The Curious Tale of Durable Mike
by Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle
Gather round, friends, and settle in for a true tale of intrigue, murder, incompetence, mayhem, fraud, and utter absurdity in prohibition-era New York.
Mike Malloy (1873-1933) was an Irish-born former firefighter, who found himself homeless, alcoholic, and an all-around ragamuffin in the Big Apple during the 1920s and ’30s. He was known to frequent a nameless speakeasy that was tucked away in a seedier part of town, owned by one Tony Marino. A place where you could, for a nickel, buy glasses of "smoke," which was basically just unrefined fuel alcohol. Somehow, Mike’s liver just kept chugging along day after day—an impressive feat, given that the consumption of poisonous liquor would kill some 10,000 revelers before prohibition finally ended.
One day, after some drinks and commiseration between the owner/ bartender (Marino) and four other patrons (Joseph "Red" Murphy, Hershey Green, Daniel Kriesberg, and Francis Pasqua—a corrupt undertaker), a nefarious plot was hatched. Each of them needed money, none of them had a wealth of moral sensibility, and no one seemed to give two shits about poor old Mike. With the help of a less-than-upstanding insurance agent, the five of them took out a life insurance policy on Malloy, which would pay $3,500 (that’s a bit over $70k now) if, and only if, Mike died an accidental death. Marino then offered bottomless free drinks to Mike with the plan that the deeply alcoholic man would just drink himself to death if given free rein to do so. Mike apparently accepted the offer with an astonishing but unsurprising lack of skepticism...
