Find Big Fat Fanny Fast (25 page)

“That's for you, for now,” Tony B said. “And there's more where that came from when this is over with. But that means, you gotta stay and wait for the cops.”

“Where am I going anyway?” Calogero said. “This is my joint. I gotta take the heat, no matter what.”

“Good boy,” Tony B said.

Tony B followed Junior and Big Fat Fanny out the door of Cafe Finito. A black Cadillac was stopped in the middle of the street and Hung Far Low was sitting behind the wheel.

“Quick, jump in.” Hung Far Low said. “My daughter is blocking traffic with another car on the corner of Canal and Mulberry.”

Tony B opened the back driver's side door, and with Junior's help, they pushed Big Fat Fanny into the back seat. Junior squeezed in next to her and pulled the door shut. Tony B sprinted around the back of the Caddy and got into the front passengers seat.

Hung Far Low burnt rubber as he sped north on Mulberry Street. He made a quick left on Hester Street, down to Lafayette Street, where he made a right, and drove up the back ramp of a waiting 18- wheel enclosed tractor-trailer. The driver of the trailer quickly slid the back door down with the Cadillac safely inside.

The driver he got behind the wheel and drove to Houston Street, where he made a left. In less than two minutes the 18-wheeler was safe inside a huge former sanitation garage, which was now owned, of course, by Tony B.

*****

Two detectives sat at a round table in Cafe Finito's backyard garden, one on either side of Calogero, who was puffing on a cigarette like he was competing in a smoke-for-your-life contest. The older detective was tall and thin and his face looked like a hawk's. The younger detective, pimpled-faced and looking fresh out of high school, clammed up completely, deferring to his superior.

The bodies of Police Commissioner Keyshawn Blusterman and Detective Clarice Jackson had already been removed from inside the cafe on stretchers and carted off to the morgue in the meat wagon. Several police personnel were busy inside dusting for prints and doing whatever else their job required them to do.

“So give it to me again,” the older detective said to Calogero. “From the beginning.”

“Like I told you ten times before,” Calogero said. “My workers were late and two people were waitin' to get in, so I opened the joint myself.”

The older detective smirked. “The two people being the police commissioner of New York City and a female detective.”

“They were just two Moolies to me,” Calogero said. “I don't watch the news on TV and I don't read the newspapers. So how the hell would I know who the hell they were?”

“So you served them coffee in the backyard cafe,” the older detective said.

“Yeah, two double espressos with Anisette,” Calogero said. “I left the bottle on the table.”

“Then what happened?” the older detective said.

“Like I told you before, I had to go to the men's room. While I was in the men's room, I heard a bunch of shots. At first I thought it was firecrackers.”

“Firecrackers? Why would you think it was firecrackers?

“Because this is freakin' Chinatown, that's why. These Chinks are always shootin' off stuff like that. Like it's in their blood or somethin'.”

“Ok, so you heard the shots. What happened next?” the older detective said.

“I heard people screaming and yelling. But I was scared, because then I realized it was not firecrackers that I had heard. It was gunshots. So I stayed quietly in the men's room, figurin' that was the smartest thing to do.”

“How long did you stay in the men's room after you heard the shots?”

Calogero puffed hard on a butt. “Maybe two, three minutes. Maybe five minutes. I don't know. I was scared stiff.”

“Then what?”

Calogero put out the butt and lit another one. “Then I tried to get out of the men's room, but the door was stuck.”

“How did the door get stuck?”

“How the hell do I know? I'm not a freakin' locksmith. The door was freakin' stuck. So I put my shoulder into the door and pushed hard. The door broke and I got out and I saw the two dead bodies. Then I called you guys.”

“And that's everything?” the older detective said.

“What else is there? Through no fault of my own, I found two dead bodies in my place and now you're breakin' my freakin' balls. Like I did somethin' wrong or somethin'. You freakin' cops are pains in the asses. I'm just a honest businessman.”

“And you expect us to believe that?”

Before Calogero could reply, Louis J. Lombago strode into the backyard cafe. He spotted Calogero talking to the two detectives. He sauntered over to the table put his hand on Calogero's shoulder.

“This man is my client,” Louie told the detectives. “Any further questioning will either be in my office, or at the police station.” He handed the older detective his business card.

The older detective took the business card and glanced at it. “Yeah, I know who you are. You're the lawyer who never gets paid.”

“Now if you two gentlemen will excuse us, I have to confer with my client,” Louie said. “In private.”

“Who's stopping you?” the older detective said.

“You're presence is stopping me,” Louie said. “Now either take us to the police station, or please leave and contact me later. My client will be available for questioning within one day's notice.”

The older detective stood and the younger detective followed suit. “Ok, we'll be in touch.”

“I'm sure you will,” Louie said.

The two detectives spun around the exited the garden cafe.

Louie sat down at the table opposite Calogero. “You OK?”

Calogero took a long drag on a butt. “Yeah, I'm fine. But I'm sick and disgusted.” He took another drag, then flipped the butt to the floor. “And I think I'm getting cancer from all these freakin' cigarettes I'm smokin'. The cops have been up my ass for two freakin' hours now. Relentless bastards.”

“Don't worry,” Louie said. “The worst is over. From now on, leave everything to me.”

CHAPTER 20

Chewing the Fat

Big Fat Fanny slid a huge Chinese spare rib into her mouth and stared munching away. In seconds, all that was left was a small piece of the bone, which she spit onto her plate.

Tony B was sitting next to Big Fat Fanny at a large round table, which was located on the second floor of Tony B's west side garage. He sipped a glass of red wine.

“You better be careful,” he told Big Fat Fanny. “One of these days you going to swallow the whole bone by accident and choke to death.”

Big Fat Fanny nodded towards Lisa Low who was sitting opposite her, eating pork fried rice with chopsticks out of a Chinese container. “If there wasn't a lady at the table, I'd tell you somethin' about me swallowin' the whole bone.”

Hung Far Low sat next to his daughter. He was sipping egg drop soup with a large spoon. “You Italian are very funny. Always telling jokes. Us Chinese should be more like you Italians. We are too somber. Too serious. Never smiling.”

Junior sat between Tony B and Lisa. He has his left arm around Lisa's shoulder and was sipping from a Bud bottle in his right hand.

“The Jews are even funnier than the Italians,” Junior said. “Henny Youngman, Don Rickles. George Burns. They all crack me up.”

Lisa put down her chopsticks. “You know, I never thought about it. But I can't recall even one Chinese comedian.”

Tony B took another sip of red wine. He said to Lisa, “You know, the Charlie Chan movies were pretty funny. Especially Charlie Chan's number one son. And his number two son too. They were just hilarious.” He took another sip of wine. “But that's way before your time.”

Big Fat Fanny spit out another splinter of a spare rib bone. “Enough about being funny. We have some serious talking to do. Like what to do about our dearly departed police commissioner. I'm sure the police brass is going to come down hard on us, if we don't think up something real quick.”

Tony B slugged the rest of the red wine in his glass, then poured himself another. “I'm way ahead of you. Me and Mr. Hung Far Low didn't get to where we are by being stupid.”

Hung Far Low finished the rest of his soup. “Please pour me a glass of your fine Italian wine,” he said to Tony B. Then he turned to his daughter. “Red wine is permitted on the Atkins diet.”

“Not in excess,” Lisa said. “One glass of red wine is fine. But there's about four carbs in a glass of red. More than one and you're inviting trouble. White wine is better. It has less than two carbs a glass.”

“I do not like white wine,” Hung Far Low said.

“Me neither,” Tony B said. “White wine is for broads schmoozing at brunches.”

Big Fat Fanny now turned her attention to the Chinese boneless pork ends. She reached her right hand into the quart container, pulled out four slabs of pork and stuffed them into her mouth. She spoke while chewing. “So what did you two geniuses come up with to take care of the cops?”

“That was sheer brilliance on our part,” Tony B said. “It was my idea first. But Mr. Hung Far Low came up with a twist on my idea that made it perfect.”

Big Fat Fanny grabbed four more pork ends and shoveled them into her mouth. “So are you going to tell me what your great idea is, or not?”

Tony B told her.

“But now we need someone to follow up for us,” Tony B said. “And I think I have the perfect person.”

*****

Gordon
Goldman sat at his new computer in the newsroom of the New York Post at 210 South Street and started banging the keys. Being a crime reporter had its upside and its downside. The upside was that in New York City there was always enough crime to write about. There was no need to dream up stories on slow days. And when dead bodies were falling from the sky on a daily basis, there was no such thing as writer's block.

The downside was that after a while even a grisly murder made no impression on a man's soul. The crime beat was just a job and dead people who were once very much alive, now meant no more to
Gordon
than a pimple on his big toe.

“The dehumanizing of mankind,” is what he told people his job description had now become.

What Gordon needed was something spectacular to get his blood boiling again. Not your garden-variety, body-with-a-slit-throat sitting in the last car of a BMT subway train with his pockets turned inside out. No, that would just not do anymore. Gordon figured if things didn't change quick, he might just quit his job and tackle that novel he always knew he had inside him.

The phone rang and
Gordon
picked it up on the first ring. “Cityside.”

“Gordy, this is Louis J. Lombago, Esquire. Do you remember me?”

“Of course, Mr. Lombago. You're the lawyer who never gets paid by his clients.”

“What makes you say that? I don't work for my health.”

“That's a matter of opinion. But considering your clients, hounding them for money might be hazardous to your health.”

“Ridiculous,” Louie said. “But I'm not calling you to get insulted. I'm calling to give you an exclusive on the story of the decade.”

Gordon
flipped open a reporter's notebook and grabbed a ball point pen. “I'll put you on speaker so I can write easier.”

“No need to do that,” Louie said. “This is not something I would care to discuss on the phone.”

“Where would you like to meet?”

“There's a bar on the Monroe Street side of Knickerbocker Village. 27 Monroe Street. It's called Patrick Henry's. People who hang out in that bar know enough to mind their own business.”

“I know the joint,”
Gordon
said. “I go there all the time. The drinks are cheap and the food ain't bad either.”

“Meet me at the bar in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes,”
Gordon
said. And he hung up the phone.

*****

It was a little past 6 pm when
Gordon
Goldman slipped through the front door of Patrick Henry's Bar and Grill. The bar and dining area was packed with neighborhood people, most of whom lived in Knickerbocker Village, which was right across the street. Louis J. Lombago was easy to spot, since he was a head taller than anyone else sitting at the bar.

As
Gordon
approached, the lawyer stood up, shook
Gordon’s
hand, then whispered in his ear. “Through the kitchen, there's a private room in the back. There we can talk.”

“You sure that's OK?”
Gordon
said.

“Don't worry, the owner is a good friend of mine.”

Louie led the way past the bar and through a narrow kitchen, wide enough for maybe one person, standing sideways. The kitchen opened into a dark, dusty room filled with rotted folding tables and creaky chairs. Louie flipped on the light switch and a 40-watt bulb barely illuminated the room.

Louie took two closed folding chairs that were leaning against the wall, opened them and placed them on opposite sides of the only open folding table in the room. “Have a seat,” he said.