The Starlight Club 3: The Vendetta,: Goodfellas, Mob Guys & Hitmen (Starlight Club Mystery Mob)

by Joe Corso

  “Move,” Trenchie said as he motioned for the men to head around to the back of the building.

  Swifty helped up the one guy who was on the ground. Moose stepped forward and removed their guns.

  “Damn, Trenchie, that was some great right hand you hit him with,” Swifty said as he dragged the guy by the nape of his collar. “Damn, you’d be a great heavyweight fighter.”

  Trenchie ignored Swifty’s remark. He was mad, real mad.

  “Who are you and whatta you want?” Trenchie barked.

  The man he hit stood there with his hands in the air and answered, “If you’ll allow me to put my hands down, I’ll show you my ID.”

  “Go right ahead, but if you reach for anything else, I’ll plug ya right here. Take out your ID, slowly. Moose . . . check these guys for back–up weapons.”

  Moose frisked the three men. He found one ankle gun and put it into his pocket. Trenchie’s victim carefully pulled out a thin wallet and flashed a gold badge toward Trenchie. He then slowly turned, showing it to Swifty and Moose.

  “Let me see that,” Trenchie said as he snatched it out of his hand. “Hmm. Special Agent Mario Carbone, Federal Agent.”

  Trenchie shook his head and looked at him with a thin smile on his face.

  “Carbone, don’t you guys have any real badges? I could buy one of these in any Army/ Navy store. We went through this, before already, in New York. Where does it say what agency you belong to?”

  He threw the wallet back at the guy. There was no answer.

  “Don’t bullshit me. Who do you guys work for? Now, let’s hear it.”

  The men were quiet.

  “Okay,” Trenchie said. “I already know, you idiots! How’s that?”

  “If you know who we work for, why ask?” Carbone asked.

  “Because I wanna hear it from you Federal Agent, Special Agent, Full of Bullshit Carbone, that’s why. Now talk.”

  “I’m not saying another word,” the man murmured.

  Trenchie, who rarely showed emotion, scowled.

  “Do you know anything about me?” Trenchie asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Yeah, I know who you are.”

  “Then, you do know what I’m capable of?”

  “Yeah,” Carbone answered, “we have your record. We know what you’re capable of.”

  At that point, Trenchie motioned for the man to join him off on the side, away from the other men. Moose inched over closer to the men all the while holding a gun on the other two guys.

  “Look,” Trenchie said lowering his voice, “I wanna know where he works and where he lives. I wanna know when he takes a shit. Got it? Tell me that and you go.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “All three of you . . . gone. Gone like that,” he said as he snapped his finger.

  Carbone fell silent. He thought for a minute, stared into Trenchie’s eyes and knew instantly that the big guy meant business.

  “All right,” he answered. “I’ll tell you what I know, but it won’t be all you want to know because I don’t know it all. For example, I don’t know when he takes a shit. His morning constitution is not something with which I am familiar, but I can tell you where he works. I don’t know where he lives . . . and that’s the truth.”

  “Man you’re a real smartass, aren’t ya?” Moose said. “Trenchie, plug him. He’s a wiseass, this guy.”

  Trenchie just stood there, eyes fixated on Carbone.

  “I know he lives somewhere in Virginia, close to the state line,” Carbone continues. “That’s it. That’s as much as I can tell you.”

  This much was true. Trenchie knew because Haggarty had divulged this at the Zebra Club.

  “Here’s the deal, Agent Wiseass Carbone,” Trenchie answered. “You see, if I let someone live who tried to kill me, then I have to always be lookin’ over my shoulder. That’s uncomfortable. I don’t like that – always lookin’. I like a nice, peaceful life.”

  Trenchie took a deep breath as if considering the logic of what he’d just said. Moose and Swifty had all eyes on Trenchie. Carbone, too, watched without reacting.

  “And if I let you go now, then that means I’ve done it twice with you guys. I must be gettin’ soft in my old age, but just tell me what I wanna know, and you can all go home, home to your kids, home to your wives . . . home.”

  Carbone nodded slowly indicating yes.

  “Good. That settles that,” Trenchie said sarcastically. “Now, have you been holdin’ out on me? Why do I feel there’s somethin’ more?”

  Without hesitation, Carbone then reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a card, and handed it to Trenchie. On it was Lonegan’s name, telephone number and the address of a federal building.

  “Let ‘em go,” Trenchie said to Swifty and Moose.

  “Are you crazy Trenchie?” Moose asked, in typical Moose behavior. “These guys’ll come back.”

  Trenchie looked at the other two agents.

  “Agent Carbone said I wouldn’t see ‘em again.” Then he said in a lower voice to Moose. “I have nothin’ against these guys. They’re just followin’ Lonegan’s orders.”

  It was the same line he had uttered before. Then he turned to the two agents.

  “How about you guys? Will we have any problems after this?”

  The two agents looked toward Carbone for answers.

  “Can I have a moment to speak with my men?” Carbone asked.

  “Sure.” Trenchie answered. “Moose, take a position over there,” he said as he pointed toward the other side of the entrance.

  Carbone huddled his men and told them what he and Trenchie had discussed, but he didn’t tell his men that he had given Lonegan’s business card to Trenchie. That would have been difficult to explain. He told them he gave Trenchie what he wanted in order to save their lives.

  “He’d kill us if I didn’t.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Damn right, I believe him. You’ve read his record. This man wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if we break our word to go quietly and disappear. Sure, I believed him. If you want to get out of this alive, I suggest you do the same thing – give him your word. Tell him he won’t see you again after today.”

  “You have to be kidding,” the man responded. “We’re giving our word to a killer.”

  “Look,” Carbone continued, “this man said to me, emphatically, that he gets rid of people so that he doesn’t have to worry about them chasing him, ever again. He means it.”

  “So why is he letting us go?”

  “I’ll tell you why. He wants Lonegan, not us. All he wants is our word that we’ll leave him alone. Guys like this work on the ‘your word is your honor’ system. Okay, listen, I don’t know how else to say this. I would like to live to see another day, and a day after that, and then another. You assholes are holding up the process here. Whatta you, nuts?”

  “We can’t be giving our word to a killer and keep it,” the man responded.

  Agent Carbone was frustrated as hell. He turned away from the men in disgust.

  “Do what the hell you want. As of now, I’m outta the picture. I’m done,” he said a little louder than he intended.

  “So,” Trenchie asked, sensing a little dissent coming from the group. “Do we have a deal?”

  Carbone never looked back at his two men but looked at Trenchie and said, “You have my word. You’ll never see me again.”

  “What about you two?” Trenchie asked.

  The men looked at each other, each waiting for the other to speak. One man finally spoke, but when he did, it was in a tentative tone.

  “Yeah, you have our word.”

  Trenchie just stared at them.

  “Ok, then,” Trenchie offered, “you can leave now.”

  The stunned men found it a little hard to absorb that a stone cold killer like Trenchie would so easily give in.

  Carbone asked, “What about our guns? Can we have ‘em? If we show up without them, we’ll have a l
ot of explaining to do.”

  Trenchie looked at Moose and Swifty, extended his big hand and the men handed Trenchie the guns. Trenchie removed the magazines, pulled the slides back to make sure the guns weren’t hot, and returned them to their owners.

  “Remember,” the big man said, “don’t let us see you guys again, ever again. Go on now. Get out of here.”

  Chapter Twenty–One

  Tarzan picked up the phone.

  “It’s Trenchie. Is Mr. Blue there?”

  “Yeah, hold on a minute.”

  Tarzan cupped the phone and whispered to Red.

  “It’s Trenchie. He asked for Mr. Blue.”

  Red picked up the extension.

  “What’s up, Trench?”

  “I found our mutual friend’s address. Would you care to join me when I visit him?”

  “Yeah, I would,” Red answered.

  “Where ya wanna meet?” Trenchie countered. “He’s in DC. I can fly out of LAX to Washington National. I’ll get back to you with the exact times, but let’s plan on meetin’ at the airport.”

  “Sounds good. Look, Trench, since you’re in movieland already, instead of coming back now, why don’t you do what you went to Hollywood to do? Lease an office and secure a site for our new production company and when that’s accomplished and you’re ready to leave, we’ll meet in Washington. This way, you won’t have to return to California. Instead, after we finish our project in the capital, you can head straight home to your wife and new baby.”

  Since the meeting with his captains, Red hadn’t left his office other than to eat and sleep. He had been working on his companies’ numerous books. There were monthly reports from his legitimate businesses such as car companies, apartment houses, his security company, and his banks to catch up on. Even though he had accountants, Red still watched his money, always studying the trends his businesses produced. As for the businesses that operated beneath the law, for those, he personally kept the books, all of them. The money collected from his crew captains had to be logged. While he indeed had a money lending operation with bookmakers working the streets, it was the transportation union that was his cash cow.

  Red’s goal was to eventually become completely legitimate, with the business never venturing outside what was permissible by law, but it seemed almost impossible to extricate himself from the others. Bookmaking, for example; it had been around for a hundred years. It was a harmless business. People who couldn’t make it all the way to the track would simply visit their local bookmaker and place their bets. The bookmaker was responsible for the accuracy of the bet and for collecting on it. Loansharking was another profitable, but illegal, business. Loan sharks loaned money to people who were considered credit risks by the banks, at an interest rate that was less than what the banks offered, and banks were legal, licensed institutions. There was a major difference here in terms of responsibility, however. A bank would not send out a ruffian to collect on a bad debt. A loan shark would have your knees broken in a heartbeat if you couldn’t make good on their money. This was done for a couple of reasons –the business relied on payments to keep operating and the delinquent payer must be used as an example to others.

  Back in the day, while Yip was busy running the “family” empire in general, Red was running the money lending arm of the business. He slowly learned from the master how to successfully run a crime family and stay out of jail. One way was by shunning the drug dealing world. The other was by making more friends than enemies. Even though Red’s businesses brought in millions, he remained the benevolent dictator, with a reputation for being more than fair with the members of his organization – first, because this was his nature, and second, to prevent them from wandering into the dark world of drug smuggling and selling. The lure was tempting and most mob guys couldn’t resist. When one of Red’s men dared to violate his forbidden drug dealing rules, they were inevitably caught and punished.

  Funny how life tends to move you in a straight line and you think that the line will never be broken, Red thought as he poured through his financials. Red’s line was broken when he was shot five times. Boy, what a setback that had been. Now fully recovered, he needed to bring in someone he could trust; a line of succession was necessary and that person, the one who would inherit the organization, would need to know the intricacies and inner workings of his multi–dimensional empire. With his pride The Starlight Club now gone, it was time to rebound. Nothing would bring down Big Red . . . or so he thought.

  The phone rang. Red picked up.

  “Red, this is Jimmy. How ya doing?”

  It was Jimmy Hoffa.

  “Good, Jimmy. How about you?”

  “Could be better, kid. I’ve got some bad news. Bobby finally got me. I have to beg out of our agreement. I’m goin’ to prison soon.”

  Red felt like he’d been punched in his gut.

  Hoffa continued, “Bobby finally got a conviction on the testimony of that four flusher he took out of jail, the one he promised his freedom to if he testified against me. Well it worked. That scumbag Kennedy traded my freedom for that jail bird’s. I’m sellin’ the property I was gonna use to build The Starlight Club to Frank Costello because I want the union’s money returned to the treasury. Meyer Lansky was interested in it, but he’s involved in Cuba. Frank’ll be able to turn a dollar with it. Sorry it didn’t work out. I know it would have been a great place, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Take care Red and if you get some free time, come up and visit me sometime. I’d like to see you.”

  For a fleeting moment, Big Red secretly hoped that the teamster had the clout to build The Starlight Club South from his prison cell. What a downer. Red had looked forward to his second Starlight Club. He missed having his espresso and reading the Daily News by his club window every morning. He also missed the action – greeting old friends, chatting with buddies at his favorite table. Lonegan had taken away his Grand Dame and Kennedy had made the prospect of Hoffa’s second club idea, difficult. Lonegan needed to pay for the disrespect he had shown Red, Red kept thinking. Red never blamed “the law” for questioning his illicit activities. “The law” was just doing its job. He understood this. It was Lonegan’s recklessness and blatant disregard for innocent lives that bothered him. Lonegan was a power hungry zealot, only seeking to further his personal agenda and career and for that . . . he would need to pay.

  When Red hung up the phone, he was silent a moment. He could almost hear his grandfather speaking the words.

  “You can’t fight the forces of destiny, Red, so let it take you where it wants, and you’ll find it will end up taking you to a place where you belong, even if you thought otherwise.”

  Red smiled. By following his grandfather’s philosophy, life had been good to him. The Starlight Club South might be history, but Red’s dream of owning a movie studio was still very much alive. But grandpa was always a hundred percent. When it came to Lonegan . . . now that was a force worth pursuing.

  And so it was. Bobby Kennedy had finally nailed Jimmy Hoffa, the president of the powerful International Brotherhood of Teamsters, on bribery charges, which lead to an eight year prison sentence.

  Chapter Twenty–Two

  Trenchie and Moose searched all morning trying to locate a property large enough for a movie studio and offices for their boss, Big Red. Place after place fell short. Moose finally threw up his hands.

  “We’re goin’ around in circles. This is crazy,” he said. “A waste of time.”

  Moose then reached into his pocket and searched for it – the card.

  “Here it is. I’m calling the real estate lady that found Jimmy the Hat a house.”

  From the phone at the gas station nearby, he dialed the office number and asked for Sophia Feldstein.

  “She’s showing a house. Can someone else help you?”

  “No. Tell Ms. Feldstein to call Moose, that’s me, at the Hollywood Hilton, Room 221. I need her help locating a piece of business property.”

  The fr
ustrated men headed back to their hotel. They had gotten nowhere and this called for some unwinding time, some brainstorming as to what they’d do next if they didn’t hear from Ms. Feldstein. Once there, they notified the desk clerk of an impending phone call and asked that he forward it to the lounge. They settled into the lounge area and nursed a few drinks while waiting for the call. At two twenty–five, it came.

  Sophia Feldstein never forgot the man who called himself Moose. He was a large, intimidating man who didn’t have much of a personality – didn’t talk much – but somehow exuded this animal magnetism that made her smile at the mere sound of his name. How could she forget the man that had brought to her the famous movie star client James Roman? It had been one of the easiest sales of her life. Moose bought the home on the spot. She hadn’t heard from Moose in a few years, but maybe this call would bring her another run of good luck just like the first time. She anxiously began dialing the number her boss had handed her.

  The bartender approached Moose and Trenchie.

  “Phone call for Mr. Moose?” he said half questioning the name.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Phone call at the bar, sir.”

  Moose headed to the end of the bar and picked up the phone.

  “Moose here.”

  “Hi, Moose, this is Sophia Feldstein. What a wonderful surprise hearing from you after all this time. How can I help you?”