◆ SpookStack

* Rubin ro walk with his head on one side. LEPKE (continues) EES ; late at night. Finally the car stopped at a curb somewhere around xsoth Sereec. “Tt was taining pitchforks, coming down in corrents,”” Rubin testified. “When the car stopped,” Mr. Turkus wanted to know, “‘did you see somebody?” .**Lepke.”” Lepke was huddled under a dripping awning before a darkened store. Rubia walked over to him, aware of something sinister in the: cold, unmoving form. "*Lepke wanted to know why Icame back again. He asked me how old Iwas. I said I was 48. That was my age at thac time. Lepke said, ‘That'saripeage. “ Ripe enough, apparently. A few nights later one of Lepke’s gun- , trying to kill Rubin, put into his neck the slug that now causes Allie Tannenbaum, skinny, slant-eyed, almost Japanese in facial contour, confirmed Rubin's testimony. He had heard Lepke say of Rosen, ‘There is one sonofabitch will never go downtown.” Tas- nenbaum told how Mendy Weiss had boasted of the Rosen killing, had described how he murdered Rosen and how the sadiscic ‘*Pitts- burgh Phil’’ Strauss took unnecessary pot shots at the body. Lepke, Tannenbaum told the jury, seemed unmoved when he heard this. His reaction was, “What's the difference as long as everyone is clean and got away all right?’ . . When Judge Taylor passed the death sentence, Lepke's soft brown eyes didn’t change of harden. He heatd the court solemaly pro- ounce that he, Weiss and Capone were to be delivered to Sing Sing “there to suffer death by execution during the week of Jan. 4, 1942." He mopped at his tanned face with a soiled handkerchief but the blandness never altered. His tongue worked briefly inside one cheek and his Gagers teased, that was all. ; Capone and Weiss were delivered to the east wing death house soon afterward. Lepke was taken back to Leavenworth Penitentiary, still a federal charge. A few weeks ago, though, Attormey General Biddle turned him over to New York Stace. He was driven to che prison under heavy guard. He was placed in che first cell to the right as you enter the west wing. He was docile then. He has been docile ever since—docile, with the same peculiar difidence that so startled Prosecutor Turkus when he first became aware of it, Death-house keepers haven't been able to make him out. When other condemned men shout and call hoarsely to one another, Lepke is silent, still the extraotdinaty lirtle man with the deer eyes who doesn't like to talk. ‘for Lepke, Weiss and Capone, when, exext nett : his dispute with che federal government Ofer smanded that President Roosévelt commute tendered, to New Yark State. The U.S, Government - sour a guarantee charhietvould be executed, Someob- _ ation was afraid Lepke might era clemedcy by coa- Acosevelt-supporting labor leaders, On Jga: u Lepke was if he ig ant executed, che state muse return him to the U. $ priority on Lepke dead; the U. S. Government on Lepke alive, cere le