“I understand, Joey. It’s just business.”
“Just business,” and the line went dead.
‘Business that I’m gonna finish one of these days’.
Sevens and elevens.
I dropped the horn in the cradle and heard Gina in the outer office. I grabbed my cup and leaned on the jamb of my office door in time to watch the ritual. She removed her hat with one hand and swept back her long silky dark hair with the other. When she went to her toes to set her hat on top of the rack, my breathing stopped. I felt such a stirring that I had to speak or brand myself a Peeping Tom.
“Hey, Sweetie. How you doin this fine morning?” I headed for the coffee pot.
She turned her head slightly sideways, “What’s going on, Woody? You’re grinnin like that cat in ‘Alice in Wonderland’” Her blue eyes twinkled as she gave me the up and down.
“Well, I was goin to keep it as a surprise for the end of the day, but close enough. I think you deserve a raise.” She clasped her hands together.
“Oh, Woody, thank you!” Then she spotted the cannolis on her desk. “Saaaay, are the cannolis my raise?”
Now, that struck me so funny I laughed out loud.
“Woody, are you making fun of me?”
I couldn’t help myself. I sat my cup down, walked over and hugged her. She wrapped her arms inside my coat and laid the side of her face on my chest. My fingers touched her hard-soft body.
“Gina, I’d never make fun of you. I love you.” ‘Where the hell did that come from’?
She took a step back and hit me with both baby fists. “Now I know you’re making fun of me!” Her cheeks were beet red. “Well, it’s too bad. You said raise and I got the payroll checkbook locked up.”
She stuck out her tongue and pretended to tidy her already spic and span desk. We had finished a cannole and were almost back to making eye contact when the phone rang. “Good Morning. Stone Investigations.” What a sweet voice.
“Yes, sir, just a moment.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece and held it down to her lap. “It’s Mr. Logan, DA’s Office,” she said softly. I jerked my head and thumb towards my office. I plopped in my chair and picked up the hook.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Hey, Wood. I know you prob’ly ain’t seen a paper today.” It was more a question.
“No, what’s in the news?”
“A wiseguy named Rocco Cinni was found dead in your buddy Gallo’s front yard last night, vicious shit - obviously a mob execution. Guddam, Woody, somebody killed him twice!”
‘Killed him twice? Now THAT’S a big message,’ I thought.
What I said was, “Shit. Bet there’s a story there...”
“You remember Weegee, dontcha?”
“The photographer, right?”
“That’s right. He got some gut-wrenching photos of the crime scene. They’re splashed all over the papers this morning. Hell, they’re good enough to make him a suspect.”
“Really...?”
“Nooo, dumbass. But he must have gotten there plenty soon after the hit went down. Thought I’d give you a call. Weren’t you just wishing somebody would hold Gallo responsible for something? Well, listen to this. The DA just scheduled me to brief him again on the Victor Spillazzo death at 1:30 today. So, I guess it’s careful what you wish for.”
“Guess you’re right there, Dan. I just don’t get the politics in this town.” ‘Uh-oh, there’s another C-note to Weegee. They’ll be talkin to him hard’.
“I don’t think you get anything about town, farm boy. Why dontcha swing by Dempsey’s tonight.”
“Sounds good, LOOO-tenant. Better if you’d buy once in a while.”
“See ya there, bo.”
I grabbed a fresh cup of java and lit a Lucky.
“Gina, Hon, if you make it to the dry cleaner today, there’s a paper sack in my office with some clothes in it. I hate to have to tell you, but I hit a dog in Bed-Sty last night. Got blood on me draggin it off the street.”
“Oh, Woody, is your car okay?”
“Yeah. No problem there. Poor ol’ kiyoodle.”
I had Gina brief me on another pending case. That time, the wife thought the husband was cheating. I called Mrs. Alma Perez about stopping by to see her and headed out to Brooklyn Heights, the old waterfront. Sure was wishing I could catch a case with a little more meat to it, or a little excitement. Oh well, it was all easy money.
I pulled up beside Dupree sitting in the metal lawn chair at Mel’s Texaco. “Hey, Dupree. How y’all doin?”
“Hey, Woody.” He seemed a little restrained that morning. He stood and stooped down by the passenger door. “Didn’t sleep too good.”
“Well, you can sleep when you get old.” I handed him a five-spot. “Say, you s’pose you could find something around the station to clean up a mess in our alley? It’s on the pavement back by the old printing room door.” Dupree stuck his head in the window.
“It’s blood of the myrmidon, ain’t it, Woody?”
“I don’t think so.” I pawed in my pocket and slipped him another fin. “I think it’s motor oil.”
I drove away wondering what in the hell a ‘mermadon’ was.
A large Puerto Rican migration hit New York City in the 1950’s. Matter of fact, it became known as "The Great Migration". Many settled in Brooklyn, from Williamsburg, South Side, down to Red Hook.
I found the Perez address - 6 Water Street, Old Town Brooklyn. It was a four-story brick building typical for the riverfront, probably a factory originally. It had been painted red once but most of the color was faded or peeled off. Carved wooden pediments had been fixed on the windows at some point. Some were missing, leaving their outline in the original brick color, and the rest were rotting away. It was in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge; and I mean, you could walk a half block north and look up at the belly of the bridge. I saw no entrance except for the first floor business.
The first floor, the business, was painted a dark red with dark green awnings. The main awning read, ‘Panaderia La Candelaria’. I could see no entrance to the upper floor apartments. I was pretty sure that a panaderia was a bakery. When I went inside, it turned out to be a deli kind of restaurant combind with a small grocery store.
Off to the left, a man was working dough in a cloud of flour. I walked over and he looked up. It probably shouldn’t have been that way after most of ten years, but the bile rose in the back of my throat. I saw he had the square jaw and chiseled features of a Korean. Still, I asked if he knew the Perez Family.
He pointed straight up with one flour-white finger. “Shu-wa. They live on the thoid flo-wa.”
“How do I get up there?”
He laughed, “Yeah, it’s confusing. Go back out and hook a left. When you walk around to Fulton, you’ll see the do-wah. It’s kinduva small lobby.”
“Thanks,” I said and turned as in marching.
“You got it, bo.”
I had to assume that was one Korean who hadn’t been shooting at me in Pusan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The entryway was small and dark. Someone tried to keep it clean but had lost the battle to a hundred years of grime. I went on up and talked to Mrs. Alma Perez, a meaty Puerto Rican lovely. Her husband, Enrique, who went by Rick, had started keeping unusual hours months earlier, a schedule his job as a chef at Keen’s Chop House didn’t call for. There had been other changes, too, changes of a personal, marital nature. She wanted me to find out who the other woman was and get pictures.
“Yes, Ma’am. That’s gonna be twenty-five up front.” She went to get the money; I couldn’t help admiring the million-dollar view of Lower Manhattan across the East River.
I was parked across Water Street in the lead-up to a closed ferry slip. It was next to an oddly situated two-story block building, white with a red tile roof. On top of that, a structure rose another thirty feet. It looked like a shuttered lighthouse and I was sure it used to have something to do with running the ferry. The build
ing sported a big sign, ‘Tug’s Place. 1948. 1 Water Street’.
Curiosity got the best of me and I walked in to see what was going on. Nothing. There was a Puerto Rican couple swapping spit in a booth and a bum nursing a glass of beer at a side table. I eased up to the bar where Tug was towel drying a beer mug. I knew it was him by the name on his shirt.
He was a big ol beefy, stringy-haired man that looked like Wallace Beery. He wore a big grin; it was the kind of grin where you could see some of his molars were missing. When I ordered a double Jack, Tug poured using a shot glass. Then I understood why he was grinning - he was so tight, his skin was stretched. I laid an ace on the bar and tapped it. For lack of anything better to do, I walked over to the jukebox and looked for the Andrews Sisters’ ‘Rum And Coca-Cola’. No luck there; it was a 25-year-old Seeburg Symphonola with an eight-record selection. I lit a pill, then tossed back the Jack and cleared the joint when I spotted where someone had hung a lunger on the side of the jukebox.
I drove across the bridge then worked my way to the north-moving 6th Avenue thinking about the tropical nights in Havana, maybe Trinidad. A few Midtown lights were starting to glow. I felt pretty good about life, all things considered. I had told Dan Logan I’d meet him at Dempsey’s, but the day was young. I thought I’d treat myself to a mutton chop and boiled potatoes with parsley butter first. I’d put eyes on one, Mr. Enrique Perez.
I drove through the bustle of Herald Square, turned right on East 36th Street and wheeled into the parking lot at Keen’s Chop House. I parked and fished around in my trunk for my Argus 35mm camera with the five-inch flash against the chance that Rick could be caught smooching in the dry-goods pantry. At the door, I indicated I was headed to the bar.
I had forgotten the feel of the joint - dark mahogany walls, theater posters and old painted portraits. It was like stepping into a pleasantly dim, cool wine cellar. All the posters and playbills were interesting, but the program President Lincoln held in his hands at the Ford Theater the night he was shot by Booth took the prize. The place gave me a feel of history that I used to get working on the Mississippi paddle wheeler.
***
Keen’s was founded as a men’s club in 1885. In 1905, the actress Lily Langtree sued and won admittance for women. Probably the well-known fact that she was doing the horizontal boogie with King Edward of England didn’t hinder her court case any. Still, I wonder why she fought to get in and then let them hang a ten-foot naked oil painting of her. Just a sign of the times, or of the woman, I guess. She had lounged leisurely high behind the bar in all her naked glory for over 50 years.
There were thousands of long-stemmed clay pipes racked along the open ceiling beams. After pushing back from the feed trough, the old-timey arts and letters folks used to like to smoke their churchwarden pipes and talk things over. The clay pipes were too fragile to carry around, so they were entrusted to the care of the tavern keeper.
The pipes were numbered and registered with the guest’s name. The pipe register itself was something to see - autographs of Teddy Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, George M. Cohen, and joining them in recent years, Dwight D. Eisenhower and the genius advertising man, Raymond Loewy, who came up with the design of the Lucky Strike pack.
***
In the subdued lighting, the dining room looked like an acre of shining white table cloths, square along the walls, round out in the middle. I recognized a few people but didn’t feel like chewing the fat.
Several areas made up the ‘bar room’. Off to one side sat a black lacquered Mason and Hamlin concert grand piano shipped from the Boston maker in 1902. It had attracted everyone from classical to ragtime players out of the crowd. On the other side of the room, above small round tables, a stuffed bull moose head held court over an old brick fireplace and folks who wanted a quiet drink.
I headed right up the middle and saddled up on one of the red-leathered barstools at the deserted end of the mahogany bar. The reposing Lily Langtree watched my every move as I read the ‘Suggestion of the Day’ for Friday, June 24, 1960: ‘TOM COLLINS, Consisting of: 2 oz. Dry Gin; Half Lemon or Lime Juice; Sweetened with Sugar; Soda Water; Chopped Ice. 65c’. That sent a shudder down my spine. Keen’s single malt scotch inventory was said to be aces, but I steered clear of that, too.
Nick, the one of the three bartenders I recognized, was wiping his hands on his ankle length apron and walking toward me.
“Woody, how ya doon?”
“Good, Nick. Set me up.”
He fiddled and delivered two ounces of Jack, neat. He produced a Zippo from his vest pocket and was right there when I opened a fresh deck of Luckies and pull one out. When I nodded my thanks, he said ‘Semper Fi’.
“How’s Esperanza and the kids, Nick?”
“Doon good. Little Nick just finished the thoid grade.”
Nick enlisted in the Marine Corps early in 1945; the A-bomb drop spared him the horror. He did a tour of duty in the Marine Barracks, Philippines, which he extended to two years. So, his USMC souvenir was a beautiful Filipina wife.
In the dim light at the far end of the bar, I could see Jackie O’Shea moving cases of empties to the back room. Jack was another pug who left his life’s blood and part of his brain in the square circle years ago.
“Say, Nick, do you know Rick Perez?”
“Our cook? Yeah, he’s back in the kitchen. Whad he do?”
“Yet to be determined. Not for publication, but his wife has it mapped that he’s got a gal on the side.”
Nick leaned, put both hands on the bar, and then started laughing. The bartender from mid-bar glanced down and smiled.
“What’s so funny, Nick?”
“Christ, where to start. First, that he’s married. Everybody knows he shacks up with Albert, the Maître d’.”
“You mean the host up front right now?”
“Yeah, the little nance up by the front do-wah.”
I shook my head and pointed at my empty glass. Nick got the bottle, still chuckling. There were hidden speakers somewhere and Fats Domino was tickling the ivories, softly rocking.
Nick came back later and set down what looked like four fingers of Jack. I started to reach for my money clip. He held up his hand, winked and tapped the bar top.
It occurred to me, wonder if Gina would like this place. I bet she would. It’s fun, good chow and plenty of it. I heard myself make a sharp exhaling sound. Only one way to find out, I asked Nick for the bar phone. I slowly dialed her room number. No answer. Well, she wasn’t home.
She answered on the third ring. “Hey, Gina. Woody. I’m at Keen’s Chop House. I was just thinking about you. Think you might like to come over and have dinner?”
“Gee, that sounds aces, Woody. It’ll take me a little bit. I’ll grab a taxi.”
“Swell. It’s on East 36th near 6th Ave. I’ll wait for you at the bar. Can’t wait to see you.”
“Me, too, Woody...”
She showed up surprisingly fast. What a dish. She wore a tight blue dress and stiletto heels. I had never seen her hair up before. Everyone’s eyes followed her when she walked through the bar. Her blue eyes caught the light source meant for Lily’s portrait as she slid her arms around my neck.
“Oh, Woody, thanks for calling. It means the world to me.”
I guess I just sat there and stared at her beauty. She took a step back and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Woody, you okay?”
“Woody, you okay?” Nick was reaching across the bar, his hand on my shoulder. “Yo, Wood. You’re dozin off.”
“Naw. Dropped my money clip.” I peeled off a fin, laid it on the bar and pushed it forward. “Gotta go, Nicky. Big day tomorrow.” I slipped the camera strap around my neck and reached for my smokes. The pack was empty.
“Good night, Woody. Good seein youse.”
The bar music got lost in the murmur of the crowd as I walked past the all-seeing moose, the final judge of all men’s deeds.
“Excuse me. Albert, isn’t it?”
“Why, yes,” the little man in the impeccably tailored suit clasped his hands together and seemed to rise up on the balls of his feet. “How may I be of service?”
“Albert, they gave me your name back at the bar. I’m writing a Keen’s piece for the New Yorker. Would you mind if I take your picture and get a little information?”
“Oh, that would be wonderful…”
EPILOGUE
(Today. Grainger County, Tennessee.)
I can still see the 1961 New York Times headline in my head. ‘Private Investigator Gives Testimony in The Case of The Little Italy Bounce. Reputed Mobster Joseph Gallo Convicted of 2nd Degree Murder’. Well, maybe it was shorter than that.
The memory of that headline is almost as sweet as the sale of ‘W. R. Stone, Executive and Corporate Security Worldwide’ eight years ago. I had never seen so much cash in my life! Easy money. Wish Mama could’ve seen that.
Course, it all reminds me of Dangerous Dan Logan. Since retiring as the New York State Attorney General, he spends most of the year in the Bahamas wiggling all five toes in the sand. Guess it’s not what they call PC now, but Dan always said he was going to someday find a place with no Eyetalians.
He was on President George H. W. Bush’s short list for appointment to the Supreme Court in the late-90’s. However, there were those nagging rumors about heavy-handedness early on in his career. Imagine that!
I talked on the phone with Mike Sekach last week. Like many other overworked officers in the mid-60’s, he jumped the NYPD ship for better pay with the Nassau County Police Department. He retired as an Assistant to the Police Commissioner with the rank of Inspector in 1986. After twiddling his thumbs for six months, he came onboard and ran my Dubai Office for nine years.
He and his wife became real world travelers. They got in the habit of hopping the company jet when it was in their area. They would take hops to exotic places all over the globe with our mutual pal, Captain Leon Ramos, while he was Chief Pilot for W. R. Stone Worldwide. Mike called me from Tuscany last week. He sounded plenty happy.
The Case Of The Little Italy Bounce (Woody Stone, Private Investigator Book 1) Page 22