Sugar Pop Moon Read Free

good bottles in the batch.
    If I tell Jimmy I gave his cash to anybody but Owney Madden’s goons I’m as good as dead. I’ve got to replace the shine or return the money before Jimmy gets back. My first thought is to hijack one of Madden’s trucks and steal the booze, but I’d never get away clean—it wouldn’t take Madden long to track down an albino smuggling a truckload of liquor.
    I walk upstairs into the dining room. It’s filling up and I need to start taking dinner orders, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry.
    Santi pulls me next to the fireplace. “All of it’s bogus?”
    â€œEnough of it,” I say and look in on the bar. Everybody’s happy. Two middle-aged drunks are singing along with the radio. “Body and Soul.” The redhead next to them is swaying in place, holding a martini in her hand. Life sure is easier when you’re drinking booze and not serving it.
    â€œYou have to straighten this out,” Santi says.
    Over Santi’s shoulder, I see Larch smoking a cigarette and using his empty plate as an ashtray. I’d ask for his help but I don’t need a cop, I need a miracle.
    â€œAnd you have to start at the root of the circumstances,” Santi says.
    I get that he’s talking about Gazzara and he’s right. To get Jimmy’s money back I’ve got to shake the bastard down. And since Gazzara isn’t coming up to the Pour House, I’m going to have to go down to Philadelphia and walk into his warehouse—in the middle of a town where my only protection, the name Jimmy McCullough, doesn’t mean shit.

Like every other storefront in Harlem, the Hy-Hat Social Club is decorated for the holidays. Old Man Santiago must have spent the morning stringing lights around the window and hanging a glowing Santa face above the door. Inside, wreaths line the walls and red ribbons hang from the brass lights overhead.
    I’m sitting with Santi at a booth in the dining room, trying to sort out Denny Gazzara’s bait-and-switch. Through the double doors on my left, where four ping-pong tables are lined up, I can hear Old Man Santiago showing Billy Walker how to backhand a slam, which is a joke because the old man couldn’t hit a lobbed grapefruit. The place is hopping; the bouncing ping-pong balls sound like Peg Leg Bates rattling the stage at the Cotton Club.
    I started coming here when I was eighteen, a freshman at City College. I loved it from day one. I would show up after school to shoot pool and then come back after dinner to work with Old Man Santiago and Pearl in the kitchen. Nobody here ever seemed to notice I’m albino. In this place, I’m just another oddball.
    It was a hot July weekend when Old Man Santiago told me he was shutting down the place for good. He was on his knees, cleaning out the inside of the icebox. A canvas work apron covered his flat chest and large belly; sweat lined his thick upper lip and soaked the wispy gray hairs on the top of his head. When he closed the icebox, his bony shoulders dropped and he sighed.
    â€œThere are other clubs, Jersey,” he said, measuring his words as if he were a father telling his son he was walking out on the family. “You’ll move on from this place.”
    I didn’t get it, probably because I didn’t want to get it. He seemed to have enough money to keep the place open; we all paid dues so we were never short on ping-pong paddles, pool cues, pop, hot dogs, whatever we wanted. It took Santi, who at the time was a twelve-year-old kid in knickers, to tell me that the dues barely covered the rent and his old man had been floating us with the little cash he had left over from his tailoring business. I guess Harlem wasn’t missing enough buttons to keep things going. That’s when I decided to help the old man out. He practically raised me—at least during the evening hours. I can’t deny that once I found the Hy-Hat, I spent