On this day, every year, I think back on Eli, Income Tax Day.
Eli was my boxman many years ago. I had seen him around town many times, and had a few drinks and some lunches with him. I pumped him for stories, of the old days. He had never done anything but work in the "rackets" around New York, he knew or had worked or "done favors" for many familiar names, all of the well known "hoods" that we have all heard about.
He had dealt at some of the old "wheel houses" in Florida, and many of the old "speakeasy's" in Detroit and Chicago. He was full of great, interesting,, first hand stories. He had met, and learned some, from Scarne, we think, not confirmed, that he worked some for the Rothchild's on a few occasions. He had lived the life that we only saw in the movies, when Eli spoke, I listened.
One slow morning, on the crap table, we were chatting, not sure who the other dealers were, Maybe Jerry Havens, Joe Francis and myself, and on the box, Eli.
We were talking about Income Tax, it was that time of the year. We kept our own "tokes" in those days, and the IRS did not like that. Occasionally they would audit one of us, and a hurried list of tokes would be made to take to the IRS office. They would dispute it, come up with some "bloated" amount, and you were stuck with it, it was always a sore spot with dealers, actually .. clerks ... the IRS had no classification for us in those days. Later on, they made the clubs pool their tokes and the club keep a record, and you payed on that amount.
We asked Eli about Income Tax, "Oh, I never pay Income Tax."
"What?"
"No, I never have. All the places I worked before just paid me off the top, and when I came to Reno, well, I guess the IRS had no record of me, so I've never heard from them."
Open mouthed blank stares from us all, nothing more to be said, but I think of him every April.
