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violence.
    Vincent Coll was widely believed to be behind the child massacre, and fifty New York detectives hired to hunt down the killer were ordered by the police commissioner to “bring back Vincent Coll, dead or alive”. The commissioner also issued his men with shoot to kill orders. “In the past six months, the police have killed sixteen gunmen racketeers and wounded six. This is not enough. Don’t be the last to draw. Pull first and give it to ‘em.” Despite one of the biggest manhunts in the city’s history, Coll remained at large, until two years later when he was gunned down, apparently by Schultz’s men, as he talked on the phone in a booth on 23rd Street.
    Dutch Schultz’s New York-wide influence also gave him a loud voice on Welfare Island, which, over the years, had seen a big turnover in prison inmates previously in his employ. And, because Joe Rao, who had served Schultz well, narrowly survived several assassination attempts by Schultz’s enemies, it followed that he expected to rely on Schultz’s continued support once he was sent to Welfare Island. Although, by January 1934, Schultz had been lying low for almost a year evading the Federal authorities who wanted him for income tax evasion, insiders knew he hadn’t gone far. There were reports that he was hiding in Upstate New York, sometimes returning under cover to his New York apartment, even running some of his operations from his friend Polly Adler’s brothel in a Manhattan apartment which Schultz had found for her. In her biography, A House Is Not A Home , Adler confirmed that Schultz would frequently spend extended periods at her place, bringing with him such trusted lieutenants as Lulu Rosenkranz and his financial “fixer”, mathematical wizard Otto “Abadaba” Berman, so called because he regularly came up with complex mathematical combinations which ensured the odds were stacked against the majority of players who had taken out bets. So, even while on the lam, it was business as usual for Schultz. That included keeping tabs on how Rao’s rackets were doing in jail and making sure he received necessary protection from those with ultimate power, i.e Schultz’s own partner in crime, the most influential politician in Tammany Hall.
     

 
    Chapter Three - Business as Usual
     
    In the days and weeks following their raid on Welfare Island, Austin MacCormick and David Marcus not only made it a priority to clean up the jail in every sense, but, as importantly, to determine the extent of the mob’s power in running their activities on the island. When MacCormick went on his second inspection round of the cells he was surprised to find himself being loudly cheered by over 1400 rank and file prisoners who had been slowly starving to death and subjected to inhuman conditions while the gangster elite lived in obscene luxury. Realising that these inequities were now at an end and that they were to receive ample and edible food, medical care and a clean-up of their cells, the inmates regarded MacCormick not as their foe but a friend: in the days following the raid, they were prepared to answer his questions and provide him with further information about the rackets.
    On the other hand, when David Marcus interrogated prison staff, he was appalled to discover that far from being regarded as a vicious, power-crazed thug, Rao was held to be a positive influence by some of the authorities. Although Deputy Warden Sheehan and his superior, Warden Joseph McCann, had been stripped of their duties and placed under arrest pending charges, they had to remain temporarily on the island to help investigators with interrogations and further searches. When Marcus questioned McCann about Rao’s activities, he was stunned to be told that Rao was “the most valuable prisoner” on the island, and “better than a deputy warden in preserving order.” As McCann saw it: “Joey Rao is an influence for good in here. He is most affable, tractable and sensible.