by Don Winslow
“Why are you hassling me, Billy?” Mike asked. “Why are you busting balls? I’m just trying to make a living here.”
“So am I!”
“So make! Who’s stopping you?”
“You are!” Billy said. “You got half my girls hooked on coke. You got them out turning tricks, doing porn—”
“You want a piece of their shy, Billy? Is that it?” Mike said. “Why didn’t you say? I’ll cut you in. Just come to me like a man and say—”
But Billy’s on a bitching roll, Frank thought, like a woman. Once they get started, they’re not happy just solving the problem. No, they have to vent. So Billy just can’t take the offer of good money. No, he has to—
“The cops are all over the place,” Billy continued. “We could lose our fucking liquor license, and speaking of liquor, Mike—”
“What?”
“Jesus, the bar tab you and your crew have run up—”
“What, you counting our drinks, you fucking mutt?”
“C’mon,” Frank said. “You guys are friends.”
“You’re counting our drinks?” Mike said. “You cheap-ass, nickel-and-dime piece of shit—”
“Hey!” Billy said.
“‘Hey’ nothing, you ingrate,” Mike said. “You wouldn’t have the fucking club, it wasn’t for me.”
“Whoa,” said Billy. “I didn’t ask you to clip Eddie.”
That was a mistake, Frank thought. That was the wrong thing to say. Mike just went off.
“You didn’t ask? You didn’t ask?” Mike said. “You didn’t have to ask, because you were my friend, Billy, and if you had a problem, which you did, it was my problem, too. You didn’t ask?”
“I didn’t ask you to—”
“No,” Mike said. “You didn’t ask. You sat there and whined like a little girl. ‘I’m in trouble, Mike. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.’ I took care of it for you, motherfucker. I stepped up.”
“I thought you were going to talk to him, Mike!” Billy said. “I didn’t think you were going to—”
“Jesus, maybe I shot the wrong fucking guy,” Mike said.
Frank looked back and Mike had a pistol in his hand now. “Mike, no!”
“I think I did,” Mike said. “I think I shot the wrong fucking guy! Maybe I should give you what I gave him!”
Georgie Y reached into his pocket for his gun.
Frank cranked the wheel, steered the limo to the curb, and, with his other hand, trapped Georgie’s wrist against his waist. It wasn’t easy—Georgie Y was a strong boy.
Billy was trying to bail out. He was fumbling with the door handle when Mike started shooting. Three blasts made Frank’s ears ring. He couldn’t hear a thing; he just saw Georgie Y’s lips mouthing the word Jesus. Then he turned and saw Billy slumped against the car door, his right shoulder a mass of blood and a bullet hole in his face.
But he was breathing.
Frank jerked Georgie’s pistol away from him, put it in his own pocket, then said, “Come on, I have some towels in the trunk.”
Frank looked around.
No other cars.
No cop cars with sirens screaming.
He got out, opened the trunk, grabbed the towels, then went around to the backseat. “Get the fuck out of my way, Mike.”
Mike got out of the car and Frank slid in. He wrapped towels around Billy’s shoulder and then pressed another hard against the head wound. “Georgie, get in here!” He felt the big man flop onto the seat. “Hold this tight against his head. Don’t let go.”
Georgie Y was crying.
“Georgie, you don’t have time for that,” Frank said. “Do what I tell you.”
Frank got out, grabbed Mike, and pushed him into the front passenger seat. Then he went around, got behind the wheel, and tromped on the gas pedal.
“Where the fuck you think you’re going?” Mike asked.
“The E room.”
“He ain’t gonna make it, Frankie.”
“That’s between him and God,” Frank said. “I think you already did your part, Mike.”
“He’ll talk, Frank.”
“He won’t talk.”
He didn’t.
Billy knew the rules. He knew that if he had been fortunate enough to survive one gunshot to the head, he wouldn’t luck out the second time. So he stuck with the story: He’d been coming out of the club and some junkie tried to rob him. He never saw the guy.
He never saw anything else, either. The bullet hit a nerve and left him permanently blind.
“You’re going to pay him,” Frank told Mike. “Billy keeps his share of the club and you’re going to cut him in on the shy, like you said.”
Mike didn’t argue.
He knew Frank was right, and besides, Frank always thought that Mike felt bad about shooting Billy, even though he’d never admit it. So Billy still owned the Pinto Club, but he didn’t come around much after he got out of the hospital. Watching strippers couldn’t have been that much fun for a blind guy.
But Billy Brooks kept his mouth shut.
It was Georgie Y they had to worry about.
Mike did, anyway.
“The cops are all over this fucking thing,” Mike said to Frank one night. “They know Billy’s story is bullshit; they’re going to press. You and me, Frank, we can stand up, but I don’t know about Georgie. I mean, can you see him in an interrogation room?”
No, Frank thought, I can’t.
“And thanks, by the way,” he said, “for putting me in the way of an accessory-to-attempted-murder beef.”
“This temper of mine,” Mike said. “So what are we going to do about Georgie?”
“Have the cops contacted him yet?”
Mike shook his head. “It’s the ‘yet’ I’m worried about.”
“We can’t clip a guy on a ‘yet,’” Frank said.
“We can’t?”
“Mike, you do it, I’m done with you,” Frank told him. “My hand to God, I’ll turn my face away from you.”
So Georgie Y kept his life and his job as a bouncer at the club. The only difference was, now he went out and busted legs for Mike instead of for Billy. He even started dating one of the dancers, a skinny little thing named Myrna, and they seemed to get along pretty well.
So that should have been the end of it.
It wasn’t.
The Strip Club Wars were just beginning.
Frank will never forget the first time he saw Big Mac McManus.
Hell, nobody ever forgets the first time they saw Mac. A six-foot-six, 250-pound black man with a shaved head and a cut body comes walking into the place, wearing a tailored leopard-skin dashiki and carrying a diamond-studded walking stick, you tend to remember the moment.
Frank was sitting in a booth with Mike and Pat Walsh when Big Mac strolled in. Big Mac paused on the landing just inside the front door, taking in the scene. More to the point, he let the scene take him in, which it did. About everyone in the place looked up and stared.
Even Georgie Y was looking up. Big Mac McManus had a couple of inches on Georgie, who seemed to have the sense that he should be doing something, even though he didn’t know what that was. He looked over to Frank for direction, and Frank gave him a subtle shake of the head.
Like, Leave it alone, Georgie. This is out of your league.
Georgie let Big Mac through.
Big Mac descended the stairs into the club.
He had three guys with him. Three white guys.
Frank got the sly joke right away. The black man had an entourage, and they were white.
Mac walked right over to the booth and said, “Billy Brooks?”
“That’s me,” Walsh said.
“Mac McManus,” Mac said. He didn’t offer to shake hands. “I want to buy your club.”
“It’s not for sale.”
“I have controlling interests in the Cheetah, the Sly Fox, and Bare Elegance, to name a few,” Mac said, “I want to add the Pinto to my portfoli
o. I’ll pay you a fair price, with a generous profit figured in.”
“Did you hear the man?” Mike asked. “He said it’s not for sale.”
“Excuse me,” Mac said, “but I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Do you know who I am?” Mike asked.
“I know who you are, Mike Pella,” Mac said, smiling. “You’re a wise guy who’s done stints for assault, extortion, and insurance fraud. The word is that you’re with the Martini family, but the word is wrong. You’re more of an independent operator with Mr. Machianno here. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Frank. I’ve heard good things.”
Frank nodded.
“Meet my associates,” Mac said. “This is Mr. Stone, Mr. Sherrell, and, last but not least, Mr. Porter.”
Stone was a tall, muscled, blond California dude. Sherrell was shorter, but thicker, with black permed hair that had just gone out of style. Both men were dressed casually, jeans and polo shirts.
Porter was medium height, medium build, his hair cut short. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, and a tie and had a cigarette between lips that otherwise held nothing but a continual smirk. His black hair was greased straight back, and it took Frank a second to figure it out before he realized that the guy was going for the Bogart look. And almost made it, too, except that Bogie had a soft side, and there was nothing about this guy that was soft.
They all nodded and smiled.
Mac took a card from his pocket and laid it on the table. “I’m having a little get-together Sunday afternoon at my place,” he said. “I’m really hoping that you gentlemen can attend. Very casual, very mellow. Bring dates if you’d like, but there will be an abundance of ladies there. Say two o’clock or thereabouts?”
He smiled, turned, and left, with Stone and Sherrell at his heels.
Porter paused, made a special effort to get Frank’s eye, then said, “Nice meeting you blokes.”
“‘Blokes’?” Mike said when Porter had walked away.
“British,” Frank said.
“Check them out,” Mike said.
It didn’t take long to get the rundown.
Horace “Big Mac” McManus, was a former California Highway Patrol officer who had done a four-year stretch in the federal pen for counterfeiting. Now forty-six, he was a major player in the California sex trade. It was true that he was a silent partner in the clubs that he had mentioned. He was also a big-time porn producer and distributor and probably ran hookers out of both the clubs and the movie sets.
“He lives,” Frank said, “get this, on an estate in Rancho Santa Fe he calls ‘Tara.’”
“The fuck is that?”
“Gone With the Wind,” Frank said.
John Stone was a cop.
“Jesus shit,” Mike said.
“He was McManus’s partner before Mac got busted, and he’s still on the CHP. He has a piece of all Mac’s clubs, and he spends most of his time helping Mac run his business.”
“Right-hand man sort of thing?” Mike asked.
“More like a partner.”
Danny Sherrell was the manager of the Cheetah. His nickname was “Chokemaster.”
“Was he a wrestler or something?” Mike asked.
Frank shook his head. “Porn actor.”
“Oh,” Mike said. Then “Ohhhh. What about the Brit?”
“His name is Pat Porter,” Frank answered. “Beyond that, we don’t know much about him. He came over here about two years ago. Sherrell hired him as a bouncer at the Cheetah. He must have worked his way up in the world.”
“Jesus…cops,” Mike said. “What are we going to do, Frankie?”
“Go to a party, I guess.”
Tara was amazing.
The house had been built to match the antebellum mansion in the movie. The only difference was that all the servants were white, not black. A white teenager in a red vest ran up to Frank’s limo, opened the passenger door, and was surprised to find that there was nobody in the back.
“Just me,” Frank said, flipping him the keys. “Be careful with it.”
Frank walked onto the huge expanse of soft green lawn, where tents and tables had been set up. He was wearing a suit, but he still felt shabby compared to the other guests, who were all arrayed in various forms of expensive, casual California cool. Lots of white linen and cotton, khaki and cream.
Mike had gone the black-on-black route.
He looked just like a goombah, and Frank felt a little ashamed that he was embarrassed.
“You seen this spread?” Mike asked. “They got shrimps, they got caviar, tritip beef, champagne. ‘Little party’ my ass.”
“He does this every other Sunday,” Frank said.
“You’re kidding me.”
Beautiful place, beautiful grounds, beautiful food, beautiful wine, beautiful people. That was the thing—all the people were drop-dead gorgeous. Handsome men, incredibly lovely women. We’re like mutts here, Frank thought.
I guess that’s the point.
Mac made an entrance onto the lawn.
Dressed in an all-white linen suit and Gucci loafers with no socks, he had a woman on his arm who was wearing a slinky summer dress that revealed more than it hid.
“I know that chick,” Mike said.
“Yeah, right.”
“No, I know that chick,” Mike said. Then a few seconds later, he blurted, “That’s Miss May. That’s Miss fucking May. McManus’s grooving a Penthouse centerfold.”
Mac and Miss May worked through the guests, pausing and smiling and hugging, but it was clear that Mac was working his way over to Frank and Mike. When he did, he said, “Gentlemen, I’m so glad you could find the time. Mike, Frank, this is Amber Collins.”
Frank was praying that Mike wouldn’t bring up his revelation.
He didn’t. He just gawped a “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Frank said.
“Do you have everything you need?” Mac asked. “Something to eat, something to drink?”
“We’re good,” Frank said.
“How about a tour of the house?” Mac asked.
“Sounds good,” said Frank.
“Amber,” Mac said. “I’ll miss you, but could I ask you to play hostess to the other guests?”
The house was unreal.
Frank, who appreciated quality, recognized that Mac did, too. He knew good stuff and he had the money to pay for it. All the fixtures, the plumbing, the kitchen appliances were top-of-the-line. Mac led them through the enormous living room, the kitchen, the six bedrooms, the screening room, and the dojo.
“I’m into hung gar kung fu,” Mac said.
Six six, Frank thought, two and a half bills, cut like stone, and a martial-arts black belt. God help us if we have to take Big Mac McManus down.
In back of the mansion, Mac had his own private zoo—exotic birds, reptiles, and cats. Frank didn’t know his zoology all that well, but he thought he recognized an ocelot, a cougar, and, inevitably, a black panther.
“I love animals,” Mac said. “And of course, all the movements of kung fu are patterned after animals—the tiger, the snake, the leopard, the crane, and the dragon. I learn just by watching these beautiful specimens.”
“You got a dragon here?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Mac said. “I have a Komodo dragon. But the dragon is a mythical beast, of course. You keep its spirit in your heart.”
They walked back into the house.
“This is like the Playboy Mansion,” Mike said as they walked back through the main room.
“Hef’s been here,” Mac said.
“You know Hefner?” Mike asked.
Mac smiled. “Would you like to meet him? I can arrange it. Let’s go to the study, sit down, have a dialogue.”
The study was a quiet room in the back of the mansion. All the furniture was dark teak. African masks adorned the walls; the carpet and sofa were zebra skin. The large chairs were some kind of exotic leather that Frank didn’t recognize. Large built-in bookcases
held a collection of volumes on African art, history, and culture, and the floor-to-ceiling CD racks contained an archival collection of jazz.
“Do you like jazz?” Mac asked, seeing Frank eye the collection.
“I’m more of an opera guy.”
“Puccini?”
“You got it.”
“You got it,” Mac said. He pushed a few buttons behind his desk and the opening strains of Tosca filled the room. It was the best-quality sound that Frank had ever heard and he asked Mac about it.
“Bose,” Mac said. “I’ll set you up with my man.”
Mac pushed another button, and a butler came in with a tray with two amber-filled glasses, which he set on side tables next to the chairs.
“Single-malt scotch,” Mac said. “I thought you might enjoy it.”
“What about you?” Frank asked.
“I don’t drink. Or smoke or do drugs.” He sat down in a chair opposite them. “Shall we do some business?”
“We’re not selling the club,” Mike said.
“You haven’t heard my offer.”
Frank took a sip of the scotch. It was smoky and smooth, and a second later he felt its warmth permeate his stomach.
“Congratulations on the Pinto Club,” Mac said. “You’ve done very well with it. But I think that I could take it to the next level in ways that you can’t.”
“How’s that?” Mike asked.
“Horizontal integration,” Mac said. “I take my adult-video actresses and book them into the clubs, take my star dancers and put them in the videos.”
“We do that now,” Mike said.
“In a cheap way,” Mac said. “I’m talking about headliners. Names in the industry, people you can’t afford. Similarly, you pimp your girls to traveling salesman for a couple of hundred bucks. Our girls go with millionaires.”
“You’ve told us why you want to buy the club,” Mike said, “not why we should sell it.”
“You can sell it now and make a profit,” Mac said. “Or you can wait until I drive you out of business, and lose money. I control six clubs in California, another three in Vegas. Pretty soon I’ll be in New York. The headliners, the names, will work my clubs and no others. Another six months to a year, you won’t be able to compete. At best, you’ll be a bottom-feeding operation selling draft beer to Joe Lunchbucket.”