| TOMMY SMILES GOES WEST |
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| Tommy Smiles at Bell Rock, Sedona, Arizona |
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| Tension, the taut tension of a leash tethered to a Pit-Bull when a litter of kittens walks by. That was the feeling that rose through my solar plexus to my shoulders. Here I was, awaiting the call that would change my world for good or for death. I was soaked in a musty perspiration that was brought upon by nervous anxiety. I really hoped it was only because I lived in Phoenix. But, no, it was genuine fear. You know, the kind of fear that only a wounded soldier in a wet foxhole knows. Tommy Smiles was coming to see me! I was a small-time hood in a big racket. I started off as a gambling degenerate who fell into the hole and began working off debts by leaning on other football poll flunkies. Soon it was finger breaking and knuckle wrestling. Knuckles turned into hands, then arms and finally kneecaps. I became a regular genius of the whole human anatomy by twisting and popping cartilage for pennies on the dollar. It wasn’t long after that the Big Boys started to notice and I was on my way. Fixing dog races and shaking down 7-11’s, I was a regular enterprise of entrepreneurship. Of course, I always took care to send the skim back East. This led me, Bugsy I. Rush, into the whispers of large circles. Here I was, in a desert, far away from the back door dealings of the Irish Mob, and I was about to be rung by the top rung! The palpitations were real, as real as a bee sting on a winter day. My sweaty palm almost dropped the phone when it began playing “Oh Danny Boy.” “Top of the day to ya,” I managed. “Bugsy, ‘tis me lad, Smiles from da ‘Burgh.” I almost genuflected. Tommy Smiles was an Irish legend. Raising himself from the pariahs that populated the Sycamore Street Gang and the poverty that engulfed them all, Tommy Smiles went from burning his porch for firewood to a Union President. Using a little luck and a lot of charms to move to the top of the Irish Mob, his meteoric ascendancy got a cereal named after him, “Lucky Charms.” He deftly handled crises and threats to his brotherhood with a smile and just a wee bit of whiskey. No one could find someone to say a bad word about Tommy Smiles. Or should I say, they couldn’t be found again. |
| Tommy Smiles was a bull of man. He had calves that were called cows. His barrel chest strained the threads of his dapper golf shirts and his head was covered by thick, dark Irish rings that made hats look like a yarmulke on his pate. There were stories that misbehaving soldiers were put on top of the refrigerator for days at a time at Tommy’s bequest. It became known as “Sitting on the Cooler.” Going against Tommy Smiles was like asking for a sock in the jaw and instead getting tire-ironed in the nuts. “Me and me Associate are leaving the airport and we are on our way to the Arizona Biltmore. You meet us there.” It figured Tommy and his Associate would be bedding down at the Biltmore. The Biltmore was the roost of all the high rolling, high-hats of the past century. Built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1937, every U.S. President since Hoover had glad handed deals along its golf course while dirty dealing the U.S. Taxpayer. Built with the palm tree inspired “Biltmore Block” it transcends common hotels with its mix of beauty and desert clean backdrop. The list of celebrities that have left their shadows read like a who’s who of American pop-iconoclasts. Irving Berlin penned “White Christmas” here, Kennedy bedded Monroe here and O.J. Simpson even searched for the killer on the Biltmore’s 15th green! I take one last blast of my whiskey, to steel my nerves, and take the CR-V Limo to meet them at the “Jewel of the Desert.” I arrive early and find them lost. “Bugsy! We’re at the Phoenician Resort, where are we?” Great, now I got to be the one to tell Tommy Smiles he’s lost in the desert! “Ye jus’ missed it...by fifty blocks. Turn around and come to the Biltmore on 24th Street. I’ll meet yinz in front.” This was an ominous sign. It got me wondering what Tommy Smiles and his Associate were really doing here. Sure, he had mention something about “Union business,” but that entails a lot of stuff. Maybe he was here to take a bigger slice of my action, maybe it was to take all of my action. Maybe I had gotten too big for my kilts and I was about to be kilt! I just hoped he didn’t have a refrigerator with him! I was starting to feel like a potato with the foil being slowly wrapped. |
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| Tommy Smiles and his Associate pull up in front of the Biltmore and I go to greet them. “Great to see ya Smiles! How’s the family?” “You should know, you’re in it!” He retorts. I glance over at his Associate and notice he has already given me the once over. Tommy turns to me and says, “Bugsy, meet my right arm...” “Tommy, I’m shaking it!” “No, you idiot, my Associate here!” “Oh, sorry!” “This is Billy “The Bruiser” Cagney. He handles the difficult side of the business. “Your name is not really Cagney, is it?” I do my best James Cagney impression, “So ya roughed up my sister, you dirty rat.” He is not impressed. “So Billy, how do you like this Arizona weather?” “Weather? You call this weather? You people don’t know what weather is! I remember one time in a Pittsburgh blizzard I ran over a body that fell off a truck!” Hmmm....oookay there Billy. “So what would you guys like to do?” Bruiser pipes in, “Grand Canyon!” “You know, at this time of year, the Grand Canyon has four-foot of snow.” “What the...? We just came from snow; we are not going to see snow!” Well that saves me eight hours driving. “They have a big car auction in Scottsdale, we could...” “Scottsdale! Yeah, Scottsdale, I hear good things about Scottsdale.” Of course we locals call it “Snottsdale.” So we’re off to the world famous Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction. This is where you can buy “Herbie the Love Bug” or “Woody’s Allen Sleeper Car” or even, something goofier. But these guys are only interested in the black sedans of yesteryear and gangster movies. We wander the acreage and listen to Bill the Bruiser say things like, “You know how many bodies I could put in that trunk?” or “I used to have one of dese cars until the bullet holes let in too much cold.” We look at a thousand cars. Not one is less than $100,000! These guys want to buy four or five of them. But, I remind them of the 35 hour drive home. “Hey Bugsy, you have minions that could drive them home for us right?” I spend the rest of the day explaining why I have no minions. We meet the Arizona Cardinal Cheerleaders and the girls make a play for us. I remind them that we’re Steelers fans and we now hate the Cardinals for stealing our whole coaching staff. Besides, I’m engaged! This doesn’t dissuade them from insisting that we take pictures with them. |
| The World Famous Arizona Biltmore |
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| Billy the Bruiser & Tommy Smiles |
| Later on that night we meet the third wheel of the “Tricycle of Terror.” His name is, of course, Max. “Murderous Max of North Phoenix” ended up in Phoenix through the Witness Protection Program. He made a whack on some big boss in Philly and the Feds relocated him here just to say, “Thanks.” Max wore his age well despite his penchant for hard drinking and soft landings. Max smiled more than “Smiles” himself. He was now pretending to be a low level stock broker for Chucky Schwab. But this kind of backdoor access to Wall Street kept the millions flowing to the Organization and to his Cayman accounts. Max was in a word, “a hoot.” He would tell embarrassing stories about Tommy “Smiles” all night. Like, when Smiles would nod off in meetings and then wake up with a start and request a beer and everything that was said about him. I had taken a hard drive full of photos with Max and the guys and was planning on including them in this story but somehow my computer was hacked and crashed! Thereby causing me to reload every program that I had and losing all the digital photos that were on it! Now, I’m not saying that this had anything to do with Max, but, there is not one remaining photo of his mug to be found. The Witness Protection Program doesn’t mess around! (Note: This really happened to my computer! The photos that you see were all taken with my old 35MM Nikon hard copy camera.) All photos of the guys in various states of inebriation are also gone. Man, these guys are good! The next couple of days they blew me off for conferences with the International Big Boys and endless rounds of golf. While they meandered around the fairways of Scottsdale and were wined and dined by an assortment of lackeys and suck-ups, I went back to work in the salt mines of my existence. It’s tough doing the dirty work in the bowels of the Irish Mob. I spend most of my days backslapping and backstabbing while watching over my shoulder. Sometimes the paranoia strikes so close you find yourself jumping sideways. Other times, you’re sprawled dead drunk in a chair with cigar ashes on your belly and some twist on your lap. There’s no in between. You crack open a can of worms and it turns into a barrel of monkeys! And if you don’t swing with them...you’re up a tree...without a paddle! |
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| Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction |
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| The last day of Tommy Smiles visit. He decides that he wants to see the countryside. I bring my Dame to buffer the tension. The girl can talk! She’ll find out more about Smiles than a team of FBI investigators armed with heat lamps and phone books. We leave the Valley and head north and up. I try to make small talk about business without venturing into the big picture. The less I know, the safer I am. Not the Missus! She’s pumping Smiles for information like a ’46 Chevy truck tire. “Where’d you guys go last night? How come your wife is not here? How many people do you rule over? What is a brickbat?” Tommy is tugging at his collar and shooting looks at me that don’t bode well for my future. Finally, he says, “Are we there yet?!” Wherever I am, we are there. “Yeah, yeah Tommy, take a look at this.” I look at the next road sign, it says, “Montezuma’s Castle.” I take the exit and we drive past a big casino. “Is this where we are going?” Tommy asks. I start worrying about Tommy having a bad day at the casino and what it could mean. I decide we are going to see this Castle, whatever it is. “No Tommy, ‘tis right up the road.” We drive another mile and pull into the parking lot. Tommy pays the admission for us, because that’s the kind of guy he is. We stroll down this path past barrel cacti, mesquite trees and Arizona sycamores, but I don’t see no “Castle.” Tommy keeps looking back at me, “Where’s dis Castle?” “A little further.” I’m about to take off running when all of sudden it is there! Half way up the thousand feet canyon wall, a staggering Indian ruin is built right into the wall! It contains forty rooms and has no discernible way of getting to it. It is truly amazing. Even Tommy Smiles is impressed. “I bet my Local 95 Engineers could build an elevator to it.” Tommy says with pride. “Okay, bin dare, seen dat. What’s next?” |
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| We get back in the CR-V Limo and head to God’s country…Sedona. Sedona has been called the most beautiful view in America (Grandview Avenue in Pittsburgh is number three). With its towering spires and monolithic iron-rusted rock, Sedona draws artists, movie makers and weekend tourists from Phoenix to stand in awe of God’s handiwork. We do all of the touristy things. Photos in front of Bell Rock, lunch at the Hideaway and shopping in the square. But it is our visit to the Chapel of the Rock that brings a misty eye to Tommy Smiles. Its incredible architecture bored into the red rock inspires the faithful of all walks of belief and humbles the masses. Tommy Smiles wants to go in and light a candle to the friends that have been lost and to his beloved Mother. It’s very touching watching this man of power and privilege become humbled by the serenity of greater things. Me, I’ve been here a hundred times. The fading light tells me we should get going back down the mountain. We head around the curve and Tommy spots a trail. “Pull over!” I pull over wondering what is wrong. Tommy gets out of the Limo and starts wandering down the path. We follow. As we trudge through the mix of high-elevation snow and red clay, I begin to worry that Tommy has sinister plans for me and the Missus. We are now way off the beaten path when he turns to me and says, “This is a good place to bury bodies…” He laughs. The taut tension has risen again! I look around like I can get away. I know I’m trapped. The Missus is oblivious to her peril! She says, “Tommy, my Nikes are dirty. Can we go now?” “Sure, I just like to walk,” Tommy says with a wink. “What the…? You mean you’re not going to kill us and leave us to rot so the javelinas can eat us?” I stammer. “Kill you? You’re my nephew, idiot! Your Mother would string me up like cheese! Here we are having a nice visit and you say something like that! You ought to be ashamed!” I am dumbfounded, “Um, I was just kidding Uncle Tom! I just thought it would make this a better story rather than you just seeing the sights.” “You and your imagination, I must have kept you on top of that refrigerator too long!” |
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