New York’s prohibition officer Izzy Einstein styled himself the “champion hooch hunter.” He and his partner, Moe Smith, had no background in law enforcement, but who needed that during Prohibition? They developed their own techniques and methods for catching bootleggers–techniques that involved impersonation, such as my character, Jessie, would use in her crime solving. Here are a few:
- The impersonator method: Pose as someone who would not be a suspected, such as football players, Texas Rangers, streetcar conductors, gravediggers, fishermen, ice deliverymen, opera singers, and a Yiddish couple. Buy a drink, bust the place.
Izzy and Moe disguised as a Yiddish couple.
- The emergency method: One would jump into icy water, his partner would rush him into a speakeasy and plead for a drink for a freezing man. Bingo.
- The straight-forward method: Go into a speakeasy, order a drink, pour some into a small bottle in a pocket, then arrest everyone who served them.
It worked. Izzy and Moe were perhaps the most successful and notorious prohibition agents in New York City.
Mary Miley's Roaring Twenties 