A fatal connection

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They say career advancement is all about networking - meeting the right people and making the right choices. And the people with whom we associate will partly define our professional standing. But one US optician made some very bad career choices indeed. So bad, that the consequences were to prove fatal to him one morning in February 1929.

In his business advertisements Reinhart Schwimmer styled himself 'Dr R Schwimmer, optometrist and eyesight specialist' even though he apparently had little or no medical training. His practice was at 625 North Avenue, Chicago, opening hours supposedly 10am-8pm. In fact he was an inveterate gambler, running up large debts and he spent more time at the racetrack than at his work, causing his practice to founder. His gambling also brought him into contact with the more unsavoury types in Chicago society, and so began his fascination with that city's Prohibition-era gangsters.