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Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET Handsome Is, Handsome Does: Case of Mind Over Mattress I By BILLY ROSE 1 At a spaghetti salon, I got to talking with a reformed bootlegger boot-legger who is currently the Mister Big of a big whiskey company. "What do you hear from the mob?" I asked. "Anything that would till up three sheets of copy paper?" The former Man of Extinction thought a minute. "There's one story I don't remember seeing in print," he said. "It's about an old man named Ronowitz who ran a candy store on the East Side around the time Dutch Schultz was buying his first delivery trucks. . . ." One night as the storekeeper was about to lock up, a hoodlum stepped into the shop and pressed a gun against the old man's middle. mid-dle. "Hide me somewhere," he said. The old man knew better than to argue with a revolver. "Who's chasing you?" BiUy Rose he asked, as he opened the trap door which led to the cellar. "Some fellas from Jersey." When they got to the basement, Ronowitz pointed to a couple of old mattresses near the coal bin. "Lay down," he said, "and I'll make a sandwich." A minute later the storekeeper had rolled man and mattresses into a bundle and tied it up with a piece of old clothesline. AS HE STARTED back up to the store, a couple of men, guns in hand, came down the stairs. "What-cha "What-cha doln' in the cellar?" asked one. "Bankin' the furnace," said the old man. The gents from Jersey poked around in the trash barrels, examined ex-amined the coal bin and then came to the rolled-up mattresses. "I'll throw a bullet into them for luck," said one of them. "You been seein' too many movies," said the other. "Lefs try the roof." The mobsters went upstairs and Ronowitz heard the door bang. He banked the fire, and waited in his store until he saw the men climb Into a car and drive off. Then he went back down and untied the mattresses. "You done fine, Pop," said the fugitive, taking a wad of bills out of his pocket. 'Tell me when to stop countin'. " "Such money I don't take," said the old man. "Ya kin have anything ya want," said the gangster. "Make a wish. Better yet,, make three wishes like in them fairy stories." stor-ies." "Well," said the storekeeper, "I hear in a couple weeks some guy from the West Side is opening a candy store on the next block." "He ain't gonna open," said the hoodlum. "Keep talkin'." "The man who sells me my chocolate syrup, all of a sudden he wants a 15 per cent mark-up." "I'll discuss it with him. Chances are you'll get a reduction. One more wish to go this time make it good." "That's all I can think of," said Ronowitz, "excepting maybe you'd like to tell me how it felt when you was in the mattress." ... THE GANGSTER'S lips tightened. tight-ened. "You're makin' fun of me, Pop," he said, "and I don't like it. I wanted to pay ya off nice and proper, but since ya don't want it that way, maybe I better try some-thin' some-thin' else." Ten minutes later, as per phone instructions from the hoodlum, a black car drove up and RonowiU was pushed into the back seat. The car headed north and kept going until it parked near a wooden bridge somewhere in Westchester. The driver took some chalni from the luggage compartment, put a heavy piece of scrap iron on the old man's middle, and then lashed his legs to his chest so the metal was wedged in between. "Throw him over when I count three," said the hoodlum, "One "Two" The old man braced himself and wondered who would mind the store the next day. Suddenly the gangster grinned. He walked over and began to undo the chains. "Now you got your answer, Pop," he said. "That's how I felt when I was in the mattress." |