U.S. decades earlier and were already established in fields of power and influence, unapproachable for ragtag Eastern European newcomers: the law, finance, department stores. Morris had heard that the synagogues uptown even held their services in English, not Hebrew, trying to blend in. He liked the way she felt in his arms, light and trusting, like a cloud.

  “So this is just your second time out dancing, you say?” she said with surprise.

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess you’re just a natural then?” she said and spun, this time with a smile Morris knew wasn’t fake.

  After a couple more dances he took her back to her friends and Morris invited them all to his table. With a few shrugs and cordial smiles, they all agreed. They were all from fancy colleges and seemed to know people there that night, and he and Irv didn’t exactly look the part.

  “I’m Ruthie,” the one he had danced with introduced herself.

  “Morris. And this is my friend, Irv.”

  He ordered another bottle of champagne, some French brand he couldn’t pronounce but would set him back a week’s pay; he merely pointed at the most expensive one they had. “Marge, Priscilla, they’re at Columbia. Jen’s upstate—Skidmore.” One look at them—earrings, necklaces, and superior ways—Morris could see they were all way out of his league.

  “Irv’s in college,” Morris announced. In fact, Irv was the only person he knew who was in college.

  “That so? So where are you, Irv?” one of the Columbia gals asked.

  “I go to Brooklyn,” Irv said. He was round and his hair kind of unkempt and curly no matter how he tried to Brilliantine it down.

  “Brooklyn? That so?” Priscilla said with a nod laced with amusement to her friends. “And just what are you studying there, Irv, at Brooklyn?”

  “Law,” he replied, clearly beginning to feel like the butt of a joke he wasn’t a part of. “Second year.”

  “Do you mean how to practice or how to break it?” the Columbia gal asked with a bright laugh. Everyone joined in. Even Irv, though unenthusiastically. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but it seems that’s what all the people from Brooklyn are doing these days. It was just a joke. Though according to Fitzgerald, there’s almost no difference today. Practicing it or breaking it.”

  Fitzgerald. Some lawyer, Morris reasoned. He had no idea who they were talking about.

  “And what about you?” One of them turned to Morris. “Don’t tell us you’re a budding counselor as well?”

  “Morris is a workingman,” Ruthie cut in. “He’s in garments. He’s got his own firm.”

  “Garments…!” Marge, the Columbia girl, declared. Garments meant low wages and sweatshops and a lack of refinement. She rolled her eyes Ruthie’s way as if to say, What a find you’ve got here.

  When Morris found himself around people like this, worldly, with money and education, he always felt out of place. He read the papers, The Jewish Daily Forward mostly, but sometimes he didn’t know what they were talking about. And his speech was still peppered with improper grammar that made it clear what part of the city he was from whenever he opened his mouth.

  Priscilla looked at him. “You seem awfully young to have your own business, Morris. Your family’s firm, I presume?”

  “Just my brother and me.”

  “Only you and your brother?” she replied. She actually did seem genuinely impressed. “A real bunch of go-getters. You must have been just out of grade school when you started out.”

  “I don’t know, just a natural, I suppose.” Morris winked Ruthie’s way. She smiled back at him.

  He didn’t care what the rest of them felt.

  “Morris.” Irv pointed to the far end of the club, just off the dance floor. “Take a look who’s here.”

  At a large, round table, clearly one of the most prestigious in the house, Morris looked and spotted his brother Harry, with Mendy Weiss and Maxie Dannenberg amid several others he didn’t know, along with two shapely gals in glittery, low-cut dresses, with necklaces bobbing on their breasts. The sight of Harry so at ease in the company of those kinds of putzes was like a punch in Morris’s gut. The group was loud and laughing, and the champagne flowing; one of the girls seemed to have spilled her drink on herself and the heavyset man next to her made a big scene about dabbing it up. Morris saw that it was Jacob Orgen—Little Augie, he was known as—a known labor slugger whose bands of strong arms acted as the muscle behind the garment unions.

  Morris said, “Excuse me, I’ll be back in just a minute,” and got up, buttoned his jacket, and made his way through the tightly packed tables as the music played.

  “Morris!” Harry looked up in surprise—at the same time uncomfortable to have his brother coming upon him in such company. “What are you doing here? This isn’t your normal watering hole.”

  “Hey, Morris!” Mendy Weiss and Maxie Dannenberg waved hellos. They’d all known each other for years, from the same streets. They also knew Morris and Sol were never happy to find their brother in their company.

  “Mendy. Maxie…” Morris acknowledged them with a nod.

  “Well, all of you seem to know each other…?” Jacob Orgen exclaimed. Orgen was no more than five foot two in height and barrel-chested, but his reputation for violence far outsized him. He had a fat cigar in the ashtray.

  “I’d say we know each other,” Harry said. “Morris is my brother. Let me introduce you to some friends, Morris. Say hello to Jack Diamond.…”

  Jack Diamond, known as Legs, a gangster whose name and reputation for violence were well known, was tall and reed-thin with an easy laugh and amiable face. He stood up and extended his hand to Morris, nodding. “Pleasure.” Diamond was a trigger man whose prowess with the gun and with the ladies was legendary, someone who was never more than a few steps away when things got rough and who could count more than a few gangland victims to his name.

  Morris shook the gangster’s hand. “Mr. Diamond. Nice to meet you.”

  “Next to him is Jacob Orgen.” His was a name everyone knew, whether you were in the garment trade or just read the papers. Little Augie was one of the toughest thugs on the Lower East Side. He controlled the union muscle, whether it was clothing or the docks. You didn’t join up, you got your head cracked or your warehouse torched. Or worse. Word was it was he who had shot down a rival, Nathan Kaplan, right on Essex Street to consolidate his rackets.

  Harry had graduated to a dangerous crowd.

  “Mr. Orgen.” Morris nodded. The diminutive gangster shot him back a brief wave, the other arm around the girl to his right.

  “And these are Mandy and Virginia,” Harry introduced the girls. “Jack’s friends.”

  “
Charmed,” one said, diverting her attention from chewing on Orgen’s ear for just a second. The other waved an indifferent hello. “How do you do?”

  “And last but not least, to your right,” Harry motioned, “say hello to Louis Buchalter.”

  Morris fixed on the small, dark-featured man in the white evening jacket. He hadn’t seen him in years, since Delancey Street. But Morris had never forgotten the name. Buchalter nodded back with a wave. By now the gangster went by the name “Lepke,” Little Louis, the name his mother supposedly called him. Since Morris had last seen him, Lepke’s reputation had grown. With his enforcer, Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, the load Morris had dared to egg on that day in the alley, the two had moved up from street-corner gambling scams and burglaries to extortion, prostitution, and acting as strong arms for some of the most notorious gangsters in town. Even the Italian mobsters were said to come to him when they needed a dirty job handled.

  “We’ve actually met,” Morris said.

  “I know you?” Buchalter stared up at him. He had the chummy, congenial grin and cocker spaniel eyes of a kid on the bima, belying his reputation. Morris had already seen how he could turn in the flick of a switch.

  “Years ago. In an alley. Off Delancey,” Morris said. “You were running a card game there and I happened to come by.”

  “Well, that was my office back in those days,” Buchalter said with a grin, “and lots of people used to happen by, so you just might be right.”

  “And did you win or lose, Mr. Raab?” Jack Diamond asked.

  “Neither. I chose not to play.”

  “Smart. That’s the only way I’ve found to put the odds in your favor.”

  “Raab…? Wait a second.…” Buchalter snapped his fingers at Morris, his memory kicking in. “I remember you now. You’re that little pisher who wanted to fight us that day. Me and Gurrah, right? What has it been, eight, ten years…?”

  “That was me. But I think the fighting was more what you wanted,” Morris said. “Not me.”

  “Maybe, but you stood right up. You stood up pretty good, as I recall, for just a young macher.…”