Book Joint for Sale

It was a perfect December Saturday. The weather was almost balmy, about 48 degrees at 10:30 in the morning. Everything was running its normal course. I had my coffee, said hello and goodbyes to all the guys at the coffee house, headed home, read the papers and was ready to start work. The phones would start ringing any minute now. Action time. Feeling a little lazy, I decided to take bets at home, which was something I rarely did. It was early and nothing much was happening. Five hundred dollars worth of bets came my way without much effort and I was yelling at my daughter, Corrine, to stay off the phone. My two teen-aged daughters didn’t like it when I stayed home for the action. It got a little irritating for them, which I could understand, but hey, it was my job. During my ‘working hours’ they weren’t supposed to make or receive any phone calls, but you know the way girls are. The first thing they did on Saturdays was to get some super glue, put it on their ear, put the phone to it, and leave it there. But like I always said, from the words of the great father: “Too bad!” When I was home working on Saturdays, my teenage daughter, Christie, left the house early. It frustrated her if a phone was in front of her that she couldn’t use. It was like an unreachable fix. My daughters had their orders, now if only the dogs would catch on and stop trying to climb on my lap. The phone rang. It was my fifty year old cousin, Lucy, she was my Aunt Mary’s oldest daughter, who lived downstairs from me in our two-flat brick building. “Anthony, Anthony, some men are coming up the front and the back stairs!” she screamed. “They have axes and sledge hammers!” Within seconds the cops were pounding on the door, so I grabbed the few bets I had and flung them into the gangway from the second floor window where two vice cops were just waiting for me to do something stupid like that. “Hey, look, it’s snowing,” one of them said. They had been watching me for weeks, just waiting for the chance to catch me taking bets at home. I opened the back door only a second before they raised their tools of the trade to break it in. Corrine was terrified. I didn’t want to show it, but I was too. The cops came in and ordered her to sit still. They threw me against the wall and frisked me, spread-eagled. They didn’t read me my rights or produce a search warrant. I didn’t want to press my luck though, so I kept my mouth shut. Maybe this could work to my advantage later. My dogs started barking and biting the cop’s leg. “Get these mangy mutts away from me, before I shoot ‘em,” the cop yelled. I also have a room full of cats, the seven strays that I took in one winter when they were kittens. They were huddled in a hole in my back yard starving, and I guess I felt sorry for them. I didn’t have the heart to split them up into separate homes. They’re a family, so I kept them in an empty back room where they wouldn’t confront the dogs - because they would fight like cats and dogs. The cops went to the cat room door and I tried to stop them. “No, please don’t open that door.” A brilliant thing to say to cops during a raid. One of them rolled his eyes, shook his head, and flung the door open. In a matter of seconds the cats went flying out of the room. They were the kind of felines that frighten easily - scaredy cats I guess you’d call them. The vice detectives didn’t know what `the hell was going on. They never expected this nutty scene taking place. The dogs chased the cats, I chased the dogs, and the police chased me. It was a real three-ring circus. Barnum & Bailey would have offered me and my animal act a contract. I was ordered to get back on the couch. How? Cats and dogs were flying all over and were barking, hissing, and leaping in all directions. I finally grabbed the dogs and put them in another room. To this day, I’m still looking for the cats. One thing about cats - when they hide, they hide. When things calmed down, the cops started a massive hunt but not for the cats. “Before we start tearing this house apart, if you have any drugs, you better get them out now. If we find even a smoke, the whole house goes,” they roughly explained. “Officer, please let my daughter go. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on and you’re scaring her,” I pleaded. “Not just yet,” the cop said. “We’re not finished cleaning house. You’re in a lot more trouble than you realize.” I heard the word trouble and spelled it S-I-D. Somehow I could just feel it he was behind this, and I started to sweat all over. A black aura engulfed me and the smell of brimstone was surfacing. But I’ll get to Sid later. I tried communicating with my daughter Corrine, non-verbally, through some kind of signing. She had some kind of ‘Huh?’ look on her face. With clever hand gestures, I signaled out the phone number for her to call. Corrine followed my instructions and informed my brother. The Vice were nice enough to escort me without hand cuffs so family and nosy neighbors that were hanging out their windows wouldn’t get curious and start a chain reaction of gossip. Once in the car I was given straight-to-the-heart advice, a little late, but they seemed to almost care. After all, it was only gambling, which was no big deal back then.