Mel, Money and The Mob . . .

By Rick Farris


Mel Epstein wanted no part of Jerry McCauley's generosity.
"Your manager is hooked-up. Don't think I don't know it. He's from Ohio, like Suey. Get the picture?"
Mel ranted on, "He gives you and Gil King each a car, money, and all you gotta do is ride around with him one morning a week?"
"He likes to parade you and that bum around like your his race horses, but you haven't won a Kentucky Derby, have you?" Mel puntuated his point with a smirk.

Mel would be on a roll, "Your manager . . ." he'd say sarcasticly, "comes up to me today and hands me a C-note and tells me to buy the kid dinner tonight."
"So I tells the bastid, I buy you dinner every night. He trys to hand me more cash, but I don't want it."
"Everybody thinks I'm crazy but he can't buy me, that phony Phil Silvers kisses his ass, not me. I'm not rich, I'm on a fixed income, but I don't need him."
Mel then lowers his voice to a whisper, even though we are all alone, "You know, your manager keeps Mike Mazurki's restaurant going at the Elk's building."
Mel continued, "Mazurki told me he'd have gone under long ago, but Jerry pays the bills by ordering food for everybody, kicks in for the rent, etc."

Maybe Jerry McCauley wasn't so bad after all?
However, Mel would never admit it. Business man or not, in Mel's eyes Jerry was a gangster.
Mel's grizzled face softens, "And I was in a union up North, on the docks, we had a great union. I have a small pension, and I have you, the "Obstinate Kid".
Mel would smile, having calmed himself from one his little personal fiascos.