Harlem (New York, N.Y.); New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs
No sooner had he sat down than the two men who had lured him there
dived to the floor, as a man in a green hat stepped out from behind
a pillar and gave Schultz all his six bullets in the belly, the
gangster's favorite target. To make certainty doubly sure, he was shot
with slugs dipped in garlic, a deadly poison to the mucous membranes of
the bowels. They took him in an ambulance to a hospital, where he died
raving, with Frances' name on his lips. The first she knew she was a
widow was when two detectives closed in on her as she returned to her
hotel.
Of course, she had a faint idea of who had done it or who had ordered
it done. But she hadn't been Dutch Schultz' wife for four years not
to know the penalty for blowing the whistle on the Mafia which had
ordered the execution.
From that moment on, she was hounded and hunted by prosecutors who
wanted to know who had killed Dutch Schultz; by tax collectors who
wanted to know where his money was--those millions he was supposed to
have cached; by his former associates, who thought they were entitled
to some of the money--and where was it?
She lived as a fugitive for years. She had no money. She knew of no
money. She knew that he owned a brewery in Yonkers worth more than a
million dollars, but he had never dared put it in his own name and
those who now controlled it shrugged their shoulders and said they knew
nothing of any interest he had. She went to "Dixie" Davis, his lawyer,
whom Schultz had made rich, but he had nothing and knew nothing. She
sold her furs and jewels, which supported her and the children for a
couple of years.
Then she was flat broke.
She worked as a saleswoman in Bloomingdale's, as a waitress, and almost
went blind inspecting minute precision parts in Sperry's. Martha had
died in an automobile accident and she was alone with her babies.
Not only were the essentials of living a problem, but being allowed to
live was even more perplexing. For a while she refused to haul down
her flag. She was Mrs. Arthur Flegenheimer and her son was Arthur
Flegenheimer, Jr. But when boardinghouse keepers learned who Arthur
Flegenheimer had been, and cruel little boys learned who Arthur
Flegenheimer, Jr., was, Frances had to pack the little she had and move.
From rooming house to cheap hotel to boardinghouse in New Jersey,
Westchester, Long Island villages and the fastnesses of Manhattan
tenements, where few give a damn about who lives next door, she fled
and fled again as the ghost of Dutch Schultz caught up with her.
Exhausted, penniless, she went back to her church, the church she had
left when she married out of her faith.
The priests were kind and understanding. They took the children to a
place in the Rocky Mountains and, with the mother's consent, gave them
a new last name.
No one out there knew Dutch Schultz; few of the rugged folks had ever
heard of him.
Frances followed. She, too, took the name the children had assumed. We
must not divulge it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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