Who Are You to Define My Limits?
In the novel The Great Gatsby, there appears a character named Meyer Wolfsheim.
He was Gatsby's bootlegging partner and a gang boss—a figure modeled after Arnold Rothstein.
After my meeting with Rothstein, I stopped waiting tables.
Instead I became a bouncer, protecting the floor of the gambling house and handling customers who caused trouble.
I threw out drunks who started fights and men who roared that the games were rigged.
"Not bad for a new guy. You don't scare easy."
"You can get rougher if you want. Don't go easy on anyone who tries you."
I'll handle it myself, you bastards.
Even the employees who used to pick fights with me had turned friendly.
Word must have gotten around that I was on good terms with the boss; no one laid a finger on me.
As I settled into The Big Bankroll, I learned how a gambling house really worked.
At the same time I began to get a feel for Arnold Rothstein's character.
He gathered promising young men with ambition under his wing and fertilized their growth so they would flourish. Whenever he had the chance he would assemble them and pass on the secrets of the trade.
Sometimes there were three or four; sometimes more.
"Men who fall into gambling usually make two mistakes. First, they think they're lucky. Even after losing for days, they tell themselves today will be different."
Second, they think they're smart.
They run the numbers this way and that, clinging to the empty hope that they can still win even as they lose.
Here, of course, the clientele was wealthy high society—but the reason college boys flocked to the smaller joints, he said, was that same delusion of cleverness.
"They play with pure emotion while convincing themselves they're cold and rational. So what's our job? We cheer them on."
We sincerely comfort the losers and sincerely congratulate the winners. Sometimes even the dealer has to look shaken by emotion.
"Of course, if the customers ever realize that we move on logic and cold calculation rather than feeling, they'll take their business elsewhere. So the key is to let them win just enough—and make sure they come back."
Winning a customer's loyalty was simple.
Special treatment. Playing along with the little vanity that made them feel important.
Plant the fantasy that they could win even more, and they would always return with their money in hand.
Arnold Rothstein spoke not only of gambling but of the networks of an organization.
"Reduce your enemies and increase your allies. But approach carefully, cautiously. Why? Because alliances only hold for as long as each side needs the other. Remember—if you can't find a common interest, an ally can become an enemy."
His thoughts on expansion and strategy could be boiled down to three points.
First: anyone in a hurry to get rich will fall just as fast. Money comes from a stable flow, so you have to build a business model that can last.
Second: connect legitimate businesses to illicit profits. That is how you stay out of the watchful eye.
Third: no one can do everything alone.
Find talented people and make them the pillars of the organization.
And never forget—always stay vigilant so they never get ideas about taking your seat.
This was not the idle showing-off of a man who had already become a millionaire by thirty.
Rothstein's real purpose was to select gifted young men capable of putting his mentoring into practice.
That was why he said the same thing at the end of every conversation.
"There's no point hanging around here forever. Bouncer, waiter, kitchen, dealer—find something you can do better than any of that."
One thing I learned while working the floor was that a fair number of the dealers were college students. Especially now, during the break, there were more of them—but Rothstein put no stock in them.
"They don't belong in this world anyway. I don't want kids working for tuition. I want men who would throw everything away for success."
So once you had received his know-how, go out and use it.
You could see it in the secret order Rothstein had given Salvatore.
I didn't know what that order had been.
But Salvatore had taken part in some crime and never showed his face at the gambling house again.
According to Meyer, who had been close to him, Salvatore had gone back to the Five Points Gang. The only difference now was this:
"From now on Rothstein will be backing Salvatore from the shadows. He passed the test."
Putting it all together, Rothstein was not collecting promising men as subordinates—he was raising them as business partners.
Not as a gang boss himself, but as the man behind the curtain who controlled and sponsored those bosses, building his empire that way.
That was Rothstein's method.
Once he put a question to me.
"I used to work for a company. Salesman. But I got so bored I couldn't stand it. So I started hanging around the gangs—and I couldn't stand that either. You know why?"
I might not be a mathematician, but I can read a room.
This was the kind of question a man like Rothstein—quick with numbers, gifted with business sense—wanted answered.
Think from his perspective and reply.
Of course, I dug through what I had read in books.
"Gangs are stifling and inefficient."
He took the bait.
Rothstein's expression turned interested as he asked again.
"Why do you think that?"
"They ignore the businesses that make money and get obsessed with fighting. Killing each other over a few feet of territory isn't normal."
"Exactly right. That's why I have no real interest in gangs. Leave that to the ones who are good at it."
My answer must have satisfied him; Rothstein's eyes glittered with expectation.
But it didn't last. A moment later he looked at me with something like regret.
"Honestly, saving Mr. Foley's life was impressive—but I never expected much from you personally. If you weren't Oriental, you'd have had a much bigger chance."
"Thank you for the high opinion."
"I mean it."
Rothstein was Jewish.
Blood, as they say, runs thicker—even if he claimed not to care about origin or race, the men he chose to raise were concentrated among Jews and Italians.
And connected to that, Rothstein had decided my limits for me because I was Oriental, and made an issue of them.
"Even with Tom Foley helping you, running a gambling house would be too much. Capital, manpower, enemies on every side—you'd be hard-pressed in every way. And how would you even find dealers? You can't exactly put out a help-wanted ad."
Then he advised me to play to my strengths instead.
"You're a good shot, aren't you? Then there's another path. Think about it."
The other path Rothstein meant was the gunman.
In other words, an assassin.
Put differently, it was advice to do something I could excel at alone.
Why? Because I was Oriental.
It wasn't racial prejudice—it was Rothstein's cold analysis.
"I'll take it to heart."
"Good. Reality is reality."
I'll show him before he dies.
When I've gone past every limit and look down on him from higher ground, he'll understand.
That he was wrong.
About two weeks into my work at The Big Bankroll, I finally had a day off. That afternoon, Gunsmith and Hazel showed up on Allen Street with their faces tightly wrapped. I had a scarf over mine as well.
"You bought this building? You're the landlord?"
"Do I look like a different man?"
"Yeah. You really do."
Hazel's eyes sparkled as she stared at me.
Gunsmith, meanwhile, was studying the exterior and the entrance.
"If we use the two split buildings as one, that gives us six entrances into the basement. Let's head down first."
Old Gunsmith compared the floor plans I had already obtained against the actual structure. He rapped on walls and checked which ones could come down.
When we reached the second basement level, Hazel asked,
"Knock out this wall and it'd make a perfect shooting range. What used to be here, anyway?"
"A brothel."
Hazel didn't flinch.
Instead she snapped her fingers as if something had clicked.
"So this was the brothel run by the suspect in Rosie Hertz's murder?"
"That's right. You read the papers too, huh?"
"The second I wake up I go through the New York Times and the New York World cover to cover. But..."
Hazel stopped, folded her arms, and looked me over slowly.
"What?"
"I was wondering if you were mixed up in the Rosie Hertz case."
"What do you think?"
"Hell if I know. And I don't want to."
After that Hazel's words dried up. But her tongue must have been itching, because she came back to it.
"What are you going to put in here?"
"First basement for a dance hall. Second for a salon and gambling floor."
"You're not building a shooting range?!"
"Doesn't make money."
Hazel let out a sigh and shut her mouth again, saying nothing more.
About thirty minutes later, Gunsmith—who had been sketching his own plans—laid out the work schedule.
"Leave the ordinary stuff to a local contractor. Once that's finished, I can put in the hidden passages and spaces myself. Oh—and when that time comes I'll need five laborers I can trust."
"No problem."
I already had seven layabouts sitting around with nothing better to do.
"I'll break out the costs separately and let you know. Be ready for two thousand dollars at least."
"Understood. Ah—and in a few days I'd like to use the shooting range. Four companions as well—would that be all right?"
"Absolutely not."
"They're conscripts about to report for duty."
Gunsmith thought it over for a moment, then spoke in a reluctant tone.
"...If anything goes wrong, you're the one who answers for it."
"Of course."
When we finished, we left through the rear entrance that connected from the basement.
Outside, the sun had already set.
As I was about to flag a carriage on Allen Street, Hazel quietly came up beside me and asked,
"When exactly is 'a few days'?"
"Huh?"
"You said you were coming to shoot."
"Oh—about four days from now?"
"Okay. See you then."
Hazel hummed to herself as she climbed into the carriage. Gunsmith shot me a look and rapped on the driver's seat.
"Hell's Kitchen."
Once the carriage had pulled away I left Allen Street and headed home.
Then, because it was a rare day off and I thought of Roa, I detoured toward our usual butcher shop in Little Italy.
I was walking along Hester Street when a dull thud and a groan suddenly came from an alley.
"You piece of shit, you lost your money—so get the fuck out."
"Non tornare mai più!"
"You cheats! You think I don't know you rigged it? I'll report every last one of you—"
Thud! Thud!
"Go ahead and report it, you pathetic bastard."
"Get out of here right now if you don't want to die!"
English and Italian mixed in the shouting while the beating continued. But the voice of the man taking the hits sounded familiar.
This kind of thing happened several times a day in the alleys of the Lower East Side.
Ordinarily I would have walked right past—but gambling, and Italian, caught my interest.
I strolled past the alley slowly.
When I casually turned my head inside, the men whose eyes met mine glared.
"The fuck you looking at?"
"Eyes down."
I faced forward and walked on past the alley.
Then I stopped and waited for the man inside to come out.
A moment later a man appeared with his shoulders slumped and his face bruised.
He was walking with his eyes on the ground and collided with me; when our eyes met his pupils went wild.
Like someone caught doing something he shouldn't.
The man was Marcello, second son of Mrs. Monica, who worked at my mother's company.
Twenty-two years old, a student at CUNY—rare enough around here.
Why did I know that much?
Because Mrs. Monica's boasting about her sons had long since passed the point of excess. Information I never wanted had simply been poured into my head.
Besides, we sometimes ran into each other at the tenement house, so we at least knew who the other was.
Our relationship, however, was far from warm.
Even in ordinary times he looked down on me for not having as much schooling. He was doing it now.
"What are you staring at. Move."
"Wipe the blood off and then talk."
"Damn it."
Marcello dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. When he saw the blood he scowled.
Then he threatened me.
"You go running your mouth anywhere and you're dead."
I stared hard at Marcello for a moment.
Then I slapped him across the face as hard as I could.
"Who's killing who?"
"You son of a—"
Crack!
I hit him two more times in quick succession, grabbed him by the collar, and kicked his legs out from under him.
Marcello's knees buckled; he ended up hanging onto my arm.
"Your mother breaks her back all day in that basement workshop, and her precious son is out here gambling. Hmm?"
I'd heard there were plenty of them in the tenement where I lived—fathers and sons lost to gambling.
Marcello's eyes went red. Tears welled up and fell onto my hand.
I recoiled in disgust and shook him off.
"You're a grown man. What the hell is this."
"Please... keep it secret. I'm begging you. And the money—I earned it myself working."
Ah. Right—it was summer break.
Anyway Marcello was blubbering tears and snot, pleading with me. I dragged him into a quiet alley and asked,
"What was your major again?"
"Mathematics..."
"Ahhh, so that's why you thought you could win. Didn't even know you were the sucker?"
"I—on pure probability I couldn't lose that hand. If those bastards hadn't rigged it, I would have won."
The ones who think they're smart are the ones who fall into gambling. Just like Rothstein said.
Anyway.
"The place you went—Italians run it, right?"
"I'm from that side too."
"How many more joints on Hester Street?"
"Four..."
How does he know that so well.
This wasn't a man who had visited a gambling house once or twice.
Which meant—
"You working part-time as a dealer at one of those places?"
Marcello's eyelids fluttered.
So I asked,
"Assume six players at a poker table. You're holding the king of diamonds and the queen of spades. The three cards the dealer has shown are the ten of diamonds, the nine of clubs, and the two of hearts. What's the probability you complete a straight?"
"What the hell is that—"
"Get it wrong and I'm taking you by the hand straight to your mother."
Marcello's eyes darted wildly as he calculated.
Then—
"10.8 percent."
"...Not 21.6?"
"In a K-Q-10-9 situation the only cards that finish the straight are the four jacks. Out of the thirty-seven cards left, four help you—so the probability is four over thirty-seven. 10.8 percent."
Well. He really was a math major.
So Meyer had been cheating after all.