However, I never completely trusted the bugger. Even though he pretended to be such a good friend of the house, why then the “friendly” fees of $200 or $300? For burning off the supposedly existing wiretaps on my phones? Where was the prix d’amis?
One day I went to meet a friend at a lawyer’s office before lunchtime. I knew the lawyer from years before – Ed Jarmen. I’d never really cared for Jarmen – he was too slick and dealt with too many creepy individuals, and I would definitely regard him as a “shyster” lawyer. I chatted with Jarmen a few minutes before my friend took me out for lunch, and I happened to mention my problem of having been arrested several times in the past months. Jarmen immediately said he would introduce me that night to someone who might be of help to me.
Sure enough, late that afternoon a visitor was announced by my doorman as a friend of Mr. Jarmen’s. When I opened the door I found a tall, thin, black-haired man who perhaps was in his early forties. Smiling, he identified himself, and since he was both pleasant and well dressed, I let him in. Nick, as he had introduced himself, then further identified himself as a plainclothes detective who felt he should help me, since I was a friend of Ed Jarmen. He showed me his badge and I.D. card, and I wrote down the numbers.
We then discussed the fact that the “heat” was on. Mayor Lindsay’s “crackdown on prostitution” had not only curtailed street prostitution, but also private call girls and the houses run by various madams. The busts had been frequent, and in March, 1971, I was thrown into jail together with one of my German girls and an innocent roommate. The case was still pending, and it looked rather gloomy, since my biggest fear was a conviction, even if it was only for loitering for “the purpose of prostitution.” Anything regarded as moral turpitude could prevent my getting the all-important U.S. resident’s green card that I had been awaiting for so long. Of course, I mentioned this to Nick, and he asked me who the arresting officer had been in my case. I told him, and we left it at that. Nick then took me for a drink at P. J. Clarke’s, my favorite hangout, just around the corner from where I was then living. At P. J.’s Nick seemed to know everyone, and people kept coming over to our table, kidding around and buying us drinks. Mine were soft drinks, as usual, but Nick had several free belts. Nick and I finally made a date to meet with my boyfriend the next day at my house to discuss where to go next to solve my problem.
That evening both Larry and Abe were at the apartment, and I mentioned the meeting with Nick. Abe immediately became very interested and said that since he was in a position to check out cops better than Larry and I, we should let him pose as my boyfriend, meet Nick, and act as my intermediary in whatever proposal Nick might make. He meanwhile jotted down the numbers I had copied from Nick’s badge and identification card and left to check those out.
So, two days later when Nick came up to the apartment, Abe was there. Ugh! I hated even to introduce Abe as my boyfriend, since the thought of having him as a boyfriend almost made me puke. However, Abe and Nick seemed to get along well, and before I even could open my mouth, they’d made a deal for monthly payoffs of $1,100 to the police for protection.
When I complained about the high monthly figure, Abe told me I’d better cooperate, since I needed the protection, or else I would get deported. So I kept quiet and, to cement the deal, I treated Nick to one of my girls.
The next day Nick introduced three police officers from the precinct to Abe at P. J.’s, which had now become our regular meeting place. Nick was one of the smartest and biggest bagmen in New York, Abe told me later. Most of the big payoffs went through him. Abe added that Nick probably put half the money he collected in his own pocket. Moreover, according to Abe, Nick owned three airplanes and an expensive house.
Larry and I tried to convince ourselves we had confidence in this new arrangement. Actually we had no alternative but to cooperate, and Abe did seem reliable as long as I handed over the $1,100 each month. Things went along well for about three months with Abe and Nick being thick as thieves – which of course they indeed were.
Meanwhile, another “deal” was made. This had to do with my previous arrest. After discussions back and forth with Abe and the arresting police officer, Nick fixed a price of $3,500 to get me off the hook completely. Originally the arresting officer had suggested wryly that the “golden goose” ought to pay $10,000 to get her case dismissed, but as that figure was rather outrageous, they settled for $3,500. Again, there was really nothing I could do about it other than get up the money. Later on I found out that only $1,500 was being paid to the arresting officer. What happened to the rest of the money, only Abe and Nick know!
After all this was taken care of, my case still had not been thrown out completely, since my lawyer, properly straightlaced, refused to cooperate in a bribe case and pleaded me guilty of a misdemeanor: loitering. I got off with a $100 fine, but it wasn’t the money that hurt. And on top of everything, the arresting officer insisted on getting a freebie with my German girl friend which remains to this day an unfulfilled demand.
One day Abe came to Larry and asked for a large favor. The favor – and the word is used loosely – involved a situation in which Larry had gotten himself involved in connection with an allegedly stolen insurance check involving a considerable sum. Abe said he’d looked into the case and had spoken to the assistant district attorney handling the case. And Larry would have a great opportunity to do a tremendous amount of good for the crime committee, Abe told him, if he cooperated in the following manner. Larry’s case was to be handled by a very prominent New York judge whom the committee was then investigating. This judge was very close to a certain lawyer, who was none other than Ed Jarmen. Abe wanted Larry to please go along with the farce of employing Ed Jarmen as his attorney and having him try to fix the case via a payoff.
Although Larry had his own attorney and was quite prepared to go to court, he decided to go along with the game. Among other things, he was promised by Abe that he’d get the “payoff” money back, since it was being used to gain an indictment of the judge.
The next few days, Nick and Abe put their heads together with the lawyer, Jarmen, to discuss the “fixing” of Larry’s case. Abe came back and told me that he would need $10,000 to “take care” of my boyfriend’s case. I told him that I did not have that kind of money, since I had just been arrested and had a steep lawyer’s bill myself. Also I’d just laid out a lot of money in my own case.
Besides all this, my business was rather slow at that time, what with my publicized arrest and the summer months coming up, when most people leave town. And why should I let Abe and Nick bleed me to death anyway? To cooperate with a crime committee – well, fine! But to what extent? How could I trust this crazy situation?
Abe then became very “moral” and insinuated that my money was ill-gotten anyway. “Easy come, easy go.” So why shouldn’t I lend Larry, who had been my steady boyfriend for the past year, the $10,000 to make the payoff to the bagman? “You don’t want your boyfriend to get in trouble, do you?” he asked sarcastically. In other words, Abe put the knife to my throat, threatening me again with deportation and arrest. Still $10,000 to me was not exactly peanuts, although my monthly $1,100 was not petty cash either.
Being very persuasive, Abe swore that I would get all the money back later, although the crime commission did not have sufficient funds available just then. Finally it was agreed that Larry and I would split the $10,000 and each put $5,000 up. Larry spent a lot of time on taking down the serial numbers from the $100 bills that we gave Abe, who assured us that he would be able to trace our money both by the serial numbers and additional unseen markings that he would put on himself.