Tampa Star (Blackfox Chronicles Book 1) by T.S. O'Neil Read Free Book Online Page A

only problem is his wife’s nephew, Ligio, who accompanied him to Florida as he was a close associate of his deceased stepson and was also prone to similar lapses in judgments. 
    So, life is okay—the dancers pay Sally for the privilege of dancing and give him a blowjob or fuck in his office regularly.  He avoids them otherwise as they are normally bad news— “puttanas vergognosas” as his old man used to say.  Still, they paid the bills.  He kept a low profile, so low that the established Mafia hoods, guys like Santo Trafficante, did not bother with him when they came to Tampa to run numbers.
    And so, Sally sat in Tampa waiting for the assholes in Providence to stop calling for his head. He missed the excitement—the occasional shooting, or beating the snot out of some miscreant behind on the vig for one of his loans.
    On occasion, he might fence some stolen cigars and send them up north, but mostly he was legit as he had no crew. The only one he got is Ligio —all brawn, no brains, Ligio. The winter temperature in Providence gave Ligio a run for his I.Q. points.
    Occasionally, one of the strippers gave him a real hard-on and such is the case with this new dancer, Brenda, who picks the stage name Sunshine — these hippie chicks and their names , he thinks.  She is a redhead; he wonders if the carpet matches the drapes, with big natural tits—-must be D cups, Sally thinks.  She is like a sleazier version of Piper Laurie, the broad from one of Sally’s favorite movies:  The Hustler with Paul Newman. She brings in the clients and they all want private dances, which include cheap bottles of Champagne that Sally buys for four bucks a bottle, but sells for a cool C-note. But, she doesn’t fuck or blow any of them, regardless of how many bottles of champagne they buy. Sally admires that.
    The only problem is she has got a boyfriend, Jimmy, and that fuck-o has been selling speed— Dex, to the dancers.  Lord knows the bitches need it the way Sally keeps them dancing, but he doesn’t want the heat. Still, Sally likes the kid, he admires the fact that Jimmy doesn’t take any shit from Ligio and Ligio may be a lot of things, but he ain’t a punk. Jimmy acts like he would go toe to toe with the big bastard, so maybe the kid has got some balls and Sally thinks balls are worth a lot in this game.  So, Sally decides he will have to talk to Jimmy himself, have Ligio sit in the background, but maybe, he can make it a win-win situation, like his Jew lawyer used to say.

Chapter 6 - Dinner at the Don Carlo
     
    “I’ve got two tickets to a free dinner tomorrow night and I would like you to go.  Take a date if you like.”
    The Commodore sat smoking his pipe in an old wood and green leather swivel chair behind a hand carved Mahogany desk he had made while in the Philippines after the war. He handed Char the blue tickets with a slightly cocked eyebrow as there was something slightly unseemly about them.
    “Just not my type of event, he continued, but I’ve been assured it will be top notch—good food, liquor, a band. It’s at the Don Carlo Hotel. You know that huge pink monstrosity on St. Pete Beach.”
    Char knew the hotel all right. It was the tallest building on the beach and could be seen from Clearwater.  It was so grand that when he first got to town, Char made a point of going to see it. He walked around the grounds, but was too shabbily dressed to think about going inside.
    The Don Carlo was built in 1922, by a local entrepreneur who purchased land in St. Petersburg, Florida to build a pink castle in Mediterranean and Moorish styles modeled after different hotels that he had seen throughout the resort communities in Southern Florida.  It had 200 rooms and cost over $2.25 million. The Pink Lady opened in January of 1927 and quickly became a favorite stomping ground for the well-heeled of the Jazz Age. The hotel went through good times and bad, numerous refurbishments, use as a hospital during the aftermath