This was what Billy Brooks was facing, and it was a problem, because Eddie Monaco was a tough guy and he had his own mob connections. If Billy just took Eddie out-like he ought to-he could have serious problems with the Migliores. It was an interesting dilemma.
Truth was, everyone was watching to see how Billy Brooks would handle the situation.
“I’m in a hell of a situation here, Mike,” Billy said.
That’s all he had to say, all he had to say, and Frank knew that Eddie Monaco was a dead man.
Mike Pella was never a guy to let any grass grow under his feet.
“There’s money in tits and ass,” Mike had told Frank all those years ago. “Big.”
Frank wasn’t so sure if Mike had meant big tits, big asses, or big money, but whatever he’d meant, he’d been dying to get into the topless club business, and this was his chance. The very next day, New Year’s Day, 1987, Mike went to Eddie’s condo in La Jolla. Mike waited until noon, because Eddie probably hadn’t gone to bed until eight or nine in the morning.
Eddie opened the door, blurry-eyed.
Smiled when he saw it was Mike.
“Hey, guy, what-”
Mike shot him in the face three times.
Billy Brooks got instant respect, and a piece of the Pinto Club.
Mike figured that if Billy had a piece of the club, that meant that he did, too. Now Mike wasn’t just dropping customers off at the door, or coming in for an occasional drink; he started hanging around the club all the time, like he was one of the owners, which in his view, he was.
All of Mike’s crew started hanging there-Bobby Bats, Johnny Brizzi, Rocky Corazzo-and Mike would comp their drinks, their meals, their back-room blow jobs. Mike was running up a tab at the Pinto as long as his arm, and Pat Walsh didn’t have the stones to ask him to pay, and neither did Billy, and Mike never thought anything of it.
He figured Billy owed him.
Which he did.
And Mike being Mike, he wasn’t content to take the freebies, sit back, and watch the money roll in. No, he had to squeeze the club for everything it was worth. What he did was, he started selling the girls their coke.
It was a lucrative sideline-sell blow to the girls, let them build up an expensive habit, then put them out to the business trade to let them pay for their jones. Then take 50 percent of their hooker money.
Mike even bought an apartment building near the club andgave the girls the first and last month’s rent, knowing that the coke habit would take the rest of the rent money. Angie Basso and Georgie Y were always there to shy the girls the rent money, and then they really had them hooked.
The girls could never catch up, and that was the point.
Pretty soon, Mike was gettingall their money-their tips, their hooker money, their porn money. That was Mike’s next entrepreneurial maneuver-take a girl who was hopelessly behind on the vig and the rent and give her the chance to make some money doing a porn video.
A year down this road, Billy came to Frank about it.
“He’s going to ruin the business,” Billy said. “The cops are all over the place. I’ve had five girls-count them, five-busted on drug and prostitution charges. He has a six-figure bar tab…”
“What do you wantme to do?” Frank asked. “I just drive a limo.” Thinking, you brought him in on this, Billy. “You didn’t want Mike, you should have handled your problems yourself.”
“Yeah, butshit, Frank.”
“Shitnothing, Billy.”
Anyway, Frank thought, I have problems of my own.
Like a divorce.
Patty was threatening one.
I can’t really blame her, Frank thought. I’m always working, I’m never home, and when I am home, I’m asleep. Other than that, she spends most of her time wondering where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m doing-even though I’ve told her fifty thousand times I’m not sleeping with the girls.
Still, they had argued about it, and the last fight had been a doozy.
“You knew the deal,” Frank had said. “You knew who I was when you married me.”
“I thought you were a fisherman.”
“Yeah, right,” Frank said. “Frank Baptista, Chris Panno, Mike Pella, Jimmy Forliano come to a fisherman’s wedding with envelopes of cash. You grew up in the neighborhood, Patty. You’re a smart woman. Don’t go Diane Keaton on me now.”
“You’re fucking other women!”
“Watch your language.”
Patty laughed. “What, you cando it, but I can’tsay it?”
“If you did moredoing it thansaying it,” Frank heard himself say, “I might not be so tempted to do it!”
“Whenam I supposed to do it!” Patty asked. “You’re never here!”
“I’m out putting food on the table!”
“A lot of men put food on the table and still come home at night!”
“Well, I guess they’re smarter than I am!”
She told him if things didn’t change, she was going to file.
Frank had all this on his mind when Billy was bitching about Mike running the Pinto Club into the ground.
“It’s none of my business,” he told Billy. “You have a problem with Mike, take it up with Mike.”
Yeah, good advice.
Three nights later, Mike grabbed Frank at the bar and told him they needed to have a little talk with Billy. “This guy is giving me shit. Can you believe it?” Mike said. “This fucking ungrate.”
“That’sin grate.”
Mike blinked. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Because it’sun grateful, notin grateful,” Mike said.
“I just did it on a puzzle,” Frank said. He was spending a lot of his waiting time these days doing crossword puzzles. “I looked it up.”
“Anyway,” Mike said. “We gotta straighten this fucking Billy out.”
“Mike, I don’t have to straighten anyone out,” Frank said. Then he thought better of it-Mike had a quick temper. Who the hell knows what could happen, Frank told himself. He decided he’d better go along as a moderating influence.
They went for a cruise in Frank’s limo, east on Kettner into the warehouse district. Billy brought Georgie Y along for protection. Frank drove, Georgie Y rode in the front with him, and Mike and Billy sat in the back, arguing.
Mike sounded hurt.
Heis hurt, Frank thought. That was the funny thing-Mike really loved the club, thought he had a stake in it, and here Billy was, intimating (puzzle word) that hehadn’t actually hurt Mike’s feelings.
“Why are you hassling me, Billy?” Mike asked. “Why are you busting balls? I’m just trying to make a living here.”
“So am I!”
“So make! Who’s stopping you?”
“You are!” Billy said. “You got half my girls hooked on coke. You got them out turning tricks, doing porn-”
“You want a piece of their shy, Billy? Is that it?” Mike said. “Why didn’t you say? I’ll cut you in. Just come to me like a man and say-”
But Billy’s on a bitching roll, Frank thought, like a woman. Once they get started, they’re not happy just solving the problem. No, they have to vent. So Billy just can’t take the offer of good money. No, he has to-
“The cops are all over the place,” Billy continued. “We could lose our fucking liquor license, and speaking of liquor, Mike-”
“What?”
“Jesus, thebar tab you and your crew have run up-”
“What, you counting our drinks, you fucking mutt?”
“C’mon,” Frank said. “You guys are friends.”
“You’re counting ourdrinks?” Mike said. “You cheap-ass, nickel-and-dime piece of shit-”
“Hey!” Billy said.
“‘Hey’ nothing, you ingrate,” Mike said. “You wouldn’thave the fucking club, it wasn’t for me.”
“Whoa,” said Billy. “I didn’task you to clip Eddie.”
That was a mistake, Frank thought. That was the wrong thing to say. Mike just went off.
“You didn’t ask? You didn’task?” Mike said. “You didn’thave toask, because you were myfriend, Billy, and if you had a problem, which you did, it wasmy problem, too. You didn’task?”
“I didn’t ask you to-”