One day Kadizzle was walking across the
famous Wheeling Suspension Bridge with his friend Ben the son of the
local slot machine king. A car pulled up beside the two and it was
Paul Hankish. Hankish according to the book was the leader of
another Wheeling gang that apparently was having a feud with Big
Bill's gang. Ben apparently knew Hankish through his father, but
Kadizzle was clueless about who the man was. Hankish asked Ben if we
wanted to go for a boat ride. We accepted and went on to the yacht
club on the Ohio River. The boat ride was pleasant and one of the
few Kadizzle ever took on the river.
Exactly how long after that the
explosion occurred Kadizzle does not recall, but Hankish had his legs
blown off several weeks later by dynamite placed under his car seat.
The intent was obviously to kill him, but failed. When Hankish came
to in the hospital he kept saying the name of Ben's father. The
newspaper made it appear that Ben's father had something to do with
planting the bomb. As it turned out Ben's father was actually a
friend of Hankish and feared he might be next on the list.
Ben attended a military school where
all the rich kids had to dress in uniforms and his dad drove him to
school every morning in his Cadillac. After the bombing of Hankish
Ben told me he was instructed to wait in the house until his father
started the car. On hearing this Kadizzled decided life as a crime
figure was too stressful and Kadizzle decided to pursue a civilian
career. Ben's father obviously had bad nerves from his work.
The criminal enterprise operated under
the cover of a jukebox business, and vending machine company.
Needless to say the business did very well. The operation was
conducted out of an old five story building that used to be a car
parking facility in the 1920's. There was a huge elevator that could
take cars to every floor. Ben and Kadizzle spent many Friday nights
playing the legal pinball machines and having a good time at his
fathers business place. His father had an elaborate bar alongside a
very nice office. If one could only know what conversations took
place in those rooms.
Since they were in the jukebox business
there was one room with every 45 rpm record imaginable. One Friday
night contrary to orders Ben showed Kadizzle one floor of the
building he was not supposed to see. Slot machines were illegal in
West Virginia, but this floor was completely covered with slot
machines shoulder to shoulder. Ben told Kadizzle to keep quite about
what he had seen.
Of course the city fathers were
duplicit in the whole operation and the gambling cartel paid an
underground tax for their operation. Once elected the local
prosecuted met with the local gang leaders and worked out a deal
about how much they would pay for every machine. To please the
public there were occasional raids on gambling establishments. The
owners of the gambling devices would be notified before the crackdown
and would go around prior to the raids and pick up all the machines.
A few would be captured to show the public how the law was being
enforced. To make this scheme work the gambling machine owners had a
fleet of moving trucks equipped to quickly pick up the machines.
Every time Kadizzle sees gangsters
portrayed he is reminded of his teenage years in Wheeling where so
many of these types thrived. So much of the gang culture was true.
Ben's dad was a charitable man who helped any of the poor minorities
that came in his office. He also happened to own their houses. No
doubt he was repaid in some fashion. The whole experience gave
Kadizzle a good view of how the wheels of commerce where greased and
Kadizzle learned that what appears to be going on is usually not. As
Kadizzle has grown older he has realized that all the so called
prominent people who had what appeared to be clean hands in public
were really the enablers of a whole separate culture. Human nature
never changes you see it every day on the news. Corruption thrives
on the old idea “Evil prevails when good men fail to act”.
No comments:
Post a Comment