Lovers and Liars Read Free

only a bare income from his mother’s efforts as a seamstress. Abe, the eldest child, was a good thief. He had to be. He would steal fresh produce and meats from the vendors to bring home. His mother had never said a word, but she knew. And Abe knew she had silently prayed that he wouldn’t get caught.
    At thirteen, Abe got his first real job. The local bookie on the corner was a reed-thin giant named Eddie. Abe picked up the slips the bets were written on and delivered them to Nathan Hammerstein, farther uptown. Nathan lived in a pleasant apartment—a palace in Abe’s eyes—and he wore suits and polished brown shoes and sported a fine mustache. Now, in retrospect, Abe could laugh at the airs Nathan had put on. But back then he had looked up to Nathan, vowing one day to have a suit just as fine and an even better home.
    The job paid well, a few dollars a month, and it keptfood on the table for his sisters, his brother, and his mother. His father died of a second stroke in the winter of 1944.
    Abe was not yet eighteen. Because of his age he had missed the draft, which was fine with him—he’d wanted nothing to interfere with his plans. Like everybody who didn’t go to fight, Abe had found himself working in the factories of a newly mobilized economy. But with Abe there was a difference; he continued to pick up slips on the side. A man named Luke Bonzio offered him Nathan Hammerstein’s job, but Abe had politely declined. Bookmaking was not in his future plans.
    Nobody understood when Abe went to college. His two sisters were married at the ages of sixteen and fifteen, and his younger brother had taken over Abe’s old job of picking up slips. His mother had looked at him and said nothing, stitching by candlelight. He had chosen a public school, made only one friend, and took his studies very seriously. His friend was Will Hayward, a clean-cut handsome boy, a distant relation of one of the oldest families of New York, the Morgans. Hayward was nothing more than a party boy, already showing signs of alcoholism, but Abe knew that he could use Hayward and his society connections, that he would be important to him.
    The alcoholism and the gambling did not bother Abe. To the contrary. He filed that information away.
    Abe graduated from City College of New York June 3, 1948. He was almost twenty-two. Hayward had already gotten a job with a bank, thanks to a push from one of his distant relatives. Abe had no job, but he wasn’t without offers. He was approached by Luke Bonzio again.
    “You got brains and determination,” Bonzio had said. “We could always use somebody like you. You could go far with us.”
    Abe smiled. “I’m gonna go far, all right, but on my own.”
    Bonzio shook his head. He was angry. “Someday you’re gonna need us, and you’ll be sorry.”
    Abe made sure he didn’t smile until Bonzio had turned away.
    He waited two weeks before he went to the bank where Hayward worked. That was the first time he had ever laid eyes on Nancy Worth, a cousin of Will’s, just as she was leaving his office. She was not only beautiful but elegant, even at eighteen—an elegance that had been fostered through many generations. Abe decided then and there that he wanted Nancy Worth, and it didn’t matter that she was from the other side of town. “I need a loan,” he said to Will.
    Hayward looked incredulous. “With what as collateral?”
    “My mother’s shop,” Abe said.
    “How much?”
    “Three thousand dollars.”
    Hayward started laughing. “Abe, we’re good friends, but I can’t give you more than a hundred or so for that!”
    “Let’s go have lunch,” Abe said firmly.
    Turning on all his personal magnetism, which was considerable, Abe offered Hayward a partnership in return for the loan. Hayward capitulated, as Abe had expected. They made up a list of fraudulent assets, which they both signed, and Abe got his three-thousand-dollar loan. He promptly put the three thousand down on the corner candy