by Joe Bruno
“No. But you can eat cold turkey on this diet. I'll cook you the turkey myself. In fact, from now on, you eat all your meals at home. And I'll do all the cooking.”
Hung Far Low sighed. “The die is cast. I hope after a few weeks on this diet, I don't want to die myself.”
CHAPTER 14
Crappy
Charlie “Crappy” Crappola sat alone at his favorite table at Forlini's Restaurant, on Baxter Street, fifty feet south of Canal Street. Forlini's is right around the corner from New York City criminal courts buildings and down the block from the city prison, called “The Tombs.”
In the last generation, there had been a mass exodus of neighborhood Italians to places like Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, Staten Island, and unfortunately Rikers Island and other prisons located in the continental United States. Not to mention various graves, some in cemeteries and some in places unknown; beneath the ground, in various rivers and streams, or compacted in cars. Such is life.
Forlini's clientele now consisted almost entirely of people associated with the criminal courts buildings in the immediate neighborhood. Ninety percent of Forlini's customers are judges, lawyers, district attorneys, court officers, court workers and what Crappy called rat-bastard cops. Wiseguys and their associates avoided Forlini's like the plague, not wanting to be under the same roof with those whose life's mission was to put them permanently in prison.
Crappy's table was next to the cash register, to the immediate left of the restaurant entrance. From this vantage point he could see everyone as they entered, before they could see him. Which just might one day save Crappy's life.
Baxter Street is one block west of Mulberry, where all the wiseguys hang out to discuss whose legs deserved to be broken and whom they should soon make disappear off the face of the earth. Be that as it may, Forlini's was the perfect place for Crappy to meet someone in “the life” without the treacherous scumbags around the corner knowing anything about it.
As for the menu, Forlini's was famous for its fine Chicken Gropallo — chicken with artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, mushrooms, and white wine sauce, served on top of fettuccine; the people's favorite Scarparelli, for one or for two — diced chicken, sausage, filet mignon, bell peppers, mushrooms, scallions, garlic and white wine sauce. And the immortal Involtini di Gamberi — rolled shrimp, stuffed with prosciutto, cheese and mushrooms and white wine sauce.
Crappy, who weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds, had just ordered all three of Forlini's specialty dishes as his main course, after first knocking down two Hot Antipasto platters of clams, shrimps, stuffed mushrooms, sautéed eggplant and artichoke hearts arreganata.
Of course, all three main courses came with either a side of spaghetti, or a side of escarole. Crappy, daintily watching his weight, had opted for only two side orders of spaghetti and one side of escarole, not to be a pig.
The busboy removed the finished hot antipasto plates, as the waiter refilled Crappy's wine class with red vino from a large carafe of the house red, which was just fine indeed for Crappy and a hell of a lot cheaper than the wines Forlini's served in bottles.
Minutes later, just as the waiter was placing the three main courses on the table, Crappy noticed Skinny Benny slide though the front door of the restaurant. Skinny Benny spotted Crappy and Crappy waved him over to the table.
“Sit down,” Crappy said.
Skinny Benny did. The waiter quickly set another place setting in front of him and poured Skinny Benny a glass of red wine.
“Would you like to order something, sir?” the waiter said.
Skinny Benny surveyed the food on the table. “Are you kidding me? Where would you put the food anyway? On my lap? There's enough food on this table to feed a battalion.”
The waiter shrugged, then left the table.
Crappy started eating with a vengeance. He spoke with his mouth full, but did so with such expertise, only a few a morsels of food got spewed on Skinny Benny's face, chest and lap.
“Dig in and shut your face,” Crappy said. “If we need more food, I'll order more food. They have a great golden brown chicken here I forgot to order anyway.”
Skinny Benny shook his head. “Na, I just ate an order of beef and oyster sauce over at 16 Mott.”
Crappy looked up with a fork in hand and disgust on his face. “Why do you eat that Chink crap anyway? You're putting good money into their pockets.”
“So what?”
Crappy put his fork down. “So what? Look around you. This restaurant is packed, but not a Chinaman in sight. You never see any of those slanty-eyed bastards in an Italian restaurant. Like they're afraid that we'll make some money off their skinny asses.”
“Hung Far Low doesn't have a skinny ass,” Skinny Benny said. “His ass is almost as big as yours.”
“Very funny,” Crappy said. “If you don't want to eat, then shut the fuck up till I'm finished.”
Twenty minutes later, without Skinny Benny touching a crumb, nary a morsel of food was left on the table. The busboy removed the empty plates, as the waiter refilled the wine glasses.
“Any desserts sir?” the waiter said.
“Later. Let me digest my food first,” Crappy said.
The waiter left the table.
“Digest your food?” Skinny Benny said. “You ate so fast, you probably didn't even taste your food.”
Crappy belched into his cupped hand.
“Salute,” Skinny Benny said.
Crappy brushed the right sleeve of his shirt across his mouth. “Thank you, now let's get down to business.”
For the past several years, Crappy and Skinny Benny had been the two top captains for Tony B. Each had over fifty men working under them, robbing banks, knocking over trucks, doing jewelry heists, and running Tony B's loan sharking and bookmaking operations. Of all of the money made on the streets by these men, fifty percent was kicked upstairs. Minus whatever was robbed by the street crooks in the first place.
Of this fifty percent, half went up to Tony B, and Crappy and Skinny Benny split the other half. This was not such a great deal for them, but this was the way mob business had been done in America since forever.
Now all of a sudden, Tony B, the greedy bastard that he was, wanted more. He wanted thirty percent of the fifty percent being kicked up from the streets. And if that was not enough on any given week to satisfy his hunger, Tony B said he wanted a flat fifty grand a week, no questions asked.
“This crap has got to stop,” Crappy said. “I'm starting to pull the hair out of my head.”
“I guess he needs the extra money to feed his girlfriend Big Fat Fanny,” Skinny Benny said. “She does eat a lot of food. Even more food than you do.”
“I don't give a damn about Big Fat Fanny. Let Tony B buy a ranch with five thousand head of cattle to feed her, for all I give a damn.”
Skinny Benny took a sip of wine. “Then there's the macaroni she eats to consider. I hear she can knock down five pounds of macaroni in one sitting. With another five pounds of sausage and five pounds of meatballs on the side. Then she has the nerve to say she wants to eat dinner.”
“Freakin' amazing. I can eat, and I can't even come close to what that fat bastard shoves down her throat.”
“But she does have a pretty face. And in her own way, she very sexy.”
“Sexy? You gotta be freaking kidding me. She looks like King Kong in a dress. She's probably got a bigger schlong than King Kong too.
“But don't forget, she's only twenty five years old. Tony B's pushing fifty, from the other side. Not many old guys like him can get a young broad like her.”
“She's not a broad,” Crappy said. “She's an entire harem. Two harems maybe.”
Skinny Benny snickered. “A battalion of harems.”
The waiter came over to the table. He checked the carafe and it was empty. “More wine sir?”
“Nah,” Crappy said. “Bring over a bottle of Sambuca and a couple of cannolis.
The waiter turned to Skinny Benny. “And you, sir?”
“A double Remy, straight up. In one of those large sniffers.”
“You mean snifters, sir,” the waiter said.
Skinny Benny looked annoyed. “Yeah snifters, sniffers, whatever. Just bring the double Remy in a glass.”
“Yes sir,” the waiter said. He adjusted the small vase of flowers in the middle of the table, then left the table.
Crappy leaned over the table and whispered. “The main thing is, Tony B has got to go. He's financially choking us to death.”
“But he's been my friend my whole life,” Skinny Benny said. “I can't just kill the man.”
“That's why you have to be the one to do the job. He trusts you. You're the only person who can get close enough to kill him.”
“Let me think about it,” Skinny Benny said.
Crappy leaned over the table and whispered again. “You can think about it all you want, but you'll come to the same conclusion I have. Tony B has got to go.”
The waiter came over with the drinks and the desserts. He placed them on the table, then left again.
Skinny Benny took a sip of Remy. “Maybe you're right. Tony B has become too greedy.”
Crappy and Skinny Benny spent the next half hour or so figuring out the best way to get rid of Tony B. Then Crappy paid the bill in cash, leaving a generous 10 percent tip, and the two men exited the restaurant.
As the busboys were taking the dishes away, the waiter took the cash and the small vase of flowers off the table.
He went into the men's room and locked himself in a stall. He removed a small wireless microphone from the vase and put it in his pants pocket.
When his shift was over, the waiter went outside to the entrance of the tenement directly above Forlini's Restaurant. He entered the building, climbed to the second floor, walked down a long corridor and knocked on the last door.
A man opened the door and the waiter handed him the microphone.
“Well, Officer Russo, I think we've heard some very interesting conversations,” the man said to the waiter, who was in fact an undercover cop. “And I have it all down on tape.”
“I couldn't hear too much, Sergeant Molloy,” Officer Russo said. “I was too busy feeding that fat bastard's face.”
“Oh, but I heard a lot. Information I'm sure our Police Commissioner would love hearing.”
*****
It was dark and rainy, as Yuan Dum Fuk waited patiently in the doorway of 33 Mott Street, right next door to the courtyard of Transfiguration Grammar School. The building was situated at the top of the “T” of the intersection of Mott and Pell, so Yuan Dum Fuk could see people coming in three directions instead of two. He was wearing a black raincoat, where he could hide the weapon, or weapons of his choice. Which of course would not be a gun, because like most Chinese, he shot about as straight a three-card monte game.
Yuan Dum Fuk was waiting for Billy the Blade to make his weekly appearance at the apartment of his goumada Peggy Soo, who lived directly above where Yuan Dum Fuk was standing, in a two-bedroom, second-floor dungeon, of which Billy the Blade was paying the rent.
Peggy Soo was short and stocky, with a pushed in face and a flat mushroom nose. Yet, despite being Chinese, Peggy Soo had boobs as big as any Italian broad in the neighborhood. Peggy Soo's parents were born in the Province of Canton in China, and of course, speaky no Eeengleesh. And when money was involved, they were deaf, dumb and blind too. Peggy Soo was born in America and spoke perfect English, and according to neighborhood lore, she could suck the chrome off a World War II Hum-Vee hubcap, no freaking problem.
Yuan Dum Fuk could never figure out what Peggy Soo saw in Billy the Blade, other than the fact he was paying her rent and giving her enough cash to buy clothes, jewelry, and whatever the hell else she wanted to buy, including about a gram of cocaine a day, which she stuffed right up her nose, which was maybe why her nose was so flat in the first place. In addition, Billy the Blade bought Peggy Soo her own red Camaro convertible, which she proudly raced, top-down, all around the neighborhood, thumbing her flat nose at every Chinaman in Chinatown. Not to mention the fat Italian bitches that hated her with a passion for having an Italian boyfriend.
In Yuan Dum Fuk's opinion, despite his deep pockets, Billy the Blade was as ugly as a hat full of assholes, with a nose so big he could light a cigar in a rainstorm. Maybe the rumor that Billy the Blade had a penis the size a racehorse had something to do with Peggy Soo's attraction to him. That fact, if true, would be inconsequential soon, since Yuan Dum Fuk was intent on slitting Billy the Blade's throat, rendering his penis size moot.
The building at 33 Mott was the perfect set-up. At the end of the long corridor leading to the stairwell, were steps leading down to the basement, which connected to the basements and subterranean tunnels of over fifty buildings in the neighborhood. In the ancient days of the Tong Wars, Chinese gangs used these maze of tunnels to plan attacks on rival gangs. The tunnels were also used as escape routes after bloody street battles, to buildings located as far away as Grand Street, which was four long city blocks to the north. It was said no white man had ever been in any of these tunnels, and the 5 precinct cops dismissed the whole idea of tunnels and secret getaway routes as total baloney.
Yuan Dum Fuk knew better.
Suddenly, he spotted Bill the Blade coming down Pell Street, his hands in his outside jacket pockets and his big nose pointed down into the slanting rain. This gave Yuan Dum Fuck enough time to run to the back of the corridor and hide behind the steps.
Billy the Blade hurried into the building, dripping like a wet rat. Water cascaded down his huge hook-nose and he wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket.
He strode down the corridor, and just as he turned to walk up the steps, Yuan Dum Fuk slipped behind him and stuck something hard, hidden in the pocket of his raincoat, into the small of The Blade's back.
“Now turn around and walk down the steps to the cellar,” Yuan Dum Fuk said.
The Blade was pissed. He stared straight ahead. “What is this? A stick-up? Do you know who I am?”
Yuan Dum Fuk grabbed The Blade's shoulder and pushed him forward. “Down the steps I said.”
The Blade took one step down, then whirled around and grabbed Yuan Dum Fuk's wrist. He yanked the hand out of Yuan Dun Fuk's coat pocket and an uncooked egg roll fell to the floor.
The Blade pulled a gun from his belt, but before he could fire, Yuan Dum Fuk's knife slit the back of The Blade's hand. Blood poured from The Blade's cut, as Yuan Dum Fuk tried to yank the gun away from him. Finally, the gun fell to the floor.
“What you doing with a gun?” Yuan Dum Fuk said. “You no carry gun.”
“I do now,” The Blade said.
The Blade kicked his right foot upward, dislodging the knife from Yuan Dum Fuk's hand. It fell to the floor, close to the gun. Both men dived in the general direction of the gun and the knife. After a mad scramble, The Blade emerged with the knife and Yuan Dum Fuk held the gun in his shaky right hand.
Like wild tigers in the jungle, they circled slowly. Suddenly, Yuan Dum fired the gun, The Blade ducked and the bullet crashed into the wall behind him.
“Typical Chinese crack shot,” The Blade said.
The Blade dropped the knife and lunged at Yuan Dum Fuk. As both men struggled for control of the gun, a shot came from the top of the stairs piecing The Blade's heart. He fell backwards down the steps to the basement and landed on his back. Eyes open and very dead indeed.
Yuan Dum Fuk was dumbfounded. He spun around and spotted Peggy Soo running down the steps, gun in hand. She stood dazed, glaring down the steps to the basement at The Blade's dead body.
“Damn, I shot the wrong guy,” Peggy Soo said.
“Wrong guy, my ass,” Yuan Dum Fuk said. “You killed the right guy. And it wasn't me.”
Tears dripped down both of Peggy Soo's cheeks and across her flat nose. “But he was my boyfriend.”
Yuan Dum Fuk snatched t
he gun from Peggy Soo and put it in his coat pocket.
“He ain't your boyfriend no more,” Yuan Dum Fuk said. “Now I'm your boyfriend.”
Peggy Soo smacked Yuan Dum Fuk hard in the face. “My boyfriend? I don't even freaking like you. I just shot the wrong freaking guy.”
“But he's dead and I'm not. Plus you can keep the red Camaro and I will now pay your rent and everything else The Blade was paying for. Including your daily dose of nose candy.”
“What else is in it for me?” she said.
Yuan Dum Fuk put his forefinger under Peggy Soo's flat nose. “Well, number one, I won't freaking kill you. And number two, I won't tell the police you shot Billy the Blade.”
Peggy Soo shrugged. “There better be a number three. A very good number three.”
Yuan Dum Fuk smiled. “And number three, you can blow me all you want. Day and night, and twice on Sundays.”
Peggy Soo smirked. “If I can find it first.”
He grabbed her by both shoulders and shook her hard. “Don't be so insulting to a Chinese gentleman like me.”
Peggy Soo reached down, grabbed Yuan Dum Fuk by the crotch and squeezed. “And number three, I want to go to Las Vegas to see Wayne Newton. I just love Wayne Newton.”
Yuan Dum Fuk grimaced. “Wayne Newton? You can't be serious. He sings like a fag.”
She squeezed harder. “I don't care what you think. I want Las Vegas and I want Wayne Newton.”
Yuan Dum Fuk’s face was turning a deep red and sweat spilled down both his cheeks. “OK. OK. Las Vegas it is.”
She let go of his crotch and Yuan Dum Fuk bent over in pain. He took several deep breaths, straightened up, then grabbed her hand. “Let's get the hell out of here before the cops come.” He tried pulling her down the steps towards the basement.
She spun him around and tried pulling him up the steps to her apartment. “What are you stupid? My apartment is one flight up. We can hide there until this all blows over.”
Police sirens blared from the street outside. Yuan Dum Fuk let go of her hand. “I have to go through the tunnels to meet someone on Doyers Street. I'll get in touch with you tomorrow.”
