It was believed that Abba Dabba’s mathematical wizardry added 10 percent to every million dollars a day the mob took in.

Dutch Schultz, noted as being one of the stingiest crime bosses in New York, paid his top gangster aides—men like Lulu Rosenkrantz and Abe Landau—something like $1,200 a week. By contrast he paid Abba Dabba $10,000.

On October 23, 1935, Schultz and two bodyguards, Landau and Rosenkrantz, arrived at the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. A three-man syndicate hit squad was dispatched to take care of them.

Unfortunately, another late arrival joined the Schultz party. It was Abba Dabba Berman.

All four were shot to death, Abba Dabba included.

A final testament to the skills of the numbers genous was contained in the papers the quartet had been going over. They indicated that over a certain period of time the Schultz policy banks had taken in $827,253.43 in bets and paid out only $313,711.99. The difference between that last figure and the approximately $500,000 which should have been paid out to winners was attributed to Abba Dabba Berman’s skills.

His demise cost the syndicate literally millions of dollars annually. For a time others tried to imitate Berman’s technique—as much as could be figured out—but none came within a fraction of his results. Even Vito Genovese, probably the most anti-Semitic crime bigwig in the syndicate, mourned the passing of “the Yid adding machine.”

MINIATURE IS CAST FROM 100% LEAD FREE PEWTER AND COMES UNPAINTED