Word: kastell
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...Kastel & Costello. Long before prohibition was over Rumrunner Costello began transferring his interest and rum profits to safer fields. In 1928 he formed a lasting partnership with Dandy Phil Kastel, a dapper little enterpriser who had whetted 'his wits as manager of a Montreal restaurant and operator of a Manhattan bucket shop. Costello and Kastel formed the Tru-Mint Novelty Corp. and gave the enthusiastic New York public a chance to play slot machines. He told Kastel: "If a guy named Hershey could make all that dough on a 5? candy bar, maybe there's an angle here...
Costello also "laid off" bets with big bookies and kept a finger in real estate. After repeal, with financial backing from William Helis, the "Golden Greek" (who demanded 20,000 cases of choice Scotch for security), Costello and Kastel bought control of Britain's Whiteley Distillery, producers of House of Lords and King's Ransom Scotch. The board of directors agreed to pay Costello ?5,000 ($24,400) a year simply for "frequenting first-class hotels and restaurants and asking to be supplied with the company's brands." But the slot machines were Costello's gold...
Helpful Huey. It was not the end of the slot-machine king. Costello had cultivated Senator Huey Long of Louisiana, a man he suspected of having liberal views on certain types of financial matters. The friendship paid off. Within a few months, Huey had granted Costello and Kastel a concession to operate their slots in Louisiana, and a new river of nickels began jingling into their coffers...
...Kastel fighting there were Britons on both sides. The Arab forces included five deserters from the Palestine police. In the confused close-in fighting at the end, two of these Britons heard a shout from the Jewish side: 'Come on, you Arab bastards!' They recognized the man as another police deserter and shouted back: 'Bastard yourself! What are you doing over there?' As the Haganah Briton went to throw a hand grenade in reply, one of the Arabized Britons killed him with his Bren...
Exploits in Savagery. Elsewhere, savage raids turned into brutal massacres. Four miles from Kastel, about 100 Jews (two-thirds Irgun, one-third Stern Gang) swept into the village of Deir Yesin at dawn, blew up its huts with demolition charges. More than 200 Arabs, half of them women & children, died in the slaughter. The rest of the village's 700 dwellers surrendered or fled to caves in the nearby hills. For the first time, the Irgun and Stern terrorists were fighting against Arabs as a tactical force. While the Zionist General Council was accepting the Irgun's offer...