*****Eddie Daley’s Big Score –With Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s The Sting In Mind

*****Eddie Daley’s Big Score –With Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s The Sting In Mind

 

 

 

 

A Sketch From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

Eddie Daley, Edward James Daley, to the 1940s slapdash Dorchester triple-decker tenements within earshot of the rattling Redline subway born, dreamed, dreamed big dreams, ever since he was knee-high to a grasshopper as the old time used-up now corny expression had it, of making the big score, making easy street, and in the process leaving behind a legend that guys, corner boy guys and grifters would talk about long after he was gone. Talk about in reverent hushed whispers about the guy, Eddie Daley, thereafter to be dubbed the “king of the grifters” who pulled the biggest con that there ever was, and walked away from it free as a bird. Not all big scores, cons, even if consummated, had that final part, that walk away free part, just ask the shade of Frankie Finn who pulled the big Shiloh Fur scam worth two million easy (a lot of money back in the 1950s even when split four ways and a fifth cut for the fence plus his expenses although just walking around money today), pulled it off with just four guys, a good number for the haul, but who “forgot” that he was dealing with one “Rocket Kid,” Johnny Silver, in his entourage who after the heist put two between the eyes of his three confederates, figuring one is easier to count that three no matter than two of the guys were his long time corner boys. The Rocket Kid, Johnny, was subsequently “hit” by one of Buddy Boyle’s boys, everybody though Rolling Rex Buddy’s main contract man did the deed since he had not been seen around for a while, when he tried to fence the stuff since Buddy was the front money man on that caper and Frankie Finn’s cousin to boot. Buddy already rolling in dough had his own way of figuring one is easier to count when he was the one. So that walking away free part was no small part of the leaving a legend behind scenario.

Eddie’s dream might seem strange to the squares, to those who live life on the square, wake up and do the nine to five bit, or whatever the time bit these days with flexible hours, take two weeks’ vacation in Maine summer, raise and put three kids through college at great expense and get a gold watch or a pat on the back when they are turned out to pasture. Yeah, that dream definitely might seem odd to those who have never been from hunger, not just “wants” hunger like a million guys have, maybe more, but no food on the table hunger when the old man drank away the week’s paycheck at the Dublin Grille or hand-me-down clothes from older brothers in style or not hunger that ate deeply into every way that Eddie thought about things from very early on. Those who never worried about big scores, or cons since they had it coming in whatever they had to put out in expenses would never figure Eddie’s dreams out.

See Eddie was a what they called, called back in the old days, back in the 1930s, and still called them back in Eddie’s coming of age time in the 1960s when he came of age in that Dorchester section of Boston where he triple decker tenement grew up a natural-born grifter. When Eddie first heard that word used, strangely after he had already done his first con and somebody on the corner, that hang out corner being Mel’s Variety on Neponset Avenue near the Fields Corner subway stop, called him a born “grifter” he faked it and said yeah and then next day went to the library and looked it up in the dictionary and came up with this-“A grifter is someone who swindles you through deception or fraud. Synonyms include fraudster, con artist, cheater, confidence man, scammer, hustler, swindler, etc.”

Eddie smiled the smile of the just on that one. Yeah, a grifter, is a guy like him who figured some angles, any angles, a guy who did this and that, did the best he could without working some nine to five hump job. [Here is a practical corner boy, not Mel’s but Jack Slack’s bowling alleys corner down in Carver about thirty miles south of Dorchester but still in “from hunger” land definition- “A grifter to fill in the gaps for the unknowing and clueless was a guy, sometimes a dame, although usually where there was a dame involved she was a roper especially if the mark was hopped up on some sex thing, who spent his eternal life figuring how to go from point A to point B, and point A was wanting dough and point B was getting it by any means necessary but mainly by stealth. By the way do not discount women in the grifter society one of the best who ever lived was a gal who went by the name Delores Del Rio, named herself after the 1940s movie star, who took some duke over in Europe for a cool two million in jewelry after she got him all jammed up and picked him clean leaving him with some fake jewels worth about six dollars in Woolworth’s, beautiful.]

So Eddie started figuring the angles very early on, very early on indeed and would regale, if that is the right word for it, the corner boys in front of Mel’s Variety Store on Neponset Avenue with tales of his daring do once he started hanging out there when he began high school at Dot High. Of course that was all kids’ stuff, baubles and beads stuff, since nobody expected a kid to have the talents for grifting right out of the box (having the heart, the “from hunger” wanting habits heart was a separate and maybe more pressing question) but there are certain guys, certain Eddie guys, who cling to those dreams pretty hard and give themselves a workout getting in shape.

From what one guy, Southie Slim, one of the Mel’s corner boys before he moved on to other stuff told me Eddie started pretty early, started simply conning other kids out of their milk money in elementary school over at the Monroe Trotter School. Here is the skinny on that first round according to Slim who got caught out himself before he picked up the grifter life for a while until he found out dealing high-grade dope to the Beacon Hill crowd was a great deal more profitable, and socially smart too once you added in willing women. Eddie somehow had picked up some dice, yeah, a pair and he would bet other kids, boys or girls it did not matter, their milk money on the results. Of course he somehow had “loaded” them so he would win. Now that was a fairly easy thing but here is where Eddie learned his craft. To keep play going he would let the other kids win occasionally, just enough to keep them interested rather than be a greed-head like big bully Matty Dugan down at my elementary school, Myles Standish, down in Carver who just strong-armed a kid a day for his (or her, it did not matter) milk money. But the real tip he picked up young as he was that as long as kids, people, think they can  “pick you clean” you will always have a willing pool of suckers, of people to swindle, small or large but think large.            

One night, one slow Friday night year later after he had settled deeply into the routine of the life, Eddie was cutting up touches about his old days while smoothing down high-shelf scotch (a no-no when you are on the hustle by the way save that for slow Friday nights when you are cutting up old touches Eddie said), about how he moved up after that dice thing ran its course as all such scams do if for no other reason that the grifter gets tired of the play, and he related what happened after that first scam when he got to the Curley Junior High School. Here is how it went, the basic outline since Eddie was kind of cagey about some of the details like the guys he was talking to that night were going to run right out and pull the scam themselves. Eddie basically ran a pyramid scheme on his fellow students. He conned the kids into giving him their money by saying he knew a guy, a friend of his older brother, Lawrence, who worked as a stable boy at the track and who knew when the fix was on in a race and who could place bets for him and get some bucks fast. Eddie convinced a couple of guys that if they put all their dough together they could buy a ticket and make some easy dough. And it worked for a while since Eddie in his devilish way paid off the guys with his own dough. Each guy getting maybe a buck which to a “from hunger” kid was a big deal. Word got out and soon plenty of kids, even girls were looking to get in on easy street. And so he would dole out some more dough. Then he pulled the plug, told everybody that he was going in for a big score that he was going to put twenty dollars on a sure thing that the stable boy had tipped him to. In the event he actually got about thirty five dollars collected altogether. Of course the horse ran out, never came close so all was lost. Hey, wait a minute have you been listening? Eddie didn’t know any stable boy, didn’t make any bet, so minus his seed money expenses he cleared twenty-five bucks. Here is what Eddie learned though know the “clients” (Eddie’s word) who you are dealing with and don’t be too greedy. He did that same small con for a couple of years and it worked like magic, got him his money for the jukebox at Jimmy Jack’s Diner on Gallivan Boulevard and movie money too. Small con wisdom but still wisdom.

Eddie as he got older, got into high school, got hanging around with his corner boys at Mel’s, got restless, always had that idea in back of his mind that he would pull a big score if he learned all the tricks of the trade, if he could get onto something big. For a while in high school it looked like he was on the fast track, he learned how to work the charity circuit for walking daddy (his term) walking around money using the old homeless but proud gag that those private charity donors love that he picked up one day when he was playing hooky from school and ran into an old con man, Railroad Bill, on a bench at Boston Common near the Park Street Station who gave him the tip. Eddie would laugh at how easy it was to pull off walking into let’s say the United Methodist Church Social Services office up on Beacon Street dressed in his very real hand-me- downs and unshaven making him look older but not too old (meaning the old telltale sign that the guy had been “on the bum” too long to be proud and work his way out of his current jam) going through his rough things but wanting to get back on track if he only had a the price of a week’s rent in one of the rooming houses that dotted the other side of the hill then (a few still there even today, significantly fewer though). That was good for ten or twenty at a time although the down side of that caper was that you could only use it once, maybe twice. The upside was that there were numerous private social service agencies like that looking for somebody “worthy” to give the dough to.  

 With that walking around money Eddie would work a variation of his kids’ stuff milk money run, he would sell lottery tickets (in the days before the state got its greasy hands into that racket), for different charities, say he was raising it for blind kids or to send kids to summer camp. Offer as prizes radios, televisions, maybe a record player, stuff like that which people wouldn’t mind spending a dollar or “three for five dollars” on to help some crippled-up kids, give them fresh air, or some other small break or something. So he would grab the dough and then have one or more of his corner boys rip off what was needed over at Lechmere Sales or someplace like that (usually using at first “Five Fingers” Riley or “Rat” Malone who started that racket early once they figured out that if you were fearless in grabbing stuff nobody was going to catch you, and that worked for a long time until they “graduated” to armed robberies and did consecutive nickels, dimes and quarters in various Massachusetts state pens).

See nobody gave a good damn if the charity he was hustling for ever got the dough all they knew was that for a buck, or three for five, they had a chance for their own television, radio, or record player important to hard-pressed high school kids who would not have those items otherwise. Needless to say the corner boys he used were good and he paid them off well like he should to keep them in line, another lesson learned, and so he honed his skills.

When Eddie graduated from high school and was to face the workaday world though he panicked a bit, decided that he needed to move up a step if he was going to avoid the fate of his belabored father, belabored by drink, yes, but also hard work on the docks, not always steady and with a brood of kids and a nagging wife to contend with. If the nine-to-five was not for Eddie neither was staying down in the depths either. (A history teacher had mentioned one time in class that all of her charges should seek to move up the latter of society at least one jump ahead of their parents and that kind of stuck with him.) So he started going into downtown Boston, started hanging around the Commons regularly unlike in high school where he would go just when playing hooky but really to blow off steam when something exploded at home in that damn crowded apartment, started to listen to guys to see if they had any ideas like that time “Railroad Bill” gave him the scoop on the private charity gag, had been on easy street at one time. He didn’t bother with the eternal winos and junkies for they had nothing to say that he could use but to guys and there always were guys who maybe had been on the hustle and got waylaid, or just got old in a young man’s racket and so maybe had some words to share. And before he knew it he met Sidewalk Sam and Bright Boy Benny a couple of guys who told him about old time scams, about how guys survived by their wits in the hard-ass Depression days. And come some old Friday night, a slow girl-less Friday usually, Eddie would hold forth about what he had learned in the world, learned from Sidewalk and Bright Boy.

Here, for example, is what he told the boys one Friday night, one “Five-Fingers” Malone-less Friday night marking the first time he got bagged for doing a robbery, unarmed that time, of a gas station and was doing a six month stretch at Deer Island, which will give you an idea of where Eddie was heading, a story of a scam that seemed impossible to pull off given what they were trying to do. Unless you knew how very greedy some guys, even smart guys were. Let’s call it the wallet switch, an old scam that Eddie would perform a couple of times later, successfully. You need two guys for this, at least. In this case two used to be “from hunger” Great Depression grifters Denver Slim and Gash Lavin. And you must know your mark’s movements pretty well and whether they have dough on them, a more usual circumstance than you might think back then than now that we are in this age of the ATM and cashable credit cards among those a shade to the left of the law (and a whole new Eddie-less generation tech- savvy grifters with their dreams, and stories they are telling their confederates on slow Friday nights). I won’t go into the preliminaries about setting the mark up, but they knew their guy, knew his movements and knew what he was carrying, so just rest assured that Denver and Gash had seeded their mark. Well actually Denver had seeded the mark, one Ricardo “Slice” Russo (you figure out the why of that moniker, okay), who was the bag man for Lou Thorpe’s numbers racket in New York City, yes the Lou Thorpe who ran wild back in the day and made a splash in Vegas to top off his career but this is earlier when he was greedier than Midas and so was particularly susceptible to any scheme that put money in his waiting hands.

Once a week Slice headed for Chicago on the midnight train to pay off Lou’s confederates there (at the high end of the rackets there are always confederates to pay off, cops too so it is just part of the overhead to keep on the streets. Guys down the bottom of the food chain don’t have such financial worries they are too busy keeping one eye out for looming John Law.)

Now bag men are pretty low in the food chain of any criminal enterprise but are like Eddie and every other Eddie-like dreamer also groomed on the con, on easy street dreams. What Denver did was to ask Slice, whom he cornered by evoking “Shark” Mahoney’s name, a mutual acquaintance, as he was heading to the station on the way to Chicago to drop off three thousand to a guy, “Bones” Kelly, also known to both men, on Division Street in that city for him. That money had been placed in a wallet, a black leather wallet similar to the one Slice was carrying the twenty thousand pay-off in, and when Slice got to Chi town he gave the wallet to the Division Street guy, to Kelly, the one with three thousand in it, three thousand in counterfeit money as Kelly later found out. See Slice had figured that doing Denver’s delivery was like finding money on the ground especially when he thought up the fake dough angle. So tough luck, Denver. Worse though, worse for Slice anyway, the mob’s wallet also had twenty thousand in counterfeit money when he delivered the wallet to an office in the Loop.

What had happened was that Gash had been on that train, had in the course of bumping into Slice switched wallets and got off in Cleveland leaving Slice to his troubles. But here is what you have to know, know about the mob. They thought Slice, a troublesome bag man and so an easy fall guy was pulling a fast one on them when he explained what he thought had happened and he wound up in the Illinois River face down before anybody investigated anything. Beautiful work by Denver and Gash who headed out West for a while just to be on the safe side but also know this-if you are running on the high side expect some blow-back, nasty blow-back if you don’t walk away clean. Just ask Slice

One night, another of those aimless nights when there was no action, or maybe Eddie was cooling out from a con, a wise move since overdoing the con scene leads inevitably to trouble, usually fist, gun or John Law trouble, he told the guys a story, a story about the granddaddy of all the scores, a haul of almost half a million back in the 1930s when half a million was not just walking around money like it is today. A story that Nutsy Callahan, another one of the Great Depression guys he would listen to over on the Commons told him about one afternoon after he had played out some luscious honey over on Tremont Street who had “curled his toes” and he was a bit too restless to head home (Eddie wasn’t much for girlfriends or serious female company on his way up and maybe it was better for him to just catch a quick “curl the toes” on an off-afternoon with some passing fancy because no question women are far tougher to deal with that the hardest scam). The way Nutsy told the story implied that he might have been in on the caper, although like all good grifters, grafters, percentage guys, and midnight sifters, he would put the account in the third person just in case the statute of limitations had not run out on whatever the offenses were, or, more likely, some pissed off Capo or his descendants were still looking to take some shots at guys who pulled such scams.

Nutsy had told Eddie a few lesser scams that he had been involved in and Eddie told a few lies of his own but the important thing for Eddie, or rather Eddie’s future was that he was looking to break out of the penny-ante grifts and ride easy street so he was looking for ideas, long ago ideas really because just maybe with a duke here and a juke there the thing could be played again. Eddie didn’t bother to tell Nutsy that for Nutsy would probably not have told the story or as likely dismiss Eddie’s chances out of hand. So Nutsy told the story and Eddie’s eyes went bonkers over the whole set-up.

This one involved “Top Hat” Hogan so named for the simple fact that as long as anybody had known him, or could remember, he always wore a fancy day top hat although rarely, very rarely, with any accompanying evening clothes. Some of his girl friends said he wore the damn thing when he was in bed with them and that was just fine because Top Hat was a walking daddy when it came to loving his women. Top Hat had been widely assumed to have been the brains behind the Silver Smith Fur scam, the Morgan Bank scam and the Golden Gate Mine dust-up which people talked about almost until the war (World War II if you are counting). So Top Hat under any circumstances was a number one grifter who any guy with any dough, any serious dough, had better check up on to see if Top Hat had been in the vicinity if he wanted to keep said cash. The other key guy, and the reason Top Hat, who had been semi-retired at the time of this caper and rightfully so having run the rack already, was a raw kid, a kid with promise but not much else then, was “Jet” Jenkins. And the reason that Top Hat even considered teaming up with a raw kid like Jet, was that he was the son of Happy Heddy Jenkins, a fancy woman who had “curled his toes” back in his younger days. Heddy had had some good days and bad days but one of the bad days had been meeting up with the famous gambler, Black Bart Benson, one of the great flim-flam, flim-flam meaning simply a cheater without mercy and guys, leg-breakers if anybody had a problem with that, poker players of the day.

Old Bart had nevertheless had run into a streak of bad luck at cards which even cheaters face at times, had borrowed and lost almost a one hundred thousand dollars from Heddy (who ran on the best, friendliest, and easiest to enter if you had the money whorehouses in Chicago). Somehow things had taken a turn for the worst after Black Bart left Heddy high and dry and she was back on cheap street trying to raise a helter-skelter growing boy with short funds. Not so Black Bart who had cheated his way to a million dollar bonanza when his luck changed. (That cheating not known, obviously, to the guys taking the beating at the card table but Heddy knew her Bart and imparted that wisdom onto her son.) When Heddy sent Jet to see if Bart would ante up the cash he had borrowed from her he dismissed Jet with a flick of his hand, and after a serious beating by one of his leg-breakers had him dumped him in some back alley in Altoona one night. Bart had, with a laugh, as his boys administered that beating, told Jet that he should sue him in court to get his money back as he wasn’t in the mood to give some bent whore dough that she had gotten from her whorehouse dollies. So Heddy, so Jet, and after hearing about what Bart had called Heddy, so Top Hat were primed for revenge. But more than revenge because that is easy, kids’ stuff, but to send Bart back to cheap street hustling winos with three-card Monte tricks or stuff like that.

The key to understanding Black Bart was that like a lot of con artists, no, most con artists, no, make that all con artists, is that beside being easy prey to any scam especially a scam that plays to their greed they always assume that they are smarter than whoever is making the proposition and can double-back on it to their profit. Top Hat had easy pickings when he ran across guys like Bart. Here is the way that Top Hat worked his magic, although when Nutsy finished telling Eddie the lay Eddie thought the venture had too many moving parts, too many guys in on the score once Black Bart was brought down.

It went like this. “Buggy” Bannon knew Black Bart, knew he was always interested in an easy score so Buggy put the word in Bart’s ear about some silver and gold mining stock that was about to go through the roof once the worst parts of the Depression were over. So Buggy, who had worked with Top Hat on the Silver Smith scam and so was trustworthy, or as trustworthy as any guy working on a scam can be introduced Top Hat to Bart as a chief stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. Then Top Hat went through the traces, got Bart hooked in with the knowledge about the gold and silver stock. Of course Top Hat had had “Horseless” Harry sent up a nice brochure in color all about the various possibilities of the mining stock and Bart got interested, saw quick dollar signs. Of course even an over-the-top greedy guy like Bart had to see some real stuff, some real stockbroker operation, so Top Hat had rented out space in a building in the financial district and created out of sheer nothing a stock market room complete with ticker-tape, running around employees (all grifters from out west so that Bart would not recognize them) or and investors milling around.

That was the part that Eddie thought was over the top, the too many moving parts aspect, but in any case it all looked good to Bart. Here is the carrot Top Hat told Bart to invest a few thousand to see how it went. And so Bart did, bringing to the stock room five thousand in cash as all con artists did then in the days before working kited checks and credit cards and stuff like that opened out new ways to bilk people, including smart guys. A few days later Top Hat delivers ten thousand to Bart, all fresh dough, and so they are off to the races because now he sees that this thing could make him really rich. Of course Top Hat knowing that you have to bring a guy, a sucker along, knowing you needed to whet his appetite had just added five of his own money to Bart’s to bring in the bonanza (writing it off as overhead just like any other legal or illegal operation).

Bart, although no fool and who still had some suspicions, was no question hooked though as Top Hat fed him another stock tip and told him he should let the ten thousand ride, which he did. About a week later Top Hat delivers twenty-two thousand to Bart and he was really hooked, really wants to put more money down. Especially when that twenty-two went to fifty grand a few weeks later. Bart said to Top Hat that it was like finding money on the street. Then Top Hat really got to him, let him know that in South Africa, a known gold, silver and diamond mother lode to everybody in those days that a new field was within days of being explored and discovered and that Bart should be ready to go big and get in on the ground floor. Here is the beauty of the thing though. The financial pages were almost in a conspiracy with Top Hat because they were also projecting some speculation about new minefields. One day Top Hat told Bart to get all the cash he could gather because that South African stock, low, very low at the time would be going through the roof once the discovery was confirmed. So a few days later Bart brought a suitcase filled with cash, about a million maybe a little less, and pushed it over to Top Hat. Top Hat went to the cashier (“Hangman” Henry of all people) and brought back a receipt to Bart.

Now you can figure out the rest. A few days later news of that new minefield did come in and that stock did rise although in a world filled with gold and silver with nobody to buy stuff yet not as much as you would have expected but still a good take. Bart then called Top Hat to tell him to cash in. No answer at Top Hat’s number. Bart then went to the stock exchange room to find nothing but a “for rent” sign on the doors. As for Top Hat and Jet well they were on the train back to New York with that one hundred grand for Heddy and a twinkle came into Top Hat’s eyes about those old days when she “curled his toes,” and might again. Beautiful.

That story etched in his brain Eddie Daley started putting together a few ideas in his head, getting on the phone to a few guys (fewer than Top Hat had in his operation), and started making some dough connections for financing. Out in the grifter night they still talk about Eddie Daley, whereabouts unknown, “king of the grifters” after he took Vince Edwards the big book operator for about a million and a quarter in cold hard cash. You now know the back story on that one.  

From The Partisan Defense Committee- Former Class-War Prisoners Address NYC Holiday Appeal Benefit

Workers Vanguard No. 1102	16 December 2016

Former Class-War Prisoners Address NYC Holiday Appeal Benefit

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

Some 150 people turned out on December 2 for the Partisan Defense Committee’s 31st annual Holiday Appeal benefit in New York City. This year’s lively benefit included two new guests for the PDC, courageous former class-war prisoners Robert King and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3. The successful event raised funds for the PDC’s monthly stipend program and holiday gifts to class-war prisoners—not as an act of charity but of solidarity with these victims of racist capitalist injustice.

The Spartacist League initiated the PDC in 1974. The model was the International Labor Defense under James P. Cannon of the early Communist Party. As a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization, the PDC takes up cases and causes whose successful outcome is in the interests of the whole of the working people. Those defended need not, and often do not, share our Marxist outlook. It is more important than ever to continue the work of the PDC. As a PDC spokesman noted at the event, “Class-struggle legal and social defense, including support for class-war prisoners, is of vital importance to labor activists, fighters for black rights and immigrant rights and defenders of civil liberties.”

The stipend program, which began in 1986, currently provides material support to 12 prisoners: Mumia Abu-Jamal; American Indian Movement spokesman Leonard Peltier; Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janine Africa, Janet Africa, Delbert Africa, Eddie Africa and Chuck Africa of the Philadelphia MOVE organization; Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning of the Ohio 7; and Ed Poindexter, a Black Panther supporter and leader of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. Poindexter’s comrade and fellow stipend recipient Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa died last March after 45 years behind bars and was recognized for his unwavering opposition to racial oppression.

This year’s benefit provided an occasion to honor the Angola 3 (King, Woodfox and Herman Wallace), who collectively spent over a century in solitary confinement at one of America’s most notorious hellholes, Angola prison. Its jailers entombed these Black Panther Party members in retaliation for their having organized work stoppages and other protests against horrific prison conditions. Woodfox and Wallace were falsely convicted of the 1972 killing of a guard; King was framed for killing a fellow inmate the next year. Wallace died from liver cancer in October 2013, three days after his release from prison. King was released in 2001, and Woodfox finally in February.

King and Woodfox (who became a stipend recipient in 2014) were introduced at the New York benefit by a recorded greeting from America’s foremost class-war prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who also wrote a preface to King’s book From the Bottom of the Heap. A former Panther spokesman and journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless,” Mumia was framed up for his political views on false charges of killing a police officer and spent nearly three decades on Pennsylvania’s death row. Now consigned to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, Mumia is fighting for medical treatment to save his life, as well as for his freedom, which the PDC has long championed. In his recording for the Holiday Appeal, Mumia observed:

“Today you’ll hear from two of the finest former members of the Black Panther Party, brothers Albert Woodfox and Robert King. Truth is, if the free political prisoner movement was stronger, there’d be three brothers standing here, Herman Hooks Wallace among them. Yet we remember Hooks, the third of the Angola 3. These brothers survived decades in solitary, decades in one of the most hellish prisons in America, one whose very name reflects its horrid inheritance of a slave plantation, Angola, Louisiana. All members of the Black Panther Party knew of these brothers because they had the nerve, the revolutionary audacity, to organize a chapter of the Black Panther Party in the very bowels of a maximum-security prison: Angola. For that, and that alone, what the state called ‘Black Pantherism,’ they were sentenced to life bits in solitary, the dictionary definition of torture.”

Both Woodfox and King received standing ovations (for Woodfox’s remarks, see separate article). King, who upon release dedicated himself to winning freedom for his comrades Wallace and Woodfox, thanked Mumia “for his touching introduction of us, and I need to say to Mumia and all the brothers and sisters who remain in prison that hope is on the way.” King explained, “When we say free all political prisoners, free prisoners of class war and so forth, we really mean this. You know, Frederick Douglass said a long time ago, this struggle may be a moral or may be a physical one, but nevertheless there has to be a struggle and the struggle goes on. It continues.”

Touching on a theme of his book, which chronicles the series of racist frame-ups that landed him in Angola, King said: “Legality and morality do not shake hands in a courthouse. They don’t meet.... Because something is legal does not mean that it is morally right, and we have a right to challenge that.” He observed that the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, maintained involuntary servitude for those “duly convicted” of a crime. He added, “How many people in this United States have been duly convicted of a crime but are actually innocent of it? So, it means that slavery still exists.”

King pointed to “those brothers and sisters who are in prison, who were targeted by COINTELPRO, who were targeted by the FBI” because they “had the audacity” to fight back. He emphasized that these fighters “had this moral right to do so. Anybody in their right mind would do so.” Encouraging everyone to “get out of the box,” he concluded: “Malcolm said a long time ago that if you believe a lot of the stuff that’s out there, they’ll have you loving your enemies and hating your friends.”

Other benefit speakers included Charles Jenkins and Francisco Torres. Jenkins, a member of the powerful Transport Workers Union Local 100, spoke on behalf of the New York chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, which has for years contributed to the PDC stipend fund. Torres is one of the San Francisco 8, former Black Panthers prosecuted on bogus charges of killing a San Francisco police officer in 1971. The charges against Torres were thrown out in 2011. After mentioning recently released prisoners, Torres offered: “This is what your work has produced, some of your work anyway. I hope it produces more, which is, you know, the eventual overthrow of the capitalist system.”

Lynne Stewart, who, like Torres, is a familiar face at New York benefits, was not able to attend this year but sent a statement. A lawyer known for representing Black Panthers and leftist radicals, Stewart was imprisoned in 2009, having been convicted in a frame-up “war on terror” show trial for defending an Islamic cleric who was jailed for an alleged plot to blow up NYC landmarks in the early 1990s. After nearly dying from breast cancer in prison, she was finally released in December 2013. Stewart wrote: “There is no event more enjoyable and important than the Holiday Appeal. That is so because it so clearly highlights and champions our true heroes and sheroes—those who wait to be released from sinister political imprisonment. None are more aware than your guests of honor, Robert King and Albert Woodfox, who suffered Angola.”

To support the work of the PDC, send contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013. For more information on how to contribute and how to correspond with the class-war prisoners, go to www.partisandefense.org.

*****Free Chelsea Manning-President Obama Pardon Chelsea Now!

*****Free Chelsea Manning-President Obama Pardon Chelsea Now! 

 

 

Support "Courage To Resist"-The Organization Supporting Military Resisters And Chelsea Manning 

 



Frank Jackman comment on Courage To Resist and military resisters: 

I have always admired military resisters having, frankly, done my time in the military, Vietnam Era time, without any serious reflection about the military, my role in the military, or what was just and unjust about that war until after I got out. After I got out, began to see thing through the fog of war and got serious “religion” on the questions of war and peace from several sources. At first working with the Cambridge Quakers who I had noticed around the fringes of anti-war GI work in the early 1970s when there was a serious basis for doing such work as the American army one way or another was half in mutiny toward the end of American involvement in that war. And a serious need as guys, guys who get their “religion” in the service needed civilian help to survive the military maze that they were trying to fight. This connection with the Quakers had been made shortly after I got out of the service when my doubts crept in about what I had done in the service, and why I had let myself be drafted when I had expressed serious anti-war doubts before induction about what the American government was doing in Vietnam to its own soldiers. But, more importantly, and this was the real beginning of wisdom and something I am keenly aware every time the American government ratchets up the war hysteria for its latest adventure, to the Vietnamese who to paraphrase the great boxer Mohammed Ali (then Cassius Clay) had never done anything to me, never posed any threat to me and mine. But as much as I admired the Quakers and their simple peace witness, occasionally attended their service and briefly had a Quaker girlfriend, I was always a little jumpy around them, my problem not theirs, since their brand of conscientious objection to all wars was much broader than my belief in just and unjust wars.

Later I worked with a couple of anti-war collectives that concentrated on anti-war GI work among active GIs through the vehicle of coffeehouses located near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and Fort Dix down in New Jersey. That work while satisfying and rewarding by actually working with guys who knew the score, knew the score from the inside, and had plenty to tell, especially those who had gotten “religion” under fire was short-lived once American on the ground involvement in Vietnam was minimalized and the horrific draft was abolished as a means of grabbing “cannon fodder” for the damn war. Once the threat of being sent to Vietnam diminished the soldiers drifted off and the anti-war cadre that held things together as well.

What really drove the issue of military resistance home to me though, what caused some red-faced shame was something that I did not find out about until well after my own military service was over. A few years later when I went back to my hometown on some family-related business I found out after meeting him on the street coming out of a local supermarket that my best friend from high school, Sean Kiley, had been a military resister, had refused to go to Vietnam, and had served about two years in various Army stockades for his efforts. Had done his “duty” as he saw it. Had earned his “anti-war” colors the hard way.    

See Sean like me, like a lot of working-class kids from places like our hometown, Gloversville, up in Massachusetts, maybe had a few doubts about the war but had no way to figure out what to do and let himself be drafted for that very reason. What would a small town boy whose citizens supported the Vietnam War long after it made even a smidgen of sense, whose own parents were fervent “hawks,” whose older brother had won the DSC in Vietnam, and whose contemporaries including me did their service without a public murmur know of how to maneuver against the American military monster machine. But what Sean saw early on, from about day three of basis training, told him he had made a big error, that his grandmother who grew up in Boston and had been an old Dorothy Day Catholic Worker supporter had been right that there was no right reason for him to be in that war. And so when he could, after receiving orders for Vietnam, he refused to go (I will tell you more of the details some time when I ask him some questions about events that I have forgotten) and did his time in the military that way.          

Sean’s story, and in a sense my belated story, are enough reasons to support Courage to Resist since, unfortunately, there are today very few organizations dedicated to providing informational, legal, and social support for the military resisters of the heinous onslaughts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The organization needs the help of every ex-soldier who got “religion,” of every anti-war activist, and of every honest citizen who realizes, now more than ever, that the short way to end the endless wars of this generation is to get to the soldiers, get to the cadre on the ground fighting the damn wars. Enough said.     

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-Honor The Historic Leader Of The Bolshevik Revolution-Vladimir Lenin

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-Honor The Historic Leader Of The Bolshevik Revolution-Vladimir Lenin  

Every January leftists honor three revolutionaries who died in that month, V.I. Lenin of Russia in 1924, Karl Liebknecht of Germany and Rosa Luxemburg of Poland in 1919 murdered after leading the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin. I made my political points about the heroic Karl Liebknecht and his parliamentary fight against the German war budget in World War I in this space earlier (see review in April 2006 archives). I made some special points here last year about the life of Rosa Luxemburg (see review in January 2006 archives). This year it is appropriate, at a time when the young needs to find a few good heroes, to highlight the early struggles of Vladimir Lenin, the third L, to define himself politically. Probably the best way to do that is to look at Lenin’s experiences through the prism of his fellow revolutionary, early political opponent and eventual co-leader of the Bolshevik Revolution Leon Trotsky.

A Look At The Young Lenin By A Fellow Revolutionary

The Young Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Doubleday and Co., New York, 1972

The now slightly receding figure of the 20^th century Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party and guiding light of the October 1917 Russian Revolution and the first attempt at creating a socialist society has been the subject to many biographies. Some of those efforts undertaken during the time of the former Soviet government dismantled in 1991-92, especially under the Stalin regime, bordered on or were merely the hagiographic. Others, reflecting the ups and downs of the post- World War II Cold War, painted an obscene diabolical picture, excluding Lenin’s horns, and in some cases not even attempting to exclude those. In virtually all cases these effort centered on Lenin’s life from the period of the rise of the Bolshevik Social Democratic faction in 1903 until his early death in 1924. In short, the early formative period of his life in the backwaters of provincial Russia rate a gloss over. Lenin’s fellow revolutionary Leon Trotsky, although some ten years younger than him, tries to trace that early stage of his life in order to draw certain lessons. It is in that context that Trotsky’s work contains some important insights about the development of revolutionary figures and their beginnings.

Although Trotsky’s little work, originally intended to be part of a full biography of Lenin, never served its purpose of educating the youth during his lifetime and the story of it discovery is rather interesting one should note that this is neither a scholarly work in the traditional sense nor is it completely free from certain fawning over Lenin by Trotsky. Part of this was determined by the vicissitudes of the furious Trotsky-Stalin fights for the soul of the Russian Revolution as Trotsky tried to uncover the layers of misinformation about Lenin’s early life. Part of it resulted from Trotsky’s status of junior partner to Lenin and also to his late coming over to Bolshevism. And part of it is, frankly, to indirectly contrast Lenin’s and his own road to Marxism. That said, this partial biography stands up very well as an analysis of the times that the young Lenin lived in, the events that affected his development and the idiosyncrasies of his own personality that drove him toward revolutionary conclusions. In short, Trotsky’s work is a case study in the proposition that revolutionaries are made not born.

To a greater extent than would be true today in a celebrity-conscious world many parts of Lenin’s early life are just not verifiable. Partially that is due to the nature of record keeping in the Russia of the 19^th century. Partially it is because of the necessity to rely on not always reliable police records. Another part is that the average youth, and here Lenin was in some ways no exception, really have a limited noteworthy record to present for public inspection. That despite the best efforts of Soviet hagiography to make it otherwise. Nevertheless Trotsky does an admirable job of detailing the high and low lights of agrarian Russian society and the vagaries of the land question in the second half of the 19^thcentury. One should note that Trotsky grew up on a Ukrainian farm and therefore is no stranger to many of the same kind of problems that Lenin had to work through concerning the solution to the agrarian crisis, the peasant question. Most notably, is that the fight for the Russian revolution that everyone knew was coming could only be worked out through the fight for influence over the small industrial working class and socialism.

I would note that for the modern young reader that two things Trotsky analyzes are relevant. The first is the relationship between Lenin and his older brother Alexander who, when he became politicized, joined a remnant of the populist People’s Will terrorist organization and attempted to assassinate the Tsar. For his efforts he and his co-conspirators were hanged. I have always been intrigued by the effect that this event had on Lenin’s development. On the one hand, as a budding young intellectual, would Lenin have attempted to avenge his brother’s fate with his same revolutionary intellectual political program? Or would Lenin go another way to intersect the coming revolutionary either through its agrarian component or the budding Marxist Social Democratic element? We know the answer but Trotsky provides a nicely reasoned analysis of the various influences that were at work in the young Lenin. That alone is worth the price of admission here.

The other point I have already alluded to above. Revolutionaries are made not born, although particular life circumstances may create certain more favorable conditions. Soviet historians in their voluntarist hay day tried to make of Lenin a superhuman phenomenon- a fully formed Marxist intellectual from his early youth. Trotsky once again distills the essence of Lenin’s struggle to make sense of the world, the Russian world in the first instance, as he tries to find a way out the Russian political impasse. Trotsky’s work only goes up to 1892-93, the Samara period, the period before Lenin took off for Petersburg and greener pastures. He left Samara a fully committed Marxist but it would be many years, with many polemics and by using many political techniques before he himself became a Bolshevik, as we know it. And that, young friends, is a cautionary tale that can be taken into the 21^st century. Read on.

Out In Waldo’s World-Every Man’s World-With The Film Laura In Mind

Out In Waldo’s World-Every Man’s World-With The Film  Laura In Mind

By Bart Webber

My old friend Sam Lowell, a guy married three times and who has struck out three time and now “single” (meaning he has had a long-time companion and has given up the idea of marriage although not the idea of love after three sets of alimony, child support and college tuitions, that latter category which almost broke him on the wheel) had been watching an old time film noir from the 1940s, Laura, with his own Laura, Laura Perkins, that long-time companion parenthetically mentioned above one night. A few days later after that viewing he called me up for our weekly session at Jack’s Grille and mentioned the film, knowing that I had seen it several times and consider it one of the great noirs along with Gilda, Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon and a few others. He said then, and we would get into more at Jack’s, a couple of nights later, that you could never figure what will drive a guy off the deep end but that six, two and even ninety-nine times out of one hundred it would be over a dame. I begged to differ with him figuring the odds more like sixty to forty on the dame reason but that only added fuel to his fire that night (that and a few too many high end scotches since he was not driving that night but staying at my place in Carver, our growing up home town down in Southeastern Massachusetts). The difference in our calculations I figured out later being that I have been with my one wife, the lovely Betsy Binstock, now for almost thirty-seven years.           

But Sam was on his high horse that night which meant that I was in for a regular slugfest, a regular barrage of chatter about Waldo, Waldo the guy who went over the edge for this dame, yeah, a dame, nice, pretty, smart, a go-getting but still a dame, this Laura, Laura Hunt in case you needed a last name. Here’s how Sam put the case, see Sam is nothing but a good country lawyer and so he saw the whole thing in terms of a case in a court of law like he was arguing for mercy for Waldo or something. Like maybe he was arguing the case for real like he would plea out Waldo on some diminished capacity foolishness just because the guy was skirt-addled.

As Sam was talking though I was putting my own two and two together about Waldo, Waldo Lydecker if you needed a last name for a skirt-addled guy although they are legion. Thinking back on the plot line that I knew well I found myself trying to figure out how did it figure that a high society guy, a well-known and syndicated newspaper columnist and radio personality, an older guy, an older single guy, an older single guy who seemed “light on his feet” if you asked me, you know seemed kind of “faggy” would tumble to this Laura from nowhere. Let this fresh breeze young thing of which there were about six million in New York City back in the day, break him. Make him do weird (unlawful things as Sam would put it) that would have him winding up facing downward on Laura’s apartment floor pledging his eternal love as the life was bleeding out of him from about six slugs of copper guns.

(Sam, by the way, who works in the court system and has to mind his Ps &Qs on sexual and ethnical stuff doesn’t like that term, those terms, faggy and light on his feet, but the old ways die hard with some of us old-time corner boys who grew up on the rough streets of the Acre in Carver and who used to while idly hanging out in front of  Jack Slack’s bowling alleys  fag bait each other just for kicks to enhance our own man-hoods, so faggy.)        

But maybe I should start at the beginning while Sam is drawing circles in the air with his hands just like if he was in the courtroom, just like he was trying the case of Waldo Lydecker vs. The State Of New York except not for murder, murder one, which what the bastard would be up for if he wasn’t lying face down in that pool of blood in that dame Laura’s apartment but for being a toy for some perfidious dame. See Waldo was like I said a big time newspaper and radio guy, knew everybody who counted in New York and Washington high society, had “drag” in all the right places as my old Irish grandfather would say. Also knew all the secret vices, and some not so secret, of those in the rarified air, knew that they had to treat him something like a rattlesnake with very proper kid gloves, knew they would be front and center in one of his columns, page one, if they didn’t play ball. Yes so Waldo Lydecker was not one of the world’s noblemen, was a bitch on wheels if anybody was asking around about him of late, not hopefully looking to give him a certified good conduct certificate. It was kind of funny because this guy had more dough than the King of Siam, had come from wealth, good school, good breeding the whole nine yards so you would think that being what really was a gossip columnist, a venomous one to boot would be beneath him. But guys, people are funny about their occupations and in any case the job, such as it was better than him sitting at home in palatial Westchester clipping coupons. 

Like I said before this Waldo as he aged, got to middle age, maybe a little older was nothing but a bachelor, hadn’t been seen with a real girlfriend, nothing serious anyway. So the talk around town, very discreetly around town out of his earshot, was that he was either asexual, which was Sam’s take on the matter, some guys are like that, maybe so hung up on their mothers that no young dame could ever be good enough for them. Maybe something got lost in the genes, something about attraction to any human relationship except to hit hard at weak points. So no women, except he obvious mixing at his lavish parties, you know ornaments. You know my take already, my position that he was gay, maybe unconsciously, maybe he was hiding some guy, some fag, out in some apartment far from the high end crowd you never know. Yeah, I liked that take although Sam in one of his more compromising moments wished I would just call him effete and let it go at that. Like effete didn’t mean in high tone language noting but fag. I’ll stick with my old time corner boy expression if you please, an expression that Sam was as likely to use in the old days as I was-if anybody is asking.                 

So everybody was surprised when Waldo started being seen around the clubs, the swanky clubs like the High Hat where the jazz was be-bop, the drinks expensive and exotic and the smoke thick and the White Note where the younger crowd hung out where the smoke was scented, was dope no question dope, tea, hemp, ganja, to appease this Laura twist. But you could tell he was out of his element there in that latter place, that Jimmy Jones’ be-bop band with Milt Rosen blowing heavenly high white notes off the cuff ruled the night not him. No question this Laura was a looker, a long tall brunette with those bright eyes and sulky lips that guys went big for then and guys while not going big for now looking for thin hipless dames with sneers these day could appreciate, could see even an effete guy taking a run at even if just to have as a trophy, or cover against that so-called discreet talk among the high society types about his sexual habits (like a snoop like Waldo wasn’t “connected” into that talk by a thousand snitches looking to keep their own hijinks out of the front page and off the air).        

The story Waldo told about their meeting, their fateful meeting, take it for what it was worth after all that really happened, after he wound up face down and very dead, was that Laura had purposely gone to his table at his favorite lunch place (and daytime watering hole), Matty’s on 54^th Street across from the newspaper, and “accosted” him, that was his word, had pestered him about endorsing some product, a pen. See this Laura was nothing but a runt one of thousands, no, what did I say before, millions, of young women trying to get ahead in the advertising racket, any New York City racket, which is why young women, smart young women went to New York City from Buffalo, Cleveland, Eire, hell, maybe the wheat fields of Kansas too, to grab fame and fortune in one of the few serious upward mobile jobs for aspiring college graduates. Or just gals with big dreams and some talents other than hitting the silky sheets.

This is the oddest part. He blew her off, treated less graciously than some six year old brat for disturbing milord’s solo lunch, but something about her got under his skin, some ancient memory of some young woman in that long gone time when he might have thought about an affair, that fatal disease that has taken all the gold of more than one man. The blood too.  Get this, get this for a guy who treated her like a wayward child Waldo eventually went to her advertising agency, signed on for the endorsement of that fucking pen. Laura’s career thereafter went through the roof, he had called in plenty of chips to get guys and gals he knew around town to throw business her way, or else.  Seeing her as a rough diamond, obviously not from his class, maybe even then as a tramp with big “wanting habits” you never know about the Waldos of the world and what drives them, although the smitten part is easy to explain, he taught her a few things about style and poise, style and poise as interpreted by high society just then. That was the fluff part, the public story.  

Who knows what the real deal was. Sam’s lamo theory about mother fixation, or mother dread is okay for okay country lawyers if they have to defend some geek in court but that angle seems to have been worked to death and I wouldn’t want to have to throw that to a jury but since I am merely a retired printer and not a lawyer I don’t have to worry about that. Hell, the obvious is that she was damn good-looking woman and that was that. Maybe it was the long hair that always made every hat she wore in the days when women went in for serious hats for fashion and not utility look just right, maybe it was those sullen lips showing slightly parted pearly white teeth, hell, maybe it, like a for a billion guys since Adam and maybe before, was the sandalwood scent she gave off, that latter would be the downfall of more than one man. But he was hooked on her, hooked as bad as a guy who couldn’t express such thoughts in public could be, it was just not done in high society, could be hooked on a dame (of course a guy like Waldo wouldn’t dream of calling a woman a dame, a frail, a frill, a twist, names we used back in the day but like I said before the old ways die hard with some guys like me). 

Here’s the funny thing, here’s where the old guy, young dame problem comes in, or maybe just Waldo’s whole freaking silly upbringing, he never had sex with her, never went under the downy billows with her which is the way Tom Wolfe put how the upper crust likes to call “hitting the satin sheets.” The thing was strictly platonic with the unspoken proviso (Sam’s word not mine) that she was his “property.” Waldo’s alone. 

That didn’t play very well with Laura. Didn’t play well with a young lustrous sexy woman like Laura who had big sexual appetites, liked men, and lots of them as any young pretty woman who was grabbing lots of attention from the young bucks would. (All the sex stuff as per usual in 1940s films was either off the film or just implied but even a goof like Sam could read between the lines that Laura was a sexual being. Hell, one night, no, one very early morning, wacko Waldo in a fit “stalked” her apartment on West 56^th Street as one young buck, Jack Jacobs the well-known painter came strolling out the front door of the building looking a little the worse for wear.) Waldo was forever shooing guys away and as quickly as Laura, on Waldo’s fatherly, to her, recommendation would ditch one guy another guy would pop up. That went on for a while and Waldo, for his own nefarious reasons, thought he was home free. That Laura was all his.         

Then the roof caved in. Laura got caught up with this guy Shelby, a ne’er do well, a guy from decayed Southern stock, meaning he was broke and living off of women, living off of Laura’s aunt who liked the idea of a “kept” man, liked a young stud around and could afford the freight. Problem was Shelby like many another guy wanted to be around some young tail (ass) and so despite his “kept” status with the aging and demanding aunt he made a run at Laura, got her to the stage where marriage might be in the air. Got her to give him a job at her ad agency where he actually flowered, brought some fresh light into the office. Bad move, bad move on Laura’s part even thinking about marriage to a gigolo like Shelby. That is when Waldo’s wheels started coming off, when his better judgment took a back seat to his unspoken lust for Laura. He tried to kill her, shoot her dead with a shotgun in her own apartment, the place which would be his final resting place if he had only been prophetic rather than blood-lustful. Problem though was Laura was not there that night of the murder, had been upstate at a cozy country retreat thinking things through about the possibilities of marriage to Shelby. When everything came out later, much later, the girl who was killed had been one of Laura’s models at the ad agency, a model whom Shelby was playing footsies with. Some guys, guys like Shelby, never change, never get off the wagon even when easy street beckons (and that silly aunt was still ready to move heaven and earth to get his silly ass back in her crib under the principle that birds of a feather flock together-he was a tramp and she was too so comingle their tainted blood.)         

Well murder most foul done by gigolos, deadbeats, mass murderers, ”hit” men or the lovelorn has to be investigated, especially in the high rent district. Most especially in the high rent district after all what the hell were they paying the public coppers for anyway. So they put crackerjack homicide detective Mark, Mark McPherson, on the case. Oh yeah a young, good-looking, didn’t miss a trick, knew the means streets as well as the leafy streets to look closely, very closely into the Laura Hunt murder. Naturally he got nothing but the backs of their hands from the Mayfair swells, got nothing but grief and snide remarks from old Waldo who I will say held himself together during the critical hours and days when McPherson was putting the screws to the case, was giving everybody his cool modern scientific detective shifting through all the evidence routine. Stayed cool enough and cagey enough to throw a big shadow over Shelby as the fall guy. And why not he had been playing footsies with that foxy model right in Laura’s apartment. Yeah, I admit I liked him for it, liked him a lot when McPherson turned the screws on. Didn’t like that he was two-three, who knows how many timing Laura, with the poor dead model even the old battle ax aunt and who knows who else. Such guys as Shelby in the old neighborhood as Sam would be the first to tell you would be tailor-made for the big step-off and nobody except some poor old bedraggled mother would shed tear one for such a guy. And that is a fact.                

Then to break up the monotony of the run-down murder case getting kind of cold by the minute and to ruin my theory about Shelby as the fall guy who pops back into the picture. Laura. That’s when everybody found out that the dead girl was the model at Laura’s agency (conveniently her face had been blown off by the shotgun blast so the initial identification of Laura as the victim had been based on the very important circumstantial evidence that late at night the woman opening the door to Laura’s apartment would be, well, Laura). Waldo held up even through all of that as Sam will admit if less than gladly for his bogus love-addled insanity bit. Like I said before Laura was upstate thinking stuff through around a possible marriage to Shelby and nobody thought anything of it once she resurfaced. Still there was a murder to be solved now that the true victim was known. McPherson was still on the case, still needed to close out the case even if it now was a run of the mill model that was making the case run and not some darling of the Mayfair swells.

Waldo might have held up pretty well through all of that, might have slide through to old manhood but he flipped out when he sensed that the tramp, Laura of his dreams, what else could you call her in his effete book, was once again falling ofr any young guy in a suit, falling for Mark (and he her). Yeah, Waldo again lost his judgment rather than moving on to the cocktail circuit and forgetting about what could never be. See, and Sam in his more sober moments would have to agree, Laura had gotten deep under his skin, as deep as woman can a man who spent his whole life dishing it out and not taking it. Shelby was a non-starter for Laura and Waldo could have pieced him off easily enough but this Mark McPherson, this guy from the mean streets, from Laura’s mean streets wasn’t going to be easy to dismiss.

Here is where Sam said Waldo made his mistake, the mistake that would have made even a pretty good country lawyer like him have a hard time selling a jury that Waldo was temporarily insane, needed to go to the sicko hospital and not the death house. Waldo tempted fate one time too often (that model murder would have hit the “cold” files soon enough now that Laura was alive). He tried to kill Laura-again. No soap this time for the poor sap-he was wasted in a hail of bullets by New York’s finest. Get this though-the guy is lying face down in a pool of his own corrupted blood and his last words were of undying devotion to Laura. What a sap. Leave it to Sam to get the last word though and even I couldn’t say it better, although he said it more in sorrow than anger. Waldo Lydecker was not the first guy nor will he be the last who got all twisted around by some frail’s sandalwood scent. Maybe Sam’s 99.9 % number was not so far off after all.