Mitchell, a stocky lowbrow in his early twenties — with a career of petty crimes behind him — earned the sobriquet of “The Link” with the advent of prohibition, at which time his leap to notoriety was swift and lasting. He was, perhaps, the first of the bootleggers to successfully execute on a large scale the racket of toting booze from ship to shore. He operated several small boats which, in the murky hours between midnight and daybreak, chugged their way out into the ocean, got their cargo from waiting rum ships and brought it to shore for distribution. Thus, Mitchell became known as The Link because he was the go-between who brought about a connection between ships at sea and the thirsty ashore. As time went on, the nickname The Link was abbreviated to Linky.
In a short while, Mitchell became something of a whisky czar in certain circles. He supplied many of the more disreputable of the night clubs and cabarets and a long string of speakeasies with booze. One fine day another bootlegger made the sad mistake of encroaching on Linky’s territory, and the next night the bootlegger in question was found lying in an alley, literally perforated with forty-five caliber bullets. Linky boasted of the killing, displaying an empty but recently-fired forty-five caliber revolver.
When a few months wore on, the leader of a notorious gang decided to give Linky a little opposition in the booze racket and dispatched one of his henchmen to Mitchell to tell him so.
“You go on back,” retorted Mitchell, “and tell your boss that as soon as he starts takin’ the play off of me he’s a dead one. I love to bump people like that off, I do — and I ain’t kiddin’. Linky Mitchell never goes back on his word, he don’t.”
When the gang leader was apprised of Linky’s threat he laughed long and loudly. He had a whole army behind him, he reasoned, while Mitchell was known to be a lone wolf. So the gang leader promptly took an order for some booze in Linky’s self-designated domain, and within a week he was in his grave. Again Linky boasted of a killing as he strutted lordly through the underworld.
“ ’N let that be a warnin’,” added Linky to his awe-stricken listeners, “that nobody is goin’ to step on Linky Mitchell’s toes and get away with it — they ain’t.”
In a short while, Linky no longer enjoyed the thrill of encounters with those who trespassed on his territory — for the simple reason that other bootleggers were afraid to trespass. Linky had them all scared stiff. So, flushed with victory, he went out with the express purpose of digging up trouble, deciding to cut into the rackets of others. His first move in this daring campaign was a visit to a cabaret which was the hang-out of thieves, thugs and racketeers of all types. Linky approached the proprietor of the place and asked:
“Who are you buyn’ your booze off of?”
The proprietor supplied the name of his bootlegger, whereupon Linky retorted:
“Well, beginnin’ to-morrow you’re buyin’ it off of me, see?”
“No, I ain’t!” snapped the proprietor, who happened to be a tough egg.
“Listen, guy,” warned Mitchell, “I’ll be around to-morrow, and if you ain’t changed that weak mind o’ yours then I’ll bump you off. I’m Linky Mitchell, see?”
The proprietor laughed a slightly sickly laugh as the vicious-looking Linky strutted from the place, his cap pulled down over his eyes and a cigarette drooping from his tight lips. He told some of his thug-patrons of Mitchell’s threat. They advised him to pay no attention to Linky — which turned out to be bad advice.
“We’ll take care of dat bimbo if he starts gittin’ tough,” was the reassuring comment of one gangster.
So, when Mitchell called the next night, the proprietor told him he had decided to string along with his old bootlegger and that he (Linky) could go to hell if he didn’t like it. Twenty-four hours later, the man who had defied Linky was leaving his cabaret for his home when he ran into a fusillade of steel-jackets and dropped to the sidewalk, a corpse.
A couple of nights later, Linky went into another night club and sought out the proprietor.
“My name’s Linky Mitchell, see? Did you read about what happened to the guy what run the Blue Owl, did you?”
“Yes; why?”
“Nothin’,” answered Linky, “only I’m the fella what bumped him off. He wouldn’t buy his booze off of me. Who are you takin’ your stuff off of?”
“I’m gettin’ it from Marty the Wop.”
“Well, beginnin’ to-morrow you’re takin’ it off of me, see?”
“All right.”
So that sort of thing went on for many moons. Whenever Linky decided that he wanted to supply another night club or cabaret with booze, he simply made his wish known to the proprietor of the establishment in question, the latter gentleman being only too pleased to acquiesce to the bad man’s desire. And whenever any one was foolhardy enough to demur, he was promptly riddled with bullets and Linky would go home and reload his gun.
But the peculiar thing about Linky was that he did things in such a manner that the police were never able to pin anything on him; they didn’t have any evidence. They laid a score or more murders at his door, but their hands were tied. Linky’s reign of terror was so completely dominating that the toughest of the tough simply wouldn’t entertain the fantastic notion of turning informer against him. Such a thing was entirely too dangerous. And there the matter stood.
So Linky continued on his defiant, boastful way, fearing neither man nor God.
His sole precautionary measure was the donning of a bullet-proof vest which he wore even while sleeping. He had, by this time, many enemies, but he of tea remarked that those people were, to him, the spice of life. In fact, he didn’t know what he would do without them; they supplied his only thrills.
One of Linky’s favorite stunts was to walk into a joint where he was surrounded by gangsters who were just eating their hearts out for a chance to murder him. On such an occasion, Linky would take a seat in a corner and order the most sumptuous repast which the establishment had to offer. When he had eaten, he would call the waiter over, hand him a good-sized tip, and then remark:
“I’m Linky Mitchell. I guess they ain’t no bill for this food, is they?”
“Oh, no, sir; that’s quite all right, sir.”
Whereupon Linky would turn his back on his hawk-eyed enemies and brazenly depart. But did any of those gangsters have the nerve to fire at Mitchell? Guess again! They were thanking their stars that he had gone without firing at them!
Time passed and one night, in January of 1926, Linky swaggered into a smoky, disreputable speakeasy and pulled his usual line on the proprietor, asking him who he was buying his booze from, informing him that he would have to change bootleggers, and so on. The proprietor, exhibiting more than his share of nerve, told Linky that he was perfectly satisfied with his present bootlegger.
“I’ll be around at ten to-morrow night, I will,” said Linky, “ ‘n’ if you still talk back like that I’ll bump you off right in here!”
Shortly after Linky left, Jim Kerrigan walked into the speakeasy. It might be explained at this point that this particular place was a favorite haunt of the Wolf’s because it was frequented by many stool pigeons who, from time to time, turned over certain information to the agent which resulted in the seizure of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of narcotics.
In view of the fact that the place was a source of great aid to Uncle Sam, Kerrigan arranged things so that those in authority closed their eyes to its violations of the prohibition law. In other words, here was one speakeasy that was under the protective wing of the United States Government.