Bradley and I looked at each other and squinted. Olson maintained his blank expression and continued nodding.
“I’ll go over weekly linen survey and available laundry service later, but there are outdoor wash racks in our area, as needed.” He stood from the undersized desk and stretched his arms down diagonally. He was bigger than he’d looked earlier out in the field.
“Friday is payday, but if your people got any money, get em to the P. X. for personal items today. Don’t forget foot powder. Every man will have a notebook and pencils for classroom instruction no later than Friday after pay call. Some of em are a little shaggy. You know who they are; get em to the barber. I don’t give a shit if they’re out of smokes or got ‘a borrow toothpaste, the haircut comes first. Any questions?”
Bradley raised his hand like he was in school. “Are there any pay phones around?”
“Okay, good one. There are two banks of phones beyond the seventh hut north of here. They’re right beside a small post office, which is on your map. What else?”
Olson, apparently unencumbered with deep thinking, “You from Jersey, Sarge?”
“No, fuck you very much, Olson. I’m from New York City, Lower East Side. Now, get busy. Get your barracks squared away and have your squads standing by for my walk through inspection at 1800. Give me your squad roster at that time. Early chow goes at 1630 - the chow hall is on your map.” He made the last comment looking right at Olson.
Sgt. Tasker inspected my squad that evening, declared the best looking rack and completely tore the blanket and sheets off another without comment. After looking at all three Quonsets, he gathered us squad leaders outside in the dusk.
“The platoon area looks fair. I want those concrete decks shining. I don’t give a shit if they get their scuzzy bodies in the shower tonight or in the morning, but every swingin dick will demonstrate proper hygiene. Each of you, make up a fire watch duty roster for your hut, two hour shifts from 2200 to 0600 reveille. Bring a copy to my office every day we’re back here in camp. Rotate the duty through your squad and make it fair; if you don’t, it’ll come back to bite you in the ass.”
He paused and looked around. “Chow goes 0630 to 0800 for those interested. I suggest you get in the habit of eating morning chow - you’ll need it. We’ll have a formation tomorrow at 0730 out on the grinder where you first formed up today. All hands will have a notebook and pencil, if possible. You will all have them no later than Friday. Tomorrow is Training Day One - Orientation. Any questions?”
Bradley and I glanced at Olson. No questions. Tasker nodded and started to leave, then turned back. “Oh, and if anybody shows up at my formation without a shave, it’s your nuts I’ll be stomping on.” He turned as in marching and was gone.
I relayed information to my squad and posted the camp map in our hut. That evening, I heard conversations about Sgt. Tasker’s missing parts and his likeness to Quasimodo: ‘His face rings a bell’, ‘Wonder if he hears so good’, and worse. I didn’t think those things were said out of meanness. Just like me, they were exercising their newfound independence after Boot Camp. We were all testing the waters of dealing with approachable authority; but we didn’t understand that, so the results were ugly.
Training Day One started out deceptively cool. We all milled around in a general platoon formation in the shadow of the high ground directly to our east. At 0730 someone in the Summer Service “C” uniform, short sleeve shirt and tropical trousers, strode confidently in our direction from the Quonset huts to our right. Sgt. Tasker called the platoon to attention and gave the command, “Report.” Each squad leader, in turn, reported, “All present or accounted for.”
Our eyes were glued to the area above Sgt. Tasker’s left shirt pocket. A Silver Star ribbon and two Purple Hearts were stacked atop a Presidential Unit Commendation, the Navy Unit Commendation and several Korean campaign ribbons our training hadn’t prepared us to recognize. I never heard another disparaging remark about Sgt. Tasker, and he could be a son of a bitch when the mood struck him.
“At ease. Marines, today you embark on a 90-day training course. You will be trained in military tactics, fire control, weapon systems and how to work as part of a well-trained infantry team. You’ll get a combination of classroom instruction, practical application and live-fire exercises, both day and night.”
He paused and told us to get in a classroom circle around him. “Smoke em if you got em. Not one Goddamn butt on my deck.” We got down in front and stood in the rear.
“At the other end of this training, you’ll be proficient in mortars, calling in fire missions and adjusting indirect fire on targets. Best of all, I intend to see that every man in my platoon becomes an expert machine gunner employing the .30 caliber, both light and heavy, and the Browning .50 caliber M2. We call her ‘Ma Deuce’ and she’ll shoot through an inch of hardened steel with her armor piercing rounds. As an expert Marine Corps Machine Gunner, you’ll never have my good looks, but you’ll be respected by all and get more women than you can shake a stick at. Is that something you’re interested in?”
The Platoon erupted in cheers.
Sgt. Tasker, in fact, was a short-timer. He didn’t have enough months left on his enlistment to be sent back to combat, so he had been assigned as a machine gun instructor then as a troop handler for replacement drafts bound for Korea. We were very lucky that Providence brought him into our lives.
Toward the end of our training, he told us that he believed the U.S. was right to stop the communists in Korea, but he, personally, had lost more there than he gained. He was going back to his family business, T & J Auto Repair, in Lower East Side Manhattan, at the west end of the Williamsburg Bridge.
CHAPTER TWENTY
(Tuesday, June 14, 1960. 481 Wythe Ave, Brooklyn.)
My office windows faced west, so there was no blaze of morning sun shooting through. Still, the growing sheet of sunlight woke me up slowly. I was on the worn brown leather couch. That day, I intended to head back to Joey Gallo’s house in Queens, but first I planned to make sure he wasn’t holed up at Mazzella’s Restaurant. If I could catch sight of that murderous prick, he was going to set the record straight and dis-involve me in the Spillazzo hit. I rolled off onto the hardwood floor to do my ‘daily twenty-five push-ups’ that I was lucky if I did weekly.
I sat at Gina’s desk and dialed the Dempsey Restaurant bar number from memory. After some shuffling, I got Sally Spit on the horn.
“Sally, Woody Stone. You doin okay?”
“Doon good, Woody. Beautiful mornin, idn’t it?”
“I’m about to go find out. Say, Sal, can you do me a favor and call around to see if anybody’s got a 10-20 on Joe Gallo? Don’t tell em who’s looking. Any luck locating him, leave a message at my office. I’ll make it worth your time.”
“You don’t owe me nothin, Woody. I’ll do it.”
“Thanks, bo. Talk to ya…”
Gina arrived carrying my clean suit. She was bubbling on about a picture show she’d seen the night before, ‘The Mouse That Roared’.
“Oh, Woody, it was the funniest thing. I thought I was gonna split a side. Peter Sellers is so funny and so European!”
By the time I got cleaned up, Rita Mae Riley had called to tell me the DA’s Office had no file on a Kathryn Margolies and spelled the name to make sure she had gotten it right.
“Thanks, Rita Mae. It was just a long shot. I appreciate you.” I cradled the phone. I could take her voice in person when I could eyeball her attributes. But telephone? No.
Thirty minutes later, I parked the Studebaker in front of Manganaro Grosseria, next door and across the alley from Mazzella’s Restaurant. The grocery’s windows were plastered with butcher paper announcing the availability of ‘Rib bellies! Smoked loins! Pig toes!’. I could‘ve parked a tank out there.
I wanted to stop by Joey Gallo’s headquarters one more time before heading back to his house in Queens. I needed to flush out that turd, and quick. The same galoot was sitting at the
bar. An ugly red mark ran from his eyebrow into his greasy hairline. I gave him pretty much the same set of questions concerning Gallo’s whereabouts.
No ‘snick’ of the switchblade to be heard that time. The brutus turned towards me with a quickness I didn’t suspect from a goon his size. I barely saw the weighted leather sap he brought down against my left temple. I woke up tied to a chair in the back room just in time to realize I was being beaten unconscious. The big ape was unloading roundhouse punches, one after the other.
Then a meaty paw was slapping my cheek. That time I came around to see Big Nig through swollen eyes. He put his black-ringed eyes close to my face.
“Stone, Mr. Gallo says you’re okay, but you’re in over your head.” I thought I was off my rocker. Why was Rossi’s driver speaking for Joey Gallo? I got it wrong, had to get a grip. A snappish voice spoke inside my head, ‘Woodrow Rollin Stone, stop that! You’re hallucinating all over my kitchen table’.
Big Nig slapped me again. “Listen to me, Stone. Take this five large and keep yer nose where it belongs. Next time Rocco ain’t gonna go so easy on youse.” He tossed a sheaf of C-notes bound with a rubber band onto my lap.
Then, I was sprawled in the back alley. I turned to see my hat sailing out the door behind me. The geetus was laying in a nearby puddle. I left it there. I sure as hell could have used the money, but when I do business with the Devil, I want to look him in the eyes. I spit blood on the pavement and put a hand to my painfully swollen face. ‘Well, that went pretty good’.
I headed to the Stude on the curb. I thought I could wiggle a canine tooth a little, hard to tell. Then it hit me. I pushed open the front door of Mazzella’s as hard as I could. BANG! It made contact with the wall. The table-guineas just kept rolling their pasta around their forks. I walked over to Rocco who had repositioned his ass back at the bar. The leather sap lay in front of him.
“I want my GODDAMN HEATER back,” I informed Rocco.
Without turning my way, he gave a nod to the bartender. The barkeep reached under the bar, slid the .45 auto my way, and then slid the magazine across. I rammed home the mag and racked the slide back to chamber a round. Rocco deigned to glance at me. I knew if they were going to kill me, they’d have done it in the back room.
“Thank you.” I holstered the piece and lit a Lucky. It stuck to my busted lip. I walked sideways to the door.
“Hey, Rocco, better get that pile of cabbage out your kitchen door or your dishwasher’s gonna be drivin a Cadillac.”
I drove across the Williamsburg Bridge and stopped by my office to get cleaned up and change my bloody clothes. Thankfully, there was a note taped on the door glass in Gina’s handwriting - ‘Gone to Lafayette Nat. Bank. Back at 1:00. Hold deliveries.’ I knew she would’ve come unglued if I looked half as bad as I felt.
I hurried to get scrubbed down and band-aided up. When I picked up the ringing phone, thinking it might be Sally Spit with a location on Gallo, it was Kate, the beautiful redhead. She asked if we could meet about seven p.m. Sure, I said and suggested Dempsey’s. The phone went dead and I cleared out of the office as quick as I could to spare Gina the sight of my busted face.
I wanted to have a look at the activity at Gallo’s house in the daylight, so I drove back to Queens and parked as far down Hampton Street as I could and still keep an eye on Gallo’s door. Imagine that - Vecchio works for Gallo. If Rossi even suspected, he’d nail Big Nig’s nutsack to a telephone pole and light him on fire.
Late afternoon, a panel truck pulled up to Number 54, and I watched groceries being delivered. That son of a bitch was holed up in there. Was he protecting his family or using them as a shield? I made a mental note. I didn’t want to have to grab him in front of his family, but I would the next night if the rat didn’t surface. I’d bring Sally Spit with me; he could more than handle half a dozen bent noses.
Right then, I had to piss like a racehorse. I nosed the Hawk into a slot by Finnegan’s Bar on Roosevelt. When I bellied the bar, Ol’ Caterpillar Face brought me two fingers of Jack, neat, but he was shaking his head theatrically. I took care of my business in the back room and he refilled me three times. I heard him mutter something about Tullamore Dew and, it’s a sin, otherwise he ignored me. I slipped a folded fin on the bar and tapped it.
Back out in the warm evening air I found a phone booth by the Esso station and dialed the Hotel Taft penthouse number of my friend Leland Parris III. Lee knew everybody in the theater business in that town; stood to reason that birddog would know a looker like the Margolies dame. Got him on the third ring and gave him only the name, none of the background.
“Yeah, it’s K-A-T-H-R-Y-N, long red hair - a real bombshell. Her business card says, “League of New York Theatres”.
“Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, Woody. That’s a theater owner, production type organization. Despite what they say, it doesn’t take much more than dues to get in. Don’t forget there may be less than two dozen Broadway theaters that seat over 500, but many more Off Broadway theaters that seat fewer than 500.”
“Well, thanks, Lee. By the way, congrats on the actor strike being called off.”
“Yes, thank God it was. We didn’t think a pension plan was too much to ask for. You’re too kind to an old thespian. Semper Fi.”
‘Thespian’, now there was a word I intended to never use.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
(Tuesday, June 14, 1960. Jack Dempsey’s Broadway Restaurant.)
By 6:45, I was sitting at a small table overlooking Dempsey’s oval bar waiting for Miss Margolies. I was sipping Jack Daniel's and trying to dope out Joey Gallo’s recent moves.
The sight of her put me back in the moment. She stood at the far end of the room on the lower level. Her long red hair cascaded and caught the shafts of light reflecting off the gold sides of the bar. Her pale green chiffon dress draped and mapped the body of a goddess.
That bearcat really had some get-away pins. Three of the five bartenders on duty gravitated towards her like metal shavings to a lodestone. She saw me when I stood, waved and walked over and up the three steps to my table.
“Woody, what happened to your lip?”
“Chapped,” I said.
She stared at my face, “I know I owe you an apology. I don’t know where to start.”
“Why don’t you start by taking a seat,” I said. She sat, fumbled with her glittery green hand purse, lit an Old Gold and inhaled so deeply, she hot-boxed it.
“Woody, your face… How do you keep going through all the pain?” I sipped the liquor thinking it an odd question. My whole life, it had never occurred to me that there was a choice.
Kate shook her head a little, “I only told you half the truth the other day.” The waiter took her order and quickly brought her drink, a fancy concoction called a Sidecar.
“It was true that I’ve been looking for evidence in my father’s murder, but what’s also true is that I have the ledgers that prove the fraud and racketeering case against Vito Rossi that my father was set to testify in. I’ve done pretty well in the theater business; at least I’ve established some contacts. A couple of years ago, when I found the ledgers, I confronted Rossi. Of course, he threatened to kill me and everyone I had ever spoken with. I reminded him of my contacts and told him one of them would be opening a big box of financial paperwork if anything happened to me. I gave him a copy of a ledger page as proof and told him I wanted a quarter million dollars for the lot.” The dame was on a roll.
“I wanted him to have to pay, one way or the other. I was surprised, no, shocked, when he said okay, but he wanted to spread the payments out over 60 months. At that point, I was confused. Mother was so sick and desperately needed the money. I did have enough wits about me to say he’d get the documents only at the end of the five years.” She lit another fag.
“My father was a bastard. Always soused, lived inside his own head. Mother said he wasn’t always like that. When they were kids in Five Points, he would take her dancing, Sunday
s at Coney Island, courting along the river. He came back from the Great War a hollow man who couldn’t live in his own skin. He was never around. Mother raised my sister & me working 12 hours a day in the Garment District sewing clothes for rich people. I didn’t even know about my father’s death until several weeks afterwards. I was outraged when I found out. The murderer was obvious to me when the police told me what happened. I was stressed. Mother was sick more and more. Now, we know she has stomach cancer.”
She flared her pretty nostrils as she took a deep breath.
“Rossi’s been paying money every month to keep my mouth shut about my father’s business ledgers. I knew it was wrong but my mother’s medical bills would have put us in the poor house. Rossi made me go to that horrid bar last Friday night. They told me to distract somebody they were going to teach a lesson; looks like that was you. Getting that phone call was the last straw for me. I was going to blow the brains out of Rossi’s pig head. At least I thought I was. I recognized you from a newspaper article, so I went to your office the next morning to hire you to kill him. I couldn’t even get up the nerve to make that proposition.”
The tears had started slowly, but now she was sobbing. I leaned across the small table and gave her my handkerchief.
“Oh, Woody, if you’ve got anything on Rossi, please tell me.”
“Kate, I won’t let that goon mess with a sweet kid like you. It’s gonna stop. The Manhattan DA’s got Rossi in the crosshairs for your father’s murder.” That last part wasn’t quite true, but just to give the kid some hope.
She leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth. I was surprised, but not paralyzed. I grabbed her upper arm so that the kiss would linger.
“Woody, I’m a mess.” Her sobs had found a rhythm. “Look at the makeup on my dress! I’ll call you tomorrow, promise.” Then, as she stood, “Thank you...”
The Case Of The Little Italy Bounce (Woody Stone, Private Investigator Book 1) Page 16