by JJ Partridge
I barely heard him over the yells and shouts, high-five slaps and clinking long necks in response to a shot at a nearby table. “Even when they lose, they hang around, watch matches, play in between, and eat and drink whatever they got paid for being here. It’s absolutely fantastic,’’ Richie said. “Can you believe Sonny Russo could pull off anything like this?”
No comment.
At a rear booth near the bar, Richie found a printed form among a pile of papers on its table. “Fill this out and you’re in.”
The form was captioned Officiating and after personal data, the applicant made a few specific affirmations:
1. I know the rules. (Check this box yes or no). 2. I have no financial or other personal or family interest in the players (Check this box yes or no). 3. I will officiate fairly and in accordance with the rules of the Providence Shoot-Out Tournament and BCA (Check this box yes or no).
I checked yes in each box and wondered if I had checked no, would anybody notice or care? I returned the form to Richie who reached into a canvas bag and found a black arm band with an R in a white circle. He gave me a clipboard with sheets identifying my two tables and the players’ pool names, their clubs—from Omaha and Louisville, Detroit and French Lick—and local rules: no bathroom breaks, no junk cues, no Masse shots, can’t touch a ball after the break. The matches were races to seven, which meant that whichever player first won seven games advanced to the next bracket. Richie checked his watch. “Six thirty. Go over around six fifty, introduce yourself, go through the rules, check the table to make sure nobody’s spilled a beer. Okay?”
I left him for a stool at the garishly lit bar. Bottles in tiers shined brilliantly in the ceiling light as did glasses hanging by stems on a frame around the top of the bar. Boisterous drinkers and busy waitresses vied for the attention of two harried bartenders. I ordered a Bud Light, and as my bottle was delivered, noticed two guys at the other side of the bar checking the activity who could have been right off the bus from New Jersey.
Their hooded eyes were surveillance cameras. In nearly identical outfits of tees under leather jackets, with wraparound sunglasses on their foreheads, they were typecast as mob guys even to their paunches. One had curly gray hair, a porcine nose, no visible neck. He acted senior to his buddy whose shaved head bobbed in agreement to everything said to him; his VanDyke beard did his pudgy face no favors, his open mouth was a Three Stooges expression of dumb. As I sometimes do when I see obvious characters, I gave them names: No-Neck and Ditto.
At six fifty, having read the instructions, with my armband in position, I made my way to my assigned tables. The shooters, who had been playing on and off since this morning, had attained the pale, grim look of tired players; since they had advanced to the third bracket of play, they were not ball bangers. I introduced myself, checked their names on the tally sheets, said ‘No gambling’ loudly to all concerned and let them continue their practice. At seven, we huddled again and I indicated that if a player had a question or needed a ruling, he should ask before shooting. I wished them well and racked the balls on the tables for their inspection.
Play began. At the table to my left, the break went to a country boy from Omaha, weighing in at least two-fifty with a hundred of that in his gut. When he spread his six-foot frame across the table, his low cut jeans exposed his hairy faultline. His opponent was leather-faced, a Willie Nelson look-alike, from Louisville who didn’t stand more than five-six or weigh more than one-thirty, his leather vest festooned with tournament badges. Both used expensive custom cues, didn’t speak unless absolutely necessary, and there was no display of temperament or sharking—verbal and body tricks designed to distract an opponent. Louisville, who had some fan support, played a finesse style so that balls barely moved across the table and the cue ball came to rest well placed for his next shot; his opponent’s game was all power, and the only ruling I had to make was due to Omaha’s Masse shot that sent two balls sailing off the table. That error only hastened his loss as Louisville won the match seven games to two. Omaha muttered, “Shit luck,” but stuck out his hand to the victor.
At the other table, a young black player from Detroit was clearly better than the fidgety, tow-headed kid from French Lick whose hair had been shaped in a blender. Both had well-lubricated fans lined up on opposite sides of the table and I had to muscle them to provide room for the players, which was not appreciated. These shooters went at their shots verbally, with no shot there, easy, easy, and give me a break!, and physically, with body English and cue butt pounding, while their fans comported themselves as though watching pro wrestling. Their match went back and forth to six-a-piece, what is known as hill-hill in pool. The final game was a squeaker that either could have won. They traded shots and misses before Detroit sank the nine ball off the seven in a barely makeable carom shot that produced vigorous fist-pumping from the winner, cheers from his mostly black fans, and groans from French Lick’s supporters. Detroit was good but not likely going much further; that hand pump stuff had loser written all over it.
End of my officiating. I filled out forms that I gave to a tournament rep who tapped the results into her laptop, and found Richie Stubbins in his booth. No-Neck and Ditto remained at the bar, joined in conversation by a third mound of flesh in a Patriots’ sweatshirt holding a head as round as a bowling ball, huge ears, a flattened nose that seemed to go in several directions before deciding to drop. Amber sunglasses with white frames were on his forehead and a Bluetooth ear piece framed his left ear. ‘Bull’ would be a suitable name for him. I asked Richie, “See those guys? The leather models? Ever see them before?”
Richie glanced across the room and went back to his paperwork. “The two in leather been here off and on all day. They tug at their beers, watch the crowd, and then they leave, then they come back. I figure them as bouncers from Hard Core, sent over to make sure nothing goes wrong. Hey,” Richie looked up at me, “the other guy asked about you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, the one in the Pats sweatshirt. Saw me talking to you. Asked if you was you.”
The thought chilled me. I decided I could use more of Richie’s company and sat in the booth. Maybe they’ll leave.
Richie continued with his paperwork and asked if I was going to see Young Jimmy play at the Dunk. When I answered “Next stop,” he went on about our mutual friend. “The Tournament’s gonna save his bacon.” He lowered his head and said quietly, “I hear he had to go to Frannie Zito—you heard of him, right—for the dough to complete the renovations to his restaurant. Heard Zito gets a cut of the action at the Club so long as he’s owed. That’s what I hear, but that’s only what I hear.”
His news gut punched me. It explained, in part, Young Jimmy’s determination, after years of abiding by Maria Catarina’s rule. But why had he gone to Zito for financing? He knew he could tap me, and probably others. Ashamed to ask? He had to play to pay off Zito, risking Maria Catarina’s wrath, and a police raid. I had to corner him after his exhibition, talk some sense into him.
Richie left me for a table where loud, chest thumping fans were in one another’s faces. The New Jersey boys remained at the bar watching Richie and a cop defuse trouble. Bull had left their company. Time for a quick exit, I thought, and cut through the bottle toting crowd to a flight of stairs that took me out to South Water Street. The night air was cool and reviving after the stuffiness of En Core.
I crossed the street, was in front of the display windows of the Bert Gallery, when a slab of a hand grasped my forearm from the shadows. Bull was a nose guard close up and even more ugly. His voice was like sandpaper. “Mr. Zito needs to see you. You got the time, huh?”
Was that voice familiar?
29
THE DARK GREEN, ALMOST black Bentley Flying Spur, parked in a reserved spot close to the canopied entrance to Hard Core, bore the license plate I-LOAN. As we approached, a rear door of the sleek metal sculpture opened and a shapely leg visible to the thigh found the sidewalk; the rest of the packa
ge had red striped short shorts, a full red halter, and shoulder length blonde hair that was peekaboo over glossy eyes. Her red lips puckered in and out as she favored us with a finger wave before she sauntered toward the canopy. Just a working girl–hostess on a professional break.
Bull opened the front passenger door, pushed me down and inside, the door gave off a solid thunk as it closed, and I was enveloped in an interior of brushed walnut and metal trim, hand stitched leather seats, and the smell of something musky. Door locks clicked and heavy breaths came from the rear seat; as I strained to look over a headrest, an iron grip grasped my left shoulder, forcing my hand down between the center console and my seat. Over my head, a hand snapped on the cabin light.
The rearview mirror revealed a square jawed face, eyelids low over gray-green eyes, sleek black hair pulled straight back, a gray, closely trimmed beard, handsome in a seedy way. “Heard you were inside,” Frannie Zito said with the huskiness of Chazz Palminteri in A Bronx Tale; his breath smelled of cigarettes, alcohol, and something stale. My guess was that he and cutie pie had done a line of cocaine and she had given him lip service back there in their leather cocoon. He slurred, “Thought I’d meet my … replacement.”
“Beautiful car,” I offered.
“Only one registered in Rhody.” Zito’s voice layered pride over menace. “What do you drive?”
I limited my response to the Mini.
“Must take a dozen to make a Bentley,” Zito sneered and crammed my left shoulder down another half inch. I felt the pulse beat in my fingertips as they touched something small, metallic, and cylindrical in the plush carpet. Maybe doll face’s lipstick. I rolled it in my fingers to keep circulation flowing. “I didn’t like getting bounced.”
I strained to avoid slipping into locked jaw super WASP inflection. “I can understand that.”
“Tramonti made a big fuckin’ stink about something that happened a long time ago. And none of his business. He’s forgotten where he comes from. Know where that is? Silver Lake. You even know where that is?”
“I do.” An Italo-American neighborhood on the Cranston line. “Been there many times.”
“Yeah? Yeah?” Zito said without belief. “To make him look good in the goddamn Journal, he beats up on another Italian. I told his brother, I’m in business, no better, no worse than anyone else in business, you know what I’m tellin’ you? I pay my taxes, know the score. So what if I had a problem a long time ago. Lotta people did. Nobody ever gave me nothin’. No fuckin’ golden spoons in my neighborhood.”
I didn’t react to Zito’s provocation.
“The fuckin’ Shoot-Out’s the best thing ever to happen to Providence. It was me that helped bring it here. Me! My idea for the sports betting. Mine!” Made sense to me but he could have been boasting. “Everybody’s gettin’ action, clubs, bars, restaurants, the hotels are full, taxes rollin’ in, biggest out-of-town business we’ve ever had. But me? What respect do I get? I get a fuckin’ shove.”
His grip tightened; his fingerprints were now etched into my shoulder, the cylinder rolled away from my touch. “So tell me why do you guys wanna abolish Columbus Day? What is it with you? Prejudiced against Italians?” Not expecting an answer, Zito continued. “You come down here often? Enjoy the nightlife down here? Or are you as self-righteous as your buddy the Mayor?”
His insults made me antsy but I would ride it out.
“You’re a buddy of Hannigan too.” How would he know? “Shoot-Out’s his big opportunity. Believe what I’m tellin’ you. Everybody wants Hannigan to do well. You want this to be big for him, right? Nobody should screw it up for him? Especially not a friend?”
I realized then that Zito got Young Jimmy his gig at the Shoot-Out, the liquor licenses for the Club. Zito would be getting a pay down on his loan with his share in the betting action at the Club. He had also inveigled Young Jimmy, who didn’t need much of a push, into the Club’s action and had somehow learned of our friendship. So, he snookered me to En Core, not only to give himself the opportunity to insult me but also to deliver his mind your own fuckin business message.
Zito sat back. I imagined his self-satisfied smile. The Bentley’s door locks popped up. “Nice to meet ya,” he said in my dismissal.
My cool evaporated. Zito had me pegged as an East Side twit, a snotty wimp he could push around, trembling, wobbly, scared because of threatening phone calls—made by Bull?—being dragooned to his Bentley so I could take his abuse. I had to respond.
I pushed open the car door and got out. Bull, who was standing by Hard Core’s canopy, snapped a cigarette butt into the gutter and looked inside for orders as to the manner of my departure. With none heard, he backed away as I took two deep breaths and poked my head inside the open door. “Love to drive it,” I said. “Any chance?” My voice suggested I had a case of the vapors over the opportunity, that after getting his message, taking my medicine, I deserved something in return.
He could have tossed off something like ‘I’m not a fuckin’ dealer’ but he didn’t. I had read him correctly; the Bentley Banker was a show-off even if suspicious and slightly incredulous that I would ask for a favor. ‘Show off’ won. “Yeah. Around the block. Knock yourself out.”
I walked around the rear of the Bentley to the driver’s side, opened its heavy door, and slid behind its leather wrapped steering wheel. Zito chortled out, “Sal,”—Bull had a name now—“man wants to drive a real car. See you inside.”
Zito reached over my shoulder, told me to step on the brake as he touched the starter button, not letting me, a Mini owner, into the mysteries of push-button ignition. “Sure you can handle this?” he sniggered.
The walnut dashboard, in the winged shape of the Bentley emblem, displayed illuminated dials and bar gauges; a touch screen provided a rear view; I felt more than heard the huge V-8 engine throb expectantly. My hands went to the steering wheel, I felt in my element, in control and nervy and loose and purposeful, like at the starting line of a track like Thompson’s, in command of this elegant, powerful machine. As Zito would discover, I had regained my chops.
I adjusted the steering wheel’s tilt, positioned my seat, and snapped on my seatbelt, a sound not echoed from the rear seat. Zito said something about the number of gears and shifting paddles as I eased out of the parking lot into South Water Street. A touch of the accelerator and rear wheels spun street grit into the undercarriage. “Easy, for Christ sakes, easy,” he cautioned as we barreled down South Main Street, the tight steering giving me what I expected for control of two-and-a-half tons of metal. “Hey, what’s the hurry? Slow down!” I hoped to God no drunk ventured out of a bar. “Christ, what are you doing?” Zito sputtered, “Pull over!”
The new access road to reconfigured Route 195 East was finished by India Point Park but barricades remained because traffic lights hadn’t been installed, leaving over a mile of new, empty pavement that the East Side Monthly reported had become a drag racing mecca for those inclined to test metal. Like me. Like now.
With Zito pounding my shoulder, I easily slipped the Bentley between orange barrels and cones and sawhorses by the Hurricane Barrier, took a sharp left, felt the strain on the steering wheel and a rear wheel skid, made another quick left, and we were on the straightaway of the access road, testing the advertised zero-to-sixty acceleration in under five seconds. The surge of power tossed Zito back into the seat as I swung into the right lane, heading toward an underpass and upgrade to the open highway.
I didn’t need the speedometer or RPM gauge to tell me we were closing in on ninety. A quarter of a mile flashed by, Zito kicking at my seat, screaming at me; we would be on the highway in seconds. I braced myself, braked, felt Zito’s body crash into my seat as we careened down a ramp that led to a new road that ran parallel to India Point Park. I yanked a right turn, Zito shouting and beating my shoulder without force, straining his hand toward the ignition button—foolish at this speed—but the yaw of another sharp turn sent him screaming, swearing, to the floor. A
few seconds of braking, a deceleration like when an airplane’s thrusters reversed on landing, and we approached the tugboat basin by the Hurricane Barrier where a tire-screeching right turn returned us to South Water Street. Zito, now breathless, landed a solid punch on my right shoulder, and fell back as though exhausted. We arrived in the club area at under fifteen miles per hour.
I pulled into the parking space at Hard Core where our adventure began. As a button push turned off the engine, I turned to Zito, crumpled behind my seat, incoherent in his swearing, fumbling with his cell phone, likely calling Sal. I caught some spittle of his rage. “Thanks. Love the car,” I said, got out, and slammed the door.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelled back. “I don’t forget, asshole!” He scrambled up to lean over the driver’s seat and pounded the horn button as I disappeared into the shadows.
30
NADIE WAS STRETCHED OUT on the sofa in the loft, in silky pajamas that made her look comfortably lithe, engrossed in a Richard Russo novel. I described my refereeing debut but not my escapade with Zito; she nodded without great interest. Columbus Day remained verboten.
It didn’t dawn on me that I hadn’t seen her in pajamas for some time until later, as I undressed for bed. She pulled down a sheet, got into bed. She didn’t put on her reading glasses or pick a book from the night stand. I joined her from my side of the bed, and after my confrontation with Zito, feeling suddenly randy, ready for foreplay, I nuzzled an ear. She turned away, “Algy, I …”
As I propped myself up on an elbow for a proper kiss, she continued, “… between now and the wedding, I want to be … chaste.”
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. We’ve been together since I gave up my apartment …”
In a king-size bed for most of two years, we’re about to be married, and it was shut-off time?