Dishonest Abe

It must have been a tough holiday season for Waxey Gordon’s family back in 1933. 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, whom police called “A small time racketeer and a cheap petty-larceny thief.”

Waxey put Abe 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, probably 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 left and moments later the proprietor saw him crouched over running back towards the store. Five shots rang out and Volk dropped.
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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.