Film Strip

by Nancy Bartholomew

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve probably got some questions about that, so I’m going to give it to you straight up: I’m in trouble and you’re the only one who can help me.”

  Bingo. Francis tried not to look pleased, but he stuck his tongue inside his cheek, a childhood thing he always did when he wanted to appear cool and was secretly excited.

  “What’s up?”

  I told him, leaving out minor details. I tried to play down the entire thing, but in the end, he caught on.

  “So basically, you’re saying you want me to act like Big Moose Lavotini’s son. You want me to keep you from getting your ass kicked by muscle from New York?”

  “Right. See? It’s simple. You say the Lavotinis have no beef with whoever it is in New York City, and before you know it, we’ll be on our way home.”

  Francis stood up and slammed his coffee mug down on the table. “Bullshit, Sierra! Nothing’s ever that simple with you. There are parts you’ve left out, things you’ve covered over, and just plain lies here. But, yeah, I’ll do it. I’ll do it because you’ll wind up dead if I don’t. They’ll assume this is a family war, then.” Francis shook his head and walked to the coffeepot. “Honest to God, Sierra, you need professional help.”

  “All right, granted I owe you big for this,” I said. “But there are reasons and explanations you don’t even get here. I owe Vincent a helping hand. He gave me a job. He took me in when I moved here and he made me the headliner. We were raised to help people who help us, Francis, or didn’t you come up in the same family? And Marla? She’s an asshole, but she don’t got nobody to help her out.”

  Francis wasn’t saying anything.

  “You look down your nose at me, Francis. You think I’ve got a cheap profession. You think it’s next to whoring, and nothing I can say will change your mind. Be that as it may, but you’re wrong. I’m an entertainer and a therapist and a priest to the men I dance for. I’m their sister and their mother and their wife. I’m the one who listens when nobody else will. And they think they own me. No way. I’m good, Francis. This is what I do. So, yeah, I’m in a scrape. But tell me you never got in a situation before.”

  Francis drank his coffee, his eyes clear and dark. He was listening.

  “It’s funny,” I said. “Nobody respects a dancer, but you come watch us. You tell us your secrets, your hopes, your failures, and you feel better for it. So what’s that about, eh? And don’t tell me you never visited the Beaver Club in Upper Darby, ’cause I know you have.”

  Francis put down his coffee mug, stretched his hand out across the table, and took my hand in his.

  “Truce,” he said softly. “I’ll do it and you don’t owe me. I’m your brother and I love you. You know how I feel about this dancing thing. I don’t approve, Sierra. But maybe it’s not my place to give approval. Still, I don’t understand it. I don’t like the way they look at you.”

  “They can look any way that they want, Francis,” I said. “I’m the one who empties their wallets. I’m the one who walks off the winner.”

  He shrugged and I let it go. We sat there for a while, drinking coffee and staring out the bay window at the empty street. Finally, he spoke again.

  “So, what’s your basic wardrobe for a New Jersey mobster on vacation? Were you thinking Hawaiian shirt and dark glasses? Or were you wanting a suit and tie?”

  He laughed and I did, too. Then I got up from my chair, came around the table, and hugged him.

  “I love you, Francis,” I said, my voice muffled by his shoulder.

  “I love you too, honey,” he said.

  Twenty-five

  Ernie’s Restaurant and Bar sits touching the waters of St. Andrew’s Bay. It is a small, well-heeled watering hole that caters to the local business population. It is nestled close to the in-town old Panama City homes and draws a crowd of locals who come for good food and microbrews. The tourists overlook it, making it all the more attractive to those in the know. It is a favorite of mine, but that’s not why I chose it for the meet.

  I picked Ernie’s because at three o’clock in the afternoon it is well-lit and sparsely populated. Less chance for a large loss of life should there be gunplay, and less chance for gunplay because a lot of the local law-enforcement officers stop by for an afternoon beer on their way home. We could sit outside, overlooking the water, and discuss business with relatively few worries. At least, that’s the way I hoped it would run.

  Francis chose a suit and a pair of aviator-style dark glasses for his first, and in my best opinion, only appearance as Little Moose Lavotini. He walked up the wooden steps and through the doors of Ernie’s like a man who knew where he was going and was used to being in charge. He stopped just inside the door, took stock of the main room, and then breezed right on through and out onto the deck. Once there, he looked out at the water, took in all the possible routes of escape, and settled for a table that faced both the front door and both exits. Something told me Francis had been watching TV all of his life, just waiting for a moment like this.

  I was wearing a bright little sundress splashed with tropical colors, a royal blue, big-brimmed straw hat, and a matching pair of high heels. I looked the exact opposite of the way I felt. Francis looked tough. When the waitress approached, he ordered coffee and I ordered a mai tai. A stupid drink, I know, a waste of alcohol, but it matched my outfit and this was a time when appearance counted more than desire.

  The drinks arrived and I had worked my mai tai halfway down the glass before the New York contingent showed. They pulled up in a dark black rental, tinted windows, the whole incognito bit played to the hilt. But the guy who stepped out of the car didn’t look the part. He had greasy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, wore moccasins without socks, faded blue jeans with worn-through spots in the appropriate places, and a polo shirt. He looked like a Hollywood producer more than a family man.

  The car stayed by the front door with the engine running, so I figured the true muscle was sitting behind the wheel and maybe also in the backseat. Francis tensed and took a long draw of his coffee. From the looks of it, Mr. Hollywood wasn’t carrying. This was a good thing, as Francis and I weren’t armed either.

  Hollywood spotted us and walked directly through the bar and out onto the deck. He walked to the table, rested a hand on the back of a vacant chair, and smiled.

  “You look a little like your picture,” he said. It was the voice from the phone, ugly and deep, no match for the smiling man who stood looking down at me.

  He turned to my brother, who rose slowly and stuck out his hand.

  “Mr. Lavotini, it is an honor.”

  Francis looked at the outstretched hand and ignored it. “And who might you be?” Francis asked.

  “Packy Cozzone, out of—”

  Francis interrupted. “I know where you’re from. Have a seat.”

  He waited until Packy sat down, then sank back into his own chair. Packy didn’t seem at all uncomfortable with Francis. If I’d been on the receiving end of my brother’s behavior, I’d have been shaking, knowing I was on thin ice.

  “Let’s get this little matter cleared up, shall we?” Francis said. “You’re disturbing my vacation. You’ve added more unpleasantness to what is already a traumatic situation for my cousin, and you have cast a pall over an otherwise lovely afternoon. So what is it, exactly, that you think Sierra can help you with?”

  Packy stretched and signaled to the waitress. He ordered a dry martini, onions, straight up, then he turned his attention back to us.

  “Alonzo Barboni was here to conduct a little business survey for me. He called me from the parking lot of a restaurant last night to complain about his tires being slit and there being no one available to rectify the situation. He was hoping we could do something from New York, but of course we don’t have connections in such an isolated part of the country.” Packy turned and looked at me. “That’s when Barboni mentioned your name. He wondered why Little Moose here was really coming into town.”

 
Packy looked at Francis. “Imagine our distress when an hour later our friend is killed. Put yourself in our place. You’d have to wonder. Two New York families with overlapping interests, and suddenly one of the families sends a representative into the other’s territory. So I start thinking maybe somebody wants to squeeze us out of an area, such as the Panhandle. I’m thinking maybe it’s you and your family.” Packy’s eyes were ice cold and his voice thick with anger. “So you can see why I needed to speak to you.”

  Francis betrayed no visible emotion. He took a sip of coffee, leaned back, and stared through his glasses at Packy. My brother was a natural. I was starting to wonder why he hadn’t taken up acting as a professional venture.

  “What exactly was Barboni sent here to do?” he asked.

  Packy’s eyes glittered. He probably figured Francis knew all about Barboni and was playing him for a fool, testing him.

  “Same thing he did in New York,” Packy answered. “He was just insuring our investment in Florida. After all, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to our actresses when they go out on tour. It costs money to provide protection. A few of the girls happened not to understand that. Barboni was only in town to explain it to them. To cut their fucking tits off if they didn’t come around.”

  The last sentence was so harsh and so unexpected that I jerked at the raw venom in Cozzone’s voice. He assumed we knew. He probably figured that was how the Lavotini Syndicate dealt with holdouts, too.

  Packy looked up as the waitress approached, took the martini, and flipped her a twenty-dollar bill. She went away pleasantly surprised.

  “Now, to cut through the bullshit here, I figure the Lavotinis want a piece of the travel circuit, but Panama City’s ours, as is Pensacola, as is Tallahassee. That’s the way it’s been for two years. Why’re you choosing to fuck with the arrangement now?”

  Francis leaned back in his chair and merely stared at Cozzone. The silence grew and with it went whatever peace of mind I had left. I sucked down the rest of my mai tai and hoped for a buzz. All I got was a fruit-juice aftertaste.

  Packy looked back toward the waiting sedan, then out at the water. His eyes were slowly lowering, like he was maybe in deep thought. He was probably figuring out when and how to kill us both. I glanced over at Francis, stealing a glance from under the brim of my hat. I couldn’t see his eyes, so I had no idea what in the hell he was thinking, but if he didn’t come up with something fast, the North Florida Lavotinis would be history, bad history.

  Finally Francis spoke. “We’re not after the protection angle,” he said. “Frankly, that’s small potatoes. We’ve never done much with protection. We look at that as chump change for losers, no offense intended.” Damn! Why didn’t he just reach over and slap the boy?

  “We had nothing to do with your guy taking a whack. That’s not to say he didn’t deserve it, or that he didn’t piss people off, but we didn’t see taking him out in such a public manner and with such fanfare as being worthwhile.”

  Packy Cozzone was steaming, but perhaps out of respect for a larger family, he held his temper in check.

  “Barboni was fucking with my sister’s—cousin’s—club. He was completely too high-profile.” Francis shook his head with distaste. “Very unprofessional. If you were looking to issue a warning, then killing the girls was carrying things way too far. You lose your valuables that way. If you got nothing to protect, then you got nothing to lose. You see what I’m saying here, Packy?”

  Packy’s face went from red to white to a bluish purple. Francis was slapping him publicly and it felt bad. I looked over at Francis, trying to warn him that he was getting a little carried away, but he wasn’t taking his eyes off Packy.

  “It is one thing to teach a lesson,” Francis continued, obviously warming to his role, because his tongue was stuck firmly in his cheek. “You scar a face, you cut up a body part, but you do not kill the girl, let alone two of them.”

  Packy couldn’t help himself. He was brimming over with his desire to set Francis straight, and that was just what Francis wanted.

  “Alonzo Barboni did not button those two bimbos,” Packy said. “The Cozzone organization may be significantly smaller than you Lavotinis, but we are every bit as professional. We supply film producers and dance clubs with girls. We make sure the client gets quality entertainment and the girls get taken care of. To that end, Barboni was trying to figure out who was taking out the girls down here. It is our first venture into the Panhandle area, and we expected some resistance, but we didn’t expect this kind of trouble. Barboni said he was getting a pretty good bead on the problem”—he looked over at me, long and hard—“but then he got killed. Makes you wonder, huh?”

  Francis clearly took offense at Packy’s implication. He stood up, towering with all of his Marine presence over Packy Cozzone. He leaned across the table, his knuckles biting into the wooden surface in front of Packy’s empty martini glass.

  This brought a response from the sedan. The two front doors swung open and two gorillas stepped out and turned to await a signal from Cozzone. Packy looked at them, looked like he wanted to ask for help but couldn’t quite bring his vocal cords to act.

  “You don’t wonder about a Lavotini,” my brother said. “There is never any doubt about where we stand. If I tell you that we had nothing to do with your pissant operation and the loss of your goon, then you’d best believe it. If we wanted the business, we’d have it, and you and I would not be having this conversation.”

  Francis gave this time to sink in, then continued. “Now, you owe my cousin an apology.” Francis backed up a little and waited, apparently oblivious to the muscle that stood touching bulges under their thin windbreakers.

  Packy Cozzone fumed. He was about to kiss my ass. We all knew it. It was just a matter of swallowing enough bile to make the job possible. He gulped, looked over at me, and brought forth the most disingenuous smile ever shown on the back deck at Ernie’s.

  “I don’t know what came over me, Miss Lavotini. I suppose I was overcome by the grief entailed in losing a cherished member of our organization. Whatever the reason, my behavior was inexcusable and I beg your pardon.”

  Spoken like a boarding-school graduate, but his eyes told me how he planned to hurt me if ever given the chance, and I fought to suppress a shudder. I smiled right back, bigger and broader and much more genuine than his pitiful attempt.

  “Apology accepted, Mr. Cozzone. We all lose our heads from time to time.” My look told him I was praying for the loss of his little head, just as soon as I had the opportunity and a dull knife.

  Francis smiled. Packy’s smile was still frozen in place on his face, and I was smiling too. We looked like one big happy threesome, but murder was the only thing on our minds. Packy pushed his chair back and started to stand. The muscle by the car moved imperceptibly closer to the deck and I started having a bad feeling. Once Packy was gone, what was to keep the goons from mowing us down, especially in light of Francis having pissed him off so bad?

  I shouldn’t have worried, though. Pat and Raydean were on the job. In the distance sirens began to wail, drawing closer by the second, joined by other sirens that seemed to converge on Ernie’s all at once. A large ambulance pulled into the driveway, followed by a firetruck and three squad cars. It was a full demonstration of Panama City’s fire-and-rescue capabilities.

  At the sight of the police cars, the muscle quietly withdrew to the car. Packy seemed alarmed and looked anxiously at the exits from the parking lot. There was no way he was going anywhere. The EMTs rushed the deck, followed by a couple of burly firefighters and two cops.

  “Just have a seat, sir,” the female paramedic said. “These things happen all the time. We’ll take good care of you.”

  Francis and I stood up and backed away from the table. Packy looked like a trapped animal.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. His voice shifted an octave higher. “There’s nothing wrong with me!”

  “Sir, we all want what�
��s best for you. Now, if you’ll have a seat and let the paramedics check your vitals, we can be on our way.”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” Packy said. “I got a car right out front and I’m leaving with them.”

  Francis stood just behind Packy, slowly shaking his head. The cops saw him and nodded ever so gently.

  “Dr. Slayback said you might try that, but she assured us that the hospital is the best place for you.”

  “There is nothing wrong with me!” Packy roared. “Now let me go!”

  The smallest cop was a blonde. Her arms were thicker than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s neck. She was beautiful, but she wasn’t about to let Packy Cozzone go past her.

  “You wanna go easy or hard?” she asked him softly. The rescue squad and the firemen backed away slowly.

  “I’m not going fucking anywhere with you!” Packy said. “I’m going to leave this restaurant, get in my car and fly the fuck back to New York.”

  The blonde looked at him and smiled. “So I guess that means we do it the hard way.”

  Packy may have started to move. He appeared to move, but just as quickly dropped to his knees, then sagged forward onto the deck. The blonde had brought forth a stun gun from behind her back, and poor Packy lay in a stupor on the ground.

  The blonde looked at me, her face screwed up with concern. “I’m sorry to have to do that to him, especially in front of y’all, but an order’s an order. We’ve got involuntary commitment papers issued from a Dr. Slayback in Tallahassee, but I guess y’all know that, huh?”

  Francis didn’t miss a beat. “Well, we were just hoping to hold him long enough for someone to arrive and pick him up. I guess you’ll be taking him straight to the state hospital, won’t you? The sooner they get him back on his medication, the sooner he’ll lose his delusions. I mean really, New York? Come now. He’s a school maintenance worker from Wewahitchka.”

  I started to laugh but bit the inside of my cheek. Packy Cozzone was about to take a one-way trip to Tallahassee, courtesy of the Panama City Police Department. They’d drive for an hour and a half, all the way to the hospital, only to find out that Dr. Slayback had no idea who Packy Cozzone was.