Confidential File

A Borderline Case That IS Borderline

The keepers of the keys at Tijuana jail have finally pulled a blunder of major significance.

In
the past they've confined their harassment of tourists to arresting
hapless crapshooters, traffic victims and bullfight aficionados.

But
last week they committed the serious diplomatic blunder of tossing
Benny Stone into the clink. And Benny is no man to trifle with.

This whole thing, believe me, will cause international reprisals even more devastating than the time we beat the pantalones off Leo Carrillo's great-grandfather at the Battle of Cahuenga Pass.

My
friend Benny is a gentle-hearted but volatile sidewalk pitchman,
dealing in penny balloons, nylons, candy bars, razor blades and badges
with funny sayings on them.

Maybe you remember Benny. He made headlines one day back in 1947 when he set up his suitcase department store at the corner of 6th
and Main. Suddenly overwhelmed by the sight of so many sad-looking
people walking by, Benny began tossing them candy bars and rolls of
nickels. It started a small riot in which one lady was briefly
hospitalized for cuts and bruises, and Benny Stone was briefly
hospitalized for observation.

"They said they wanted to find out
how nuts I was," Benny told me later. "What's nuts? Because I like to
make sad people happy? Rockefeller gave away money. They called him
nuts?"

Benny shrugged. "Rockefeller gave away dimes. Stone gives away nickels. You got to start somewhere."

After
that bitter taste of fame, my friend Benny was able to stay out of the
headlines. But he continued his relentless pursuit of making the sad
people happy.

The last I heard, he had become the self-appointed protector of Casa de Cuna,
an impoverished little orphanage on the outskirts of Tijuana. Each week
he'd go around from store to store in L.A. begging food and clothes.
And each weekend he'd bring what he collected down to his orphans.

But
yesterday, Benny, the Patron Saint of the Sad People, came storming
into my office. He blew two blasts on a thin whistle from his stock of
merchandise to make sure he had my complete attention. "Look at me." he
commanded. "You're lucky I'm alive. I was seven days in the Tijuana
jail and I lost seven pounds. I'm like a bag of skin and bones."

Benny did a furious pirouette for my inspection. "What'd they arrest you for?" I asked.

"Who knows what'd
they arrest me for?" he shouted. "I brought the food to my orphans and
I was on my way home. I was standing on a street corner looking in a
window when a cop came over and asked who I am. So I told him. So he
starts questioning me what am I doing in Tijuana. So I told him I'm not
doing nothing. I'm just standing. Is something wrong with that? It's a
free country. So he tells me I'm arrested for having in my possession
lewd literature."

"Benny", I said, "you?"

He waved his hand impatiently. "I had a copy of Playboy magazine in my back pocket."

Not Eating Can Be Fatal

Benny
sat down for a moment, then jumped up. "I told him I had important
friends, if he tried anything on me, he'd wind up pounding a beat in
Staten Island somewhere. But they put me in jail. Seven days, I almost
starved to death from not eating."

He began pacing up and down. "They won't get away with it," he cried. "I'm gonna close that border once and for all."

Benny
thrust a soiled piece of notebook paper in front of me. "Look at this,"
he said. "I got 15 signatures from people who want to join my
committee."

"What committee?" I asked.

"The committee," my friend Benny said, "of volunteers to stand at the border and keep everybody from getting in or out."

Confidential File 

At Last, Some Kindly Words for Scarface

To look at prosperous stockbroker Benny Rubin today, you wouldn't suspect that he has a past.

But he does.

He used to be a comic. In fact, if you go back far enough, a burlesque comic.

It
was more years ago than the dapper, polished stock merchant would like
to admit. But, catch him along about sundown, with a cold Martini
within arm's reach, and he's likely to become as sentimental about his
yesterdays as Sophie Tucker gets over hers.

As a matter of fact,
it was a little after sundown when Benny was pointing his finger at me
across a white tablecloth at Villa Capri.

"Now you saw how they handled Al Capone in the movie," he was saying, "and in that 'Untouchables' show on TV."

"No," I told him. "I didn't see."

"Well," he answered, "I hope you don't judge Capone by the way those Hollywood writers portrayed him.

"As I remember him, back in Chicago," he continued hastily, "that man had no trace of an Italian accent whatsoever.

"Understand, I'm not trying to gild a rotten lily, Capone would say 'tousant' for 'thousand,' 'witcha' for 'with you,' and 'ovahder' for 'over there.'

"But," he added indignantly, "it was Jimmy Colosimo and Johnny Torrio who had the Italian accents."

I shook my head. "These Hollywood writers," I said. "The next thing you know they'll -"

"And
another thing," Benny continued, "Capone never yelled at anyone. He'd
chew his cigar to shreds and get red in the face, but he didn't yell.

"Or
do you think he'd really be caught at a ringside table with people
sitting behind his back? He'd sit at a ringside table, but his back
would be against a wall.

"Capone," Rubin went on, "could recite
names of judges, congressmen and senators, with their addresses,
private phone numbers and cash disbursements.

 "He did all his own bookkeeping in his head. He could tell you to the nickel what everyone owed him for alky, bottles, labels, protection."

"Benny," I said, "you must have known Al pretty well."

In cautious thought, Benny rubbed his chin.

"I
met him through a friend in 1919," he started again. "I was the top
banana — the principal comic — in the Follies at the Hay Market
Theater.

"No personal billing, understand. The only billing on the three sides of the marque outside said, 'Max Spiegel Presents the Social Follies.'

"Anyway,
after I'd been playing there a while, my friend picked me up at the
theater and took me out to dinner one night. Capone — or Al Brown, as
he was called then — was in the party.

As You Say, Mr. Capone

"During the course of the dinner, Sammy, my friend, asked me:

"'If you're the star of the show, Benny, how come your name's not in lights and who the hell is Max Spiegel?'

"I explained that Spiegel was the producer and that he didn't consider that my name meant anything at the box office.

"A little after that, Capone left the table to make a phone call.

"And
Paul, so help me," Benny said, leaning into me, "when I got back to the
theater my name — and my name alone — was plastered all over the
three sides of the marquee."

Benny sighed. "A guy who was that keen a judge of talent couldn't have been all bad, could he, Paul?" he asked.