The pike boys, p.4
The Pike Boys, page 4
Twitch fastened his black tie and stared at Clyde. Jesse put a hand on Twitch’s shoulder. “I promise. I won’t let anything get out of hand. After we get rid of all of that booze, only thing you’ll have to worry about is what you’re going to spend all of your of money on.” Jesse rubbed his thumb against his pointer and middle fingers. Twitch jutted his eyebrows up and down and gave another corner-of-the-mouth smirk.
Jesse checked his watch. Big Sal and his other special guests would be there soon. Around the room, the brothel’s security stuck close to the walls on the perimeter of the party. They all had a uniform look—big heads and wide jaws and thick shoulders, with gun bulges hidden under their jackets. Jesse's eyes scanned the crowd but got snagged by the way Cindy’s dress hugged her just right. Her graceful walk and her long dress made it look like she levitated around the room. He smiled at her. She returned it. He stepped toward her, but a man stepped into frame and made him rock back on his heels. The man embraced Cindy and she placed a kiss on his cheek.
The music became slow and somber—a tune that was meant to lull people into intimacy. Everyone stopped moving around and drifted to the dance floor with their partners. Cindy nestled her head into the john’s neck. They swayed side to side, her hand on his back and his hands slowly making their way down hers. She playfully raised them back up. He leaned down to whisper something in her ear. She blushed. She returned the favor by leaning in close to whisper something back. Jesse imagined she told the man something sweet and sensual, arousing yet calming, like she did for him last night, and every other night.
Jesse hoped Twitch didn’t see his near embarrassment. He did. Twitch looked at Jesse with a knowing look. The look asked, that’s still going on?
Jesse read his friend’s mind and said out loud, “Oh shut the fuck up.” Twitch chuckled, then went back to reading his book.
Over the horizon of the dance floor, Jesse saw the first of his guests arrive: Davy Perrilloux. Davy walked around the edges of the party and straight to Jesse. Jesse embraced Davy with a handshake.
“What’s going on, Pike?” Davy asked.
Jesse replied cordially.
Davy was a sharp-dressed colored man with a southern drawl smooth like honey and a joyful demeanor to match. Many of the guests turned to stare. Black men weren’t allowed most places in New Orleans, especially not in brothels. But Davy was a friend, business associate, and probably the most important part of Jesse’s liquor operation. The guests would have to get over it.
Jesse pointed and gave directions to where their meeting would take place. After Davy walked off, Twitch jumped to his feet. Jesse ordered Twitch to make sure the security was locked and loaded. He waved over Mickey and ordered him to run and get the bag of money from the safe. Mickey nodded and cut straight down the dance floor, bumping into couples who swayed left to right in one another’s arms.
Jesse pushed through people and waved his hands to shoo away the girls next to his brothers. Clyde’s face glistened from a thin layer of sweat and burned red with drink.
“It’s time,” Jesse said.
Rory and Clyde both shot up from their seats and swayed back-and-forth and bobbed up and down like buoys in the river. Jesse said a quick prayer under his breath. The Pike brothers cut through the party and Mickey met them at the threshold of the foyer with a duffel bag. Twitch caught up to them. He took the bag and its weight pulled his arm to the earth.
Jesse turned to Mickey. “Tell the band to switch to up-tempo music for a while.”
Jesse wanted to make sure if things got loud, they’d at least have some noise blanketing their conversation. The music and chatter lowered from a ruckus to faint noises as they approached the east parlor threshold. A bouncer guarded the doorway with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
The Pike Boys walked into the east parlor where several men waited for their arrival. Jesse greeted everyone with “Fellas” and made the rounds to shake hands, starting first with the man leaning against the wall by the fireplace, Hymie.
“Took you long enough,” Hymie said. Jesse forced a smile.
Hymie had yellowish teeth and big, clammy hands Jesse couldn’t wait to let go of. It wasn’t a secret Jesse hated Hymie. He was Big Sal’s longtime partner, preferred hitman, and personal attack dog. Hymie had gray, thin hair spread on his head, along with a pot belly developed after years as a baker stretching his cheap suit to its limits. He also always had a toothpick dangling from his mouth. He used the picks to tell if the centers of cupcakes and other delicacies were done baking. The joke around the city was that his fat ass kept the picks there so he could constantly have the flavors on his tongue. No one ever said it to his face though. Hymie picked at his nails and cursed under his breath in Yiddish as Jesse and the rest walked past. Jesse ignored him and walked over to Davy, who sat at a table by himself.
Jesse patted Davy on the shoulder and introduced him to Clyde, who hesitated to take Davy’s hand, looking him up and down. “He’s an associate I met after you went in,” Jesse said, sensing Clyde’s hesitance. “He’s a good man.”
Clyde loosened up some and took Davy’s hand. Davy took the suspicion in stride and introduced himself.
Next was Sal Jr. AKA Junior. Junior sat at a table with two of the Bianchi gunmen next to him. Their names were Donny or Luca or some other Sicilian shit Jesse could never remember. He acknowledged them, then went to Junior. Jesse reached out his hand. Junior did everything in his power to make Jesse’s hand hang for a while before he ever acknowledged it. He sat back against the table, his elbows resting firmly against it, with his wrist up in the air like he was interested in the time on his watch. Junior had the attitude of a scorned cat; a level of passive aggression toward Jesse that no woman could ever parallel. His face was almost in a permanent pout like a little boy who’d been told no one too many times. Which—Jesse knew—Junior was lucky if he was told no, and not beat over the head by his father altogether.
Jesse gritted his teeth and kept his hand in Junior’s face. Junior eventually huffed and gave Jesse a dead fish handshake, something you’d do to a child so that you wouldn’t crush their hand. Last but not least, sitting opposite Junior on the other side of the table, was Salvatore “Big Sal” Bianchi.
Jesse smiled wide. He walked toward him while Clyde, Rory, and Twitch completed small talk behind him. His surrogate father had a jovial smile. Sal placed his frail, veiny hands on the top of his cane and tried to stand up, but Jesse put his hands out to tell him to stay sitting.
“No, no, no,” Sal said. “I’m old, not an imbecile. I can stand up on my own.”
Jesse stood back and watched the man who used to scare him shitless struggle to stand up unaided. His knees buckled and he let out strained groans like needles were stabbing him in his joints. He hobbled over, his cane clicking the ground in stride with his steps.
“Come here, come here,” Sal said.
Jesse embraced him with a hug and felt the bones under the thick layers of coats. Jesse couldn’t believe how bad he was getting. He’d dropped at least eight pounds in the month since they’d seen each other.
“Good to see you too,” Jesse said.
Jesse made small talk with Sal for a little, asking how Mrs. Bianchi was, how the doctors’ visits had been, all while the sound of the music from the party drifted into the middle of their conversation. The small talk dissipated. The men moved to tables in the middle of the room.
“Welcome home, boy,” Sal said to Clyde.
Clyde responded with a whiskey hiccup and a nod. Clyde, Twitch, and Rory sat at a circular table by themselves while the other men split up amongst the other two nearest tables.
“So, other than this party,” Davy said. “Any other reason we here?”
Jesse grinned. He motioned toward Twitch to open the duffle bag. The handle strained at its ends as Twitch flipped the bag over and caused an avalanche of money, 5 figures total, to slide out and shake the unleveled table. College funds, retirement funds, investment capital, all right there on that table. Davy’s jaw dropped. Hymie sat at the edge of his seat. Big Sal stood and walked over to the table. He gave Jesse a kiss on both cheeks. Junior rolled his eyes.
“This is from the second shipment,” Jesse said.
Sal went back to his seat. “The out of state contacts really bought that much?”
“Yes. And we have more. Way more."
The Volstead Act was meant to stop the “evils” of drinking—or so the bigwigs in D.C. thought. All it did was make a fifty-cent bottle of wine worth $2 and a nickel drink worth a quarter. And with the large shipment of stolen liquor Jesse had in storage, he'd make 7 times the money as someone who made booze themselves or got it imported. Rory divided the money into portions equivalent to everyone’s stake in the job and handed it out.
Davy got a portion for providing the out of state contacts and logistics. Big Sal got a portion for providing the capital for both Rudy Thompson’s payoff and for access to transportation of the booze out of the state. Big Sal then divvied the money up amongst Hymie and Junior, then Junior to his gunmen. Sal asked Jesse, “Where’s the honorable Councilman Thompson?”
“He didn’t think it would be best to be seen with us.”
“It’s probably smart—what about what we talked about earlier?”
“The ‘Golden Boy’? He’s a non-issue.”
“How you know that?”
Jesse rubbed his nose. “He’s a reformer. They never win.”
“Until they do,” snapped Junior.
Hymie chuckled to himself. “I can always just...” Hymie turned his fingers into gun barrels and laughed hard enough to make everyone in the room feel uncomfortable.
Jesse knew it was no joke though. Everyone knew one thing about Hymie: he’d go to the hospice and put a fucking pillow over his own mother’s face if he thought she’d snitch.
Sal slapped Hymie on the shoulder. “Now, now. Enough of that.”
Jesse sighed. “Fine. I’ll go check in with Rudy tomorrow and see what he has on the guy.”
Jesse felt like it was a moot point. But if looking into the guy would make Sal get off his back and free him up to work on his restaurant, he’d do it. Jesse composed himself and looked to Clyde for this next part. “There is another announcement.” Everyone’s eyes came from their money stacks and straight to him. “As of tonight, I’m out. I’ll stay on in an advisory capacity for the time being, and continue to take my cuts of these shipments, but Clyde will be taking over from here on out.”
Time froze. No breathing, movement, or signs of life could be seen or heard.
Sal fidgeted. “Why?”
“Clyde’s capable,” Jesse said. He pointed his hand toward Clyde, regretting the decision after seeing Clyde was still drunk. “And I just think it’s time.”
Junior responded with a dismissive snicker. His father barked, “You shut the hell up.” Junior shrunk back in his seat. “What is it time for?”
Jesse shrugged. “Something else.”
Clyde stood and cleared his throat. “I didn’t know I needed permission from any of you.”
Clyde eyed daggers at every person in the room. Sal’s brows furrowed. Jesse saw Hymie’s hand move near the bulge in his coat. The gunmen alongside Junior took his cue to do the same. Twitch eyed Jesse, looking for any indication the situation would grow dire.
Sal let out a hefty laugh. A laugh strong enough to force the men around him to move their hands from their coats and join in.
Sal pointed at Clyde. “You’re grown. You don’t need my permission for anything.”
Jesse could see through Sal’s laugh and saw he was pissed. Under Jesse’s control, the Pike Boys went from stickup men and hijackers to business owners. The liquor scheme wasn’t the first time Jesse’s connections netted those men money and serious work. Jesse created an environment where businessmen and gangsters could cohabitate, which meant big things for everyone in that room, which meant if Jesse left then their connections did too. Jesse also knew Sal wanted him to be a consultant to the Bianchi family one day. He never said it outright, but he alluded to it every chance he got at their once frequent cafe meetings. Sal wasn’t getting any younger, and he needed to make sure the New Orleans faction of the Bianchi family thrived after him. Jesse looked at Junior. Junior smirked—because when Big Sal died now, he would be the sole leader of the Bianchi family, and his father’s little pet would have no involvement.
Jesse played it cool. “Like I said, I’ll see this venture through to the end the best I can. After that, Clyde’s your man.”
The men gave reluctant nods of approval. Everyone stood. Davy was the first to leave. Sal walked over and stopped to place a hand on Clyde’s shoulder. “Why don’t y’all come by the shop sometime, eh? We’ll have dinner like old days.”
Clyde nodded noncommittally.
Sal walked out and his men followed behind. Junior glared at Jesse the whole time he walked past. Hymie followed last and stopped at the threshold, turning with a confused look on his face, like he was trying to remember something on the tip of his tongue. He snapped his fingers and turned to the Pikes. “Remember when you guys used to shine our shoes?”
He looked around and nodded with a grin at the paintings on the wall, the piano in the corner, and the foreign décor. Hymie chuckled, then said, “I remember.”
Jesse bit his tongue. “We’ve come a long way since then.”
“That’s all I was saying, kid,” Hymie said. “But my shoes sure miss ya.” He cackled all the way out the parlor and down the outside steps. The Pikes were alone in the room now.
“Fuck him,” said Rory with his fist at his side. “We’re not children anymore.”
Twitch nodded in agreement. Clyde stood at the table with a dejected, annoyed look on his face.
“It doesn’t help that y’all couldn’t even wait until after the meeting to get sauced,” said Jesse.
Rory grew defensive. “You were fucking drinking too.” Jesse put up two fingers to indicate the number of drinks he had. Clyde looked at the ground.
“What’s eating you?” Jesse asked.
Clyde left the room without a word.
Jesse followed him back into the party and tried to chase him down, but before he could reach him, Cindy stepped in his way, and she had tears in her eyes.
“We need you,” she said. “And now.”
Jesse decided to leave the Clyde situation for later.
Jesse walked over to an area sequestered from the rest of the party with a cigarette pursed in his lips, where Mickey, Madam Eve, and Cindy huddled around a girl sitting on a plush bench with her hands clasped to her face. Jesse asked her to move her hands, and his stomach turned in knots. She was bruised, black and blue spots stretched across her face, her eye completely shut and swollen, with webs of pulsating veins spreading across the eyelid.
Madam Eve stepped up to Jesse and shoved his shoulder. “You and your boys are supposed to stop this type of stuff from happening.”
The words cut through Jesse like a blade. He rubbed the wounded girl's cheek and told Mickey to get her to a doctor, then to home.
Jesse stood, rubbed the back of his head, and blew thick plumes of smoke in the air. “I’ll fix it.”
***
The room was dim and bare, nothing more than a loose hanging light bulb swinging free from a fixture and years of caked burgundy stains soaked into the wood floor. A man sat in an old chair in the middle of the room, his head low and tears rolling out his eyes and his face a mask of fear and anxiety. Rory and Twitch flanked him. The man’s forehead had a wide gaping scar that yawned open each time he moved. Blood poured from his busted lip and left a bib of red around his shirt’s collar. Jesse stood cool and casual in front of the man with a cigarette pinched in between his fingers. Jesse took a stiff toke, mushroomed out a cloud, then laid a light smack on the man's face. "Get yourself together.”
"I've learned my lesson," the man said. His words came out like he was speaking with a mouth full of peanut butter; like he accidentally bit his tongue while getting worked over by the bouncers in the alley.
"Did you really?" Jesse asked.
The man nodded. He sniffed up some loose snot then ran his sleeve against his nose. A streak of blood soaked into his shirt. “My uncle, he’s—he’s O’Grady; might know him as ‘The Greek.’ Ever heard of him?”
Jesse had. The Greek was a dope-dealing scumbag with no huge connections. He ran a crew known as “The Riverfront Clubbers.” But Jesse shrugged and told the man, “No.” The Greek had nothing Jesse wanted.
Jesse looked at Twitch, then back at the man. Twitch's body moved in Jesse’s peripheral, a big blob shifting further from Jesse’s view into the corner of the room.
“Ok,” Jesse shrugged. “Well if you say you learned your lesson, I guess I believe you.”
Jesse reached out his hand, letting the man know everything was fine. The man hesitated, but he finally took Jesse’s hand and stood. Jesse smiled. The man strained through the pain to grin. Jesse’s smile shifted to a frown.
A rope looped over the man’s head and wrapped around his neck. Jesse clamped down on his wrist with both hands. The man flailed around, unsure whether he should relieve the pressure being applied to his throat or the pressure being applied to his wrist. They dragged the man, gurgling, kicking, unable to scream, to a table, and forced his right hand flat.
“Come on,” Jesse said. “Just put your fucking hand on the table. Come on.”
Jesse put all his weight into holding the man down. Rory pulled on the rope tighter, twisting his wrist and turning his body to keep a scream from escaping the man’s throat.
Twitch came over with a mallet and handed it to Jesse. Twitch took a towel from his pocket and stuffed it in the man's mouth with three fingers, making sure it got right in the back of his throat. Jesse raised the mallet, took a deep breath, and swung it down.
He hammered until the man’s fingers plunged backward at the joints, bending them in the opposite direction and forcing them to make a wet, snapping noise. Jesse swung until the legs of the table wobbled; until veins in the man’s neck swelled; until animalistic groans from his throat were hardly drowned out by the loud music from the party outside. The man twisted and writhed, groaned and trembled, but Jesse wouldn't stop. He kept swinging until he hyperventilated and until his adrenaline hit a point where he no longer felt in control. When Jesse was done, the man's hand was a bag of shrapnel. Jesse loosened his grasp and the mallet slid from his hand and clattered to the floor. The man fainted. Rory and Twitch held the man up and took him toward a back door to an alley behind the brothel.
