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MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER SEE/Empires of Crime/Part 6

Published on November 7, 2011 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: BOYS FROM BRAZIL, bugsy seigel, FORT APACHE the bronx, HEYWOOD GOULD, jewish gangsters Cocktail, lucky luciano, MAFIA, meyer lansky, Mobsters, Movies, NY governor, one good cop, rolling thunder, screenplay publishing, screenplay submission, screenplay writing, screenplays, script writing, thomas dewey, trial by jury, writing.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 6

By

Heywood Gould

ACT THREE

NEW YORK, 1918

INT. MOVIE THEATER. NIGHT.

ON SCREEN—a NEWSREEL shows AMERICAN TROOPS disembarking from a ship, greeted by CHEERING CROWDS…The AUDIENCE SINGS “OVER THERE” The subtitle reads:”WAR OVER…`100,000 AMERICAN TROOPS COME HOME VICTORIOUS. PAN TO the AUDIENCE where Meyer and Benny watch with their young GIRLFRIENDS… The AUDIENCE is singing the popular WWI tune:

AUDIENCE
And we won’t give up/’Til
it’s over/Over there…

BENNY
(singing)
Eighteen bucks a month
them doughboys were
gettin’. Over there…

MEYER
(sings back)
Eighteen bucks a month.
A hundred thousand guys.
We coulda run some crap

INT. FAT AL’S NIGHT.

A raucous Lower East Side dive, smoke filled, festive, crude. A JAZZ BAND swings. Meyer, Benny and their girls push through the writhing COUPLES on the dance floor to their table.

BENNY’S GIRL
I never been to a place like
this….

BENNY
Yeah and you learned how
to smooch from a rabbi…

MEYER
(to his girl)
Get a drink, doll, I’m gonna
look over the action…

He walks over to a noisy CRAP TABLE.

CHARLEY
Stick’ em up, pal…

Meyer turns and sees Charley older and harder, but with the same mischievous glint in his eye. He is dressed in the loud colors of a street pimp. There are two cold eyed THUGS standing behind him.

Meyer hugs him, gleefully.

MEYER
Hey Salvatore.

CHARLEY
(returning the hug)
Not Salvatore no more. It’s
Charley, Charley Luciano,
Maier.

MEYER
It’s Meyer Lansky now. I
got sick of people callin’
me the Mayor.

CHARLEY
Yeah and I learned my lesson
in the can. All these guys
callin’ me Sally like I was a
girl.

MEYER
I bet you made ‘em sorry.
The two laugh and pound
each other on the back.

CHARLEY
I missed you guys.

MEYER
Yeah me too. We don’t know
where to go for the good
spaghetti…

CHARLEY
You still with that bughouse
shlammer?

Benny runs over, laughing and grabs Charley in a bear hug.

BENNY
What’d you call me?

CHARLEY
(fingers Benny’s loud suit)
How many guys you rob to
get those rags?

BENNY
A broad bought it for me.

MEYER
So, you makin’ money?

CHARLEY
(flashing a HUGE ROLL)
What do you call this?

Benny pulls out a big WAD of BILLS.

BENNY
Mine’s bigger.

CHARLEY
How about you, Meyer?

Meyer takes out a couple of crumpled bills.

MEYER
I hide my money in my
sister’s drawers…

BENNY
And if you know his sister
that’s the safest place in
the world…

CHARLEY
You guys wanna go for corned
beef?

BENNY
We’ll dump our girls. You
dump yours.

The two thugs move up with menacing glares, but Charley restrains them.

CHARLEY
This here’s Albert Anastasia
and Vito Genovese.

MEYER
Hiya boys…Just jokin’.
Seeya at Bernstein’s,
Charley..

As they walk away…

ANASTASIA
Whaddya wanna hang out with
those Hebes?

CHARLEY
I was runnin’ with Meyer
before I knew you was
alive. Them guys are my
best friends.

INT. DELICATESSEN. NIGHT

Charley is wolfing down a corned beef sandwich while Benny tells a war story.

BENNY
So the guy says you gonna
fight me you little shrimp
and Meyer knocks him ass
over tin cup…

CHARLEY
You gotta have a little
Sicilian in you, Meyer. The
way you drop a guy just for
lookin’ funny at you.

MEYER
And you gotta have a little
Jew, the way you love that
corned beef. Hey, see that
guy sittin’ with Lepke.

ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN

Mid forties, elegant in a top hat and evening clothes is gobbling deli with Buchalter and Shapiro. He waves over at Meyer.

MEYER
That’s Arnold Rothstein.
They call him The Brain…
The guy owns every politician
in town.

CHARLEY
So what’s he doin’ with those
headbusters?

MEYER
He owns them, too. Sets up all
the labor deals. High class
gamblin’ joints. Does it with
class. No shlammin’, no shootin’.
If you woulda known him you
wouldn’t have spent a minute in
jail.

BENNY
How’d you get caught anyway,
a smart guy like you?

CHARLEY
Cops grabbed me with a hatbox
of full of nose candy.

MEYER
You still sellin’ hop to
hooers?

CHARLEY
It’s a good business. Little
package big money. I’d be
walkin’ around today if that
pimp Motchie hadn’t ratted
me out.

BENNY
Can’t let these rats think
they can get away with
squealin’.

CHARLEY
Motchie’s in with the cops.
I touch him they’ll be all
over me.

MEYER
So we’ll get him for you.

CHARLEY
You’d do that for me?

MEYER
Yeah. And then you get
somebody for us. Deal?

CHARLEY
(hugging him, laughing)
I shoulda known you weren’t
doin’ no friendly favors…
Deal…

INT. NEW YORK REPUBLICAN CLUB. NIGHT.

A paneled club room. A group of portly businessmen, more interested in their cigars than their guest speaker, Fiorello La Guardia. All except for Tom who listens with interest.

LA GUARDIA
For too long the Republican
Party has been content to
control the upstate vote and
leave New York City to the
crooks in Tammany Hall.

AN OLD REPUBLICAN
We have no influence with the
foreign element, Mr. La
Guardia.

LA GUARDIA
You’re not trying. These people
come from cultures of bribery
and intimidation. They have to
be educated in the American
way of life..

ANOTHER REPUBLICAN
The police are corrupt. The whole
area is a sinkhole of graft and
depravity.

TOM
The gangsters get away
with murder in broad daylight.
They are accepted in the
community.

LA GUARDIA
They’re not accepted, sir.
They’re feared and hated.

TOM
So if a young Republican
challenged them in their
territory…

LA GUARDIA
The first politician who stands
up to the racketeers will be a
hero to thousands of new voters.

Tom nods; he’s getting an idea.

EXT. ESSEX STREET. NIGHT

Motchie parades down the street with his “girls,” speaking loudly, brushing people aside. He meets Meyer and Benny coming the other way.

BENNY
Well look who’s here.

MEYER
You meet the best people
on Essex Street, dontcha know.

MOTCHIE
Hey boys. Haven’t seen you
around lately, Benny.

BENNY
Not crazy about the
merchandise, Motchie.
If I wanna screw an old
broad I can go to my cousin
Ruthie.

MOTCHIE
Hey, I’ll get you anything
you want. Come down to my
joint on Bayard Street.
Getcha a pipe, too.

BENNY
That’s more like it…

EXT.CHINATOWN.NIGHT

Motchie leads the boys down a dark, narrow street. CHINESE bustle by, heads down.

MOTCHIE
I been hearin’ a lot about
you boys. Workin’ with
Lepke.

MEYER
Industrial management. We
been hearin’ a lot about you,
too…

MOTCHIE
Yeah, I’m spreadin’ out. Got
a joint uptown at the Abbey
Hotel.

Meyer looks around; the street is empty. He grabs Motchie and walks him toward a basement entrance.

MOTCHIE
Hey, this ain’t the place.

From behind, Benny jams an ICE PICK into Motchie’s spine. He screams and goes rigid. Meyer drags him down the steps. Benny jumps down after and plunges the ice pick into the back of his neck. He goes limp. The boys jump out and walk away, Benny tossing the pick as they turn the corner.

INT. SINGING CLASS. NIGHT.

Tom Dewey, now in his early twenties, is standing at a piano, straining to hit the high notes in Pagliacci. In the class: FRANCES HUTT, a petite, pretty soprano winces at every clinker. The MAESTRO, a temperamental Italian, rises from the piano.

MAESTRO
Mr. Dewey, may I ask: are
you studying another
profession?

TOM
I’m at Columbia Law School.

MAESTRO
Well don’t ever sing in
front of a jury. You’ll
lose the case…

INT. DRUGSTORE. NIGHT.

Frances and Tom sit in a booth sipping sodas.

FRANCES
You have to work up to the
high notes.

She demonstrates, singing a flawless scale. The CUSTOMERS applaud and Tom shakes his head with an admiring smile.

TOM
I’ll never sing like that.
I’ll never hold an audience
spellbound.

FRANCES
There’s no better stage
than a courtroom.

TOM
Or a political debate. I’m
getting active in the
Republican Club…

FRANCES
Won’t get much applause
there. Democrats run this
town.

TOM
Not for long. I heard a
man named La Guardia speak
the other night. He says
the party needs young men
to carry its message to
the people.

FRANCES
Tom Dewey the pride of
Oswosso, Michigan, rides
into the big city on his
white horse guns blazing,
and throws all the bad
guys out.

TOM
Makes a good story,
doesn’t it?

FRANCES
Let’s just say you’ll sing
the lead in Rigoletto
before you clean up New
York.

INT. ITALIAN BAKERY. NIGHT.

Benny and Meyer sit at a marble table eating cheesecake. Across the room Charley is standing, hat in hand, in front of Joe Masseria, who has gotten fatter since we first saw him. The boys watch in amazement as Charley kisses his ring.

BENNY
You see that?

Charley returns with a smile.

CHARLEY
Okay you’re in. I told
Masseria you were workin’
with me.

MEYER
What does that get us?

CHARLEY
Protection. We can run any
racket we want in this
neighborhood as long as we
throw him somethin’.

BENNY
What makes him so big?

CHARLEY
He’s kinda the head of the
club that runs everything.

MEYER
How do we join this club?

CHARLEY
You don’t, it’s for Italians
only. This guy snaps his finger
and a thousand greaseballs kiss
his hand and call him Don
Giuseppe like he’s still in the
old country. He’s a fat pig,
don’t know from nothin’.
But the crumbs off his table is
like the biggest loaf of bread
you ever seen.

BENNY
I could stroll over there
right now and cut open that
tub of guts.

MEYER
Then you’d have a thousand
Italians with a vendetta
against you. We oughta go see
Rothstein. He does business
the American way.

EXT. ROTHSTEIN’S TOWNHOUSE. NIGHT

Meyer and Charley stand at the door, looking around in awe.

MEYER
Not bad, huh? They don’t
call him The Brain for
nothin’.

The door opens. A BUTLER greets them.

BUTLER
Good evening, gentlemen. Mr.
Rothstein is waiting.

They follow him through a glittering vestibule.

CHARLEY
How does a little putz like
you get to the great Arnold
Rothstein?

MEYER
I met him at the Weinberg
Bar Mitzvah. See, we got
a club, too.

CHARLEY
How do I join?

MEYER
First, you get a painful
operation.

ROTHSTEIN, in a silk smoking jacket, greets them with a smile.

ROTHSTEIN
Meyer, Charley, thanks for
coming.

CHARLEY
It’s an honor, Mr. Rothstein.

Rothstein puts his arms around both boys and walks them into the dining room.

ROTHSTEIN
Everybody calls me AR…

INT.ROTHSTEIN’S DINING ROOM. NIGHT.

An opulent table under a crystal chandelier. The butler serves and pours. Meyer and Charley, are intimidated by the surroundings, confused by the array of cutlery.

ROTHSTEIN
A cop is a crook with no
guts. He’ll always be
happy with a small piece
of your action. That’s
your fish knife, Charley.

CHARLEY
Oh yeah, my fish knife…

ROTHSTEIN
Now the politicians, they’re
just a bunch of hypocrites.
Whorehouse on Saturday,
church on Sunday.

MEYER
What does that make us AR?

ROTHSTEIN
Businessmen, backbone of
America. We give people
what they want. How you
makin’ the rent, Charley?

CHARLEY
I help the boys downtown.
Sell a little hop…

ROTHSTEIN
Good business to invest in
on the sly. Let somebody
else do the dirty work.
How about you, Meyer?

MEYER
I like to run a crap games.

CHARLEY
He’s a whiz with numbers,AR.

ROTHSTEIN
That’s what I’m lookin’ for.
Ford makes a car, everybody
buys it,. Post makes a cereal
everybody eats it. I have a
product–gambling, which I can
turn into the biggest industry
in America. But I need talented
guys to run it. You boys are
real executive material. We
just have to smooth out some
of the rough edges.

INT.WANAMAKER’S. DAY.

A conservative haberdasher. Meyer is being fitted for a suit under Rothstein’s watchful eye.

MEYER
I coulda gone to
Hennigsberg’s on Rivington
Street for half price.

ROTHSTEIN
Forget those greenhorns, you
gotta use an American tailor.
Somebody sees you in a John
Wanamaker suit they know you
got class…

CHARLEY
steps out of a fitting room,
a man transformed in a pin
striped suit.

CHARLEY
What do you think?

ROTHSTEIN
You look like the Chairman
of the Board.

MEYER
Ironing board maybe.

Charley admires himself in the mirror.

CHARLEY
Clothes make the man they
say.
(pokes Meyer)
From now on, call me Chairman
of the Board.</>

END ACT THREE

Next: Part 7/Act Four: Billions & Booze (Wednesday, 11/09/11)

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

The story is about the founders of Organized Crime, Meyer Lansky, and “Lucky” Luciano, their fifty year partnership and the empire they created. Their friendships and families, lives and loves. It is also about their implacable enemy Thomas Dewey, a young Republican attorney who built a political career prosecuting the Mob that propelled him to the NY Governor’s Mansion and almost to the White House.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER SEE/Empires of Crime/Part 5

Published on November 3, 2011 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: BOYS FROM BRAZIL, bugsy seigel, FORT APACHE the bronx, HEYWOOD GOULD, jewish gangsters Cocktail, lucky luciano, MAFIA, meyer lansky, Mobsters, Movies, NY governor, one good cop, rolling thunder, screenplay publishing, screenplay submission, screenplay writing, screenplays, script writing, thomas dewey, trial by jury, writing.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 5

By

Heywood Gould

ACT TWO

EXT. BOWERY. NIGHT.

A few weeks later. The Bowery is the Broadway of downtown New York, featuring VAUDEVILLE THEATERS, SALOONS, crowds of ROWDIES out for a night on the town. Maier and Benny stand outside a saloon gaping at the painted WHORES and their flashy PIMPS. Maier has a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. Benny ogles the women.

BENNY
Salvatore gettin’ us
broads?

MAIER
Nah. Business before
pleasure.

They peek into saloon thick with smoke and honky tonk music

SALVATORE

is talking to a FIDGETY MAN at the bar. A YOUNG WHORE pushes through the swinging doors, dragging a giggly, staggering DRUNK.

YOUNG WHORE
C’mon honey, let’s get some
air.

TWO YOUNG MEN jump out and drag the drunk into an alley. They blackjack him to the ground, then “roll” him, taking his pocket watch and billfold. IN THE BAR a buxom singer is drawing cheers with her song.

BUXOM SINGER
The wealthy Four Hundred in
mansions reside/ With fronts
of brown stone and stoops high
and wide/While the poor working
people in poverty deep/ In
cellars and shanties are huddled
like sheep

INT. OSWOSSO LUTHERAN. NIGHT

A church social. YOUNG TOM DEWEY is singing as MARY SIMMONS, a young girl accompanies him on the piano. COUPLES take their last dance and wander out hand in hand as the song ends.

YOUNG TOM
Good night Irene, Irene/
Good night Irene/ Good
night Irene, Good night
Irene/ I’ll see you in
my dreams.

EXT.SALOON. NIGHT.

Salvatore returns with a bottle of gin and a small package.

SALVATORE
Keep chickie for the cops…

He draws a VIAL OF COLORLESS LIQUID out of his pocket. Reaches into his pants pocket for several small GLASS JARS.

SALVATORE
Used to buy opium in a drug
store like cough syrup. Then
the law said it wasn’t legal
no more. But people still
want it so I give it to ‘em.

MAIER
How you make money?

Salvatore pours a small amount of opium into the jars, then fills them up with gin.

SALVATORE
I buy the dope off that
junkie in the saloon. Five
bucks a bottle. Cut it with
gin and sell it for three
bucks a jar to the girls on
Essex Street.

MAIER
You could get guys on the
street to sell it for you
so you don’t gotta worry
about cops.

BENNY
The broads like this stuff?

SALVATORE
They love it. You should
see ‘em jump when I come
around.

INT. ROSIE SOLOMON’S. DAY

A brothel in the back room of a saloon. Through a beaded curtain, we can see MEN drinking and hear a PIANO playing. Under red lights, YOUNG GIRLS in camisoles, giggle and gossip with CLIENTS, WORKING MEN of all ages. Salvatore, Maier and Benny enter and are immediately surrounded by GIRLS flirting, entreating “Sal, you bring me a present?”..”Got any of that nose candy, Sal..?” Salvatore brushes them off with a laugh “I don’t see you givin’ nothin’ away.” MOTCHIE, the pimp steps out with a desperate grin. He is young and full of bluster, but wary of Salvatore.

MOTCHIE
I supply the girls around
here.

SALVATORE
They like my product better.
(menacing)
That okay with you, Motchie?

Motchie is about to defy him, but Benny moves in with a crazy look and he backs off with an ingratiating smile.

MOTCHIE
Sure as long as they’re
happy.

SALVATORE
These are my friends, Benny
and Maier. Take good care of
‘em.

Benny goes for a CURVY BRUNETTE.

BENNY
I’ll take that zaftig one…

He thrusts a few crumpled bills at Motchie, but Salvatore slaps his hand away.

SALVATORE
Put your money away. Only
crums pay for it, right
Motchie? It’s my friend
Maier’s birthday. Get
somethin’ nice for him.

MOTCHIE
Sure Sal…Hey Pearl, where
ya hidin’?

PEARL

a consumptive redhead in a black shift steps out of a room.

PEARL
Where ya think?

SALVATORE
(gives Maier a shove)
What are you waitin’ for?
Go, have a good time…

Maier walks timidly down the hall, turning to protest:

MAIER
But it ain’t my birthday.

INT. PEARL’S ROOM. DAY.

An old iron bedstead, rumpled sheets. Maier watches shyly as Pearl lights an oil lamp. A reddish glow spreads through the room.

PEARL
So how old are you?

MEYER
I told ya. It ain’t my
birthday.

All business, Pearl pulls her shift over her head.

PEARL
You gotta get a little
closer, or it don’t work
so good…

Meyer sits next to her. She tousles his hair.

PEARL (CONT’D)
This your first time?

MEYER
Yeah…

PEARL
Don’t be scared honey,
it’s easy…
(pushes him down onto the bed)
Mama’ll do all the work…

INT. SALVATORE’S ROOM.NIGHT.

A basement room. A bed and a rickety table. JARS and BOTTLES. Salvatore and the boys enter in the darkness.

SALVATORE
This here’s my office.

BENNY
You live here too?

SALVATORE
(lights a candle)
Yeah. My old man threw me
out. I slip money to my
brother to give to my mother…

BENNY
I had to leave Brooklyn.
Toomany guys lookin’ for
me. But I’ll go back there
one dayflippin’ gold pieces,
broads hangin’ offa me…

SALVATORE
You still livin’ at home,
Maier?

MAIER
Yeah.

SALVATORE
Your mother know what
you’re doin’?

MAIER
She gets mad. But I’m
goin’ to school for
mechanic work.

BENNY
You ain’t gonna get a
job are you?

MAIER
Why not? A lotta guys do
it.

SALVATORE
That’s ‘cause they can’t
scheme like you. You think
those crums would work for
a dollar a day if they could
make thirty bucks hustlin’
crap games?

BENNY
Everybody wants to be like
us…

MAIER
Like us, huh. Freezin’ in
a basement with rats runnin’
around…

SALVATORE
At least we’re on our own
and no crum is makin’ money
off our backs…My old man’s
gonna die poor.

MAIER
Mine, too.

SALVATORE
See what I mean? At least
we got a chance to get rich.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD. NIGHT.

A peaceful world. Quiet, starry, leaves rustling, crickets chirping. Tom and Mary walk up to a farmhouse..

YOUNG TOM
I’m goin’ out for football.
(makes a muscle)
That farm work’s makin’ me
real strong for the tryout

MARY
(feels his bicep)
You’ll make the team for
sure.

YOUNG TOM
I’m joinin’ Debating Club.
I’m gonna need public speaking
when I go into politics…

MARY
You gonna make those long
boring speeches at the
July Fourth picnic?

YOUNG TOM
Maybe I’ll just sing a
song…

MARY
(laughs)
Tom Dewey, the singing
Senator.

YOUNG TOM
(a mock song)
And if elected I will
uphold our cherished
Republican values.

MARY
You’re a sketch, Tom. I
almost think you could
do it.
(offers her hand )
Well, thanks for walkin’
me home.

Tom moves in and “steals” a kiss. Mary laughs and pushes him away.

MARY
Why Tom Dewey. I thought
you were such a good boy…

YOUNG TOM
(puts his arms around her)
Only when I have to be.

This time the kiss is mutual

EXT. LOWER EAST SIDE STREET. NIGHT.

Only a year has passed. The boys are seventeen, but look older, more sure of themselves. Salvatore and Benny and are keeping“lookout” as Meyer jumps in the front seat of a Model T.

SALVATORE
How you gonna start it, you
don’t got the key?

MAIER
(fiddling with the wires)
Just watch the guy don’t
come out.

Sparks fly under the wheel as he makes a connection. He jumps out and turns the crank. The Model T sputters into action.

BENNY
How’d you do that?

MAIER
Get in.

But as they move away, the OWNER runs out, followed by THREE MEN. “Hey, where ya goin’” Maier tries to speed away, but the car bucks and stalls. Benny jumps out wielding a wrench and rushes them, swinging wildly knocking three men down. Salvatore pulls a knife and holds the other man at bay. Maier runs around and cranks the car until it starts again. Salvatore jumps in.

MAIER
Benny!

Benny runs back and jumps into the car and it clatters away, leaving the three men lying in the street.

EXT. LIVERY STABLE. DAY’

Early morning. The place is half stable, half garage, horses on one side, MODEL T’s and STUTZ BEARCATS on the other. Benny, clothing torn, nose bloody, watches as Maier and Salvatore negotiate with a BURLY BLACKSMITH.

BLACKSMITH
Where’d you get the car?

MAIER
My father gave it to me
for my Bar Mitzvah, what
do you care? Fifty bucks
is a fair price.

BLACKSMITH
I’ll give you twenty.

SALVATORE
C’mon you’ll get two
hundred…

BLACKSMITH
You stole this heap. I
could call a cop friend
and get it for nothin’.

Benny looks around with a casual smile; he has developed a new technique for intimidating people.

BENNY
Better call a fireman friend,
too.

BLACKSMITH
What for?

BENNY
To put out the fire when
I burn this joint down
with you in it.

The Blacksmith is about to answer. Benny just shrugs.

BENNY
Nice place you got here.

BLACKSMITH
Okay. Fifty bucks.

MAIER
(smells his fear)
Make it a hundred for
hollerin’ copper.

Salvatore laughs and puts his arm around the Blacksmith’s shoulders.

SALVATORE
Make it a hundred fifty
and throw in your horse…
Partner.

EAST SIDE 1917

EXT. RAPPAPORT’S RESTAURANT.DAY
A few years later. Meyer and Benny have grown up and found their personal styles. Meyer is understated in a gray topcoat, hat pulled low. Benny is brash in a cashmere coat with a fur collar. He stops to tilt it at a rakish angle.

MEYER
C’mon, I’m hungry…

INT. DAIRY RESTAURANT. DAY.

Noisy, crowded with ORTHODOX JEWS,GARMENT WORKERS,etc. MOTCHIE the pimp is at a table with his GIRLS. The girls wave and call “Hiya Benny…” At a round table in the back, gorging themselves on bagels and lox, are LEPKE BUCHALTER, squat and fierce and his partner GURRAH SHAPIRO, gross, thick lipped, with an uncaring stare.

SHAPIRO
The toughest boys on the
East Side.

BENNY
Toughest boys in the world.

LEPKE
Wanna make some easy
money?

MEYER
Nah, I wanna sew buttons
twelve hours a day.

LEPKE
There’s a strike at the
Weinberg Bakery. Mr.
Weinberg is a good friend…

MEYER
Yeah and you’re a silent
partner.

SHAPIRO
We want you to break up
the strike, send the boys
back to work…Fifty bucks.

MEYER
Hundred’s the goin’ rate,
Lepke.

LEPKE
A hundred? It’s ten minutes
work.

Benny takes a bite out of Lepke’s bagel.

MEYER
For us. Anybody else you’ll
need a mob and it’ll cost a
G note.

BENNY
We’re savin’ you money,
Lepke.

A blustery winter day. STRIKERS shiver on a picket line, Exhorting PASSERSBY to “Pass’em by…”

A TAXI

pulls up. Meyer and Benny get out..

BENNY
Keep the meter runnin’, we’ll
be back…

RABINOWITZ
Meyer’s childhood friend, is
shouting instructions.

MEYER
Rabinowitz. You the boss
here?

RABINOWITZ
You one of Lepke’s shlammers,
Maier?

MEYER
If I have to be. You gotta
go back to work, kid.

RABINOWITZ
Weinberg’s profit has doubled,
but he won’t pay us a living
wage, Maier. Whaddya think of
that?

LANSKY
I think it’s smart business
if he can get away with it
and we’re here to see that
he does…

BENNY
Back to work baker, your
bagels are gettin’ cold…

RABINOWITZ
You guys don’t scare me…

Benny punches the Rabinowitz flush in the face. Grabs him as he falls forward and gut punches him. The other STRIKERS run to their leader’s defense. A TOUGH STRIKER advances on Maier.

TOUGH STRIKER
Think you can fight
thirty-five guys?

Benny leaps at the Tough Striker, knocking him to the ground, beating him with the wooden handle of his placard.

BENNY
Now it’s thirty-four…
Who wants to try for
thirty-three?

MEYER
Hold it Benny…
(and faces the Strikers)
You know the Golden Rule?
The guy with the gold rules.
Weinberg’s gonna win in the
end so go back to work, you
got mouths to feed.

BENNY

leans over the bleeding semi-conscious Rabinowitz and shoves a few bills in his pocket.

BENNY
Here, take your girlfriend
out dancin’ on Ben Siegel…

INT. HAT STORE. DAY

Salvatore is loading JARS OF MORPHINE and “raviolis” of COCAINE in a hat box, then concealing them under DERBY HATS.

OWNER
(o.s.)
Ready for the deliveries,
Salvatore?

SALVATORE
Ready, Mr. Gordon.

EXT. ESSEX STREET. DAY

Salvatore struts happily, three hatboxes in each hand.

MOTCHIE

is standing on the corner with two cops. He steps into the shadows as the cops block Charley’s way.

RED FACED COP
What’s in the boxes,
Tony?

SALVATORE
Hats from the Gordon Hat
Company.

The red faced cop opens a box and comes up with a “ravioli.”

RED FACED COP
Hats, huh?
Salvatore tries to run, but the red faced cop flicks his nightstick between his feet and he goes down. The fat cop kneels on his back, pushing his face into the ground.

FAT COP
Who told you could sell hop
around here?

SALVATORE
Who I gotta ask?

FAT COP
Who you think, you dumb
wop?

SALVATORE
That pimp Motchie’s sellin’
it,too.

RED FACED COP
(snapping on the cuffs)
Motchie’s with us. You’re
not.

SALVATORE
Take my load. I got eight
bucks in my sock. Take it
for lettin’ me go.

FAT COP
We’ll takin’ it for not
bustin’ your head. You’re
gonna go cool off up the
river. When you come back
maybe you’ll know how
things work.

They jerk Salvatore to his feet and start to march him away. He turns with a cold, vengeful look toward Motchie.

SALVATORE
Yeah. I’ll know how things
work.

END ACT TWO

Next: Part 6/Act Three: Getting Some Class (Monday, 11/07/11)

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

The story is about the founders of Organized Crime, Meyer Lansky, and “Lucky” Luciano, their fifty year partnership and the empire they created. Their friendships and families, lives and loves. It is also about their implacable enemy Thomas Dewey, a young Republican attorney who built a political career prosecuting the Mob that propelled him to the NY Governor’s Mansion and almost to the White House.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER SEE/Empires of Crime/Part 4

Published on October 31, 2011 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: BOYS FROM BRAZIL, bugsy seigel, FORT APACHE the bronx, HEYWOOD GOULD, jewish gangsters Cocktail, lucky luciano, MAFIA, meyer lansky, Mobsters, Movies, NY governor, one good cop, rolling thunder, screenplay publishing, screenplay submission, screenplay writing, screenplays, script writing, thomas dewey, trial by jury, writing.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 4

By

Heywood Gould

Act 1 (cont)

INT. MAIER’S KITCHEN. DAY

YETTA, Maier’s mother, pinched and bitter, is looking anxiously out of the window. His father MAX, sallow and bent with a tubercular cough is poring over the Yiddish newspaper, while his younger brother JAKE struggles with his homework.

YETTA
He’s comin’.

MAX
So’s the messiah…

INT. TENEMENT STAIRWAY. DAY.

Maier opens the door and runs anxiously up the stairs. People pass him on the way down. SHOPGIRLS, RELIGIOUS STUDENTS, WORKING MEN. RABINOWITZ, the young activist, loaded with books, stops him.

RABINOWITZ
Hey, Meyer, come to the
meeting. We’re gonna get
the union into Weinberg’s
bakery. Get the workers a
fair shake.

MAIER
Watch out Weinberg don’t
bust your head.

He reaches under the landing to where he has hidden his schoolbooks. Then with a nervous breath he opens the door.

INT. MAIER’S KITCHEN. DAY

Maier enters with his books.

MAIER
Hey…

MAX
Hey is for horses. Where
were you all night?

MAIER
I was studyin’ with Cousin
Asher. We fell asleep in the
kitchen…

Yetta leaps at him. Pinches his cheek..

YETTA
Liar! I went over there.
They hadn’t seen you…

MAIER
Ow ow! Okay…I was at
the fruit market. A man
needed help unloading.
He gave me two bucks.

Yetta twists his ear, forcing him to his knees.

YETTA
Look at me. A good boy
with an honest job can
look his mama in the
eye…

MAIER
Okay, okay. I was in
a crap game.

YETTA
(scandalized)
Oy, Max what are we
gonna do with him?

MAX
The dice are crooked.
You think the gangsters
play so you can win?

MAIER
I know, Pop, but I
beat them at their
own game. Here…

He takes a handful of bills out of his pocket and offers them to his mother. She gapes at the money in amazement.

MAIER
Here Ma, buy yourself
winter coat.

YETTA
It’s schmutzikeh gelt,
dirty money.

MAIER
It’s the same money your
boss don’t give you, Mama.
Now you don’t gotta sew
buttons twelve hours a
day, You can stay home
and rest, Papa. Take care
of your cough.
(pushes the money on his father)
Don’t worry Papa, this
is America. The Cossacks
ain’t gonna bust down the
door…

EXT. HUDSON RIVER. NIGHT

On a crumbling pier. A crap game in the eerie glow of FIREPOTS. Maier hangs back and watches as The Young Gambler repeats the same ritual. The flirty girl blows on the dice to the ribald cheers of the other players. Then, he rolls:

YOUNG GAMBLER
Seven! Who says those dice
are cold?

MAIER
Hey, I’m down, too. Pay
off.

A handful of crumpled bills is thrown Maier’s way. He tries to slip unnoticed through the crowd. But is suddenly knocked to the ground. Stunned, he sees:

THE YOUNG GAMBLER

standing over him with a pair of BRASS KNUCKLES. TWO BRUISERS move in behind him.

YOUNG GAMBLER
I’ll teach ya to run a
racket on me, punk.

Maier ducks, spins and takes off. The Young Gambler and his two henchmen give chase.

EXT. CHRISTOPHER STREET. NIGHT.

Maier runs down the narrow street and into an alley. Runs into a stone wall…A dead end… Turns to see the Young Gambler, breathing fiercely.

YOUNG GAMBLER
Gotcha now, you little…..

Something FLASHES in the darkness. Benny steps into the light, wielding a lead pipe. There is a THUD and the Young Gambler drops to his knees.

SALVATORE

comes out of the shadows, a KNIFE GLITTERING. One henchman screams, holding a bloody gash in his face. The other tries to flee, but Salvatore runs him down and sticks him in the ribs.

MAIER

grabs a garbage can lid sand whacks the Young Gambler in the head. The Young Gambler stumbles. Benny blocks his path. Raising the pipe high,he smashes the Young Gambler, driving him down, flat on his face.

SALVATORE
Is he dead?

BENNY
How should I know? I ain’t
a doctor…

Maier tears a GOLD WATCH and CHAIN off the Young Man’s belt. Goes through his pockets and finds a GOLD MONEY CLIP bulging with bills. Salvatore goes for the money, but Meyer holds on.

SALVATORE
Give it here.

MAIER
This is my proposition…

SALVATORE
Okay, but it’s fifty fifty.
You take care of Benny outta
your end.

As they walk away, Maier is counting the money.

MAIER
Thirty eight bucks…

SALVATORE
Let’s go eat…

BENNY
Let’s get a broad.

Behind them one of the henchmen staggers out of the alley, moaning and collapses in the street.

MAIER
Let’s go someplace and
divvy it up…

EXT. TENEMENT.DAY

Salvatore walks jauntily down the street carrying a large loaf of bread and a bag of groceries. He ducks quickly into a storefront when he sees his father, FRANCESCO LUCANIA, a short wiry working man, come out of the building. PEOPLE greet him: “Buon giorno Signor Lucania…” He tips his cap and walks on. Salvatore jumps out and enters the building.

INT. TENEMENT STAIRWAY. DAY.
Salvatore bounds up the stairs and knocks softly. His mother ROSALIA, pale and careworn opens the door. She lights up at the sight of him.

ROSALIA
Salvatore…

SALVATORE
(with a big hug )
Mama…Don’t worry, Papa
didn’t see me.

He steps into a KITCHEN of desperate poverty. A rickety table, a coal stove, an ice box, scraps of food. His little brother BARTOLOMEO jumps up in glee.

BARTOLOMEO
Salvatore!

His sister GINA runs out:

GINA
Salvatore!

ROSALIA
You look so thin, Salvatore…

SALVATORE
I’m doin’ great, Ma. Got a job
deliverin’ hats on Twenty third.

ROSALIA
Every night I pray your father
will let you come back…

SALVATORE
Forget it. Not even God could
get that hard headed Sicilian
to change his mind. Look at this
beautiful prosciutto.

He takes a large BAKED HAM out of the bag. Melon, tomatoes.

ROSALIA
My God, what am I gonna tell
your father?

SALVATORE
Tell him the Tammany boys gave
it to you for votin’…

BARTOLOMEO
Hey Sal, I’m gonna come live
with you…

SALVATORE
(takes a swipe at him)
You stay in school, stupid.
You wanna be a bum like me?

The door flies open. Francesco enters, clenched, furious.

ROSALIA
(appeasing)
Francesco, he just came for
a visit. Look what be brought.

FRANCESCO
Tony, the peddler says you
stuck him up.

SALVATORE
Why do I wanna take pennies
off that crum? He’s a liar…

FRANCESCO
You are the liar. You dishonor
this family…

Francesco raises his hand, but Salvatore grabs his wrist.

ROSALIA
Salvatore!

Salvatore lets go and steps away.

SALVATORE
This ain’t the old country,
Papa. I don’t have to stand
here and take a beatin’ from
you.
(tries to make up)
C’mon, I know how much you love
a nice prosciutto ham…

FRANCESCO
I won’t take charity from a
thief.

Francesco grabs the ham and the bread and throws them out of the window. The whole family sags with disappointment.

SALVATORE
The rats are gonna eat good
tonight, but your kids’ll go
hungry. That what you want?

FRANCESCO
Get out! You’re not my son no more.
Get outta my house.

Salvatore hugs his mother and Gina.

SALVATORE
(tousles Bartolomeo’s hair)
Stay in school…

EXT. TENEMENT. DAY
A cold wind is blowing as Salvatore comes out of the house. He shivers and turns for one last look.. Then walks away, pulling up the collar of his skimpy jacket.

END ACT ONE

Next: Act Two/Partners (Wednesday, 11/2/11)

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.
The story is about the founders of Organized Crime, Meyer Lansky, and “Lucky” Luciano, their fifty year partnership and the empire they created. Their friendships and families, lives and loves. It is also about their implacable enemy Thomas Dewey, a young Republican attorney who built a political career prosecuting the Mob that propelled him to the NY Governor’s Mansion and almost to the White House.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER SEE/Empires of Crime/Part 3

Published on October 26, 2011 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: BOYS FROM BRAZIL, bugsy seigel, FORT APACHE the bronx, HEYWOOD GOULD, jewish gangsters Cocktail, lucky luciano, MAFIA, meyer lansky, Mobsters, Movies, NY governor, one good cop, rolling thunder, screenplay publishing, screenplay submission, screenplay writing, screenplays, script writing, thomas dewey, trial by jury, writing.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 3

By

Heywood Gould

Act 1 (cont)

EXT. DELANCEY STREET. DAY.

ELECTION DAY. A gray drizzle cannot dampen the festivities. BANNERS reading MURPHY FOR ASSEMBLY flutter from lampposts. A BAND PLAYS. CHESTNUT VENDORS hawk their wares. POLITICOS in DERBIES with GOLD WATCH CHAINS slap backs and kiss babies.

INT. LANDING. DAY

Two men climb the stairs, chatting amiably. One is TIM SULLIVAN, the Tammany Man, the other FIORELLO LA GUARDIA, short,round, bursting with energy. La Guardia carries a bouquet, Sullivan a fresh killed turkey. They knock at a door.

LA GUARDIA
The Republicans are gonna
catch up on you guys today.
Only underdogs vote in the
rain.

SULLIVAN
Ah now, we’ll get the vote out.

An ITALIAN LADY opens the door. La Guardia bows.

LA GUARDIA
Fiorello La Guardia, Signora,
from the Republican Party,
the party of Lincoln, Teddy
Roosevelt, the party of the
poor…

Sullivan laughs and interjects.

SULLIVAN
Don’t believe him, mama. The
Republicans are rich. Rockefeller,
J.P. Morgan…
(thrusting the turkey at her)
Take this beautiful bird as a
gift from Big Tim Sullivan.

LA GUARDIA
That turkey won’t get you a
fair wage…

SULLIVAN
But it’ll feed your kids.
(referring to a list)
I see you’ve got your husband
Vittorio and three boys here.
That’s five votes.

ITALIAN LADY
My boys is too young to vote.

SULLIVAN
Everybody votes in my ward,
mama, we don’t discriminate.
(with a scornful look at La Guardia)
We ain’t sellin’ fancy ideas.
We’re in business to help
good Democrats.

EXT. BOWERY. DAY.

A cold rain falls over the district where the streetwalkers prowl. Salvatore stands in a doorway pouring liquid opium into small jars, while little Davey keeps watch. A YOUNG PROSTITUTE, wet and shivering, stumbles in.

PROSTITUTE
Hey Salvatore, I was lookin’
for you on Pell Street.

SALVATORE
Can’t help ya now, toots,
I got work to do.

Maier jumps, shivering into the storefront followed by BENNY SIEGEL, a scrawny kid with a crazy look in his eye, who looks avidly at the Prostitute.

MAIER
Okay we’re here.

SALVATORE
I told ya to bring some
tough guys, not this
skinny marink…

BENNY
(squares off)
I can take care of myself.
Wanna see?

A WAGON rolls up and Hines shouts:

HINES
Hey you guys, no brawlin’ on
Election Day. Who can read
here?

MAIER
Whaddya think we’re stupid?

HINES
See this list? These people
are all dead, but they like
Charley Murphy so much we’re
gonna bring ‘em back to life
to vote for him.

MONTAGE…The BOYS get out the vote.

A BOWERY GIN MILL…DRUNKS mumble in their beers. Salvatore and his boys burst through the swinging doors, shouting:

SALVATORE
Election day…Everybody
votes.

And drag the drunks off their stools, promising:

SALVATORE
After you vote all the
drinks are on Mr. Charley
Murphy…

OUTSIDE A KOSHER RESTAURANT…Maier and Benny recruit voters in a crowd of ORTHODOX JEWS.

MAIER
Two bits every time you
vote.

OLD MAN
Two bits. Vus es two bits?

MAIER
A quarter.

The crowd is impressed. “A quarter…”

A BROTHEL…Maier and Benny hang back shyly as Salvatore emerges with a PROSTITUTE, pale and depleted from drugs.

PROSTITUTE
I’m sick Salvatore.

SALVATORE
Vote for Charley Murphy,
I’ll give you the cure…

Suddenly, several gaudily dressed PIMPS burst out. “Where ya think you’re goin’?”

SALVATORE (cont’d)
Ah, we’ll bring ‘em right
back.

PIMP
(shoves Salvatore)
Take a walk.

Benny jumps in and kicks him in the groin. The other pimps jump him, but Benny fights them off furiously.

MAIER
Okay, Benny they had
enough.

BENNY
Not ’til I say so.

Benny knocks a pimp to his knees and kicks him in the face Pulls another pimp down by his hair and slams his head into the ground. Salvatore steps back and watches in amazement.

SALVATORE
(to Meyer)
This kid’s nuts…

MAIER
They call him Bugsy on the
block. Everybody’s scared
of him.

SALVATORE
But not you?

MAIER
Benny’s my best friend. He
wouldn’t hurt me.

EXT. POLLING PLACE. DAY.

A long line of VOTERS, some illiterate, some underage, herded together by Salvatore and his boys. PRECINCT CAPTAINS with DERBIES and GOLD WATCH CHAINS, speaking Yiddish, English and Italian with thick New York accents, escort VOTERS into the booths and mark their ballots for them. “ Charley Murphy’s the people’s choice..”

MAIER

escorts an old Jewish man up to a corrupt ELECTION OFFICIAL.

ELECTION OFFICIAL
What’s his name?

MAIER
Vus es die nommen?

OLD MAN
(reads haltingly from a slip)
Liam O’Kelly..?

ELECTION OFFICIAL
(checks off the name)
A fine Irish name.

Salvatore brings up a PROSTITUTE.

ELECTION OFFICIAL
Name…

PROSTITUTE
Rabbi Nathan Goldberg.

ELECTION OFFICIAL
Right this way, Your Holiness…

EXT. POLLING PLACE. DAY.

As the voters emerge, Salvatore and his boys march them to the back of the line. Salvatore grabs a BOWERY LUSH.

SALVATORE
Where ya goin, pal, you’re
votin’ again. Everybody’s
votin’ today..

EXT. ELIZABETH STREET. NIGHT.

The boy gather eagerly around Salvatore as he counts off the money from a big roll.

SALVATORE
Twelve bucks for Benny.
Twelve for Maier. Twenty
four for me. I get
double ‘cause it’s my
proposition.

MAIER
Okay. I got a proposition
for you.

ESSEX STREET. NIGHT.

Maier, Salvatore and Benny stand in the shadows watching a CRAP GAME. A YOUNG GAMBLER with a FLASHY YOUNG LADY in a low cut dress, is rolling the dice.

MAIER
Gimme eight dollars I’ll
give you sixteen back.

SALVATORE
(hands him the money)
You better…

THE YOUNG GAMBLER turns to his lady friend.

YOUNG GAMBLER
Here doll, blow on these
for luck.

The Young Lady bends, giving the players a good look and blows flirtatiously on the dice.

MAIER.

darts into the crowd, throwing the money down. The Young Gambler rolls a SEVEN.

STICK MAN
Lucky seven…

He throws some bills back at the Young Man. Maier jumps in.

MAIER (CONT’D)
Hey Mister, what about me?

The Stick man looks up at the BANKER, another Italian.

BANKER
Kid got lucky. Pay him off.

MAIER
It’s s’posed to be three
to two.

BANKER
Kid’s a bookkeeper.

SALVATORE AND BENNY

are waiting in the shadows.

SALVATORE
How did you know this guy was
gonna roll a natural?

MAIER
(demonstrates)
It’s a trick. He palms the
loaded dice. While everybody’s
watchin’ the pretty girl he
switches ‘em.

Salvatore gives him an affectionate smack.

SALVATORE
You got some eyes on you
to spot this racket. We’re
gonna make big money, me
and you.

Next: Part 4/Dirty Money (Monday, 10/31/11)

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

The story is about the founders of Organized Crime, Meyer Lansky, and “Lucky” Luciano, their fifty year partnership and the empire they created. Their friendships and families, lives and loves. It is also about their implacable enemy Thomas Dewey, a young Republican attorney who built a political career prosecuting the Mob that propelled him to the NY Governor’s Mansion and almost to the White House.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 (Calendar at right.) Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER SEE/Empires of Crime/Part 2

Published on October 24, 2011 in archives and Events. 0 Comments Tags: BOYS FROM BRAZIL, bugsy seigel, FORT APACHE the bronx, HEYWOOD GOULD, jewish gangsters Cocktail, lucky luciano, MAFIA, meyer lansky, Mobsters, Movies, NY governor, one good cop, rolling thunder, screenplay publishing, screenplay submission, screenplay writing, screenplays, script writing, thomas dewey, trial by jury, writing.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 (Calendar at right.) Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 2

By

Heywood Gould

Act 1

DISSOLVE TO

LITTLE ITALY, NY, 1913

EXT. MOTT STREET. (STOCK) DAY

A million immigrants jammed into ten square blocks. Noisy, narrow, teeming with desperate humanity. PUSHCARTS, HORSE DRAWN WAGONS. WORKERS,bent and weary, PEDDLERS screeching their wares. Sharp eyed women haggle in the Sicilian dialect keeping a wary eye on their CHILDREN running underfoot. MUSTACHIOED MEN in black suits swagger arm in arm with their GAUDY WOMEN.

YOUNG CHARLEY LUCIANO

still known by his given name, SALVATORE, sixteen, wiry, ashamed of his shabby clothes, has his nose pressed hungrily against the window of an ITALIAN BAKERY.

THROUGH THE BAKERY WINDOW

he sees JOE MASSERIA, a member of the BLACK HAND gang of extortionists. In his early ‘20’s, but already starting to bulge out of his black suit, Masseria is at a table with his HENCHMEN gorging himself on a huge slab of ITALIAN CHEESECAKE. As Salvatore watches the PROPRIETOR arrives with more pastry. He sets down the tray with a desperately ingratiating smile and slips Masseria a wad of BILLS

SALVATORE

licks his lips. He’s hungry, he’s always hungry. As he walks on he is followed by a three RAGTAG BOYS, led by DAVY BETTILO, a runty kid, mad at the world.

BETTILO
Salvatore, wait up…

SALVATORE
(pushes him away)
Stupido, don’t follow me.
Go cross the street and
come when I tellya.

Bettilo retreats, shamefaced. And Salvatore passes:

BIG TIM SULLIVAN

stocky, florid in a bowler hat, smiling broadly under a sign reading, FREE SHOES FROM BIG TIM SULLIVAN, TAMMANY HALL. PEOPLE fight and jostle as a young block captain, JIMMY HINES passes out shoes from enormous boxes.

SULLIVAN
We’re goin’ to give out
seven thousand pairs of
shoes and socks today to
our loyal voters…

RABINOWITZ, a young idealist, jumps out and harangues the crowd.

RABINOWITZ
Don’t sell your souls to
these Tammany crooks! Vote
for justice.

JIMMY HINES
Justice won’t keep your
feet warm in the winter.
Who gives you what you need?

The CROWD responds in gleeful unison:

CROWD
Big Tim Sullivan. He’s a
damned fine Irishman. Vote
for Sullivan.

Salvatore laughs and walks on. Lighting a cigarette he passes:

A PEDDLER

hawking fruit from a pushcart with the cry:

PEDDLER
Applapear…Applapear…
Get ‘em over here. Two
cents a piece…Applapear…

Salvatore checks the street for COPS, then approaches, cigarette dangling out of his mouth.

SALVATORE
The t’ieves is thick as flies
around here, huh Tony. Gimme
a quarter a day, I’ll keep’em
away.

PEDDLER
(swipes at him)
Get outta here, I call a cop…

SALVATORE
Cops don’t care about
greaseballs like you…

He gives a signal. Davy Bettilo leads the three boys across the street. They swipe handfuls of apples. Shouting, the Peddler gives chase. They dodge him laughing. Little Davey doubles back and pushes over his cart. Apples and pears roll off onto the street, setting off a stampede as PASSERSBY run to pick them up. The Peddler gets the message.

PEDDLER
Okay a quarter…

SALVATORE

He runs out and rounds up the boys. Smacks them, grabs them by the ears…Chases them.

SALVATORE
Hey you bums, put them
apples back, every single
one of ‘em. This man’s a
friend of mine. Don’t ever
bother him again, you
understand?

The Peddler looks at Salvatore with new found respect. He digs into his pocket for a few coins. Salvatore flips a coin back at him.

SALVATORE
Pick me a few nice apples
for my mother,Tony…

JIMMY HINES

has been watching in amusement. He grabs Salvatore.

JIMMY HINES
Hey kid, you the boss of
the block?

SALVATORE
Just lookin’ out for my
friends.

JIMMY HINES
I could use you and your
boys next week to get out
the vote. Give you
fifty cents a head.

SALVATORE
A buck for every vote we
bring in…

JIMMY HINES
Okay…But get me some tough
Yiddish kids to speak the
lingo to the greenhorns…

SALVATORE
(walking on)
There ain’t no tough Yiddish
kids…

EXT. DELANCEY STREET. DAY.

The Jewish quarter. Shop signs in Yiddish. PEDDLERS hawking their wares in Yiddish. ORTHODOX JEWS in long coats and beards.. FLASHY PIMPS jostle wild eyed RADICALS.

SALVATORE

swaggers fearlessly into this alien territory. He stops to buy a pickle from a peddler.

INT. HEBREW SCHOOL. DAY

STUDENTS with YARMULKES muttering over their books, while the TEACHER, a spiteful, humpbacked old man, smacks the inattentive on the backs of their heads. He stops at little MAIER SUCHOJWOLANSKA, who is staring out of the window. Prods him hard with the pointer.

TEACHER
So, Maier, This is where
the portion is? In the
street?

MAIER
(defiant)
I know the lesson.

TEACHER
So, how much gold did the
Israelites pledge for the
Tabernacle?

MAIER
Twenty-nine talents and
730 shekels.

TEACHER
How much silver?

MAIER
One hundred talents and
seventeen hundred and
seventy five shekels.

TEACHER
How many wandered in the
desert?

MAIER
Six hundred and three thousand,
five hundred and fifty.

TEACHER
So. And why do we study it?

MAIER
God’s secret is in these
numbers. When every man
knows every number in the
Bible, the Messiah will
come and our enemies will
be defeated.

EXT. HEBREW SCHOOL. DAY.

A crumbling white stoned SYNAGOGUE. As Maier and the boys come out, one of them points across the street at

SALVATORE

who is watching from a doorway.

FRIGHTENED BOY
That’s the kid, Maier. His gang
robbed us on Delancey yesterday.
Oy, look they’re comin’.

The boys turn to flee, but Maier grabs two of them.

MAIER
Don’t run, stick together.

The others try to escape, but Salvatore’s boys sweep down on them from across the street and shove them into a storefront, slapping them, smacking their heads against the shop window…“Hey kid, a nickel to walk on Delancey Street…” One boy tries to run. “Hey, where you goin’, Ikie?” He is grabbed by the sidelocks and thrown to the ground.

MAIER

tightens his grip on his two friends. They walk the other way, but are pursued by Bettilo and two BIG BOYS.

BETTILO
Hey, you gotta pay a nickel
to walk on the street.

MAIER
Who says?

BETTILO
I say.

Bettilo tries to grab Maier by the hair, but Maier sidesteps and pokes him in the eye, then clubs him to the ground. The Big Boys run at them, but Maier kicks one in the groin. Then pulls the other boy’s jacket up over his head and clubs him, bloodying his nose, Bettilo comes at him, swinging blindly. But Salvatore steps in pushing Bettilo away.

SALVATORE
Give up Davey, don’tcha
know when you’re licked?
(and turns to Maier)
I never seen no Jewish kid
fight like that

MAIER
(fists clenched)
You wanna see one now?

SALVATORE
(backs off,laughing)
G’wan get outta here, tough
guy, you win.

Maier runs after his friends and grabs them by the necks.

MAIER
Where you guys goin’? Gimme
two cents for savin’ the both
of yiz.

FRIGHTENED BOY
But you’re robbin’ us, too.

MAIER
Hey, it’s a good deal. Them
Italianas woulda taken all
your money and givin’ yiz a
beatin’ too.

SALVATORE

watches the boys pay up and calls:

SALVATORE
Hey kid, c’mere I wanna ask
you somethin’.

Maier approaches warily. Salvatore lunges and pokes Maier in the neck with his lit cigarette. Maier recoils in pain.

SALVATORE
See, I know more tricks than
you. Ya got friends tough
like you?

MAIER
(rubbing his neck)
I got friends.

SALVATORE
Bring ‘em around. We’ll make
some money…

MAIER
Doin’ what?

SALVATORE
What I tell ya. I’ll give
you a quarter for every kid
who can handle hisself. Okay?

MAIER
Fifty cents

SALVATORE
Yeah, yeah, okay. How much you
get off those little sissies?

MAIER
Four cents.

SALVATORE
(holds out his hand)
Gimme two…
(as Maier protests)
Hey, you wouldna made nothin’
if I didn’t stick ‘em up.

Grudgingly, Maier hands the money over. Salvatore offers his hand.

SALVATORE
Shake,partner.

Maier is uncertain at first, but is taken in by Salvatore’s charm. With a shy smile he shakes his hand.

MAIER
Okay…Partner.

EXT. DEWEY HOUSE. OSWOSSO MICHIGAN. DAY

A white Victorian house on a tree lined street in a picturesque small town outside of Detroit. From within we hear the pure tones of a young tenor, singing:

YOUNG TOM
Mine eyes have seen the glory/
Of the coming of the Lord/He
is tramping out the vintage/
Where the grapes of wrath
are stored…

INT. DEWEY PARLOR. DAY

YOUNG TOM DEWEY, thirteen, but still in knickers is belting out the song, while his mother, KATHERINE proudly accompanies him on the spinet.

YOUNG TOM
He has loosed the fateful
lightning/Of his terrible
swift sword/His truth is
marching on…

The guests listen appreciatively. The men, portly, cigars peeking out of their vests. The women standing, plain, unadorned in long sleeved long skirted dresses. They all join in the final chorus:

EVERYBODY
Glory, glory Hallelujah/
His truth is marching on…

INT. HALLWAY. DAY

Tom carries a tray of pastries and a big silver coffee pot across the hall and opens the door to THE STUDY, a book lined, smoke filled room where his dad GEORGE and his UNCLE JOHN and several other men are smoking cigars.

GEORGE
Ah refreshments. Set ‘em
down here son…

UNCLE JOHN
(an overbearing man)
You can climb outta those
knickers now, nephew, you’re
a big boy now. Your Dad
tells me you’re bent on
studying music.

TOM
(knows he disapproves)
I’d like to give it a
try,sir.

UNCLE JOHN
Singin’ is for church socials,
Tom.

GEORGE
(an old argument)
Let’s not bring this up again,
John…I’ve told Tom he can
do what he wants…

UNCLE JOHN
You’re too easygoing with the
boy, George.

GEORGE
Don’t tell me how to raise my
son…

UNCLE JOHN
I think I have a right to
express my point of view.
Has your father ever told
you what kind of stock you
spring from. Tom?

YOUNG TOM
Yes sir, of course.

GEORGE
I don’t burden the boy with
our family history.

UNCLE JOHN
It’s not a burden, it’s an
honor. The first Dewey was
a Huguenot Protestant escaping
persecution by French papists…
Our cousin Cousin Admiral
George Dewey defeated the
Spanish Navy in 1898. And
Cousin John was a great
teacher, who invented the
Dewey Decimal system. Every
time a boy takes a book out
of a library to improve his
mind he can thank our cousin
John…And your father…

GEORGE
John. please…

UNCLE JOHN
If you won’t blow your own
horn I’ll blow it for you.
Your father isn’t just
running a small town newspaper,
Tom. His editorials are read
all over the country. He is
defending Republican ideals
against the corrupt, machine
politicians in the big cities…
You see Tom, America has been
invaded by a horde of ignorant,
retarded criminals.

GEORGE
They’re immigrants just like
our ancestors…

UNCLE JOHN
They’re thieves, pimps, deviants.
A tide of filth breaking on the
big cities and threatening to
engulf the true Americans.
People like us aren’t free to
follow our whims, Tom. Every
Dewey has to be on the front
line defending our way of life.

GEORGE
Don’t lecture the boy, John.
He knows his responsibilities.

UNCLE JOHN
(with a pointed look)
Do you, Tom?

YOUNG TOM
(looks him in the eye)
I know what’s expected of me,
sir. And I’ll try to live up
to it.

Next: Part 3/Election Day (Thursday, 10/27/11

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

The story is about the founders of Organized Crime, Meyer Lansky, and “Lucky” Luciano, their fifty year partnership and the empire they created. Their friendships and families, lives and loves. It is also about their implacable enemy Thomas Dewey, a young Republican attorney who built a political career prosecuting the Mob that propelled him to the NY Governor’s Mansion and almost to the White House.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER SEE/Empires of Crime/Part 1

Published on October 19, 2011 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: BOYS FROM BRAZIL, bugsy seigel, FORT APACHE the bronx, HEYWOOD GOULD, jewish gangsters Cocktail, lucky luciano, MAFIA, meyer lansky, Mobsters, Movies, NY governor, one good cop, rolling thunder, screenplay publishing, screenplay submission, screenplay writing, screenplays, script writing, thomas dewey, trial by jury, writing.

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME by Heywood Gould. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 on Calendar at right. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME

By

Heywood Gould

Act 1

NAPLES 1962

EXT. DA GIACOMINO’S RESTAURANT. DAY

The “classiest joint” in Naples. Vases of fresh flowers, white coated WAITERS, bustling, festive. But today there’s a traffic jam. AMERICAN SAILORS, TOURISTS and REPORTERS clog the aisles leading to a large round table in the back. Who is the focus of all this celebrity attention? It’s mob boss LUCKY LUCIANO,early sixties, elegant, gray at the temples, dressed in his usual impeccable style in a Brooks Brothers gray summer suit, his signature yellow and black handkerchief in the breast pocket. Next to him is a VOLUPTUOUS GIRL. Whispering in his ear is MARTIN GRAYSON, a fawning Hollywood producer. Lucky is plowing through a plate of spaghetti, but stops good-naturedly to sign autographs and answer questions.

SAILOR
Can you make it out to
Jimmy, Mr. Luciano?

LUCIANO
Sure kid. Can’t do enough
for our boys in uniform.

TOURIST
(aiming a camera)
Say cheese Mr. Luciano…

LUCIANO
Provolone. Hey, don’t point
that thing,it might go off.

Everybody laughs as the FLASH BULB pops.

REPORTER
Senator Kefauver says that
the Mob is raking in five
billion dollars a year from
illegal gambling and you’re
in for ten per cent…

LUCIANO
Five billion? Lemme tellya
somethin’: every time a
politician wants to get
elected he says he’s gonna
throw mob boss Lucky Luciano
in jail. I put more crums in
office than the Democratic Party…

SAILOR
When you gonna come home,
Mr. Luciano?

LUCIANO
Funny you should ask. My
associate Mr. Grayson here
has a big producer flyin’
in from Hollywood to buy my
life story. Think we can
get five billion, Marty?

GRAYSON
The sky’s the limit, Lucky.

REPORTER
Who do you want to play you,
Lucky?

LUCIANO
I’m thinkin’ of starrin’ in
it myself…

Laughter and agreement from the crowd. “You could do it, Lucky..” “You look great…”

LUCIANO
But if Cary Grant’s busy maybe
Sinatra. That kid owes me a lot.

A WAITER pushes through the crowd, bearing a huge ITALIAN CHEESECAKE.

LUCIANO
Hey, look at that. I got two
weaknesses in life, cheesecake
and…Cheesecake…

LUCIANO

He puts his arms around the Voluptuous Girl and everybody laughs. Then looks up at the waiter.

LUCIANO
You new here?

WAITER
My first day Signor Lucky.

LUCIANO

Luciano stuffs a few bills in his shirt pocket.

LUCIANO
Well now we’re old friends…

As the crowd laughs he eyeballs the cake

LUCIANO
Last time I saw a cake this
big a guy jumped out blastin’…

INT. CONFERENCE ROOM. DAY

In the darkened room a NEWSREEL on a portable screen. We see Luciano in front of a bank of microphones.

NEWSCASTER
Mob boss Lucky Luciano is
comingout of exile to tell
his story…And the world
can’t wait…

LUCIANO
I’m gonna leave no stone
unturned, boys. I’m gonna
rattle some cages from
Mulberry Street right on up
to the White House…

The screen goes dark. The lights come on. We are in the law offices of DEWEY, BALLANTINE, et al… THOMAS E. DEWEY, early sixties, austere black suit, pencil mustache, is sitting at the head of a conference table. With him is LIEUTENANT COMMANDER “RED’ HAFFENDEN formerly of NAVAL INTELLIGENCE and FBI agent GEORGE BLACK.

DEWEY
He can’t come back. The
terms of his parole barred
him from ever setting foot
in the US again.

HAFFENDEN
He’s applying for a
temporary visa to visit
his sick brother, Governor
Dewey.

BLACK
It’s blackmail. His lawyer
threatens to reveal Luciano’s
war time activities if he
isn’t issued the visa.

HAFFENDEN
He’s trying to sell the
movie rights to his life
story. Just wants to get
into action again.

DEWEY
You always liked him,
Haffenden.

HAFFENDEN
Everybody likes Lucky…

DEWEY
(a rueful smile)
Don’t I know it. I prosecuted
the man. Proved that he was
a pimp and a murderer. And he
got better press than I did.
Still does.

BLACK
We should have taken him
out when we had the chance.

HAFFENDEN
(bristling)
We should have given him
a medal.

BLACK
The man’s a security threat.
He can reveal classified
information about the FBI.

DEWEY
About all of us. We
don’t want it known that
Luciano worked for Naval
Intelligence during the
war, do we Commander
Haffenden? I certainly don’t
want it to come out that I
made a secret agreement or
his services.

HAFFENDEN
Charley’s a patriot in his
own cockeyed way. He won’t
talk.

BLACK
We have to be sure.

DEWEY
Ask Lansky.

HAFFENDEN
Meyer? They haven’t spoken in
years.

DEWEY
Doesn’t matter. Lansky was
his partner. They were so
close they could read each
other’s minds…Ask Lansky.

EXT. COLLINS AVE (MIAMI BEACH). DAY

A modest bungalow by the beach. FBI AGENTS WHITMAN and SNYDER are on stakeout, parked across the street in the shade of the palms.

MEYER LANSKY
emerges, with his constant companion, BRUZZER, an ancient Shih Tzu dog. He is a short, wiry man in his sixties,in a plain white shirt and slacks, a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth .He smiles, sardonically as they approach.

LANSKY
My own personal FBI. Want
some iced tea? A little
seltzer, maybe?

SNYDER
Thanks Meyer, but I don’t
think J. Edgar would
approve…

WHITMAN
Lucky’s writin’ a book,
Meyer.

LANSKY
Lucky? Lucky who?

WHITMAN
C’mon Meyer…

LANSKY
You mean Charley Luciano?
Knew him in the old days.
Writin’ a book, huh? I
didn’t know he could
spell.

SNYDER
They say Lucky knows
everything.

LANSKY
Oh yeah? So maybe he knows
a good horse at Hialeah…

SNYDER
He’s gonna tell everybody
where you got your money
hidden, Meyer.

LANSKY
That’s no secret. It’s
in the pishka.

WHITMAN
What’s that?

LANSKY
Little glass jar where you
drop pennies to give to
the poor people in the
Holy Land…
(looks toward the house)
I better go back and tell
my wife I’m not bein’
arrested. Seeya boys…

WHITMAN
You could do yourself a
lot of good telling your
side of the story, Meyer.

LANSKY
I’m an old man sittin’
in the sun. That’s my
story…

INT. LANSKY’S BUNGALOW. DAY

Plain and comfortable. Family photos, book lined shelves, bric a brac or tchotkes as they are known in Yiddish. TEDDY LANSKY, early sixties, a former chorine, still trim and glamorous, is waiting anxiously.

TEDDY
Oy Meyer, is Charley gonna
make trouble?

LANSKY
(fishing in a drawer)
He just wants to be Page
One again. But he won’t
talk outta school.

He finds a faded photo and sits back in his lounger.

INSERT PHOTO (CROSSCUT)

Three YOUNG MEN, nattily dressed in the style of the ‘20’s. Lansky looks at it, nostalgically.

LANSKY
Look at me and crazy
Benny… And Charley. Boy,
we sure started somethin’,
didn’t we?

Next: Part 2/LITTLE ITALY, NEW YORK, 1913

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

The story is about the founders of Organized Crime, Meyer Lansky, and “Lucky” Luciano, their fifty year partnership and the empire they created. Their friendships and families, lives and loves. It is also about their implacable enemy Thomas Dewey, a young Republican attorney who built a political career prosecuting the Mob that propelled him to the NY Governor’s Mansion and almost to the White House.

For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 on Calendar at right. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER SEE

Published on October 13, 2011 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: , BOYS FROM BRAZIL, bugsy seigel, emperors of crime, FORT APACHE, HEYWOOD GOULD, jewish gangsters Cocktail, lucky luciano, MAFIA, meyer lansky, Mobsters, Movies, NY governor, one good cop, rolling thunder, screenplay publishing, screenplay submission, screenplay writing, screenplays, script writing, THE BRONX, thomas dewey, trial by jury, writing.

Sick of the movies you’re seeing? Would you like a look at the ones you’ll never see?

For every movie that is released there are hundreds of scripts that were commissioned, “developed”, written, restructured—and rewritten; reconceived, redeveloped—and rewritten; restored to their original state and—rewritten; Acquired in “turnaround” by another production entity which redeveloped, reconceived, rewrote, rejected, rescued, restored and finally—shelved them.

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

The story is about the founders of Organized Crime, Meyer Lansky, and “Lucky” Luciano, their fifty year partnership and the empire they created. Their friendships and families, lives and loves. It is also about their implacable enemy Thomas Dewey, a young Republican attorney who built a political career prosecuting the Mob that propelled him to the NY Governor’s Mansion and almost to the White House. Who hunted Luciano for years, using wiretaps and bugs, informers and tainted witnesses to send him to prison. And then released him into exile, enduring vicious accusations by his political enemies and dooming his chances of the Presidency, while never revealing the reason for his sudden turnabout.

Readers are free to submit their own shelved scripts for publication.

With two conditions:

1. The scripts must have been commissioned or acquired by a producing entity.

2. The writer must have full rights to the script.

The Daily Event legal department (non-existent) does not want a young Business Affairs attorney to pause the Coeds in Bondage video he is watching for the seventy-third time to write us a threatening letter.

Decisions of the judges will be final. Until, of course, they are reconceived, reconsidered, reexamined and—repeated.

AutoBARography 9: Bohos Against The Mob

Published on March 24, 2011 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: art galleries, bartenders, gambino, gandhi, genovese, gigante, little italy, MAFIA, SOHO, spring street bar, woodrow wilson scholarship.

SHAKEDOWN WARS
Part 1

FLASHBACK: One Million B.C. A tribe of starving Neanderthals is grunting in a cave, gnawing at whitened bones, fighting off shrieking pterodactyls. Suddenly, a herd of deer wanders by. It’s a new species, never saw them around here before. Bleating fawns wobble from nursing does to nibble the sweet grass by the water hole. Look at all this soft, yielding prey. The cave men blink at their good fortune, then attack with gleeful cries.

FLASH FORWARD: Soho,1974. Gray cast iron buildings, home to warehouses and small industry. In sweatshops immigrant ladies hunch in clouds of dust, stitching piece work to the roar of sewing machines. Skeletal Chinese, gasping in metallic fumes, turn out miniature bronze Empire State Buildings for a bowl of noodles and a pellet of opium.

A few blocks away In Little Italy minor mobsters grunt and squabble in their social clubs. Soho is a place to extort from sweatshops, sell swag, run crap games and dump bodies. A risky living.

Suddenly, the sweatshops are transformed into artist’s lofts. Guys from the midwest splatter paint or weld pieces of scrap metal into odd shapes. The novelty factories become galleries selling those splats and welds.

The neighborhood dives are hangouts for the midwestern guys and the art crowd that lives off them. There’s a lot of drinking and bloodless brawling. New, glossy restaurants offer brunch to the weekend art lovers. A theater group grows on Wooster Street. A jazz joint on Green Street. Famous galleries open Soho branches. Cool clothing stores, gourmet shops and real estate agents appear. Europeans with ski tans drink Chablis in the afternoon.

Soho has gone from B&W to Disney color. Bambi Bohos wobble by on their way to the bank. They’re a new species. Soft, yielding prey. The mobsters blink at their good fortune, then attack.

Years later I will hear a wiseguy’s wistful reminiscence of the shakedown racket.

“You didn’t have to steal nothin’ or smack nobody around. You just sat in the club and the money came pourin’ in.”

It’s a Gigante operation. Very suave. An affable young man in a business suit offers a business card for “Sentry Security.” You pay a monthly fee plus a cash “surcharge” for extra services. For those who are slow to sign on a scowling man appears in the salesman’s wake. He sits at the bar scaring the customers until the owners get the message.

A Frenchman named Jean-Jacques, whose restaurant is a favorite with the fast-forming Soho elite, calls the police. When they are enigmatic he tries the FBI. They descend in force, but the young salesman is gone and no one else in the neighborhood wants to talk. A week later a carload of mice turn up in Jean-Jacques’ kitchen. A few nights after that an exiting patron is jostled and threatened on the sidewalk. Then, on a busy Saturday night the restaurant’s front window is blown out. Several people are injured by flying glass. Soon afterward the FBI removes its mikes and cameras.

I’m working at the Spring Street Bar. The place is three deep, day and night, six days a week. (Tuesday is always slow.) They rush the bar like it’s the Fountain of Youth. One of my bosses, B… is an architect with a red beard, a rock climber who has never been seen in public without a Heineken. The other, J… is a former Woodrow Wilson scholar with a thick black beard who reads a book a day and does everything to avoid sleeping. His wife paints pictures of cats with huge eyes. They sit at the bar, drinking pitchers of Commemorativo Margaritas with no apparent effect.

The partners look down on the restaurant business with aristocratic disdain. It’s fun to work for them because they hate the customers and are always cutting someone off, throwing someone out or tearing up a check with a “get out of my restaurant and don’t come back.”

The Mob controls every aspect of restaurant supply. It sets prices and decides which family will service each restaurant. My bosses bridle under its monopoly. They are dangerously snide to the seafood man whose company is in the Genovese-controlled Fulton Fish Market, snub the table-cloth, cutlery, toilet paper guy who represents the notorious Matty “The Horse” Ianello and insult Sam, the garbage man who works for the Gambino branch of the private carting cartel.

“Garbage is a good metaphor for what you people are,” B… says to him one night.

Sam is offended. “I’m a human being…”

“That’s stretching the definition.”

Sam takes a step toward B… “You pickin’ a fight ?”

“I don’t engage in physical violence,” says B…”I’m a Gandhian pacifist.”

Sam doesn’t get it. He looks at me. I shrug like I don’t get it either. “Sanitation Department won’t collect from businesses,” Sam says. “Somebody’s gotta get the garbage off the street…It’s a public service.”

“You could do a real public service by jumping into the landfill with the rest of the garbage,” B… says.

At 4 am Sam catches up to me in Dave’s Diner on Canal Street. “So who’s your boss with?” he asks.

“He’s not with anybody.”

“He’s tryin’ to get me to take a swing at him so he can get me off the route and go with his guy, right?”

“This is his first restaurant,” I say. “He doesn’t know that Soho is cut into territories.”

Sam still doesn’t buy it. “He wouldn’t talk that way to me if he didn’t have somebody behind him.”

I want to tell him that Mob logic doesn’t apply to my bosses. “There’s nobody behind him,” is all I can say.

Sam gets stubborn. “He wouldn’t let you in on it, anyway. It’s a power play. Some big shot is backin’ him for sure…”

I’m not around when the amiable salesman from “Sentry Security” shows up, but I hear all about it when I come to work that night. The guy went into his spiel and J…cut him off.

“We don’t need you. Our bartenders protect the place…So get out of my restaurant, I know who you are.”

I am about to tender my resignation when a scowling man slides into a stool at the end of the bar. It’s a busy Thursday, people shoving and breathing down each other’s necks. But he puts up a force field and nobody intrudes on his space. He’s one of those little guys who doesn’t look like much at first glance. Lucky for me I’ve been decked by midgets; I’m not lulled. His ruby pinky ring glitters when he lights his Chesterfield with a gold Dunhill. He holds his outsized hands in front of him like paws. His knuckles are pounded smooth from the hundreds of jaws he’s broken–mine about to be next. I avoid eye contact, wary of the trick question “what are you lookin’ at?” for which there is no safe answer.

He orders a Dewars and milk, a throwback to Prohibition when steady drinkers took the antidote with the poison. As the hours go by the customers recede like low tide. By midnight when it’s usually frantic the joint is dead calm. Only a few regulars at the other end of the bar are watching with horrified fascination.

Finally, B… can stand it no longer.

“Cut him off,” he says.

“He’s just here to intimidate people,” I say. “If you leave him alone he’ll go by himself…”

“You can blame it on me,” B…says. “Tell him I say he’s scaring the customers.”

The scowling man waggles his glass as I walk down to the end of the bar. “You run outta milk?”

“Boss says I can’t serve you,” I say.

He looks at me in puzzlement and I realize no one has ever said that to him before. “Whaddya mean?”

My mouth goes dry. “He says you’re scaring the customers.”

He looks around. “I don’t see no customers.”

I have to lick my lips to get a word out. “That’s ’cause you scared ‘em all away.”

He slides his glass to the edge of the bar. “Dewars and milk.”

He walks on the balls of his feet like a boxer. B…looks down at him without flinching as he asks the trick question:

“What’s your problem?”

“You’re spoiling our fun,” says B…

The scowling man steps into punching range.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

B… stands his ground. “You have bad karma. You’re making everybody nervous.”

“You want me to go?” The man shoves him. “Throw me out…”

B… doesn’t stagger as far as expected. So the man shoves him harder against the bar. “C’mon tough guy, let’s see what you got.”

“I don’t use physical violence,” B… says.” I’m a Gandhian pacifist.”

“Then how you gonna get me to leave?”

“I expect you to do the right thing.”

The scowling man turns and challenges me.

“You a pacifist?”

“I’m a punk,” I say.

“Then gimme a Dewars and milk.”

B…moves in front of him and warns me with a wink: “If you serve him you’re fired.”

The man kicks B…’s legs out from under him. B…falls forward, his head thumping against the bar. He drops to his knees, blood pouring out of his nose.

“Now you’ve gone too far,” he says..

Once these gorillas get wound up there’s no stopping them. The next step is a hard kick to the ribs and then a few stomps to the head. Scared as I am, I can’t let that happen.

“Wait a second,” I say. My arms buckle and I barely make it over the bar.

“Wait for you to piss your pants?” the scowling man says.

B… searches through a puddle of blood for his glasses. “Don’t you know when you’re not wanted?” he says.

The scowling man stops and squints at me. “What the fuck are you guys up to, anyway?” He backs out of the door, as if he’s afraid we’re going to start shooting.

B…feels along the bar for his Heineken.

“Well I guess we told him,” he says.

By closing B…has ingested every painkiller–legal and illegal–in the pharmacopeia. I’m heading down West Broadway toward Dave’s when the scowling man gets out of an El Dorado. “Hey you, wait up, I wanna ask you something.”

Every atom in my body is screaming: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! Instead, I fold my arms and lean against a lamppost.

He is fooled by the casual pose.

“Tough guy, your boss. By not fightin’ back he puts the onus on me.”

“He’s a Gandhian pacifist,” I say.

“He told me to do the right thing. What did he mean? What am I supposed to do?”

It’s a linguistic impasse. “Do the right thing” means something very different in Little Italy.

“Nothing,” I say. “Forget about it.”

“Forget about it “means something very different as well.

“Look, I don’t wanna step on nobody’s toes,” he says. “If somebody’s protectin’ the join then fine with me. I just work here, know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean.”

He moves in and drops his voice, getting positively collegial. “Somebody’s makin’ a move here, right? Who’s your boss with?”

I shake my head. Suddenly my voice is hoarse and confidential. “He’s not with nobody,” I say. “Forget about it. “

The scowling man nods with a knowing look. ” Yeah…That’s what I thought you’d say.”

DRAFTED/Part Two Con’t

Published on July 8, 2010 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: , bataan death march, brooklyn, camel cigarette, d day, funeral homes, funerals, general bradley, graves registration, MAFIA, New York, pearl harbor, world war two.

I AM HELD HOSTAGE BY THE MOB
Part Two
ARTIE’S AMAZING STORY

One shiny suit takes my car keys. The other pokes me with a hairy finger.

“Go.”

They walk me down a dark, narrow ramp, bumping me back and forth between them. My legs buckle, my mouth goes dry. They breathe hard like they’re angry. I am sickened by the sour combo of coffee, cigarettes and Bay Rhum. Are they taking me somewhere for a beating? Or will I just get the hard smack to the back of the head I’ve seen shiny suits give guys outside Tony’s candy store on Tenth Avenue?

They knock on a steel door under a naked bulb.

“Artie, you in there…?”

From inside comes a hoarse grumble. “No, I’m ringside at the Copa.”

Another poke. “Get in there…” And they take a few steps back to make sure I enter.

It’s the embalming room. Only one table, we have four at Riverside. Our embalmers work with white coats, which are left unlaundered until they look like butchers’ aprons. The man I see squinting over a body, cigarette dangling between his lips, is wearing a frayed, gray sleeveless undershirt. He’s wiry and darkly tanned. Blood under his manicured fingernails, a gold watch rolled halfway up his tendoned arm over a tattoo of snakes and eagles and blurry letters…A pencil thin mustache, a pile of black hair, combed into a glistening pompadour.

The body has had a full autopsy –scalp peeled off to reveal the brain; skin parted along the chest cavity, from the stomach to the clavicle. He points derisively at the door. “Tough guys” he says. “They’ll split your skull with a two-by-four and eat a bowl of macaroni, but they won’t go near a deceased…”

There’s a body on a gurney in a corner. The toe tag says. “Gendelmen.”

“That must be yours,” Artie says. “We don’t get Jewish jobs.” He brushes his finger across his nose. ” Only the nice people get buried here, know what I mean?” And points to the body on the table. “Almost every job we get the cops order a full post mortem to make sure it wasn’t a homicide.”

He flips me a crumpled pack of Camels with traces of dried blood around the edges.

“Relax, you might be here for awhile. You got in the middle of a bad beef. Red Hook versus Bensonhurst.”

“But it’s only about fifteen bucks,” I say.

“Jurisdictional dispute,” he says. “Mangelli’s like a housefly on a pile of shit. He don’t know where to go first, you know what I mean?”

I don’t, but I nod anyway.

“He might be a big shot on President Street, but he’s nothin’ here, know what I mean? So now he gets caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar. And now you’re the pawn in the game. Jungle drums are bangin’ as we speak. Everybody in Brooklyn knows what’s goin’ on and they’re watchin’ to see what he does. If he sends the fifteen bucks to bail you out it means he backed down. So now he’s callin’ people, you know important people, so they’ll call other important people to make Big John let you go.”

I light a Camel and try not to cough. Artie blows smoke through his nose without taking the cigarette out of his mouth. A long ash drops into the chest cavity of the body on the table.

“The big shots live for this kinda shit,” he says. “They got nothin’ better to do, but sit around watchin’ the money roll in. So now they’ll get all jazzed up talkin’ back and forth. They might even have a special sit down about it. Give ‘em an excuse to go eat spaghetti. Get treated like big shots at some joint downtown. This could take all night. “

Once, on my first day in a new school, three kids pushed me into a clothes closet, laughing as I thrashed desperately in the darkness. I have that same feeling now.

“How old are you kid?” Artie asks.

“Nineteen.”

“Get your draft notice?”

“I gotta go for my physical.”

Artie scoops up a handful of viscera and drops it in a cellophane bag. “Don’t tell ‘em you worked in the business. They’ll put you in Graves Registration and you’ll never get out.”

A phone rings. He jabs an extension button and answers. Looks at me.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says.

He hangs up. “What was I talkin’ about?”

“Graves registration,” I say.

“Oh yeah, you wanna hear what happened to me?” He continues before I can answer. “It’s ’41, I’m lookin’ for pussy. I’m a smart guy, don’t shit where I eat. So I go to a dance outta the neighborhood in Prospect Hall. Pick up a little guinea broad, Caroline…Hot to trot, you can tell by the way they sock it into you when you’re dancin’. Coupla slow Foxtrots and we’re in the back seat of my brother’s Plymouth. Coupla months later three guys show up at my uncle’s place where I’m serving my apprenticeship—Sabbatino and Sons, ten funerals a year, he’s gonna make me a partner, I’m set for life…Caroline’s knocked up, they tell me. Not by me I say, I used a bag. Bang! they smack me. You callin’ my sister a hooer?”

Artie is talking fast in a whisper, as if he wants to get the story told before someone catches him.

“So my uncle brings me here to Big John— not this one, his father. Don’t worry, I know the family, he tells me. It’ll cost you a coupla dollars. And you oughta get outta the neighborhood for a while. Join the Army. By the time you come back everything will be blown over.

“You gotta do what these guys tellya so I enlist. They send me to Governor’s Island. I set up a morgue. It’s a picnic. I don’t even embalm, just ship bodies back to their home states. I’m home for Sunday dinner every week…

“Then guess what happens?” He smacks himself in the forehead. “Pearl Harbor. The war, you believe this? So guess what: they got plenty of guys to shoot rifles, plenty to type orders or drive trucks. But what they don’t have is enough undertakers to take care of the bodies that are pilin’ up all over the place.

“See, these generals, they’re like the big shots around here. They sit around drinkin’ highballs in the Officer’s Club for twenty years and all of a sudden there’s a war and they come up with ideas. Like now they gotta have a clean battlefield. It’s bad for morale to see bodies lyin’ around. And that means work for me…”

The phone rings again. Artie picks it up. “Yeah, yeah, okay.” He hangs up and lights a another Camel.

“I was in every theater, kid. Startin’ in Morocco where we had to dig bodies outta the sand…In combat you gotta bury guys where they fall…We’re duckin’ ordnance in the desert Messerschmitts doublin’ back to strafe the field…Then we went across to Sicily. General Bradley used to check to make sure the battlefield was clean, you believe that. We had to bury the Krauts, too…Some days we had to duck into the graves with the bodies when they counter-attacked…Gotta pick up the guy’s tags, plus any personal items he might have. Make a note of tattoos or scars or any identifying marks…That’s where I got the tattoo…See this? AFGRREG. Know what it stands for? Artie Fiore Graves Registration. So just in case they blew my head off they would know who I was and could send my wallet home to my mother…

“They sent us into England and we thought our war was over, see, after all that time in combat. Instead, we go over on D-day and hit the beach a few hours after the landing. Corpses floatin’ in the water—everywhere. We take fire but we get the beach cleaned hours after we hit. Did we get a medal, did we even get a commendation? Nothin’…See, they didn’t want to remind the homefront that people were dyin’ over there. They made these little films they showed in the theaters about every thing the Army did. But nothin’ about Graves Reg…”

The phone rings again.

“Yeah, yeah,” Artie says. “C’mon kid, that little prick Mangelli folded and sent the money.”

Artie puts a sheet over the body. He slips into a white-on-white shirt hanging over the door. Ties a fat Windsor knot in a shiny silver and green tie. “Take your body, kid.”

He guides me through a dark maze to the garage, lighting one Camel off another, talking even faster.

“’45, VE Day. War’s over right? But not for me. They keep us in to set up morgues in Japan for the Occupation. Then, in ’46 when I think I’m finally gonna get my discharge they come in with this shit detail: MacArthur wants to find the remains of the guys who died on the Bataan Death march. We been handpicked because we got so much experience. So we get rewarded with flies, and crud and fireshits for another three months. That’s what they do. They take the best guys and they run ‘em ragged. Like recyclin’ guys back to the front to break the rookies in. See, you can’t let ‘em know you’re good at anything…”

He watches as I horse the body bag into the back seat of station wagon.

“October ’46, I’m out. I had more than five years in. I come back here and they do me a big favor. Gimme a job in this joint. Same thing. They know I’m good so they abuse me. Let’s get your keys…”

In the office the big guy with glasses on his bald, yellow head, hands me an envelope.

“Give this invoice to Mr. Mangelli…”

A silver suit flips me the car keys. Another needles Artie.

“Hey fruitcake, where you goin’ all dressed up?”

Artie winks at me like he knew this was coming. “I’m goin’ to your mother’s house for dinner…” He waves the cellophane bag of guts in the guy’s face. “I’m bringin’ the tripa…”

The silver suit recoils. “You sick bastard. Get back in your hole…”

Artie laughs. “Everybody’s a tough guy…”

He turns to me.

“Remember what I tole you, kid. Don’t tell ‘em nothin. Don’t tell nobody nothin’.”

NEXT: MY FIRST PHYSICAL

MY CAREER AS A PETTY THIEF/PART FOUR

Published on October 14, 2009 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: 1958, ballantine ale, brooklyn, church avenue, fifties, HEYWOOD GOULD, history, jahn's ice cream parlor, kitchen sink, MAFIA, middleweight boxing, red hook, stick ball.

RECRUITED BY THE MOB

It’s Brooklyn 1958 and nobody has ever heard of the “Mafia.”

The word is never mentioned in the black and white B movies (later reborn as noir masterpieces) which we see on rainy Saturdays. There it’s the “Syndicate,” usually located in a luxurious office with a view of downtown LA, the San Gabriel mountains super-imposed in the distance. In the movies, the “boss” is a sleek, well-tailored, well-spoken Robert Ryan-Albert Dekker-Kirk Douglas kind of guy. There is no one who even remotely resembles “Louie from Fulton Street.” who sells fresh fish on beds of ice out of the trunk of his Buick Regal on Prospect Avenue every Friday. Or Rizzo, a hunchback, who occasionally shows up at our apartment door, peeking around me to call my father, “Hey Boinie, I got somethin’ nice for the missus.” And, after a quick confab on the back stairs sells him a watch or a pair of earrings for my mother. My father buys a gold Rolex from him for $85 which he sells for $11,000 thirty years later.

Nobody in the movies looks like Mr. Leo, a shrunken old man in a brown suit who sits at the end of the counter in Tony’s candy store cashing checks for the black and Puerto Rican washer-ironer-folder women from the Pilgrim Laundry with a “hiya doll,” and a “how much you need sweetheart?” So, in 1963, when apostate mobster Joe Valachi tells the world that all of these men are loyal to a tightly controlled hierarchical organization modeled on the Roman legions we find it hard to believe.

It’s summer and my prowess in stickball has led me into bad company. We play in the schoolyard of PS 154; five man teams, two dollars a game and the right to hold the court. I hit the ball over the fence onto the steps of the whitestones across the street. After the game, one of the losers, a stocky kid with a husky voice runs at me. “Who you think you are, Mickey Mantle…?” I flinch, thinking he’s going to hit me, but he grabs me in a headlock and gives me a friendly nougie. “Now you’re playin’ for us.”

His name is Andrew. I’m taken by his supreme self-confidence, the knowing laughter in his black eyes. His older brother Johnny Boy drives us to the games in a red Impala convertible. We’ve been using the ten cent balls made out of two rubber spheres that split in two when you hit them on the seam. Johnny Boy opens a box of “Spaldeen” Hi Bouncers, 27 cents apiece. One piece, hard rubber, I hit them almost twice as far.

We travel all over Brooklyn, playing in schoolyards and on ruined streets in industrial areas where weeds push through the buckled roads. I see guys in knit shirts and slacks, passing money and I realize these older men are betting with Johnny Boy. I overswing and hit grounders.

Johnny Boy laughs at my nerves. “Whaddya worryin’ about, it ain’t your money…” After the game, win or lose, he takes us to Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor on Church Avenue where we get the Kitchen Sink, a sundae with 32 scoops plus syrup, nuts and bananas.

On Sunday afternoons I am invited to Andrew’s house for “dinner.” He lives with his family–brothers, nieces, nephews, grandparents– in a four story brownstone in Red Hook. We eat in the back yard under a vine covered trellis. I sit at the foot of a long table with Andrew and Johnny Boy, trying not to look at their sister Rose’s huge breasts. Andrew’s dad is at the head drinking wine out of a gold-plated goblet. There are platters of roast chicken, salad with bottles of Kraft’s French, ziti with sausage, meatballs, chunks of veal and stuffed pig skin. I rise to bring my plate into the kitchen.

“Whaddya tryin’ to do, take the girls’ jobs away? ” Andrew’s father calls.

“He just wantsa get in the kitchen with Rosie,” Johnny Boy says and everybody laughs.

One Sunday, Andrew takes me aside. “Can you meet me later?”

At midnight I sneak out and ride my bike to 19th. Street, alongside the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, which was built when the city invoked eminent domain and demolished thousands of homes. Andrew gives me an ice pick. “See that baby blue El Dorado in the middle of the block? Rip up his tires, all four of ‘em.” His eyes gleam under the streetlight. “Rip ‘em to shreds…”

I’ve never done anything like this, but the movies have taught me how. I run low to the ground like the soldiers in “Battleground.” The lights are on in the house behind the El Dorado. I scramble around the driver’s side and plunge the pick deep into the tires. They deflate and start to sink. A figure appears at the window. I duck under the car and slash the rear tire on the other side, then scamper all the way around, using the car as cover, and puncture the front tire.

Andrew crouches behind the car. He reaches up and pours something down the grille onto the engine. “Fish oil,” he whispers as we run down the block. “Every time he starts the car he’ll get this stink and he won’t know where it’s comin’ from.” He’s shaking with silent laughter. “It’ll get worse and worse and nothin’ he can do about it…”

“Who is this guy?” I ask.

“Friend of my Uncle Artie’s…”

Andrew picks me up the next day. My mother won’t let him leave without eating. I cringe as she gives him a cream cheese and cucumber sandwich on pumpernickel; chopped eggs with chicken fat and fried onions; a piece of my grandmother’s cherry strudel. To me it pales in comparison with his mother’s ziti. He wolfs it down and thanks her, politely. “You have a nice friend for a change,” my mother tells me later.

“Wanna work at my Uncle Victor’s?” Andrew asks. He takes me to an empty store on Sackett Street, near the docks. A dumpy, cross-eyed guy looks me up and down. “Make a muscle, kid.” He squints dubiously at my skinny arms. “Gotta do push ups and chins.”

His name is Walter and he’s in charge. He leans a bridge chair against the wall and sits there all day, smoking Kools, reading the Daily Mirror and taking pulls on a quart bottle of Ballantine Ale. Andrew and I sit at the curb playing Casino. Once in awhile a truck rolls up and Walter calls: “Hey guys, you wanna get this?”

Sometimes it’s racks of suits or fur coats. Sometimes boxes of .45′s or LP’s or cases of J&B scotch. Anxious to prove myself I jump into the truck and hand the goods down to Andrew who puts them on a hand truck and wheels them into the store.

At the end of the day Walter peels two twenties off an enormous roll. “Don’t do nothin’ I wouldn’t do,” he says.

I realize I’m dealing with stolen goods or “swag,” as Andrew calls it, but for some reason I don’t think I’m breaking the law.

One day a nervous guy in a bloody smock pulls in with a truck full of sides of beef. “Hurry up, I gotta get back,” he says.

We have to carry the half-frozen meat down a ramp and into the store. Andrew jerks the sides onto his shoulder. I can’t get them up that high and have to hold them below my waist, straining my back. Walter watches in amusement. When the last side has been dumped he raises my arm in victory. “Winner and new champeen…” Slaps me on the behind. “You got guts…” And slips me an extra ten dollar bill.

Walter is an ex boxer. “Middleweight,” he says. “Toughest division in the fight game in those days.” I’m a worshipful listener to his stories. He talks about club fights–”Sunnyside, Eastern Parkway Arena…”–working his way through the prelims–”La Motta, Graziano, Joey Maxim, I seen ‘em all in those days.”– and crooked managers. “If I’d have had a connected manager I woulda gone right to the top. As it was I was just a cockeyed mick from Brooklyn with nobody behind me.”

Walter says he had a hundred forty-seven fights. “You fought twice a week in those days,” he says. “Now it’s twice a year for some of these guys. But I can still do the times table– two times two, three times three. I know guys who can’t even wipe their own asses anymore.”

He puts his arm around me. “Like my stories, huh? Come up to my room one of these days, I’ll show you my scrap book…”

One morning a flatbed with a high wooden fence around it is waiting as we come to work. The driver, a big, red-faced guy lunges at us. “Snap to it…”

Walter saunters around the corner with his paper, bridge chair and quart of Ballantine’s. “Mornin’ all.”

“Get goin’,” the driver says. “I been on the road all night.”

He opens the gate onto about fifty crates of live chickens. Half-dead really, some of them already gone. It looks like they just jammed as many chickens as they could into the crates and then nailed the crosspieces over them. The clucks and squawks are subdued, but the smell is overpowering and the flat bed is slick with droppings.

I try to lift a crate and can hardly move it. Even Andrew is straining so we decide to lift them together. Chickens peck at our hands. We have to put the crates on the edge of the truck, step off, lift them again and carry them into the store.

The driver watches with his arms folded. “Why don’t you get some decent guys for this?” he says to Walter.

“”What do they weight a hundred and a half?” Walter says.” If you’re in such a hurry why don’t you give the kids a hand?”

“I loaded em,” the driver says. “You unload ‘em. That means you, too, Pop.”

Walter waves his wad of bills. “I do the real heavy liftin’ around here, pal.”

The driver stands over Walter, clenching his big fists. “Get off your ass and unload these fuckin’ chickens or I’ll throw you on the truck with ‘em…”

“Okay, keep your shirt on,” Walter says, getting up.

We watch as they walk back toward the truck. Walter looks so small and hunched, next to this big guy. Tears of helpless humiliation rise in my eyes.

Walter stops to light a Kool and the driver walks a few steps ahead.

“Hey pal,” Walter says.

The driver turns and Walter hits him in the ribs with his right. He doubles over and Walter hits him under the chin with his left. It sounds like billiard balls colliding. The driver’s head snaps up. He staggers backwards, clawing the air until his feet slide out from under him and he goes down with a crash, banging his head against the fender.

A ribbon of blood flows out of the side of his mouth.

“Musta bit his tongue,” Walter says.

I’m amazed and triumphant. A bully has been defeated.

“How’d you do that?” I ask.

Walter shrugs. “You spend eight hours a day in the gym for twenty years you better learn how to throw a punch…Hose him down, Andrew.”

Walter watches as Andrew runs water over the driver until he finally stirs. Then nudges him with his foot.

“Get to work if you wanna beat the traffic.”

The driver rises to his hands and knees until his head clears. Then wobbles to his feet. Without a word he starts taking the crates off the truck. I hold the door open for him.

“C’mere,” Walter calls sharply. “He don’t need no help.”

It takes him an hour. He’s still woozy when he finishes and sits on the running board of his truck before getting up.

“Kid’s got your money,” Walter says, pointing to me.

I have seventy-nine cents in my pocket.

“Give it to him,” Walter says.

The driver stares at the coins in his dirty, callused palm.

“Seeya next time, pal,” Walter says.

As the truck pulls away Walter turns to us with a laugh. “If he thinks he caught a beatin’ now wait’ll he gets back upstate with seventy-nine cents.”

An hour later Johnny Boy drives up with an angry man in a rumpled suit. As the man speaks to Walter we tell Johnny Boy what happened.

“They say a fighter never loses his punch,” he says. “Walter was good in his day.”

“He could have been big, but the managers didn’t back him,” I say, full of indignation.

“Nobody would touch him after he did time,” Johnny Boy says. “They caught him humpin’ his nine year old nephew on the roof. He got nine years. Sat out the war.”

The next day I can’t go back to the store. Can’t face Andrew. I’m sick with the memory of Walter slapping my behind and putting his arm around me. Of his beery proposition…”C’mon up to my room I’ll show you my scrapbook.” It takes me a week to get over it and start masturbating again.

Fifteen years later I’m working as a bartender in a mob-owned disco in Times Square. Through the smoke and the strobes I recognize Andrew at the end of the bar. He’s the guy in the suit now, but still has that knowing laugh in his eyes.

“Bartending, huh?” he says. “I woulda figured you for somethin’ better.”

No point in explaining that I’m a writer picking up some extra money.

“How’s Johnny Boy?” I ask.

“He passed away a coupla years ago,” Andrew says and then quickly: “How’s your mom? Still with us?”

“Still with us,” I say.

He turns to the two guys behind him.

“His mother was some cook. Made the best egg salad I ever ate.”

AutoBARography 7: MY SHORT CAREER AS A GAY BARTENDER/PART THREE

Published on June 11, 2009 in archives. 2 Comments Tags: , amyl nitrate, bleeker cinema, british invasion, cocaine, diana ross, disco, drug culture, drugs, gloria gaynor, hotel diplomat, MAFIA, motown, quaaludes, soul makossa, the supremes.

DISCO FEVER

NEW YORK, July ’73… Discos have exploded out of the hard partying gay sub culture. Everybody wants to wear glitter…Get loaded…Dance with wild abandon…

Everybody but me. I want to get a pastrami sandwich and go to the James Cagney festival at the Bleecker Cinema.

It’s a drug culture. Booze is not a factor. Most places just serve juice to wash down the drugs. And the drugs are all about sex. “Poppers” (amyl nitrate inhalers) which were developed to treat angina, generate frenetic energy and explosive orgasms. Quaaludes, promoted as a malaria cure, produce relaxation, euphoria and what the doctors call “aphrodisia,” the desire and the capacity to have endless sex. Women and gay men report incredible results. Not me. I gulp a ‘lude one night and wake up in a chair six hours later. Cocaine, originally used as an anesthetic for eye surgery, is reputed to make the user fatally attractive and non-stop horny. People on cocaine spend a lot of time admiring the way they look and the wonderfully clever things they have to say.

Not me. After ten years of hallucinating and learning things about myself that I didn’t need to know I’m off psychedelics and back on the booze. I just want to get crocked and wake up the same person I was the night before.

Music drives the scene. The British Invasion, Motown, The Philly Sound and the first stirrings of Disco keep people on the dance floor as much as the drugs. There are no B- sides. One great song is replaced by another. Soul Makossa is played over and over with the dancers chanting “Mama-ko Mama-sa Maka Makossa.” DJ’s are the new celebrities. Cutting between two turntables they can extend a dance beyond the normal length of a record. They change clubs like ballplayers or Chinese chefs and take their followings with them. Songs are personal anthems– Everyday People, Papa Was A Rolling Stone. In two years Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive will become everybody’s life story.

But not mine. While Diana Ross and The Supremes are going platinum I’m sifting through the bins in Colony Records looking for old Lester Young sides.

Everybody participates in what one writer calls “the democracy of the dance.” Stockbrokers, drag queens, suburban couples, bikers—everybody’s out there “shaking their booty” on the dance floor.

The clubs intimidate me. The dancing is athletically demanding and everybody seems to know the steps. The girls are insanely supple, in hot pants and halter tops. The guys look like they could do triple pirouettes in the Dance of Theater of Harlem and then beat me one on one. The only klutzes are the silent partners–the scowling wiseguys in the Armani suits with the pinky rings. And they don’t dance.

I’m a poster boy for the space-time curve. I share a material world with these people, but I’m in another era. I hang out at the Blarney Castle on 72nd and Columbus—a buck for an ounce and a half shot; corned beef and cabbage with a boulder-sized boiled potato. The only dancing I see is the pas de deux as Tom the bartender rousts the geezers who have drunk up their Social Security checks.

I’m working at the Hotel Diplomat in a dance hall for Italian immigrants, downstairs from Le Jardin, the newest, hottest disco in town. The place has been open three weeks and already it’s in Page Six every day with a new celeb sighting. But up until a week ago I didn’t even know it existed.

One Saturday night I’m in the liquor room scraping rat hairs off the lemons when Lester, the night manager comes to the door. “You wanna work Le Jardin tonight?”

A dark guy in a white suit is standing at the door.

“This is Mr. Addison,” Lester says.

Addison looks me up and down and is not impressed. “At least he’s young,” Addison says. “You’re going to make a lot of money tonight,” he says. “Don’t be greedy…”

In the elevator Lester confides: “The Saturday bartender Dennis got beat up at Riis Beach. I told them you could handle it…”

A narrow vestibule opens onto a room decorated with palm trees and potted ferns. The interior is white—white banquettes, white tables. Waiters on roller skates are laying out bowls of fruit and cheese. A guy with with a gelled goatee stops counting the bottles behind the bar.

“You from downstairs? What’s your name?”

“Woody,” I say.

“I’ll be judge of that,” he says. “I’m Ira…”

Ira takes me into an office room. A muscular guy in jockeys is combing his hair. “This is Jimmy, your partner for the evening,” he says. He steps back, squinting like a tailor. “Do you mind showing your legs? The bartenders wear uniforms…” He gives me blue sleeveless basketball shirt and shorts. Pinches my biceps. “Did you ever hear of the Y?” Groans at my work boots. “You look like the Bus and Truck tour of the Village People…”

“Ira’s a snap,” Jimmy says, getting into his uniform. He seems straight, but I’ve been fooled before. “This is a cool job. They do all your prep, cut the twists, make the sour mix, even wash the glasses…” His voice drops. “They’re paranoid about stealing. Don’t buy drinks, they hate that. If a customer buys you a drink make sure to take his money. They’ll be watching so don’t get cute. I think they’re connected…”

We go outside. It’s nine-thirty and the place is empty. A skinny lady with wiry red hair looks at me with hostile surprise. “Where’s Dennis?”

“In a urinal at Riis Park,” Ira says.

“That’s Fifi,” Jimmy says. “She’s Addison’s wife or hag or something…”

Ira shows me a tupperware container full of twists and lime. “In case you want a fruit…” He opens a box of stirrers. “Do you have a sizzle stick or a fizzle stick?”

Now he’s all business. “Two dollars for speed rack, two-fifty for call, three for cocktails. Pour a good shot, John wants happy customers…”

I’m strictly a dive bartender. The thick goblets and the sharp edged glass tiles on the bar make me nervous. “You could kill somebody with one of these glasses,” I say.

“We don’t feature brawling here,” Ira says. “Everyone’s a friend of the house…”

It’s ten o’clock and nobody’s there.

“The place is dead,” I say to Jimmy.

He smiles. “It’s a late shot. It’ll pick up.”

NEXT: IS THAT REALLY BIANCA JAGGER?

AutoBARography 7: MY SHORT CAREER AS A GAY BARTENDER/PART ONE

Published on May 20, 2009 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: 1973, bars, bartenders, cocktails, diana ross, hookers, hotel diplolmat, junkies, le jardin, MAFIA, New York, rats, seagrams, Seventies, socialist party, the supremes, Times Square, vice squad.

THE HOTTEST SPOT IN TOWN

July ’73, Times Square, New York…There’s a recession on, but you can’t tell by me. I’ve got a bar job– twenty-seven bucks a night and all the goldfish I can eat. It’s at the Hotel Diplomat, an SRO on 43rd. St. and Sixth Ave. We call it “the Roach Motel” because once you check in you don’t check out. Half the tenants are seniors, shuffling around the mahogany chairs and sputtering lamps in the lobby until they find a spot on a lumpy sofa where they can lean on their walkers, muttering to the ghosts in the gloom. They stop breathing in rooms filled with fifty years of clutter, and lie forgotten until their stench signals their demise. The stronger ones make it to the hospital, bounced down the steps on a gurney, heads turning for one last dazed look around before they vanish into the ambulance of no return.

Hookers live in rooms rented by their pimps, who hang out in a bar off the lobby. They are hustled out, handcuffed and hysterical, by Vice Squad cops. New girls immediately take their places like there’s a waiting list. The seniors lean on their walkers and watch as they lead raucous sailors, nervous high school kids or furtive men in suits across the lobby.

Slouchy guys mutter in the phone booths by the elevators. Some of them are found with the needles still in their arms. Alerted by a trail of blood under the doors the maids enter to find the others tied, gagged and slashed in ransacked rooms. The seniors hobble down the hall as EMS workers wheel the bodies out, wrapped in their bloody sheets.

Rats the size of anteaters raid the liquor room, ripping open the bags of pretzels, unscrewing the tops of the maraschino cherry jars. We shout and sing to get them to scatter before we enter, but there are a few practical jokers in the pack. You don’t know what terror is until you’ve been startled by a giant rodent covered in Red Dye No. 2.

The Diplomat was once the hotel of the soft Left. The Socialist Party had its meetings and dances in its three ballrooms. Now promoters rent the spaces for dances and special events. Friday, Saturday and Sunday night the Crystal Room, so named for its chandeliers, is taken over by Alfredo, a twitchy middle-aged Neapolitan and Gerry, his blonde Brooklyn girlfriend. They put on dances for Italian immigrants. They charge ten dollars at the door and the hotel gets the bar. The room has a capacity of seven hundred and fifty. Every night begins with Alfredo pacing nervously as a few people straggle in. But by ten o’clock the place is jammed.

Three of us work a ninety foot bar. It’s Paul, a retired mailman from Harlem, Al, an angry butcher at Gristedes, who sells swag steaks out of the trunk of his car and me, a recently separated hack writer with a six year old son. We each have a bottle of Seagrams Seven, Highland Dew scotch, Gordon’s gin and Wolfschmidt’s vodka–and a soda gun. Seven and Seven is the cocktail du soir; we go through at least three cases of Seagrams a night. All drinks are $1.25 and served in plastic cups. No bottled beer; quarrels often erupt and the management doesn’t want any throwable glassware available.

The customers rush the bar, hundreds of them, shouting and shoving and clamoring for drinks for like they’ve been crawling on the Sahara for weeks. They pay in small change. “These greaseballs don’t go for spit,” Al says. By midnight, we have so many nickels in the register that Lester, the night manager dumps them in a huge sack. A quarter is considered a big tip and is presented with much pomp and ceremony. A few of the guys proffer a buck like it’s the papal crown on a plush pillow, but then they want free drinks for the friends and any stray girl who happens by. We do the math and figure that with people coming and going Alfredo is grossing ten thousand cash a night on Friday and Saturday and about five on Sunday– twenty-five G’s for low. Figuring an average crowd of twelve hundred, averaging three drinks at $1.25 per, that’s about $4500 for the hotel. For very low. “Everybody’s makin’ money and we get screwed,” Al says. We decide to charge the customers and steal from the till.

A quintet plays Top 40 and traditional Italian. Vito, the vocalist, a short kid with a gimpy leg and coke bottle glasses, is the ideal cover singer, doing Marvin Gay, Frankie Valli or Domenico Madugno with equal fidelity . Gerry rakes the dance floor with disco lighting, flashing, strobing, changing color, sweeping the room like a prison spotlight. The dancers do the same steps to a proto party list, going from Swear to God to Let’s Get It On to Volare.

There is a hard core of about a hundred regulars who show up every week. Among the men, an older group, smooth-shaven and slick-haired in wide-shouldered suits clusters at one end of the bar. They own pizza parlors all over Brooklyn and Staten Island, Vito explains. Another faction, young and modish in jeans and leather vests over sleeveless tees comes to my end. They work in “debt collection, you know what I mean?” Vito says flicking his nose. The two groups greet each other guardedly and never mix.

The females are either overdressed, heavily made up and deliriously sexy, at least to me, or mousy and awkward and giggling with each other. They arrive in groups like a bus tour and dance together for the first hour until the men join in. Everyone usually pairs off, but one night I spot a melancholy lady staring at me as she knocks back Seven and Sevens. At closing an invitation to coffee leads to a lurching clinch in the lobby and more stumbled kisses on the subway steps. But she sobers up on the long ride out to Brooklyn and by the time we get to Bensonhurst it’s life story time with lots of names and places, weddings, spiteful cousins, he saids, she saids… I find out she lives on 18th. Avenue with her parents and her “fiance” is a few doors down and I’m out of there. The next week she’s at the bar with one of the “debt collectors,” giving me a complicit smile like we’re having a mad affair.

The ’60′s had been a stressful time, what with psychedelics, army physicals and the shock of parenthood. Now, in the ’70′s I wake up broke, rejected and full of guilt on a mattress on the dusty floor of an empty apartment. But I’m not in school, I’m not in the army, I’m not married and I’m up for a job writing porno novels at ten dollars a page. Life is good.

One night I come to work to find a line a gleaming limos in front of the hotel.

“We doing weddings now?” I ask Lester.

“They’re havin’ a big party at Le Jardin tonight.”

He’s a black dude who’s been at the Diplomat for forty years, working his way up from porter. You’d think he had seen everything, but he shakes his head in amazement.

“They had Diana Ross and the Supremes up there the other night. They get just about everybody…”

I remember a few weeks ago when the place opened. “They got a fag joint on the roof,” Al had said.

Vito had gone up there one night and come back with a dismal report. “No live music…They got a DJ like on the radio. Two turntables goin’ back and forth…” He looked at me helplessly. “Everybody’s gonna do this now. We’re dead…”

It’s the beauty of narcissism. A seismic cultural phenomenon was erupting right under my nose and I didn’t even notice it.

For the first time I notice that the lobby has a new population. Young, stylish, flamboyant, pushing the seniors off their perches, interfering with the orderly process of prostitution, even sending the dope dealers into temporary retreat. They jam into the only elevator that goes to the roof, making so many trips that the motor burns out and they have to take the stairs.

“They wait on line like they’re givin’ out twenty dollar bills,” Lester says. “You oughta go up there. They got everything goin’ on…”

TO BE CONTINUED

MAFIA MAKES A COMEBACK IN FALTERING ECONOMY

Published on September 12, 2008 in archives. 1 Comment Tags: alan greenspan, brooklyn, delinquent home equity loans, federal reserve bank, giuliani, hippies, home equity loan, loan officers, MAFIA, rugs, shylock, tsho-gyalma, vagrayana, vig.

RED HOOK, Brooklyn, September 12…Until last week Barb Blasingame thought Shylock was just a character in a Shakespeare play.

But then her bank turned her down for a home equity loan.

Now Barb knows that Shylock is alive and well and going by the name of Fat Funzi of Sackett Street and she couldn’t be happier.

“Call him a loanshark if you like, but Fat Funzi saved my life,” she says.

Barb and her husband Pabu, a Tibetan weaver, have been running Yayla Rugs out of their brownstone on Fifth Avenue in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn since they left their ashram in Ashland, Oregon six years ago.

“We were dewy-eyed hippies ripe for the plucking,” she says, “but Brooklyn took us to its bosom and gave us life.”

They prospered in this newly trendy area, selling the colorful 150 knot rugs that Pabu’s family have been weaving for centuries. “We dealt with the newly childed wealthy,” Barb says. “They were young, accomplished and expanding their lives to include new souls.”

But then tragedy struck. Working late into the night to fill their orders Pabu fell asleep at his loom of rods. A spark from his prayer lamp, which burns clarified yak butter, dropped onto the tangle of pure mountain sheep wool at his feet. Within seconds his work room was aflame.

Pabu was lucky to get out with minor burns, but the work room was destroyed. With their customers clamoring something had to be done. Barb went to the bank to extend her home equity loan. To her astonishment they turned her down.

“The loan officer was very sweet,” she says. “He explained that the bank was carrying so many bad loans that it couldn’t lend any more money. He also said that he had to close our credit line because the value of our home had dropped below the amount we owed, between mortgage and home equity…”

Barb did some research. She found that Americans owed $1.1 trillion in home equity loans. As of 2007 more than 5 per cent of those loans were delinquent or in default. That number had shot up to 11 per cent in the first few months of 2008. Banks were taking billions of dollars in bad debt write offs. More than 60% of banks had tightened their loan criteria. It was estimated that $50 billion had been taken out of the credit market in the last few months.

It looked like Barb and Pabu were going to become casualties of the sub prime crisis. But then their guru Soygal Rinpoche told them about a mysterious benefactor. He guided them down Sackett Street, past Googie’s Adorables and Riskay Rita’s Unmentionables. In between Fern’s Tchotchkies and Tots’n'Tubers, which specializes in teaching toddlers creative projects with root veggies, was a storefront its windows painted black.

“I had walked this street ten thousand times and never seen it,” Barb says. “I realized I was entering another dimension.”

Inside the dark room she found a huge fat man sitting like an inscrutable Buddha on a bridge chair.

“He said his name was Fat Funzi,” Barb says, “but I knew he was an avatar of Tsho-Gyalma, the God of Happiness.”

Fat Funzi was a man of few words.

“How much you want?” he asked Barb.

She told him and he nodded.

“Six for five,” he said. And the deal was done.

The mob reigned supreme in Brooklyn for many years, but fell on hard times in the ’90′s.

“Giuliani put us in jail,” Fat Funzi said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Event, “but Alan Greenspan put us out of business.”

Greenspan, head of the Federal Reserve Bank, presided over the largest expansion of credit in history.

“Under Greenspan any deadbeat could get a loan,” Funzi said. “You didn’t need no collateral, no references. You didn’t need to come to me no more…”

Funzi gloats over what happened next. “But deadbeats don’t pay back. And if you can’t collect with a two-by-four you’re outta luck.”

As of March 2008, ten percent of the mortgages were delinquent or in default. Banks were foreclosing on property that was worth less than their loans. Billions of dollars of mortgage derivatives were transformed into junk. Investment banks went under. Retail banks facing huge losses, had no money to lend.

“We were back in business again,” said Funzi.

After years of indigence the Mob was cash poor as well. But it had ways of raising capital.

Barb’s first loan was in sacks of quarters that Funzi’s boys got from plundering parking meters. Then there was an envelope of two-dollar bills burglarized from a collection upstate. Hundreds came rolled up with traces of cocaine.

“Funzi said they were donated by ex drug dealers who wanted to give back to the community,” Barb says.

Funzi even arranged for contractors to come and rebuild Pabu’s work room. They didn’t need an approval from the city.

“Funzi said the building inspectors were with him,” Barb says. “He took my hand in the nicest way and said: You’re with me, too. Nobody will ever bother you again.”

Barb felt she was going back in time to the old Brooklyn that existed before the settlers came from Manhattan and the Continent.

“It was like finding middens, remnants of an old civilization,” she says. “There had been a rich native culture here once.” “With its own traditions, its own rituals.”

She says she learned some of the native language.

“Vig was the interest on the loan. It was very zen. You paid and paid, but it never got any smaller.”

Only Funzi had power over the “vig.”

He taught me another word,” says Barb. “Gummare…It was like the Chinese custom of the second wife. Funzi said if I became his gummare he would make the vig go away.”

But Pabu said polyandry was forbidden in the Tibetan culture and Barb gratefully refused Funzi’s offer.

Then, after a few missed payments, Barb learned a new meaning for the word “kneecap.”

In the hospital, Pabu did some research. When he came off the crutches he told Barb he had discovered a branch of Buddhism, the Vagrayana, that allowed a married woman to become the “spiritual consort” of another man.

Now balance has been restored. The debt is repaid. Pabu’s loom is clicking. Barb has a huge diamond ring and a diamond choker so heavy she can hardly hold her head up.

“Everywhere we go Funzi introduces me as his Spiritual Consort,” Barb says. “His friends laugh and clap and everybody’s just in the best mood.”

PUTIN WANTS TO BE TONY SOPRANO

Published on August 29, 2008 in archives. 0 Comments Tags: BRITISH PETROLEUM, GEORGIA, HUGH G. MCDOWELL, MAFIA, MEDVEDEV, oil, OPEC, PUTIN, Russia, RUSSIA VALDIMIR PUTIN, SAMMY FRAVANO, SAMMY THE BULLO, TONY SOPRANO.

PUTIN WANTS TO BE TONY SOPRANO

GREENPOINT, Brooklyn, Aug.28…Winston Churchill famously called Russia “a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery.”

In the aftermath of Russia’s brutal foray into Georgia, analysts were wondering what was going on behind the stone walls of the Kremlin and especially in the mind of its leader, Vladimir Putin.

Now Igor Yopsvoyomatsky, head of the Greeznyzidh Think Tank, feels he has unwrapped the enigma and solved the riddle.

“Putin doesn’t want to be Tsar or Commissar,” he says. “He wants to be Tony Soprano…”

In an interview at Golubchik’s Lounge, Yopsvoyomatsky, a recent immigrant from Pinsk said he didn’t truly understand Putin until he came to America.

“In Brooklyn, on the streets of the Bensonhurst, quarter, I saw scores of muscular young men in sleeveless undershirts they call “wife-beaters,” wearing heavy gold ID bracelets and big rings, which is Putin’s preferred outfit. I heard stories about Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, another short man with big muscles who controlled the neighborhood. This is Putin’s fantasy role, I thought. The Mafia strong man.

“Putin models his behavior on American gangster culture,” Yopsvoyomatsky said. “He uses blackmail and intimidation. He works behind front men, corrupts public officials, and assassinates those who defy him.

“If you look at things in Mafia context you can predict every move he will make”

Yopsvoyomatsky offered the Georgian invasion an an example.

“This is about wiping out a rival boss and at the same time crushing a front man who wouldn’t play ball,” he said. “A two-horse parley, Tony Soprano would say.”

Putin’s Mob had made a deal with British Petroleum to exploit Russian oil and gas resources. ” BP was big corrupt company,” Yopsovoymatsky said. ” Involved in bribery and blackmail scandals . It had ignored safety standards, which led to bursting of Alaska pipeline and an explosion in Texas that killed fifteen. So BP made a deal behind Putin’s back with Georgia to construct pipeline that would run from Baku through Tiblisi, the Georgian capital, to Ceyhan in Turkey, completely bypassing Russian pipelines and providing independent supply of natural gas to Western Europe.”

BP’s Georgian country manager, Hugh G. McDowell said at the time that the “oil and gas fields of the Caspian (were) among the most sizable and productive in the world.” The pipeline traveled 1,768 km and transported one million barrels of oil a day. When it was opened in July 2006, BP said it was the largest new non-Opec source of oil supply in 15 years.

With a grimace Yopsvoyomatsky threw down a shot of Popov, the vodka in the plastic bottle, coughed and wiped his streaming eyes.

“Tony Soprano would never let someone make big money in his backyard,” he said. “So Putin wasn’t going to let his front man make a deal with enemy mob in Georgia to cut him out,” he said. “He also wanted to teach BP a lesson, not to, how you say, mess with the Boss of all Bosses.”

The Russian invasion effectively shut down the Georgian pipelines. The Russian Navy took over the port of Poti, preventing oil tankers from docking. It bombed the main east-west bridge that connected various oil depots to Tiblisi. It crippled BP’s jet fuel business at Tiblisi airport. It intimidated the neighboring countries, serving notice of what would happen if they made deals with the West.

Was it a success?

Maybe, but…Yopsvoyomatsky shook his finger with a sly look. “This is not the way Tony Soprano would do business,” he said.

“Tony would have brought in top hit men to show strength. Instead, the world watched rusty Russian tanks break down. It got a good look at antiquated military in action…Russians were so desperate they stole American Humvees to drive their generals around…”

“Tony would have consulted his soldiers first to see if his family businesses would be affected,” he said. “Putin didn’t do this. And now the Russian stock market has lost much value; the ruble has sunk; investors are withdrawing from deals; Russians were gobbling up American steel companies, but now US Congress wants to put a hold on acquisitions.

“Tony would have requested permission from the other families before making such a big move in their neighborhood,”Yopsvoyomatsky said. “Dictators and Dons do not like to be taken by surprise. But Putin didn’t inform Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Tajikstan, not to mention China, which is its counterpart in the Shanghai Co-Operation Organization, Central Asian version of New York’s Five Mafia Families. These countries also have rebellious provinces with secessionist movements. They don’t want trouble. They did not give Russia a public vote of confidence at their annual meeting. China even expressed ‘concern about the latest developments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,’ which is equal to slap in the face to Putin. Behind closed doors you can imagine how angry they really are.”

Yopsvoyomatsky thinks Putin has made a mistake. “He has no support from his so-called allies, his vassals are losing money and his enemies have forgotten their differences to unite against him.

“This is classic Mafia scenario,” he said. “The faithful Medvedev, the heir apparent, is watching in the wings as the Boss stumbles. He is having secret meetings, building alliances, biding his time.

Yopsvoyomatsky raised his glass. “Putin maybe has one more Mafia lesson to learn:

Dons don’t die in bed.”

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Page 5 of 5

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 6

By

Heywood Gould

Next: Part 7/Act Four: Billions & Booze (Wednesday, 11/09/11)

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 5

By

Heywood Gould

Next: Part 6/Act Three: Getting Some Class (Monday, 11/07/11)

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 4

By

Heywood Gould

Act 1 (cont)

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 3

By

Heywood Gould

Act 1 (cont)

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 (Calendar at right.) Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 (Calendar at right.) Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME/Part 2

By

Heywood Gould

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

*For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME by Heywood Gould. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 on Calendar at right. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

*Heywood Gould is the author of 9 screenplays including “Rolling Thunder,” Fort Apache, The Bronx,” Boys From Brazil,” and “Cocktail.”

EMPIRES OF CRIME

By

Heywood Gould

Act 1

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

For Introduction with submission guidelines go to Oct 13 on Calendar at right. Use Contact Us, above, for submissions.

Sick of the movies you’re seeing? Would you like a look at the ones you’ll never see?

In a new department the Daily Event will reoffer some of these scripts. Read them and decide: would you like to have seen this movie?

Our first script is EMPIRES OF CRIME. Seven years in development it is a six part mini-series commissioned by a broadcast network and later reacquired by a cable station.

Readers are free to submit their own shelved scripts for publication.

With two conditions:

1. The scripts must have been commissioned or acquired by a producing entity.

2. The writer must have full rights to the script.

The Daily Event legal department (non-existent) does not want a young Business Affairs attorney to pause the Coeds in Bondage video he is watching for the seventy-third time to write us a threatening letter.

Decisions of the judges will be final. Until, of course, they are reconceived, reconsidered, reexamined and—repeated.

Drafted, A MEMOIR OF THE 60'S By Heywood GouldTolmitch Press

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Drafted, A MEMOIR OF THE 60'S
By Heywood Gould
Tolmitch Press