Minnesota Strip, page 8
But ... you know!
Maybe I just wanted to go for a drive through the darkened city streets. No matter how hot it is in New York at night it never seems as hot as it is during the day. It often is, and even hotter, but it isn’t supposed to be. At night in New York, in the hottest part of the summer, people get twitchy and irritable, and that’s how I was. Again, I suppose, it was the copper’s nasty instinct, his neurotic curiosity about the lives and the carryings-on of other people. No one gets to be a cop, regular or private, by accident. Usually it’s supposed to be for the money they’re doing it, this poking around in the garbage of society, but reluctantly I knew better and, in a way, have always known better. After all, other people don’t have the disease ...
Big John’s car went east and down to Canal and across the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn, but before it got to the big old bridge it was held up by the crowds from two ethnic festivals. It had to crawl along for a couple of blocks. On the south side of Canal the Chinese were ringing their gongs; on the north side the Italians, on Mulberry, were running games of chance for Mother Church—and I wondered how much of that action belonged to Big John Amelia.
It wasn’t that late at night and tailing Amelia’s chariot wasn’t all that hard. We got through the mob of shills and spenders and then we were across the bridge, tires humming on the steel rods, and after that there was the Flatbush Extension dead ahead. The Flatbush Avenue Extension begins where the downslope from the Manhattan Bridge leaves off, and after that it’s a straight run to the Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Public Library. There was still plenty of traffic and tailing them was still a snap. I wondered why in hell they were heading into the wilds of Brooklyn. I was pretty sure they weren’t going out to have a late hotdog at Nathan’s in Coney Island.
But Coney Island was where Big John’s car led me. At first, when the car went around the park and started onto Ocean Parkway I thought there might be some kind of meeting in one of the big houses that line the tree-shaded avenue for miles. Carlo Gambino used to have a house on Ocean before he went to the big trattoria in the sky. But the car went the entire length of the avenue, past the Miami-like apartment buildings, past the big shiny Jewish nursing homes. No doubt about it now—they were heading for Coney Island.
Traffic was light and I had to dodge a bit to keep from being spotted by DiSalvo, no dummy when it came to handling a car of any kind. The car stopped across the street from the Coney Island Aquarium, and then went on again. Surf Avenue looked windblown and gritty; there were more blacks and Puerto Ricans than there were white merrymakers; the amusement parks looked as depressing as they always do.
When the car got as far as Nathan’s it stopped again and Scotty DiSalvo went across the avenue and brought back a hotdog wrapped in a paper napkin. He passed it in the back window and then the car went on again, turning off Surf Avenue after about ten blocks, into a very old part of the neighborhood. I didn’t know this part at all. I knew I’d be spotted if I didn’t hang back a long way, and that’s what I did, knowing that just about anything could make me lose them, and I was glad when the brake lights flashed red in front of a big old building that looked like a barn set down in the city. Except that the exterior was of rotting stucco instead of wood.
I parked my car and started to walk toward it after they all got out of the car and went in. Even DiSalvo went in and that was a break for me because it would have been hard to get close to the place with him sitting in the car. When I got closer I recognized the old dump for what it was, one of the ancient closed-up studios from the days of silent movies. Coney Island had been “Little Hollywood” for a few years before the industry moved west for the sun. There were also studios in the Bronx and Long Island City, but Coney Island was the class place. You could still read the name of this place, Cort Studios, in flaking and peeling paint, and it sat by itself in the middle of a large lot now sprouting a fine crop of weeds and sumac and half a foot deep in broken bottles and rusted cans. The lot was surrounded by a high chain-link fence and there was a warning sign clamped to it. KEEP OUT.
Staying on the other side of the street I walked past Amelia’s car. Then I crossed the street quickly and checked the steel gate they had gone in. It was closed and locked and I’m not one of those private cops who can open doors with hairpins, and if you go about with a set of shaved keys the cops will bust you for sure and charge you with possession of burglar tools.
There had been offices in the front of the building and I could see a glimmer of light through the boarded-up windows. I walked around the entire lot looking for a hole in the fence. I didn’t find one, but after a while I did find a place where kids had dug under the fence. The concrete was cracked and rotting and they had pulled it out in chunks, then scooped out the sand and dirt. It was a hole made by kids for kids and I had to do a lot more digging before it was big enough to wriggle through. I felt sorry for my blue suit. I was going to an awful lot of trouble just to make seven hundred dollars.
I got through the fence and dusted myself off and edged my way through the wilderness of weeds. I came to a small thicket of sumac where the kids had built a hut with pieces of wallboard. The little hut looked lonely and abandoned like the rest of the place.
While I was still moving across the lot, the lights came on in another part of the building. The side of the building facing me was blank, with almost no windows, but there was a long-disused loading platform and a wooden door at the top of some stairs. The stairs leading up to the door were wooden and badly rotted and I had to go as easy as a two hundred pound man can. I reached the door and found that somebody, no doubt the kids, had pried off the lock. There was a dead bolt on the inside but they had ripped off that, too. Kids! God bless ’em, the thieving little bastards.
I opened the door into complete darkness, then I snapped on my pencil flashlight and walked it around the room. It looked like it had once been the receiving office for the studio. Time had come to a standstill in there: on one wall there was a badly stained calendar for the year 1931. There was a rusted time clock and a wooden rack for holding cards. Kids had been in there a lot more recently and I saw a greasy Colonel Sanders takeout box and a pair of very small panties.
Another door, this one also unlocked, took me out in a long hallway with doors opening off one side of it. I walked behind my flashlight until I heard voices coming through one of the doors at the end of the hall. Through there I had to climb a steep flight of stairs before I came to another door, and that put me about two flights up. The thin wooden door creaked slightly as I opened it and then I found myself looking down from a catwalk into the bright lights of a small stage. Old fashioned klieg lights and dusty ropes and canvas flats went up from floor to roof. The whole place was a thin creaking shell and there had never been any attempt at soundproofing because it dated back to the silent movie days. In the middle of all that space down there stood Amelia, Durning, Scotty DiSalvo—and my friend Linda. The sound of their voices floated up to me. Linda was saying:
“This could be the biggest picture ever, Mr. Amelia. The others were phonies and people knew they were. This one would be so different there would be no comparison. I know what I’m talking about.”
Amelia cut in with, “If you’re so sure why don’t you bankroll the whole thing yourself? That’s what I always tell people that are a hundred per cent sure about a proposition. I mean if you’re that positive what’s the risk involved? You put up the bundle a hundred per cent. You got no partner, just expenses, then when the money comes rolling in you just scoop it up. Simple.”
The only time I had ever seen Big John Amelia was in the newspapers. There was one famous photograph of him, snarling into the news camera with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, trying to kick the photographer in the balls. He had a razor cut and a shiny Italian silk suit. That was back in the Sixties when he was acquitted of racketeering charges in New Jersey. Now Big John was a lot older, a lot chunkier, and there wasn’t much any barber could have done with his hair because there was so little of it.
Eric Durning, looking unhappy, was walking around looking at the movie stage, picking up old props and blowing dust off them. Nobody seemed to be asking for his opinion. Scotty DiSalvo stood with his arms folded, looking at Linda occasionally. Whatever was going on, it was all between Linda and Big John.
“I’m telling you it can’t lose,” Linda was saying again. “I know what you said and I’m as sure as I can be. As sure as anybody can be about anything. Why don’t I fund the whole operation myself? I could swing it if I had to, but it would take all the money I have. If for some reason—some out-of-the-blue reason—it didn’t work out, I’d be wiped out. I’ve had to work hard for my money.”
“You think I didn’t,” Amelia said. “Not like you”—Big John laughed a short barking laugh—“but worked just the same. Okay, I’m thinking about what you just said. I can see why you have faith in the idea. I mean, I can’t see it myself, no way, but I can see other people going for it. What I hear, they’re already going for it.”
Linda said, “Not in the way I’m taking about, made—and it isn’t real. It’s crap and you can’t sell crap. If crap is all there is available people may buy it for a while. But even that wears off. All right it sounds crazy but what they want is quality ...” I wondered what the hell they were talking about. Up there on my perch, my back pressed against the wall, I was waiting for some word or group of words that would set me straight. Now Amelia was going on about money:
“I think you ought to know how it is with me, kid. If I put money in this thing and I don’t make any money out of it, that could mean a situation. Not a nice situation for you. For me just breaking even wouldn’t be okay. I don’t work like that. Guys like me don’t work like that. Isn’t businesslike. But that situation could be worked out. You could guarantee me a, say, reasonable profit. Like say twenty per cent. That would absolutely be the bottom return I’d accept for putting up my money. That you could handle I am sure.”
“It would never come to that,” Linda protested.
Amelia held up his hand and Linda said, “Okay, if it did twenty per cent wouldn’t be a problem.” Eric Durning was still poking around, raising dust, and DiSalvo hadn’t moved much. The voices of Linda and John Amelia echoed in that great cavern of a room.
“To make sure there wouldn’t be a problem,” Amelia said. “The twenty per cent would have to be guaranteed in advance. If you didn’t come up with it, you know I wouldn’t sue. Not sue. So a guarantee is better all round. You agree?”
“If that’s the way you want it,” Linda agreed.
“On the other hand,” Amelia continued, laying it all out for her, menacing as only a Mafia chieftain can be, “if I was to lose my money that would be a different situation. Not a good situation for you. Like I said before I would have to get some kind of a guarantee that that wouldn’t happen.”
“But,” Linda said, “if I have to put money equal to your investment in escrow, or whatever, why shouldn’t I just put up my own money, the whole thing? I don’t see what good a deal like that would do for me, Mr. Amelia.”
Amelia reminded her of a truth. “You came to me, kid. Why don’t we work out the rest of the details later. All I’m saying is, I want to be fair with you. I want you to know what you’re getting into. That way you can’t bitch later and tell people how Big John Amelia done you wrong. Just so you know, is all I’m trying to tell you.”
It looked like Big John was going to become one of Linda’s investors. To make bigger and better porn movies seemed to be the general idea. I couldn’t get any else out of the conversation. That’s why eavesdropping is such a pain in the ass: two other people are making perfect sense to one another but it’s nothing but bullshit to the person listening.
They were talking about money again. All these Mafia guys are cheap bastards. Now it was Big John’s turn to walk around and Eric Durning’s to stand still. Amelia, fastidious fella, didn’t do any picking up. Nostalgia didn’t mean a thing to him. Durning came over and stood disconsolately in the center of the stage. Amelia finally came to a halt and asked again, “Okay, I can see having to put some money in, but why so much? If it’s such a high profit thing, potentially, then why such a big investment?”
“Quality is why,” Linda insisted. “Decent sets, costumes, photography. For the kind of money we’re going to be renting for people won’t settle for cheap production values. I’m telling you ...”
Big John gave her his sweetest smile. “What you mean is you’re making a suggestion, right?” Linda said right. That’s all it was, a suggestion. A strong one though.
“Another thing,” Amelia said, “this won’t be a fifty-fifty proposition. That makes you think I’m greedy so I’d better explain. It’s just a you-and-me deal and nobody else knows about it except Eric here and Scotty. A thing like this has to be kept secret. Obvious reasons. The point is they’ll be other money on my side besides my own. These people’ll know they’re investing money in a pretty good thing, only they won’t know the details. So in a way I’ll be going out on a limb, using other people’s money. I have to get an extra percentage for that. Wouldn’t you say that?”
“No I wouldn’t, Mr. Amelia,” said Linda, “but you’re saying it and I’m agreeing to it.”
“Good girl,” Big John Amelia said.
Linda looked at Eric Durning but didn’t appear to see him. “One thing bothers me is Mr. Durning over there.”
“Bother you?” Amelia asked. “Bother you how? I’m surprised you say a thing like that with the man listening to you. Now that you started it, say the rest of it. Only I want to say this, Eric there works with my people.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to work with him,” Linda said. “Look, I don’t know the man. All I know is what I hear. All along you’ve been asking me for guarantees and getting them. Now I’m going to ask you for a guarantee.”
“Which is?”
“Which is this. Can you guarantee that Mr. Durning won’t fuck this thing up? They tell me he doesn’t hold up so good at times.”
“Doesn’t hold up his end, is that what you mean?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
This was too much even for weak-faced high voiced Eric Durning. The bitch was spitting in his face in front of his wop “associates.” He knew an Italian, one of the old-fashioned kind, and Mob guys are all old-fashioned no matter how they dress, would have belted her around. Eric was mad and he had to make himself show it.
“Just a fucking minute,” he said. “Who the fuck are you and what gives you the right?” Eric gave out with a loud theatrical laugh. Maybe he modeled his style after Joan Crawford’s and didn’t know it. “For somebody that sucks cocks for a living you got a big fucking mouth. Yeah, I guess you got a big mouth all right, all those cocks.”
Scotty DiSalvo started laughing and Big John warned him to shut his yap. But Big John thought it was kind of funny at that. He wiped the smile off his face and told Durning to watch his language—there was a lady present.
“The fuck there is, Mr. Amelia. Only out of respect for you, sir, I don’t kick this whore in the cunt.”
Linda, a tough cookie, took a fighting stance. I was too far away to see the fire in her eyes, but I knew it was there. “Try it you lousy pimp.”
Durning turned to Big John as though appealing to a referee. “You hear that—a lousy pimp she calls me.”
“Sticks and stones,” Big John soothed him.
“Consider the source, that’s what I always do,” Durning said, greatly offended. “Look, Mr. Amelia, if this—this—person doesn’t want me part of this, that’s fine with me. I’ve got plenty going for me without having to take this shit.”
It was clear that Durning was more than anxious to get out of the operation, whatever it was. It almost hurt my head trying to figure out what it was. Nothing came to me. Durning didn’t want out because of the insults Linda had thrown at him. A guy like Eric Durning is insulted all his life and puts up with it. I had done a little checking up on Durning and knew that he lived in Long Island in one of those little tract houses they threw up by the thousand after the war and could be bought for small bucks. They went for about sixty thousand now, but that didn’t put Durning in the big time. Basically he was a loser, a nickel and dimer whose one shot at the big money was when he was running the hooker agency all by himself. Now the Mob guys had him by the nuts and were hanging on for dear life. Durning’s life, such as it was. He had a wife about the same age, but I had the feeling that she looked a lot older. He had a son and daughter and they had moved as far as they could get from Daddy.
“You don’t have to take any shit except from me. And you don’t get any shit from me, thus far you haven’t.”
“No sir, Mr. Amelia,” Durning said, obviously feeling a little better. But he still wanted to get out, and I wondered why, especially with all that money Linda kept pressing on Amelia. If there was that much money to be made Durning would get a percentage. “Still and all,” he said, “if me working on this is going to cause problems, maybe it’s better I don’t work on it. You know I like working with you, Mr. Amelia, but you know ...” From where I was the whole thing looked and sounded like a play, the four of them standing around in the center of the dusty stage, talking back and forth. Scotty DiSalvo was some kind of symbol, and symbols don’t talk.
“No, I don’t know,” Amelia declared for Linda’s benefit. “It’s like on the docks: if I say you work you work. Simple. You’re too sensitive, Eric. There’s big money going down here and we’re talking business. The lady here is putting up money, a lot of money, so she has a right to talk. That’s how it works in business. For some reason she doesn’t like you. Fine. I’m not crazy about my brother Vinnie, the dumb stupid bastard. Even so we manage to get along. Sundays when we’re at the folks’ house we sit down together and eat a big Italian dinner. One big happy family. The same here. There it’s a family, here it’s a business. Not all that different.”
