A BUSINESS OF CONSEQUENCE

The fourth part...

Photo by dominik hofbauer on Unsplash

The Sarasoda Supper Club had fifty tables spread out over two levels, a dance floor, and live music every night. We had a dozen waiters serving some of the best hootch we could get our hands on. We were pimping out five whores for Charlie, and had poker tables in the back we were splitting seventy-thirty with Arnie. We even had a way for warning us if the cops were coming in, which meant we had three minutes to change the club into a recital hall. We didn’t have to do it often, but it was nice to know it worked. We even got fancy cooks Arnie stole from big hotels in the city, but most of all we had Arnie’s protection, which meant the fix was in, so to speak.

Arnie would come in once a week to collect his pay-off. He’d never come in alone. He’d either come in with his wife, or his mistress, as well as Legs and Dutch who were his number one bodyguards. He was in the habit of bringing Charlie, Bugsy, Lanskey, and Costello with him as well. People said he was showing them how to be proper gangsters, grooming them to take over, which was never a good thing to say considering who was running New York at the time. As much as I might have thought it was Arnie in our little corner of the world, I was beginning to see things different.

Jimmy made sure they always had the best table in the house, and whenever Arnie saw me, he’d call me over, telling me I’d done him proud, and then, looking at the boys, he’d ask them if it weren’t true. Bugsy would ignore me, while Charlie always smiled and agreed, and so did Lansky, but I think that was because they knew how much Legs and the Dutchman hated me. Legs was always saying how he could run a place same as this if he got half a chance. Bugsy said he’d help him soon as he could. Costello never said anything.

“We got someone new for tonight’s entertainment, A.R.,” Jimmy said with a note of excitement. Arnie looked up at him with something like surprise on his face, because Jimmy didn’t look so good. He was skinny from overwork, and he kept wiping his nose with a napkin because it was running like as if he had a cold, even though he was sweating and his skin looked pasty. Arnie looked up at me.

“What? D’cha get Durante? Jolson? I love Durante,” he laughed, and I could see Jimmy looking at me like as if he was expecting I’d go out and get Durante next week.

I just smiled and laughed easily as I shook my head. “No Arnie, I got me this girl what can sing like she should be in Zigfield’s. She’s better’n Nicky’s girl–-what’s her name?”

“Fanny Brice,” Legs said slowly.

“Why, I’m surprised you’d know that Legs,” I laughed. “I mean, you being such a show person an’ all,” I said, and Charlie and Lansky both laughed softly. “That’s more like something Bugsy would know.”

“The only reason he knows her is on account of how Monk stole her car a couple years back, and Legs had to tell him to bring it back,” Bugsy said.

“Monk?” Jimmy asked with a sniffle. “Ain’t he dead?”

“He came back a hero–-decorated too, if you can believe it,” Dutch said. “But what d’ya expects if you send a guy like him out to kill people.”

Lacy came out to sing, her voice as soft as honey, while I thought about Monk and what might’ve been, like as how it might’ve been nice to have him watching the door. I could’ve cleaned him up and put him in a monkey suit like the one I have to wear, and he could’ve greeted all those old Tammany Bosses he used to work for back in the day. It might’ve been good to see them squirm for a while. But Monk was dead a year now, and nobody even missed him.

I wondered if the same would happen to me.

I could understand Mookie telling Lacy to stay away from me, and to be honest, I respected his wishes; that don’t mean I didn’t think about her. I thought about her a lot. I didn’t know how I was apposed to react seeing her with Jimmy, though. As bad as I might’ve been, I knew where to draw the line. Jimmy’d tell me to beat on some poor sap on account of how he owed us money, and I’d do it, liking the feel of it–-my fists hitting the poor bastard’s face, I mean–-and breaking his cheekbone, or his jaw, or crushing the poor sap’s nose. That was the real me, and Jimmy knew it. But putting a gun to someone’s head and pulling the trigger just to make a point? That was something I didn’t like doing; it was something Jimmy wouldn’t hesitate doing.

That don’t mean I ain’t never shot anyone; it’s hard to be in this sort of business and not kill anyone. But there’s a big difference between shooting someone because he’s shooting at you, say, or putting a gun to someone’s head and doing it just for the sake of doing it. That was Jimmy.

That’s why me being with someone as pretty as Lacy just didn’t seem right. She wasn’t like we were. But it never crossed my mind that she might wanna make her own choices. The only problem I could see was that Jimmy didn’t know Lacy was Mookie’s sister. Jimmy told me he was gonna kill that nigger if he even so much as talked to her. I found myself standing between them and keeping the peace for all the wrong reasons. As much as I loved Jimmy, I found myself willing to put a woman ahead of our friendship.

“You’re gonna have to tell him,” I told Lacy.

“Tell him what?”

I realized she didn’t know I knew her secret.

“That Mookie’s your brother.”

“Are you crazy? He’ll kill me!...uh-uh,” she said, shaking her head slowly.

The three of us were sitting up on the roof of the club. It was one of those hot New York summers where the tar feels soft under your fingers, and you can form it into shapes without having to think about it. The night sky looked to be packed with stars, with a full moon hanging low over the bridge behind a light haze of smoke that cradled the city like a wet blanket. It made the moon an orangey brown colour. The days were hot, but the nights felt hotter because there was just no getting cool–-except up on a rooftop somewhere.

I  looked at Lacy in the pale moonlight, and thought maybe I’d have to see one of Charlie’s whores tonight. Mookie lit one of his cigarettes, and tried passing it to me, but I shook my head.

“Why you wanna smoke that for anyway?” I asked him. “You might as well just go up to Chinatown and lay in a opium den all night.”

“It ain’t opium. It’s heroin.”

“And what’s that?”

“It’s what the Chinks’re selling. Jimmy gave it to me.”

“Jimmy? What’s he give you that for if he says he wants to kill you?”

“Maybe this is how he wants to kill me,” Mookie said with grin. “But here’s the laugh...he’s doing it himself.”

“What d’ya mean he’s doing it himself?”

Mookie looked at me and laughed. “You didn’t know? For real?”

I shook my head. And then I remembered what Arnie said to me about having a special deal for Jimmy.

“Where’s he gettin’ it?”

“Bugsy. Him and Legs bring it in from Shanghai—”

“Where’s that?”

“The Orient.”

“The Orient?” I thought hard about it for a moment, something in my head popped, and things began to make sense to me. I thought about the all-night poker games going on in the back while we were jamming, and how there were always a couple of Charlie’s girls there, and me never asking them why they weren’t out trying to hustle up a couple of bucks. Who better to sell something than the whores and waiters?

“And they sell it through the club?”

“Rothstein ships it into the country. Bugsy and Legs move it for him – same as Jimmy,” Mookie grinned.

“Why do you do it?”

He smiled at me. “I can’t stop.”

“Did Legs get Jimmy started, same as you?”

Mookie nodded.

I looked at Lacy. “You doin’ it too?”

She shook her head. “I seen what it’s doing to Jimmy.”

“How long you been smokin’ that?” I asked Mookie.

“Since about two months.”

“Jimmy?”

He nodded. “Longer, only he’s spikin’ it.”

“Jesus!”

Arnie got shot in November of 1928; he lingered and then died the next day. Nobody knew who’d done it, because he didn’t say who it was what shot him. Thing is, a guy like him—with all he owned, and everyone he knew—leaves a big hole and  someone’s gotta fill it. That’s when Charlie and Lansky stepped in to take over. They planned to split things up fair and square, and said me and Jimmy had to wait and see about The Sarasoda Supper Club.

I wanted to go and see Charlie, just to check and see what was what, but Jimmy said he’d go instead. It was better I didn’t get involved he said, looking up at me and wiping his nose on his sleeve. He looked to be in bad shape. His eyes were sunken, and red-rimmed, and there were dark circles under them. He had three ugly sores on his face like big pimples. He was always sweating, even though it was November, or else he was shivering even when he sat bundled up with the heat cranked full in the back office.

“What d’ya mean for me not to get involved?” I said, trying not to think of what was happening to him. “Arnie said it was my club! How can I not be involved?”

“There’s more to it than that, Mel,” Jimmy said, hugging himself and wiping his nose.

“Yeah? Like what?” I asked.

“The whores, the gamblin’, the drugs. There’s a lot of money bein’ made here,” he said, squinting up at me before I cut him off.

“Don’t you think I know that? I’m not stupid!”

“Arnie wanted you to take care of the lighter side of things because he wanted to be legit. He told me to take care of things and keep you out of it for your own good. And I did. You don’t think Charlie cares if you bring in Durante, or Jolson, do you? He only cares about the bottom line—and those two Jew boys, Lansky and Siegel–-you can bet Lance is counting every penny and wondering why they’re coming up short.”

“What d’ya mean, comin’ up short?”

“You can’t trust these guys Mel,” he said with a quick swipe at his nose. “It’s all about the loyalty they have for each other. They don’t have any loyalty to us. With them, it’s all about the old neighbourhood—just like it was with Arnie. Lansky, Siegel, they all came up through Eastman’s gang, like Arnie. That’s why he took a shine to them. Charlie and Frankie came up through the Points, but even so, Charlie and Lance owe each other.”

“And Charlie owes me,” I reminded him.

“Maybe. But you used to beat up Legs and the Dutchman when we were kids. Or don’tcha remember? They don’t forget that sort of thing. Why do you think I went out of my way to get Arnie’s protection? We muscled in and took over their turf the night I shot that geezer in the restaurant? Remember?  Who do you think he was getting his protection from? Bugsy and Lance. I knew they were running their little racket on him, that’s why I chose his place to muscle in on.”

“You knew that before you shot him? And you shot him anyway?”

“I had to show them we meant business.”

“So what do we do now? I mean, you’re apposed to have all the answers. You’re apposed to be the smart one.”

“Well, I’m thinking it’s time to close up shop and move on to something else.”

“And they just let you walk away?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking it through.”

“Thinking it through?” I laughed. “How the hell can you think anything through, when all you’re worried about is when you’re gonna be cranking that shit up your arm again?

“I’m going to quit.”

“Mookie says you can’t quit once you start.”

“Well, Mookie’s wrong.”

“How much have we got in the safe?” I said quickly.

“You mean from what we owe Arnie?”

I nodded, thinking there couldn’t be much.

He smiled. “I told you, Meyer’s going to be coming up short. I’ve been keeping a little back every week for the last two and a half years.”

“What! You been cuttin’ ‘em? Are you crazy!”

He smiled as he shook his head, lookin’ like the Jimmy he used to be. “We’re crooks, Mel. We’re not supposed to be honest. That’s why they say there’s no honor among thieves.”

“I’m not a thief.”

“Of course you’re not,” he said with a sigh. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a key.

“This is the key to a locker at the bus station — the address is on the tag.”

“Why are you askin’ me to get it? Why wouldn’t you just take it yourself and leave me holding the bag?”

“We’re still partners, ain’t we?”

“How much is it?”

“Five thousand a week, for the last two and a half years.”

“What!”

“I told you, I’ve been thinking this through.”

“For two and a half years? How much is that?”

“You make it sound like I’m the only one who ever tried to steal from Rothstein. He threw money around like it was confetti. But Lansky’s a right proper Jew, and like I said, you can be sure he’s counting every penny and wondering why he’s coming up short. He’ll figure it out sooner or later, and when he does, he’ll come looking for me, if he’s not already. That’s why you have to go to the bus station and pick it up. Who else am I gonna trust?”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I have to talk to Charlie.”

“Why? What’s Charlie gonna do?”

“Him and Lance are partners, like you an’ me are partners.”

“What am I apposed to do after I get the money?”

“Go to my place and get Lacy.”

“Lacy? What’re you bringin’ her into this for?”

“Why not? She’s the best piece of ass I’ve ever had. She’s worth it.”

“No woman’s worth that much.”

“Just do it!” he said coldly.

“Where d’ya wanna meet up then?” I asked after a moment.

“I’ll call you here.”

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