Aachoo Voo Private Eye 2024 : 1940s New York

Showing posts with label 1940s New York. Show all posts

Friday, July 19, 2024

Aachoo Voo Private Eye Episode Nineteen Tokyo Joe and the Tale Of Woe

https://aachoovooprivateeye2024.blogspot.com/2024/07/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-eighteen.html Link to Episode 18

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 19

Tokyo Joe and The Tale of Woe

I was sitting in Clapsaddle's drinking tea with my new friend Man Nee Takizaki who called himself Joe Jackason to fit in with the native New Yorkers. It was a bright Saturday afternoon and the usual crowd of old degenerates and the occasional college professor and off/off/Off Broadway performer or hungover fan dancer sat staring into their bowls of Chicken Feet Soup and munching on buttered toast. Joe had recently been hired by T Wayne the King of Things, to help restore oriental antiques that Mr. Elliottt didn't have time to do. That Joe was Oriental and Japanese was a big plus except when it came to Chinese or other Asian cultural items and in those cases, Mr. Elliottt and Mr. Takizaki just winged it but usually pulled it off.

The only customer that had ever complained had been a wealthy Chinese tourist who upon examining his 'priceless' Ming Dynasty vase found to his dismay that one of the dragons on said vase seemed to be wearing a sombrero and drinking Sangria. Mr. Elliottt was quite upset upon having to refund the $50,000 purchase price and berated Mr.Takizaki (who had done the artwork on that piece) quite loudly and angrily before realizing that Joe barely understood anything he was shouting at him. (Or so he believed at the time. (Joe had remarkably and easily picked up the English language by the age of nine and spoke it rather well though with an indecipherable accent.) Looking at Joe's sad face as he crouched behind the Mummy display, he soon relented and took him out for lunch which is how I had made his acquaintance.

They had bee-lined it to my booth as every other table and booth had been filled with gawking old men making bets on which one of them would make me scream the next time in the hallways and win that free buttered toast. I recommended the Salmon Noodle Whatever The Heck It Was and the coffee which was the only thing on the menu that Clapsaddle's served that was normal besides buttered toast but Joe had declined and pulled packets of tea out of his pockets along with a small tea pot and cup and saucer. Then he ordered hot water and a hot dog and proceeded to make himself a dainty cup of fragrant tea. Terrence and I watched in amazement along with the rest of the crowd of Saturday afternoon coffee slurpers.

After long winded introductions had been made at last by Mr. Elliottt, along with backgrounds and family histories concocted for the two of us, Mr. Takizaki, excuse me, Joe Jackason, smiled shyly and attempted to pronounce my name. He gave it a try anyway. And I tried to say his but soon gave up and extended my hand and smiled, "Hello Joe, welcome to New York!" He had a very strange accent, one I could not place. I had met several Japanese people, particularly my mother's balcony/rooftop greenhouse gardeners and none of them sounded like Joe. I would find out why later. Joe was sweet and charming, of indeterminate age, and seemed to form an immediate infatuation for me.

As he excused himself to find the restroom he slipped on the slick seat of the booth and ended up lying on his back on top of my shoes. I pretended not to notice but the rest of the onlookers snickered as he tried to make a quick exit. Poor guy. "He is pretty clumsy, ain't he?" T Wayne observed. "I can't tell you how many things he's broken at my shop in three days." I immediately felt a bond with the guy and tried to find a defense for him but I didn't know him well enough yet. Knowing me and my history well, T Wayne grinned and whispered, "Fortunately, most of the things he's broken have been fakes or my own creations...but don't tell him that!"

While he was gone, which seemed a long time (and I'd noticed he had taken his tea paraphernalia with him) (he had asked Harold to wash them) my friend filled me in on his story. It was sad. It was puzzling. It was quite unbelievable. But then, most of the stories Terrence told me were. Joe had presented himself at The King of Things Shop one day inquiring if there might be a room for rent nearby or available employment anywhere and asking how much the "doggie in the window" was. Terrence had invited him in and given a tour. Then he'd asked him four hundred and thirty-nine questions and offered him a room over the shop and a job as his assistant so he could pay for the room. He'd also given him the taxidermized Cocker Spaniel in the shop window to sleep with because he looked so lonesome. Several years later, "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?" would become a big hit record and T Wayne would take credit for writing the song but there was some dispute over that. He said he gave Joe credit for inspiring the song. (In court, he claimed it had been another dog and not that particular dog in that particular song or window.) No one cared and Bob Merrill got the rights and the royalties.

Joe...aka Man Nee Takizaki was a quiet and pleasant fellow. He was gifted with a paint brush and knowledgeable about many things though his vocabulary was difficult to follow. He insisted upon being called Joe though most people called him Tokyo Joe for various and sundry reasons none of which I will go into here because this is my story after all and well, I don't want to. Anyway, he had introduced himself as a homeless Japanese tourist and Terrence being the soft hearted wheeler/dealer that he was took full advantage of the situation...... ............I mean, took him under his wing and gave him a home and a job.

In the days since, bits and pieces of the sad tale emerged with the help of drawings, sign language, interpreters and foreign language dictionaries. Man Nee had been born into the third wealthiest family in Japan come to find out and had been disowned and disinherited by his family at the age of seven and sent to America to live with a distant relative who had migrated over as a child and established himself as the Asian-American "Noodle King of Rhode Island." Years later after a falling out with the relative, Man Nee roamed the country in search of himself and ended up in New York City in our very own neighborhood. He had tried to establish contact and communication with his family back home but their solicitors rebuffed his every effort at any sort of reconciliation.

Joe was heartsick but never gave up hoping. His crime? His family's oddball reason for disinheriting him? Because Man Nee had found it impossible to learn and speak Japanese! He had only been able to speak Portuguese. No one in any capacity had been able to diagnose, explain, discern or determine why and wrote it off as some kind of birth defect inherited from his mother's side of the family. (Or so his father had claimed.) Several years later however, Joe did discover in a land not his native land, that his mother's mother's father's father's father had indeed been Portuguese. I guess it was passed down after skipping over several generations to his particular genes or neural receptors or something. Can you inherit a language? Joe did.

Having just been informed by articles in newspapers that Joe's family was now the Most Wealthy Family in Japan, Joe with the help of Mr. Elliottt, had taken new interest in reconciling with his family after years of estrangement as well as renewed hope in inheriting at least something. Until that glad day arrived Joe aka Man Nee Takizaki would pass his days happily breaking and repairing things at the shop he had come to call home. Much to his surprise after hiring Joe Terrance found that many Portuguese customers began to patronize his establishment and his business grew exponentially. In fact, he had discovered a whole new niche for himself happily creating and selling Japanese/Portuguese priceless antiquities from undiscovered countries. Life was good. Joe and I became fast friends. He taught me how to make exquisite tea, speak in his language, (a total of four words) write heartbreaking letters to his family and I taught him how to fall gracefully without killing himself.

I took to calling him Man Nee Joe because I liked it and introduced him to Mr. D'Sal and they began to pal around together and take fishing trips and explore Asian spices that Mr. D'Sal was unfamiliar with. Once I had to bail them out of jail but that's a story for another time. I had a wide and diverse variety of friends as you probably know by now and though my uppity mother disapproved of every one, I continued to accrue new friends from every culture and calling. I got that from MiMi Voo, I think because she didn't have a prejudiced bone in her body though she made fun of all people equally but without malice. Some day I may relate the story about her Creole man friend named Water Melon, whose actual name was Mr. Walter Mellond. It's a funny story unless you're one of those people who get offended by watermelons.

Man Nee Joe took me out on a date one night after weeks of continual begging. We decided to go dancing at a popular nightclub but as usual, it ended in disaster. I ended up with five hangnails and he had a broken ankle. He was not a good dancer. I bet that man bowed at least six hundred times that night! He was very polite and very sorry for the fiasco but the whole thing was really my fault. (Of course it was.) As he hobbled in to go up to his room later that night after we'd left the hospital, T Wayne was working on a new project in the shop screwing fan blades onto a blue wooden statue of a scantily clad woman. (He called it 'The Blue Flame' named after his favorite local fan dancer.) He took one look at Joe and shook his head. "Been out with Aachoo?' And Joe grinned widely and said with much avid excitement "Oh, Garoto!! Wharra woman!!!!!!!!! Wharra crazy, wild woman!!!" Terrence helped him and his crutch up the stairs, put him to bed and promptly grounded him for a month.

But getting back to the beginning I began with but didn't finish. That Saturday afternoon as Joe and I sat there some couple of months after our meeting, a heavy set Japanese man in an expensive black suit and dark sunglasses approached our table with a large envelope and stood there scrutinizing us both in an alarming manner. Behind the dark glasses we couldn't really tell what his eyes were saying but when he whipped them off trying to look menacing, we still couldn't tell because we still couldn't see his eyes. Finally he put the envelope down and beat his fleshy fist on top of it, huffed and walked away out the door and entered a waiting black Rolls Royce.

After some silent moments, Joe opened the thick envelope and immediately turned three unreconizable colors and then a deathly pale and jumped up and headed for parts unknown. (Well, his room, really. I just added that for dramatic effect.) I wasn't sure what to do. Go after him, order another slab of mystery pie or decide to investigate this case that had seemingly been thrown into my lap. Joe's life consisted of mystery upon mystery and I loved mysteries. But I also loved getting paid and until my friend received some inheritance, he had nothing to live on but the $8.75 Mr. Elliottt gave him weekly plus free room and board. One week it had gotten so bad for the poor guy that he was forced to sell the board. (I think a wino bought it for his fire barrel.) I started slipping him the food my mother sent over that I didn't want so he had begun to eat well and developed quite a sophisticated palate for foie gras and other yucky stuff.

I adored Joe but that Japanese inheritance business was not exactly up my alley. I finished eating and made my way to my office through the maze of back hallways. Just as I put the key in the door, I felt a big thumb and finger pinch my right cheek. I determined not to give the ole goat the satisfaction of winning anything and rubbed my bum and slammed the door, buried my face in a cushion and screamed. No free buttered toast for you, Mr. Fracklebottum!"

To Be Continued in Episode 20

Special recognition to:

Manny the Moo (my heart)

who came up with this hilarious story line

T Wayne Elliott

* Porch Pirate *

Patty Page

Bob Merrill

Harold Clapsaddle

David Salinas

The fan dancer known as The Blue Flame

whose own episode will be coming up shortly

as soon as we can clear it with the

Censorship Board

The Ming Dynasty

and anyone Oriental...............

The Takizaki family (sorry for your humiliation)

ごめんなさい。

(gomen nasai)

and Glenn Miller, as always...............

btw: Garoto is Portuguese for Boy. just sayin'

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Aachoo Voo Private Eye Episode Seventeen Playboy Thiese, Jack Knife James and the lovely Zelma Lee

https://aachoovooprivateeye2024.blogspot.com/2024/07/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-sixteen.html Link to Episode 16

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 17

Playboy Thiese, Jack Knife James

and the lovely Zelma Lee

Jack Knife James had loved many women in his time but none as much as he loved Zelma Lee, the most gorgeous dame he'd ever laid eyes on. She was the dream girl you only saw in magazines kept hidden under mattresses. She was the broad you drooled over in movie theaters, the chorus girl dancer you paid all your hard earned money to see dance on stage only to be ignored until you waved your last dollar at her with your phone number scrawled on it only to see her buy a hot dog with it later as you followed her out of the club. She raised you up with a fleeting glance and let you down like a bucket in a well as her pretty eyes swept over your hopeful face and over to the movie star or millionaire standing beside you. Your lonely bedroom was plastered with her photographs and newspaper clippings and programs and ticket stubs and souvenirs and the crushed red roses and pearl earring you had seen her drop.

And there in the place of honor on the wall that held your Honorable Discharge certificate from the Army, the hometown newspaper article about how you had saved a drowning feral hog from a half frozen pond, your Little Orphan Annie Decoder ring, your autographed 8x10 of the guy who played Tarzan but you could never pronounce his last name, was the gold frame that held the pristine white napkin with the lipstick imprint of Zelma Lee's lips on it that you gave $15.00 to a waiter for one cold December night as you stood outside the little cafe freezing your butt off while watching the love of your life eating a slice of cherry pie and drinking coffee with some schnook through a frosted over window pane.

It was like a Christmas present to yourself, that napkin. Her lips. Her luscious lips. There on your wall just looking at you as you slept and dreamed of her. You, a full grown man with the good fortune to be a mobster/trumpet player both feared and admired by hundreds if not thousands. You had a great comic book collection and a drawer full of poetry and short stories you had written yourself. You were pitiful but you didn't care. You knew that one day, one sweet day, you were going to make that fine haughty woman Mrs. Jack Knife James and nobody was going to stop you!

Except there was one fly in the ointment of your plans. A fly named C. Loc Thiese, otherwise known as Playboy, the lucky dog currently on the arm of the lovely Zelma Lee out there in Hollywood where she had gone to break into the movies two long years ago. And she had and had done it well. Now she was coming back to New York City for the premiere of a new movie with her co-star and current lover boy or so the movie magazines and Hedda Hopper and the other professional talking mouths said. He was an actor, singer, hoofer, former boxer, who was said to play a mean alto sax and knew his way around both the streets and the bedrooms of debutantes. Just thinking about him made Jack Knife grit his teeth and go write torch songs all night long.

Jack Knife aimed to see for himself what it was all about and he aimed to get the imprint of those lips on his lovelorn face again just like he had back in junior high. He had been in love with that girl since first grade and finally by their junior year he had persuaded her to wear his ring and go steady for at least three months. She was his first love and always would be. And you know what they say about first loves: You never forget them and they're usually the reason you end up in an asylum twenty-five years later. As for Jack Knife, she was the reason he had become a cold-blooded gangster and the reason why he played a trumpet that moaned like nobody's business. She was his inspiration and muse. His trumpet moaned for Zelma Lee and only for Zelma Lee.

She had sidestepped his ardent advances from New York to New Rochelle to New Jersey to New Zealand (a story for another time) but yeah, he had pursued that girl in every way he could think of and nothing had worked. Oh, there were nights when it seemed his dreams were coming true but the next morning she'd always left him with a cold splash of reality and a typed out note that had been duplicated many times and stamped with her signature Always, Zelma Lee and a little kissy face doodle. He hated those doodles! But he had kept every last one of them, dammit! If he could just get his hands around that Thiese guy's throat, he'd show that woman how much he loved her! He'd kill for her! Beg, borrow and steal for her! No, no, he wouldn't borrow for her. He had standards. His mama had taught him standards. He wouldn't borrow anything from anybody.

His mama had told him, "Now Son, if you borrow something, you'll feel obliged to give it back. So don't borrow nothing. Either ask can you have it or go buy it your own durn self!" Quote unquote. And he always listened to his mama. (Except when she told him to stay away from mobsters, jazz clubs, trumpets and Zelma Lee.) Except for that stuff. Otherwise, he was a very obedient son. Ask anybody. He made a mental appointment with the Who- Did -He- Think- He- Was -Playboy, punching a fist into the palm of his other hand and daring him to not show up. Or show up. Show out. Show something. He would mess up that handsome face of his so bad he'd only be starring in "Lips" Lipperson type B Movie monster movies from now on! Just wait!

The night of the big movie premiere, Jack Knife had his entourage all decked out in black tie and tails, even Shrimpy Joe, the gofer who stood all of four feet tall. (In heels.) He'd paraded around like a banty rooster saying, "Look at me! Look at me!" till somebody muzzled him and put him in the trunk of the limousine. The boys were all excited. They wanted to hobnob with movie stars and get a gander at Zelma Lee up close as they had all developed crushes on her over the years but especially now that she had made it big. She'd modeled, sung and danced her way to the top and he was proud of her with all of his tattered heart. It was tough being a hard nosed hood with a tattered heart but he pulled it off. Nobody ever knew that but his Nana and she'd never told.

Nana and Gramps

His grandfather had been as mean as a junkyard dog but she'd loved him to pieces. Literally. (Even Nanas have their limits, I guess.) They'd buried him in three coffins. Four days before the old man's eighty-sixth birthday. No one was ever arrested but everyone knew who had sent him up to the Big House in the Sky. (If indeed he was headed in that direction.) Nana lived out the rest of her years in relative peace and quiet after enduring his chaos for sixty-five years. Jack Knife was glad for her. All his grandfather had ever given anybody was hell. He wished that Nana could be there with him in the limo going to the movie premiere. She'd be so proud. But she was in prison on other charges.

Flash bulbs were popping, people were screaming, it seemed like all of New York City had turned out for this big to-do. He positioned himself in front of a poster of the star of the movie (Some strange thing called "The Girl In The Pearls At The Top Of The World" a new experimental film made in the Alps. Didn't sound like his cup of tea but who cared? He was going to see his doll! And then suddenly there she was. She was getting out of a long black limousine and being escorted down a red carpet by the director of the movie. He was wearing fur. She was wearing fur. And a long slinky silver something or other than he couldn't figure out how she'd gotten into. She looked damned good! Better than good. Falling down and proposing and rushing off to get married good! But he kept his composure. He watched some of his boys fight to take pictures and get autographs. Some of them held back in the crowd looking like shy school boys. He knew how they felt. Then he saw her looking his way and exclaiming "There you are! Where have you been? I've been dying to see your handsome mug again!"

A big smile broke out on his face and he stepped forward to throw his arms around her but grabbed only empty air as she had walked right past him and thrown herself into the arms of....you guessed it....C. Loc 'Playboy' Thiese! He was momentarily stunned but thought fast and hurried to the side of Dorothy Dandridge as she emerged from a white Rolls Royce. "Hello, Darling," he murmured and bent to kiss her hand. She looked confused for a moment but captivated by this well dressed stranger, she played along and said loudly, "Well, Hello Darling to you, too!" Just as she took his arm, he saw Zelma Lee turn at the entrance of the theater and look back at them, wide-eyed. Their eyes locked and he nodded and looked away feeling avenged as he heard Shrimpy Joe somewhere hidden in the crowd shout, "Oh my God! You know Dorothy Dandridge too???!!!" The rest of the night was a blur, a wonderful blur. It was magic and fun and Zelma Lee's eyes shot daggers at him all night but he could honestly say that the movie was crap.

To be continued in Episode 18.......................

👇

Special mentions to......

Loc Thiese

James Ray

Louise Beavers

Anonymous fellow

Aunt Zelma Lee

Dona Drake

Dorothy Dandridge

Johnny (Tarzan) Weissmuller

and other movie stars

who showed up.....

And of course... Shrimpy Joe

TARZAN......Johnny Weissmuller

C Loc Thiese and the actor who plays him in the story.

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode Fifteen..Mobsters, Moola and All That Jazz.....Another point of view

https://aachoovooprivateeye2024.blogspot.com/2024/07/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-fourteen.html link to Episode 14

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 15

Mobsters, Moola and All That Jazz

Nick was still in rehab. He was going to be in there for quite some time. His body still looked like an accordion just beginning to unfold. His handsome face was unscarred, unblemished. Thank God for that. I felt just about as low as a snake's belly as MiMi would say, for the part I had played in his un-foreseen accident with the folding stairs outside my apartment building. Of all the crazy things that had happened to my dates and love interests, that had been the craziest! If only I could go back to that night and had just waited two hours for the elevator to start running and then given up and walked up the inside stairs to my apartment like I usually did! If only! Nick had been so nice to walk me home in the rain from his pub. It had been romantic and sweet in a mystifying way because he was simply a mystifying man.

I had been semi-infatuated with him for some time as had every woman who'd laid eyes on him or imbibed one of his special concoctions or been the target of his unvoiced seductions. As far as I knew, he had played with the affections of many hopeful young/old/still breathing dames but hadn't walked any of them home but me. I think he wanted to see if my dangerous reputation was half as exciting as he'd heard it was. He was curious. Especially after that historic Saturday night when approximately twenty-eight of my past dates and one day or one night boyfriends had shown up at his place all nursing broken hearts or ribs or whatnots and looking to get sauced.

They were probably also hoping to get a glimpse of me (from afar) as they knew I sometimes ended up there after a case or a perplexing run in with detectives who were always trying to find me guilty of something stupid. Which I was, but I didn't think being stupid was illegal, just stupid. I couldn't help it. For the most part I think they just liked taking and looking at my mugshots. I finally got suspicious after they started asking me to put on fresh lipstick and unbutton my blouse. And I ask you, how many cops did it take to take a side shot and a face forward? Plus, they never asked me to hold a sign in front of me! (Mugshot taking was followed by a doughnut and coffee reception in the precinct meeting room. Invitation only.) Sheesh!

The other gumshoes in my circle of gumshoes thought it was funny that the girl that was only out to solve crimes usually ended up being charged with crimes. At least until they fingerprinted me and took some new photos. They usually let me go after long, tedious interrogations that only ended with them learning new swear words I had picked up from the parrot or MiMi and me learning how loudly their wives could scream on the phone at half past midnight as their pot roasts dried out on the stove. Johnny, (we called him "Ooh, Johnny" because that's how dames usually addressed him, made it his goal in life to tease and torment me about my love life, arrest record and the fact that I had solved every case he'd ever been hired to work on while sitting behind my desk and just putting the facts together while filing my nails and reading notes on his unsolved mysteries. I didn't even have to try. And he couldn't stand it.

He couldn't find a clue if it jumped into his lap. And believe me, lots of them had. He was darkly handsome, suave in a way not easily defined and thought he was God's gift to women. Some thought he was. (I thought he was a toad I'd never kiss.) George usually took my side and defended me the best he could but most of the P.I.s cajoled me cruelly or good-naturedly when we met in bars or Gumshoe Conventions. The mean ones who treated me cruelly were either guys I had not given any kind of chance or were guys I had given a chance and they had taken it. And I refuse to go into detail about that. There were good private dicks and there were lousy private dicks. I just wish they'd come up with a new word for private detectives. I was all grown up and my mother still washed my mouth out with soap if I said that word in her presence. I had never dared date or bring any guy home to meet my parents named Dick for that reason alone. It would have been humiliating for all concerned.

After my experience working for Big david or rather his sister Prudence, word had gotten round that I was "the dame to deal with" in both crime solving and crime commiting circles. Mobsters loved me, which made me nervous and cops loved me, which made me nervous but they kept me busy and employed in between mundane everyday cases like finding lost cats and wayward husbands or wives and solving mysteries that entailed "who did what to whom and who stole what from where." Crimes and mysteries always involved the letter "W." That was just a fact. Like mobsters involved money and the other "M" word, you know the one............ Malarkey.

The thing about detectives and mobsters that I found fascinating was how they tended to dress alike. Sharp suits, fancy hats and trench coats. I don't know who started the trend but the mobsters' suits tended to be sharper and more expensive. They were usually custom made by tailors bought and paid for and petrified to make mistakes like crooked seams and buttonless button holes. I supposed they added in all sorts of hidden pockets and places to hide guns, knives and phone numbers of public officials. I daresay not too many detectives could afford private tailors or found themselves in the good graces of any pubic officials worth knowing or calling.

The police detectives tended to look down upon private detectives for several reasons, none of which I shall go into here. Okay, maybe one. Most of us worked alone. We didn't have angry sergeants or supervisors breathing down our necks, we could sleep till noon and we could wear evening gowns to work if the occasion called for it. Well, I did anyway. There weren't a lot of female private you-know-whats. I had heard rumors about a cop that worked out of Burglary and Stick-em-Ups who wore evening gowns and favored gold lame' but he claimed it was only when he was working undercover in a private club for extremely ugly women. I don't know. Who knows? And I don't care to know.

Mobsters were a special breed of men. They loved their mothers, they went to church and they did reprehensible, despicable things without thinking twice about it. There were all sorts of mobsters or gangsters if you prefer that word. White ones, black ones, Oriental, Italian, you name it. We had them in the Big Apple. They were celebrities of sorts. Like Lipps, the movie monster mobster (say that four times fast) I had found in the alley. People loved him. Well, except for maybe two people. I had never liked him but that's just me. I hated movie monsters. They scared me. Why I went to see them at theaters I'll never know but I did. And I always went straight over to MiMi Voo's to sleep in her guest room for a week with Beulah until I stopped having nightmares. I felt safe with Beulah. A chicken for Pete's Sakes! My deepest, darkest most humiliating secret that no one will ever pry out of me under the hottest lights and the most tortuous long interrogations or threats to call my mother. I would sooner die than reveal that.

Big david was at the top of the mobster heap. He and an equally scary but equally smooth talker with the un-pronounceable moniker of (you might want to sit down and take a drink of something while I prepare my brain and tongue for this.) Giovanni Alphonso LaMacho Giancarlo Genovia Luciano Bonnano de Flippi, Jr. (I think I spelled that correctly.) Aka Uncle Alph. He was nobody's uncle but everybody called him that because when Giovanni Alphonso LaMacho...etc etc etc told you to do something, you just did it. He thought it was cute so everybody thought it was cute. And you could continue with your breathing and so forth. In fact, in order to become a bonafide member of Uncle Alph's gang, you had to either be born into the family or go through an extensive initiation that included saying and spelling Uncle Alph's full name as written on his abnormally long birth certificate. He came from a very large family and his parents didn't want to leave anyone out when they named their first born son. Both maternal and paternal sides of the family were known to hold centuries old grudges and they didn't settle feuds with fist fights or name calling.

One of the toughest gangsters in New York City was a darker skinned fellow called Jack Knife James otherwise known in various circles as Evil Genius and The Horn Man. He was sharper than the blade he carried in style and dress and smarter than Einstein on his best day. He also played jazz trumpet and could disguise himself and sneak in and play in any club with any band in the world. Benny Goodman's, for example. Once for kicks, he'd played the annual Policemen's Ball with an all policeman jazz ensemble even though he had approximately thirty-six current warrants against him at the time. As per his name: Genius. He could make a trumpet cry, they said of him. He could make a big man cry. He could make a big man cry while playing the trumpet. He could make a...well, you get the picture. He was big and bad but he loved kids and kittens and a pretty brunette named Zelma Lee. Word was that she didn't love him back and that's what made him mean but he never gave up pursuing her or rescuing kittens or let that interfere with his mobstering.

Which brings me back around to....wherever I was when I started this whole thing. Nick's Pub! Poor Nick had been lying in bed worrying about his famous/infamous watering hole and what to do about it while he recovered. He was at his wit's end when an old friend named Clyde Miraculous showed up with a solution. Clyde had retired... er ..been fired from running a famous club up in Harlem for a few months on a trial basis and was on his way to sunnier shores when he'd heard about Nick's accident. Wanting to help out his old army buddy, he agreed to run Nick's place until he got back on his feet. Nick was delighted. Clyde was one of those people that you never could tell where he hailed from....... Alabama, Argentina or Africa. He was multi-cultural and multi-talented. He could do anything, fit in anywhere and he loved smoky blue jazz music more than anything in the world. Except for his favorite cousin who was the sole supporter and pride of the whole Miraculous family and all of it's branches. His cousin was Jack Knife James.

Nick was laid up for months. I sent him flowers and cheese sandwiches but I kept my distance. I tried to visit once but the look on his handsome face stopped me in my tracks so I blew him a kiss and left the gifts with a nurse. In the long interim, strange things happened to him that he never foresaw. He lost his magical abilities and propensities. He lost his power to seduce women with his thoughts. He lost his mind reading and mind controlling and he also lost his grandfather's pocket watch. The one young Grandpa Resko had used in his vaudeville magic show to hypnotize his wife, Joy into marrying him and grown men into believing they were cows in the Foreign Legion. The name of the act was The Riveting Reskos. (After his sudden marriage to the lovely audience member.) Before that, it was just Resko. His grandparents had vanished on stage one evening in the old Vanishing Cabinet act the day after Nick turned 21, never to be seen again. Nick cherished the watch and kept it with him always. But somewhere between the ambulance and the emergency hospital, it had disappeared just like his mother's amazing parents.

That vanishing act had made headlines all around the world and the mystery had never been solved. Nick kept his grandfather's tools of the magic trade in a secure location and studied the tricks and illusions in his spare time, mastering most of them. However, he had yet to learn the secret of and to the Vanishing Cabinet. That one appeared to be true magic.

Before his release to leave, Nick had been hearing things about the "hot new jazz club" in town. The-Place-To-Be. The bar everyone wanted to be caught dead in. He was worried because it sounded like it was in his small pub's neighborhood. He didn't need the competition. He couldn't wait to get the run down from Clyde. Clyde had promised to pick him up the afternoon the doctors had determined he had recovered enough to walk again and chew gum. He was cautioned sternly to stay away from stairs and to keep off his feet for a while. That wouldn't be too difficult since he mostly just sat on a stool behind the bar and had stimulating mental conversations with attractive women. But there would be no more of that. He'd tried his best mind control and silent seduction on all the nurses at the various facilities he'd been recuperating in to no avail. No avail at all!!! It was frustrating and a little bit horrifying.

Few people knew how extremely shy and introverted Nick really was and what had led him to learn his grandfather's magic tricks and mental manipulations in his awkward teenage years. He had become so adept at it that it frightened him sometimes but he kept a cool exterior. His grandfather had seen him in action before he'd entered that cabinet and dematerialized for the last time and he'd been amazed, amused and a little bit jealous. Nick wondered if it were possible to one day find a girlfriend without resorting to mentalism and magic beans. He didn't know. He could only hope. Women seemed to find him boring when he tried to talk to them verbally. Except for Aachoo Voo. But that woman scared the living daylights out of him! She was the reason for all of this. Losing his health, job, tan, paranormal powers and very nearly, his will to live. Did he dare go near her again? That had been an incredible kiss and she fascinated him but was she worth dying for?

Clyde was late. It was getting dark and Nick was getting impatient and about to go back inside and attempt to call him when he saw that flashy car Clyde loved to brag about pull up to the curb. "My man!" Clyde greeted him as he hopped out, opened the passenger side door and hurried to help Nick into the car. It was slow going. His bones were still crunchy. "So sorry I'm running late." he said, "But I had some last minute things to take care of." "That's okay." Nick assured him and cleared his throat to begin asking questions about the pub and the new place everyone was buzzing about but Clyde waved them off and said in a low voice, "Listen, Nick. I got some things I need to tell you, man. I don't know how you're gonna take 'em but man, things have been happening!" Nick held his breath and steeled himself for some bad news. Like, the pub had burned down bad news. Like, the pub had been quarantined because of Black Plague bad news. Clyde kept quiet like he was trying to find the words to spill the bad news but couldn't find any so they drove on in silence. There didn't seem to be any thoughts in Clyde's mind to read so Nick just leaned back and fell asleep, fearing the worst.

He was awakened by bright lights, the sound of loud music and the giggles of happy women. He rubbed his eyes and tried to get his bearings but the scene seemed a little bit too surreal to be real. Still dreaming, evidently. "Nick, my friend, welcome home!" Clyde beamed, throwing open the car door and helping Nick to his hesitant feet. There was a red carpet there for him to walk on, lined on both sides by excited people of all shapes, sizes and colors. There was a doorman in uniform holding the door open to a freshly painted and newly remodeled building that boasted flashing NICK'S signs all over it. But that was nothing! When he stumbled inside in total disbelief, there was a stage and a packed house and the best bluesy jazz band he'd ever heard in his life, fronted by none other than the man himself, Jack Knife James, The Horn Man, Evil Genius and second cousin to Clyde Miraculous, up there making grown men cry with his moaning trumpet! He couldn't believe it! It was too much to handle for a crumpled man. But it appeared to be true! The Hottest New Place In Town was his own former lowly, lonely little pub! Nick had no idea what to do or say so he just folded up and fainted.

It was one of the happiest moments of Clyde's life even though he had no idea what Nick was going to say when he came to. He had certainly been surprised at all the changes. Whether he was thrilled or not was another matter. Maybe he should have prepared his friend but he'd just been so excited to be given responsibility for something again. Like the Cotton Club. Up in Harlem. Oh, my Lord, the changes he had made to that place! The absolutely unappreciated changes he had made to that place!!!! Threatened and beaten to within an inch of his life by angry owners and investors! And fired like a dishwasher with a mound of broken plates! (That he had previously been.) He wondered if he should wait for Nick to wake up or just go get in his car and leave town right then.