54
Frank had been retired for a while back in ’97.
Retired from thelife anyway. No more limo business, no more strip clubs, no more OC. He was working his bait shop, his fish business, his linen service, and his rental managements when Mike Pella came to him to talk about taking back Vegas.
“Take itback?” Frank asked. “When did we everhave it?”
They were on OB Pier, walking off a heavy lunch at the OBP Cafe. Mike had aged. There was a lot of silver in that black hair, and the wide shoulders, though still wide, were a little stooped.
“Las Vegas should beour thing,” Mike told him. “Not New York’s, not Chicago’s-L.A.’s.”
Deck chairs on theTitanic, Frank thought. A bunch of hyenas squabbling over a dried-up skeleton. There’s nothing tohave in Vegas, not since Donnie Garth turned state’s evidence and RICO shut the whole thing down. Anyway, Las Vegas is Family Town, USA now, Disney World with blackjack. It’s all corporations now.
Lawyers and guys with M.B.A.’s.
“Peter is ready to make a move,” Mike said. “Take back what’s ours. Make our family a real family again.”
“How many times have we heard this ‘real family’ chorus?” Frank asked. “We heard it from Bap, we heard it from Locicero, then Regace, then Mouse before he went away the first time, Mouse before he went away thesecond time…”
“It’s for real this time.”
“What makes this time different?”
Herbie Goldstein, Mike told him.
Fat Herbie? Frank thought. Pavarotti look-alike Herbie, the Will Rogers of the pastry counter? The man who never met a doughnut he didn’t like? This guy is Mouse’s ticket to the show?
Time had not been kind to Herbie. He’d done an eight-year stretch for using funny plastic and stealing stamps. Stealing stamps, that’s what it had come to, Frank thought. In prison, Herbie’d had not one but two bypass operations and a couple of toes amputated because of diabetes. Now he was out, running an auto-body shop so he could launder shylock money through it and dick insurance companies on car repairs at the same time.
“Herbie doesn’t have any juice,” Frank said.
“He does now,” Mike said.
Turned out that Herbie had the arm on a billionaire casino owner named Teddy Binion, who gave Herbie $100,000 to put on the street. Then Herbie did a very smart thing: He turned it all over to an Indian.
“An Indian?” Frank asked.
“Indiangambling?” Mike prompted. “This guy goes to reservations, gets them to build a casino, gets the management contractand the shy business on the chronic losers. He’s getting from both ends-he gets the skim, and he gets the vig from the money he puts out on the street, or the dirt roads, or whatever the fuck they have on these places. Chief Running Deer, or whatever the fuck his name is, kicks to Herbie, who kicks to Binion, who has a wicked coke and showgirl habit, which Herbie provides him both.”
“So?”
“So,” Mike explained, “Binion is in hot water with the Nevada Gambling Commission over his drug use and his friendship with known mobster Herbie Goldstein. He’s a half hour from seeing his name in the Black Book, which means he’ll be forced to sell the casino. So he’s going to let Herbie come and bust it out, skim the fucking shit out of it.
“And get this,” Mike said. “Binion trusts Herbie so much, he gave him all his jewelry-hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth-for ‘safekeeping.’ Herbie’s got them in a safe in his house.”
He held up his wrist and showed Frank his new Patek Philippe watch. “Herbie let me have it for a grand.”
So much for “safekeeping,” Frank thought.
“Herbie,” Mike says, “is going to bust out Binion’s casino. He’s getting a taste of the Indian skim, a slice of the shy. Plus, he’s using that auto shop of his to scam insurance companies and fence half the stolen shit in Nevada.”
“Good for Herbie.”
“Good forus, ” Mike said. “We’re going to partner with him.”
“Herbieagreed to that?”
“Not yet,” Mike said. “That’s where you come in.”
Frank leaned over the railing and looked down at the blue water. “No, that’s where Idon’t come in. I like Herbie. We’re old friends. He turned me on to onion bagels. Not a small thing, Mike.”
“I like Herbie, too,” Mike said. “We’re not going to clip him, just explain to him that it’s not right he should eat alone when his friends are hungry. We’ll have a little sit-down, and I figure if he seesyou there…Besides, I want you to have this shot. It’s your chance to be aplayer. You want to sell bait the rest of your life?”
As a matter of fact, Frank thought, I do.
That would be just fine.
“Mouse Senior asked me to ask you,” Mike said. “He would consider it a favor.”
Which, translated, meant it was a command performance.
They met at Denny’s.
Denny’s, Frank remembers thinking at the time. This is what it’s come to-lunch meetings at Denny’s. Shiny menus and greasy chins. The Martini brothers were studying the menu like it was theDaily Racing Form, arguing over the “Fresh Catch of the Day” item.
“You see a ocean out there?” Carmen asked, pointing out the window at the desert.
“No,” Mouse Senior answered.
“Then how the fuck can it be fresh?”
“I think it means it was fresh when they froze it,” Mouse Senior replied. “Here’s Frank. Ask him. Hesells fish.”
“What about it, Frankie?”
“They catch it, flash-freeze it, then overnight it,” Frank told him, taking a seat next to Mike.
“Is thisyour fish?” Mouse Senior asked him.
“I don’t sell to chains.”
“So, should he get the fish?” Carmen asked.
“No.”
Frank felt like his head was about to come off. The sheer tedium…
Mouse Senior set his menu down. “Thanks for coming, Frank.”
“No problem, Peter.”
Carmen nodded his thanks and Frank nodded back.
It took about a year and a half to order, all on separate checks.
Frank asked for an iced tea.
“That’s it?” Mouse Senior asked. “That’s what you’re having for lunch? An iced tea?”
“That’s all I want,” Frank said.
“That’s, like, antisocial,” Mike said.
“No offense intended,” Frank replied.
The truth was that Frank liked food too much to eat any of this stuff, and, more important, he had a lunch date following this summit meeting. He had met this stunning dancer named Donna the night before at the Tropicana. She had said she’d go to lunch with him but not dinner, and he was going to take her out to someplace really nice.
“Let’s get down to business,” Carmen said when the food arrived. “Herbie Goldstein.”
“He’s a greedy, selfish miser,” Mouse Senior said, a little dab of tuna salad on the corner of his lip. “That fat Jew boy is making money hand over fist and not paying anybody.”
“‘Fat Jew boy’?” Frank said. “What’s that?”
“What, you’re Herbie’s big friend all of a sudden?” Mouse Senior asked.
“No, I’ve been his friend foryears, ” Frank said. “So have all of you.”
“Do you know the money he’s fucking making?” Mike asked. “Just the fenced shit he has in his fucking house is probably worth a fortune, and he hoards money in there, too.”
“Frank,” Carmen said. “He has to share.”
“I know,” Frank said.
“So?” Mouse asked.
“I’ll talk to him,” Frank said. “Give me a chance to talk to him.”
“Not you alone,” Carmen said.
“Me and Mike.”
“Mike, you good with that?” Mouse asked.
Mike nodded.
“Today,” Carmen insisted.
“Tonight,” Frank said.
Everybody looked at him.
“I have a date today,” Frank said.
It was agreed-Frank and Mike would have a talk with Herbie that night, and get him on board.
“But Frank,” Mouse said, “if Herbie doesn’t do the right thing, then…”
“Then I’ll take care of it,” Frank said.
Then it will go the other way, he thought.
And that was it. The guys finished their meals, happy with the knowledge that they were about to use Fat Herbie Goldstein to bankroll their takeover of Las Vegas, then went up to the counter to pay their separate checks. Frank said his good-byes, visited the men’s room, and waited there until they had all left. Then he walked past the table and saw just what he’d expected.