28 January 2017

La Smootch Mort



Ah, the Prohibition Era; a time when a guy with a fast car, a dream, and a machine-gun, could make oodles of kale supplying an insatiable citizenry with their much desired clown juice. For a bootlegger, one of the grand things about having the grands in your pocket was being able to blow some of it on a jane before getting yourself dead.

For the gangsters of old, romance and death went together like gin and tonic, a situation that produced one of the semi-legendary figures to come out of this alcohol fueled epoch: The “Kiss of Death Girl”, so called because a large number of her paramours ended up on the slab. Lots of women lost their men to the gun but a “Kiss of Death Girl,” had more than the average bear. New York City had one and so did Chicago. We shall examine the Windy City’s hexed vixen first.

Her name was Mary Collins and she was a North Sider who became acquainted with the gangsters of her bailiwick in the early days of the Dry Era. The first of Mary’s fellas to end up with a toe tag was a friend and fellow gun man of North Side gang leader Dean O’Banion named John Sheehy.

Kiss of Death Girl a.k.a. Mary Collins

The end of Sheehy came in a speakeasy known as the Rendezvous on the evening of December 7, 1923. As the story goes, Sheehy simply asked for a bucket of ice and was told no by the waiter. Gangsters don’t like to hear no; so Sheehy went to the bar to fetch it himself, but again was told no. One writer put it that it was Mary, whose birthday they were celebrating, that wanted the ice so she could throw the cubes at the band’s drummer and this is why Sheehy’s request was denied.

Sheehy didn’t appreciate the inhospitable nature of both the waiter and club’s steward so pulled out his roscoe and killed them both. Before Sheehy and Mary had a chance to vacate the premises however, police arrived and Sheehy managed to wing one of them before catching a bullet himself and expiring the next day.

Headline for Sheehy shooting

In our next installment we'll meet victims #2 and #3 of the Kiss of Death Girl.

4 comments:

  1. Gee, is "oodles" really the correct collective term for kale? It's not "clutch of kale" or "cache of kale"? "Clump"? "Clutter"?

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  2. It's all about place value. Ten clumps = a clutter and ten clutters = a clutch and ten clutches = a cache and a hundred cashes make an oodle so,I believe I was correct in my usage. Clump and clutter would have been acceptable had I said, "Ah, teen years when a guy with a dream and lawn mower could make a clump of kale over the course of the summer." I hope this clarifies things.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for the clarification, Mr. Downey. Obviously, we are talking about a LOT of kale. I wonder: Are those Metric System conversions or do they apply in the English/Imperial Measurement System as well?
      Someone once told me that they bought their kales in "packs" of 20, with 10 packs making a "carton" and a dozen cartons comprising a "case." But I'm concerned that they may have been talking about Kools rather than kales.

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  3. Definitely not English/Imperial, not proper English anyways. It also predates the Metric System by about a clutter of years. If I’m not mistaken it was developed by Metric’s grandfather, Sir Metric Hardwicke. Forget the year.
    PS
    Your friend must have been referring to Kools. Kale is sold in packs of 5 ½ . three packs makes a carton and 11 cartons make a Flagle.

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