by Mysti Parker
Until Esta’s face popped up in front of him. She opened the door. “Are you all right? I was just coming to check on you.”
“I’m fine. I need to speak to Sailor.” He guessed his voice had gotten Sailor’s attention already, since she stood and headed over to the door. Esta glanced at both of them with an arched brow and an annoyed frown before heading back to her station.
“What is it? Are you okay? Do we need to leave?” Sailor asked breathlessly. Sweat glistened on her face and her chest, ran down the visible portion of her cleavage. “Is it because of the…you know?”
Ace snapped his gaze back to hers. “Uh…no. I met a retired cop who’s going to escort me down to Borough Park so I can talk to some of the Chasids.”
She crossed her arms. Despite the heat, her expression turned icy. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Yes, if there are threats coming from there, I want to get to the bottom of it. We can toss people out on the sidewalk all night, but if someone’s behind it, it might never stop until you or someone else is seriously hurt or worse.”
He hated getting firm with her like that, but she had to face reality. She hadn’t hired him to be her friend. She had hired him to keep her and her business safe, and that’s what he’d do, whatever it took.
She held his gaze for a while before sighing and looking away. “Okay. Just don’t be late for work.”
“I won’t.” He started to leave, then turned back briefly. “And I’m sorry for…you know.”
He left before she answered so she wouldn’t notice the bulge in his sweats.
After a quick shower and a change into some dry jeans and a decent-looking button-up shirt, Ace rode with Goose out to Borough Park.
“I know just where to start,” Goose said. They parked on the street in front of a little shop called Shloimy’s Heimeshe Bakery. “Best Kosher bakery in the city.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
They stepped inside, where a gruff-looking man with a thick black mustache and unkempt beard frowned at them from behind the counter. “We’re all out of chocolate babka if that’s what you’re wanting. You gotta get here early for that before all the women buy it up.”
Goose smiled and walked up to the counter while Ace admired all the fresh selections of breads, pastries, donuts and the like through the display glass. The place smelled awesome – like hot bread, spices, and coffee.
“We’ll just get a couple of coffees and some bagels. What kind you like, Ace?”
“Any kind. Never met a bread I didn’t like.”
Goose laughed. Even the employee – Simon, it said on his crooked and flour-dusted nametag – cracked a smile. While he fetched their coffees and bagels, he asked, “What else can I do for you goyim?”
“What did he call us?” Ace mumbled.
“Non-Jewish,” Goose mumbled back. He raised his voice and addressed Simon once more. “You should know by now I was made an honorary member of your tribe back in the day, but I’ll forgive you this one time. Where’s Mendel?”
“In the back with the rabbi. Who’s your friend?”
Ace spoke up. “Ace Montgomery. I’d like to ask you some questions about a bar in Williamstown.”
Simon’s mouth clamped shut. He turned around and started wiping down a sink.
“See what I mean?” Goose whispered to Ace. “Let me do the talking for a bit.” He raised his voice and spoke to Simon. “Did I hear you say the rabbi is here with Mendel?”
Simon grumbled, “Yeah, they’ll be out soon. You can sit out there and wait for them.”
Goose and Ace took a table near the front window. Ace sipped his coffee, thankful it wasn’t grass tea. But this place and this neighborhood were like a whole other world. A few more goyim like himself walked by on the sidewalk, but most everyone else wore dark clothes. The men had long beards, while some had long, curled sideburns and black hats. The women wore dark dresses that covered pretty much everything. They reminded him of the Amish back home.
“Who is it we’re waiting for?” Ace asked.
“The rabbi is who we need to talk to. He’s a mashgiach.”
“A what?”
“Inspects kosher establishments to make sure they’re following all the kosher procedures.”
“Gotcha. But, how does that make him useful?”
“He has his finger on the pulse of this community. If anyone in this area is out to get to Miss Kingston, he’d likely know about it.”
They waited. And waited. Ace had finished off the last of his everything bagel and downed the last sip of cold coffee when a gray-haired man in an apron and a gray-haired man in the black clothes and hat of the neighborhood Jews came out from the swinging doors of the kitchen. Ace assumed the latter was the rabbi.
The man in the apron smiled and waved before heading behind the counter to join Simon. “Morning, Goose. Simon, get him a refill, would you?”
Immediately, the rabbi’s sharp gray eyes honed in on Ace, and he felt like a kid in church again with the preacher pounding the pulpit and damning him to hell if he didn’t come up there and pray right that second. Goose smiled and stood, coming up to the rabbi. Ace remained in his seat. The less he was noticed, the better. He really didn’t know the proper way to approach a rabbi anyway.
“Good morning, Rabbi,” Goose said. The old man stretched out his hand. Goose took it and did a little bow over it. Then he turned toward Ace. “Would you mind if my friend and I talked to you for a little while?”
The rabbi’s bushy gray mustache and beard arched downward in a deep frown. “It’s a busy day, Guzman. I don’t have time to talk to goyim.” He set a book he was carrying down on the table. “You saw this? What a schlump.” He pointed at the image of a sour-looking girl on the cover of the book, which was called Forgetting God: How I Freed Myself from the Shameful Yoke of Chasidic Judaism by Ariela Rabin. “She fell in love with some shagets, I bet. Everyone’s making noise about it so I got one at the book store. Wasted twenty dollars.”
The face of the angry girl looked familiar to Ace; perhaps he’d seen the book in a bookstore window.
Goose was still trying to persuade the rabbi. “It won’t take long. I’ll buy you a box of rugelach.”
When the rabbi consulted his watch, Goose turned to Ace and winked. Maybe the old rabbi had a soft spot for rugelach, whatever that was.
Finally, the rabbi shrugged and came over to their table. He sat in the unoccupied chair and frowned at Ace.
“Good morning, rabbi,” Ace said. “Thanks for speaking to us.”
The rabbi nodded. “Pinchas Milikowsky. And you are?”
“Ace Montgomery.”
“Hmm.” Simon brought some coffee to the rabbi, along with a small cardboard box of crusty, chocolate-filled pastry. The old man picked one up and bit it, closed his eyes and savored it for a moment before focusing on Goose. “What do you need to know?”
Goose looked around as if to ensure no one was listening. He leaned closer to the rabbi and lowered his voice. “Ace here is working for Sailor Kingston at a new bar called The Hole. She’s been having a lot of troublemakers starting fights. Ace got a lead that suggests someone here in the neighborhood could have a grudge against her.”
“Sailor? I don’t know a Sailor.” He took another bite of his rugelach and a long drink of coffee.
Ace groaned quietly and wished he had a refill. This was getting them nowhere slowly.
“Oh…” the rabbi said, setting down his cup. He lifted a finger and wagged it at Goose and Ace. “Kingston, you say? Is it Roger Kingston’s girl?”
“Yes,” Ace answered.
“I see. Your suspicions may be right. Kingston was a real drek, worthless, dishonest. He did many people wrong.”
“Could you tell us specifically who he may have wronged?”
The rabbi frowned, then started eating his rugelach again as though he hadn’t even heard Ace or didn’t care to talk to him.
“Please,” Ace
said. “It’s important. Whatever her father did, Sailor is innocent. She’s not like him and doesn’t deserve to suffer for his sins.”
The rabbi sat his pastry down and took a deep breath. He looked at Goose, who nodded, then turned to Ace. “She may be innocent, but there is still bad energy there, wrongs that have not been righted. This is what you should do. Kingston’s daughter should talk to the Chaim Rabinowicz clan and make peace with them.”
Ace glanced at Goose, who was writing something down in a pocket notebook.
“In return,” the rabbi added, “I will send a couple of men to come help watch the bar until peace has returned.”
“That would be great. Thank you,” Ace said.
“I will expect them to be compensated fairly.”
“Of course.” Ace smiled at Goose, who chuckled quietly.
The men rose from their seats. Goose took the rabbi’s hand and bowed over it again. Surprisingly, the rabbi extended his hand, and Ace imitated Goose’s gesture.
Ace followed Goose to the car.
“That went pretty well,” Goose said.
“Yeah, but the hard part may be convincing Sailor that she needs to come talk to these folks.”
Chapter Eight
“The who?” Sailor demanded of Ace.
“The Chaim Rabinowicz clan.”
“The who?”
“They’re some Chasidic family.”
She racked her brain for any memory of Chasidim coming around her father’s offices, or even hearing them mentioned except when he complained that they smelled bad. “Spell it.”
“I can’t, Sailor. I’m told your dad did them wrong.”
“And the rabbi said they’re the cause of the trouble?”
“No, he didn’t. Goose explained to me that under Jewish law, you can’t inform on another Jew. He said there’s bad energy, whatever that means, and you need to fix it.”
Bad energy? So that was a euphemism for them having revenge on their minds. “By doing what? Giving them money?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t my neighborhood. But if this family is like the gang families I used to deal with, then honor is important, and saying you’re sorry and you were wrong should mean something.”
Did Ace suspect she was at fault? “So now I have to take the blame for what my dad did? Fuck that. He’s to blame. I’m not. I paid off his debts best as I could. I wasn’t part of his business.” She was saying way too much; years of unresolved frustration burst out of her mouth and flowed into his ears. “I was only his daughter on a birth certificate and when I needed someone to pay for my shit. I’m not, repeat, not getting tarred with his brush.”
“Well, the rabbi is sending some muscle here to help protect the bar. I figure if the Rabinowicz family are sending troublemakers, they’ll see the muscle and back off. But you have to pay them.”
“I’m paying off a couple of Chasids to just stand in the bar looking tough? How much am I paying them?”
“Up to you and them. I’d start by offering minimum wage.”
Well, that was better than she expected. “And suppose these people I’m supposed to beg for forgiveness are not behind the troubles in the bar? Basically, I pay off a couple of the rabbi’s thugs to stand around with their arms folded, and what do I get out of it?”
Ace shrugged. “You eliminate suspects.”
“Fuck it. No.”
Ace leaned in to look at her eyes. “I’m a consultant, and you don’t have to listen to me. But my advice goes like this: your business doesn’t end at your door. Your bar is part of the Williamsburg neighborhood, and you need friends in the neighborhood. They need to know you’re the kind of person they can work with.”
“And that means paying a bunch of shitheads in black coats to just stand there?”
“Maybe they’re nice guys. Maybe they can get up on Karaoke night and sing ‘I Will Survive.’ I don’t know, Sailor. I do know this, though. Goose stuck his neck out to help me with this, and now his rep and mine are on the line. So if you don’t at least try this plan, we’ll lose face and not be able to help the next time.”
#Bullshit.
#GoodLookingDoesn’tMeanSmart
#Bullshit
****
Ace's phone rang at about 9 PM. After a brief conversation, he told Sailor, "Two guys called Dov and Mendel are on their way over. I hope you'll be nice to them."
Sailor had calmed down and reconciled herself to the inevitability of this thing happening, at least for the moment. She HAD hired Ace, and he WAS smarter about that stuff than she was, and she DID want to be on good terms with him.
It was more than being on good terms that she wanted, Sailor realized. She wanted to take care of him. And she wanted him naked.
Moments after the call, a disturbance began between two patrons. Both were tall men in the uniforms of a private sanitation company, one bearded, the other wearing a backwards baseball cap.
"Motherfucker!"
"No, you're a motherfucker, motherfucker!"
#WittyBanter #BothMotherfuckers
Sailor looked around for her bouncers. Axl was off for the night. Jack was on break, probably around buying his nightly chocolate milk at the bodega. Jill was in the bathroom.
Crap.
A barstool rolled across the floor.
"Motherfucker!"
A swing and a miss. She scanned the room - Ace was moving toward the pugilists. It wouldn't be a lengthy brawl with Mr. Montgomery at hand.
Sailor grabbed the bar phone and tapped nine-one-one. She had to turn away from the struggle and cup the phone close to her ear in order to hear.
"Nine one one operator, state the nature of your emergency."
"Yeah, there's a fight at my bar. The Hole."
"Look out!" Pippi shouted.
A violent crash directly behind her. More bar stools rolling across the floor. Ace was on top of the bearded man, had his arm pinned in a hammerlock. The intensity in his eyes, in his face, in the tautness of his muscles, startled her. Was he going to break the guy’s arm?
The man in the cap, holding a jaggedly broken beer bottle, thrust it directly down at Ace.
"No!" Sailor shouted.
Ace cried out and grabbed his back. Sailor threw herself at the man in the cap and knocked him off-balance. He didn't shift far, though; he was probably twice her weight. He didn't even drop his bottle.
"Bad idea," the big man said. "I was just gonna cut up your bouncer before. Now I'll cut your pretty face."
Sailor froze. She was in good shape but had no real fighting skills. She’d only taken kick-boxing classes for exercise.
A dark shape moved between them. She saw a huge man in a black coat and broad-brimmed hat. He moved directly at the drunk and threw a single punch. Another man, similarly dressed but smaller, came from the side holding a stool and swatted the hand holding the bottle.
Ace was getting to his feet, still holding his back. He kept his lips tight, but it was obvious he was in pain.
The two Chasidim dragged the man in the cap outside. The bearded man stayed put on the floor.
The sounds of a beating came through the door.
Jill emerged from the bathroom and looked around.
“Take some pictures of the mess,” Ace said, leaning his weight on the bar as he held his back. He looked at some patrons by the door. “Hey, sorry, guys. We’d appreciate anyone who’ll stay to be witnesses, or leave us your card so NYPD can call on you later.”
“A free beer if you do,” Sailor said. “Whatever we have on tap, Pippi.”
Pippi nodded understanding.
“Oh, dude,” said Jill to Ace. “You’re bleeding like crazy.”
“I’ve had worse,” Ace said.
Sailor’s gut went all butterflies. She’d never seen anyone bleed so much or so red. “No, he’s right.” Sailor took his arm. “Come in the back. Let me try to stop the bleeding. Gabby, wrap some ice in a clean bar towel and bring it back to my office.”
�
��I’m fine. I’ll take care of it,” Ace said through gritted teeth.
She led Ace back to the office. “You can’t see that wound to take care of it properly. Let me look and if it’s not too bad, I can clean and bandage it. Take off your shirt.”
“Naw, I can shake it off. Just got to put pressure on it.”
“Shut up. Take off your shirt and sit on the corner of the desk.” #OMGSoMuchBlood #KeepItTogetherGirl
Ace shrugged, winced a little. Still in pain. Pippi arrived with the makeshift ice pack as Sailor was opening the first aid kit. She’d just bought a new one, fortunately; the old ones kept getting used up.
The wound was very bloody. She pressed the ice pack on it. Ace was obviously familiar with what to do next; he reached back to hold the pack in place while Sailor washed her hands in the office sink. Next, she cleaned the wound with alcohol. It had to sting, but Ace didn’t make a sound, just looked at the framed picture on the wall and kept his lips pressed together. That was the framed picture Sailor’s dad had told her to live by. She hated him, but she kept it as the only thing, other than money, that he had left for her. “Every man builds the world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but…”
Sailor felt that she was about to use that power to choose, and that she might use it wrong.
She dabbed the wound with a gauze pad, threw the pad away and applied another. Ace, still weighing the used ice pack in his hand, finally set it on the desk; the bar towel was bright red. Still he said nothing. Sailor applied some surgical tape to hold on the gauze.
“It needs a few stitches,” she said. “I’ll take you to the emergency room.”
“It can wait till closing,” said Ace.
There he was, still with his shirt off, and it was something like she had been imagining – his bare chest and back had many white lines of varying lengths. She made the choice; she traced her finger across one of them on his shoulder blade.
“What was that?” he asked.
“There was some blood on there,” she lied.
“No, I don’t think he got me anywhere else.” He looked at his shirt, which was on the chair and was sopping with blood.
“All these scars – they must hurt you.”