Billy Rose the famous American impressario, theatrical showman and lyricist, wrote an article about his encounter with Nick the Greek on the year 1927.
« It was summer evening and i was standing outside the restaurant where the bookies and bootleggers used to come for their daily ration of pinneaple cheesecake. Nick the Greek strolled up and said hello. I was writing songs at that time, and he fancied a ballad of mine then current. As usual, the gambler’s clothes matched his manners, and his manners were very good.
Our palaver was interrupted by a gent with a toothpick in his mouth. He drew Nick aside and whispered something to him : If you have nothing better to do, said the gambler when he came back.
We walked south on Broadway. I knew he was taking me to the famous floating dice game. To keep a jump ahead of the law, the gamblers would set up shop each night in a different location. Though this involved the hush-hush move of several tones of paraphernalia. It was not an important consideration when the house was cutting on a nightly play which run into seven figures.
As we picked our way through the after-theatre crowds, Nick began to tell me about some poems he was reading. And they weren’t the easy poems of Edgar Guest. He talked about Burns and Shelley, Housman and Swinburne. I had heard that Nick was a patron of the arts as well as of the freckled cubes. By the time we got to 34th street, I sensed he liked the culture stuff, and wasn’t just putting it on to impress the boys.
We passed through the doorway of an old loft building. Another gent with a toothoick in his face gave us the up – and – down. An assortmen of smells-printer’s ink, leather, old clothes dummies-washed over us as we climbed three flights. A third toothpick-in-the-face opened a heavy metal fire-door, and we walked into the biggest dice game in the world.
This was the crap game of O.K. Coakley-the bootlegger’s Bradley. In the center of a low-cellinged room big as a skating ring stood a single billiard table. Around it, eight deep, clustered the players. They made room for Nick as fishermen might for Izaak Walton. I pressed through the crowd, stood next to him, and looked around. The table looked like the counting room of the Mint. By the light of the tin lamp hanging from the ceiling, i recognised Arnold Rothstein, Big Frenchy, and a couple of legendary bootleggers i prefer not to name.
As usual Nick bet against the dice. You could hang a derby hat on my eyes when i saw the numbers on the bills which changed hands with each pass. A few rolls later, a well-known Comedian picked up the dice. Nick kept fading him, and covering all side bets. The comic made eleven passes in the row.
See you again, gentlemen, said Nick as he turned away from the table. He had lost 240.000dollars. On the way back to his hotel, i kept waiting for him to curse, snap his fingers, kick a garbage can, do anything. Instead, he told me about a painting he has seen up at the Metropolitan Museum- by Rembrandt :There’s some doupt about its authenticity, he said. It’s been ascribed to Nicholas Maes, but it’s a great picture all the same. Rose couldn’t wait anymore and asked him if the previous loss has affected him. Nick answered smiling :My philosophy doesn’t have this thoughts on first place.
Outside his hotel, he invited me up for a nightcap. I went in with him, waiting for the gesture which would indicate he was distressed at blowing a quarter of a million in a quarter of an hour.
Nick’s room was high-up and cool. On the night table next to his bed was a plate with a single orange on it. He poured me a drink. As i sipped it, i saw his brows pulled together in a frown.Here it comes, i said to myself. He started to light a cigarette, snapped of the flame and reached for the telephone. he said, and the softness was out of his voice. As he waited, his fingers drum-rolled on the tabletop.
McKelway?, said Nick. He listened for a second and hang up. Then the man who had lost enough to buy half the bananas in South America turned to me with a smile.
It’s all right, he said. They’re going to send one right up.
www.nickthegreekd.com/en