56. Little Italy
By Ewan
- 345 reads
‘My new friend, Goombah Gabe.’
Salvatore gave me the two-handed hand-shake as if I was a made man who’d known all his cousins back in Little Italy. I had no idea why, unless it was to make sure I couldn’t out-grasp him and leave him with the sore knuckles he gave me.
‘Mr-’
‘None of that, Goombah. Salvatore.’
He turned to the Senator.
‘There will be no trouble for my new friend, Senator.’
Salvatore looked me up and down.
‘Same rules here, no blood in the club. Not even from his toes.’
The mobster turned to the big non-native american.
‘Phyllis, get Gabriel’s drinks comped.’
Senator Buckfast’s lips tightened and I figured he was paying his own way.
Salvatore and his gorillas were already moving away, when I said,
‘I’m with those two over by the door on the other side of the stage.’
‘Consider your luck pushed, Goombah.’ Salvatore shouted over the music and his shoulder.
‘I’ll get their drinks comped too,’ Phyllis croaked, in a voice that had taken a lifetime of strong tobacco and bad liquor to perfect. ‘Whadda ya want, yerself?’
She batted her eylids at me and her top left eyelash came unglued.
‘Whatever he’s having.’ I pointed at the Senator.
‘Ya won’t. He’s drinking Shirley Temples.’
I thought about asking if she was in tonight too, but Phyllis went over to the bartender before I could.
Buckfast looked at me over the parasol in his drink. He looked tired. Almost as tired as if he’d spent long hours in session at the upper house running the country. But I knew he wouldn’t have been doing that, the pork barrel was empty for him nowadays. He was just a time-server.
‘What you doin’ tomorrow, Senator?’
He really did hem and haw. Said the words, that is. I wondered what kind of damn fool didn’t recognise a word that only represented a meaningless sound. Then I remembered he was a politician.
‘Got meetings,’ he said. Eventually.
‘On a Sunday? I don’t think so.’
He looked uncomfortable, but that could have been the pain where his toes used to be.
‘Get to the ‘St Margaret Of Cortona Home for Waifs and Strays on R Street near the Oak Hill Cemetary and the Rock Creek Park. By half-nine. The ceremony’s at ten.’
‘Oh great,’ he sighed. ‘All this and Lila Radziwill too.’
The drinks came. I took mine and left him to his Shirley Temple. Then I went over to join Sam and ‘Rita. The music for the next act came on and I wondered what in the world kind of dance a pole-ista did to that old Stephen Bishop song. I mean, it had a mandolin solo.
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