Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo was a secretive man when it came to business. He didn’t hand out trust easily and rightly so. He lived at least part of his life on the wrong side of the law. Talking was a dangerous endeavor. If privileged information fell on the wrong ears there was a price to pay. As Jimmy said, “we risked jail every day.” Jimmy ran with the likes of Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Benny Siegel. He came to prominence during the days of Prohibition. In the 1970s, a young man named Tommy Sobeck became a close friend to Jimmy. Tommy began to hear Jimmy’s stories, and the stories intrigued him. He went to the library and read about the times Jimmy had lived through then talked with Jimmy to learn the truth. Still, it took many years before Tommy gained the kind of trust Jimmy granted him to put their conversations on tape.
Sometime later, Tommy started looking for a writer to bring to life the many taped hours of his conversations with Jimmy. I was not the only writer he approached. By accident or by attrition, Tommy’s path crossed mine and I took a shot at the story. Tommy gave me 17 tapes to begin the process. I went to the library, sat in the basement going through microfiche (remember microfiche?), rummaged through indexes from the New York Times, hounded old bookstores. This was the ’90s, before the Internet became useful in the way we know it today. I worked for months digging into the past. From that, I wrote a screenplay and sent it to Tommy. I met Tommy in Florida. He started with page one. “Meyer wouldn’t have said that,” he said. Page two: “Jimmy wouldn’t have done that.” And so on for several more pages. I suggested we file the screenplay in the round file next to his desk and get down to what Meyer and Jimmy would have said and done. Tommy was impressed and, the next day, took me to meet Jimmy.
I had my questions ready, prepared but unsure how to speak to a guy like Jimmy. After all, a person doesn’t just walk up to the guy the FBI called “the oldest living Godfather” and ask for an interview. It just isn’t done. I was introduced to the spry 91-year-old and found him to be both affable and interesting. Over lunch, pen in hand and paper ready, I gently asked a few questions based on the material I had researched. Jimmy was polite, his answers simple. It was plain to see he wasn’t interested in being interviewed. I put the pen and paper away. Jimmy relaxed. He knew Tommy had talked to me about writing a story about his long-time partner, Meyer Lansky. I wasn’t sure how this meeting was going but once I put down the pen, I could see the tide had changed in my favor.
Later, over dinner, he told us stories about his life. They were entertaining, obviously honed for effect over the years. He told us of his life at fourteen when he worked as a Wall Street runner by day and went to business school at night. He was a good kid, by his standards, said his prayers every night. Still, he didn’t get promoted when others did. When he went to his boss he was told to go back to work and not ask questions. Jimmy was a tough kid. His boss’ words cut deep. That’s when he fell in with a different crowd. At seventeen, he found himself locked away in Dannemora, New York’s prison for hardened criminals. I couldn’t help but think of the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Later, in one of our conversations, Jimmy talked about his experience in the Siberia of New York. “I was always the same way, you know. Like the guards, we called them screws. They liked to get fresh with us. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘you’re a tough Guinea from Harlem, huh?’ I’d say ‘Well, F-you, you bastard.’ I’d get a week in the cooler. I was a good candidate for rehabilitation.”
***
I left Florida with another stack of Tommy’s tapes which I transcribed and then sorted into subject matter. I researched the events discussed. I had permission to call Jimmy, which I did. We began to talk, slowly at first and mostly about something in the news or the latest football game. I began to grasp the scope of the material I had been given. It was enormous. A screenplay couldn’t begin to tell this story.
I met Jimmy again in Las Vegas where he was visiting family. Again, we talked affably over lunch and he told the stories about Flo, his wife of 60 years. Flo’s father had left her and her sister stranded. Jimmy heard about it and fumed. He began taking Flo out. The romance bloomed. At a dance, Flo told Jimmy that she had heard of a guy named Jimmy Blue Eyes and hoped she never had to meet that guy. He scared her. She was a shrewd woman. I asked Jimmy how he got that nickname as his eyes were definitely not blue. He laughed. “I guess from the shiners from all the fights I was in.” Now I laughed, “Oh, you mean Jimmy Black and Blue Eyes?”
I went home and read more. Jimmy and I talked more. We talked about important things now, about Meyer, Charlie, Joe Adonis, Ben Siegel, the Dons that ruled New York. I constructed a chronological record of the events. Dug deeper. I learned what I could talk about with Jimmy and what things I couldn’t. Jimmy had great respect for Meyer Lansky and Charlie Luciano. “They put a lid on the street violence,” he said. “They did this country a favor. The Americanized guys understood. They could earn.”
The more we talked, the more I realized this was not only one book, it was many. I told Tommy. He said he was never interested in a screenplay. You should understand that I not only talked with Jimmy but often talked with Tommy. He helped me sort through my material and thoughts so I wouldn’t wear Jimmy out. Tom had the patience of a saint. Plus, Jimmy’s hearing was beginning to fail. It was hard to have deep discussions, so I wrote a letter—about fifteen pages, I think – with my ideas about the story of Meyer Lansky. I must have said something right because the next time I called, Jimmy talked to me for a full hour about his life. At the end, he said, “I just wanted you to know what it takes to make a criminal.” That was big. It was something I had wanted to know from the beginning and now I had it from the horse’s mouth and I didn’t even have to prod for the answer. I was humbled.
The last time I saw Jimmy, photos from his life were strewn across his dining room table. I looked with wonder. There was a picture of Jimmy as a kid, one of those formal shots, the kid in knickers and long stockings, pressed shirt. There he was, the still innocent Wall Street runner proudly staring into the camera. A little further down the table was another picture, a cocky guy, his hands in his pockets giving the camera the eye. I asked Jimmy if that was before or after jail. It was after. I asked him if he was angry when he came out of jail. Suddenly, there he was, Jimmy Blue Eyes, the man outraged by the system that had hardened him. Jimmy Blue Eyes, the powerful friend to those he respected and formidable opponent to those he didn’t. I will never forget that moment, all the rage still present after so many years. Again, I was humbled.
As I left, I looked Jimmy in the eye, gave him a friendly poke with my finger and said, “Jimmy Alo, I’m going to write your story one day, too.” He smiled, “I know you are, honey. Just wait until I’m gone.” Jimmy died two months short of his 97th birthday. When I sat down to write about the things he told me, I wanted to capture the energy of his life, of his rage, of his world. I think he would have enjoyed the book and probably would have gotten a good chuckle out of it, too.
