As Pete reached for the telephone, Fenner made his way back to the restaurant.
He found Paula talking animatedly to a slim, handsome gigolo who was leaning over her, looking with interest down the front of her dress.
Fenner gave him a heavy nudge.
“Okay, buster, set sail and fade away.”
The gigolo looked quickly at Fenner’s massive shoulders and his pugnacious jaw and he hurriedly backed away.
“Don’t let this ape worry you,” Paula said. “Brush him off. One good smack in the jaw will fix him.”
But the gigolo was already in retreat halfway across the room.
“Hi, baby, I’m surprised at the company you keep,” Fenner said, smiling at her.
Paula leaned back in her chair and smiled at him.
“Did your Italian friend spit in your eye?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t want to. Come on, baby. I want to go to bed.”
She looked interested.
“Alone?”
“Yeah, alone,” Fenner said, piloting her out of the restaurant. “I want all my strength for tomorrow. I’m calling on Anna Borg and from what I hear, she’s more than a handful.”
Paula got into the car and straightened her skirt.
“Isn’t she a stripper?”
“Yeah,” Fenner said and grinned. “Don’t look so prim; just because she is, I don’t have to be one of that fan dancer’s fans.”
Chapter sixteen
Chief of Police Brennan had been right when he had told Fenner that the Grisson gang had taken over the Paradise Club, but he had been wrong when he had said the gang had bought out the owner, Toni Rocco.
Rocco had been ruthlessly squeezed out.
Ma Grisson with Eddie and Flynn had called on Rocco and had explained just why it would be more healthy for him to hand the club over to her and accept her generous offer of one percent of the profits.
At one time Rocco had been a successful jockey. He was a tiny man and Ma’s vast, menacing presence frightened him. Although he didn’t make much money out of his club, bought from his horse racing savings, he was proud of it. To give it up was to give up his dearest possession, but he was smart enough to know if he didn’t give it up, he wouldn’t last long and Rocco wasn’t ready to die just yet.
Ma saw no reason why she should spend good money for the club when she knew she could get it for nothing. Although she had now a half a million dollars to play with, the structural alterations she had in mind, the furnishings, the kitchen equipment, the mirrors and the lighting would cost plenty. She told Rocco a one-percent cut on the profits was fair and generous and she waved aside his muttered protest that a five-percent cut would be more acceptable.
“Use your head, my friend,” she said, smiling her wolfish smile. “One percent of anything is better than nothing. There’s a bunch of tough boys who have had their eyes on this club for some time. Before long they will shake you down for protection. Once they start on you, they’ll bleed you white. If you don’t pay, one of them will plant a bomb in here. If we take over the club, they’ll fade away. They know it wouldn’t be safe to threaten us.”
Rocco knew very well there were no tough boys, but he was also sure if he didn’t surrender the club, one of the Grisson gang would plant a bomb on him.
So he signed away his rights to the club with deceptive humility. The partnership agreement that Ma’s attorney drew up was a complicated document that said a lot and meant nothing. Rocco hadn’t even the right to check the books. Whatever came to him came as a favor. He had a shrewd idea that his cut of the profits wouldn’t be worth the trouble to collect.
Ma Grisson was very satisfied with the transaction, but she might not have been so satisfied had she known that Rocco had promised himself that he would settle his account with the Grisson gang. Sooner or later, he told himself, an opportunity must arise, and when it did, the old bitch would regret having done what she had done to him.
Because of his apparent mildness and his size, no one, least of all Ma Grisson, realized what a dangerous enemy Rocco could be. Behind the dark, thin Italian features, there dwelt a cunning, ruthless and vicious mentality.
Rocco got himself a job as a collector for the local numbers racket. He didn’t like the job, but he had to earn a living now that he had lost the club. As he walked the streets, entering shabby apartments, climbing stairs until his legs ached, he brooded about the Grisson gang. Sooner or later, he kept promising himself he would fix them and when he did fix them, they would stay fixed.
Ma Grisson had selected the Paradise Club not only because she could get it for nothing but also because of its convenient position.
The two-storied building stood in a small courtyard off one of the main avenues. It was sandwiched between a warehouse and a clock factory: both these buildings were deserted between six p.m. and eight a.m.
The club building was so situated that in the event of a police raid, the doorman would have ample time to sound the warning bell. The building was impossible to surround.
One of the first things Ma ordered was a three-inch thick steel door with a judas window made of bulletproof glass. This door took the place of the previous door to the entrance of the club. All the windows of the building were fitted with steel shutters which could slam shut at the touch of a button on Ma’s desk.
In a surprisingly short time, Ma had converted the club into a fortress. She had constructed a secret staircase that led from the upper floor into the basement of the adjacent warehouse. Unknown to the owner of the warehouse, it was now possible to enter and leave the club unseen through the warehouse.
The decor of the club had been executed by an expensive but clever decorator. The reception hall was in white and gilt with rose-colored mirrors. To the right was the restaurant and dance floor, designed to resemble a vast cave with stalactites hanging from the ceiling and niches around the room for favored customers who wished to see, but not to be seen. The room was lit by green fluorescent tubes that cast an intriguing but ghostly light, creating an atmosphere at once decadent and neurotic.
At the far end of the restaurant, guarded by another three-inch thick steel door was the gambling room with roulette and baccarat tables. Leading from the gambling room was Ma’s office and another room used by the gang to entertain their own special friends.
Upstairs were six bedrooms for the use of high paying customers who wanted relaxation with their girlfriends without the necessity of leaving the club. At the far end of the corridor was a locked door leading to Miss Blandish’s suite.
Two months after Ma Grisson had squeezed Rocco out of business, the club was reopened and became an immediate hit.
The cave restaurant was the talk of the town. It was the fashionable thing to become a member of the club, and here Ma showed her genius for running a club. She announced in the press that the membership was strictly limited to 300 members. The entrance fee was three hundred dollars. There was an immediate rush of applicants. Had she wished, Ma could have had over five thousand members within a week of opening. Refusing to be tempted, and resisting the pressure of the other members of the gang who yelled to her to take the suckers’ money, she selected three hundred names from the mass of names sent in, carefully choosing only the most influential and wealthy members of Kansas City’s society.
“This way,” she told the gang, “we get class. I know what I’m doing. I don’t want a lot of hoodlums in here, making trouble. This joint is going to be the best in town; you wait and see.”
Both Flynn and Woppy were intimidated by the grandeur of the club. Woppy was scared to go into the kitchens where three chefs, bribed away from the best hotels in the City, presided. His dream of being head cook evaporated at the sight of these experts in their high chef’s caps and their trained, efficient methods.