The Starlight Club: The Starlight Club (Mystery Mob Series Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter Three

When Trenchie arrived at The Starlight Club, the place was jumping
. Four guys he didn’t recognize were sitting at the bar nursing a few drinks. They looked like mob guys. They had that arrogance exuded by those who liked to intimidate - those who were the proud purveyors of fear. They noticed Trenchie but didn’t move or speak. As Trenchie started walking towards Red’s office, he saw Red walking down the hall facing him.

“I have a
Vericon surveillance system, cameras all over the place. Spotted you on my monitor and decided to meet you up front. It’s quieter here. We can sit and talk without being disturbed.

“What’s a surveillance system?”

“Something the army developed in 1943. I hear New York City will be installing them soon. It’s a system that let’s you see what’s happening in front of the camera. I have a contact who knew where to get them so I told him to buy them and install them in the club
. Expensive but worth it. Now I can see what’s going on in the club without having to leave my office.”

“
Come over here, I want you to meet some friends of ours. Trenchie meet Gibby. Gibby’s from the Bronx and heads the Irish Tigers, and Ralph - he’s from Sicily.”

Trenchie shook hands with each man. Red continued, “Those two sitting in the corner are Jackie and Tommy.”

Trenchie nodded in their direction. They acknowledged with a short wave.

“They’re all part of Crazy Joey Gallo’s mob
. I guess Yip explained what’s going on.”

“Yeah
. He told me about it. Sounds like a lot of shit might come down in a hurry.”

The moment Trenchie and Red were alone at the table, Red added, “Those two guys I introduced you to at the bar are the guys who
wacked Albert Anastasia in the Waldorf barbershop. Gibby’s from the Bronx, but Ralph is a zit from Sicily, brought over here specifically for the barbershop job. The other two guys are part of the Gallo crew. The cigarette machine, the jukebox and the five game machines, they’re owned by the Gallo’s. Since we’re not in the vending machine business, I gave ‘em the okay to put ‘em in our place.”

Trenchie looked at the crowds gathering from the wedding party and asked, “Don’t you need a license to hold this many people?”

“Yeah, we do. Normally the room’s closed off. We don’t use it that much to warrant getting a license. We cordon off enough room for the dinner crowd which is what it’s mainly used for. As far as the license for the ballroom goes, it’s easier to go down to the precinct and hand the Captain an envelope. We use the place for the night and he looks the other way. It’s harmless. We don’t bother anybody and it’s not like we’re committing a crime. We’re just lettin’ a newly wedded couple celebrate their marriage at a price they couldn’t get anywhere else. Now what’s the harm in that?”

Red’s establishment was unique. The bar was separated by an ante
-room which looked like a foyer. It was a room where Red held private conversations. Red’s office abutted it. The dining room had its own entrance separated within the large ballroom by a retractable wall. The food was primo - the best money could buy. Red catered to the average family, those who wanted good food, at a moderate price. The bar had become a problem, though, because of the Gallo men who camped out there nightly. Normally, his dinner guests would be seated at the bar and enjoy cocktails while waiting to be seated in the dining room. Red changed that. He had a nice clientele and didn’t want to mess it up by having his customers mingle with the type of men that now sat in the bar. Red called his contractor friend, Artie. He divided the rooms with a removable wall. It had a door that could be locked from the anteroom side of the wall. Done - the restaurant and two bars were all separate. The anteroom was now a traditional bar where his customers could sit and have a drink before dinner. In a way, it worked out better because the new bar was closer to the dining room. To complete the separation, he instructed the Gallo boys to stay in the original bar. Under no circumstances could they enter the restaurant unless he gave his approval. The Gallo men were under strict orders by Crazy Joe not to abuse Big Red’s hospitality and they understood the necessity of doing what they were told. They behaved themselves accordingly. The men never got out of line or caused problems but there was a marked difference between them and the other faithful patrons. The Starlight Club had a reputation for a nice ambience and good food at a fair price. It was a popular watering hole and Red liked it that way.

Red spent the next couple of hours bringing Trenchie up to date on all the changes that had taken place in the ten years he was gone
. The neighborhood had changed. It was no longer all Italian. He had a working relationship with the blacks in the Northern Boulevard section of Queens. He liked the Orientals, who were taking over Flushing, because they didn’t interfere with his business. The Arabs were a tiny minority beginning to creep into the outer fringes of the neighborhood. Red described them as a plague and sometime in the future, he could sense that they would be troublesome. There was a growing Latino population. He had no problems with most of them. They watched out for each other and, much like the Italians, had very similar traditions with strong family values. The Latino mob, however, was another story. They’d been trying to get a foothold inside Queens for a while now but weren’t quite organized enough, yet. That could change at any moment and if it did, they could become a formidable adversary. Yip and Big Red were doing their best to prevent the erosion of the Italian neighborhood by buying old houses, renovating them, and re-selling them, only to Italians looking to remain in the neighborhood, or to other native Italian families looking to move to this part of Queens. It was all about preservation, but it was like shoveling shit against the tide. The disintegration of Italian culture and traditions was slowly, but surely, taking place and the Arabs, Orientals and Latinos were becoming a cultural landscape concern.

It was getting late
. The wedding wound down and the guests were beginning to filter out through the side door. Some found their way out the front by way of the front bar. Red and Trenchie both stopped talking and watched with interest as a young Latino male entered the restaurant. It appeared that he had hit the sauce a little too much. Out of nowhere, he inserted himself right smack between Gibby and Ralph, interrupting their conversation, and out of nowhere, he began cursing about nothing in particular, spewing vitriol about nonsense, too out of it to realize that he was dealing with two stone killers. Little did he know that Gibby would just walk out to his car, open the trunk, take out a weapon and blow him away without so much as a second thought.

Ralph, to his credit, kept asking the young man to move over. “Relax, we know you’re tough,” Ralph said. “Calm down and have
a drink on me.” The kid refused the drink.

“I don’t want no drink. I know what choo think
. You think we just spicks. That’s what choo think of us. We just spicks.”

Ralph kept his calm. “Look, I don’t know what’s gotten into you. We don’t want any trouble. We understand you’re tough. We get it. You had a good time, now why spoil it? You don’t wanna fight us. We don’t wanna fight you so go home, relax and everything will be just fine. Go home now and get a goodnight’s sleep.”

But the kid kept yelling, “You think we spics and I’m tired of it
. To you, we always be spicks.”

Gibby, growing impatient, glared icily into the man’s eyes. “You got that wrong, partner
. We don’t
think
you a bunch of
spicks
, we think you a bunch of fucking
niggers
! What choo gonna do now, you chicken shit prick? You got a gun? Answer me, you got a gun? No? Well get your skinny brown ass the hell outta here and go get one, and then come back here because then I’m gonna kill you, you mother fucker, and I’m gonna’ bury your nigger ass right here in the street.”

The words stung the young Latino like a bad sunburn
. He sped out the door straight to his car parked alongside the bar. Like a madman, he opened his trunk, all the while yelling to his friends exactly what Gibby had just said to him. Trenchie pulled the shade aside. He could see him taking out long knives and passing them out to his friends. Tarzan watched, too. Tarzan ambled toward the bar and grabbed his bat from underneath the counter. He took a chair from one of the tables and systematically ripped its legs off, as if they were feathers on a chicken and then handed a chair leg to each of the guys.

“This is gonna’ be easy,” Tarzan muttered flippantly
. We don’t have to worry who they’re connected with. And afterwards, we don’t have to worry about a sit-down to explain why we did what we did. We just break their heads and throw ‘em the hell out of here.”

  Jackie, quiet until now, ran to the kitchen, took out a large knife, and pressed his back against the wall nearest the front door.
“The first one through the door gets it right in the heart,” he uttered.

Trenchie glanced his way and half mockingly said, “ Jackie, what the hell are you thinkin’ of? That knife’s way too thin
. It won’t go in far enough. It’ll bend. What the hell kind of weapon is that?”

Jackie looked at the knife, then at Trenchie, then at the knife again, as if trying to decide what was the next best course of action
. He raced back to the kitchen scouring for a larger blade. Satisfied, he once again assumed his position at the side of the front door, waiting for the first man to enter - the first man who would be dead before making it across the threshold.

“This one
won’t bend,” he uttered coldly.

Trenchie was monitoring the action taking place by the car
. An older man outside, seemingly with a cooler head, was motioning with his hands, gyrating in all directions, trying to convince the hot-tempered men, high on drink, to stand down. He calmed them enough to where they put the knives back into the trunk, got into their cars, and drove away, burning rubber all the while. He had just prevented these wise asses from getting themselves killed.

Jackie put the large knife back, Tarzan put the bat back under the bar, and Big Red and Trenchie resumed their conversation as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened
. It was just business as usual.

Chapter Four

The commotion jarred Trenchie from his sleep. It sounded and felt as if the place were being bombed. He looked at his watch. Five thirty a.m. What the hell was going on down there? He put on his pants and socks, slipped into his shoes, and started walking. He stopped at the landing of the stairs. 

It was the young Latino and his friends from last night
. There they were, trashing everything in sight. What they couldn’t do last night, they were doing now. They were so hell bent on destruction that they didn’t see Trenchie watching them from the top of the stairs, scanning the place, assessing what he was up against. There were four of them ripping the place apart. There were broken bottles and chairs perched in a heap behind the bar, apparently purposely thrown into the club’s mirrors, coating the floor with thousands of shards of glass and silver. The tables were naked. At that moment, Trenchie noticed a blaze in the alleyway. Peering out the window at the top of stairs, it appeared to be a pile of something white - probably the linens. Trenchie wondered why they didn’t just light the place up instead of the damn tablecloths. Why didn’t they just burn it down? Too stupid, he guessed. The jukebox was knocked on its side, bashed in, with records spilling out. It was a miserable sight. The men were just about to attack the vending machine when Trenchie hollered.

“Hey
! What the hell do you punks think you’re doing?”

The four men stopped dead in their tracks, surprised that anyone was here
. This wasn’t in the plan.

“Where the fuck did this guy come from?” one of them asked.

Another said, “What’s he doing here?” 

Trenchie wasn’t wearing a shirt
. It was obvious that he must have been sleeping upstairs. The punks, in their plot for mischief, had jimmied the side door well before work time and figured they had at least four or five good hours before the bartender and owner arrived at noon. They only needed one hour anywhere in between to do their business. That’s all they needed to ensure the place couldn’t open today for the regular clientele. Now here stood Trenchie. Not good.

Trenchie’s eyes locked on the men as he slowly descended the stairs
. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he headed toward the bar, directly to his left, stepped behind it, and slid his left hand under the bar, feeling for the bat. He wasn’t concerned. So what if they knew he was looking for a weapon? He had his secret weapon - his fists - and these four pissheads had no idea what Trenchie was all about. But a bat would make it a whole lot easier and a gun would be oh so much better - wishful thinking - but nevertheless. He allowed his hand to slowly and methodically sweep the underside of the bar, and there it was. He felt it.

Trenchie was used to this sort of fight
. When he first entered prison, he had brawled a lot until the prison population got the message that it was just plain foolish to tangle with him. He wore a slightly bemused expression as he stared at the four bums, looking stupidly back at him, and he thought to himself that this was exactly like prison - he was facing four Latino men - just like in the joint. They were like a pack of wolves - too small physically to bring down their prey individually. They needed the strength of the pack to make the kill. The pack leader turned to his men and nodded at Trenchie. This was West Side Story, in a way.

They all looked in Trenchie’s direction
. He was bare-chested. Quite visible to the gang were two small puckered circles of skin - one in his left shoulder, and another on his right side, just below the rib cage. They could only be bullet holes. The gang members knew bullet holes. They’d seen their share. The Latinos eyed the long knife scar that stretched along his upper torso, the result of whatever fight, and the muscular cut of his body, the result of years of prison yard workouts.

It looked almost as though Trenchie was wearing a Mona Lisa smile - that perplexing, enigmatic smirk that has long captivated so many Louvre visitors
. Trenchie perched his elbow on the bar, waiting for someone to make a move. Rhythmically, he tapped, tapped, tapped the bat in his right hand into the palm of his left hand, all the while smiling and just daring them, daring them without saying a word. The four Latinos were frozen, firmly planted in their respective places, trying to decide how to take this guy. Most people would be paralyzed with fear and intimidated by what could be perceived as a dangerous situation, but not Trenchie. The fact that he wasn’t the least bit nervous was unnerving to the others, sort of a reverse effect, in an odd way. It was almost as if he was looking forward to this.

This was Trenchie’s kind of fight. Instead of looking for a protected area, maybe behind the bar or toward the door, he began to walk directly toward them, still tapping his bat
. The gang boys fanned out - they learned that much from the streets. Trenchie focused his attention to his left, on the three guys moving in toward him. He was well aware of the fourth guy on his right. That guy was probably getting into position to sucker punch him, Trenchie thought. Trenchie waited. Just as the guy on his right was about to make his move, Trenchie swiped the bat in a left to right horizontal arc and bam, caught the guy hard, smack on the side of his head, splitting it open like a ripe watermelon. Latino punk number four went down like a sack of potatoes.

“Three to go,” Trenchie smiled and said.

Trenchie started walking toward the others. The pack scattered and circled him until each assumed a position - one on each side of him and one behind. Quick as a cat, the guy behind Trenchie spun around and landed a bottle shot to the back of Trenchie’s head. Trenchie, dizzy from the blow, staggered as blood spewed from the gash. As he dropped to his knees, the bat slipped from his hand, clattered to the floor, and bounced away from him. Thank goodness for the mean streets of New York and those years of fighting in prison, Trenchie thought. Most men would be finished by now. Suddenly, the punks were all over him, pummeling him, kicking his ribs, fisting his face. Bam! Bam! Bam! Trenchie was getting dizzier by the second. Thoughts floated into his head: how could a punk like this hit me with a bottle without me seeing him? I must be getting old; I need to put an end to this before somebody else gets in a lucky shot.

 
The leader of the group grabbed Trenchie’s bat. It was his turn. He smiled tauntingly as he moved toward Trenchie. The thought of killing the Latino pleased Trenchie. 

“You’re not so tough now are you hotshot?” mocked the Latino
. “You may be big, but you went down easy enough, just like everybody else. Now I’m gonna make sure you
stay
down.”

It happened fast. The punk with the bat swung at Trenchie’s head, but Trenchie was up now, on his feet, fast as lightning
. Trenchie raised his big arm protectively and the blow landed on the fleshy side of his arm. It was painful, but no big deal. Trenchie had honed his ability to anticipate where the blow would come from and how it would be delivered. The deflected blow he took on the arm was exactly where he knew it would land. He sacrificed a little pain for a quick victory.

Trenchie crouched, going into a boxer’s position
. The three punks figured he was cowering. That gave them the confidence Trenchie was hoping for. Psychology, Trenchie kept reminding himself. It’s as about the mind as it is the physical strength. Trenchie was six chess moves ahead and he was getting into position to checkmate them all. To do that, he had to wait for the opening he knew was to come. Trenchie knew the ending - been there, done that. Just about now the punks were jubilant, filled with the cockiness of youth. They came at him, looking for a quick kill. It appeared the old man was tiring. The pack closed in looking to finish him off. With perfect synchronization, Trenchie’s arms fired from right to left. With his physical strength and the momentum of his body, he caught both guys with two lightening fast punches - one punch each - a left, a right - flush on the jaw. They both went down knocked unconscious by the punches. Now it was just the two of them left - Trenchie and the punk with the bat. It seemed like batboy’s confidence was waning so Trenchie faced him dead on. The punk’s head bobbed back and forth as he eyed the door, obvious that he wanted to make a sprint for it. There was a slight problem - Trenchie was now between him and his escape route.

Trenchie, resuming his smirk, motioned to the young punk to come and get him
. With each step that Trenchie took forward, the kid took a step back. Batboy looked around nervously realizing he had run out of options. He had no other choice but to fight the big man - something he
really
didn’t want to do
. His mind was racing. He had fought other big guys and won most of them and this big guy, blocking his way out, was only human. He had to be tired after taking on four younger guys. The kid raised the bat. All he needed was one good shot and he was outta here. The young Latino ran toward Trenchie screaming at the top of his lungs. Just as the punk was about to bring the bat down onto Trenchie’s head, a ham-sized fist leveled a blow to the right side of his head, landing flush on his temple. The power of the punch propelled the kid across the room, careening him off the wall like someone shot out of a cannon. He collapsed like a rag doll, falling unconsciously to the floor, his body slamming inside the broken innards of the jukebox. Trenchie looked around the room. The other three punks were still unconscious. He bent down, searching the ringleader’s pockets until he found what he was looking for, loose change and his car keys. Trenchie calmly walked over to the pay phone, put in a dime, and called Yip, then Big Red, each to assume his role - Yip with the cops, and Red for the club concerns. This place needed to be open for the dinner crowd tonight.

Trenchie walked out the door to the ringleader’s car, started it, and pulled the car forward about fifty feet, positioning it in front of the bar
. Unfazed, he kept the motor running while he walked back into the bar. Trenchie reached down and grabbing the unconscious ringleader by his feet, his hand still holding the bat, proceeded to drag him unceremoniously out the door, not at all concerned that the man’s head was hitting the steps, all the way to the curb. He draped the kid’s legs carefully over the curb, got back into the car, put it into gear, and slowly pulled forward until the car bounced once, then a second time. Trenchie could feel the crunch of bone against rubber, of joints separating, of tendons stretching and snapping, legs turning to mush. Trenchie put the car into reverse, backed over the broken and mashed legs once more and drove the car back to the location where it was originally parked. He shut off the engine, walked back into the bar and waited for Red.

The moment he received Trenchie’s call, Yip called Lt. Creighton and explained to him what Red had conveyed
. Creighton, a short distance away from the precinct, rushed to the bar, arriving just as the first patrol cars were pulling up. Creighton and his officers called for an ambulance for all the men - the ringleader and his three sidekicks - and in the interim, the cops placed all of the men under arrest, three in a semiconscious state and one who would never walk again. The Lieutenant carefully assessed the damage. His report read
in part
:

“A gang fight was initiated on the corner of One Hundred Eleventh Street and Forty Third Avenue where an unattended car accidentally rolled over one of the men, causing severe damage to his legs.
” It was clear now to Trenchie as to why Yip valued Creighton so much. This guy was worth every cent Yip was paying him, he thought. Trenchie viewed Creighton in a different light with a lot more respect.