Free The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob by T. J. English Page A

to remain neutral during the Coonan/Spillane Wars. He’d gambled with Spillane a lot and thought of him as a godfather. But he knew the Coonans, too. In fact, John Coonan, Jimmy’s and Jackie’s father, had been the best man at his wedding. So he wasn’t about to take sides.
    “He was in here this morning,” said Grote, “but I ain’t seen him since.”
    “You sure?”
    “Sure I’m sure.”
    “Hey, Dutch,” asked Jackie Coonan. “Whose side you on anyway?”
    “I’m on nobody’s side, Jackie; you know that. I walk right down the middle.”
    There was some mumbling among the three of them as they looked around the bar. Grote thought he heard Jackie say, “He’s a fuckin’ liar and we oughta get rid of him.” To which Jimmy said, “No, he’s neighborhood. He’s good people.” Then they left.
    A few days later, Jimmy, Jackie, and Eddie Sullivan met again with Bobby Huggard and Georgie Saflita uptown at Tony’s Bar. They were all in a surly mood, chain-smoking cigarettes and swigging beer. While they’d been looking for Spillane, there were all kinds of rumors surfacing about hired gunmen being flown in from Texas and Boston to blow them away. The Coonan/Spillane Wars had become like a runaway train. There wasn’t much time, they figured. They’d have to pull the Bronx stickup immediately.
    That night at around 12 A.M. they all piled into Eddie Sullivan’s girlfriend’s rented car. They drove to a small bar near Westchester Square in the Bronx, underneath the elevated railway. All five of them went into the bar. The take wasn’t much, but it was the easiest $800 any of them had made in a long time. They didn’t even have to fire a shot.
    From there, they drove through the night to Bennington, Vermont, where they had no trouble buying four handguns—two .38-caliber automatics, a .45, and a .25 Beretta. They slept the next morning at a hotel in Bennington, then headed to Georgie Saflita’s apartment in New Jersey.
    At Georgie’s place, the boys patted themselves on the back. So far, things were going swell. Eddie Sullivan said he knew of a numbers joint in Greenwich Village they should hit next, and everybody agreed that was a good idea. In the meantime, with Spillane’s alleged hitmen after them, they decided to split up and reconvene back at Georgie’s apartment in a few days. Georgie stayed put with his wife, Jimmy and Eddie Sullivan went to stay at a friend’s apartment in Manhattan, and Jackie and Bobby Huggard headed for Brooklyn. It was April Fools’ Day, 1966.
    In Brooklyn, Jackie and Bobby immediately went to a bar where Huggard used to hang out when he lived on Kent Avenue in Greenpoint. They planned to spend the night at Huggard’s ex-wife’s apartment, but first they would have a few drinks and relax. They were both carrying weapons from the buy in Vermont, Jackie a .45 and Huggard a .38.
    Huggard liked Jackie. He was about the same size as his younger brother Jimmy—five-nine and 175 pounds—and he liked to grease his sandy-blond hair straight back in a vintage 1950s ducktail. He seemed a lot more talkative and easygoing than his brother, who was about the most serious nineteen-year-old Huggard had ever met.
    Huggard and Jackie sat for a few hours, telling jokes and getting quietly stewed. Then Jackie said he had to go outside for a while and would be right back.
    It was now about 2:30 A.M. Huggard sat in the bar for at least an hour asking himself, “Where the fuck is Jackie?” Finally, the bartender told him he had to close up the joint. Huggard left the bar and walked a couple of blocks to Greenpoint Avenue. Two blocks to the north, at the intersection of Greenpoint and Manhattan avenues, Huggard saw two or three squad cars gathered around a corner saloon with their lights flashing. There were cops everywhere.
    Nervously, Huggard sidled up to the bar to find out what was going on. He peeked through a window.
    Inside the bar, spread-eagle on the floor, was Jackie Coonan.