“Nicky the Nip”

Now came the moment of truth, the real test of Nicky’s skill and nerve.  Perspiration collected under his arms and ran down his chest and back.  He walked into a cigar store and picked out a one-dollar cigar.  He placed it on the counter in front of the store clerk and handed him a five-dollar bill.  Nicky tensed, ready to run for it at the first sign of trouble.  The clerk took the bill, slipped it into the register and handed Nicky back four one-dollar bills and the cigar.

As he walked away from the cigar store, his thoughts turned to his parents.  Nicky had fulfilled their dream by graduating from high school in 1917.  They were so very proud of their son at that moment, but they would be every bit as ashamed of him now.  He could hardly believe the predicament he found himself in.  Five years ago, his future seemed indelibly bright.

After graduation, Nicky set out to find work, but the bias against Italians, even ones that were born and educated in America, was strong.   Nicky had no desire to “wear the thimble” as his father Antonio referred to his work in the garment business.  Instead he took a job at Chicago Edison, which everyone in the neighborhood called The Electric Company.  

Electricity was opening up a better future for the world and being part of bringing it to homes in Chicago was an exciting prospect to Nicky.  He soon learned, though, that while the pay was decent, the work was dirty and tedious.  After two years, he had to find another job.  Good fortune came his way; walking down the street one evening, he saw a “Help Wanted” sign in the window of a print shop.  Nicky went in and spoke to the owner, a Mr. Charles Darrow, who hired him on the spot and asked to start the next day.  He would be an apprentice at slightly less than he was making at The Electric Company, but with the promise of more when he moved to journeyman.

Nicky loved the print shop work and over the next three years, he learned the intricacies of the trade.  He split his nights and weekends between family and the company of Elizabeth Magie, a Scottish girl he met at the Catholic church they attended on Vermont Avenue.  Lizzie and Nicky dated for two years before he popped the question.  They married in 1922, the same year Nicky graduated to journeyman status at the print shop with an increase in pay to $200 a month.  Nicky and Lizzie moved into an apartment on Baltic Avenue and settled into married life.  Their evenings were spent with friends and family, often playing board games which Lizzie loved and was quite good at.

If only that had been enough for Nicky.  He longed to get his Lizzie out of “Little Hell”, the Italian section of Chicago named as much for the rampant crime as the bellowing gas furnaces in the area.  He wanted to give Lizzie the American dream – a home on a quaint street, children, and a dog – but he wasn’t able to afford those things today. Lizzie never complained.  She grew up in a beautiful home and her parents had bought her the best toys, clothes and life a child could want.  Lizzie loved Nicky, though, and she was happy in their life together.

As happy as he was, Nicky was still in a hurry to get where he wanted them to be.  Walking home from work one evening, he ran into an old high school friend, Ernesto, in front of the short line rail station on Indiana Avenue.  Ernesto was one of Nicky’s best friends in the neighborhood growing up.  They hadn’t seen much of each other since high school because Ernesto moved to St. Louis with his family right after graduation.  They had escaped Little Hell.

Ernesto extended his hand and said, “Nicky, how’ve you been?  You’re looking good.”

“I’m doing alright.  Looks like you are, too,” Nicky said, shaking Ernesto’s hand and admiring his clothes. He wore a dark gray pinstriped three-piece suit, a white tab collared shirt and light gray tie, with a white handkerchief in the breast pocket and a dark gray top hat on his head.  Nicky guessed the clothes cost as much as he made in a month.

“Thanks, pretty snazzy, huh?  And they say crime doesn’t pay,” he said with a wink.

“What do you mean?”

Ernesto took a step towards Nicky.  “You know, the Outfit.  I hooked on with them about six months ago.  They got me doing stuff,” he said with another wink.

“What about St. Louis?  I heard you were working for the railroad there.”

“I blew that town once I heard about the opportunity here.  The railroad’s a dirty job, Nicky.  And you know, Prohibition’s been pretty good for the Outfit.”

“What kind of stuff are you doing for them?”

“You know, stuff.  Nothing bad, collecting money and driving big shots around.  Couple more years though, and I should start making some real dough.  But I’m doing ok now, too,” he said as he pulled up the sleeve of his suit coat to show Nicky an expensive watch and gold bracelet.  “What about you?”

The reply caught in his throat for a moment and then came tumbling out one word at a time.  “I’m working at the print shop over there.  I made journeyman last year.”

“Nicky, Nicky, Nicky.  You married?”

Nicky nodded and Ernesto said, “Look, I bet I can get you a place with the Outfit.  They’re always hiring and the money’s good.  You’d make $500 a month at least and there’s a lot more after that.”

“Whew.  $500 a month?  Really?”

“Think about all the nice things you can get the little lady with that kind of money.”

That was exactly what Nicky was thinking about.  “Do you really think you could get me in?”

“Sure I do.  You want me to ask the boss?”

Nicky was tempted to say yes on the spot.  “Let me think about it.  How about we meet here tomorrow and I’ll let you know.”

“Sure bud, let’s do that.  I’ll see you here tomorrow.”

Nicky doubled-timed it home.  He gave Lizzie an extra-passionate kiss hello and followed her around the apartment as she was tidying up.  She finally gave in and asked why he was acting that way and he replayed his conversation with Ernesto.  “Wouldn’t it be great, baby?  We could move out of here and get a bigger place over on Atlantic or maybe Pacific, get you some fancy jewelry and— “

Lizzie shook her head as she spoke.  “Nicky, no, no.  I can’t believe you’re considering this.  These people are criminals.  They hurt people, kill people.  Why would you want to be part of that?”

“Baby, it’s not like that.  Ernesto said he just collects money from people.”

“And if they don’t pay, then what, Nicky?  Break an arm, break a leg?  Are you seriously going to do that?”

Lost in the excitement of the money, Nicky glossed over the fact that the Chicago Outfit was involved in drugs, gambling, prostitution, extortion and murder.  Every parent in Little Hell feared for the lives of their children because of the Outfit. Nicky imagined what his parents would say if they found out that he, Antonio Petto’s son, had joined the Outfit.

Lizzie was right.  Nicky turned down the offer from Ernesto the next evening.   He sulked around the print shop for the next week. How was he ever going to get ahead?  Was he destined to a life like his parents, a life of only necessities?  Lizzie deserved so much more, but the path to prosperity was invisible to him.

Nicky walked around the shop, from the print board over to one of the printing presses.  Mr. Darrow had gone home for the day, which wasn’t unusual as he was getting up in age and trusted Nicky with the shop.  He reached into his wallet and pulled out all his money.  Three five-dollar bills, which he laid on a table. 

“If only you could make babies,” he said, looking at the three bills.

Then it hit him!  He was a skilled printer with a press at his disposal.  All he needed to do was build a plate and get some rag paper and he could become the father of a whole bunch of new, five-dollar bills.

It was counterfeiting.  Unlike the Outfit job, though, he wasn’t going to be hurting anyone or breaking any important laws.  He would only do it until he had enough to get Lizzie a house on Pacific.  This was his chance for a better life for Lizzie and himself.

The plate had to come first, because without a bill that looked real, the feel of the paper wouldn’t matter.  Nicky worked late at the print shop, after Mr, Darrow had left for the day, perfecting his design.  After about two months work, Nicky had a convincing plate, but was it good enough to fool someone?  There was only one way to find out.

On a Saturday morning, after telling Lizzie he was going to a ballgame with friends, Nicky walked across town to Limited Papers.   He bought a small roll of rag paper, explaining to the clerk that he was buying it to print life insurance policies on.  With the rag paper in hand, Nicky walked quickly to the print shop and set up the press with his plate and rag paper.  The actual printing only took a moment, but the ink had to be completely dry and that took two hours.Stepping outside with his brand new five-dollar bill, he held it up in the sunlight and looked closely.

Yes, it looked good.  He passed it at the cigar store and, not being a smoker, tossed the cigar into a garbage can as he passed. He beelined straight for the print shop, opened and closed the door and deeply exhaled and inhaled, his first breath in minutes.  He was successful.  He could it.

Nicky went back to the apartment and that night Lizzie had a surprise.  A neighbor’s Scottie had given birth to a litter of puppies, and since they had talked about getting a dog, Lizzy took one.  “His name is Chance.  You better love him because I do.”  After feeding and walking Chance, Nicky’s parents stopped by to meet Chance and stayed to play three spirited games of Pit, each of which Lizzie won, of course.

The next Monday, Nicky stayed late and printed $500 worth of his new five-dollar bills.  Armed with a substantial amount of counterfeit money, Nicky didn’t know what to do next.  His nerves twisted just buying a one-dollar cigar.  What it would be like buying something expensive and handing over a bunch of fives in payment?  Would that raise suspicion and would he get caught?  He had money now, counterfeit as it was, but didn’t know how to spend it.  For most of his life, he had known how he would spend money if he ever got it.  The irony left him shaking his head as he walked down Indiana Avenue carrying a case with his fortune.

Ernesto came from the opposite direction and extended his hand to Nicky.  “Change your mind yet, Nicky?  I’m telling you, the money’s there waiting for you.”

“No, I can’t.  Lizzie would kill me.”

“So what are you gonna do?  Keep living on Baltic till you kick the bucket?  C’mon, let me talk to her, I’ll get her to play ball.  She probably thinks all the Outfit does is what’s in the papers.  We got all kinds of businesses, stuff that doesn’t get your hands dirty, if you know what I mean.  You’re a printer, I bet there’s something you could print for us,” Ernesto said with a nod and a wink.

Nicky hung his head while Ernesto spoke, but his last comment caused him to look up into his eyes.

“Ernesto, you’re my friend, right?”

“Why are you asking me that?  I was your friend when you were a little runt, remember?  Who stood up for you when Tony Marino was pushing you around?  Who’s been a better friend of yours than Ernesto?”

“Ok, if I show you something, you’ll keep it between me and you, right?”

Ernesto pretended to stick a key in his mouth, turn it and throw it over his shoulder.

Nicky unzipped his case, reached in and pulled out a five-dollar bill, and handed it to Ernesto.

“What’s this, a bribe?  Look bud, you don’t have to pay me off, but if you are gonna do it, it’s gonna take more than a fiver.”

“No, look at it,” Nicky said while he shot a quick glance all around.

Ernesto watched Nicky’s eyes scan the area then looked at the bill in his hands.  He gradually drew it closer and closer to his face, and after a moment, he smiled and looked up at Nicky.  “It’s a fake.  Where’d you get this?”

“Shh. I made it.  I made a bunch of them.”

Ernesto laughed, much too loudly as far as Nicky was concerned.  “Nicky, this is good work.  So this is your plan to make it big?  Tell me, how do plan to pass enough fivers to do that?”

“That’s the problem, I don’t know.  Passing one at the cigar shop almost gave me a heart attack.”

Ernesto looked at Nicky, then at the bill, and back at Nicky.  “Maybe I can help you out.  The Outfit has a big business in counterfeiting, and we use a ‘cleaner’ who gives us real bills for the fake ones.  Maybe I take yours to him and see what he can do.  You interested?”

Nicky held his breath for a moment and then exhaled.  “I don’t know.”  Doing what Ernesto offered didn’t mean he was working for the Outfit, but getting involved with these people…what would Lizzie say?

“Look Nicky, I’ll handle everything, no one will even know you exist and you’ll come out of it with real money.  It’s a no-lose scenario.  What do you say?”

Swallowing hard, he handed Ernesto the case.  “There’s five hundred dollars in there.”

“Great.  I’ll go see him, but let’s meet somewhere more discreet tomorrow.  How about for dinner at Monteverde’s over on St. James at 7:00?”

“OK, 7:00.  Thanks Ernesto.”

He had forgotten that Lizzie and he were supposed to play board games at a friend’s place that next night.  When she mentioned it, he told her he had to work late at the print shop on a big order and couldn’t make it.  Lizzie asked, “Is everything OK, Nicky?  You seem a little on edge.”  Nicky assured her it was the pressure at work and kissed her as proof.

“Sorry you’ll miss game night, baby.  We’re not going to play Blue and Gray.  I, Lizzie Petto, have come up with a new game that I call “The Landlord’s Game” and we are going to give it a try.  I made a game board and pieces and came up with rules.  I think it’s going to be a big hit!  Are you sure you can’t get out of work?”  She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him.

“You know I’d rather be with you, baby.  I love you, that’s why I always let you win games.”

Lizzie raised her arms and pushed him gently away from her.  “Let me win?  Nicholas Petto, I can beat you at any game, any time, and you know it.”

Nicky reached out, took her hands and put them back around his waist.  “I know.  You are the queen of board games, baby.”

The next night, Nicky met Ernesto as planned and got the good news – the cleaner bought the bills and wanted more.  He said they were as good or better than the ones he got from the Outfit.  Ernesto passed $250 to Nicky in real bills.

“$250?  I gave you $500!”

“Nicky, you gotta understand there’s risk to the man in doing this so he has to make money.  He pays us more for our bills but we’re a high volume operation, if you know what I mean,” Ernesto said with a wink.  “Don’t worry, I set you up good with him, told him he’ll be seeing more from Nicky the Nip.”

He almost expired on the spot.  “You told him about me?  How could you do that?  You said you’d take care of everything and keep me out of it.  Now he knows about me!”

“Relax.  He wanted to know where the bills came from.  He trusts me, but he’s careful, you know.  I told him there was a new player in town, a small operation run by a guy named Nicky the Nip.  Pretty clever, huh?  I had to come up with a name.  Something with class like Ice Pick Willie or Harry the Hook, and I know you got that thing on your chest, so voila!  Anyway, he doesn’t know anything else about you, so don’t worry.”

Ernesto was one of the only people who knew Nicky had a deformity at birth, a third nipple on his chest.  It was a source of great embarrassment for Nicky throughout his school life.  He had missed out on swimming with the neighborhood boys because of it.  His parents had lied and claimed he was asthmatic to get him excused from gym class.

The family doctor had told his parents there was a surgery that could remove the third nipple, but it was far beyond the means of his family.  He would have to someday earn the money for the surgery himself.  Nicky’s extra nipple never bothered Lizzie.  Nicky, with his jet-black hair, olive skin and sweet smile, was the handsomest man in the world.

Nicky stood up and said in too loud a voice said, “Don’t worry, are you kidding me?  Not only am I counterfeiting, but now some guy knows I exist and what I’m doing.  How do I know he doesn’t talk, and then the money gets traced back to me?”

Ernesto leaned forward and put out both hands, palms down toward the table.  “Sit down, Nicky.  Calm down. That’s not gonna happen.  He only knows you as the Nip, and no one else knows about you other than Ernesto.  You keep making money, and I’ll handle the transactions with him.  You’re safe and sound and you get rich, OK?  And maybe Ernesto gets a cut, too.  I’m taking risk myself, you know.  Don’t forget that.”

Nicky sat back down, and he and Ernesto ordered dinner and made plans to meet again at Monteverde’s so Nicky could pass more bills.  Nicky managed to make two hundred new five-dollar bills, an even $1,000 to be cleaned.  He spent every walk home that week thinking.  Thinking about the wonderful things he would buy Lizzie with the money, mostly to quiet his conscious which screamed at him.The night to meet came.  Nicky brought a case with the money in it to Monteverde’s and sat at a table in the back waiting for Ernesto.  

At 7:15, there was no sign of Ernesto.  Then 7:30 came and went and still no sign.  After an hour, Nicky got up and left, stopped back at the print shop and called Ernesto.  When he didn’t answer, Nicky hid the case and went home to Lizzie.

He stopped by Ernesto’s place on the way to work the next morning and knocked on his door.  No one answered.  He tried calling several times during the day.  On the way home from work that night, he stopped by again and knocked on his apartment door.  A neighbor of Ernesto’s was walking by and told Nicky the news – Ernesto was dead.  He was found two days ago, floating face down in a retention pond at the water works in McKinley Park.

Nicky left the apartment building and ran to the print shop.  Ernesto was dead.  Why?  How?  He sat on a stool in the darkness, the only light in the shop coming from the streetlamp through the picture window in the front of the store.  Had Ernesto been killed?  Was it related to the money he had cleaned for Nicky?  The timing of his death was too big a coincidence for that not to be the reason.  Was he next?  Ernesto said he told no one of Nicky’s identity, but how could he be sure?

He sat slone in the darkness, shivering in the heat.  He never should have done this.  Now Lizzie and his parents and everyone would be ashamed of him, a common criminal.  He decided.   He had to ditch the counterfeit money and find out more about Ernesto’s demise.  He shredded the bills and put them with other scrap paper in a bag out back with the trash.  He left the shop and walked home.  Luckily, Lizzie was asleep when he got there, and he quietly undressed and got into bed.  Lying there, Nicky stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep, thinking about Ernesto.

The next morning came early for Nicky.  He was up and out of the apartment before Lizzie woke, and headed back to Ernesto’s apartment.  When he arrived, he knocked on the door of the neighbor that had given him the news about Ernesto to ask if he heard anything new.  He hadn’t.  Nicky also knocked on the door of the apartment on the other side of Ernesto’s place, but that neighbor knew nothing.  He walked back and paused at Ernesto’s door.  While leaning his head against the wall, someone tapped his shoulder.

“Are you looking for Ernesto Palmero?” the man asked.

“Yes, I am.  I mean, I know he’s dead, I’m trying to find out what happened.  Do you know anything?” Nicky said in a staccato delivery, drawing too close to the man in his nervousness.

“Who are you and why do you want to know?” the man asked.  Nicky stepped back and quickly looked the man up and down.  Suit, tie, close cropped hair – nothing out of the ordinary until the man pulled his badge, a badge that identified him as an agent for the FBI.

Nicky said nothing for a moment, then blurted out, “I’m a friend of Ernesto’s.  I’m trying to find out where he is.”

“I thought you said you knew he was dead?”

“I do.  I mean I heard that.  But why is he dead?”

The agent took his turn giving Nicky a once-over now and then asked for his name and address.  As he wrote down the information, he said, “Nicholas, you’re going to have to come downtown with me and answer some questions.”

“But why?  I haven’t done anything.”

He stared directly into Nicky’s eyes.  “Did Ernesto ever mention the name ‘Nicky the Nip’ to you?”

Nicky’s heart skipped two beats and he froze.  He regrouped and denied ever hearing the name, but it was too late at that point. They went to the FBI office where he was questioned.  

The FBI told him Ernesto was traced to a known counterfeit money dealer in Little Italy.  He also happened to be an FBI informant, and offered up the name ‘Nicky the Nip’ as a known associate of Ernesto’s.  Ernesto had sold the dealer $500 in phony bills that he got from ‘The Nip’ and had promised more.  The FBI put out an all-points bulletin on The Nip as someone who might know something about Ernesto’s murder.

The agent opened a folder on the table that sat between them and pulled something out.  He handed it to Nicky and asked, “Does this look familiar?”

It was one of Nicky’s fakes.  He looked at it, turned it over and over again, not examining it but instead using the time to think of how to answer.  “It’s a five-dollar bill.”

“Yeah, it’s a fiver, I know that.  But it’s a fake, and you know that too, don’t you, Nicky?”

Nicky!  He hadn’t told the agent he went by Nicky, figuring that calling himself ‘Nicholas’ was more likely to throw him off the trail.  It didn’t matter; he must have figured out that ‘Nicholas’ was really ‘Nicky the Nip’, counterfeiter.

The questioning continued for thirty minutes.  Nicky left with a warning that they would be back in touch.

Nicky took a trolley home, sweating and shaking profusely.  When he got to the apartment, he found Lizzie and collapsed into her arms.  He confessed everything.  The counterfeit money, the cleaner, Ernesto’s death, his ‘Nicky the Nip’ alias, everything.  Lizzie held him tight until they both had calmed down.

“What do we do?  The FBI might figure out how to prove I’m ‘The Nip’ and then I’m sunk.  What do we do?”

Lizzie looked at Nicky and rubbed his hand in both of hers.  She let it go and walked away, turned on a dime and came back toward him.

“Here’s what we’ll do.  You go to the police and tell them you had been printing money at the print shop—“

“And go to jail for counterfeiting?  Or murder?  Or both? Are you crazy?”

“No, no, you go to the police and tell them you were printing money for me.  For my new game, The Landlord’s Game, the one I told you about.  You tell them you printed up five-dollar bills and were bringing them home in your case.  You stopped for dinner and forgot the case when you left, and when you came back the next day to get it, it was gone!  They’ll think someone took the case and gave the money to Ernesto to sell, someone who used the name ‘Nicky the Nip’.”

Nicky stood shaking his head.  “It’ll never work.  They know about me and Ernesto, and when they learn I was printing money illegally… best case they charge me with counterfeiting, and I go to jail.  Worst case, they somehow pin Ernesto’s murder on me and I get the death penalty.”

Lizzie and Nicky went back and forth with ideas, but neither of them could come up with a better plan.  Nicky would go to the FBI, though, instead of the cops.  He figured he could tell them he was so nervous the first time they talked, he was afraid to admit he recognized the phony five-dollar bill and didn’t mention the money had been stolen from him at a restaurant.  After all, he had been nervous, and they had to have seen that.

The next morning, Nicky and Lizzie went to the FBI office and Nicky told the story they had come up with.  The FBI agents didn’t buy it.  They let Nicky leave, but told him he had to stay in town, that he couldn’t leave the city.  The next day, they showed up at his apartment with a search warrant and tore the place apart.  Later that day, they came with a search warrant to Mr. Darrow’s print shop and searched it. Nicky had relayed his version of the truth to Mr. Darrow before the FBI showed up and apologized for his mistake.  Mr. Darrow took it well until the FBI arrived.  Once they left, he told Nicky he was sorry, but he had no choice but to fire him.

Eventually, the FBI came to Nicky’s apartment and arrested him on counterfeiting charges.  Since no one could directly tie him to the sale of the phony bills to the cleaner, and since his story about losing the case couldn’t be disproved, he was convicted on a lesser charge.  Counterfeiting without the intent to distribute meant six months in prison for Nicky.

Lizzie stuck by Nicky and visited him at least twice a week in jail.  Besides keeping him up to date on the neighborhood, she also told him of the success she was having with her new game.  She had gone to Mr. Darrow and asked him to print up game boards and cards and very fake money to use in the game, and out of guilt, he agreed.  She also found a local craftsman to fashion the game pieces she needed.   She put the whole thing together in a box and sold each one for three dollars apiece.  By the time Nicky got out of jail, she had already sold over three hundred games.

After four days of glorious freedom, Nicky started a search for a job.  “Sorry, we don’t hire men with a criminal record” was a familiar answer to his application,  He kept searching, but he was growing pessimistic after three weeks and a dozen turndowns. 

Lizzie found Nicky sitting on the couch in their apartment one afternoon going through the Help Wanted ads in the Tribune.  “Hi baby.”

Nicky didn’t look up from the paper.  “Hi.”

Lizzie put down her things, sat next to him and put her arm around him.  “Nicky, listen baby.  I was thinking.  I really need help with my game.  I was thinking maybe you and I could work together on it.  Wouldn’t that be great?”

“I don’t know anything about board games and I’m not a salesman.  You’re doing great already anyway.  And I need a job – we need the money.”

“It’s just too much for one person.  I have to pick up all the parts, put them together, sell them…  I can’t keep up.  I need your help, Nicky.”

Nicky looked away from the paper to Lizzie’s face.  He couldn’t say no to her about anything.

“Alright, I can help putting them together at night and I’ll keep looking for work during the day.”

Lizzie leaned back, pulled him to her and kissed him.  “We’re going to do great!”.

In that first month, they sold over two hundred copies of The Landlord’s Game and Nicky gave up his search for a job.  Besides handling production, Nicky came up with the idea of using the names of real places and things from their lives in the game to give it a more realistic touch.  Lizzie loved the idea.  After three years, they had expanded to Milwaukee, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Indianapolis.

In 1934 they were approached by a huge toy company, Parker Brothers, with an offer to buy The Landlord’s Game.  After ten years of hard work, and with two kids at home, Lizzie and Nicky couldn’t refuse.  Parker Brothers took The Landlord’s Game and started selling it nationwide, although they changed the name.  The new name they chose for the game was Monopoly.

Nicky and Lizzie finally bought their dream home on Park Place.  While Nicky had long ago earned enough money to have his long-delayed surgery to remove his third nipple, he decided against it.  Instead, he kept it as a reminder of his days as Nicky the Nip and how close he had come to losing everything truly important in his life. 

Author’s note – this is a fictional story, although I did use the names of Lizzie Magie and Charles Darrow who were both instrumental in developing the game of Monopoly. If you read back through the story, you will see I wove in many of the names of properties used in the game (The Electric Company, Water Works, Short Line Railroad, Jail, Baltic Avenue, Indiana Avenue, etc.)