The curious, though, kept their questions to themselves. Jesse never heard the rumblings. He was too busy to worry about the neighbors. He had no plans to leave the Coast and tried to meet every lawyer in town. He hung around the courtrooms and became friendly with the judges and their court reporters.
After four years of slogging through night school and losing countless hours of sleep, Jesse Rudy graduated from Loyola with honors, passed the Mississippi bar exam, and took an associate’s position with a three-man firm on Howard Avenue in downtown Biloxi. His starting salary was on the same level with that of a high school history teacher, but there was the allure of the bonus. At the end of each year, the firm tallied up its income and rewarded each lawyer with a bonus based on hours worked and new business generated. Lean and hungry, Jesse immediately began his career by clocking in each morning at 5:00.
While the law degree at first meant little in the way of real money, it meant something more to the mortgage banker. He knew the law firm well and thought highly of its partners. He approved Jesse’s application for a loan, and the family moved into a three-bedroom home in the western part of Biloxi.
As the first local lawyer of Croatian descent, Jesse was immediately flooded with the everyday legal problems of his people. He couldn’t say no, and so he spent hours preparing inexpensive wills, deeds, and simple contracts. He was never bored by this, and he welcomed his clients into his handsome office as if they were millionaires. Jesse Rudy’s success became the source of many proud stories on the Point.
For his first big case, a partner asked him to research several issues involved in a business deal that had gone sour. The owner of the Truck Stop had verbally agreed to sell his business to a syndicate fronted by a local operator named Snead. There was also a written contract for the land, and another contract for a lease or two. The parties had been negotiating for a year, without the benefit of legal counsel, and, not surprisingly, there was confusion and tension. Everyone was angry and ready to sue. The owner of the Truck Stop had even been threatened with a good beating.
The owners of the syndicate preferred to hide behind Snead and remain anonymous, but as the layers were peeled away, it became known, at least among the lawyers, that the principal investor was none other than Lance Malco.
Chapter 5
The price war began in a brothel. A small-time gangster named Cleveland bought an old club on the Strip called Foxy’s. He tacked on a cheap wing for gambling and a slightly nicer one for his whores. While there was no set price for half an hour of pleasure with a girl, the generally accepted rate, and one tacitly agreed upon by the owners, was twenty dollars. At Foxy’s the rate was cut in half and the news spread like wildfire through Keesler. And since the soldiers were thirsty before and after, the price of a cheap draft beer was also discounted. The place was slammed and there was not enough parking.
To survive, some of the other low-end clubs cut their rates too. Then the owners began poaching girls. The economics of Biloxi vice, always a fragile equilibrium, were upended. In an attempt to restore order, some tough guys stopped by Foxy’s late one night, slapped around a bartender, beat up two bouncers, and passed along the warning that selling sex and booze for less than the “standard rate” was unacceptable. The beatings proved contagious and a wave of violence swept through the Strip. An ambush behind one joint led to retaliation at another. The owners complained to the police, who listened but were not too worried. There had yet to be a killing and, well, boys will be boys. What’s the real danger in a few fights? Let the crooks take care of their own markets.
In the midst of the turmoil, which raged on for over a year, a star rookie entered the picture. His name was Nevin Noll, a twenty-year-old recruit who’d joined the air force to escape trouble back home in eastern Kentucky. He came from a colorful family of moonshiners and outlaws and had been raised to hold a dim view of the law. Not a single male relative had tried honest work in decades. Young Nevin, though, dreamed of leaving and pursuing a more glorious life as a famous gangster. He left sooner than expected and in a hurry.
In his wake were at least two pregnant girls, with angry fathers, and an assault warrant that stemmed from a vicious beating he’d given an off-duty deputy. Fighting was second nature; he’d rather throw punches than drink cold beer. He stood six feet two inches, was thick through the chest and as strong as an ox, and his fists were freakishly quick and efficient. In six weeks of basic training at Keesler, he had already broken two jaws, knocked out numerous teeth, and put one boy in the hospital with a concussion.