Scratched

by JJ Partridge

  Leave it to Nadie to dissect Palagi’s psyche, how his mind and emotions might work. I asked what it would take for someone inured to duplicity to suddenly pack it in.

  “Most of us have a tipping point. Sugarman apparently decided to confess because he couldn’t handle the pressure of increased withdrawals and constant replenishment of funds. His confession was the emotional equivalent of a suicide, the end of his life of lies.” She finished her wine. “For Palagi, his cancer, the threat of exposure by Brunotti, his son’s extortion, all of the above?”

  “But only a few days before he died, Palagi said in his recording he wouldn’t commit suicide.”

  “But this isn’t about how Palagi died,” she continued. “It’s how he lived. For decades, he lived a lie and expected to continue to get away with it. Sure, some niggling doubts, some questions maybe, but he believed his lies would never trip him up because he had been exempt from retribution for so long. Anyone who accused him would be at fault or not credible, or he could turn the accusation around. Even with the vendetta, he thought he could buy it off. But just in case, when the end was near, he left his recording in case he was wrong. He believed under the circumstances, you—being you—and the priest would accept his statements as the truth and go after his enemies.” She paused, suspicion in her voice. “Did you?”

  Somehow, I was able to dissemble an answer.

  During dinner, I told Nadie that I wanted to watch Young Jimmy play at least one exhibition during the Shoot-Out, which was true, tonight was my last chance, and I didn’t expect to be home late. Luckily, my absence didn’t interfere with her plans to meet with Zelda and Ida arriving at the Renaissance Hotel tonight; she wanted to be there to get Zelda settled in. After I changed into jeans, polo shirt, sneakers, and a Carter Cats windbreaker jacket, with a yellow slicker and an old fedora from the back of the hall closet under my arm, I shouted a goodbye to Nadie and left the house for the garage.

  The fedora and slicker were my half-ass attempt to disguise myself entering Hard Core, but I put on both as the wind pushed a bank of black clouds against the East Side and the rain became hard pellets. Water cascaded down the hill on East Street, carrying a slurry of leaves toward storm drains. Diamond crystals of windshield glass sparkled in the garage lights and scarred asphalt marked the demise of the Mini. As I entered the garage, my cell phone vibrated and its screen showed Fausto Tramonti’s number. I let it buzz until I was in the Charger. I struggled whether to answer but did.

  “What-the-fuck-are-you-doing-with Jimmy Hannigan?” he thundered.

  I grit my teeth. “Nothing that concerns you.”

  “You, a member of the Commission, backing a deadbeat like Hannigan?”

  “How do you know?” Fausto couldn’t have learned this from Laretta or from Young Jimmy so it had to be Zito! What did that mean? “This has nothing to do with the Commission. Has to do with Hannigan …”

  “Fuck Hannigan! You’re risking serious embarrassment for Tony. What are you thinking getting in the middle of the action? You’re a Commissioner for Christ’s sake.”

  What I’m thinking is Fausto, goddammit, is in cahoots with Zito, warning me to back off from being Young Jimmy’s sweater! The son of a bitch!

  “I understand my risk …”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your risk. I’m thinking of Tony’s. So should you. Best friend? Bullshit, if you do this and fuck up Tony, if this blows up, you’re never going to get within ten feet of the Mayor’s office. Never!”

  At that, I ended his call and slipped my phone into my windbreaker’s pocket. Fausto was right; I had to admit my loyalties were at cross purposes, my course of action dangerous to both friends. But it was too late. I was, again, Young Jimmy’s sweater.

  53

  THE RAIN HAD A relentless fervor as I parked the Charger in the puddled asphalt lot behind Hard Core. I was getting sweaty from wearing both the jacket and slicker, or from nerves, and I took off the slicker, peeled off the windbreaker, tossed it on the rear seat, and put the slicker back on.

  Where was Benno? It was a minute past seven. Zito’s Bentley was parked by the club’s side door. What to do, continue to wait for Benno or go in now? I couldn’t take the chance of standing up Zito and if I waited any longer, I would lose my mojo. With the fedora down to my ears, I left the car and walked by the Bentley, apprehensive that Sal would suddenly pop out. He didn’t, and if there was a scrape on the paint of the passenger side door, rain beads covered it up.

  Two heavyset bouncers in black jackets and jeans, thick arms clenched across their barrel chests, barely glanced at me from under the Club’s canopy. I joined two other rained on customers at the admission window within a shocking pink and gold splashed entryway accompanied by booming bump and grind music. A wall sign over the window gave me three choices, with rising cover fees for each: the Lust Lounge—cheapest—the Show Room, and the Gentlemen’s Club. I wondered what happened in the Ultimate Private Club, which an arrow indicated was on the second floor.

  I asked for the office and the heavily made-up ticket seller with her boobs falling out of a halter motioned to the right, which I mistakenly took as meaning the Lust Lounge. I paid a five dollar cover and moved into a dimly lit bar where a couple of hostesses were mixing it up with customers in a row of banquettes. Guided by the bluish light from a half dozen televisions showing sports and porn above the bar, the single bartender, a Pauly D look-alike with spiked hair and silver earrings, was talking to a beer drinker watching the porn. He came over and I asked for the office. He frowned and snapped, “Go through the Show Room.”

  The hallway to the Show Room was adorned with photographs of nudes—in silhouette and straight on—none incredibly beautiful. I paid ten bucks to enter.

  Revolving blue and white spotlights and flashing balls reflected off the moist bodies of three writhing pole dancers, two white and one black—one of the white gals probably breaking the at least eighteen years old law—tightly lined along a runway three feet above tables. The dancers’ faces were neutral, their pelvic grinds keeping more or less in time with the heavy bass thumps, throwing their hair this way and that as they got it on with the poles, acknowledging with fake interest the cash gawkers folded into whatever held their G-strings together. Two bar girls in lacy panties worked the tables, their pasties pressed against the gawkers’ shirts, steadying themselves by squeezing their buttocks against a rail behind the lines of tables. One mush-mouthed drunk grasped a thigh and got slapped. At another table, a nude black girl was in a lap dance, her crotch barely above the neck-straining patrons. Through the dust motes that rose from the floor in the revolving spotlights, leering faces looked down from the balcony over the runway. It was tawdry, and nobody was having much fun.

  A blonde with a wide mouth, up to my chin in height even in spiked heels, heavily made up, her hair gelled, her breasts falling out of a Madonna bustier, made a move on me. “Hi ya, hot shot,” she said stroking her breasts. “What ya need?”

  “Where’s the office?”

  “Buy me a drink first and we’ll talk about it,” she said grabbing my hand and pulling me toward a table.

  I shook myself loose. “Got an appointment.”

  The light went off in her eyes. She backed off, walked to a bar and leaned into two men in black tees and jeans who turned to check me out. No-Neck and Ditto, the Jersey Boys. Whatever she said caused No-Neck to walk ponderously over to me. “You here to see Mr. Zito?” he said with a smirk. Ditto backed him, twirling a toothpick in his lips.

  “Yeah.”

  No-Neck puffed up and replied with mock politeness. “Well, suppose we go right over and see if he’s here.” He turned to Ditto for approval.

  “Yeah,” Ditto grunted, “let’s do that,” and he smiled like I was tracking in a dog turd. He took my right arm and pushed me behind No-Neck into an alcove which opened on a hallway to a scratched-up wooden door with a metal Private sign. Electronic pulses from the show-floor followed us. No-Neck opened the
door, entered, and closed it behind him. “I seen ya before,” Ditto said. His eyes brightened. “Hey, I remember. The other night, right? En Core?”

  Either he was as stupid as he looked or it was an act. I smiled in acknowledgement and stared at my shoes until No-Neck opened the door and moved out of the way. Sal, Zito’s bodyguard–driver, sat behind a beat-up wooden desk in a bluish shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest to show a mat of hair and loops of gold chain. An open Ronzio pizza box and Bud Light bottle were in front of him. His eyes were gray nailheads.

  “Hey, Mario Andretti!” Sal said and bit into a pizza slice.

  “Where’s your boss?”

  Sal elaborately looked around the room. It lacked windows, its ceiling was stained by leaks. “Goodness me, he’s not here,” he said in false wonderment and swiped a paper napkin across his thick lips. “Last minute business. Ya know, this is Columbus Weekend. Heard of that? Lots of doin’s on the Hill. Asked me to cover. What’s the story?”

  I remained calm enough to take the insult. Zito had sent a cafone, a spacone, the epitome of guido-ism, flashy, big, loud, stupid, and outlandish, mimicking cable show thugs and movie bad-guys.

  “He said you can tell me.”

  “Personal,” I said.

  “C’mon, Frannie said it was okay.”

  “No.” I turned to leave.

  Sal belched loudly and got up. “Maybe I can get him on the phone.” His gut bulged over jeans made for a man twenty pounds lighter, a bruiser gone to pot. He brushed by me. “I’ll be back. Here,” he said and offered a Playboy from the desk.

  Sal would never win an Oscar. I figured Zito might be here somewhere because Sal probably did not get the Bentley often as a loaner. Unless I could make my deal with Zito, I would go home, get a stash of cash from the basement safe, and steel Young Jimmy’s resolve not to dump by backing him. But why did Zito get me here and be a no-show? Just to insult me, the interfering rich East Side asshole, again?

  Sal returned and remained at the opened door.

  “Didn’t reach him.”

  I flipped the magazine on the desk. “Let your boss know I had a deal for him.”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna do that. You can go out through the back. Closer to the parking lot.”

  Sal moved me along the hallway into another where I faced an exterior door with a push bar. Right about then, I remembered I hadn’t mentioned Benno waiting for me; now, it seemed too late. I took a step outside, the door closed behind me. I was under an overhang, barely out of the rain. I pushed the fedora down on my head, put up my collar, fumbled in my pockets for my car keys. In the brightness of the parking lot’s sodium lights, I was disoriented momentarily and then realized my car was across the lot. Where was Benno? He had to be out there someplace.

  I hunched up my shoulders, my slicker creaked in its stiffness, and walked into the lot. I had gone maybe twenty feet when I heard a door open and footsteps behind me. I didn’t turn, somehow I didn’t want to see, and picked up my pace, not exactly running toward the Charger, but moving, the footsteps behind me matching my own, getting closer. My decision to run came too late. Powerful arms pinned my shoulders, my keys fell to the asphalt, my fedora was knocked off my head, my headbutt missed, my elbow went into a gut, and … I took a stomach punch and fell to the asphalt.

  54

  IN THE MCDONALD’S RESTROOM, I found my stomach tattooed with a purple bruise the size of a large fist and my face red with carpet burn. My clothes felt like they had grown on me, I reeked of damp and sweat, I could shave my tongue.

  “Match got moved at the last minute,” he said. “Was going to be at En Core and maybe because Tuttle is screwing everything down tight, they changed it to Jimmy’s. It’s close by, everybody’s been told to park at Hard Core and walk over.” His face scrunched up. “Lot’s of talk about a big money game. All cash, no markers, no wires. You got a member key?”

  “Yes, but we won’t get in.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  We parked our cars in the Holy Ghost Church lot a block away from Jimmy’s. My legs felt like they were filled with oatmeal as I got out of the Charger; rain dripped from my fedora’s brim to slip under my jacket’s collar. We stopped in the shadows one tenement away from Jimmy’s. The floodlight over the outside staircase to the Billiard Club showed a guard posted at the door.

  “You stay here,” Benno whispered, “until he leaves. Then get up there fast. Give me your key.”

  Benno, with his collar up, chin tucked in, and hands in jacket, was quickly up the stairs. It was No-Neck who confronted him. Benno kept his head down as he said something to No-Neck; No-Neck hesitated then marched down the stairs to the sidewalk and around the building to Wickenden Street. Benno opened the door and I hustled up the stairs.

  The Club generated a sweaty electricity. The overhead lights over Jimmy’s Table were cones of cigar and cigarette smoke. Testosterone and the odor of sweat-stained bills in clammy pockets emanated from the overheated sports. My fedora, pulled down to my ears, wasn’t an orphan; there were others as well as panamas, a pork pie or two, and cockeyed caps. This was a crate of hard cases, the sweaters, railbirds, and assorted gamblers who frequent big money matches.

  Young Jimmy, at the far side of the table, stared over the business end of his cue. He was tieless, his white shirt collar open, his hair oily, his brow shiny. In the stark lighting, his skin was yellowish and his piercing blue eyes were like two aquamarines. A sharp clack of balls was accompanied by a chorus of support; Harley Smoot in his classic black shirt, straightened, and beamed a gratified smile at the reaction. A classic match; you could tell that from the hush of the crowd before a shot and because the bar was open only between games. This was the match that Young Jimmy had to play.

  Benno disappeared in the crowd as I spotted Ditto, his arms crossed, standing next to a tall, stocky guy wearing a black suede jacket over a blue shirt who scribbled furiously on a pad of paper. He was the book who took the bets on behalf of the house, and gave odds periodically depending on the status of the match. The numerals on the chalkboard behind them, which would indicate how many games in the match and the standings, were blocked from my view. As I got my bearings, I asked myself was I there only to witness Young Jimmy’s desperate wager? Or had he gotten other backers? Or would he, disheartened by my absence and Zito’s threats, dump?

  The crowd shuffled around the play table to make room for the next shot. Smoot remained the shooter, and earned a collective gasp followed by rough voices of encouragement and disappointment. A bobblehead in front of me said to no one in particular that Smoot had played a safety, a shot that effectively placed balls on the table to block Young Jimmy’s next shot. “Hannigan,” he said, “will never pull this one off.”

  I squeezed closer to the table; nobody paid attention to me, just another guy with some dough on the match. Smoot brushed Young Jimmy’s shoulder and said something that made Young Jimmy smile, probably giving Young Jimmy a hustler’s boost.

  Benno reappeared and nudged me to follow him into the men’s room next to the bar where we unzipped at the urinals. “Hannigan’s behind a game, ten-nine,” he whispered, “race to eleven. Started off with Hannigan winning until Smoot ran off a bunch of racks. Odds changed. Hannigan came back to one down. Smoot has a bunch of out-of-town backers here, big money. The book’s got to be Zito’s guy. The guy at the door and the one by the book are to make sure nobody leaves until they settle up. Your guy is going to dump …”

  We heard shouts from the tables. Maybe Young Jimmy made the shot! “He’s not going to dump,” I whispered back, not really sure, and went to the sink where the mirror reflected my fatigue, hurt, and a brain working too slow.

  Benno joined me. “He has to. Zito’s got to have it figured both ways. He’s not just taking a cut on the bets, he’s gotta be heavily down on this.”

  “If we can’t help Young Jimmy, what the hell are we doing here?”

  Benno checked his watch. “The match is moving t
oo fast. It’s got to last a little longer.”

  “Huh …?”

  The men’s room’s door opened. Ditto didn’t check us out as he headed into a stall. Benno shrugged toward the door and we were back by the bar. “Stay here,” he said.

  I didn’t do as I was told. I had to see the play. Benno became invisible in the crowd while I stood in the shadows of the first row of the viewing platform, looking over hats, oily hair, and bald heads. Young Jimmy had survived. Loud breathing and muttering and swearing increased the tension; money was being won or lost with each shot and pool money was never totally quiet. Then, a collective sigh of disappointment from Smoot backers at a missed shot. The play went back to Young Jimmy.

  I left the gallery and pressed into the outer ring of spectators for a glimpse of the table, five balls in a wide spread, nine ball behind the six ball. Young Jimmy’s wasted no time. He straightened, that glint of hard blue crystal was in his eyes, his face suddenly confident and chalked the cue tip slowly, waved the crowd back from the table, and this was the ideal opportunity for a dump, a difficult shot after a great comeback, lose, smile, shake hands. He bent from the waist, I heard the cue ball smack its target accompanied by gasps and applause. A double-chinned, red-faced man who must be the ref yelled, “Ten-ten. Shooters are gonna take a five minute break,” he shouted over the noise.

  The railbirds and gamblers rushed from the table to the bar, some faces grim, others smiling, all a little nervous, the book on a cell phone, Young Jimmy’s great shot, maybe, wasn’t on script. Benno gripped my elbow with authority. “C’mon,” he grunted and I followed him to stand next to the inner staircase door between the viewing platform and the men’s room. The door’s dark stain blended into the woodwork. Benno looked at his watch; what was the deal on time?

  Young Jimmy’s head bobbed among well-wishers and back slappers, almost as many as those who surrounded Smoot. Young Jimmy handed someone his cue and walked toward the men’s room as did Smoot. A couple of mean-faced guys followed—pool gamblers are suspicious of out-of-sight player chats during a match—but instead of entering of the men’s room, Young Jimmy veered off to go behind the packed bar and drew a glass of water from the tap; Smoot pushed opened the men’s room door.