Find Big Fat Fanny Fast (5 page)

The town of Greenwood Lake is located on the New York side of Jersey Avenue, which connects New York and New Jersey. On the New Jersey side of Jersey Avenue side sits the town of West Milford, which is the gateway for New Jersey residents to enter New York State. The separate drinking laws of the two states are what made Tony B a ton of money in the 1950's through the 1970's, when the drinking age in New York was made the same as in New Jersey.

  Before the New York drinking law was changed, the legal drinking age in New Jersey was twenty one, but it was only eighteen in New York State. As a result, on Friday and Saturday nights, people from all parts of Northern New Jersey sped through West Milford, down Jersey Avenue, to Greenwood Lake, New York to drink in one of the more than fifty such establishments within a ten-mile radius of the one-horse town.

Greenwood Lake was the site of many famous establishments, some of them even legal. One such place was the Long Pond Inn, a motel/bar/restaurant, where prize fighters, like heavyweight champions Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson, came to train before a title fight. The Club Car was another hot spot and known for showcasing new bands. But in the 60's, the rage in Greenwood Lake was the Sterling Hotel which featured topless dancers, who were not allowed to expose their wares in New York City at the time.

Greenwood Lake was a veritable gold mind for the New York City mob. Almost every bar was owned by New York City mobsters and Tony B was sole owner of five of them himself.

Tony B spent the weekdays in New York City, but when the Fish Market closed from 10 am Friday morning, to 10 pm Sunday night, Tony B took off to the friendly confines of Greenwood Lake to enjoy the weekend and to collect the cash from his five joints.

Summers in Greenwood Lake were idyllic. Because of the cool breeze that emanated off the lake, most homes didn't even have air conditioning. The winters were cold, but even when the temperature dipped below zero, it felt warmer in Greenwood Lake than it did on frigid twenty degree days in New York City .

Tony B's four-bedroom lakeside home was on the New York side of Jersey Avenue, two miles from the town of Greenwood Lake. In the back of his house, he had a dock where he kept his pontoon boat “The Ba Fongool.” Tony B loved going out on the lake to spend some quiet time with nature and for other important things to; like disposing of the bodies of people who were not too good to Tony B.

Tony B's favorite time to take his boat out for a spin was after dark. When the moon shone on the lake, it was ideal for Tony B to dump a dead body, or two, which were weighed down with concrete blocks, so no one could realize the victims were dead for a long time, or maybe even never. Even though Greenwood Lake had been used as a mob burial ground since the 1920's, not one body deposited in its green waters had ever risen to the surface. It was as if Greenwood Lake had just swallowed them up whole.

Tony B's home was built in the Roaring Twenties and had a secret room behind a phony wall in the basement, that he could access by pressing a hidden button behind a bookcase. This room had been used as a speakeasy during Prohibition, but in the 60's it was Tony B's war room, where he counted skim money from his Greenwood Lake bars and conducted meetings of his crew. This room was also sometimes used to straighten out a delinquent payer, or maybe a bartender who was acting like a he was Tony B's partner.

Even though Tony B owned five bars in Greenwood Lake, he was never actually on the premises, except to collect his weekly cut. Each bar had a bartender/manager, who ran the joint and reported back to Tony B if there were any problems that needed to be straightened out. Whenever Tony B bounced around town, he followed mob commandment number one, concerning the ownership of anyplace where alcohol is served.

NEVER DRINK IN YOUR OWN BAR.

Drinking in your own bar was invariably bad for business. Get drunk in your own bar and people considered you weak. Get drunk in someone else's bar and they considered you a good sport.

As for the bartenders, they couldn't drink in any bar they worked in either. If you let bartenders drink when they were off-duty in bar they worked in, their brother bartenders will serve them free drinks all night. One hand washes the other in the bartender business. That was OK on the face of it. But it was not OK, if all the hand washing was done with Tony B's booze.

Then there was mob commandment number 2.

NEVER HIRE A FEMALE BARTENDER.

Invariably, male customers ogled the female bartenders, and sooner or later guys got into beefs over the broad, which usually initiated the destruction of Tony B's furniture, which was not good for Tony B's bottom line.

Another reason not to hire skirts is very simple. Due to the laws of Mother Nature, when they got their monthly visit from “their friend,” they were useless for several days. When this happened, even if they did show up for work, they were mean and nasty and ready to chop off the head of anyone who even looked at them cross-eyed.

Female bartenders aside, anyway you cut it, bartenders were born thieves. One way or another, they all instigated assorted types of chicanery, intended to take money out of Tony B's pockets. Their tricks were too numerous to count, but the bottom line in the bar business is that a little robbing is sometimes tolerated, but don't make yourself a partner with the cash register. Then very bad thing could happen to you. Permanent things.

Take the case of Teddy Muldoon, a refugee from Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, who made his home in Greenwood Lake. Teddy came with good references, so Tony B put him to work behind the stick of his Greenwood Lake gold mine — The Pink Pussycat. Teddy was real good with the customers and didn't have a strong pouring hand, which suited Tony B just fine.

Soon, Tony B made Teddy his manager, in charge of ordering, scheduling, and the hiring and firing of the other thieving bartenders. During the summer months, Greenwood Lake was hopping every night of the week. During the other months, the weekends were the big moneymakers and some clubs closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, just to save money on the electricity.

In the summer of 1960, Tony B noticed his weekly cut from the Pink Pussycat had dropped more than thirty percent from the summers of previous years.

He confronted Teddy with this fact, to which Teddy replied, “Yeah, things are slower than last year. All these new bars popping up are cutting into everybody's bottom lines.”

The only problem with that line of reasoning was that Tony B's other four bars were doing just fine, like they had done every other year during the summer.

Terry Muldoon knew about Tony B's other bars and should have known his explanation was weak. But an Irishman born in Hell's Kitchen didn't exactly possess the mental capabilities of Alfred Einstein, or whatever Mrs. Einstein's son's first name was anyway.

“I smell a rat,” Tony B told Skinny Benny, who also owned a couple of Greenwood Lake bars.

“I don't like rats,” Skinny Benny said. “They sneak in at night and eat all the food, especially the cheese.”

Tony B was not as brain dead as his longtime friend, so he put a plan into motion to find out exactly how Teddy Muldoon was robbing Tony B blind. Tony B hired Patrick Casey, a retired New York City cop, whose private detective business' specialty was clocking bars for owners who were having unexplainable cash flow problems.

Pat Casey visited the Pink Pussycat at different hours, on different days of the week, for more than a month. But he could not detect any one of the several tricks bartenders employ to finger their bosses' cash.

Finally, Pat Casey set up a meet with Tony B to report on his progress. They sat in the hidden room in Tony B's basement and sipped from glass snifters of Remy Martin Louis XIII that had fallen off the back of a fat liquor truck.

“I've been to your joint more than a dozen times and for the love of me I can spot a thing,” Pat Casey said.

“That can't be,” Tony B said. “Someone is robbing my eyes out.”

Pat Casey took a sip of Cognac. “I've clocked all the different bartenders, including Teddy Muldoon, and they're all operating on the up and up. I even had two of my guys visiting at different times on different days and they can't come up with anything either.”

“That's impossible,” Tony B said. “You're missing something someplace.”

“What could I be missing?” Pat Casey said. He took another sip from the snifter. “Your joint is packed every night and all the bartenders are playing square. Your three cash registers are clanging like crazy and I can't spot a damn thing.”

A bell went off in Tony B's head. He took a sip of Remy. “Say that again.”

Pay Casey downed the Remy and poured himself another. “I said, all your three registers are clanging like crazy. You should be making a mint.”

Bingo!

Tony B threw his glass snifter against the wall, spraying glass in all directions. “The Pink Pussycat has only
two
cash registers, only
two freakin' cash registers.”

A few days later, Tony B invited Teddy Muldoon to his house in Greenwood Lake for a barbecue in the back yard. Skinny Benny was there flipping steaks, shrimp, burgers and franks. Richie Ratface mixed the drinks. Bloody
Marys
. Pina Coladas. Mai Tai's. Boilermakers. Whatever drink Teddy Muldoon desired, he got. And he got plenty of them too.

Muldoon also ate like a pig. Three steaks. Four hamburgers. Two pounds of shrimp and about a half a dozen franks. And why not? After all, it was Teddy Muldoon's going away party; his going-away-for-good party. So why not let the man enjoy himself one last time?

And go away he did. Like Houdini disappearing from a locked coffin. Only Muldoon's coffin wasn't locked. In fact, it was spacious and quite wet.

Tony B, with special help from Skinny Benny and Richie Ratface, took care of the initial festivities. Then the magic of “The Ba Fongool,” in conjunction with the wide and deep expanse of Greenwood Lake, took care of the rest.

Tony B figured there was no one less crooked bartender for the world to contend with. And nobody, except crooked bartenders, could complain about that.

CHAPTER 7

Ann O'Reilly

In 1960, Tony B met the love of his life, Ann O'Reilly, a lovely Irish lass who was the librarian at the local Greenwood Lake library. Tony B was used to the Italian broads in Little Italy, who were a little rough around the edges, didn't hesitate to curse and would cut your throat like a man. Ann was different. Blond and built like Ginger Rogers, she had a sweet smile and a vocabulary an English teacher would admire. Tony B met Ann when he dropped into the Greenwood Lake library to pick up the biography of Al Capone for some light summer reading.

It was love at first sight for Tony B. He had never met a girl like Ann before. So soft and sweet, always smiling. Not a bad thing in the world to say about anyone. Not like the bawdy cuginettes, strutting about Manhattan's Little Italy and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. The kind of broads who were either snapping gum, puffing an unfiltered Camel, or cursing and spitting out of the sides of their mouths.

After a few more trips to the Greenwood Lake library, and after he ran out of mob books for Ann to find for him, Tony B asked her for a date. She accepted and Tony B was floating on air when he arrived at the door of her Greenwood Lake home.

But not for long.

Tony B didn't know it at the time, but the problem men had with dating Ann, was her loud, vulgar, Irish-bastard father, who was the Major of Greenwood Lake and loving every minute.

Ryan O'Reilly drove a Daily News delivery truck for a living, and that being a union job, he was controlled by the friends of Tony B's. In truth, O'Reilly did not like Italians too much. He called them Guineas, Greaseballs, Dagos and Wops. And that was on the days he liked them.

Wearing his best sharkskin suit and holding two dozen roses in his hand, Tony B knocked on the O'Reilly resident door. It was opened by a big, fat, tub of lard, whose immense figure blocked the entire entrance.

“Yeah, what do you want?” Ryan O'Reilly said

Tony B forced a smile. “I'm here to pick up your daughter, sir.”

“My daughter? What is this? Some kind of sick joke?”

That said, O'Reilly slammed the door in Tony B's face.

Tony B could hear the Mick bastard scream from inside the house, “Oh Bejesus. What, in Paddy O'Leary's name is that greaseball doing at my front door?”

The door soon opened and a pretty, middle-aged, blond woman appeared. She smiled at Tony B. “You must be Tony. I'm Ann's mother Betty. Please have a seat on the porch and my daughter will be out shortly.”

Tony B sat on a wicker chair. “Thank you, ma'am.”

“Can I get you some ice tea, or a soda?” Betty said.

“No thanks, Ma'am.”

Betty smiled. “I'll tell Ann you're outside waiting for her.”

That said, she sashayed back inside the house and Tony B could not help but admire her fine rear end.

A few minutes later, a stunning Ann O'Reilly walked out the front door.

Thus, started their first date.

Tony B didn't think it was a good idea to take a classy lady like Ann to one of the hot joints in Greenwood Lake. So he thought it would be a nice idea to take her to the Warwick Drive-In Movie, which was just on the other side of scenic Mt. Peter, on Route 17 A.