On The House

On The House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy

Chapter Two - REJECTED

Michael Malloy emerged uneasily from the comfortable oblivion of unconsciousness. Behind heavy lids, his eyeballs throbbed in haphazard time to the arrhythmic beat in his skull. His brain pounded out an uneasy cadence between aching temples. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt as though it were garbed in a fur coat. His lips felt thick and slimy, like two Polish sausages slapped together. He lay motionless, his eyes still closed, mustering the determination to face yet another day. He moaned softly and slowly opened one eye to the swirling blur of his surroundings. It was as if the room had a kaleidoscopic quality to it. Nothing at first was clearly defined. There were no straight angles or sharp edges. Everything was wavy as if he were viewing it from underwater. Floating dots - the kind you see after staring directly at the sun - drifted before him in the harsh light of this unkind morning. God almighty, he had yet to open the other eye!

His stomach churned and rumbled in protest, bringing to the back of his throat the bitter taste of something he may have eaten the night before. He pushed his tongue between his lips and felt his top lip unglue itself from the bottom one. He took a deep breath. Opening the other eye was just as traumatic. Instead of everything coalescing into one cohesive image, he saw blurry twin visions of everything. This was not as bad as some mornings, when the world would appear to him in triplicate. It was this realization that suddenly spawned in him a mild curiosity. Where the hell was he? He stared nauseously at the ceiling and tried to think back to the night before. Like most mornings, the memory was fragmented and disjointed, like the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Sleeping in different places on most nights, it was often hard for him to keep track of his surroundings. A lot of these ceilings looked the same - as did the toilets (and gutters) he probably spent many a morning bent over.

Through the fog he remembered the melodious trickle of liquor being poured from bottles the night before. There had been light conversation and the occasional toast. Perhaps he'd even belted out a traditional melody native to his homeland:

Of all the money that e'er I spent
I've spent it in good company
And all the harm that ever I did
Alas it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

The memory was not unique unto itself - it was merely a playback of numerous evenings spent in the embrace of Lady Hooch. In the dreary early hours of countless mornings after, recollections of nights before never reached a graceful conclusion with him, say, climbing into a nice, soft bed and sleeping the sleep of the clean and righteous. Instead, they concluded in an abrupt manner with an impenetrable wall of darkness that descended on his memory like a jackhammer. Perhaps this was because on most evenings he drank himself unconscious. He would assault his body with the hardest of liquors until it could take no more. On more than one occasion, he'd been left to sleep where he fell. To those who witnessed such episodes, it was a form of entertainment - a source of much-needed merriment during that dismal Depression winter.

Wincing, he felt the cold, hard floor beneath him. There was no pillow under his head, just the rough grain of wood. He achingly cast his gaze down the length of this body, which made its discontent known with even the slightest movement. There was a thin, unlaundered sheet draped over him. He now remembered where he was. He was lying in the middle of Tony Marino's speakeasy. Joe Murphy lay sprawled unconscious across the sofa against the wall. Malloy took another deep breath and sat himself upright, his neck and spine cracking like a symphony of broken walnuts. His brain shrieked and his stomach went into overdrive, dancing a pirouette around his ass. Satisfied everything he consumed the night before was going to stay put, he steeled himself for his next great effort. Pushing the blanket aside, he slowly got to his feet. He stood still momentarily, glancing around him to confirm his whereabouts. Right, now the hard part was over, he was ready to tackle the day. There was just one thing he needed before he got the morning off to a running start: a drink.

Michael Malloy was an alcoholic's alcoholic. By all accounts, he would drink whatever was put in front of him. When it came to gin, whiskey, bourbon - anything distilled or brewed - he was an equal-opportunity consumer. He was not a man of moderation. During those days of Prohibition, he took it where he could get it. It was not uncommon for him to wake up on the floor of Marino's and, as it was testified to in court, help himself to the contents behind the bar before shuffling off to find whatever odd job he could get for himself that day. Murphy would later admit on the stand he joined Malloy at the bar on those mornings for a little hair of the dog. With these two leeches clinging to his establishment, relieving it of its inventory with such uncouth regularity, perhaps it's no surprise Marino complained his business was sinking faster than an olive in a dry martini.

Prohibition was a bummer. It was a fact startlingly evident in the flagrant contempt and disregard of the law exercised by countless enthusiasts for the devil's milk. At midnight on January 16, 1920, the National Prohibition Act was ratified as the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, making it illegal to "manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor." Thus, the ill-conceived effort to legislate American morality got underway. Whiskey, gin, brandy, rum, beer, wine, ale, porter, all spirituous, vinous, malt, fermented liquors and liquids - the staples of Michael Malloy's diet - sold under any name that contained 1/2 of 1% or more of alcohol by volume and was fit for drinking was outlawed.

Beer taps ran dry, wine bottles were smashed and barrels of whiskey went to the axe. Its doors padlocked and its windows boarded up, the New York saloon was quickly banished to the realm of fond memories. This social experiment, said President Herbert Hoover, was "noble in motive and far-reaching in consequence." That consequence, though probably not one envisioned by Hoover, was a quasi-underground revolution. According to a 1929 New York Times article, it was a struggle waged in "office buildings, restaurants, downstairs and upstairs, around the corner, everywhere." When New York was wrung dry, the speakeasy was born.

Within a decade, noted the Times, such establishments were "familiar institutions of metropolitan life. And it ranges from the waterside back room or the cellar gathering place, to the deluxe speakeasy where smart New York meets." Unlike Marino's, the establishments frequented by the roving Times reporter boasted "handsomely appointed dining rooms, soft lights, well-trained waiters, a French menu and the clink of ice in wine buckets." Gaining access meant learning the secret ritual, whether it be a special knock or the drop of a name. For those who knew the secret password, a delicious world of prohibited pink lady cocktails and illicit gin fizzes awaited them.

The basic formula for any speakeasy was a room and a couple of bottles, according to New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen. It was a formula adhered to by many, much to the chagrin of the authorities. In 1929, Whalen estimated there were more than 30,000 speakeasies in the city. To tackle these dens of inebriation, the Prohibition Bureau assigned to New York a meager force of 200 agents - not all of whom were untouchable. In terms of the police, the city's population of 6 million was watched over by 18,000 policemen - less than 4,000 of whom were available for patrol during any 24-hour period, according to the Times.

"These men must patrol 5,000 miles of city streets and 175 square miles of the port," the paper reported, more than implying the odds were stacked in favor of the speakeasy owner. And why not? Proprietors of such businesses had an impressive arsenal at their disposal, for the siren song of a cold cocktail garnished, maybe, with an olive or fruit decoration and drank to the sounds of live horn and piano was a powerful and corrupting tool. For those moments, however, when an officer of incorruptible moral fiber and his posse busted down the door, there were measures a proprietor could take. The pulling of a lever or applied pressure to a certain floorboard could send an establishment's inventory crashing through a trap door, or conceal the bar behind a bookcase or secret wall.

The speakeasy was another world, one that offered a respite - if only briefly - from the realities of Depression. Down that hidden stairwell or beyond that nonchalant store front, accompanying the percussion of ice cubes in martini shakers was, perhaps, the tinny sounds of a piano in a smoke-filled corner. In the more upper-class establishments, it would not be uncommon to drink to the live sounds of smoky jazz. The bartender - in his white shirt and loosened black tie - would vigorously rattle the contents of his shaker: a glass of gin, lemon juice, a teaspoon of sugar, a hint of grenadine and half a glass of fresh cream over cracked ice, to produce a New Orleans Gin Fizz. Working his way down the bar, he catered to the illicit thirsts of his patrons. An empty cocktail glass stood waiting on the polished mahogany. Into it went a measure of rock candy syrup, rye whiskey, and juice from a freshly squeezed lemon. Where moments before there had been nothing, there was now a Rock and Rye. Those who came to forget their troubles, or just feel the slow burn of hard liquor, were men in suits and blue collar immigrant workers. Joining the ranks were women, originally barred from the saloons in the days of legalized drink. Elbow-to-elbow, the sexes jostled at bars and squeezed into booths, hoisting glasses, tilting bottles and giving life to an element of what Stanley Walker, editor of The New York Herald Tribune, called "the madhouse that was New York."


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On The House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy Chapter Two - REJECTED Michael Malloy emerged uneasily from the comfortable oblivion of unconsciousness. Behind heavy lids, his eyeballs throbbed in haphazard time to the arrhythmic beat in his skull. His brain pounded out an uneasy cadence between aching temples. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt as though it were garbed in a fur coat. His lips felt thick and slimy, like two Polish sausages slapped together. He lay motionless, his eyes still closed, mustering the determination to face yet another day. He moaned softly and slowly opened one eye to the swirling blur of his surroundings. It was as if the room had a kaleidoscopic quality to it. Nothing at first was clearly defined. There were no straight angles or sharp edges. Everything was wavy as if he were viewing it from underwater. Floating dots - the kind you see after staring directly at the sun - drifted before him in the harsh light of this unkind morning. God almighty, he had yet to open the other eye! His stomach churned and rumbled in protest, bringing to the back of his throat the bitter taste of something he may have eaten the night before. He pushed his tongue between his lips and felt his top lip unglue itself from the bottom one. He took a deep breath. Opening the other eye was just as traumatic. Instead of everything coalescing into one cohesive image, he saw blurry twin visions of everything. This was not as bad as some mornings, when the world would appear to him in triplicate. It was this realization that suddenly spawned in him a mild curiosity. Where the hell was he? He stared nauseously at the ceiling and tried to think back to the night before. Like most mornings, the memory was fragmented and disjointed, like the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Sleeping in different places on most nights, it was often hard for him to keep track of his surroundings. A lot of these ceilings looked the same - as did the toilets (and gutters) he probably spent many a morning bent over. Through the fog he remembered the melodious trickle of liquor being poured from bottles the night before. There had been light conversation and the occasional toast. Perhaps he'd even belted out a traditional melody native to his homeland: Of all the money that e'er I spent I've spent it in good company And all the harm that ever I did Alas it was to none but me And all I've done for want of wit To memory now I can't recall So fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be with you all The memory was not unique unto itself - it was merely a playback of numerous evenings spent in the embrace of Lady Hooch. In the dreary early hours of countless mornings after, recollections of nights before never reached a graceful conclusion with him, say, climbing into a nice, soft bed and sleeping the sleep of the clean and righteous. Instead, they concluded in an abrupt manner with an impenetrable wall of darkness that descended on his memory like a jackhammer. Perhaps this was because on most evenings he drank himself unconscious. He would assault his body with the hardest of liquors until it could take no more. On more than one occasion, he'd been left to sleep where he fell. To those who witnessed such episodes, it was a form of entertainment - a source of much-needed merriment during that dismal Depression winter. Wincing, he felt the cold, hard floor beneath him. There was no pillow under his head, just the rough grain of wood. He achingly cast his gaze down the length of this body, which made its discontent known with even the slightest movement. There was a thin, unlaundered sheet draped over him. He now remembered where he was. He was lying in the middle of Tony Marino's speakeasy. Joe Murphy lay sprawled unconscious across the sofa against the wall. Malloy took another deep breath and sat himself upright, his neck and spine cracking like a symphony of broken walnuts. His brain shrieked and his stomach went into overdrive, dancing a pirouette around his ass. Satisfied everything he consumed the night before was going to stay put, he steeled himself for his next great effort. Pushing the blanket aside, he slowly got to his feet. He stood still momentarily, glancing around him to confirm his whereabouts. Right, now the hard part was over, he was ready to tackle the day. There was just one thing he needed before he got the morning off to a running start: a drink. Michael Malloy was an alcoholic's alcoholic. By all accounts, he would drink whatever was put in front of him. When it came to gin, whiskey, bourbon - anything distilled or brewed - he was an equal-opportunity consumer. He was not a man of moderation. During those days of Prohibition, he took it where he could get it. It was not uncommon for him to wake up on the floor of Marino's and, as it was testified to in court, help himself to the contents behind the bar before shuffling off to find whatever odd job he could get for himself that day. Murphy would later admit on the stand he joined Malloy at the bar on those mornings for a little hair of the dog. With these two leeches clinging to his establishment, relieving it of its inventory with such uncouth regularity, perhaps it's no surprise Marino complained his business was sinking faster than an olive in a dry martini. Prohibition was a bummer. It was a fact startlingly evident in the flagrant contempt and disregard of the law exercised by countless enthusiasts for the devil's milk. At midnight on January 16, 1920, the National Prohibition Act was ratified as the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, making it illegal to "manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor." Thus, the ill-conceived effort to legislate American morality got underway. Whiskey, gin, brandy, rum, beer, wine, ale, porter, all spirituous, vinous, malt, fermented liquors and liquids - the staples of Michael Malloy's diet - sold under any name that contained 1/2 of 1% or more of alcohol by volume and was fit for drinking was outlawed. Beer taps ran dry, wine bottles were smashed and barrels of whiskey went to the axe. Its doors padlocked and its windows boarded up, the New York saloon was quickly banished to the realm of fond memories. This social experiment, said President Herbert Hoover, was "noble in motive and far-reaching in consequence." That consequence, though probably not one envisioned by Hoover, was a quasi-underground revolution. According to a 1929 New York Times article, it was a struggle waged in "office buildings, restaurants, downstairs and upstairs, around the corner, everywhere." When New York was wrung dry, the speakeasy was born. Within a decade, noted the Times, such establishments were "familiar institutions of metropolitan life. And it ranges from the waterside back room or the cellar gathering place, to the deluxe speakeasy where smart New York meets." Unlike Marino's, the establishments frequented by the roving Times reporter boasted "handsomely appointed dining rooms, soft lights, well-trained waiters, a French menu and the clink of ice in wine buckets." Gaining access meant learning the secret ritual, whether it be a special knock or the drop of a name. For those who knew the secret password, a delicious world of prohibited pink lady cocktails and illicit gin fizzes awaited them. The basic formula for any speakeasy was a room and a couple of bottles, according to New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen. It was a formula adhered to by many, much to the chagrin of the authorities. In 1929, Whalen estimated there were more than 30,000 speakeasies in the city. To tackle these dens of inebriation, the Prohibition Bureau assigned to New York a meager force of 200 agents - not all of whom were untouchable. In terms of the police, the city's population of 6 million was watched over by 18,000 policemen - less than 4,000 of whom were available for patrol during any 24-hour period, according to the Times. "These men must patrol 5,000 miles of city streets and 175 square miles of the port," the paper reported, more than implying the odds were stacked in favor of the speakeasy owner. And why not? Proprietors of such businesses had an impressive arsenal at their disposal, for the siren song of a cold cocktail garnished, maybe, with an olive or fruit decoration and drank to the sounds of live horn and piano was a powerful and corrupting tool. For those moments, however, when an officer of incorruptible moral fiber and his posse busted down the door, there were measures a proprietor could take. The pulling of a lever or applied pressure to a certain floorboard could send an establishment's inventory crashing through a trap door, or conceal the bar behind a bookcase or secret wall. The speakeasy was another world, one that offered a respite - if only briefly - from the realities of Depression. Down that hidden stairwell or beyond that nonchalant store front, accompanying the percussion of ice cubes in martini shakers was, perhaps, the tinny sounds of a piano in a smoke-filled corner. In the more upper-class establishments, it would not be uncommon to drink to the live sounds of smoky jazz. The bartender - in his white shirt and loosened black tie - would vigorously rattle the contents of his shaker: a glass of gin, lemon juice, a teaspoon of sugar, a hint of grenadine and half a glass of fresh cream over cracked ice, to produce a New Orleans Gin Fizz. Working his way down the bar, he catered to the illicit thirsts of his patrons. An empty cocktail glass stood waiting on the polished mahogany. Into it went a measure of rock candy syrup, rye whiskey, and juice from a freshly squeezed lemon. Where moments before there had been nothing, there was now a Rock and Rye. Those who came to forget their troubles, or just feel the slow burn of hard liquor, were men in suits and blue collar immigrant workers. Joining the ranks were women, originally barred from the saloons in the days of legalized drink. Elbow-to-elbow, the sexes jostled at bars and squeezed into booths, hoisting glasses, tilting bottles and giving life to an element of what Stanley Walker, editor of The New York Herald Tribune, called "the madhouse that was New York."