GRADY THE DARING
John D. Grady, known to the police and the underworld as "Old Supers and Slangs," probably never handled as much money or had his finger in quite so many crimes as "Mother" Mandelbaum. His career, too, was somewhat shorter, but it made up for these defects in the unequaled daring and magnitude of his exploits.
"Mother" Mandelbaum "played safe." Not so John D. Grady. His was a desperate game, well played for splendid stakes, with risks few men would care to take, and with all the elements of romance and a tragic death to cap it.
Grady, like "Mother" Mandelbaum, was a "fence," but, while she dealt in everything, Grady specialized in diamonds. He had an office opposite the Manhattan Bank, which bore the sign, "John D. Grady, Diamond Merchant." From the windows of this office, Grady, Jimmy Hope, and his gang gazed hungrily across at the bank and plotted its ruin. Up to the actual day of the robbery, Hope and Grady were in accord on all plans. Afterward the two leaders quarreled over the disposition of the bonds. Hope had his way and there is little doubt that had Grady taken charge of the two million dollars of securities he would have succeeded in selling them, whereas Hope failed.
While "Mother" Mandelbaum was building up her trade with pickpockets and shoplifters, Grady was carrying his business about in a satchel. No man ever took greater chances. At all hours of the night this short, stocky man went about the darkest and most dangerous parts of New York. In the little black satchel, as every criminal knew, was a fortune in diamonds.
When a thief had made a haul, Grady would meet him at any time or place he pleased and take the diamonds off his hands. Only once was he "sandbagged" and robbed of several thousand dollars worth of the stones. He took the misfortune in good part, said it was his own fault, and never took revenge on the men who robbed him.