Wicked Is the Whiskey: A Sean McClanahan Mystery (Sean McClanahan Mysteries Book 1)

by T. J. Purcell

  “That's right.”

  “Goody,” said Vinny.

  “This work could be very dangerous,” I said. “I know you're a clever man, but something big is going on, and I want you to be careful.”

  “Scouts honor,” said Vinny.

  “Also, I hope to have a second project you can assist with. Hall kept a coded hand-written ledger. We are trying to locate a copy of it. It will have code in it that we need a mastermind like to crack.”

  “How much do you think that will cost?” I said.

  “Well, I’d say two projects as fun of these should run about $5,000 dollars.”

  “Why $5,000?” I said.

  “Because that’s all I can afford to pay you for letting me work on both!” said Vinny.

  Chapter #43

  Island Jim sat at his favorite table in the rear of the Leaf and Bean cigar and coffee shop in downtown Pittsburgh’s Market District, a legendary establishment frequented by some of the city’s most fascinating characters.

  “How goes it, Jim?” I said as I clipped a cigar and lighted it.

  “Not bad for an old guy but it’s early yet.”

  Jim started his cigar shop to front his numbers-writing business, but ended up creating a line of fine cigars, Leaf by Oscar, that took off nationally and made him a very well-to-do fellow.

  When he wasn’t traveling to his cigar plant in Honduras or visiting the more than 1,100 cigar stores around the country that sold his cigars, he was sitting at the back table in his establishment doing what he always did: keeping up with the goings on in Pittsburgh and having fun.

  I grabbed a Leaf by Oscar in the large humidor, paid the cashier and was soon sitting with Jim puffing away.

  “I can tell by the look on your face you’ve got a live one going on.”

  “That I do,” I said.

  His gray hair spilled out of his cowboy hat and onto his blue-jean shirt.

  I told him everything that happened since Erin Miller walked into my pub.

  “The short of it is this: I know that Victoria Hall is distributing heroin from the old industrial campus that houses Preston’s company in Maryville. I wonder what you may have heard about it?”

  “Word on the street is that there’s a sizable amount of heroin moving out of Maryville,” said Jim. “It’s supplying distributors in this region and well beyond. It’s been an open secret the past year or so, but volume has ticked up considerably in recent weeks, since John Preston was fished out of the Monongahela.”

  “Victoria Hall told me sales had surged since Preston died,” I said. “What she didn’t tell me is her operation is probably clearing out inventory before shutting up shop. What do you know about her?”

  “I read plenty about her in the Wall Street Journal and the business mags,” said Jim. “I read them all these days now that I’ve become something of a cigar mogul.”

  Jim laughed aloud, as surprised by his massive success as anyone.

  “She has an MBA from an Ivy League school and had established herself as a turnaround specialist for distressed companies,” he continued. “As her reputation grew, she was able to attract more investors to raise the capital she needed to either buy out distressed companies or partner with their owners. Maybe her prior success was legitimate, but maybe it wasn’t. One thing is certain, however: Her investors in Preston’s operation include thousands of poor saps who are addicted to the opiates she is pushing.”

  I shook my head in disgust.

  “You have to give her credit, though, for getting away with it for so long,” said Jim. “She has a stranglehold on the town of Maryville for four years. She’s managed to keep the feds from intruding into her business. That is not easy to do.”

  “She had the goods on the Maryville police chief’s dad — and the stranglehold on him continued once his daughter took over as chief.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Jim. “But here’s something that you may not be aware of that will surely interest you.”

  “Go on.”

  “Now I may not be the smartest fellow in the world,” said Jim, “but a fellow like me, who sits around a cigar joint most days, has a bit of free time on his hand. And I enjoy a good riddle. I was curious to learn who might be behind everything that is going on in Maryville, so I did a little poking around on my own.”

  “What did you find?” I said.

  “Well, when Hall moved Preston’s operation to the old industrial campus four years ago, I began getting wind the heroin operation shortly after. So, I wondered, what was the story of that that old campus?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, Preston’s company operated from it, but the company wasn’t purchased by Preston’s company.”

  “Who was the buyer?”

  “Victoria Hall,” said Jim.

  “It’s possible that Hall has a real estate portfolio and leased the property to Preston’s firm?” I said.

  “That’s exactly the case,” said Jim, “but that isn’t the interesting part.”

  “What is the interesting part?”

  “The former owner of the campus is erstwhile mobster Salvatore Mosconi,” said Jim. “That information is public record and available on the county’s website.”

  “An odd coincidence.”

  “Here’s what’s more interesting,” said Jim. “The old campus was appraised at $685,000, but Mosconi sold it to Hall for only $100,000.”

  “Well, then,” I said. “It’s time for me to pay Salvatore a visit.”

  Chapter #44

  Salvatore Mosconi sat at the bar of the Gut Wrencher Comedy Club, chain-smoking cigarettes and laughing deep smoker-cough laughs as his forty-something son, Guido, performed on stage.

  The Gut Wrencher is in the cellar of the Mosconi Hotel, one of the many second-rate real estate properties Mosconi bought, or coerced people into selling. The comedy club had been in business a year, after the jazz, blues, Reggae and rap clubs had all failed — the last two of which produced numerous fistfights and a couple of shootings.

  According to the East edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, it was Guido's idea to create the comedy club and nurture his lifelong ambition of becoming a comic.

  Guido was dressed in a striped blue three-piece suit and dark sunglasses. Unlike his father, who was built like an aging linebacker, Guido was very slight of frame and couldn’t have weighed more than 135 pounds. His hair was graying at the temples. His face was pale, with bags under his eyes.

  His shtick, as far as I could determine, was to portray himself as a faux mob character blended with Rodney Dangerfield and tell outdated Henny Youngman jokes.

  “There was a girl knocking on my hotel room door all night,” he said. “Finally, I let her out.”

  Salvatore laughed so hard, he nearly coughed up a lung — then he saw me and I walked up to him.

  “What now?” he said, holding his hands out to his side.

  I shook his hand.

  “Just a few questions for you?” I said.

  “OK, then,” he said. You want something to drink?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  He ordered a double scotch from the bartender.

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  I sat.

  “I played golf yesterday and hit two good balls really hard,” continued Guido. “I stepped on a rake.”

  Salvatore coughed out a laugh.

  “My son kills me,” he said. “So what do you want?”

  “I'm wondering if you've got back into the old business,” I said.

  “What the hell you talking about? I been clean since you and your boys put me away — sent me up for 8 years.”

  “I'm interested in an old manufacturing campus you used to own in Maryville,” I said.

  “What about it?”

  “What's going on there?”

  “How the hell would I know? My daughter Sophia runs my businesses now.”

  “You are telling me you are not in business with Victoria Ha
ll?”

  “Victoria who?”

  “It is going to be a regrettable thing, this time,” I said. “The feds are finally beginning to crack down on the heroin epidemic. You will go away for life this time.”

  “Heroin? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said. “I promised my wife on her death bed I’d never go back into the business — that I’d make sure our children would be legit. I swear of this on my wife’s soul, may she rest in peace.”

  Salvatore was so convincing, I found it conceivable that he had no knowledge that his property had been sold to Victoria Hall. Then again, Salvatore had always been a sly fox throughout his productive criminal career.

  “Besides, you know I never got involved in narcotics,” he said. “Drugs were never my style.”

  “What do you know about the old campus in Maryville where Preston’s company is now located?” I said.

  “I don’t know nothing,” he said. “We got a zillion old properties all the way up and down the Monongahela. You want information, talk to my daughter, Sophia.”

  Salvatore pulled out his wallet and handed me a worn card.

  “You better treat her good, too,” he said. “She’s the apple of my eye. Graduated cum lade with her MBA from Penn or Wharton or whatever it is called. She’s doing a hell of a job running our businesses since, but she ain’t well.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “She’s battling the big C, leukemia,” said Salvatore. “I hear you do anything to upset her, it’s gloves off.”

  “I hope you’re telling me the truth, for once,” I said, smiling.

  He raised his hands.

  “Scout’s honor,” he said, laughing hard.

  Guido began telling a joke about a guy he saw at the bar last week.

  “This Gumbah is so drunk, he falls down, so I pick him up and set him on the bar. He falls down again, so I pick him up and set him on the bar and he falls down again. So I decide I better take him home. I bring him to his house, drag him to his door and he falls down. I pick him up, set him against the house and he falls down. His wife answers the door and said, 'Thanks for bringing my husband home, but where's his wheel chair?'“

  Salvatore hacked up another lung.

  “My son didn’t turn out like my daughter — he’s been a hell of a disappointment, if you want to know the truth — but he sure knows how to make me laugh,” said Salvatore.

  Chapter #45

  “We sold the Maryville campus four years ago to Victoria Hall, Inc.” said Sophia Mosconi, sitting behind a large mahogany desk in the downtown Pittsburgh headquarters of Salvatore Mosconi Enterprises.

  “I see,” I said, trying not to stare at her.

  Sophia could have been a 40-something clone of stunning Italian actress Sophia Loren. Her jet black hair, hazel eyes, full red lips and natural curves were causing me to swoon.

  “Did you negotiate the sale contract with Victoria Hall?”

  Sophia shook her head.

  “No,” she said, reviewing the contract on her desk. “My brother was working for our company at the time and he arranged the sale — though we were not happy with the terms.”

  “What was the problem?” I said.

  “Guido sold the property for significantly less than the property was valued. He was eager to get his commission. But what is worse is that he also agreed to hold the mortgage on the property over a five year term, rather than require cash payment, which is something we never do.”

  “What do you mean hold the mortgage?” I said. “You owner-financed the property?”

  “That’s correct,” said Sophia. “Instead of requiring Ms. Hall to pay cash or get a bank loan, he arranged the contract so that Hall would make five annual $20,000 payments. So long as she met the terms of the agreement, her company, Victoria Hall, Inc. would own the building free and clear after making the fifth and final annual payment. As a result of the poorly constructed contract, however — and many other problems we had with Guido’s inability to carry out our corporate mission — we encouraged him to leave the real estate business or my father’s business and focus his attentions on opening his comedy club.”

  “What is your corporate mission?” I said.

  “It’s been very clear the past five years,” she said. “We’re aggressively liquidating my father’s real estate portfolio to generate the funds we need to shore up his legacy.”

  “His legacy?”

  “It’s true that early in his career my father, like many children of immigrants from his generation, went outside of the law to make a living,” she said. “It’s also true that my father has done many good deeds for his community and for the underprivileged with the wealth he created. His reputation was tarnished when you sent him to jail. We wish to restore it by showcasing his many good deeds.”

  I wanted to bring up her father’s many bad deeds — the ones that my Uncle Mick sent him to jail for — but I let it rest.

  “What is your plan to restore your father’s reputation?” I said.

  “It is twofold,” said Sophia. “Our hope is to sell off our properties to the right people and organizations. Our goal is not to maximize the profits by making it affordable for organizations to buy and revitalize them. At the same time, our hope has been to help bring these old industrial towns along the Monongahela back to life by working with up-and-coming people and organizations. By buying and renovating the old campus and moving John Preston Enterprises to Maryville, Ms. Hall had has been a textbook example. She created hundreds of good jobs in Maryville.”

  Yeah, I thought, for hired goons and drug couriers.

  “I want my father to be remembered for improving the economies of these old steel towns and we are beginning to see some success,” she said. “But the second part of restoring his reputation is to ensure that he is remembered for his work supporting the country’s biggest charities for foster care.”

  “Tell me more,” I said, feeling suddenly guilty that I hadn’t thought much about the plight of foster children.

  Sophia pointed to a picture hanging on the wall behind me in which she was surrounded by five young children of different ethnicities.

  “That’s my young family,” she said, “all former foster children I was able to adopt in time. My father loves my children as if they were blood offspring. When he learned how difficult the adoption process was, however, he wanted to help not just me, but thousands of children who get stuck in the system, as well as thousands of foster parents who hope to adopt foster kids.”

  “Your children are beautiful,” I said. “You and your husband must be very proud.

  Sophia smiled.

  “I have no husband,” she said. “My first fiancé left me for a waitress. My second fiancé left me for a hair stylist at a chain salon. Looking back, I’m glad they did. I always wanted to be a mother and, by breaking my heart, they unwittingly opened up the world of foster care to me. I threw myself into it. I was shocked that foster care in the world’s richest country is such a mess.”

  “How so?” I said.

  “For starters, there has been a notable increase in the number of children in foster care in recent years,” said Sophia. “The Department of Health and Human Services said there were some 415 thousand children in the foster care system last year. They come from all backgrounds. Twenty-two percent were Hispanic, 24 percent black and 42 percent white. Just under 100,000 of them were available for adoption in the United States, but only 20 percent were adopted. Thanks to my father’s charity, however, we are making it easier for foster parents to adopt.”

  “It is admirable what you and your father are doing,” I said.

  “We’re just getting warmed up,” she said. “Though the Salvatore Mosconi Foundation is the world’s largest single contributor to organizations that assist foster children, we must do more.”

  “What is your strategy?” I said.

  “We are working to change the laws to make adoption easier for parents willi
ng to share their love. And as foster children get into their teen years, they are far less likely to be adopted. We are working with public and private organizations to provide funds needed to educate these left-behind children and give them a better chance to prosper in their lives. Unfortunately, I have very little time to complete this important work due to some health issues.”

  I nodded.

  “Salvatore mentioned this to me,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “I have good days and bad,” she said. “Unfortunately, the chemo I’m taking is gradually becoming ineffective against the chronic leukemia I’m battling. My doctors tell me it’s just a matter of time before it stops slowing the spread of my cancer. I hope to have all of our affairs in order before that happens.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I seek no one’s pity. I’ve been very blessed and I’m able to establish funds to give my children a fine education and the care they need to thrive as adults — when I’m gone. We’ll also be able to help thousands of other foster children with funding, which makes me very happy, but I have to sell off our real estate portfolio first.”

  Sophia glanced at her watch.

  “I have an important meeting to attend shortly,” she said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll be in touch if I have any other questions,” I said. “Again, I admire what you are doing and wish you the best.”

  I stood, shook her hand and left.

  Chapter #46

  In my experience, a little pressure properly applied, can sometimes cause bad people to overreact and to make mistakes – mistakes from which I have profited. So I paid another visit to Victoria Hall.

  “What the hell do you want now?” she said, sitting behind her large mahogany desk.

  “I figured you wanted to see me.”

  And she did want to see me. The Maryville chief surely had told her I knew where Erin Miller was and that she was safe.