I Got The Horse Right Here

We had a references to Guys and Dolls before this as well as a 1955 Broome Street crap game
but we take a renewed interest since we've learned that former Chinatown Mayor, Johnny Keyes, aka Andrew Canonico, was an inspiration for a Damon Runyon named Spaghetti Joe. He also, under another pseudonym, was an inspiration for one of the characters in Guys and Dolls. Was it Benny, Nicely, Rusty, Brandy Bottle Bates,Scranton Slim...? Johnny was a big bettor and according to Joe Bruno's cousin Joe Gerage,

Jack Dempsey bought him a Studebaker because Johnny Keyes lost a lot of money on one of his fights.

Johnny is mentioned in a memoir by San Diego reporter Neil Morgan

After the war, I found San Diego just a tad on the quiet side. Seeking a semblance of sin and scandal…and of course column items…. I sought out F Street and met Bob Johnston, who ran the burlesque house, the Hollywood Theater. He let me play his rinky dink piano. I am a preacher’s kid and I know a lot of hymns. The strippers came in on their breaks and sang along. They knew the words, and that gave me a lot to think about. Sometimes I recognized friends from north of Broadway. Please, they would say, don’t mention that I was here. I made good friends on F Street, like Johnny Keyes, known as Spaghetti Joe. His walls were pasted with columns about him by New York’s great Damon Runyon. Damon celebrated Spaghetti Joe as the first Italian mayor of New York’s Chinatown.

NICELY: I got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere and
here's a guy who says if the weather's clear, can do, can do.
This guy says the horse can do.
If he says the horse can do, can do, can do.
NICELY: can do, can do this
BENNY: I'm picking Valentine 'cause on the morning line, the guy has
NICELY: guy says the horse can do If he says the horse can
BENNY: got him figured at five to nine. Has chance has
RUSTY: But look at Epitaph, he wins it
NICELY: do, can do, can do, For Paul Revere
BENNY: chance, this guy says the horse has chance. If he says
RUSTY: by a half, according to this hare in the Telegraph, Big threat,
NICELY: I'll bite, I hear his foot's all right. Of course it all depends if it
BENNY: the horse has chance, has chance, has
RUSTY: big threat, This guy calls the horse Big
NICELY: rained last night. Likes mud, likes mud. This "X" means the horse
BENNY: chance. I know it's Valentine, the morning works looks fine, besides
RUSTY: Threat. If he calls the horse big threat, big threat
NICELY: likes mud. if that means the horse likes mud, likes
BENNY: the jockey's brother's a friend of mine. Needs race, needs race this
RUSTY: Big threat. And just a minute boys, I got the feedbox noise. It
NICELY: mud, likes mud, I tell you Paul Revere now this is
BENNY: guy says the horse needs race. If he says the horse needs
RUSTY: says the great-grandfather was Equipoise, shows class, shows
NICELY: no bum steer. It's from a handicapper that's real sincere. Can
BENNY: race. Needs race, needs race. I go for
RUSTY: class. This guy says the horse shows class. If
NICELY: do, can do. This guy says the horse can do. If
BENNY: Valentine, 'cause on the morning line, the guy's got him figured at 5 to 9
RUSTY: he says the horse shows class, shows class. So make it
NICELY: he says the horse can do, can do, can
BENNY: has chance, has chance. This guy says the horse has
RUSTY: Epitaph. He wins it by a half, according to this hare in the
NICELY: do. Paul Revere! I got the horse right here!
BENNY: chance. Valentine! I got the horse right here!
RUSTY: Telegraph, Epitaph! I got the horse right here!

Mock Duck

Mock Duck was one of Johnny Keyes' rivals for dominance of New York's Chinatown
from find a grave

Hip Sing Tong leader, and one of New York's most famous gang leaders. Mock Duck ruled the Hip Sing Tong based in Manhattan's Chinatown during the first three decades of this century. Mock Duck's Tong wars with the On Leong Tong are legendary. During the 1930's Mock Duck retired and moved to Brooklyn where he died of natural causes. Before he came to Chinatown, the On Leong (Peaceful Dragon) Tong (parlor) and its owner, Tom Lee, faced only token opposition. Based at 15 Pell Street, the On Leong Tong took over from the Chee Kung, helped Chinese immigrants acclimate to the United States, and controlled the Chinatown opium dens and, most importantly, the gambling proceeds. From 1885 to 1900 they operated unmolested. In 1900, local reformers, led by Dr. Parkhurst, started to publicize the graft and corruption that came out of Chinatown. "Simultaneously there appeared a certain Mock Duck, once an On Leong man, a cherubic, ever-smiling, moon-faced Machiavelli, who looked upon Tom Lee's profits, decided Tom was a wicked man, and said as much to Dr. Parkhurst. By some miracle Mock Duck escaped with his life to become the father of the Hip Sing tong and a rival of the On Leongs for control of the gambling privileges in Chinatown. He used to lisp in explaining the name of the organization, Î means plospelous, and Sing is Chinese word for union. We plospelous union all lite.â And he would beam in an irrisistible way of which only your Chinese politician has the secret." Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 19, 1924. "Out from the East by way of the West came little Mock Duck. He had the fat smile of a Chinese cherub. But there was a desperately impudent glint in his eye which not even Chinese stolidity could film over. He joined Wong Get [a rival tong]. He knew by tradition of the threat of Tom Lee to use the white man's meddling as a foil to the devices of his Chinese enemies...Mock Duck went about his business methodically. He went before Tom Lee with dogged purpose set in his childlike fat features and stated his case. There was only veneration in his posture and his voice for ther eminence of the goat-whiskered patriarch to whom he made his astounding proposal. Translated, it was not complicated: literally it was Î50-50 or fight." The World, December 4, 1924. What followed was 17 years of sporadic violence, murder, arson, and kidnapping. Through all the gunfire, Mock Duck was hit only once, in 1904, and spent three weeks in a hospital as a result. There were two major Îtongwarsâ under his watch, from 1904-1906 and from 1909-1913. The phrase "hatchet man" comes from these battles, because their assasins carried small axes in their long sleeves. Tom Lee weathered it all, and died a natural death in 1917, at the age of 76. Both the On Leong and Hip Sing tongs have burial spaces in "The Evergreens." "He was a curious mixture of bravery and cowardice. He wore a shirt of chain mail, carried two guns and a hatchet and, although notoriously a poor marksman, earned a reputation for bravery for the utter disregard for his own safety he displayed when squatting on his haunches in the street with both eyes shut and firing at a surrounding circle of On Leongs. ....During the height of Mock Duck's prosperity, agents of the Gerry Society investigated a report that his adopted daughter, Ha Oi, was a white girl. The courts found that she was the daughter of one Lizzie Smith, who had married a Chinese. She was taken away from Mock Duck. The Hip Sing leader was frantic, for he loved the girl tenderly. He carried the case to the appelate division but lost. Then, to drown his sorrow, he began to gamble recklessly as he roamed aimlessly to Chicago and San Francisco and throughout the Middle West. His despair was such that he didn't care whether he won or lost. As usually happens to one in that frame of mind he made large winnings. He came back to New York with diamond studs blazing from his shirt front and $30,000 in his pockets. The old tong guns began to blaze again and hatchets gleamed. He was arrested many times but never convicted until 1912, when he was sent to Sing Sing for operating a policy game. It was when he emerged from prison that he announced he was through with the old life and intended to become a respectable citizen of Brooklyn."Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 29, 1932. (Bio compiled by J. Fodor) (bio by: Joe Fodor)Cause of death: Natural causes, Burial: Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, Plot: Greenlawn, 6-614 Grave #2

Johnny Keyes, Part 2

Johnny Keyes, Part 1