Part 2: Baja Leai & the Road to New York
Winston collects payment from Leroy for a completed hit; Leroy sends him to pressure Paul and leave for Chicago; Paul and John discuss Leroy's extortion at The Rooster; Dana and Chris discuss The Post's struggles.
Winston politely turned down Leroy’s offer of a high shelf aged scotch.
“I don’t drink on Sundays,” He said.
“Suit yourself,” Said Leroy. It was a formality, anyway. Leroy was in the habit of offering visitors access to his wide range of inebriating substances, scotch residing on the tamer end of the spectrum. He deposited a large, round ice cube into a rocks glass and poured himself a generous libation.
Leroy hadn’t been expecting company; however, in his line of business it could be said that he is never not expecting company. Winston routinely abstained from calling ahead of himself. The two had a long and profitable history.
Leroy was dressed in an enormous green turtleneck and black slacks, his hands unusually barren of the many expensive rings that usually resided there. Leroy was pleased to see the man that seated himself comfortably in his uptown penthouse. The couch, as was most of the furnishings in his numerous properties, was modern and stylish. What it lacked in comfort, it made up for in minimalistic aesthetic appeal. Leroy had hired two interior decorators to plan the layouts and furnishings of his many properties in order to impress potential guests, clients, and business partners. It had been a long process, drawn out almost three months as both designers had radically different ideas as to what would suit each property.
The ending result, after considerable deliberation, allocation, and exasperation, was a strange, abstract interpretation of what could only be described as an afro-oriental museum of sexuality and affluence.
After completion, Leroy paid the two designers generously and had them both whacked. Since then, he had done his own interior decoration.
“Do you always wear the same wig, or do you have multiple?” Leroy said. This is what would pass for a sense of humor from the huge man.
“You should consider getting one. I have a guy,” Winston replied. His hair was real, but something about the straight-cut golden locks that protruded from under his signature fedora looked out of place on his head. Winston knew it looked mildly ridiculous and unconventional. He preferred to think of it as distinctive.
“I presume there were no issues,” Leroy continued.
“Could have told me about the karate shit.”
“Two white kids from Harlem. What did you expect?”
“I expected a couple white kids from Harlem. I think these guys were from feudal Japan.”
“Well, maybe you should have brought a fucking katana,” Leroy said. He tossed a roll of bills toward Winston, who caught it and pocketed the money without counting it.
“Scott, I want you to go to Chicago for a while. Things are gonna be pretty hot for a while.
You’re gonna want to be out of town until it cools down. I’ve got a guy out there who will put you up with everything you need. His name’s Frankie. He lives down in Bronzeville. Maybe you’ll get a chance to catch a baseball game,” Leroy said. Winston smiled. He had been a baseball player for years.
In a past life.
“Fine by me. I can be there by the middle of next week.”
“I need you to drop by and pay Paul a visit and make sure he understands the seriousness of our arrangement. He’s been short the last two payments. While you’re at it, go ahead and collect a late fee from him. You can use it as traveling expenses.”
“A late fee?”
Leroy nodded solemnly.
He’s really putting on the pressure.
“Got it. You think he’s gonna give me any trouble?”
“I doubt it. Paul’s soft. He would have never made it if it wasn’t for old money,” Leroy said, “John, on the other hand, is crafty. Not the most dangerous guy, but on a few occasions, he’s proven himself to be smarter than the average riffraff he came from.”
John had been in the army. He could prove to be a more challenging man to take advantage of than his employer. Secretly, Leroy was considering bringing John into his own fold once Paul was taken out of the picture.
“I see,” Winston said.
“Business has been booming. With our main competition gone, we are the sole distributors in the entire uptown coke market. Now, we don’t have anything to worry about.”
“What if Paul gets wise? You could be making a serious enemy,” Winston said. “It’s not wise to be so sure of ourselves.”
Leroy dismissed the question. “It’s better to be sure of yourself than to harbor doubt in every action.”
“Doubt keeps men alive.”
“But it also keeps men from achieving their potential.”
Before me sits a man that could be great, Leroy thought, if only he could reach out and seize what belongs to him.
Winston rose from his seat. “It’s good to see you, my friend. Next time I do, we’ll both be a lot richer.” Winston and Leroy shook hands, and Winston left without further deliberation. He made it a point to keep his visits with Leroy short. Leroy was a predator. The man was programmed to look for weakness and exploit it.
Hang around a snake for too long, and you’re bound to get bitten.
The engine of his Cadillac roared to life.
Even if it’s your snake. To a snake, everything looks like prey after long enough.
Across town, in a secluded basement-level Lower Manhattan speakeasy called The Rooster, though it lacked any sign designating it so, Paul Halman and John Letters sat in a cramped office discussing related matters.
“Leroy has been increasingly aggressive with his collections. I think he’s trying to force me out of business,” Paul said. John locked eyes with him and sipped his coffee, quietly awaiting more information. “Just last week I paid him our agreed upon amount,” Paul said, “This week, he comes back claiming that I owe him another payment. I know what he’s doing, he’s trying to strong-arm me, and it’s working.”
“What do you want to do? Get the police involved?” John replied.
“If you wanna die, sure. The police aren’t any match for his racket, anyway. He probably has everyone down to the commissioner paid off.”
John considered how this type of problem would be resolved in the military. He could recall many instances of superior commanding officers abusing their power and using their control to exploit situations for their own personal gain, or more often, to get out of duty. He concluded that it wouldn’t be solved, at least not by direct means. Leroy and his racket were the big fish in the pond, and to him, Paul and John were just another pair of minnows. What they needed to do was to give Leroy another minnow to go after. But who? John mentally ran through the list of big players in town. Harry and Henry, unsurprisingly, had shown up dead in their own apartment just a couple weeks ago. They were Leroy’s main competition in his market of choice, and now they were eliminated. If John couldn’t find a common enemy, he could at least find an ally.
“What about Dana Greymaker? Something tells me that if he was introduced carefully, he could be a valuable asset,” John said after considerable deliberation.
“Who, the guy across the street that runs The Ridgeland Post? He’s an honest businessman.
Exposing ourselves to him runs the risk of blowing our entire operation.”
“We’ll have to do it in a way that mitigates the potential risk to ourselves. Even honest businessmen need a helping hand from time to time.”
Paul sat back and considered the prospect for a moment. He always prided himself on his ability to mitigate risk. That was how he had managed to not only survive, but thrive, feeding off the monstrous amount of organized crime in the big apple like a financial bottom feeder, funneling dirty money through The Rooster with expert bookkeeping and accounting.
Paul had come from money. His parents were second generation English immigrants living in New Jersey. They were part owners of a hardware manufacturing firm, mostly responsible for production of screws and nails in a handful of factories in Eastern Europe. Despite their considerable financial means, Paul had been disappointed by their own lack of ambition and entrepreneurship. In his late twenties, he had moved to New York City after finishing his master’s in business with a minor in accounting from none other than the prestigious Harvard University. He was met with disappointment when, despite his education and considerable financial backing, he was lost in the flood of mediocre streetwise hustlers and wannabe businessmen. For some time, he owned and operated a chain of convenience stores in Lower Manhattan and the Bronx, which were only mildly successful, until he met John, who introduced him to several connections, including Leroy, who proved to be invaluable in his entrepreneurial career. He still owned the six convenience stores spread out throughout the city, which he had appointed general managers to manage their day-to-day operations, and he rarely visited or checked on, but the majority of his time and energy was spent at his most recent venture, an exclusive, high-dollar establishment catering to the alcoholic elite of the city’s resident business class. The bar, like his convenience stores, barely turned a profit, but that didn’t matter. In fact, it was better. It gave him a wider margin in which to inflate his profits with dirty money.
Every move he made was carefully planned. He was intelligent, meticulous, and a highly cautious stickler for procedure. If Paul hadn’t been won over by John, he never would have insinuated himself into the illicit aspect of his business ventures. Any new connection or prospect came with a certain element of risk, something that he innately avoided. Still, John had a point. Paul was beginning to feel the ropes against his back as Leroy began punching him into a corner. He had made a huge mistake losing his temper playing poker at the Irish real estate broker’s condo. The stunt had forced him to change strategy, and to consider options he would have otherwise ignored. Recently, he had even began weighing the option of cashing out and going out west, cleaning himself of the situation. This would be more problematic than it was attractive. Paul’s investors weren’t likely to take the news well or let him leave without incident. He had intimate knowledge of their own business dealings. As a partner of theirs, he shared the criminal bond and the unspoken agreement: If we go down, you go down too.
Having a loose radical suddenly appear might result in Paul finding himself in more trouble than he had bargained for, and that wasn’t to mention Leroy’s racket. No, running certainly wasn’t the answer.
Where would he even go? He was nearing fifty, and building an empire from the ground up was a young man’s game. He would have to stand and fight.
“Go talk to Dana. Invite him and Chris to have dinner with me. Let’s see if we can’t do something with this.”
John, unlike Paul, wasn’t afraid of risk. He embraced it. Risk was synonymous with opportunity.
His entire life had been a series of risks. He didn’t come from money. He came from a working-class Bronx neighborhood. His mother was Jewish and his father was one of the many first-generation Polish immigrants that inhabited the city’s lower class working neighborhoods. They had fallen in love after his meeting at a laundromat. A year later, they were married. Less than six months after that, John Letters was born.
Growing up, he was a hustler from birth. He had an innate ability to understand what people needed, which he would try to give to them. John never thought of himself as a manipulator, but to the contrary, he, at heart, wanted to help people, and this good nature made him exceedingly attractive as a friend. He found himself invited to parties, and didn’t have any issues meeting girls. In the navy, his talent as an affluent socialite led to him becoming a quite accomplished functional alcoholic, as was par for the course in each of the branches. He served with a certain Italian private, the son of an East Coast mobster. When he was honorably discharged, he began working as a bartender, rotating through a number of the city’s eclectic and ample establishments. He enjoyed a moderately affluent lifestyle, living like a king on the weekends and sleeping all week. It wasn’t until he met Paul and began building a relationship with the much older businessman that his career truly began. John viewed Paul as a mentor figure, and Paul, him as a capable protege. He dreamt of great success, of Cadillacs and diamond rings.
He belonged on hotel balconies with movie stars, not in dive bars with men whose wives are leaving them for movie stars. On this ambition, he formed his dynamic partnership with Paul Halman.
“Alright, I’ll talk to him. I’ll let you know if I think he’s going to be game, and what I set up.”
Dana Greymaker and Chris Waters were, at the very same time, enjoying dinner at an expensive restaurant in a ritzy uptown upstart. Dana, a hefty bald man sporting a jet black goatee, wore a plain black blazer over a formal white button up. Dark bags sat around his eyes, and his face was wrinkled with age and experience. Chris, fifteen years his younger, had a full head of brown hair in a high cut pompadour. He was clean shaven, and wore a designer corduroy vest over a loose, pale blue shirt, and a dark purple sash wrapped around his neck. He was contemplatively swishing a small amount of deep scarlet colored wine around his glass, as if he was deciding what to do with it.
“I never much cared for cabarets,” He said dismissively.
“That,” Dana stated, “Is a Bordeaux. And it’s a ‘27.”
“Why do you treat me so well, hmm? Do you want something from me?” Chris said playfully in a high pitched voice. He placed his elbow on the table and lowered his head into his hand, looking up at Dana. Nearby, a busboy coughed a bit louder than necessary.
Dana didn’t respond. He just stared into Chris’ eyes with an icy heated intensity.
“It shouldn’t be that long, you know,” Chris said, straightening up in his chair.
“How do you mean?”
“Before you win the Newcastle award, of course,” He said, flashing a charming smile and spreading his hands in the air. “I can see it now, yes, Dana Greymaker, All American Entrepreneur of the Year. A true rags to riches story. More on page five.”
Dana scoffed. “The post has a long way to go before it wins the Newcastle. And besides,” He sipped the Bordeaux, “The title would have both of our names. You’re just as much an owner of this company as I.”
“You flatter me. Everyone knows you’re the real brains behind the operation. I’m just a lowly PR man.”
“PR is everything in the newspaper business. Our brand is built on loyalty and trust.”
“Why don’t you give yourself any credit?” Said Chris, faux-pouting.
“I do. I just try not to let it go to my head.”
“So humble. I admire that.”
“I’m sure you do,” Dana said.
Chris frowned, offended, “And what would you mean by that?”
“I mean that you’re all butter, no toast.”
“Then you’re my toast. I’ll melt all over you,” Chris said.
“Sir, your food is here. I have the braised duck on cauliflower puree for you, sir, and the chopped lamb salad for you, sir. Please let us know if the food is outstanding. Would you like another glass of wine?” The waiter said, interrupting.
“Yes, I believe I would,” Dana said.
“None more for me. I’m as bloated as an old cow,” Said Chris with a crackling laugh.
“Coming right up, sir.”
The two ate in silence, lightly picking at their food, savoring each bite. The portions were meager, as is oddly customary at such restaurants.
“The new publishing regulations are killing us. I feel like if we don’t win a Newcastle, we’ll be upside down by this time next year,” Dana said, finally breaking the silence.
“Don’t be so pessimistic. I’m sure it will all work out,” Chris said.
“We need to find new investors. Maybe change our format.”
“New investors, new format, you’re always stressing about something or other. Just relax and enjoy your dinner. We can find some investors later. Maybe I’ll call some of my friends,” Chris said.
He came from an affluent background, and held family ties to some of New England’s most prestigious celebrities, a fact he liked to flaunt readily.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I must leave my work in the office. But I can’t seem to shake it from my mind. Looking at the projections for this summer, it’s hard to see how this company will grow in an upwards trajectory. Our sales keep getting bigger and our profits smaller. Plus, this Vietnam business has already claimed three of our best writers. I can’t find anyone with half a college education to lift a pen for an honest dollar. They all want to work on those free-love liberal publications. There’s no room for hard journalism anymore.”
Chris frowned, “I’m sure this Vietnam business is going to be over soon, and all this hippie neo-journalism is just a passing fad. Now, please, can we have dinner without talking about anything negative? I’m losing my appetite.”