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Our Forefathers and Foremothers 67
Best known as a ward heeler and political fixer, he also dealt in alibis. His preferred method of exculpating cronies was to persuade a prostitute who was not otherwise engaged to dress in conservative clothing and pose as the suspect’s mother. The ruse generally worked, except when Salter enlisted an obviously Irish “mother” to plead for the release of her obviously Jewish or Italian “son.” Mike was stocky and rough spoken and bragged of having killed ten men, but he was gentle enough, except when he drank.
The Pelham Café was a misnomer; the place was actually a dance hall and bar designed to cater to the tourist trade slumming through Chinatown. Gang members occasionally dropped in at the café, but it was obvious that the clientele consisted primarily of tourists and locals rather than lords of vice. Not that the establishment was entirely innocent; the upstairs housed a brothel run by an “opium fiend” who went by the name of Chinatown Gertie.
THE FOX TROT
The atmosphere was lively. The patrons pitched coins; drank Salter’s cheap whiskey; sang along with Izzy and two other waiters; and danced to the tunes banged out on the piano. The music was in constant ferment: the fox trot is generally believed to have been created on the floor of Nigger Mike’s by Chuck Connors, a local tour guide.
“HOBNAILED” CASEY
There was often excitement at Nigger Mike’s. One incident involved a regular patron called Hobnailed Casey, who was known for conspicuously cleaning his nails at his table with a large and dangerous-looking knife. One evening Casey picked a fight with piano-playing Professor Nicholson, and so enraged Mike’s assistant, one Frisco Joe, that Joe suddenly retrieved a gun from the icebox where it was stored and shot Casey to death on the street.
There is no record of whether anyone was arrested. But then, this was Chinatown.
“Nigger” Mike at the wheel with some of New York’s finest from the local precinct.