by T. S. O'Neil
When he awoke some ten hours later, Brenda was gone. Jimmy wasn’t worried. He figured she was off getting some food as he would have dispatched her toward that end if she was still around.
Brenda returned some time later, Jimmy having drifted off to sleep again. She had a circular red and white bucket with a picture on the side of some old guy with white hair, glasses and a goatee. Based on the grease stains, he guessed that they were having fried chicken—Jimmy’s favorite. Brenda also had a paper bag with a couple of six-packs of Busch. She popped the top of one and handed it to him. He swallowed deeply, grabbed a piece of chicken, and sat down on the edge of the bed and began eating. Brenda hovered over him, running her fingers through his thick black hair.
“Ain’t you gonna eat?” He said through a mouthful of chicken.
“Not yet, I wanna check that the stitches in that gunshot wound are not broke, first.”
Jimmy continued eating as his girl began to slowly peel back the white surgical tape. His mom was the same way. Her husband always came first and then her, as an afterthought, if at all. While he ate his fill, three legs and two breasts, she checked the stitches. Once satisfied that they were all intact, she re-bandaged him with a new dressing.
“Where did you get the medical stuff?” Jimmy asked, somewhat mystified.
“There was a drug store next to the chicken place and I figured we should make sure your wound is scabbing up some, so I bought some medical supplies.”
Jimmy kissed her deeply; she was a good woman who loved him, even in spite of himself.
“I also found a place where maybe I could work,” she said with a slight smile on her face.
“Shit, how long had I been asleep?”
“There is a place called the Flamingo Lounge that advertised strip tease dancing. I stopped in and this nice old man told me to come back when the owner was there and I could get an audition.”
Great, thought Jimmy. He leaned back on bed and motioned Brenda to come over to him. She slid on top of him and gyrated her groin into his.
“Ah, baby, you always know just what daddy wants,” he said with a sly smile.
Near sunset, Jimmy drove her back to the bar and escorted her inside. It was dark and it took him a few moments for his vision to adjust. There was a long, keyhole shaped stage in the center of the room surrounded by a wraparound bar where lookie-loos could sit and tip the girls. Behind this were some black linoleum covered tables with small red glass covered candles for the shyer clientele and a long bar that ran the length of the wall to the left of the stage.
At one of the bar stools sat a guy in a pressed white shirt and red tie going over what looked like a racing form. Even while he was seated, Jimmy could tell he was a big guy.
“Cuze me,” Jimmy said, “I am looking for the owner of this place.”
The guy did not bother looking up, but continued to study the form.
“What do you want with him?” he said finally.
“My girl wants to apply for a...” Jimmy started to explain.
“Listen paly, your girl wants to strip, tell her to get up on the stage and she can strip for me,” he said through a smirk as he eyed Brenda with slightly veiled lust. “And if I think she is good enough, I’ll tell Mr. Buzzuto about her and she can come back in and dance for him. As for you, you can leave and come back in an hour. She should be done with the audition by then.”
Jimmy felt the warm rush of blood redden the skin of his face and the rush of adrenaline to the rest of his body. He was so angered, he figured he would just stave this assholes head in with whatever was at hand and let the chips fall where they will. Jimmy forced himself to smile and looked down at the beer bottle—it was a long neck.
“Ligio, why do you talk like that to a guest?”
The big guy jumped to his feet as a short, nattily dressed man entered from what appeared to be the kitchen.
“Mr. Buzzuto, I didn’t know you were here,” Ligio stammered.
“That’s right, Ligio, I wanted to find out why I am always smelling beer on your breath, so I thought I would come in a little early and check it out for myself,” he said while smiling at Brenda.
“And now, I find not only are you drinking beer when you are supposed to be getting ready to open, but you are also mistreating my guests. I tell you, if you weren’t my dear wife’s nephew, I would fire you on the spot. Now, get to work, there’s a load of beer that the driver left out back because he couldn’t get anyone to come to the door.”
Ligio nodded, jumped off the bar stool and immediately disappeared through the kitchen door.
“Call me Sally,” cooed Buzzuto, as he took her hand and escorted her to a circular red leather booth that occupied the corner. Jimmy followed them, somewhat annoyed, but mostly amused by the fat old man making a play for his girl.
They sat down and Buzzuto continued to hold her hand. “I bought this place a few years ago; it wasn’t much—a dump with some old gals that did strip tease. I updated it with a more modern look, brought in younger chicks wearing G-strings, and put Rock and Roll on the Jukebox, instead of the old bump and grind music.”
She nodded, listening intently while Jimmy sat slumped down in the booth—bored and wondering whether he could get this Guido to buy them a few free drinks.
“As far as hours go, continued Buzzuto, you will dance where and when I need you, so you either have to call me every day or have a phone where I can reach you. You dance well, have a drink with the customers, laugh at their jokes, occasionally let them grab your ass and you’ll do well.”
Jimmy felt his annoyance boil over. “Why the hell does she have to put up with that?”
“Listen, kid,” said Buzzuto, suddenly very serious, “this is my business—showcasing beautiful women taking their clothes off up on stage. It’s an illusion, but one that guys pay a lot of money to indulge in. Occasionally, a guy will want to convince himself that it’s real, so he will grab a bit; either one of you got a problem with that, don’t let the door hit you on the way out of here.”
Brenda looked at Jimmy with pleading eyes and he nodded slightly.
“Okay, Mr. Buzzuto,” she said, “no complaints if some high-rollers squeeze my ass on occasion.”
“Good,” he replied. “Now, one other thing, I put up girls that are thin and beautiful; no fatties, no scars or stretch marks; if a guy wants to see that stuff, he can see it at home, tu capisci.”
Jimmy had been around enough Italians in New Orleans to understand; he shook his head and relaxed slightly. “No worries there, she’s got a smoking body.”
Buzzuto smiled warmly and got to his feet.
“And now, my dear, please indulge us with a dance. Strip down to your bra and panties, if you don’t mind.”
Sally walked to the juke box, punched some buttons and the music started Frank Sinatra crooning Witchcraft.
“One of my personal favorites,” Sally explained as he led her to the stage. She climbed the stairs tentatively, turned towards Sally, stood still until she caught the music’s rhythm and then executed a slow, graceful pirouette. She had unzipped the zipper that ran up her right side of her skirt and the motion of the turn spun it off her body, revealing a set of low cut, black lace panties. Sally applauded and she deftly tossed the garment to him. Brenda executed a series of lightly gyrating dance motions as she moved around the stage, while slowly unbuttoning her blouse.
The song ended and was immediately followed by Fly me to the moon, by Tony Bennett, a slower and more romantic song. Brenda used it to remove her blouse and show off a dancer’s sequined bra, proving to Jimmy that she fully expected to be stripping.
Buzzuto applauded at the end of the song, “get dressed sweetie—you got the job. Give me a minute.” He retreated behind the bar and reappeared with a bottle of wine and three glasses.
“Made from grapes in my vineyard in Sicily,” he explained while deftly opening it with a corkscrew.
They left feeling hopeful. Buzzuto explaining so
me girls made as much as fifty dollars a night in tips alone and more, if they did not mind keeping company with some of the bigger spenders outside of the club. Jimmy didn’t like the sound of that and figured the fifty a night would be sufficient to pay the rent and buy food. He might even go straight. One problem remained however—the wife’s nephew, Ligio. Jimmy was the kind of guy who was destined to clash with a guy like that—it was almost preordained.
Chapter 5 - Sally Boots
Salvatore Buzzuto or Sally Boots, was a Made Man in the New England mob, operating out of Providence. He specialized in prostitutes—due to a loophole in the Rhode Island State statutes, sex between consenting adults in private places was legal and this extended to both hookers and Johns. Sally Boots ran strip clubs with convenient places in back where a patron could be entertained by a scantily clad dancer in a semi-private room—semi-private only in the sense that there was a curtain, rather than a door screening the clandestine amorous activity.
Sally’s mouthpiece, a very high priced (and of course, Jewish) criminal attorney, advised him that locked doors would definitely be a signal that something illicit was taking place, whereas an opaque curtain would at least provide a thin veneer of deniability—plausible or not. Lawyers were worthless until you need them, like when the shit was in the wind, meaning immediately after it hit the fan.
Still, the whoring business allowed him a pretty good living. He didn’t need to concern himself with hijacking trucks or boosting cargo from the port, although he missed the excitement. In those days, he just sat back and counted the profit from the cover charge, water-down drinks, and trips to the Champagne Room that Sally taxed with gratuitous abandon.
He demanded kickbacks from the hand-jobs, blow-jobs, and reverse cowgirl style fucks his flock of slutty dancers readily sold. Most did it to fuel a cocaine habit (or worse) and he would help them out there too. Sally didn’t handle the stuff himself, but he would arrange a visit from Doctor Sid, a dealer he trusted. And of course, he also took a cut of Sid’s action. In short, there wasn’t an illicit activity that a dancer did that Sally didn’t get a cut of.
Sally technically belonged to a crew. His Capo was Eddie Valente, a guy who was over his head just staying out of jail and kicking upstairs to the big boss, Ray Patriarca, the boss of the New England Syndicate. Sally Boots and Ray went back a long time—they grew up together in Worcester and spent their formative years jacking trucks and cracking safes.
Eventually, when the good luck ended, Sally got caught with a stolen truck full of Maine lobster packed in ice and bound for discriminating dinners on Park Avenue. Sally went to jail and like the standup guy he was, kept his mouth shut. Ray got big and when Sally got out in 8 years and change, Ray rewarded him by letting him run a Burlesques House in West Providence that had fallen into Ray’s lap after the owner could not keep up with his gambling habit.
All was tits and ice cream for quite a while, but whoever said good luck was fleeting knew what he was talking about. Sally was protected, but only up to a point. His wife’s idiot son was always getting into hot water selling junk—which was highly frowned upon in the Patriarca family.
In October of 1969, Sally’s adopted son sold a bag of H to some hippie chick he knew from somewhere. She overdosed in the company of her boyfriend, who did so as well. The trouble was that the boyfriend was the son of Capo from his family. They both died after being rushed to the hospital.
In those days, hospitals weren’t equipped to deal with an overdose of heroin as the drug was still mostly confined to hip subculture of musicians, artists and an advance guard of connected junkies chasing the perfect high.
Somebody found out it was Sally’s stepson that sold the junk and he experienced a mysterious case of dead due to a collapsed larynx, not to mention a hypodermic needle that was found shoved up his ass. Sally was told to move south if he wanted to continue breathing, as he was supposed to be responsible for the knucklehead.
So, welcome to Tampa. He bought a failing nightclub and nicely refurbished it as a high class strip joint. His wife decided to stay in Providence granting Sally a geographic divorce and part of the dancer’s conditions of employment is Sally gets a piece of ass when he wanted it. His only problem is his wife’s nephew, Ligio, who accompanied him to Florida as he was a close associate of his deceased stepson and was also prone to similar lapses in judgments.
So, life is okay—the dancers pay Sally for the privilege of dancing and give him a blowjob or fuck in his office regularly. He avoids them otherwise as they are normally bad news— “puttanas vergognosas” as his old man used to say. Still, they paid the bills. He kept a low profile, so low that the established Mafia hoods, guys like Santo Trafficante, did not bother with him when they came to Tampa to run numbers.
And so, Sally sat in Tampa waiting for the assholes in Providence to stop calling for his head. He missed the excitement—the occasional shooting, or beating the snot out of some miscreant behind on the vig for one of his loans.
On occasion, he might fence some stolen cigars and send them up north, but mostly he was legit as he had no crew. The only one he got is Ligio—all brawn, no brains, Ligio. The winter temperature in Providence gave Ligio a run for his I.Q. points.
Occasionally, one of the strippers gave him a real hard-on and such is the case with this new dancer, Brenda, who picks the stage name Sunshine—these hippie chicks and their names, he thinks. She is a redhead; he wonders if the carpet matches the drapes, with big natural tits—-must be D cups, Sally thinks. She is like a sleazier version of Piper Laurie, the broad from one of Sally’s favorite movies: The Hustler with Paul Newman. She brings in the clients and they all want private dances, which include cheap bottles of Champagne that Sally buys for four bucks a bottle, but sells for a cool C-note. But, she doesn’t fuck or blow any of them, regardless of how many bottles of champagne they buy. Sally admires that.
The only problem is she has got a boyfriend, Jimmy, and that fuck-o has been selling speed—Dex, to the dancers. Lord knows the bitches need it the way Sally keeps them dancing, but he doesn’t want the heat. Still, Sally likes the kid, he admires the fact that Jimmy doesn’t take any shit from Ligio and Ligio may be a lot of things, but he ain’t a punk. Jimmy acts like he would go toe to toe with the big bastard, so maybe the kid has got some balls and Sally thinks balls are worth a lot in this game. So, Sally decides he will have to talk to Jimmy himself, have Ligio sit in the background, but maybe, he can make it a win-win situation, like his Jew lawyer used to say.
Chapter 6 - Dinner at the Don Carlo
“I’ve got two tickets to a free dinner tomorrow night and I would like you to go. Take a date if you like.”
The Commodore sat smoking his pipe in an old wood and green leather swivel chair behind a hand carved Mahogany desk he had made while in the Philippines after the war. He handed Char the blue tickets with a slightly cocked eyebrow as there was something slightly unseemly about them.
“Just not my type of event, he continued, but I’ve been assured it will be top notch—good food, liquor, a band. It’s at the Don Carlo Hotel. You know that huge pink monstrosity on St. Pete Beach.”
Char knew the hotel all right. It was the tallest building on the beach and could be seen from Clearwater. It was so grand that when he first got to town, Char made a point of going to see it. He walked around the grounds, but was too shabbily dressed to think about going inside.
The Don Carlo was built in 1922, by a local entrepreneur who purchased land in St. Petersburg, Florida to build a pink castle in Mediterranean and Moorish styles modeled after different hotels that he had seen throughout the resort communities in Southern Florida. It had 200 rooms and cost over $2.25 million. The Pink Lady opened in January of 1927 and quickly became a favorite stomping ground for the well-heeled of the Jazz Age. The hotel went through good times and bad, numerous refurbishments, use as a hospital during the aftermath of World War II and an eventual rebirth in 1958 when a Texas oilman with a nostalgic t
winge decided to buy the place where he and his wife of thirty years had once honeymooned.
Char took the tickets and looked down at the distinguished old sailor seated behind the desk and waited for the catch. The Commodore read Char’s expression and continued, “the price of admission is twofold my young protégé; one that you listen to a short investor’s presentation meant to solicit capital from the assembled ranks of Tampa Bay’s fat cats to fund a floating casino that this crazy Aussie is trying to keep afloat.”
“And two?”
“Two is that you run roughshod over Tommy and keep him from making a jackass out of himself as I promised him the other
ticket, answered the Commodore. I would say keep him from getting drunk, but we both know that will be impossibility.”
Char nodded. Tommy liked his drink and that was fine if he drank beer, but if there was an open bar, Tommy would go straight for the bourbon and the result could be calamitous.
“Ok, enough about Tommy. Let me brief you on how I want you to handle any discussion with Simon Block. Lots of folks in Tampa and St. Pete used to fly to Havana to gamble, but Castro took over, nationalized the casinos and the U.S. has had an embargo in place since after the Bay of Pigs.”
Char was aware of the botched invasion—it had been one of his primary motivations for joining Special Forces. He felt the U.S. had left the 1400 or so Cuban exiles of Brigade 2506, stranded on the beach as over fifteen times their number of regular Cuban troops attacked them. Funny, the U.S. basically did the same thing in Viet Nam—left the Republic of South Vietnam high and dry.
The Commodore continued, “So, there is a lot of pent up demand for gambling among that crowd. The guy’s plan is to lure the crowd that used to go to Havana to board his converted ocean going ferry, take them outside the territorial waters of the U.S., feed them some first rate food and drink and then fleece them in elegant splendor. Block made a speech at the Rotary Club and the guy latched on to me like pitch on Navy Whites. Feel free to introduce yourself as my personal representative, feign some level of interest in the project, be polite and don’t get visibly drunk. Other than that, feel free to have a good time.”