to paper. There was always a deal to analyze, a meeting to arrange, a train to catch, back and forth to Chicago, New York, Washington, Columbus, Indianapolis, Lexington, St. Louis, and Louisville. He collected new clients and acquaintances—including, according to lore, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
When he stopped to reflect—a rare luxury, these days—even he found the magnitude and intricacies of his own empire staggering, the way its numerous tentacles overlapped and intertwined, taking from one and giving to the next, a system that began and ended with him. His chain of distilleries and drug companies stretched across nine states, from New York to Kansas, some under his name, some under a pseudonym. His clients included the head of the Chicago mob, Johnny Torrio, who bought thousands of cases of Remus’s Kentucky bourbon and sold it at his speakeasy, the Four Deuces (managed by his ambitious protégé, Al Capone). Even Remus did not know his exact net worth or the amount of money coursing through his system.
Estimates among Remus’s associates fluctuated wildly. Four million dollars, five million, seven million spread across various savings accounts. Deposits that averaged $50,000 a day, in an era when the average salary was $1,400 per year. A $2.8 million deposit for a few months’ work. A yearly gross of eighty million, a net of thirty. Daily sales of liquor that ran as high as $74,000. One rum runner paid for a single $200,000 order in one-, two-, and five-dollar bills; it took Conners four hours to count them. The money came in so fast Remus couldn’t deposit it all, forcing him to carry as much as $100,000 in his pockets at any given time. For a while he considered opening his own bank.
* * *
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He continued to meet with Jess Smith for whiskey permits and promises of immunity, paying twenty to thirty thousand dollars at a time, always in cash. With Smith’s assurances he felt at ease to operate openly, even brazenly, “milking” distillery after distillery as fast as he could. He bought the Edgewood distillery in Cincinnati for $220,000, ordered his force of bottlers to get to work, and within five days removed 6,500 cases of Old Keller, 500 cases of Johnny Walker, and 250 cases of Gordon’s Gin. On the morning of the fifth day, Remus’s team finished, put on their coats, and never returned. From the Squibb Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, they removed 15,000 cases in two weeks; and from the Fleischmann in Cincinnati, 5,000 cases and 250 barrels (equivalent to 10,000 gallons) of rye in seven days. At the same time, liquor arrived from far-flung distilleries by the carload, the deliveries so frequent and massive that Remus’s Death Valley storage space quickly began to fill.
He and Conners landed upon a solution. Beneath the floor of the barn, they dug a secret cellar with enough room to hide ten thousand cases at once, accessible through a trapdoor and concealed with hay. Slowly, using a block and tackle, they lowered and raised full barrels of whiskey through the trap. They moved the bottling machine down there for easy access. For a salary of $75 per week, men worked in shifts breaking up and burning the cases, wrapping the finished bottles in newspapers and packing them in the runners’ cars.
The runners came from all over the country. Mary Hubbard, whose husband, Elijah, worked as a night watchman for Death Valley, noted the variety of license plates: Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Missouri, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, California. In the early days came streams of Chevrolets and Dodges and Buicks and Studebakers, many of them used. But the runners soon upgraded to Packard Twin Six roadsters and the occasional Rolls-Royce. To avoid suspicion, they equipped their roadsters with limousine springs, which gave a car weighted down with alcohol the appearance of one merely carrying its passengers. They also brought extra supplies of gas, oil, and water to eliminate stops on the road; there were too many cautionary tales of policemen lingering at filling stations, hoping to detect the odor of whiskey or spot a pile of rifles on the floor.
To ensure that his runners remained loyal, Remus treated them as if they were on vacation, making Death Valley as hospitable as a luxury hotel. Upon their arrival, two men were dispatched to wash and polish their cars. The runners had soft cots to sleep on, and Mrs. Gehrum, Johnny’s wife, took orders for home-cooked meals. When they were ready to leave, Remus personally handed them