Dreams Bigger Than the Night Read Online Free Page B

moved easily through the room, stopping at the sideboards stocked with roast beef, cold lamb chops, pastrami, chopped chicken liver, smoked salmon, and whitefish. One table held just fresh fruits and desserts: lemon meringue pies, cheese cakes, cherry, apple, and blackberry pies, chocolates, Danish pastry, custards, cream puffs, and vats of ice cream standing in iced tubs. Amused to see three men of faith at this shindig, Jay moved close enough to listen. The Jewish man was talking.
    “We really must stand together and rally public opinion. From our Berlin sources, I understand the Nazis so fear a boycott that they have dispatched undercover agents to different countries to suppress dissent—any way they can.”
    The younger of the two priests, a wispy fellow, agreed on the importance of unity. “With Jeremiah Mahoney behind the boycott, other Catholics will follow.”
    “Brundage,” said the Jewish man, “is immune to reason and dogmatically insists the games must go on. I do begin to wonder whether his scheduled trip to Germany is to promote the glory of sport or himself.”
    The older priest, completely bald, laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “Rabbi Wise, the Olympic Committee may follow Avery Brundage, but the Amateur Athletic Union will have the final say. And Mahoney is the president of the AAU.”
    Of course: Rabbi StephenWise! His face had looked familiar. But here in this house . . . unbelievable! In his early sixties and Hungarian by birth, the good man was strikingly handsome with sharp features and dark hair. Shortly after Hitler took power in January 1933, Wise had denounced the National Socialists and had organized an anti-Nazi protest in Madison Square Garden. Calling for a boycott of the Berlin Olympics, he was meeting with resistance from Brundage and his ilk.
    The older priest continued. “Catholics stand with Mahoney, who is, after all, a former New York State supreme court justice and the head of the Committee on Fair Play.”
    To which his colleague added, “And Jeremiah has started a letter-writing campaign in support of the boycott.”
    “For the life of me,” said Rabbi Wise, “I can’t understand why Brundage would want to hold the games. They will only glorify the Nazi regime. The man’s a college graduate, an engineer, rich. What does he stand to gain?”
    The older priest replied softly, “Avery regards the opposition as Communists and, pardon the slander, self-serving Jews.”
    A bar with a brass foot rail held a prominent place in the living room, manned by three Negroes dressed in white jackets and shirts, black trousers, and red bow ties. Every conceivable drink from ginger ale and beer to Bols could be had for the ordering. Half a dozen waiters, all in black tuxes, appeared, evaporated, and then materialized at a guest’s elbow with a tray bearing a drink. Glancing around the room, Jay had the impression of exotically colored cocktails floating through the smoky light. Puddy identified the famous gangsters in attendance. Awed by the company, Jay was all ears.
    Charles Luciano’s drooping right eye was a souvenir of knife-wielding kidnappers who’d severed his cheek muscles. Having survived that “ride” five years before had earned him the nickname “Lucky.” Puddy said the guy could barely read a newspaper, but had had the moxie to arrange the deaths of Joe the Boss Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, the Mustache Petes. Lucky stood listening to Meyer Lansky or, as Puddy respectfully called him, “the little man,” who was saying:
    “They never learn, do they? Traditions are fine, but what holds men together is money, not rituals.”
    The third member of this trio, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, agreed. “That omerta stuff’s old world. Come out to California and see the future. Los Angeles . . . that’s where it’s being made. Palms and pineapples and pinochle.”
    A handsome guy with slicked-down hair, Bugsy was reputed to have a ferocious temper and was