The Starlight Club: The Starlight Club (Mystery Mob Series Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter Nine

Jimmy the Hat was waiting outside his apartment in Corona Heights with his luggage and a suppressed fixed-barrel colt .22 pistol in a shoulder holster under his coat
. He carried the assassins’ gun - the one Red told him to bring. With the 22LR, there were no cycling issues to worry about and, with a good suppressor, a 22LR could be ridiculously quiet, sounding-like-a-BB-gun-quiet. Red opened the trunk of the Caddy convertible and placed their luggage into the large well. With the luggage stored, they got comfortably seated. Before starting the car, Red pressed a button hidden under his dash. This triggered a solenoid that released a portion of the dashboard, designed to hold two guns. This was 007 shit. Big Red had the dashboard taken apart and customized by one of Yip’s men and it was a work of art. Looking at the dashboard, it was impossible to tell that it hid a stash of weapons. But there was more. He also had a secret compartment built into the trunk that held an AK47 assault rifle. It used a 7.2x39mm cartridge, but he wanted his handguns where he could get to them in a hurry, without having to leave the car. Another modification was to have the Caddy’s windows replaced with bulletproof glass, the sides of the car reinforced with armor plating. He had left the undercarriage unmodified. After all, he figured this wasn’t Korea and he didn’t expect to hit a landmine. All he wanted was an edge - a little protection if he was attacked and the modifications he had built into his car gave it to him. But there was a flaw, a weakness that the car had. This was the very same Cadillac convertible that was given to him in lieu of money owed to him, and because it was a convertible, they couldn’t make the whole car bullet proof.

Jimmy the Hat got his name because of his love for hats especially the king of all head coverings - the Stetson
. He was six feet one, late twentyish, movie star handsome, with dark, almost black hair and should have been in pictures. He had the blue eyes of a northern Italian which was unusual because both of his parents were from Sicily. Red had been meaning to talk to Yip about sending Jimmy to a contact of Yip’s in Hollywood, but he never got around to it and he never mentioned it to Jimmy. He had contacts of his own in Hollywood but he deferred to Yip because of the respect he had for him. It would be wrong to go over Yip’s head, but there was another reason he didn’t want Jimmy to leave - pure selfishness. He just didn’t want to lose Jimmy. Red liked the kid and depended on him. There wasn’t anything Jimmy wouldn’t do for him. Still, he thought, it would be nice to see Jimmy get away from this life. He wanted him to have that chance so he made up his mind that when they got back, he would call Yip and ask him for this favor.

Jimmy always dreamed of going to Florida and meeting a rich, beautiful divorcee, but that wasn’t possible because of the life he led
. Even if he managed to find a wealthy, good woman, what could he offer the lady? He certainly couldn’t tell her that he was a mob enforcer and it was damn impossible for her to have a future with him because of the work he did. How could he ever get married? What woman would want to marry a guy like him? Yet, he often daydreamed about being married with two kids, normal life like the rest of the world. He could even picture his daughter looking up at him, innocently, with her angelic face asking him, “Daddy, what do you do for a living?”

“Nothing special, sweetheart
. I kill people for a living and it’s really boring. No fun at all. I promise you, you wouldn’t like it.”

No, it would never work, so whenever he thought of marriage and kids, it made him sad a bit
. Since it wasn’t in his character to be depressed, he just pushed those thoughts into the deepest recesses of his subconscious and refused to allow them to resurface, for at least another year or so. It distracted too much from his business. He had always been a positive guy, always looked at the bright side of things and he wouldn’t allow the thought of marriage and the job get him down. His looks were deceptive. They were deceiving because, like Crazy Joey, he was a dangerous man, loyal to a fault but just as heartless, when necessary, and his boyish charm and affable personality fooled many men who stood before him. This ‘gift’ of his lulled many a man into a false sense of security. That was the moment he was at his deadliest.

It wasn’t by accident that Red wanted Jimmy the Hat to accompany him
. He had a feeling that he would need him before this trip was over. There were others he could have taken that were good. He could have taken Frankie or Trenchie, but he needed Frankie to collect his money and Trenchie to look after his business interests, so here he was with Jimmy the Hat headed to Florida. Besides, Jimmy was his chick magnet.

The two men drove over the George Washington Bridge, found I-95 and aimed south
. After hours of driving, stopping only for fuel and food, and the occasional pit stop, they exited just North of South of the Border. It was time to stop for the night. The Holiday Inn at Fayetteville would be just fine.

Early the next morning, they enjoyed a continental breakfast and hit the road again for another two hours before stopping for a real breakfast at Denny’s. They continued through South Carolina and through the short part of I-95 that passed through the tip of Georgia
. Finally, they crossed the line heading toward Jacksonville. It was when they passed the first palm trees that they felt the charm of the southern Riviera - proof that they really were in the Sunshine State. It was uplifting especially since the trip was a spontaneous one. Here they were, passing the palm trees that lined I-95. Red’s mind began to drift to other exotic locales - Havana, the place that the Hollywood elite often visited, Tahiti, Hawaii. Now that they were in Florida, maybe a short vacation wasn’t so bad. Driving through Florida from the Georgia/Florida border heading to Fort Lauderdale was like driving along a third of the east coast. It was a long drive, but an enjoyable one. The warm Florida sun and the smell of salt water wafting in from the ocean, welcomed them to paradise. They arrived at the Hot Shoppes around ten pm entered the lobby, slightly patted their guns to ensure that they were safely hidden under their jackets and headed for the check-in desk.

Red scanned the lobby, looking for anything out of sync - checking for something, anything, which might appear normal to the average person, but suspicious to a man who was in his line of business - experience that only comes from the streets
. Red spotted it - the anomaly. The lobby was practically empty with just a husband and wife with their two small children by the elevators, but as the men walked towards the front desk, Red spotted a lone Latino man, reading a newspaper. Red noticed that the Latino had positioned himself to have a good view of both the elevators and the entrance of the hotel. He seemed out of place. There was no one else but this man sitting in the lobby. Without turning his face, Red nudged Jimmy and told him to take a look at the man reading the papers. “Okay,” Jimmy said, as he casually turned, leaned his back against the front desk, and bent down as if to check his suitcase. As he did, he took a good look at the man, sizing him up without being obvious.

“Got him
. Is somethin’ wrong?”

“No, nothin’s wrong
. I want you to remember that face, just in case.”

“In case of what
? Red, you’re not gettin’ paranoid on me now, are you?”

“Look Jimmy, Trenchie thinks somebody may be out to get me and although I hate to admit it, he’s usually right about these things
. Remembering his face is a precaution, just like our guns are. He seems out of place. Do you remember that scene in the Maltese Falcon when Humphrey Bogart finds a guy in the hotel reading a paper and the guy was following him? Do you remember that scene?”

“Yeah, it was a great scene and Bogart handled it well.”

“Well the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up when I look at that guy. Tell me something. Does that guy sitting there reading the paper at this time of night look natural to you?”

“No, now that you mention it, it doesn’t. He doesn’t.”

“It sure as hell doesn’t look natural to me, that’s for sure.”

Jimmy instinctively nudged the gun under his jacket and asked, “You want me to go and have a talk with him?”

“No, not now. But let’s be on our toes. Somethin’s not right here.”

During check- in Red asked the clerk if the man sitting behind him reading the paper was a customer of the hotel.

The clerk raised his head from his check-in register and looked at the man. “No, I’ve never seen him before. He isn’t one of our customers as far as I know. ”

“Okay, thanks
. I’m on a business trip and I was told a new client might meet me here tonight and I thought it might be him.”

When the elevator door closed, the man folded his newspaper, walked to a pay phone near the elevators, and dialed a number.

“They just checked in and went up to their room.”

Chapter Ten

The boys were relaxing in a cabana facing the beach, nursing double espressos. The day was beautiful - not a cloud in the sky. The ocean was a clear cobalt blue and the beach and sand were dotted with multicolored bathing suits sitting and standing near the water’s edge. The collage of colors looked like something you’d see in a Renoir painting. Red and Jimmy watched a biplane, low in the horizon, fly slowly overhead, pulling a long banner of advertising, “Great Meals At Lester’s Diner. Their attention was momentarily interrupted as a beautiful, scantily clad young girl pranced past them, chasing a Frisbee. Her ponderous breasts bounced up and down as though they were leading an orchestra. Red thought by God Creighton was right. There must be about ten girls to every guy at the Fort Lauderdale beach and each one more beautiful than the other. He wondered why he hadn’t done this sooner. Why did it have to take an order from Yip to get him out of town? He laughed at the absurdity of it and made a mental note to visit Florida every year. Somehow the girls here seemed more beautiful than other places. Jimmy attributed it to the bathing suits they
didn’t wear
- those bikinis. There was no denying that bikinis had certain attention-getting qualities.

This morning Red and Jimmy were content just to relax and let the sun bathe over them
. City boys don’t get enough sun. But even though the waters of the sandy white beach were crystal clear, they had no intentions of swimming in it. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to swim - it was because they knew they would be easy targets for anyone wanting to stir up a little mischief. No, getting into the water would not be smart. This morning they had purposely dressed in loose fitting shirts and shorts to hide their guns.

“Red,” Jimmy whispered shaking Red out of his reverie.

“Yeah.”

“Remember that guy from last night?”

“Yeah. What about him?”

“He’s sittin’ six tables behind us readin’ the papers again, only today he’s wearin’ sunglasses, a baseball cap and a different shirt, but it’s the same guy. How do you wanna’ handle it?”

“Let’s take a walk along the beach and see if he follows us. If he does, and I think he will, then we’ll know for sure that he’s tailin’ us, probably waitin’ to get us alone. We can lead him along because we have the advantage of him not knowin’ that we’re on to him.”

They got up from the table, tipped the waiter on their way out and leisurely strolled south. They walked as far as the Elbow Room, a neat little beach bar, and stepped inside for a cold beer
. Red looked up at the monitor above the bar. He nudged. “Take a look at the monitor and tell me what you see.” The little black and white camera showed a clear picture of the beach side of the street
.
There he was, sitting there on the low stone wall that separated the beach property from the sidewalk, staring attentively at the entrance to the Elbow Room. “Hey, Red, that’s our boy out there, for sure. What say we go and have a little talk with him?”

“No, not yet. There’s too much traffic out there, I wanna’ get him somewhere quiet
. Let’s just continue as usual, watch him, and wait ‘til it darkens if we have to.”

The boys acted as if they hadn’t a care in the world, chatting up the women, buying them drinks and just enjoying themselves, all the time aware of their stalker outside the Elbow Room. Nightfall came and Red decided that it was time to make a move. When he and Jimmy were about to leave, Red asked two of the girls, sitting with them, if they were interested in making an easy hundred each just to walk down Las Olas Boulevard with them, toward their hotel
. At first the girls were offended, thinking that Jimmy and Red wanted to pay for services. Prostitutes they were not!

“Nothing like that girls,” Red said. “No funny stuff here
. I just want you girls to walk with us a few blocks. I have my reasons. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, feel free to leave. Here’s a hundred bucks each for your trouble.”

The girls had no idea what was going on
. As they stepped out of the bar, they looked around and could see that there were plenty of people on the street. They didn’t feel threatened by these men and a hundred bucks was a hundred bucks. They accepted the cash and began to walk. “I’m Iris and my girlfriend’s Tiffany.” Red put his arm around Iris’s waist. He turned. From a distance, it appeared that he was talking to Jimmy, but he was actually sneaking looks over Jimmy’s shoulder, tracking the guy who was tailing them. They took their time walking along the crowded boulevard, stopping at times to look at hawkers selling their wares. When they finally arrived at the hotel, Red asked the girls if they would like to have a drink in the bar before hitting the road. Iris was a bit suspicious.

“I don’t know about that. The bar - that’s it, right
? Nowhere else.”

“Yes, just the bar and like I said, you’re free to leave anytime you want.”

“Look, you guys seem like nice guys so what’s up? What’s the game you’re playing? Why did you want need us to walk with you to your hotel? I mean, come on - two hundred bucks is a lot of money just to walk down the street with somebody.” Jimmy just smiled his boyish smile, a little amused by the mystery of it all. Hey, this would be a great way to get women in the future. Now that he thought about it, what a neat trick. Give ‘em a hundred bucks to walk down the street with ya, thank them with a quick drink, and take it from there. Red decided that the girls deserved some answers.

“There’s a guy been following us for two days now and I didn’t wanna’ let on that we were on to him, so that’s why I wanted you girls to walk with us, you know . . . to make it seem as if we had no idea we were being followed because we were having too good a time with you girls.”

“Whew - that’s a mouthful. Ok, but if you had told us, you wouldn’t have had to pay us anything,” Iris said. “I hate stalkers. I hope you get him.”

“Oh, we’ll get him alright
. We just wanna know who put him up to it and why.”

They each took a seat at the hotel’s bar. Red raised his arms a bit, fanning his slight sunburn. Instantly, Iris noticed the gun nestled in the waistband of his swimsuit.

“You shouldn’t let that thing show,” she said.

Red looked down and realized his mistake
. The gun was a part of him, as natural as a sock. He wore a sock, he wore a gun. Having been on the beach, he momentarily forgot about it. He was used to packing under a jacket not a beach shirt.

“We didn’t know what might happen so we came prepared.”

There was something about dangerous men that attracted some women like moths to a flame. It was intoxicating in a twisted way - the aura of a mischievous man. The girls were now intrigued and a bit on fire.

“Do you guys each have your own room?”

“We sure do, gorgeous,” answered Jimmy.

“Well then, why don’t we go to your rooms an
d finish our drinks up there?”