Jeff,
finds himself in Atlanta Magic
Town
Chapter 12 of Magic Town ...
Saturday, 9:08 PM: Antonio
Shonna takes Jeff to
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- Chris Lamela
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Magic Town, Chapter 12
Saturday, 9:08 PM: Antonio
Soon Jeff was in the back seat of a black Ford Crown Victoria, a Crown Vic as the cops liked to call it,
with tinted back windows as they left the hotel parking lot. The agents shook
his hand introducing themselves warmly which surprised Jeff because they had
hardly said a word to him all day. Steve and Vic. Steve was driving with Shonna
next to him, Vic was in the back seat with Jeff.
Before long they arrived at Magic
Town
“The front door?” Jeff asked with a worried tone.
Steve looked over his shoulder, “No dark back parking lots for you
tonight,” half-smiling, “Congressman.”
A young valet attendant ran up to the driver’s window, as Steve got out
he told the attendant, “Antonio says leave it here.” The young man backed away
without a word.
Jeff could hear the THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP of the music, the muted
sounds of men howling inside.
Yes, it was Saturday night at Magic
Town
In a moment they walked through the front door. Jeff walked forward to the
curtain leading into the bar pushing the black curtain aside as twirling lights
cascaded into the short hallway. Perkins the bouncer turned looking down at
Jeff with startled surprise––a tug on Jeff’s sleeve pulled him away from the
curtain, he turned to see Perkins pull the curtain back to look after him, jaw
dropped in stark disbelief as Shonna tugged Jeff through the side door into the
outer hallway he had been in last night going to the back parking lot. Steve
and Vic followed.
As they stood in the doorway she leaned to Jeff in a firm tone,
“Remember it’s Shonna. Shonna. This guy is really sharp, he picks up on everything. Don’t blow it, okay?” He
nodded.
They walked around the corner soon turning left into the door that Jeff
had seen the light around when they walked past it last night.
The room was softly lit with lamps on tables, stained glass shades, no
overhead lights. Antonio stood up walking forward to greet Jeff warmly,
“Congressman, you certainly look very good for a man who was shot four times
this morning. I heard they killed you!”
Jeff smiled confidently, “The rumors of my death have been greatly
exaggerated.”
“Mark Twain! Wonderful! Come sit down, we have a lot to talk about.”
Jeff sat in a large stuffed chair around a small round table, Antonio
facing them sitting in a similar chair, all done in a maroon velvety fabric, a
third chair to Jeff’s left. As his eyes adjusted to the dark room Jeff saw two
men standing against the wall behind Antonio. Jeff turned around seeing Steve
and Vic standing against the wall behind him in exactly the same pose with arms
down in front of them, hands clasped loosely together.
Shonna came around as Antonio jumped up, stepped forward, “Oh, and my
beautiful Shonna, our new rising star!” he leaned forward, they both exchanged
a quick peck on the lips. Shonna sat down with Jeff to her right.
“Let’s have a drink!” Antonio turned to a small refrigerator next to him
starting to open it, Jeff saw beer bottles inside. Antonio thought for a second,
closed the refrigerator, turning to the man on his left behind him, “Better
yet, call Marla and have her bring us a tray of drinks,” looking from Jeff to
Shonna, “What will you have?” They spoke over each other with drink names, Antonio
put up his hand looking around to the man behind him, “Okay, never mind, just
have her bring a full tray, lots of drinks, alright?” The man reached toward a
phone as he turned away.
Antonio was shorter than average, slim build, dark mulatto complexion.
He spoke with a slight Cuban accent by Jeff’s ear. Jeff guessed that he was
maybe his age, around forty, maybe forty-five or even a little older. Antonio
wore two-toned shoes, white on top surrounded by a chocolate brown. His hair
was jet black, greased back. He sported a pencil-thin mustache, dressed in
white chinos and white silk shirt buttoned up to his neck with a shirt collar
that came to points five inches from his neck. His face had sharp lines to its
shape, chiseled from stone like those Mayan statues with their stern
expressions, his forehead protruding over his eyes covering them in shadow in
the light of the room. Jeff could see his eyes were black with a sparkly glow
as Jeff searched into them trying to read this man.
He seemed amiable enough with a very open expression. Almost honest looking with his wide
Ricky Ricardo grin, you would almost expect to hear Lucy’s voice any second,
“Oh Ricky!”
Jeff glanced around the room noticing the door on his left that Antonio
had gone through into the bar last night. He was trying to figure out the motif
of the décor, noticing Antonio’s white Panama hat on a rack by the door. The
decorating was deliberate without a doubt. While it looked varied, it was not
eclectic. He guessed it was a Caribbean style for the overall design, with
touches from different cultures, mostly Latin America
from what he could see. All done very tastefully and very carefully. Jeff found
himself fascinated by the decorating. Here they were in this sleazy strip club
where the only decorations were dollar bills hanging out of the strippers’
scant clothing with a cartoon magician dangling a cartoon rabbit on the back
wall. Then here was this room with everything in perfect order. This is a
fastidious man who pays attention to details and likes order around him Jeff
nodded to himself.
Yes, Antonio liked order. This went a long way to explaining why Jeff’s
little press conference had caused Antonio to call this meeting so urgently. He
was definitely interested in keeping order.
Any
sense of order.
Jeff listened. He could hardly hear the thumping music, barely audible
even though it was just through the wall behind Antonio. “How do you make this
room so quiet? The bar is just on the other side of that wall, right?”
“Triple wall, insulation inside and between each layer. And that door,”
pointing the door leading to the bar, “has a special sound-proof design. Pretty
good, eh?” Jeff nodded craning his head to try to hear, nodding impressed. “I
would like to say this was all my design, but it was not. It was my idea,
though, but I had to pay a sound engineer from one of my other little
businesses to come in to design it. The ceiling is insulated, too!” Antonio
looked behind him at the wall, glanced at the door, up to the ceiling with a
satisfied smile.
“So, congressman, I hear you had a pretty busy morning,” laughing with a
chortle, “body armor is a man’s best friend, eh? I tell you what, that Kevlar
is some amazing stuff, one of the great modern inventions. Boy, that was smart
to be vested! You just never know what can happen in these poor neighborhoods
in south Atlanta
Shonna gave Jeff an almost
imperceptible nod, telling him to step up to the plate. He got up his nerve
deciding he needed to start controlling the conversation. “Yeah, well, it
doesn’t hurt to have insurance right? We don’t think, ‘Hey, I’m going to be in
a car accident tomorrow so I better go get insurance!’”
They all gave a little laugh as Antonio smiled, “Yes, congressman, we
all carry useless insurance until something happens and it turns out it wasn’t
so useless after all, eh?”
Jeff liked the amiable tone of the
conversation even though he knew everyone was positioning themselves, he wanted
to keep the dialog friendly as long as he could. “So, Antonio, tell me about
you, where you from?”
“I was just another little kid coming across
from Cuba Miami
“My uncle said he picked that car because it had a––you probably know
more about this than I do I’m sure––something he called a good center of
gravity so the car wouldn’t be too heavy on the front or back. People think we
were all sugar cane or cocoa farmers in Cuba back then, but my uncle was a
mechanical engineer, we were very proud of him. He was the only family member
to ever get a college degree! He worked designing power plants in Cuba Miami Miami
“So he showed me how to fill the tank from the big gas can in the trunk
next to me, how to pull the cord to start outboard motor, they stuffed this
skinny little twelve year-old kid into the trunk and kept yelling, ‘Go more
right!’ or ‘Go more left!’ or ‘Are you awake back there!’ and I kept hitting my
head on the trunk lid that was propped up. I wanted to lay down in that little
trunk and go to sleep but whenever I started getting sleepy I would hear, ‘Hey
Antonio, you awake! We’re almost there!’ But we weren’t almost there all night
until finally the sky was starting to get light and through the little opening
under the trunk lid I could see lights in the distance and knew we were coming
to Miami
“It was a bit rough out there and I got really wet. But I look back and
am proud that I drove my family to Miami from Cuba
Jeff did the math in his head, sixty miles or so in maybe twelve hours,
that would be five miles an hour. He wasn’t sure that a ’48 Chevy, which must
have been big car to hold so many people, could go that fast, maybe with the
currents…he must have had a skeptical expression, “Yeah, that’s quite a story.”
Antonio saw Jeff’s doubt, ignoring it, “Do you smoke cigars congressman?
No? Well, this is a Cuban hand-made cigar, a Cohiba Habana, the finest cigar in
the world! You’ll pay over a hundred dollars for a small box at the Duty Free
in Paris
Antonio took a deep drag letting the smoke filter out his nose creating
a gray-blue screen in front of his face. He couldn’t leave Jeff’s doubt behind.
“Yeah, Cuba Miami
Antonio took another long drag, set his cigar in the ash tray next to
him. “So congressman, how’s business? I hear you have gotten pretty tangled up
with the mayor’s gang. Too bad about those others today,” as he made the sign
of the Cross across his chest. “They are a really dangerous bunch, but I tell
you I was surprised. Yeah, very surprised. That kind of thing hasn’t been
happening for, I don’t know,” he turned to the men standing behind him, “ten
years, maybe?” One of them nodded. “Ten years, then all of the sudden this.” He
shook his head sternly, “It’s bad, bad business. It’s going to start causing a
lot of trouble.” He picked up his cigar giving it a couple puffs. “Yeah, bad
business. Muy malo.”
The room was quiet except for the very faint thumping sound coming
through the walls. They could hear none of the men’s shouting. Jeff imagined
the scene going on in the next room with tits flying, men yelling and pounding
on their tables. He wondered if Pick had another sucker in there that he picked
up at the ATM next to Rickey Rocket’s and what a ride that man was in for. God,
he was sure the poor bastard would be better off looking like Elvis than a
certain congressman that had come to be the bane of Jeff’s existence in the
last, he looked at his watch, twenty nine hours.
Antonio leaned forward, “So, I thought it might be a good thing to ask
you here so we could talk about this little situation.” He picked up the cigar,
puffed, pointing it at Jeff. “The way I see it is that they wanted to kill you
because you know too much about their business.” He chuckled, “And I also hear that
you maybe you wanted too much of
their business!”
Jeff started to speak when Shonna cut him off, “You know, Antonio, it’s
not like the congressman has to be so nice,” she gave Jeff a sideways glance. A signal it occurred to Jeff. He was being too nice! Damn, they hadn’t
practiced that! How was he supposed to act? Jeff strained to remember anything
he could about this Congressman Frank Schedz, he was just one of what, four
hundred and something people in the House of Representatives. He could not
remember a thing. His local congresswoman just happened to be a friend he’d met
a long time ago. That didn’t help here. He couldn’t even think of the name of
the person in the next congressional district. He was clueless how he was
supposed to act.
“You know,” Antonio puffed giving a slight smile, “Funny thing. I met
you once, congressman, you probably don’t remember. It was some kind of dinner
party or reception, I don’t remember what. Lots of people. But I could hear
your voice in the room, very loud as I remember, and so I kind of walked up near
you and there was this man, this pompous
ass! He was going on and on and on and people standing around trying to
laugh at his bad jokes. He was a buffoon! You could just tell that if he wasn’t
a congressman that people wouldn’t listen to him because he was such a pompous ass. I remember
walking away thinking what a prick you are. But look at you, here you sit so
polite. You’re not a prick, you’re a nice guy. It kind of makes me wonder…”
Redirect! Jeff felt a flash of panic, “Look, like you said, I’ve had a
long day. You try getting murdered and see if it doesn’t take the prick right
out of you for a couple days.” Antonio burst out laughing again––this time Jeff
and Shonna didn’t join in.
Jeff scowled, “So you Cuban son-of-a-bitch, why are we here?”
“See! That’s better!” Antonio laughed again. “Much better! You really
need to practice that more or people will wonder. We can’t have them wondering, can we?”
Panic flashed through Jeff…wonder?
What was there to wonder? Oh, my god,
he’s got this all figured out!
Shonna gave Jeff a quick flash look that said Buck up! She snapped, “Okay, okay, let’s get down to business
Antonio.”
Antonio turned to Shonna with a sly smile, “So tell me Shonna, why are you here?”
Shonna flicked her hair casually without hesitation, “Well, you know I
had my first dance last night, and the congressman is sitting in the front row!
He waited for me, wanted to buy me a drink, give him a lift back to his house
up in Roswell
“No, no, stay,” Antonio waved his hands for her to stay down, “you know
me, just giving you a hard time. Plus you know so much about this crazy
business we are in!”
Finally the tray of drinks arrived. Antonio was very annoyed as he
apologized saying that it is Saturday night, the place is packed and that it’s
hard for even him to get good service. Jeff thought to himself that all Antonio
had to do was flip her a few fives and the service would pick up! Everyone
grabbed something from the tray; Jeff lifted a Budweiser, took a quick sip, setting
it down on the little table in front of him.
With a sudden purposeful look, Antonio leaned forward, “Okay, let’s get
down to it. All hell is about to break loose––it already has as you know
congressman––and I need some help.” He looked at Shonna, “Give our friend here
a rough breakdown of what goes on in your little room downstairs.”
Shonna glanced around the room, “Everything? The whole story?”
“We’re all friends here, right? Everything. He knows a lot about this,
but it’s good to hear it.”
Shonna described the money operation downstairs, four full-time people
counting and sorting cash, three part-timers keeping the club’s cash straight
at night and on weekends, all of them keeping accounting, making bundles for
payments. The numbers are staggering. We’ll clear thirty eight million this
year.”
Jeff whistled, “Wow, this is all in protection money?” He knew the
numbers already from the sheets he’d found in the congressman’s coat pocket.
“Protection, drugs, prostitution, extortion,” she glanced at Antonio,
“and the operations from the club and other little side businesses.”
“Yes,” Antonio leaned back proudly, “we even have a little record
company, a recording studio!” He motioned to the wall behind him, “That was one
of my sound engineers who designed the wall!”
Antonio leaned back shaking his head. “But it seems like they found out
about my little cash operation downstairs and decided that I could manage all
their dirty business. They give me, what, Shonna?”
“Seven percent.”
“Okay, seven percent which will buy a lot of tacos.” He took a long thoughtful
puff of his cigar letting the smoke slowly fill the space in front of him. “But
I never liked it. I’ve got a good little business here, yeah it’s a little out
of––what do businessmen call it––right, a little out of the mainstream. But
it’s a good little cash cow, it makes lots of money. And I get most of it.” He
looked at his cigar thoughtfully, “And it’s legal! But the bullshit these guys
are involved with hurt a lot of people, it is hurting my reputation as a legitimate businessman to be associated
with these jerks and now everybody is getting greedy, people are getting hurt.”
The room was nearly quiet for what felt like a minute as Shonna and Jeff
glanced at each other, Antonio puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. “But more
people start showing up, messing with my business, more thugs packing guns, all
sorts of people wanting accounting, more people getting cuts, and cash coming
from quien sabe. Who the hell know where from!”
There were two solid knocks on the door. The guard on Antonio’s right
walked around them toward the door as Vic stepped aside turning to the door,
his right hand slipping into the front of his overcoat. Steve kept looking
forward, his right hand making the same move into his overcoat. The door was
opened. Perkins stepped halfway through the doorway with his deep melodic voice,
“Everything okay in here, Antonio?”
Antonio waved casually at him, “Fine, fine, thank you for your concern, Perkins.
Not to worry, we’re all friends here.”
Perkins looked intently at the two others sitting in the room as Jeff
and Shonna turned around to look at him. Perkins gave them each a long,
piercing inspection. Jeff could feel Perkins’s intense gaze piercing his
forehead striking the back of Jeff’s skull with its intensity, beating against
the back of his brain, wanting to turn away from those severe dark eyes.
Perkins shook his head slightly with the same ferocity, “Okay, if you
say so.” He pulled back as the door was closed.
“That Perkins, always looking after me. Good man.” Antonio took a long
drag from his cigar choking just a bit, “Permiso,” he spit into the ash tray on
his left. “Where were we? Oh, yeah, but the guys running the gang have gotten
really careless and there are some very bad people showing up here, so many
guns and god knows what. And it’s way too
many people now. It’s too much!” He puffed his cigar, “And they’re treating
me like their little errand boy, like I’m some taxi dispatcher.”
Jeff picked up his beer, taking a thoughtful drink remembering the
groups of men without drinks in the bar last night, “The henchmen, the ones I
saw last night in the chairs at the back of the bar, kept coming and going.
Enforcers?”
“You are very observant, my friend. Yes, I hate having them here, I hate
talking to them, they’re the slime of the earth, would kill their own mothers
for a hundred dollars. I don’t like them mixing with my good paying customers.”
He leaned over to spit again, this time for effect to emphasize his disgust, “Perkins
would not let such people into the bar! Pigs!”
Jeff was amused at the thought that Perkins would actually block any man
with money from coming in to spread his dough all over the place––he had been
in there and couldn’t really detect much difference between some of the men in
there and the thugs sitting in the corner waiting for their next mayhem
assignment. He nodded at the thought which Antonio took for agreement with his
last statement.
Antonio glanced around at the four men standing around them, Shonna
could see that Antonio suddenly realized they needed ultra privacy. Jeff picked
it up seeing the subtle excited expression on Shonna’s face that maybe they
were finally going to get down to it.
Antonio made a loose circle around his head with his hand glancing
behind him, “We don’t need these guys in the room, right? Like I told Perkins,
we’re all friends here, right? What say we let these gentlemen go stand in the
hallway?”
Antonio motioned to his men as Shonna turned to do the same. In a moment
it was just the three of them in the room. Jeff reached down with his right
hand patting the gun in his pocket as Shonna pulled her purse up so it was
straight below her right hand.
Antonio reached around behind him pulling a little satchel around on the
floor by his left side. Jeff thought to himself, “Sure no guards. All friends
here. All fully armed. Now that’s friends!”
With the door now closed, Jeff looked firmly at Antonio, “And so you
were saying, let me guess, now you want out.”
“It’s too much. I don’t want their money anymore. Nada. But there’s no
way out of this business. You don’t just turn in your notice like, ‘Dear mayor,
I don’t want your stinky little thugs coming into my bar anymore, signed
Antonio’” He laughed bitterly, “At least not without writing your will first!”
He snubbed out his cigar with a large circular relish in the ash tray. “Pigs!” spitting
into the ash tray in loathing.
“Look congressman, you and I have the same problem. When this thing
blows up I will have Feds up my ass and lose everything, and I doubt you’ll get
any medal of honor. I would make a lousy prisoner, mi familia would be very
disappointed in me. I can hear it now, ‘You steered us across from Cuba
Antonio leaned in closer. “I want to, you know, kind of join up with
you, see if we can’t find a way out of this mess together. After this morning
you know these guys are playing for keeps. If we don’t find some way to get the
Federales to take these guys out, then next time body armor won’t help any of
us.”
He glanced at Shonna, Jeff could see a look in Antonio’s eye like he
could see through her. “I believe the Feds are already in this, my good Shonna,
and what happened this morning is about to blow this whole thing wide open,
isn’t it!” He took a slow drink keeping his eyes locked on hers. “And you know
this if anybody does, I am not right our dear Shonna?” He glanced around the
room in mock playfulness, “Should I smile for the camera, dear Shonna?”
Antonio stared intently at Jeff as he realized Antonio was looking at
his chin, at his penciled-in mole. Antonio leaned back with a wide wry smile.
“Congressman, your mole is smearing!”
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MAGIC TOWN !
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