Dishonest Abe

The 1933 holiday season must have been a tough one for Waxey Gordon’s family. The month started off with Waxey being sentenced to ten years in prison and ended with the murder of his twenty-two year old nephew Abraham Volk.
Volk, whom police called “A small time racketeer and a cheap petty-larceny thief.” Was the son of Gordon’s sister in-law, whom Waxey put to work washing barrels in one of his New Jersey breweries. He had been arrested six times since 1926 for vagrancy and theft but always managed, possibly because of his Uncle’s pull, to receive a suspended sentence or have the charge reduced.
Since the fall of his Uncle’s empire he tried to cash in on his relations by organizing “social” clubs in the Bronx and shaking down businesses for protection money.
As the clock struck midnight ushering in Christmas Eve 1933 Volk entered a Bronx candy shop and spoke with the proprietor for a bit telling him he that he had an appointment to keep. Volk then left the store and moments later the proprietor saw him crouched over running back towards the store. Then he heard five shots ring out and saw Volk fall.
Waxey’s nephew was rushed to the hospital where, even though only a small timer, he kept true to the gangster code and died without telling the cops anything.