broken-down valise

Variant of busted valise.

broken-down valise (plural broken-down valises)

1. (literal) A damaged piece of luggage
   • 1980, E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake‎, New York: Random House, page 129:

     Wedged into the rumble seat was my broken-down valise with everything I possessed in the world.

2. (US, Mafia, slang) A person who has fallen on hard times; a has-been
   • 1987 June 21, Bill Brubaker, “The Rise and Gall of Secret Agents Walters and Bloom”, in Washington Post‎, Washington, DC:

     "In the football business there are so many sleazy bums — broken-down valises, I call them — who don't have two quarters to rub together," Bloom said.

   • 1996 September 18, René Balcer, “Causa Mortis”, in Law & Order, season 7, episode 1:

     Adam Schiff: "Abe Mercer. Ten years ago, he was a broken-down valise. Bad divorce, partners suing him, ethics review. If Doc Gooden can rise from the dead, why not Abe Mercer?"

   • 2003, Gary Weiss, Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street‎, New York: Warner Books, page 237:

     Sonny was just a dirty-looking old man, a broken-down old man. A broken-down valise. That's Charlie's words. That's what he'd call a washed-up wiseguy.

   • 2008, Joaquin "Jack" Garcia, Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family‎, New York: Touchstone, page 4:

     The Mafia and the FBI both considered Greg a relic, a washed-up has-been or, in the colorful language of the Mafia, a brokester, a broken-down valise.