Chapter 19 - The Ghost on Mulberry Street
Down in Little Italy, the neon sign of the San Marco bakery buzzed with a low, electrical hum against the gathering dusk. The bakery had been a Moretti front since the 1950s, used primarily for laundering cash through bags of flour and stale biscotti.
Damen sat at a corner laminate table, stirring three cubes of sugar into a cup of espresso that tasted like burnt rubber. Across from him sat Frankie "The Finger" Spinelli, an old-school button man whose hair was dyed jet-black and whose hands shook slightly from Parkinson's or too much cheap whiskey—Damen never bothered to check which.
"Antonio’s changing the rules, Frankie," Damen said, lighting a cigarette without asking permission. "No more street taxes on the small merchants below Canal Street. The bodegas, the delis, the dry cleaners—we're letting them breathe."
Frankie stared at his coffee cup, his face lined like a cracked leather saddle. "Breathe? Since when does the Moretti family run a charity? If we don't collect, the Lucchese family will step right in and fill the vacuum. You know how these shopkeepers are—they pay whoever holds the heaviest bat."
"Let the Lucchese family try," Damen replied, blowing a thin stream of gray smoke toward the drop ceiling. "Antonio isn't using a bat anymore. He bought the mortgage companies holding the notes on their storefronts last Tuesday. Any family that tries to collect a street tax in our boroughs will find their commercial loans called in by dawn."
Frankie blinked, his rheumy eyes widening slightly as the strategy clicked into place. "He’s... he’s turning us into bankers."
"He’s turning us into legitimate landlords," Damen corrected, stubbing out his cigarette in a chipped saucer. "It's cleaner, it pays better, and the police commissioner doesn't have to look the other way because our lawyers write the ordinances. Welcome to the twenty-first century, Frankie. Try to keep up."
As Damen stood up and adjusted his coat, he dropped a thick manila envelope onto the table. "That's your pension package. Two grand a week, tax-free, sent directly to your niece in Florida. Enjoy the sunshine. You're officially retired."
May you like
Frankie looked at the envelope as if it were a venomous snake. "And if I say no?"
Damen paused at the door, the street light from Mulberry Street casting a long, skeletal shadow across the checkered floor. "Then you can stay here and explain to Antonio why you want to keep shaking down dry cleaners for fifty bucks a week. I hear he's got plenty of gardening work that needs doing."
