Scores

by Blutrich, Michael D. ;

  “I’m lost,” I confessed.

  Sergio looked back at me as if trying to decide if I was playing with him. Concluding that I really was as naïve as I was projecting, he drew a deep breath. “Look, Michael, your space belongs to the Gambinos. Plain and simple, and the only way you’re gonna open is to have me register you with the family.”

  “I can’t believe all this,” were the only words I managed to croak back. Here I was, stepping into a scene from Goodfellas having just left an episode of The Munsters. Bring back Herman!

  “What does it mean to be ‘registered?’” I continued, although I was sure I knew where this was heading.

  “That means I go where I gotta go and speak with the people I gotta speak to, and tell them you and your club are with us. You’re registered and everybody who needs to know will know. And then we protect you and we protect your businesses. Or, on the other hand, we can do nothing together and you can take your chances on your own.”

  “And taking my chances means?”

  “In my opinion, that means someone may burn down your place before it opens. That means gunplay in your club on opening night to scare away customers. That means no liquor deliveries, no linen or laundry service, no meats for your kitchen, no garbage pickup. That means any other family, Italian, Albanian, or Russian, has an open invitation to shake you down. Who you gonna call, the cops? We own them too. That means your customers and their cars are fair game. That means you better watch your cash on the way to the bank. That means you’re considered a disrespectful piece of shit and nobody gives a damn what happens to you or your little Jewish ass. Any questions?”

  I was now sweating through my shirt, my only comfort coming from the fact that he’d called my ass “little.” I thought of a million stupid things to say, but I remained speechless.

  He next tried to console me. “Hey, Michael, you look like someone died. I didn’t mean to upset you; I was just trying to help, to keep you from having problems you wouldn’t see coming.”

  I slowly collected myself. “Look, we haven’t even begun construction, or applied for our first license, and I have no idea if the place will even open. How am I supposed to make an accommodation when the club may turn out to be a complete bust, like nine out of ten new businesses in Manhattan always do?”

  “I’m not asking for you to agree to nothing . . . now. After all, we can’t make money if you don’t make money. I just wanna know if you want me to register you with the family, with John Gotti, Sr. If you say yes, I’ll go do the right thing. If you say no, forget about this here little talk.” He then added with a laugh, “And I’ll just wait for you to come running for my help later on—when it will be much more expensive.”

  I promised to talk to my partners and get back to him quickly. He then called over a waiter, ordered me a club soda, and a glass of red wine for himself.

  “Let me ask you something,” Sergio said. “You know I can’t get no liquor license here; some stupid law about the church down the street being too close. You think you could help me get one?”

  As the waiter brought over our order, I said, “You mean you sell all this wine and beer every night without a license?”

  He looked back at me with a mocking grin. “And who’s gonna tell me not to? But think about a way to get me a license. I’d like one.”

  I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself driving uptown, my mind was racing so fast. On the one hand, I couldn’t decide if Sergio was telling the truth or just pulling a low-level shakedown scheme for himself. I decided it was probably a little of both. If he held himself out as a Gambino representative and wasn’t, or if he claimed to have “registered” us and didn’t, he’d be a dead man. So, all the stuff about Gotti was probably true, but Sergio wanted to be the man to bring the new potential “golden goose” to his family.

  On the other hand, there was a definite degree of comfort knowing we would be protected, even at a price—so long as the price was reasonable. City history was rife with violent and murderous shakedown tales, and we weren’t exactly a group of tough guys.

  On the other other hand, I was concerned I might be opening the door and letting the wolf walk right into my little flock. And who would control the mob once they were granted a foothold? They were making a smart approach, through a friend, but there was no doubt that things would turn nasty if I declined their kind offer. And the devil you know is better than the one you don’t know, or so they say. Right?

  On yet another hand, did I really want to deal with threats of arson, disruption, and urban terror? We were already into the club for a half million dollars, and that money wasn’t coming back if the mafia scared us off the deal.

  Realizing I had no other hands, I decided to relax and bounce the issue around with Davies. When I called him, he cut me off immediately. “Michael, I’m from England and I know absolutely nothing of your New York mafia. This is your decision, all the way. If we need them, we need them; if we don’t, we don’t.”

  Faced with deciding, I did what I always seem to do. I chose the path of least resistance and, at a subsequent meeting with Sergio at Bill Hong’s Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, I told him the club wanted to be registered.

  “Wait a second, Michael,” he interrupted. “I’m registering you, Michael Blutrich, no one else. From now on, you are the only one who counts at your club, or in anything else you open. Capisci?”

  I really did understand. And that understanding simultaneously filled me with feelings of self-importance and with dread. For better or for worse, I was to be the mafia’s man at Scores.

  Sergio beamed back at me, saying he would now do all the necessaries. He ended our dinner, leaving me as always with the tab, and a bear hug. “Don’t worry ‘bout nothing. Trust me.”

  In May 1991, due to personal issues, including legal woes over child support with his ex-wife, Davies announced he could no longer continue to fund the club. The burden of financing now shifted to me, so I started looking for creative ways of completing construction and getting the doors opened. I turned to my banker and friend Mark Yackow for help.

  The “Yackow Inducement Plan” required a strategic mixture of subtlety and outright deceit. I invited Mark to visit the construction site, and we spoke as we walked though the leasehold together. I described the work-in-progress as a “high-tech sports bar,” knowing he would be enticed and enthralled with that kind of establishment. He was immediately enthusiastic. A former patron of Club A, Mark recognized the location as premium. We had his complete attention with talk of big-screen televisions, computer sports games, and memorabilia on the walls. He flipped when we showed him our designs for a half-court basketball court for patron use. But when I added as a feigned afterthought that we might also be featuring “adult entertainment,” I noticed a frown cross his face.

  I walked Mark over to a corner for the “kill,” telling him how much we’d sunk into the venture, with another two hundred grand deferred until post-opening, and confessing we were still short to finish. He anticipated my next volley and shot it down in midair. “Michael, there’s no way, no how the bank will make a loan on a new club. It’s against lending policy.”

  As I was now in a severe panic, with my best hope for additional money slipping away, Mark put his hand to his chin and mused, “But you know what, I’d love to be involved in this place. I think I can put together a group of private investors and raise the missing cash as a loan. My investors get interest for the loan; I get a piece of ownership.”

  We spoke at length and he agreed to contact some of his “money” people and make a genuine effort to lead a new group into the Scores family. As we wandered back to the others, he stopped short. “You know, it’s really a bad idea to brand the place with ‘adult entertainment.’ People will get the wrong idea, thinking it’s like a strip bar or something.” With a smile, he added, “You meant, like a Hooters, waitresses in bikini tops and stuff like that? Right?”

  I’d never been to Hooters, but I immediate
ly looked back and responded, “Yeah, that’s exactly what we have in mind.”

  “Perfect,” Mark said happily. “Just perfect.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Landing the Liquor License

  JULY 1991

  Construction continued. We hit a glitch with the brass subcontractor when his price for our stairway and bar railings seemed way out of line. Sergio stepped up to the plate and recommended a subcontractor, friendly with the Gambinos, who could definitely do better. And in fact, the “family” guy came in with a price more than 40 percent less than the original estimate. Our mafia relationship had already begun to pay dividends.

  It was also time to apply for our liquor license. All of the necessary paperwork—stating that my friend and undisclosed nominee, Irving “Blitz” Bilzinsky, was the sole owner of the business—arrived in good order at the processing center of the State Liquor Authority. I brought all the influence I could muster to have our documents reviewed and investigated during August.

  While supremely confident I’d devised a strategy to defeat the “enemy” community board, I was now distracted and uneasy during the investigation period. If my plan failed and it turned out I was wrong about “beating the system,” the entire venture would be in the garbage.

  It was truly a simple plan. When a liquor license application is filed in New York, the applicant must send notice of the filing to its local community board. Under state law, a board has only thirty days to object to an application. Failure to object within that period forever waives all objections.

  Now, I’d learned through political “friends” that our board traditionally closed operations for vacation on August first, and didn’t reopen (or even read their mail) until after Labor Day in September. If we could deliver our notice in early August, after the board’s vacation began, the board would have consented by inaction to our application thirty days later—even before opening the envelope containing our notice.

  Of course, there were major potential pitfalls: the board might get wind of our scheme and kill it; it might not take its “usual” vacation; maybe someone would open the mail in August and take action; perhaps even a late objection might be somehow entertained by the licensing agency. But “falling through the cracks” was our only reasonable hope of getting licensed.

  By the grace of Mammitu, the Babylonian Goddess of Mammary, the plan worked! Our application was reviewed and approved by the state and, because the community board failed to make a timely objection, we were issued our three-year license.

  When the board returned and got around to opening its mail, all hell broke loose. Emergency community meetings were called and the local squadron of ancient biddies marshaled themselves for war. The cry went forth that the new “porn club from hell” must never be allowed to open its immoral doors. At a formal meeting, the board voted to deny our license, but it received the same reception everywhere it went—administratively and judicially. The refrain was, “As you failed to object in time, your objection is barred. Blame yourselves, who ever heard of not opening mail for a month?”

  Our opponents gave it their best shot. They set up picket lines outside the front door, but the media quickly lost interest in the silly story. After all, this was Manhattan, home to all that is diverse and sophisticated. Outrage over topless lap dancing just couldn’t win the day. I’ve been told the community board has since closed the loophole; they now open their mail year-round.

  Once our liquor license was granted, Mark Yackow and his group of “silent” lenders came aboard. Mark had raised the cash we desperately needed to open, and the ownership oars would be shared between Davies, Bildstein, Yackow, and myself. At last, we settled upon an opening night.

  Scores—a sports bar and lap dance parlor, the first upscale gentlemen’s club to grace Manhattan’s nightlife, would open its doors to the world on October 31, 1991.

  Halloween.

  Once the opening was announced, I was summoned to Grampa’s. After some small talk, Sergio announced the bounty his family was demanding in exchange for its “participation” in our new venture. I held my breath, and it boiled down to three items: one thousand dollars in cash every week, control of the valet parking operations, and ownership of the club’s coatroom.

  Sergio went on to explain his rationale. “The grand a week goes directly to John Gotti, Sr. I’m gonna arrange to deliver the cash directly to his house. The valet parking goes to the capo who owns the pizza joint around the corner. That’s all he wants. And the coatroom is to help support my family. Steve, my son you met at the restaurant, he’ll run the coatroom and keep all the money from that spot. He’ll also be at the club most nights dealing with any problems that come up on the floor. I’m too old to do that anymore.”

  As to the cash, I countered that it obviously depended on whether the club could afford it. He sneered and stared back at me. “It’s a thousand every week until you close the place, and don’t fuck with that payment. I swear I’ll come down and take it out of the register.”

  I couldn’t have cared less about the valet parking as I was planning to contract out that service anyway. Between insurance, claims, and personnel, I wanted no part of the valet business.

  The coatroom was the hardest pill to swallow, even though it represented only seasonal income. Like the door charge, the coatroom was an easy nightly source of cash and expense money. I’d been counting on a goodly sum each week in the winter, but that income had just been permanently diverted from my grasp.

  All in all, I could live with the deal. It was not dependent on gross revenue, it left the door income alone, and kept the mob out of dancers’ fees and liquor sales. Looking back, I was just an idiot who was yet unversed in the ways of mafia infiltration.

  I would come to be severely educated.

  As Halloween approached, the club started looking more and more spectacular each day. The former bomb shelter took on the appearance of a true first-class establishment.

  Days before the opening, an article appeared in Crain’s, a major respected business magazine, which noted with interest the upcoming arrival to the city of its first upscale topless lap dancing parlor. The piece brought waves of interest but, unfortunately, Mark Yackow reads Crain’s.

  “Michael, what is this stuff in Crain’s about a lap dancing strip club? Where did they get that? We should call the editor and make it clear we’re a sports bar with ‘Hooters-style’ entertainment.”

  What could I do? I’d amazingly kept the truth from my friend long enough. Faced with the reality now publicly revealed, I gathered up my courage and lied to Mark some more.

  “You know what, we decided we may experiment with lap dancing. No big deal, right? We’re still first and foremost a sports entertainment center. Bildstein swears it’s the wave of the future sweeping the country and, if it doesn’t work, we’ll just cut it out. But maybe it’ll catch on and we’d be the first in town.”

  After a pregnant pause, he answered, “I guess it’s OK. I don’t really care, let’s see how it goes.”

  Whew!

  The day before the opening, Mark Yackow and his investors toured the bustling premises. Like everyone else, they expressed their satisfaction and excitement. What went unexpressed was the overwhelming pressure and nervousness pounding inside each of us, especially me, because if New York wouldn’t buy what we were selling, I’d be financially buried.

  As the group was departing, one of the investors, a construction man himself, stopped by to wish us luck. “Michael, you’ve done a great job; the place is wildly impressive. New York has nothing like it. But just one thing, with all we’ve poured into the effort at luxury, why install faux brass on the railings? It looks so cheap and cheesy.”

  I almost swallowed my tongue. “What are you talking about? We paid top dollar for real brass from a highly recommended contractor!”

  “Well, I don’t care what you paid or who you paid it to—that’s not brass. It’s not even good brass-like metal; it’s pure garbage,
the kind of shit the mafia forces on helpless people. We’ll need to replace it in six months.”

  Holding my temper and smiling as the group passed through the outer vestibule, I turned to the receptionist and screamed, “Get me Mike Sergio on the phone!”

  October 31, 1991. Opening day. My answering machine at home was loaded with reminders from friends and clients expecting to be on the guest list. Other messages inquired as to dress code or whether dinner reservations were necessary. I ignored everyone, figuring it would work itself out.

  As I was departing, I heard my sister Carole’s voice leaving a message. She sounded irritated, so I walked back into the apartment and picked up the receiver.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your nieces are planning to go to your new club tonight and I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  “Why not? Sheri and Kim are adults, and it’s gonna be a very professional and classy crowd.”

  “They say women will be topless. I don’t want my daughters walking around topless in a club full of strangers. What kind of club is this anyway?”

  I shook my head in disbelief and realized she wasn’t kidding. “Carole, it’s a sports bar with topless dancing. Customers aren’t topless, only the professional dancers.”

  “Oh, well I guess that’s all right then. I’ll tell them they can go.”

  “And Carole, our family’s women aren’t exactly built for topless dancing anyway.”

  “That’s okay. Our family’s men wouldn’t qualify for Playgirl centerfolds.” Touché.

  When I arrived at the club, Bildstein had gathered the staff together and was laying down the ground rules one final time:

  Every customer is to be treated as royalty.