Hard Times - The True Story - Part 9

When I was 20, my fiancé - a New Orleans police officer - became enamored with being an undercover narcotics agent - a coveted position which rookies dreamt about. In the Irish Channel, most of the young boys became either cops, priests, or longshoremen. My fiancé was ambitious - eager to escape the “piss and vinegar” squad. My dad and I sat at the kitchen table and I told him about my fiancé’s passion. Soon after our table talk, my fiancé was assigned to a plain-clothes stake out in the French Quarter - and merited his first drug bust. It wasn’t long before he was officially an undercover narcotics cop.

All I said to Daddy about this was, "Thank you".  “Keep it under your hat, little girl. I’m betting on this boy…hope he doesn’t let me - and my friends - down”. He didn’t. He became an affluent lawyer and… the District Attorney of New Orleans…

Daddy knew a thing or two about passion. He never forgot when he was a young man, and needed a break. Earl loved two things: horses and boxing. In his early 20’s, standing at about 5”4, and weighing in at 115, some “businessmen” took a chance on him as a jockey. It was a calculated risk - Earl had hung around the racetracks since he was a kid and had a reputation for “just knowing how a horse is thinking and feeling”. He had some success riding, but he couldn’t keep his weight consistent. He retired his silks and was promoted to training and racing horses around the country.

Earl was in Chicago on February 14, 1929, taking care of some horse business with his friends. They put him up in an apartment on Clarke Street while he was in the Windy City. Across the street was an auto garage housed in a warehouse. He decided to take a stroll to a familiar coffee house, and noticed a Cadillac pull up in front of the warehouse. He would have continued walking, but two police officers stepped out of the car, along with two men dressed in plain clothes. They were all carrying Tommy’s…Something was going down…Earlier, Earl had spied some thugs shadowing the halls in his apartment building…that wasn’t unusual. The game in Chicago between Capone and his rivals was escalating, and the teams were setting up their pieces for the chess match. But "Cadillac’s with Cops Carrying Tommy’s" - that cast an ominous chill in Earl’s bones…