“Not this kind of sausage you don’t…at least I hope not.”
“What do you mean?”
“My name ain’t about street vendor food. They call me Sal Sauseech because I’m hung like Seabiscuit.”
Vinny’s eyes grew wide. “I guess I spoke too soon.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“So you’re well endowed, huh?”
“Damn thing hangs down near my calf. It’s so long I ain’t been able to cross my legs since I was eight years old.”
“No kidding?” Vinny laughed. “You must be very popular with the ladies.”
“Let’s put it this way—I ain’t hurting for female companionship. Me and the anaconda…” He laughed heartily. “We do pretty fuckin’ good for ourselves.”
“I guess that expression size don’t matter is a crock.”
“A steamin’ crock. Although…there have been a couple of dames who took off running after they saw it. One babe got so bent out of shape, she went through the screen door on my patio.”
“Huh, who ever thought that having a big shlong would be such a problem? Can’t the doctors do nothin’?”
“You mean like shorten it or something?”
Vinny shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess.”
He grimaced. “Would you?” He took out a switchblade and placed it on the table in front of Vinny. “Let me see you lop off part of your manhood.”
Sal picked up his sandwich and took another bite. “Maybe I can throw you some work being you’re on the right side of the law. You got a business card?”
He produced a card and placed it on Sal’s table.
“What kind of cases you work?”
“Right now I’m defending someone on murder charges.”
“Really? You think you’ll get them off?”
“I hope to…yeah. Actually, I’m in here looking for a guy right now—someone to help me make my case against the prosecution.”
“A guy?”
“Yeah, I hear he lives around here. You think maybe you might know him?”
“Nah, I don’t know nobody,” he said. He leaned toward Vinny and beckoned for him to get closer. “You didn’t sit down over here to chat me up with the specific intention of finding out about this guy, did you?”
“No, of course not. We were getting friendly and I figured I’d ask because I really need to talk to this guy about the case I’m on and I’ve been asking everyone around here.”
“Maybe you ought to finish up your cake and leave. It’s coming down pretty hard out there. A guy could get buried in all that snow.” He looked at Vinny pointedly and placed his hand over the switchblade. “Know what I mean?”
“I think I do. I guess I’ll go look for this guy somewhere else.”
The Swiss bell over the front door rang as a heavyset man entered. He ignored Barone and walked straight to the back of the store where he pulled out a chair and sat down at Sal’s table.
“It done?” Sal asked as he slipped the switchblade back into his pocket.
“Yeah, it’s done,” he said.
“Good. You hungry?” Sal asked as he pushed his sandwich across the table. “I’ve had enough capicola to choke a horse.”
The Swiss bell rang again. The door swung wide as two uniformed cops raced in, guns drawn.
“You fucking idiot,” Sal swore. “They followed you.” His hands went up. “Don’t shoot,” he yelled. “I’m just eating a sandwich.”
“Cuff ’em,” one of the officers said. “All three of them.”
***
It was after 1:00 a.m. when Vinny was taken for arraignment. He’d called Joe and asked him to take the subway down to the courthouse and to call Lisa to tell her that the other rear tire went flat on the way home. With no spare in the trunk, they’d have to pull the bad tire and find a gas station that was open late. They’d have to ferry the bad tire back and forth and didn’t know when they’d get home. He’d get around to telling her the truth in the morning but didn’t want to scare her to death in the middle of the night with the details about mobsters and his arrest.
Judge Finch was fatigued. As a courtesy, she’d switched sessions with a colleague and wasn’t used to working the graveyard shift. She read the complaint quickly and in her mind confused Vincent Gambini with her frequent visitor Joe Gambini. She looked up expecting to see Joe alongside his brother the attorney, but instead it was Vinny that stood accused and Joe in the front row of the audience section behind him. She appeared aghast, shook her head, and said, “Mr. Gambini, I don’t even want to know.”
Chapter Fifty-Four: That Feels So Much Better
“You’re lucky the judge likes you,” Joe said from the passenger seat.
“It could have been much worse. She thought you were being brought in for the third time and was ready to throw the book at you like she said she was going to. I think she was so tired that she was giddy. So, when I explained that I had nothing to do with those two thugs…I think she was so exhausted she just didn’t care. Anyway, the whole thing got expunged.”
“What do you mean the whole thing got sponged?”
“Expunged, knucklehead. It means all records of the arrest were deleted from the system, the arrest, the booking, and the arraignment. It was like it never even happened.”
“What are you gonna tell Lisa?”
“I ain’t gonna tell her nothing until she’s had a good night’s sleep. You want me to wake her up in the middle of the night to tell her that I got pinched along with two wise guys at the neighborhood deli? She’ll think I’m running book again like back in the old days before I went to law school.”
“Oh yeah. I get it.”
Vinny spied an all-night diner as they drove home from court. “I ain’t eaten all day and I’m so hungry my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. I didn’t even get a chance to eat Barone’s coffee cake.” He pulled into the diner parking lot. “I gotta have a sandwich or something. You hungry?”
“Does a chicken have lips?”
Again with that stupid expression? Can’t anyone think of something more clever to say? He glared at Joe. “I don’t know. Does it?”
Joe was still mulling over the question as Vinny closed the car door and walked into the diner.
***
“No.”
“No, what?” Vinny asked looking up from the menu.
“No, a chicken don’t have no lips.”
“Oh yeah? I guess you learn something new every day.” His focus returned to the menu. “I think I’m gonna get some eggs. What are you gonna get?”
Joe picked up the menu and quickly looked through it. “Maybe the rigatoni with meatballs, broccoli rabe, sausage, and cannellini beans.”
“At this hour? Joe, it’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”
“So? I’m hungry too.”
“You don’t think that’s a tad too heavy for this time of night?”
“No. You’re eating eggs. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that eggs are eggs and what you’re gettin’ sounds like something that gets fed to hogs.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Joe took a small prescription bottle out of his pocket. He withdrew the dropper and put two drops on the tip of his tongue.
“What the hell is that? You taking liquid vitamins like when we was kids?”
“I got a terrible earache. The doctor gave me these drops and told me to use them four times a day.”
Vinny furrowed his brow. “Let me see that.” He reached across the table, snatched the bottle, and read the label. “Joe, how long you been taking these?”
“Almost a month.”
“Helping any?”
“Not so much and they taste fuckin’ awful.”
“You ever read the label?”
“Uh-uh.”
“So then, no…you ever wonder why the drops ain’t working?”
“Maybe they ain’t fresh no more.”
Vinny smacked the
bottle down on the table. “Well maybe if you put them in your fuckin’ ears like you’re supposed to…Jesus, Joe, there’s a reason they call them eardrops.”
“Oh shit. Really?” He laughed. “Huh, imagine that.”
Vinny closed the menu. “You know you got your head up your ass most all the time. You’re a smart guy but you don’t apply yourself. It’s like me with my dyslexia. I can’t read nothing unless I really put my mind to it and you’re the same way.”
“I don’t know. I kind of found Bald Louie, didn’t I?”
“You only found out where he lives. I mean that’s a good start and all, but…”
“I told you I’d keep looking for him.”
“Yeah. I really need to locate the guy. It’s a key part of my defense strategy. I thought I was gonna get lucky unexpectedly meeting Sal Sauseech. But now…”
“You think that Sauseech guy will get sprung?”
“I got no idea what he was brought in for but when they questioned me at the police station I told them that I was just enjoying a piece of cake and coffee and that I had no idea who the guy was.”
“That was probably smart. You don’t want to get on that goon’s bad side. Well, I’ll keep trying to find Bald Louie for you.” He tilted his head to one side then the other, putting a drop into each ear. “That feels really weird.”
The waitress seemed worn. She came over, took their order, and vanished into the kitchen without making any polite chitchat.
“So I been thinking, Vin. Maybe I should sell the house.”
Vinny frowned. “Our house? Mom and Dad’s house?”
“Yeah. You know they hardly come up from Florida anymore and I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. I ain’t paid the taxes in over two years and this morning they shut off the electric.”
“Jesus Christ. Are you for real? You’ll freeze in there without power. The pipes will burst.”
“I know, I know. But if I sell the house I can pay off what I owe, and you and me can split the profits. I don’t need a whole house for myself. All I need is a small apartment somewhere. I know you ain’t exactly flush neither.”
“You talk to Mom and Dad about selling the place?”
“Not yet. I figure the few times they come to visit, I could put them up at one of them extended stay places.”
“How much you figure we can get for the house?”
“Some realtor knocked on the door and told me she could get between six and seven. She said Brooklyn is really hot right now.”
Vinny’s jaw dropped. “Six or seven hundred thousand? Holy shit. That would solve both our problems.”
“You think I should call Mom and Dad?”
“Are you kidding? I’d call them the minute the sun comes up.”
Joe’s eyelid twitched. “Jesus. My right ear feels weird.” He shuddered and a thick chunk of wax fell on the table. “Whoa. That feels so much better.”
“Yeah.” Vinny grumbled. “Imagine that.”
Chapter Fifty-Five: Relax!
Vinny ran three red lights at Joe’s insistence, the tires of the big red Caddy screeching to a stop as they pulled up in front of Joe’s home. The heavy meal he’d devoured at three a.m. was not sitting well with him and he was in urgent need of relief. He scrambled up the steps to his house and disappeared within, presumably to grope around in the dark desperately searching for the john. He had in his pocket every last dollar Vinny was able to withdraw from the ATM, enough to have the electricity turned back on in the morning.
Vinny smiled as he watched Joe scramble into his house. He jumped when the passenger door opened and saw a gun pointed at his nose.
A gruff voice demanded, “Don’t move, Gambini!” Sal Sauseech slid into the passenger seat and yanked the door closed. “Drive,” he ordered.
“Drive? Drive where? This here Caddy look like an Uber to you?”
“You’re pretty tough for a guy with a gun in his face.”
“Yeah. Like you’re gonna shoot me over a coffee cake.” He threw the gearshift into Park and took his foot off the brake. “It’s almost five a.m. At best, I’m gonna get two hours sleep before I got to get up and go to court. So if you want to shoot me, do it now and put me out of my misery. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Relax! If I wanted to shoot you there’d be a hole in the center of your forehead already.” Sauseech lowered the gun. “Just an old habit I have trouble shaking.”
“Oh, now you want to talk? First you put a gun in my face, then you want me to drive you around like I’m your personal chauffeur. Would you make up your friggin’ mind already?”
“My lawyer says you didn’t tell the cops nothing and being you was an officer of the court yourself, I’m thinking it must’ve gone a long way towards my arrest getting kicked. I figure I owe you a favor, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of my generosity while the offer is on the table. Who’s this guy you’re looking for, the one you interrupted my dinner to ask about?”
“I’m looking for a guy goes by the name of Bald Louie.”
“Bald Louie, huh?” He stuffed the gun back into his holster. “Sure, I knew him. Back in the day when he still had hair we used to call him Louie the Louse. Why do you need that guy anyway? He’s nothing but a miserable prick—skimmed from his collections. Why do you think he went away? He knew I was gonna whack him and turned himself in. You find him—tell him he owes me twenty large.”
“So you ain’t seen him?” Vinny shifted in his seat to face the mobster. “Like I said, I got a client on trial for murder and I thought Bald Louie might know if anyone hated the victim enough to murder him.”
“Trying to create doubt in the minds of the jurors, huh? You must be one hell of a goddamn clever lawyer.”
“Actually…no, that wasn’t my intention. I figured if I find the guy who really did it…”
“All you got to do is confuse one juror out of twelve and you’re home free. The guy who really did it?” He gave Vinny a distant look. “What are you, a lawyer or a private eye?”
“A little of both I guess. I got his address and all but he wasn’t there. I don’t think he’s living there no more.”
“I see.” Sauseech mulled over Vinny’s dilemma. “There was a dame I remember, a real Clydesdale named Big Donna that he was sweet on. Maybe she’ll know where he is.”
“Big Donna, huh? Any idea where I might find this…equine?”
“Ha! Yeah sure. She used to tend bar over at The Cotillion.”
“The catering hall?”
“Yeah. You stop by the place and you’ll find her for sure. She’s a goddamn fixture over there—been there forever.”
“Gee thanks, Sal. That’s a big help. I’ll check it out right away.”
He reached for the door handle. “Don’t mention it, kid. Now we’re square.”
“Before you go I got to ask you, was you telling the truth about the—”
“The beast?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s the stuff of legends, kid.”
“You mean like a unicorn.”
“Not exactly, kid…more like a Cyclops.”
Chapter Fifty-Six: They Got Nothing
Vinny was operating on just an hour of sleep as he looked for a place to sit down before the trial began so that he could practice his opening statement. He spotted a space just wide enough for him to squeeze in between two men on a public bench. “Excuse me,” he said as he wiggled into the small space, opened his briefcase, and pulled out his file.
The man on his left began to fret, “Jesus, what a mess this is.”
Vinny noticed that the gent’s briefcase was also open on his lap and concluded he too was an attorney. “Hey, you okay?”
The man shook his head.
“Whatsamatta?”
He drew a deep, troubled breath. “I’m defending Martin Shrekatelli.”
Vinny thought for a moment trying to place the name. “Oh! You mean the guy who jacked up the price of a necessary life-saving medication l
ike five thousand percent? The guy who is perhaps the most hated man in America?”
The attorney nodded.
“You poor bastard.” Vinny rolled his eyes. “Good luck with that one. You might as well be defending Hitler. You don’t need a defense. You need a fuckin’ miracle. If I were you I’d dump that case faster than yesterday’s rotting garbage.”
“I really don’t know how I’m going to defend him.”
“That’s exactly right. Maybe you ought to say that your client is so despised that he can’t get a fair trial.”
The man smiled after a moment. “That’s brilliant.”
“It is? I mean you really think so?”
“Are you kidding? Thanks, fella. I’m going to call my partners and begin building a defense around your suggestion.” He handed Vinny his business card, closed his briefcase, and stood. “Stan Serica. What’s your name?”
“Gambini. Vincent Gambini.”
“Well, Vincent Gambini. Thanks. I won’t forget your name. You call me if you ever need a job. You’re terrific.”
“Thanks. I will.” He handed him a card of his own and went back to his reading. After a few minutes, the elderly man on his right tapped him on the arm. “Are you a lawyer, sir? I heard you talking to that other gentleman.”
As always, Vinny was struggling with his reading and was trying very hard to commit his opening statement to memory. He wasn’t happy about being disturbed and responded in kind. “Yeah, I am. But as you can see, I’m kind of busy.”
“Can I ask you a quick question?”
“I just told you I’m—” He turned to face the elderly man who had jagged bangs, enormous buckteeth, and the ears of a bat. Holy shit. Look at this guy. The poor guy really got smacked with the homely stick. “If you can make it fast—I got a trial starting in a few minutes.”
“I want to know if I can sue my wife’s surgeon.”
“Malpractice?”
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