After making their deal with Macfadden Publications, Mildred and Cokey Flo spent the summer of 1936 in New Rochelle, working on their stories for Liberty magazine.  Mildred also traveled to Clarksburg, West Virginia over the Fourth of July weekend in the company of her bodyguard, NYPD officer William E. Grant, with whom she was alleged to be having an affair.  According to the popular narrative, both Mildred and Cokey Flo were living low that summer, wary of possible reprisal from Luciano’s agents.

It is perhaps surprising, then, that the Levy files would include an original telegram sent by Mildred in Clarksburg to “Padgett” at the Hotel Albert in Greenwich Village.  Equally mysterious is the message:  “Al arrived safe, heavy loaded.  Wish you were here.  Millie.”

This could, of course, be a drug reference.  Mildred, like Cokey Flo, was a heroin addict, and had undergone the five-day cure in the Woman’s House of Detention following her arrest on February 1, 1936.  It is also known that Mildred returned to heroin after her discharge from Dewey’s custody on July 2, 1936.  In any event, it appears that persons close to Luciano were keeping tabs on Mildred’s whereabouts, and that evidence of her trip to West Virginia somehow ended up in Levy’s possession.

To view the Balitzer/Harris telegram, see below: