Harlem, New York. The Cotton Club was packed. Monday night, September 16th, 1935. Over 200 patrons filling the tables. The stage show in full swing. The illegal whiskey flowing freely. The wealthy white downtown crowd mixing with gangsters and politicians and celebrities in the kind of scene that made the Cotton Club simultaneously the most glamorous and most dangerous nightclub in New York. The music was loud, the conversation was louder, and nobody was paying particular attention to the table near the back where Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson sat alone nursing a bourbon and watching the show with the quiet intensity that characterized everything Johnson did.

Nobody noticed, that is, until Dutch Schulz stood up from his reserved table near the stage, his face flushed red from expensive whiskey and from the rage that had been building in him all evening, and began walking, no, stomping, across the club toward where Johnson sat. His bodyguards scrambling to follow him, other patrons turning to watch because Schultz’s body language made it clear something dramatic was about to happen.

Schultz reached Johnson’s table and didn’t lean down to have a quiet conversation. Didn’t lower his voice to maintain the pretense of civilized discourse between criminal equals. Instead, Schultz slammed his hand down on Johnson’s table so hard the bourbon glass jumped and spilled, and he shouted loud enough that people across the club stopped their conversations to listen. Loud enough that the band faltered and the music died. Loud enough that every single person in the Cotton Club heard every word.

“You’ve got some nerve showing your face in here tonight, boy. You think you’re somebody? You think running a few penny-ante policy banks in Negro Town makes you a real gangster? I’ve been trying to be reasonable with you people, trying to give you coloreds a chance to work for me and make something of yourselves, but you’re too stupid to understand when somebody’s doing you a favor.”

The entire club went silent. 200 people stopped talking, stopped moving, stopped breathing because Dutch Schultz, the most powerful bootlegger in New York, the man whose organization generated $20 million annually, the gangster who’d never backed down from anyone, was publicly berating Bumpy Johnson using language so racist and so contemptuous that even in 1935, even in a whites-only nightclub in the middle of Harlem, people were shocked by the naked hatred in Schultz’s voice.

Bumpy Johnson didn’t stand up, didn’t reach for the .45 automatic he carried, didn’t make any threatening gesture at all. He just looked up at Schultz with eyes that showed no emotion whatsoever. No anger, no fear, no reaction to the slur or the insult, and waited for Schultz to finish.

The silence in the Cotton Club was absolute. People at nearby tables were staring, horrified and fascinated, watching this public humiliation of a man who was supposed to be one of Harlem’s toughest operators, but who was sitting there taking this abuse without fighting back, without defending himself, without doing anything except staring up at the white man who was screaming racial slurs at him in front of hundreds of witnesses.

And then Bumpy Johnson spoke. His voice was so quiet that people had to strain to hear it. So calm that it seemed completely disconnected from the fury Schultz was displaying. So cold that several witnesses later described it as the most frightening thing they’d ever heard because it contained absolutely no heat, no emotion, just a statement of fact delivered with the certainty of a judge pronouncing sentence.

“You’ve got 7 days to get every one of your people out of Harlem. After that, any white man I find running policy in my neighborhood dies. You want to insult me in public, you want to call me names in front of all these people, that’s fine. That’s your choice. But choices have consequences, Mr. Schultz. And the consequence of disrespecting Bumpy Johnson, is that your people start dying. Not arrested, not beaten, dead. You’ve got seven days. Use them wisely.”

Schultz threw back his head and laughed. A huge genuine laugh that filled the silent club. The laugh of a man who couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Who found the entire situation ridiculous.

“Seven days!” Schultz roared, still laughing. “This negro is giving me seven days. You hear that, everybody? The boy thinks he can give Dutch Schultz ultimatums. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.”

Schultz turned to address the entire club, playing to the crowd like an actor on stage.

“You all heard him. Bumpy Johnson. This nobody from the street thinks he can threaten me. Thinks he can make demands. Well, let me tell you something, boy.”

He turned back to Johnson.

“In 7 days, you’ll be working for me or you’ll be dead. Those are your only options. There’s no third choice where you somehow win because negroes don’t win against white men. That’s just how the world works. And if you’re too stupid to understand that, well, I’ll teach you the hard way.”

Johnson didn’t respond. He simply picked up what remained of his bourbon, drained the glass, stood up slowly, and walked toward the exit. The crowd parted for him like he was contagious, like being near him was dangerous now that Dutch Schultz had publicly marked him for destruction. Johnson walked past Schultz without looking at him, walked past Schultz’s bodyguards, who tensed but didn’t stop him, walked out of the Cotton Club into the Harlem September night, and disappeared into the darkness.

Schultz watched him go, still chuckling, still shaking his head at the absurdity of the encounter. He returned to his table, ordered another drink, and spent the rest of the evening recounting the story to anyone who would listen, describing how he’d put that uppity colored boy in his place. How Johnson had just sat there taking it like all coloreds do when white men remind them who’s really in charge. How Harlem would be completely under Schulz’s control within a month because the last resistance had just been crushed in front of 200 witnesses.

Dutch Schultz went to bed that night, Monday, September 16th, 1935, believing he’d won, believing he’d publicly humiliated his last serious opponent in Harlem, believing the conflict was essentially over.

6 hours and 43 minutes later, the first body was discovered.

To understand what happened next, to understand how eight men died in 7 days with such precision that it would reshape New York’s criminal landscape for the next century, one must understand what was going through Bumpy Johnson’s mind as he walked out of the Cotton Club that Monday night.

Johnson wasn’t surprised by Schultz’s behavior. He’d known for months that Schultz viewed him with contempt. That Schultz considered colored gangsters to be inferior operators who existed only with white permission. That Schultz believed taking over Harlem would be as simple as showing up with enough guns and enough money to overwhelm local resistance.

Johnson had been watching Schultz’s Harlem campaign for 18 months. Had watched Schultz drive Madame St. Clair into retirement. Had watched him force Casper Holstein out of business, had watched him systematically destroy every other significant black operator through a combination of bribes, threats, and violence that was brutally effective because most of Harlem’s gangsters simply didn’t have the resources to fight back against Schultz’s overwhelming advantages in money, political connections, and firepower.

But Johnson had also been watching Schultz make mistakes. Big mistakes, strategic errors that revealed fundamental misunderstandings about how power actually worked in Harlem, about what made colored gangsters dangerous, about the difference between controlling territory through fear, and actually maintaining long-term control through community support and through organizational competence.

Schultz’s biggest mistake was assuming that violence alone would be sufficient to control Harlem. He’d brought guns and money and white privilege, but he hadn’t brought understanding. He didn’t comprehend that Harlem’s policy operations functioned because of community trust. Because people believed that the operators, despite being criminals, were at least Harlem people who understood the neighborhood and who had some stake in maintaining the community rather than just extracting money from it. Schultz’s collectors were outsiders, white men who came into Harlem to take money and who treated local people with contempt, and that created resentment that Schultz either didn’t notice or didn’t care about.

Schultz’s second mistake was conducting his takeover through visible public violence that attracted attention and created martyrs. When Schultz killed a black policy operator, that operator’s family and associates became enemies who might cooperate with anyone opposing Schultz. When Schultz beat up runners who didn’t cooperate, those runners spread stories throughout the neighborhood about Schultz’s cruelty, turning public opinion against him even as his operations expanded.

But Schultz’s biggest mistake, the fatal error that would cost him eight men and his entire Harlem operation, was the public humiliation at the Cotton Club. By screaming racist slurs at Johnson in front of 200 witnesses. By making the conflict personal rather than business. By turning what could have been a straightforward territorial dispute into a referendum on whether white gangsters could openly disrespect black gangsters without consequence. Schultz had given Johnson something invaluable: moral authority.

As Johnson walked through Harlem’s streets after leaving the Cotton Club, heading toward his apartment on West 139th Street, his mind was working through the implications of what had just happened, and formulating a response that would be so decisive, so brutal, so effective that it would establish principles about race and respect and power that would govern New York’s criminal underworld for the next hundred years.

The response Johnson conceived that night had three essential elements.

First, complete operational silence. Johnson would disappear from public view immediately, would close his policy banks temporarily, would stop conducting visible business, would go to ground so thoroughly that Schultz’s men couldn’t find him to retaliate. This would serve two purposes. It would protect Johnson from the inevitable counterattack Schultz would launch, and it would create the impression that Johnson had been scared into hiding by Schultz’s public threat, which would make Schultz complacent and careless.

Second, systematic elimination of Schultz’s key operators. Johnson wouldn’t attack Schultz directly. That would be both difficult—Schultz was too well protected—and counterproductive. Killing Schultz would trigger massive retaliation from Schultz’s organization and from other white gangsters who would view it as colored criminals overstepping acceptable bounds. Instead, Johnson would kill the eight men who actually ran Schultz’s Harlem operations: the collectors who picked up money, the enforcers who intimidated people, the policy bank operators who processed bets. Kill those eight men. Kill them brutally. Kill them publicly. Kill them with notes that made clear why they were dying, and Schultz’s entire Harlem operation would collapse without Johnson having to fight Schultz’s full organization.

Third, send a message that would outlast this immediate conflict. This couldn’t be just about driving Schultz out of Harlem. This had to be about establishing a principle that would govern future interactions between white and black gangsters. That disrespecting black criminals. That using racist language. That assuming white superiority gave you license to treat colored gangsters with contempt. All of that would carry severe consequences. The message had to be clear enough that future white gangsters would think very carefully before calling a black gangster a nigger in public. Would understand that racial respect wasn’t optional, but was instead a matter of survival.

Johnson reached his apartment at approximately 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. He didn’t sleep. Instead, he spent the next four hours meeting with his most trusted associates, men who’d worked with him for years, who’d proven their loyalty and their capability, who would follow orders without asking questions, and who would keep secrets even under torture.

Johnson gave these men a list of eight names. Eight of Schultz’s key Harlem operators, the men who actually made Schultz’s operation function: the collectors, the enforcers, the policy bank managers, the people whose deaths would cripple Schultz’s Harlem interests without requiring an impossible frontal assault on Schultz’s full organization.

Johnson’s instructions were precise.

“These eight men die in the next seven days, one per day in order of the list. Kill them however you want, but make sure each death is discovered quickly, and make sure each body has a note counting down how many are left. Start with Vincent Mel tomorrow night, Tuesday. He’s a collector, operates in central Harlem, finishes his rounds around 11:00 p.m. Take him after his last pickup. Torture him somewhere private, so he understands why he’s dying. Then leave the body where it’ll be found Tuesday morning. Pin a note that says, ‘One down, seven to go. Leave Harlem.’ Then wait 24 hours and take the next one on the list. Keep going until all eight are dead or until Schultz pulls out of Harlem completely.”

One of Johnson’s men asked the obvious question.

“Bumpy, if we kill eight of Schultz’s people, he’s going to come after us hard. He’s going to try to kill you, kill all of us, burn Harlem down if he has to. How do we survive that?”

Johnson smiled. A cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Schultz can’t kill what he can’t find. Starting tomorrow, I’m disappearing. You all keep your heads down. Operate through intermediaries. Don’t do anything that draws attention except killing Schultz’s people. Schultz will be looking for me, looking for you, asking questions all over Harlem trying to find us. But everybody in Harlem saw what Schultz did tonight at the Cotton Club. Everybody heard him call me those names, saw him humiliate me in public. You think anybody in Harlem is going to help Schultz find us? You think people are going to cooperate with the white man who came into our neighborhood calling us niggers and telling us we’re too stupid to run our own operations? Schultz made this personal. He made it about race and respect. And that means Harlem will protect us because killing Schultz’s people isn’t just business anymore. It’s payback for every insult, every slur, every time white gangsters treated us like we were nothing. We’ve got seven days to kill eight men. After that, Schultz either withdraws completely or we keep killing his people until he does. It’s that simple.”

By 5:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, Johnson’s team had finalized the plan. Each of the eight targets had been assigned to specific killers. Surveillance had been arranged to track the targets’ movements and identify when they’d be most vulnerable. Equipment had been gathered: weapons, cars, safe houses where torture could be conducted without neighbors hearing the screams. Everything was ready.

At 6:00 a.m., Bumpy Johnson walked out of his apartment carrying a small suitcase, climbed into a car driven by one of his associates, and vanished. For the next 7 days, nobody outside Johnson’s inner circle would see him or know where he was. Dutch Schultz would spend the entire week searching for Johnson, would offer substantial money for information about his location, would threaten and intimidate people throughout Harlem, trying to find the man who’d promised to kill his operators. But Johnson had become a ghost, present in the systematic executions of Schultz’s men, but invisible to the people trying to find him.

And at 6:23 a.m. Tuesday morning, less than 5 hours after Johnson had given the kill order, Vincent “Mel” Melvile’s body was discovered stuffed in a garbage drum behind a warehouse on West 145th Street.

Vincent “Clutch” Melvile, 38 years old, was one of Schultz’s most effective policy collectors in central Harlem. He’d been doing the work for 18 months, was known for being tough and reliable, had beaten several runners who’d tried to skim money, was generally considered one of the key people making Schultz’s Harlem takeover successful.

Mel finished his Monday night collections around 11:00 p.m., accumulated about $4,000 in cash and hundreds of betting slips, and was supposed to deliver everything to Schultz’s main policy bank before going home.

Mel never made that delivery.

At approximately 11:15 p.m. Monday night, while Schultz was still at the Cotton Club, bragging to his associates about how he’d humiliated Bumpy Johnson, three of Johnson’s men intercepted Mel’s car on a quiet side street, forced him off the road at gunpoint, dragged him from the vehicle while he was still trying to reach for his own weapon.

They drove him to an abandoned warehouse on West 147th Street, a building Johnson’s organization controlled, a place where the walls were thick enough that screams wouldn’t carry to neighboring buildings.

What happened in that warehouse over the next several hours was designed not just to kill Mel, but to send a message through his corpse about what happened to people who worked for Dutch Schultz in Harlem after Schultz had publicly disrespected Bumpy Johnson.

They started with Mel’s hands, used a hammer to systematically break every finger, crushing the bone slowly while Mel screamed and begged, and tried to explain that he was just doing his job, that he had nothing personal against Johnson, that he was sorry about whatever Schultz had said. But Johnson’s men weren’t interested in apologies. They worked methodically, breaking each finger individually, making sure Mel felt every impact, making sure he understood that this pain was the direct consequence of working for a man who’d called their boss a nigger in front of 200 people.

Then they moved to his face, beat him with fists and with small clubs, breaking his nose and his jaw, knocking out teeth, closing his eyes with swelling, making sure that when the body was found, it would be obvious that Mel had suffered extensively before dying.

Between the beatings, they asked him questions.

“You know why this is happening to you, Vincent? You know what your boss did tonight? He disrespected our people, called us names, treated us like we’re nothing. And you work for him. You collect money for him. You help him take over our neighborhood. So you pay for his mistakes.”

Mel tried to bargain. Offered to quit working for Schultz immediately, offered to give them information about Schultz’s operations, offered money and cooperation, and anything else he could think of that might make them stop.

But the men torturing him weren’t interested in bargaining. This wasn’t about getting information or about making deals. This was about killing Mel in a way that would terrify the other seven people on Johnson’s list. That would send a message to Schultz about the cost of disrespecting black gangsters.

After the hands and the face, they used an ice pick, stabbed Mel 11 times in non-lethal areas: shoulders, thighs, abdomen. Wounds that caused tremendous pain without immediately killing. Wounds that made Mel scream and cry and plead until his voice gave out and he could only whimper. They took their time with this part, spacing the stab wounds out over perhaps an hour, making sure Mel experienced every second of suffering.

Finally, when Mel was barely conscious from pain and blood loss and exhaustion, they cut his throat, used a large knife to slice through muscle and cartilage and windpipe, cutting so deeply that the blade scraped against vertebrae, nearly severing Mel’s head from his body. The throat wound was the last thing Mel experienced before he died. The sensation of his blood pouring out, the inability to breathe, the knowledge that he was finally being allowed to die after hours of torture.

They stuffed Mel’s body into a large metal garbage drum, drove the drum to the alley behind the warehouse on West 145th Street, where they knew it would be discovered during the morning sanitation rounds, and before leaving, they pinned a note to Mel’s shirt with a straight pin. The note was written in block letters with a pencil on ordinary paper. The kind of note that couldn’t be traced to any specific person or location.

One down, seven to go. Leave Harlem.

At 6:23 a.m. Tuesday morning, sanitation worker James Robertson found the drum, opened it to see why it was so heavy, discovered Mel’s corpse, and immediately began shouting for help while stumbling backward from the smell of blood and death. Police arrived, pulled Mel’s body from the drum, saw the extent of the injuries, read the note, and immediately understood they were looking at the beginning of a gang war rather than an isolated murder. The note’s message was clear. Seven more people were going to die one by one until someone, presumably Dutch Schultz, left Harlem as ordered.

By 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, word had spread throughout New York’s underworld that Vincent “Mel” Melvile was dead, that he’d been tortured for hours before being killed, that a note had promised seven more deaths were coming.

Dutch Schultz heard the news while eating breakfast at his Bronx headquarters, initially dismissed it as probably unrelated to the Cotton Club confrontation, but then learned about the note, and understood that Bumpy Johnson had actually meant what he’d said, that the 7-day deadline wasn’t empty posturing, but was a literal promise that Schultz’s Harlem operators would start dying.

Schultz’s reaction was predictable: rage, threats, orders to find Johnson immediately and kill him. But Johnson had disappeared. His apartment was empty. His policy banks were closed. Nobody knew where he was or could provide information about his location. Schultz spent Tuesday offering money for information, sending men throughout Harlem to ask questions, threatening people who claimed not to know anything. But Harlem’s community, still furious about Monday night’s public humiliation at the Cotton Club, refused to cooperate. Nobody would help the white gangster who’d called their people niggers find the black gangster who was killing his men in retaliation.

Wednesday morning, September 18th, Dutch Schultz found an envelope slipped under the door of his Bronx headquarters. Inside was a note in the same block letters:

One down, seven to go. Your collector is dead because you disrespected us. The next one dies today. Pull out of Harlem or keep counting bodies.

At 2:15 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, Raymond “Red” Sullivan’s body was discovered in an abandoned building on Lennox Avenue, shot once in the back of the head execution style. His two bodyguards, who’d been assigned to protect him after Mel’s death, were found nearby, both shot multiple times in what appeared to be a brief gunfight they’d lost decisively. The note pinned to Sullivan’s body:

Two down, six to go.

Thursday morning, another envelope arrived at Schultz’s headquarters.

Two down, six to go. Every day you stay in Harlem, another one of your people dies. How many bodies will it take before you understand? Leave now.

At 9:40 p.m. Wednesday, technically early Thursday morning, Thomas “Little Tommy” Brennan was found in his apartment, stabbed 17 times with an ice pick, killed in the same methodical torture style that had characterized Mel’s death. The note:

Three down, five to go. Last chance to leave.

By Thursday afternoon, Dutch Schultz was no longer dismissive or confident. He was frightened. Genuinely frightened in a way he’d never experienced before in his criminal career. Three of his key Harlem operators were dead in 3 days, killed with precision that suggested careful planning and capability that Schultz hadn’t anticipated. And the notes kept coming, kept counting down, kept reminding him that five more deaths were promised unless he withdrew completely from Harlem.

Thursday evening, another envelope.

Three down, five to go. The next one dies tomorrow, then four more after that. Or you can pull out of Harlem today and nobody else has to die. Your choice.

Schultz called an emergency meeting with his top lieutenants, told them to find Johnson regardless of cost, to kill him and everyone associated with him, to burn down Harlem if necessary, but to stop these executions. But finding Johnson remained impossible, and Schultz’s remaining Harlem operators were terrified, understanding that five of them were still on the list, that five more bodies were coming unless Schultz gave up Harlem entirely.

Friday brought two more deaths. Anthony “Little Tony” Benadetto beaten to death in an alley. Joseph “Joey Numbers” Catalano shot in the face in a crowded restaurant while dozens of witnesses watched two colored men calmly walk in, execute him, and walk out before anyone could react. The notes:

Five down, three to go.

And:

Six down, two to go. Leave now or die.

And Friday evening, another envelope at Schultz’s headquarters. This one containing a message that was longer than the previous notes, that spelled out exactly why these killings were happening.

Six down, two to go. You want to know why your people are dying? Because you disrespected us. You came into our neighborhood, called us niggers, told us we’re too stupid to run our own operations, treated us like we’re nothing. You thought being white made you superior. You thought we’d just accept your insults and submit like good coloreds. You were wrong. Get out of Harlem. Never come back. Don’t ever disrespect black brothers again.

The final executions: Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday morning, Harold “Bunny” Weinstein, one of Schultz’s top lieutenants who’d been coordinating the Harlem operation, was found shot in the back of the head in his car on West 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan, killed in broad daylight in one of the busiest parts of the city. The note:

Seven down, one to go. Your weekend’s tomorrow.

Dutch Schultz spent Saturday in a state of near panic, barricaded in his Bronx headquarters, surrounded by bodyguards, sending messages to his remaining Harlem operator, Patrick O’Brien, telling him to go into hiding to survive Sunday, to prove that Johnson’s threats weren’t inevitable.

O’Brien spent Sunday in a safe house in the Bronx, protected by four armed guards. But at 8:47 p.m. Sunday evening, a woman knocked on the door, claiming to have the wrong apartment. When a guard opened the door, she threw a gasoline bomb inside. The apartment erupted in flames. The guards ran for the back exit and were immediately cut down by shotgun fire from men waiting in the alley. O’Brien tried to escape through a window, but was shot before he could climb through, his body falling back into the burning apartment.

When firefighters extinguished the blaze and recovered O’Brien’s badly burned corpse, they found a note partially burned, but still legible.

Eight down, zero to go. Harlem belongs to Harlem. Don’t ever disrespect black brothers. Leave and never come back.

The Aftermath. A Message That Lasted 100 Years.

Monday morning, September 23rd, Dutch Schultz received his final message from Bumpy Johnson.

“Eight of your men are dead. They died because you made a choice to disrespect me in public. To call me names in front of hundreds of people. To treat colored gangsters like we’re inferior to white criminals. You thought I was bluffing when I said your people would die. You laughed at me. You called me a stupid nigger who didn’t understand how the real criminal world works. I wasn’t bluffing. Your eight dead men prove that. You have 24 hours to close every operation you have in Harlem. After that, I start killing your people everywhere: not just Harlem, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan. One per day until you’re completely out of our neighborhood. This isn’t about money or territory anymore. This is about respect. This is about teaching you and every other white gangster in New York that you can’t disrespect black brothers without paying a price. That price is eight bodies so far. It’ll be more if you don’t leave. Get out. Stay out. And remember what it cost you when you forgot that colored gangsters deserve the same respect you demand for yourself. — Bumpy Johnson.”

By Tuesday evening, every one of Dutch Schultz’s Harlem operations had been shut down. He’d pulled his people out completely, abandoned 18 months of work and substantial investment, retreated from Harlem rather than continue losing men to an opponent who demonstrated the capability and the will to kill indefinitely.

The story spread throughout New York’s criminal underworld, retold in every speakeasy and policy bank and mob social club. Dutch Schultz had publicly humiliated Bumpy Johnson at the Cotton Club, had called him racial slurs in front of 200 witnesses, and within 7 days, eight of Schultz’s men were dead, and Schultz had been driven out of Harlem by a black gangster who’d proven that disrespect carried fatal consequences.

The lesson lasted not just years, but generations. White gangsters who dealt with black operators after 1935 were careful about language, careful about displays of contempt, careful about assuming racial superiority gave them license to treat colored criminals as inferiors because everyone remembered what happened to Dutch Schultz when he forgot that respect flows both ways. When he assumed being white meant he could say anything to anyone without facing consequences.

Bumpy Johnson emerged from hiding on Tuesday, September 24th, walking casually down Lennox Avenue like he’d never been gone. When reporters asked about the eight murders, Johnson’s response was simple.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll say this. Harlem protects its own. Anybody who comes here disrespecting our people, calling us names, treating us like we’re nothing, they learn that choices have consequences. Dutch Schultz made his choice Monday night at the Cotton Club. He chose to disrespect me in public. And he paid for that choice with eight of his people. That’s just how it works. You disrespect black brothers, you pay the price. Remember that and you’ll live a lot longer.”

Dutch Schultz never returned to Harlem. One month later, October 23rd, 1935, Schultz himself was killed in Newark by hitmen sent by other white gangsters who decided he was too reckless, too dangerous, too likely to bring heat on all of them.

And Bumpy Johnson? He took over Schultz’s former operations, built them into an empire, and became a legend, not just because he’d driven out Dutch Schultz, but because he’d established a principle that would govern criminal interactions for the next century:

Don’t ever disrespect Black Brothers. Not in public, not in private, not if you want to keep breathing.

Eight bodies in seven days. A message written in blood that New York’s underworld never forgot.