Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights Read online

  BUSTED VALENTINES

  AND

  OTHER DARK DELIGHTS

  Frank De Blase

  Copyright 2014 by Frank De Blase

  First Edition: February 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Down and Out Books, LLC

  3959 Van Dyke Rd, Ste. 265

  Lutz, FL 33558

  DownAndOutBooks.com

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover art and design by Jason Smith

  ISBN: 978-1-937495-69-5

  For Deborah

  You send me, baby

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Righteous

  Mr. Nice Guy Calling

  Blake’s Proxy

  Don’t Make a Move

  Neon Boneyard

  Thompson Hotel

  Busted Valentine

  Little Man, Big Gun

  State of Grace

  The Night Before the Night Before Christmas

  Grift ’N’ Grind

  Splendor and Ease

  Mystery Train

  Righteous (Beat Version)

  Bio

  Other Titles from Down & Out Books

  A preview of Robert J. Randisi’s Upon My Soul

  A preview of A.C. Frieden’s The Serpent’s Game

  A preview of Jack Getze’s Big Money

  Righteous

  It was late night—or perhaps just too late. Those who had somewhere to go and someone to go there with were long gone, their tables already bussed, with chairs stacked upside down on them. The cocktail waitresses had counted their fortunes, and the barkeep had his jacket on. They all had anywhere else to be. Yet we were still honkin’ heavy with a savage swing. It was righteous.

  I probably would have wrapped it up sooner if it weren’t for the red-hot redhead sitting ringside. She perched on the edge of her chair, legs crossed, back arched as to present the artillery. She was an ample sample of femininity to say the least. And whoever poured her into that green dress had obviously forgotten to say “when.” Man, she looked righteous.

  She had that come-hither sparkle in her eye. That look a musician lives for, gets hooked on and lost in long after life loses its luster. That look that promises thrills. That look that’s so often followed by trouble, jealousy and fists. But it appeared her date had gone a few extra rounds with Jim Beam. He was face down on the table, out cold, his hand still wrapped around Jim’s last gasp.

  She blew me a kiss. I caught it and reciprocated with a wink. She was ready to go and I needed a place to stay. I shot wink number two towards the drummer who wound us down to a finish. I wiped my horn and threw it in its case. I slipped on my jacket as I walked to her table.

  “Ready to go?” I asked. No point in being coy; it was late.

  “What about him?” she said, looking at the pile slumped next to her.

  “Throw him in a cab and meet me out front.”

  “A gentleman would offer to help a lady.”

  “A gentleman wouldn’t try and make time with another guy’s girlfriend.”

  “Wife,” she said. “He’s my husband.”

  I chuckled a little. “Whatever you say, toots. You oughta lose the zero and get with a hero.”

  Her face went cold. She pursed her lips. She slapped me hard. I slapped her right back.

  Suddenly a million pretty little stars appeared everywhere accompanied by the ringing of a loud bell. Hubby had rallied and pulled a Pearl Harbor on me with a chair. Apparently Jim Beam hadn’t been as thorough as I thought. The stars faded to black...lights out.

  ***

  The pounding in my head woke me up on the sidewalk. There was blood in my hair and things were a little blurry. My drummer was pacing back and forth in front of me, taking quick, angry drags off his cigarette. He looked steamed.

  “I quit,” he said.

  “What the hell for?” I tried to sit up.

  “The numbers don’t add up.”

  My head was really beginning to pound. “Whaddaya talking about?” I said.

  “I had to settle up while you took your nap here on the sidewalk, and he paid me the hundred bucks a man he says he’s been paying us for the last year and a half. You’ve been paying us sixty.” He flicked his cigarette at me and spit on the sidewalk. “You’re a scumbag,” he said and walked off.

  “Yeah, well, try and find another cat who plays like me,” I shouted as I struggled to my feet. “I play it righteous.” The words echoed in my head as if it were a cavern; righteous...righteous...

  Three a.m.

  Nowhere to go.

  No one to go there with.

  I needed a drink.

  I headed toward the Emanon, a dive that made most dives look like the Waldorf. It was situated beneath the bridge where the train galloped on its brief sojourns above ground before snaking back into the bowels of the city. I’d spent a week there one night years ago and hadn’t been back since.

  If I was lucky, it would still be open.

  If I was lucky, I could still get a drink.

  If I was lucky, maybe I’d get lucky.

  “Righteous...righteous” was getting louder and was now echoing down the street, no longer confined to my skull.

  ...The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry...

  The preacher stood atop his suitcase outside the Emanon bellowing, waving his bible over his head and pointing at all the sinners that weren’t there. He wore a black suit that looked slept in. His hair was slicked back save for a stray lock across his damp forehead. His eyes burned dark and intense. When his fingers weren’t accusing, they snapped in sort of a sweet Beat kinda way; catechism with a cadence. I had heard these bible-beaters before, but this was kinda swingin’. I stopped to listen.

  ...The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the righteous...

  He singled me out. It wasn’t hard; I was the only one there.

  “Art thou wicked, or art thou righteous?” he asked me

  “I art righteous, man,” I replied. “You oughta hear me play sometime.”

  ...The righteous man leads a blameless life, blessed are his children after him...

  “Well, I ain’t blameless, that’s for sure,” I said.

  The preacher dialed down the volume and looked sadly at me. His fire and anger melted into disappointment.

  “Then you are not righteous, son,” he said.

  I suppose there ain’t a whole helluva lot of his type of righteousness walking the streets this late at night, but what did he know of my righteousness, this man of God?

  He started back in, riffin’ and rollin’ on his whole righteous bit as I headed for my own righteous oblivion.

  The neon sign in the Emanon’s window flickered “Ope.” I walked inside.

  The place was crowded and smoky. It reeked sweaty and stale. The din of endless hustles, delirious diatribes, junky tantrums, sub rosa one-on-ones and incoherent rants assailed my ears. This was where the bad times rolled.

  The jukebox on the far wall tried its best to be heard above it all but was doing a better job holding up the hooker jamming quarters into it as she shouted obscenities at the floor.

  Booths along the wall were filled with those employe
d by the various industries that open their doors after midnight; shifty, shady, shameless characters. A pimp speaking in a loud whisper as the girl he was with tried to twist her arm free, a he/she pretending to check his/her lipstick as he/she spied on the room in a broken compact mirror, and three greasy degenerates making plans. It was clear none of them trusted one another enough to pull off whatever caper they had in mind. They’d all be in jail or dead by the end of the week, the lot of ’em.

  You don’t look anybody in the eye here. I made my way across the sticky floor toward the bar and collided head on with five feet of too much makeup and not enough dress. The dress and its contents said woman, but the cigarette, the heels, the spatula’d makeup all said too young and trying too hard.

  “Looking for company?” she slurred.

  “Isn’t this a school night?” I asked. “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen,” she shot back as if that’s what she thought I wanted to hear.

  “Really? Fifteen year olds who can do what a guy like me wants the way I want it done have been doing it with a funny uncle or brother or step-dad since they were ten and are a one-way ticket to jail and/or the clinic.”

  She didn’t give up that easy.

  “I can do things to you that you’ve only read about,” she said.

  “I don’t read. Scram.”

  I copped a squat at the bar.

  This is where you roosted if you flew solo. Inevitably some gal would try to make friends or some hustler had something to sell, but for the most part you could sit there and vanish.

  I ordered a scotch with a beer chaser. I gunned them both and snapped my fingers for the bartender.

  “Encore,” I said.

  He slid round two in front of me.

  “Howsabout you, chum?” he asked the guy wearing pajamas next to me. “The first one was on the house. You want another?”

  “I ain’t got any money,” he said almost choking on the words.

  I was beginning to feel a little better but the preacher’s words were still dancing in my head.

  ...And Jesus said: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners...

  “What the hell,” I said. “This one’s on me, pal. I’ve had a rough night, too.”

  He grabbed the dirty mug and began lapping at it before it barely had a chance to leave the bartender’s hand. He clutched it close like a dog with a bone. He was shaking and sweating profusely.

  “What’s your story, pal?” I asked. “Why the evening wear?”

  He didn’t answer.

  The hag to my left spoke up.

  “The Emanon’s customer appreciation policy,” she said through teeth that looked like a skyline.

  “I don’t follow...”

  She cackled.

  “He just come from St. Vincent’s,” she said. “The Franciscan Fathers run St. Vincent’s hospital downtown. Drunks get sent there as a last ditch effort to sober up. If not, their next stop is the morgue.”

  She cackled some more as she pulled money out of a wallet and stuffed it in her blouse. She gave the pictures inside a quick once-over before tossing it on the floor. I instinctively felt for my billfold.

  “What’s with this customer appreciation policy?” I asked.

  “You come to the Emanon with your release papers or show up in St. Vincent pajamas and your first drink is on the house.”

  I looked back over at ol’ PJs. His glass was empty, and he was sobbing. I looked back to the hag but she was gone. So was the change I had left on the bar.

  Two drunks behind me were singing loudly, the degenerate meeting in the booth had degenerated into a fistfight, the he/she was making out with a clueless collegiate as his buddies looked on in hysterics, and everything—the smell, the noise, the desperation—seemed to be turned all the way up.

  This whole scene was righteously low down.

  I ordered another drink.

  Righteous.

  I got to thinking.

  Righteous.

  I ordered another drink

  I got mad. Righteously mad.

  Thirty years of petty crimin’, two-timin’, moochin’, smoochin’, usin’, abusin’, scammin’, shammin’, with a general lack of responsibility or concern for anyone, I was anything but righteous myself.

  I got up a little unsteady from the booze and my dead-end epiphany.

  Righteous.

  The jukebox honked more honky tonk.

  I made it down the narrow hall, past the couple doing their vertical interpretation of the horizontal mambo, to the men’s room. The jailbait who gave me the come-on was out on the floor next to the urinal. Knocked out? Passed out? Who knows? Just out.

  I turned on the sink and puked in it. I immediately felt better. I splashed rusty water on my face. I lit a cigarette and looked in the mirror, searching for a righteous man.

  I lit another cigarette and threw them both in the garbage along with a big handful of paper towels. I leaned it against the stall where the chipped paint immediately lit up. I straightened my tie and headed back to the bar.

  “C’mon,” I said to PJs. “We’re getting outta here.”

  I took him by the arm and we both stumbled out.

  PJs helped me drag the heavy steel newspaper rack towards the Emanon. We jammed it up against the door where it wedged under the doorknob.

  I could still hear the preacher in full orchestration. We followed the sound of his voice.

  ...The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe...

  He recognized me as I pulled out my horn. PJs leaned against the wall and slowly began to slide to the ground as if he were melting. I could smell smoke.

  ...For Christ died for our sins once for all the righteous, for the unrighteous, to bring you to God...

  “I dig you, preacher,” I said. “You’re a righteous cat.”

  The preacher’s fingers stopped snapping and he pointed directly at me.

  “Have you ever done one righteous deed?”

  I looked at him and smiled.

  “Just dig this,” I said and I began to play.

  Flames began licking out of the Emanon’s barred windows. The faint sound of screaming inside was drowned out by a beautiful symphony of the preacher, PJs’ uncontrollable laughter, the passing train, the approaching sirens and my horn.

  “Have you ever done one righteous deed?” he repeated.

  “I just did, preacher,” I said. “I just did.”

  Back to TOC

  Mr. Nice Guy Calling

  Mr. Nice Guy was hardly a nice guy. He was mobster muscle, murder for hire. A wiry fellow, he wasn’t big like most gangster gorillas, but would stop at nothing to get his point across. There was a modest legion of widows and ex-girlfriends who got the point when their husbands and boyfriends didn’t. Mr. Nice Guy dressed impeccably and carried himself with confidence so cool it was borderline frigid. He exuded charm and relaxed those around him. But the affability meant nothing. He was a sociopath and a straight-up killer.

  However, he got pinned with the nick-name for unsolicited niceties—often done on the sneak.

  He’d crack himself up picking up the tab for some bum bellied up to the lunch counter just to watch him search the joint looking for a hitch. He’d tune some joker up who was running behind on payments and leave him with a sawbuck. His penchant for violence had a certain cinematic charm, yet he had no problem getting his hands or natty duds bloody. Consequently, he was paid handsomely, and spent lavishly. But it wasn’t all booze and broads, the man was downright charitable...if you looked past his sinister contempt and ill intent. Mr. Nice Guy did the right thing for the wrong reasons.

  Little League uniforms, a widow’s wedding ring returned from the pawnshop, new bikes at the orphanage one year...he did it all selfishly, to upset the cosmic balance, to blow people’s low expectations to hell; give them false hope in an otherwis
e utter nothingness.

  He hated these fools; suckers who were always throwing themselves a pity party when reality rained on their parade. It was as if they were surprised. Mr. Nice Guy had been around long enough to know it’s the high times and the good luck that were scarce. And when happy days came out of the blue, it unscrewed the average Joe’s head.

  You might have thought his behavior was for leverage; bargaining chips for the sweet by and by, a tribute paid to a god who might actually be there. But it was a comedic compulsion. It was all for laughs...a big goddamned joke. Mr. Nice Guy was full of malicious charity and nothing more. And now he had double-crossed his boss, who wasn’t such a nice guy.

  ***

  Mr. Nice Guy sparked a Lark and rang the front desk for an outside line. The operator picked up as he shook the match dead and let out a cloud of smoke. He had been in this motel room for two days and was starting to get squirrely. He needed to make tracks. But he was tired of running and was running out of places to run to. He had ripped off his boss—who aimed to kill him as much out of principle for making an unapproved withdrawal as stealing his dame. Money and mobsters, dollars and dames. There’re usually dollars, but there’s always a dame.

  However this dish was cold and her boyfriend—Mr. Nice Guy’s boss—was making arrangements for Mr. Nice Guy to join her in cemetery bliss. His boss had put the word to the street, and now every low-life skell, two-bit hustler, as well as the killers on his payroll, was hot on Mr. Nice Guy’s trail...a trail out of town paved with the boss’ bread. They would be closing in before too long. Mr. Nice Guy could feel the heat.

  He cocked his hat back, scratched his head and sank into the worn chair by the window of his motel room. It was littered with empty Chinese take-out cartons and a few spent bottles strewn about like dead soldiers. Whatever color the carpet was now, it had started out as something considerably brighter. There were stains on the peeling wallpaper and he’d seen cleaner toilets in county lock-up. The whole room looked as if it had plenty of practice as a crime scene. The air stunk stagnant and stale. He placed the loaded .45 on the desk next to the phone and loosened his tie. He waited impatiently for his party to answer.