Boardwalk Empire Chapter 6 Summary

Hard Times for Nucky and His Town

• Local bookie Ralph Weloff storms into the Ritz Carlton to meet Nucky. A new gambling operation has opened up without Nucky's approval, and the police are refusing to shut it down.
• It's now the mid-1930s and things aren't going so well. As with everywhere else, "The Great Depression brought hard times to Atlantic City" (6.4). To make things worse, Prohibition is over, which ends the city's booze monopoly.
• Led by Agent William Frank, the IRS and FBI have been monitoring operations since 1926. They're shocked by how brazen the illegal activity is, but are still unsure if they can bag Nucky. See, Nucky has always been obsessive about his finances, always paying taxes on his legal income and destroying all evidence of his illegal cash flow. He makes his lieutenants do the same.
• Unfortunately, though, not everyone takes Nucky's advice. The Tomlin family has "a virtual monopoly of the road construction and paving contracts" (6.14) but is awful at bookkeeping. Frank finds evidence of corruption in their records and sends them to prison, though they refuse to rat Nucky out.
• Nucky doesn't stay lucky forever, though, and Agent Frank nabs Joseph Curio, an attorney who worked with Nucky on a shady railroad deal, and offers him a plea deal to cooperate. Curio gives in, coming clean about Nucky's involvement in the deal.
• It's enough to put Nucky in prison, but Agent Frank isn't satisfied. He wants to get Nucky for tax evasion, which would be the holy grail of charges.
• Meanwhile, the FBI has taken a bite out of Atlantic City's illegal economy. Agent Frank and his compatriots end up serving "more than 40 indictments" (6.43) to brothel and gambling house owners by 1939. Nucky isn't going down without a fight, though, and after a major gambling boss named Austin Clark goes down, Nucky starts interfering with the investigation in any and every way possible.
• And guess what? It actually works. Although the State builds a foolproof case against Clark, the jury somehow acquits him. After some investigation, Agent Frank realizes that Nucky handpicked the jury. There was no chance of a conviction happening.
• Eventually, Agent Frank wises up and stops the nonsense. He does this right in the nick of time too, because Nucky's trial is about to begin. For the first time ever, Nucky loses. He's "sentenced to 10 years in jail and a fine of $200,000" (6.70). Although Nucky is released from prison four years later, he never reaches the heights of powers he once held. He lives a quiet existence until his death in 1968.