By Tom Blitzenbaum
February, 2k24
“Are my girls high enough, do you think?”
“Vivian, honey, what are you worried about? Why all the extra primping? You’re sexy and gorgeous, and you know it, baby girl. So why all the tears now? You know you’re Big Al’s favorite dish, all vanilla with the cherry on top. ‘Specially since he ain’t into soul food like me if you know what I mean.”
“Al’s acting weird, Clarity. He’s turning into a regular Boy Scout I tell ya.”
“And you think propping up the sugar tits might sweeten his tooth again? Just coke him up, spike his hooch with a Fireagra, and fuggedaboutit honey, to quote my man Eddie.”
“But that’s just it Clara! Al won’t touch any of that stuff anymore! Or me!”
“There, there baby, come over here and tell Mama Belle all about it.”
(End surveillance. Cold shower time.)
Eddie the Wrench Malone
I’m the Boss’s Number-two man. I’m his mechanic for the massive fleet of Kadillacs and Korvettes, but I didn’t get my nickname just for that. I was 9 when I took a wrench to a guy was getting funny with a little kid in a Shytown alley off Esther Street, and I’ve been Eddie the Wrench ever since. Hero of my neighborhood back then, now the most feared hood in the city, that is after Big Al Kapone himself.
When I got made by the Yahfathers, after racking up a few hits here in Shytown with my trademark Mr. Badwrench, haha, there was no reason to change my tag. I’m sitting with Mr. Badwrench across my lap now, feeling the cold metal of the fat crescent, the business end that can end it all for the mark quickly or in real slow, steady agony. I’m smacking it, again and again on my palm while I think all this out.
So I’m watching these two bodacious babes, one of them mine (for now) and the other the current and longest-lasting sex kitten of Al’s, that stuck-up mousy Vivian Marconi, another Esther Street survivor who won’t give Eddie the Wrench the time of day.
Not even when we were both twelve and I tried to win her over by telling her about the Marconi genius who was a father of radio technology. With hoity-toity Vivian Marconi, it was always “Get away from me Eddie!” then and it’s still “Get away from me Eddie!” now, to this day. So even with all the trouble we’re having now, I get some satisfaction out of seeing little ‘Marconi Macaroni’ the snooty little bitch from the old Esther Street hood where we all grew up, now knocked down off her high and mighty horse.
I find it ‘eminently amusing’.
That’s from the vocabulary word of the day that Big Al’s got us all doing these days. Chalk up another one in the Weird Al column. Like how he shows up for a meeting with the boys one night and the famous scar on his face? The one that gave him the nickname he grokking hates? That jaggedy mess of mangled tissue that looked like a railroad track map from hell running upside Big Al’s face was gone like it had never been.
And nobody but me noticed! What the grok is that all about?
Not a word was said about it! Not a word about Al’s miraculously rejuvenated mug from the resident brainiac Frankie “Digits” Gallo even when he’s sitting just three feet away from the Boss at the boardroom table. If anybody but me should have noticed it’s this guy.
Didge is our trusted numbers guy, a master of finances and discreet laundering. Digits Gallo pays intense attention to detail, which is why we pay him.
Yet he somehow fails to notice that the notorious Big Al Kapone now has a complexion smoother than a cute baby’s tookus on a Suntan billboard ad?
Gimme a break. Tell me something ain’t going on. I’m wondering if somebody’s doping up the Boss just to grok things up with us, maybe mess up the money machines we’ve got dropping millions in our lap from Shytown and all across the USNA into their own laps, whoever ‘they’ might be.
But Big Al’s boys ain’t slouches, or resting on their laurels. And yah-dammit, believe you me brother. When the capos and the best minds in your organization don’t see what you see it blows your grokking mind.
Ruthless but reliable minds like Tommy Two-Times” Vercetti’s. Tommy’s the operations expert, and another of our Esther Street alumni. Tommy’s known for his meticulous planning, whether he’s setting up a shoe-shine stand, a heist, or a union. His frame-ups are always squared away. If a garotte is good for a contract hit, a garotte and a bullet to the forehead is better. More reassuring for the contracting parties that like double coverage when it comes to tying up loose ends.
The tag fits him twice over too, since he’s got a rep in Shytown for paying you back two times over. Put 10 grand into a Tommy Two-Times heist and he brings you back 20K no questions asked. Every time.
On the flip side of that coin though, if you hit one of Tommy T’s guys you’d better plan on losing two. If Tommy Two-Times happens to be in a generous mood, that is. He doesn’t always let his nickname set the limit and if he’s pissed off things can get “exponential” in a hurry. No questions asked there either. Every time.
The two babes downstairs are in living luxury, in outrageous boudoirs they think they deserve. Their love nests are just under my pentonhouse in Big Al’s mansion by the lake. The pillow talk they’re having about Big Al is playing back again on the new TV spy gadget I’ve been building and I’m getting worried. (I’m a radio ham among other things, and have been since I could hold a soldering iron). Anyways, Big Al Kapone, the Boss, the Yahfather of the whole grokking USNA is going wonky. Case closed. Spying on the girls got me no relief from my worries either.
Now I know it’s not just me being paranoid. Big Al’s going clean, going straight, going nice. Getting soft. Showing mercy. Doing a 180. I don’t know how mafias work in your neck of Armstrong Cascade Earths, but In our dog-eat-dog underworld here on the ACE Earth line, in our year 1939, that’s the easiest way to get yourself fit with a new pair of cement shoes.
I’m going round and round here so I decide I’ll pass on a moonlight booty call to Clarity Bell’s and head down to Ralph’s tavern to get some people around me and dump my troubles and maybe cry into my bourbon if not on my favorite bartender’s shoulder.
Raphael’s Tavern at 21 Fleek Street Alley
Eddie the Wrench Malone
I walk through the batwing doors into Ralph’s place down Fleek Street, really just a narrow alley just off Esther Street that still has ancient Bulgian blocks for pavement. A few lushes of both sexes nurse green bottles and brown blunts in the back corner booths, and a lap dance or two is probably in progress in the darkest corners. But I’m relieved that me and Ralph will have the long walnut bar to ourselves here at 21 Fleek Street.
Unless you’re a millionaire, you can’t buy a condo or a townhouse on Esther Street now. Not since Big Al and our boys and the unions and corporations we got our hands in and the greasy politicians we got our hands on by the throat, leveled the place and made it high-end unaffordable for the normal working stiffs long ago.
But Fleek Street never got on our revenue radar I guess. Or maybe we all wanted to preserve a piece of our past for nostalgic reasons. So Raphael’s Tavern was still the same speakeasy saloon it was when we were kids. Ageless Ralph Martin behind the bar was there even back then to chase out us kids with a broom and a hand-out of ice cream money for all as part of the daily game. But Ralph was no sissy.
Not by a long shot.
My Favorite Martin
Ralph was the first guy to hand me my first $100 C-note after me and Mr. Badwrench made our debut back in the day, taking out the funny uncle who was stupid enough to look for innocent prey in Fleek Alley, as it was known back then.
Calling him Ralphie is our way of kidding old Raphael, but he loves it, never corrects us, and it ain’t out of fear or ass-kissing to keep us local mobsters happy. He’s known us all as Esther Street urchins after all, and even if he didn’t, our unofficial neighborhood guardian angel doesn’t fear much.
I belly up to the polished black walnut bar and I’m immediately enveloped in the nostalgic tranquility that just being here provides as I contemplate the reflections in the bar-length mirror above sparkling rows of bottles back there. Spirits bottles they are. It’s a sight long overdue for my sore eyes. I swivel back and forth on my favorite stool as my tired elbows take their assigned places on the spotless ebony bar. It’s the comfort of continuity, me on my stool at Ralph’s.
The red gnawgahide cushion on the stool knows me well, a butt-friendly anchor in my volatile life since Big Al Kapone and even a long time before that day when young cocky Scarface Kapone busted into our lives off the train from New Manhattan.
I feel my frazzled nerves settling down in the incense of age-old hemp ghosts and stale beer spirits that refuse to dissipate in the old saloon.
Ralph Martin, my favorite bartender, approaches winding up to slide my usuals down the bar to me without bothering to ask, (a cannablend cigar and a double Daniel Jack bourbon, no rocks). I feel as transparent to him as the bourbon glass sliding to rest perfectly in front of me. His smile is close-lipped and subtle between a distinguished graying goatee and a pencil-thin razor-trimmed mustache as he places the cannablend cigar between my lips and flicks a Zeppo lighter that’s been around since the Kaiser got his spiked helmet shoved up his ass back in World War First.
Ralph’s steely green eyes are locked on to mine like he’s already fully aware that something strange is going on in our lives and he’s just waiting for little Eddie to spill the beans like he always does when the shit hits the fan. Raphael Martin is the smartest guy I know, always has been, always will be.
Ralph reminds me of that Roy Walton guy, the brilliant character actor who played the super-smart benevolent alien in the old “Me and My Martian” movies. Walton later cemented his place in the inter-spatial movie database when he was the no-nonsense history teacher who takes on stoner surfer Jed Spudcolli in the comedy Last Times at Fridgemont High. They were stellar roles that made both Walton and Spudcolli actor Sean Pencil celebrities on the golden screen.
In our timeline at least, I don’t know about yours. In any case, if they ever make a bio-movie about Big Al Kapone and his cronies, Roy Walton is the perfect actor to play Ralph Martin the bartender.
“Well, Mr. Malone? Something on your mind? Trouble with Miss Clarity? Or perhaps your dog died? Why the sour puss?”. Ralph isn’t chatting idly, never does, and he’s busy washing glasses in the deep sink behind the bar as he stays within confidential earshot. Then before I can answer he drops everything, walks to me a few paces, spreads out his arms with palms flat on the bar, looks me dead in both of my baby blues, and says before I can answer “Worried that a certain ‘nice guy-come-lately might have us all finishing last, as it were?”
“So you noticed! You see it too! I’m not the only one. Oh, thank Yah Ralph!” I celebrate my relief with a big gulp of Jack. Then I figure, oh what the grok, and down the rest of the double. “I thought I was the only one! Tommy Two-Times and Didge Gallo don’t seem to see what’s going on.”
“Could it be a case of the Emperor’s Clothes repeating itself? Nobody in Big Al’s organization with sufficient, as you put it ‘cojones’ to bring up such a controversial subject? After all young Edward, mentioning Albert Kapone’s disfigured face has proven to be quite deadly in the past.” Ralph’s already setting up my next drink, but this time it’s a single and not a double Jack.
With me set up, Ralph ambled back to the deep sink and resumed the neverending chore of washing glasses.
“Recall if you will, Edward, that poor unfortunate reporter from the Shytown Tribune who shouted ‘Welcome to the big city Scarface’, way back when Big Al first made his debut at Esther Street Station and declared that nobody calls him ‘Scarface’ to his mutilated face. That poor soul was in critical condition for a week after Al worked him over with his favorite Lewisville Slugger.”
“Yeah, my friend, but now Didge Gallo tells me we just shelled out a big chunk of dough for Big Al’s latest racket. The Lewisville Sluggers Baseball Camp For Kids. And we’re not talking about a couple of little league fields on vacant lots here and there. Grokking Big Al bought the whole grokking town of Lewisville for this new thing of his.”
“I see your point. Definitely out of character, and dangerous as hell I might add, considering that most of your organization doesn’t share their Yahfather’s new altruistic streak, and his odd behavior is hitting them where it hurts, right in their gator-skinned wallets. But rest assured young Edward, you’re not alone in this. Are you packing tonight?”
“Of course, you know me, Ralphie. I got my trusty Bolt 45 and I never leave home without it. Why?” I pat my shoulder holster under my pinstriped suit jacket, to reassure us both.
“Oh, I think it might come in quite handy in a moment or two, Edward. Look outside.”
Through the frosty picture window on the alley side of the bar, we can see two Kadillacs screech to a halt out front. I recognize Tommy Two-Times Kaddy, the ridiculous pink and black one that I repainted in two tones for obvious reasons at that egomaniac Tommy T’s request. Digits Gallo’s Kaddy is more dignified, jet glossy black, a long ominous ominous-looking hearse ready for an old-fashioned funeral procession. With plenty of room for soldiers if you need them to help fill the cemetery.
Ralph calmly withdraws two well-oiled Tommy guns from behind the bar and slides one down to me.
“As always redundancy rules Mr. Malone”, Ralph reminds me.
The dark tavern comes alive with light, as gun cabinets open and the “lushes” providing the sultry atmosphere typical of Raphael’s Tavern at 21 Fleek Street Alley suddenly wake from their usual reveries, emerging from their lurid dark corners with more automatic weapons that were stashed there for just such an occasion.
“Ok, folks, everybody down if you will.” The tavern patrons drop obediently just as the picture window on the Fleek Alley side explodes in a hail of machine gun fire. Digits Gallo stays wisely inside his Kaddy hearse while his crew of six soldiers do the hot work with their tommies, spraying in long bursts of fire that have us inside wondering if those magazines will ever just run the grok out of ammo.
I recognize Nico “Nightshade” Navarro as he rises like the devil from Gallo’s death delivery machine and commences spraying the place with gusto, a tommy gun burping away in each arm. Nico was the capo milking little Lewisville for everything he could squeeze from the poor burb just south of Shytown, and I guess he isn’t too happy with Big Al’s revised plan for his turf.
But while Capo Gallo observes in safety from behind bullet-proof windows, the other underboss, crazy Tommy Two-Times Vincetti is right out there in front hosing the place down with a 50-caliber tommy gun in each arm and screaming like the maniac he is.
“Tommy Two-Times says hello, you grokking goodie-two-shoe bastards! You want grokking Lewisville kiddie bullshit that’s gonna cost me 2 million big ones! I don’t grokkin’ think so assholes. So here’s my donation! Some slugs for the cause! ”
More glass flies, more furniture fragments in wild walnut shards, and more of us down on the tavern floor tighten our sphincters while we wait for what seems two times as long as we should for the ceasefire from Tommy T’s twin 50s.
By now I’m behind the bar with Ralph, crouching for cover like two soldiers in a foxhole. I’m wondering if we should hit them back right now since every ‘lush’ in the bar is now armed and ready behind flipped walnut tables amidst the glass shrapnel and spilled liquor puddles all over the tavern’s black and white checked fine oleum floor.
As I start to rise up to return fire Ralph’s wise old hand rests on my gun arm and I ease back down and look at the steely-eyed but serene expression on Ralph Martin’s benevolent face.
“Wait for it, my good ladies and gentlemen. Wait…for…it ..” As Ralph hunkers down even further I get a lucky ‘periscope’ peak, up at the bar mirror where I can see the hit crews retreating to their getaway Kadillacs as red and blue cop lights and wailing sirens fill the air.
Doors slam and a moment later as keys turn ignitions two Kaddies explode in twin fireballs that make the Hinterburg zeppelin disaster look like a little kid’s Romulan candle.
Like I said, Ralph Martin might be a real guardian angel but he ain’t no pussy.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen! It appears that there may still be joy in Lewisville tonight after all,” says Ralph. Then he claps his hands as he walks around the room assessing the damage as if it happens every day. “Now, if you all will kindly pick up your brooms and shovels we can all get to work tidying up this mess. Chop-chop now, you too Edward. Rank has no privileges here, so fetch that legendary toolbox of yours, we’ve got lots of work ahead.”
As I dutifully dump a shovelful of glass in the bin out in Fleek Alley I notice two dames out there taking a blunt break. The tall brunette beauty in the trenchcoat is Lena “The Lark” Morozov. Fresh off the boat from Ismael, with a knack for espionage and intelligence gathering. I’ve used her myself on occasion if you get my drift.
The two women go from discreet giggling to laughing hysterically every time they look at the blast crater full of melted-down metal where the two mobsters’ Kadillacs used to be. They crack up into belly-clutching hilarity when a two-tone pink and black necktie that has to be the late Tommy Two-Times’ without a doubt, comes snaking down back to earth in a cloud of settling dust and debris.
The other dame toking and joking with Lena is platinum-blonde Gina “Gears” Falcone. She’s one of our transport and logistics wizards, and whether it’s cars or coke, Falcone Express always delivers.
Even when it’s a Fleek Street bomb or two, planted like an insurance seed days ago, under a couple of conveniently loose Bulgian blocks. I decide right then and there, that whatever team these folks are playing for?
That’s the team that me and Mr. Badwrench want to be on. Whether Big Al Kapone likes it or not, though I have a nagging suspicion that things are working out just like the Boss wanted, and maybe the nice guys just might not be the ones who always have to finish last.
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