“Look, Francis. . . that’s what you prefer, isn’t it?”
“That s my name. I never have gone in big for monikers.”
“Or publicity.”
“Or publicity. I’d rather have my face on the post office wall than the front page of the Daily News.”
“That’s very smart Anyway, the whole of it is this. You are doing business with some very important people. People I would like to get next to. Like the governor, for instance. So I thought maybe we could work a little something out. You wash my hand, I wash yours. You know how that works. I’ll put Albert back in his box, tell the Sicilians to lay off You got no more troubles. Shit, son, let’s see, a thousand cases a month at your price, that would be about, uh, two and a half mil a year, correct me
I’m wrong. We got another two, three years before they repeal the stupid law. We’re talking a lot of gelt here, seven, eight million bucks and nobody hassles you anymore.”
“And for this?”
“For this maybe you could put me in touch with some of your people.”
“I never met the governor.”
“You have access.”
“I n afraid I couldn’t do that, A. R.”
“Oh?”
“Look, let s get to the bone, okay? I know these people socially. As far as they know, I’ve got a damn good bootlegger. They give me the order, I take care of things for them. I never see a dime at that end. So, you see, if I even suggested such a thing, that somebody should parlay with you, that would come down badly on me and you. You ‘ye got Tammany in your pocket, but it doesn’t work that way up in Albany. It would not just blow a good thing for me, it would have the state boys up your ass with a searchlight. So what I’m saying to you, I’m giving you some advice. It’s a bad call, A. R. You don’t want to do that. It’ll give you a headache aspirin won ‘t cure.”
Rothstein looked at Keegan with his mouth open Just a hair. He was impressed. The kid made sense to him. Keegan knew the lay of the land upstate. He’d been operating free as a sparrow for three, four years now. On the other hand, Rothstein ‘s corruption di4 not spread that far. He did not own any state cops or any upstate people that amounted to anything.
“That’s sound thinking, Francis. You ‘re fast on your fret.”
“I’m just calling it the way I see it. Why bite a tiger in the ass?”
“I must say, I could use a man with a head like yours. Most of my people think with their guns and their balls. You give ‘em two and two, they gotta take to the weekend to come up with four. Muscle they know about Brains? Shit, they think you go twenty miles south of Yonkers, you fall of the planet. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a little change in professional direction at this time?”
“That’s a flattering offer but I like things as they are.”
“Tell you what I’m gonna do, Francis. I’m gonna go back and I’m gonna tell Frank and Lucky to leave you alone. That I owe you one. I appreciate good advice. I give it out a lot but I don ‘t get much back. I can understand why you backed Albert A down. He didn‘t know what to make of you. How many guns you have on him after you cut him out from his pack?”
Keegan c smile broadened. “You’ll never know,” he said.
“I guess I won ‘1.” Rothstein smiled back. “Pleasure meetin’ ya, Francis Keegan. Good health.”
“You too. Mind if I ask you one question?”
“Shoot.”
“How much did you make on the Series fix?”
Rothstein laughed. “You‘ll never know, “ he answered.
Less than two weeks later, Arnold Rothstein, the great fixer, the man who devised the criminal blueprint for the Mafia, a blueprint they followed almost to the letter, was in a card game with “Titanic” Thompson and “Nigger Nate” Raymond, two West Coast gamblers. Rothstein dropped $320,000 and walked out without paying, claiming the game was rigged. An hour later he was dead with four bullet holes in his back. Nobody was ever booked for his murder. But Rothstein was good to his word, even in the grave. Nobody in the mob ever bothered Keegan again.
Francis Scott Keegan, Bootlegger to the Kings. He laughed thinking about it.
What the hell, he thought, why close the window. In retrospect he liked the view. How many people did he know who had snookered Albert Anastasia, the most dangerous man in America, and Arnold Rothstein, its greatest fixer, both in the same week, who had defied the mob and lived to tell about it and who had sold short in the market in September, two months before the bottom dropped out, and made a killing?
And anyway, this had all started because Vanessa had called him Frankie Kee. So if his conscience was having a problem dealing with her, forget it. Little girls grow up. And grow up she had. Hell, it was too late to worry about it and besides, his head was throbbing from lack of sleep and
