by Joe Corso
“What does he look like?”
“Well, red faced, you know, like a lot of Irish guys. Big nose, bulbous nose, typical Irish drinker look, with light skin and a red face with a big nose.”
“Got it. Okay, don’t worry about nothin’,” Red said. “Just be here tomorrow morning at eight and we’ll drive down to their office together.”
At exactly eight am the following morning, Roberto walked into The Starlight Club. Red, Tarzan, Trenchie, and Frankie the cop were all waiting for him. With Frankie behind the wheel, they all piled into Red’s Caddy and made their way through downtown Manhattan to the brokerage house. Reilly and his men were on time. They were expecting to find the three kids there working at their desks and Roberto, but they were surprised to see Roberto with four strangers.
Big Red looked at Roberto and pointed at Reilly. “Is this the bum that beat you up?”
“Yeah, he’s the one.” Red walked right over to Reilly and without warning, hit him with a right hand that knocked him off his feet. Red didn’t give him a chance to get up. Instead, he kicked him hard in the stomach and again in the face. He reached down and grabbed a hand full of his hair and slammed his face on the hard floor. A tooth flew across the floor. The man grabbed his nose. It was broken and bloody. He then felt his mouth. Four front teeth were loose and just hanging. Red rolled the man over on his back. “You wanted my friend’s son to give you a hundred fifty thousand dollars this morning? Now I’m tellin’ you – you owe me a hundred fifty thou. We’re takin’ a little trip to the bank and you’re gonna withdraw my money.”
Reilly tried to speak. He wanted to say something but Tarzan interrupted. “I never liked you Irish bastards to begin with. You better get your ass off the floor, shithead, because we’re goin’ for our money right now. So go get your ugly ass into the bathroom and clean yourself up and make it fast.” Reilly’s two friends tried to make a move but Trenchie glared right into their eyes and then slowly pulled his jacket back to reveal his gun tucked under his belt.
Reilly, a little unsteady on his feet, did a double take of Tarzan and mumbled through a swollen mouth, “Hey, didn’t I see you on television? Weren’t you on trial in Mineola?”
“Yeah, that was me. What about it?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Look, you guys can have this place. We don’t want any more trouble and we won’t bother the kids.”
“That’s fine,” Red said, “but we still want the one hundred fifty grand.”
Reilly knew he was in dangerous waters. He had to think quickly. “Look, there’s a big deal comin’ down and I need this money to invest in it. I could include you in it if you’ll agree to let me keep the money.”
Red was curious. “What kind of deal?”
Reilly began explaining. “A friend of mine has a connection with a major movie studio. He’s got the goods on a few of their top stars and he’s shakin’ down the president of the company for two million. And that’s just the beginning. Once he starts payin’, he’ll be payin’ us for the rest of his life, only he don’t know it yet.”
“What’s your friend’s name? What studio and who’s the mark?”
“My buddy’s name is Bob Gray. The company is Columbia Pictures and the guy they’re shakin’ down is Larry Bernstein. Bob’s got the goods on his fag male star and Bernstein’s three female stars will be finished in movies if we release what we have on them. Neat huh? So do you want in?” he asked while holding a damp towel to his face.
“Bob Gray’s your friend?” Red questioned.
“Yeah, he’s the guy I need the money for. He’s got the Detroit mob backin’ him on this deal.”
“So why are you givin’ your money to Gray instead of the Detroit mob?”
He smiled through his swollen face. “They’re not interested in runnin’ Columbia Pictures. That’s where Bob comes in. They want him to run it for them. We’ll make money on both ends. So, are you in?”
Red shook his head. “I’m not interested. Now let’s go get my money.”
But Reilly wasn’t through quite yet. He had trouble speaking but he managed to say, “There’s some bad people involved in this deal and they’re takin’ over the company with or without you. If you want my advice, I wouldn’t mess with ‘em.”
“Well, I don’t want your advice,” Red said, almost offended that the bruised man offered it, “and as for these tough guys, they don’t know who they’re messin’ with. Now let’s go get my money.” As he was about to leave Red turned to Roberto and said, “Roberto, you and your friends stay right here, in the office, until I return.” The four young men nodded, still a little shaken over what they had just heard and witnessed. The viciousness that Red was capable of was a part of Red that most people never saw.
Reilly was in no position to argue. He was hoping that this money would buy his life, at least for the moment. Revenge could come later, but right now, he had to survive this day.
Tarzan covered his gun with his hand as Red ordered Reilly and gang into Reilly’s car. There was a method to his madness. If any blood was to be spilled, it would ruin Reilly’s interior, not Red’s Caddy. Red accompanied Reilly into the bank while the other men waited in the car. Reilly, when questioned by the teller about wanting that much cash withdrawn, simply stated that it was needed for a new business that required capital. The teller dutifully drew up a cashier’s check for half and the rest she gave in cash for a total of one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Once outside, Reilly handed the check and the cash to Red and both walked back to the car. Inside the car Red had Tarzan count the money. Red then placed both the cash and the check into his attaché case.
When the men arrived back at the brokerage house, Red tossed Frankie the keys to his convertible and told him to follow them. That was a clear signal to Red’s men as to what was about to take place. If he let Reilly go, he would always be looking over his shoulder. Sooner or later, Reilly, like a lot of other wise guys, would make an attempt at revenge. And there was the problem with his men. Would they want revenge too? These were always the tough questions in a situation like this and they were on Red’s mind as they headed toward Red’s junkyard near Flushing. Red studied Reilly’s men. The only conclusion he could draw was that these guys were dangerous, but he didn’t want to kill them if he didn’t have to. He didn’t murder people without good reason. Red told Moose to stop the car. He didn’t want them to see the junkyard just ahead.
“You two get out of the car,” Red ordered. The two men stepped out of the car, their eyes darting everywhere, looking for a chance to run. Red knew what they were thinking. “Don’t even think about it,” Red said.
The younger of the two began pleading. “Please, don’t do this. I have a wife and two kids. Let me go and you’ll never see me again.”
Red looked at the other guy. “What about you? Do you have any kids?”
“I got a wife but no kids yet.”
Red had to make a quick tough decision. If he let these guys go, they would be witnesses to a murder and he’d always worry about them either ratting on him or coming after him. He pointed to the younger man. “Give me your wallet.” The man was only too eager to comply and handed Red his wallet. Red removed his driver’s license, put it into his shirt pocket, and handed him back his wallet. “You two get back in the car.” He motioned to Moose to continue driving into the yard. At the entrance, Red stepped out and nodded to Trenchie and Tarzan. The car moved slowly ahead until it reached a huge yellow machine that held remnants of cars. It was the car crusher. Reilly and his men instantly knew their fate. There were whimpers from inside the car, grown men pleading, pleading for their lives, begging for mercy.
Red couldn’t hear the gunshots due to the noise in the junkyard, but the muzzle flashes lit up the interior of the Caddy like small bolts of lightning on a dark night. Reilly’s car was then placed into the yellow machine where soon human parts and sheets of steel meshed into oblivion. Frankie drove Red and the guys back to the brokerage house where Red informed the four youn
g men that Reilly and his men would never bother them again. The three young brokers were elated and relieved, but none dared to ask questions. There was an understood, unspoken silence.
Red turned to Roberto. “Your father’s a good man, Roberto. I’ve known him a long time now. He did me a big favor once.” As Red turned to leave, Tommy, one of the kids, asked him if they owed him anything. Red wasn’t that kind of a mobster. He had his own set of standards and taking money from some kids who were struggling to keep their business above water wasn’t one of them. “Nah. You don’t owe me anything, but someday I may come to you for a favor. That time may never come but if it does I’ll expect you to honor it, but aside from that I’m glad I was able to help you. Now go put the money that you were giving to Reilly back into the bank and start workin’ again. But I will give you a little piece of advice. Don’t go callin’ too much attention to yourselves. Have fun, enjoy life, but tone it down a bit. Flashy people have a target on their backs. Got that?” The boys nodded, and each echoed their understanding.
Heading back to The Starlight Club, Red took the seventy–five grand cashiers check out of the envelope that Reilly had given him. He handed it to Tarzan along with the the dead man’s license. “Cash this check at one of our banks and take this to his widow. See that she gets it. I really hated to whack those two guys but they were witnesses to a murder. I had no choice. Make sure she gets the money – she’s gonna need it.” He took the remaining seventy–five thousand and parceled out fifteen thousand dollars to each of his four men. He kept the remaining fifteen for himself.
Big Red walked to a storage room in the rear of the building and opened the door. He switched on the light and looked for the box that contained Jimmy the Hat’s belongings. It was still there right on the top shelf right where he had placed it after Jimmy died. He pulled it down and put the box on the table. He paused a moment before cutting the tape and opening it. There wasn’t much inside the box considering how famous Jimmy was, but Red wasn’t looking for much. He found Jimmy’s wallet sitting on top of his meager possessions. Red opened the wallet and looked through it hoping to find that slip of paper with the name of Lana Thomas’s blackmailer on it. Bingo! It was the first slip of paper he pulled out. If you remember, this guy was blackmailing Lana Thomas, the studio’s biggest female star. Jimmy had stopped the guy when Jimmy’s camera operator friend had videotaped an entire scene of the blackmail-taking place. Jimmy then told Larry Bernstein, the studio head, where to find the film, the proof. Bernstein had sent his studio head of security to retrieve the film and he then personally destroyed the tape. Well, when Reilly mentioned Bob Gray’s name, an alarm went off in Red’s head. He remembered Jimmy mentioning this name, too. Red was hoping that this would be the name on this slip of paper. Not only was his name there, but so was Gray’s address, if he still lived there, that is. He could have probably located the address by way of the phonebook, but it would have taken longer because the name Gray was such a common one.
Red picked up his little black book and thumbed through it for Larry Bernstein’s private number. Bernstein’s secretary pressed the intercom and informed her boss that a man who called himself ‘Big Red’ was holding for him. Bernstein was only too happy to hear from him. “Red, I’m so glad to hear from you. Thought you might have forgotten me now that James is no longer with us.”
“Not at all, Larry. I’ve been thinkin’ about your problem.”
Bernstein was hanging onto Red’s every word and he asked, “You think you can help?”
“I think so Larry. I think I can make this little problem go away,” Red said confidently. Larry sucked in his breath. “Really Red? That would be huge. Really huge.”
“Yeah, I’ll fly out there next week to see ya. This calls for a personal visit.”
“Send me all the info,” Bernstein replied. “There’ll be a studio limo waiting for ya.”
“Will do Larry.”
Bernstein hung up his office phone and let out an audible sigh. He was incredibly relieved to know that Red was on his way, but the fact remained that he was on his own until Red’s arrival and that was seven days away. If the blackmailers did contact him again, he’d have to come up with some excuse to put them off at least until next week.
chapter seven
Red, Trenchie, Tarzan, and Frankie the cop were all sitting at a table in the ballroom, far away from anyone who could hear their conversation. Red wanted to recap what happened earlier. “What happened today, in my opinion, isn’t going to stop. I don’t trust these guys. I want one of our guys to follow them day and night to find out what they’re up to. Who do we have that’s good at tailin’ them?” The men looked at one another and appeared to be at a loss. Trenchie had been away for ten years, Tarzan had just become a member of the crew, and Frankie the cop was kept out of Big Red’s business for his own good. It was Moose who offered a suggestion. He had overheard the question while bringing drinks to the table.
“How about Shooter? He’s available.” Red thought about it for a moment.
“I didn’t think of him but you’re right. He’d be perfect for this job.”
Shooter, whose real name was Joey Shuterelli, was an enforcer in Red’s family. He worked with the crew from the Ridgewood section of Queens. He became known as Joey Six–Gun Shooter, a derivative of his last name, but eventually the Six–Gun part was dropped. Shooter stuck. Joey was thirty–seven years old – slim, wiry, loyal, intelligent and totally ruthless. Shooter fit him because he always carried a Colt single action gun which was the gun almost everyone owned a hundred and forty years ago. It was known as the gun that won the west. Joey believed in reincarnation. He believed that he had lived in the Wild, wild west. He read all about the legendary gunslingers of that era – Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickock, the James Boys, the Dalton Brothers and many others. He had a 1851 Navy Colt just like the one Wild Bill owned, but since it was a black powder gun, he kept it more as a keepsake than a weapon. The gun that fascinated him most was the gun that Colt manufactured from 1873 up to the present. The single action Colt was the most popular gun the Colt Firearms company made even though Sam Colt had died in 1862 before it was introduced. This gun became synonymous with the company. It was known throughout the west as the Colt Single Action gun. It was a six gun repeater, a breakthrough gun that allowed the user to fire six rounds and use the same caliber bullet, in both his rifle and his pistol, thus avoiding the cumbersome burden of having to carry two different types of ammunition. It came in a variety of cartridge sizes.
While on vacation in Florida, Joey had attended a gun show at the Fort Lauderdale War Memorial. As he walked down one of the aisles
filled with gun vendors, he spotted a single action Colt being sold by a private seller and bought it. It was a first generation Colt in perfect condition, chambered for the forty–five caliber cartridge, and manufactured in 1903. First generation Colts generally used black powder but this gun didn’t. It was manufactured after smokeless cartridges had replaced black powder. Because Shooter bought the gun from a private party, he didn’t need a background check or a three day waiting period and because it was a first generation SAA, he paid a premium price for it. Its grips were made of rare, hand–carved ivory. He had read somewhere that Wild Bill thought sissies only carried pearl handled guns but real men used ivory gripped guns. Wild Bill wore his two ivory gripped six guns when he demonstrated his shooting skills and when he dressed up in his finest, but he used the regular 1851 Navy Colts for everyday use.
Joey bought the gun along with twenty boxes of forty–five caliber cartridges. Now that he owned the gun of his dreams, he was determined to practice until he became as good a shot as any of the men he had read about in the old west. Every free moment he had, Joey practiced shooting in a warehouse that Red owned. He fired thousands of rounds for months until his efforts paid off. He mastered the quick draw and at the same time could expertly fire his six gun. The day he put six shots into the center of the bul
l’s eye target at twenty–five yards, he ordered a quick draw holster, custom–made, which fit under his belt. The holster pivoted on an angle and allowed Joey to not only carry his gun inside his jacket, undetected, but it also allowed him to use his quick draw with freedom of movement. He practiced different scenarios where he would spin and as he turned his body, his hand would slide along the handle of the gun where it would stick to his palm as if it were magnetized. In seconds, he could fire six bullets in a perfect grouping, spanning no more than the size of a silver dollar in the center of that bull’s eye.
Red told Moose, “Get him down here. In fact, do me a favor and go get him now. It’ll be faster that way.”
Moose left to get Shooter and the boys settled into a discussion of what happened earlier, what the guys from Detroit might do in the future, and what the plan would be should that happen.
Red was summoned to a phone call. Tarzan used this time to talk to Trenchie. Something had been on his mind for quite some time. He pulled Trenchie aside.
“Do you mind if I ask you something Trenchie?”
Trenchie seemed a little puzzled but nodded and answered, “No, not at all.”
Tarzan continued, “Before I joined with Red, I was told that you did ten years for something you didn’t do. I did ten years, too, but I was guilty of what they accused me of. But you did ten years for something and didn’t deserve it. Now that’s something else. Could you tell me what happened if you don’t mind?” Trenchie thought for a moment. He didn’t like discussing his personal business but Tarzan wasn’t just anyone – Trenchie liked him. He was one of the few guys he felt comfortable with.
“It happened a long time ago. After bein’ in Yip’s gang for about twelve years, I was initiated. I’m not gonna go into what I was into because we’re all into the same thing even now. Back then Yip had just become head of the family. He was picked over Emilio Big Head Strunzi who was underboss to Johnny “Tangerine” Tangerello, our boss at the time. Tangerine died of a sudden heart attack while golfin’ and Big Head assumed that he would be the boss. Big Head wasn’t really liked by too many people including the guys in his crew and while he was out of town vacationing in Florida, Yip was elected by the captains to head the family. Yip was a reasonable man while Big Head ran his crew like a dictatorship. Another consideration was that Yip was a bigger earner then Big Head. He brought in a lot more. When Big Head found out that Yip was the new boss, he lost it, blew a fuse. To his face, he showed Yip respect, but behind his back, he constantly complained about how he should have been chosen to head the family. He was really bitter about it. So, with a few loyal men from his old crew, he conspired to have Yip whacked. Yip thought that all his men were loyal to him but I never trusted Big Head. I had nothin’ to go on but a gut feelin’ so I told Yip that from then on, he wasn’t goin’ nowhere without me. I told him I’d watch his back.”