Front Page Palooka: A Nick Moretti Mystery Read online

  Praise for Front Page Palooka

  NEW TAKE ON AN OLD STORY: One of my favorite books of all time is Budd Schulberg’s “The Harder They Fall”. Front Page Palooka is a story that tells a similar tale of a reporter’s view of the darker side of the sweet science. The author paints a convincing portrait of the boxing game in the 1950s that doesn’t just mimic Schulberg’s books or the world we see in film noir dramas. This book is strong enough to stand on its own and give the reader more than they might bargain for. Another winning entry in the Fight Card series.

  — Terrence McCauley, award-winning crime writer of Prohibition, Slow Burn, and Sympathy for the Devil

  BRING ON THE NOIR: When I was a kid I used to sneak into my father’s collection of Travis McGee novels, written by John D. MacDonald. God, how I loved those books. Front Page Palooka reminds me of ol’ Trav. Maybe it’s the hard-boiled, noir attitudes, where men like to fight and women are dames, maybe it’s just good, old-fashioned manly writing. The author has done all his research, in both the newspaper and the fight departments, and main character Nick Moretti is well-rounded and sexy, the kind of reporter any dame would fall for. Gotta tell ya — I fell for this book and recommend it to any guy . . . or any dame.

  — Cathy Olliffe-Webster, author of Green Eggs & Weezie and Friday Girls

  DRENCHED IN ’50s LINGO & ATMOSPHERE: It’s a story that twists and turns in ways you won’t expect; It’s a story that’s full of the underworld atmosphere of the ’50s, which in itself is an interesting contrast with the Happy Days image many people have of the era. Most of all, it is a story that drips with the edgy character and engrossing voice of Nick Moretti. As I read, I was transported to his world. . . . This book would make a great film, a retro-noir, shot in black and white and directed by Darren Aronofsky or someone of similar sensibilities. And Venutolo should write his own script, because he’s got a way with words.

  — Frank Zafiro, author of At their Own Game and The Back List

  Fight Card: Front Page Palooka

  Anthony Venutolo writing as Jack Tunney

  For this entry in men’s adventure boxing series, writer Anthony Venutolo steps in as “Jack Tunney”, the shared pseudonym for today’s hottest crime scribes writing for the monthly FIGHT CARD pulp books.

  Upon its release, Front Page Palooka was nominated for three New Pulp Awards including Best Novella, Best New Writer and Best New Character.

  Venutolo has won five critical writing awards from the New Jersey Press Association and has appeared in such publications as Bikini, Details, POV and Playboy Online. He’s also written columns for the gambling magazines Chance, Casino Player and Strictly Slots.

  Online his flash fiction and poems have appeared at Zygote in My Coffee, Red Fez, Deuce Coupe, Gutter Eloquence, Shoots and Vines, Six Sentences and is a Revolutionary Voice at the site Drunken Absurdity.

  The former features editor at The Star-Ledger, is now a member of the Digital Ops team for the New Jersey Advance Media Group.

  His first book Front Page Palooka was released in October, 2013 as part of the FIGHT CARD book series. It was nominated for three New Pulp Awards including Best Novella, Best New Writer and Best New Character.

  His web site is at AnthonyVenutolo.com and he blogs from Bukowski’s Basement.

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  FIGHT CARD: FRONT PAGE PALOOKA

  Copyright © 2013 Anthony Venutolo

  e-Book Edition — First Published September 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions and organizations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  About FIGHT CARD

  Front Page Palooka

  Round 1

  Round 2

  Round 3

  Round 4

  Round 5

  Round 6

  Round 7

  Round 8

  Round 9

  Round 10

  Round 11

  Round 12

  Sign up for Anthony Venotulo’s Newsletter

  About Anthony Venotulo’s Flash Fiction

  Bourbon & Blondes

  The Lady in Waiting

  Thirteen Men

  The Calm Before the Storm

  Earth Angel

  ROUND ONE

  Newark, New Jersey, 1954

  My mood was raw enough to make a blonde cry.

  Even after thinking it through, I still had doubts about my partners. While I was removed from the hustle a few ways from Sunday, the little voice in my head gave me reason to worry. In reality, this should feel like the home stretch, but it’s been my experience that things can — and will — get hotter than a $3 pistol if you’re not careful. I’ve seen it too many times.

  The lacquer cracker on the jukebox kept skipping so I told the corn-fed giant-of-a-barkeep to unplug the hunk-of-junk once and for all or find something worth playing. I didn’t feel like hearing a platoon of horns. It wasn’t the time for jump blues. At least not for me.

  “This is a tavern, Bubb, not a morgue. We need music,” Barkeep grumbled.

  I flipped him a nickel and grumbled back, “Then go find something quiet. An onion ballad sung by that skinny twerp . . . And the name ain’t Bubb. It’s Moretti . . . Nick Moretti.”

  Barkeep’s eyes squinted and then lit up as he snapped his sausage finger. “Hey, you used to write about the fights, right?”

  All of a sudden he was my best friend. Like I needed more of those. “Man alive, you were really good with those predictions,” he went on. “Made me lots of cashola. Next one is on me.”

  I didn’t wanna ruin his night and tell him they weren’t exactly predictions, but who was I to burst his bubble? I smirked as politely as possible. “Thanks, but that was a long time ago, barkeep.”

  He leaned in. “Say, I haven’t seen your name in ink for a while,” he said fishing. “What happened?”

  “I’m a city editor now. Hit the big time,” I answered, half-joshing. What I didn’t tell him was I was starting to circle the drain. It was a simple truth.

  My life had become a nightly blur of fight halls reeking of beer burps and stale sweat. I’d had to get away for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the fight game, but as the city editor, I could enjoy it like every other schnook who had sat on the city desk dipping donuts into stale coffee.

  I watched Barkeep hunker over to the juke and oblige me with some softer music. I thanked him by raising my drink. Lighting my Chesterfield, I enjoyed the soothing ivory-twinkling of the song and, for a small moment, I felt calm. What’s more, the tonsil paint was doing its job, so I asked the corn-fed Goliath for a refill. “The good stuff,” I requested.

  I threw down a five spot and Barkeep sensed I needed some quiet. “Leave the bottle,” I said. A seasoned man of his trade, he knocked on the bar and went back to scraping water stains from shot glasses.

  Checking my watch, I went back to thinking about my partners and which of ’em even deserved their share of the cabbage. I thought about hopping a silver bullet by morning and no one would see this two-bit newsman again or even
think twice. Enticing? Sure, but I didn’t have the money yet.

  I was clearly doing next week’s drinking early and, just between us, sometimes that’s my problem. It was easy to get lost within the deep copper shimmering in my glass. Could you blame me? The whiskey was going down easy because it was old enough to vote. Craving finer things, such as top shelf hooch, is what got me here.

  So just where is here?

  I’d got a tip from one of my sportswriters that the fix was in on a local fight. That was nothing new. Boxing was as crooked as a Prohibition cop. These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a major bout on the up-and-up. Sure, you could find a square scrap if you tried real hard, but that would usually take the seasoned nose of a boxing bloodhound, ala, yours truly.

  In any case, I’d heard Butchie “Boomerang” Benedict was gonna take a dive in the fifth. Butchie was the middleweight champ, meaning the fight card would be big. Big card equaled big gate. Big gate equals lots of bookies to lay the bets.

  Butchie Benedict was a tough Irish mug who had the endurance of a young colt in heat. Between his battering ram left and an iron jaw, he was a guy who ruined records. Perfect ones.

  Being that the last thing Butchie lost was his virginity, this was going to be a legendary loss in boxing. I wanted to mobilize and take every clam I owned and bet big. That was the easy part.

  The hard part? Getting an average Joe to lay down the bet and some shape-in-a-drape to collect with him afterwards. I couldn’t do it. If I laid down the cash, every book and degenerate gambler would see me coming a mile from town and the jig would be up. I needed a sap.

  Bookies tend to look the other way when it comes to saps betting their life savings for their doll. Since I was the one who supplied the tip, my job essentially was done.

  Even though I had my reservations with the little voice warning it might all be a bad idea, there were only two people I figured could help me pull this off.

  The first was Sonia Esposito, a demon in lipstick. And the Clyde who’d be pressing our bet? Stuart Jenkins. He was a cub in the newsroom and was greener than spinach. A real Boy Scout, he looked like he was born reading The Saturday Evening Post.

  After I handed him a few finskis, he was in. I felt guilty so I told him there’d be more coming his way after the fight. Can you believe that’s all it took? I’m serious, if it weren’t for that apple pie kisser, he’d be as useless as tits on a nun.

  * * *

  Since it was fight night and every watering hole around the Garden would be packed, I hopped on a Broadway Battleship to take me back to New Jersey. I’d land at The Red Rooster, a secluded and cozy tavern in Newark. When I heard the regulars had nicknamed the joint, The Little Cock, I just had to pop in and check the place out.

  It was a colder-than-usual January and the northeast wind whipped something brutal. The streets were empty and quiet and only drunks who took their jobs seriously made it out and about. Aside from Corn-fed Goliath behind the bar, there were only a couple of neighborhood winos — deep in the grip of the grape — refueling their engines with high test.

  When the juke finished pining for its long-lost lover, I looked at my watch and asked Barkeep to turn up the radio. He knew what I meant and found the fight. The speaker was tinnier than a recycled sardine can, but it did the trick.

  They called Butchie Benedict “Boomerang” because of his massive left and the speed at which he’d come back with a cheetah-fast right. He was fighting some beat up pug named Mitchell “Matterhorn” McCoy who really wasn’t any better than a mid-range club fighter. This kind of bout in boxing was all too common. The division needed a shakeup and what better way than to give a palooka like McCoy the belt for half a year?

  If he was lucky, the doofus would snag a few decent gates so when the Boomerang rematch arrived, it would actually be a main event worth a piss pot. That’s where the real money would come in, at least for the belt and suspenders men who made such decisions.

  With radio static hissing, I managed to hear veteran boxing announcer Stitch Bromer, a former cutman, just clear enough:

  “McCoy tags Benedict in his breadbasket . . . The champion is wobbly and tries to counter, but McCoy simply taps his gloves away . . . McCoy sweeps in once more to unleash additional fury . . . More body shots . . . Benedict ducks and gets himself tagged with a monstrous uppercut from the challenger as the champ kisses the canvas! Madison Square Garden is on its feet! . . . What a barn burner! Matterhorn McCoy has floored The Boomerang for the first time in the champion’s career. Referee Mike Hampton counts . . . 6 . . . 7 . . . 8 . . . 9 . . . The collective boxing nation is stunned, ladies and gentlemen. Matterhorn McCoy is the new middleweight champion of the world!”

  As Stitch Bromer rattled on about boxing legacies, I knew it wouldn’t be long before my pockets were stuffed with centuries. But then it hit me. Or at least the booze started knocking some sense into me. Guys who take the easy way out rarely have happy endings and I certainly didn’t mean Matterhorn McCoy.

  With that reality rearing its ugly head, I raised my glass for another refill and continued to wait for Sonia and Stuart.

  * * *

  I first met Sonia Esposito ten years ago, right after the war. She was working some dime-and-grind palace in Atlantic City, hustling G.I.s for a nickel a dance and I was in town writing about some tomato can who wasn’t worth his weight in fish piss. In the dance hall, I marveled at the sight of our boys in uniform. Thank God those kids came home. They made us all proud back then.

  Me? I was a former leatherneck who found glory during the banana wars in Nicaragua around ten years before the big one. We certainly saw action, but nothing like these guys who saw too many of their brothers die.

  When the sweepy orchestra finished its rah-rah tune, I saw her for the first time. She was walking toward the bar and I took it all in — hips like a windy, canyon road and eyes like big, green traffic lights — Sonia turned most men with a decent ticker into the walking dead. Fast-forward a decade and not much has changed. Instead of soldiers in gin mills, she’s now hustling out-of-towners with leather attachés.

  After our first dance to “String of Pearls”, we kept pretty good company, and it wasn’t long before I moved her north. Sonia was always hard to keep happy. There always seemed to be something she needed or something she wanted. It eventually took its toll on my billfold, and I soon knew what those schnooks in the dance hall paying a dime-a-dip felt like. That’s when I started toying around with the boxing tips I came across. A few would get sold, a few I would keep to myself to bet big. Either way, she could enjoy the high life and I could have the perfect cufflink on my arm.

  We lasted about three years and there wasn’t a day that passed where she didn’t get me all steamed up like a pants presser. But that only lasted until the sun came up and the bottle ran dry. She was wine and I was whiskey. And you know what they say: Never mix the grain and the grape.

  We stayed in contact through the years and, from time to time, we reconnected. I figured she’d be the perfect little lamb for this particular hustle. My main concern was she’d become greedier through the years.

  On my nod, Barkeep turned off the radio, and that’s when I heard the side door squeak open and those high heels slowly approach. By the footsteps, I could tell Sonia was alone.

  So where was Stuart?

  When I heard her gun cock, I knew he was either waiting in the car or on a deep six holiday. My guess was dirt city. Someone had to have been helping Sonia and it couldn’t have been the cub. Just wasn’t in him. I closed my eyes in aggravation because I should’ve known better. That face of hers had got me again.

  Smirking, I turned around in my barstool. Sonia carried a small leather pouch and she threw it on the bar before I saw the smile that told me my hunch was right — she was lower than the belly of a snake.

  Sure, I’ll admit part of me hoped she’d be loyal, but I wasn’t shocked. As I took a final drag, all I could think was, Even when we were shacked up, t
his broad never did know how to share . . .

  You don’t feel much when you get shot. The pain is so strong, the brain goes into overdrive and you feel cold more than anything. I started getting fuzzy and everything became blurrier than a silent nickelodeon of nudies in Times Square.

  But then something strange happened.

  Just before I blacked out, Sonia’s body plopped next to mine. Someone was responsible for that little bit of karma and I just wondered whose side they were on.

  * * *

  I woke up in a cold, white hospital bed with a radio telling me how happy newlyweds Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were doing. Good for them. Truth be told, I wasn’t up for hearing how blissful anyone else was at the moment. Color me selfish.

  After my perky nurse spoon-fed me a bland meal of apple sauce and crackers, there was a knock on my door. Halfway doped up, I couldn’t believe it when Barkeep smiled in the doorway. He was holding Sonia’s small leather pouch — although it looked like a wallet with those big galoot hands of his — and tossed it on the foot of my bed.

  “I heard of hangovers but this is ridiculous,” he joked.

  I didn’t laugh because I had questions. The nurse left us and when she was gone, he told me I was in the clear. As far as the coppers were concerned, some dippy peach had a beef and had come into the bar to act it out. Where did Barkeep stand with the fuzz? Well, they figured he was just protecting his joint by popping Sonia in the shoulder with a zip-gun he kept behind the bar for emergencies.

  And Stuart? They still didn’t find the poor kid, but my fingers were crossed the little numbskull would show up.

  As far as Sonia was concerned, an odd part of me felt sad. When I asked Barkeep if she was dead, he laughed. She didn’t go belly up. In fact, the cops expected her to be visiting what they called “The Hen-Pen”, an all-female prison farm somewhere deep in the Delta on an attempted murder rap. Her only chance of freedom would be a pine box parole.