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“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU GOT run over by a bus,” Little John said as I entered Big Lou's Italian restaurant.
“Almost,” I said. “Two guys nearly as big as you jumped me. We sparred in the alley around the corner.”
“That's why I don't go anywhere without Little John,” Big Lou said as he popped his head around the corner. Big Lou, despite the name, stood all of four feet and ten inches tall. He was on the pudgy side but always dressed sharply in custom-tailored Armani suits.
Little John was Big Lou's bodyguard. He stood close to six feet and five inches and tipped the scales at three hundred and some change. I had never seen Little John dressed in anything other than black. Today was no different as he wore black jeans and a black tee-shirt from the Big and Tall collection.
“Do you like to ride around in his pocket?” I said to Big Lou.
“I'll forget you said that,” Big Lou said. He looked up, way up, at Little John. “Get our friend here cleaned up.”
“I'm good,” I said.
“I can't let customers seeing you like that,” Big Lou said.
I looked around the empty restaurant. “Seriously?” I said.
“We are between lunch and dinner,” Big Lou said, “but people often stop by for my world-famous tiramisu.”
I decided not to argue with Big Lou. I followed Little John to the back office where he bandaged my ribs. I washed up in the bathroom sink and returned to the dining room.
Big Lou was sitting in the booth where he liked to conduct business. I sat opposite him. Little John resumed his post near the front door.
“Aren't you concerned that Little John will scare away potential customers?” I said.
“He has a friendly smile. People think he is a big teddy bear.”
“Unless they mess with his cub?” I said.
“That another crack about my size?”
“Only a little,” I said.
“I don't need to keep helping you out,” Big Lou said.
“Yet you always take my calls.”
“Possibly next time I won't.”
A waitress I hadn't seen before came by and left a basket of bread sticks and two glasses of water. She was a tall and attractive Italian girl in her twenties.
“Thanks, Francesca,” Big Lou said.
“New girl?” I said.
“My niece. Sister's kid. She's going to Emerson. Theater major.”
“Every actor should learn to wait tables,” I said.
“Part-time job to help her pay the bills.”
“She adopted?”
“No,” Big Lou said. “Why would you ask that?” He paused a beat. “Oh, I get it. Because she's tall?” He slapped his pudgy hand on the table. “Hilarious.”
I smirked. “I guess it skips a generation.”
“You're a sizeist,” Big Lou said.
“That's not a word,” I said.
“It's like a sexist, or a racist, only against the vertically challenged.”
“Wow. Learn something new every day.”
“Be nice to me or I'll have Little John sit on you,” Big Lou said.
“I'm not sure I could take being sat on by another big man today,” I said. “And isn't that being sizeist against large people?”
“Whatever,” Big Lou said as he waved his hand around.
Tony Bennett belted out I Left My Heart in San Francisco from the restaurant's collection of Italian crooners. Little John softly sang the lyrics. It almost made me wish Tom Jones were Italian. I'd pay good money to see Little John sing along to What's New Pussycat?.
“Tell me about the guys who used you for a punching bag?” Big Lou said.
“I got some good licks of my own in,” I said.
“You kick them in the nads?”
“There are no rules in a street fight,” I said. “But I also landed some good punches.”
“I'd have expected no less,” Big Lou said.
“Their names are Frankie and Jimmy. You know them?”
“Yeah,” Big Lou said. “Thugs for hire. Low-level guys, but they can be formidable. As you just discovered.”
“Indeed, I did,” I said. “Any idea who may be currently employing Frankie and Jimmy?”
“Nope,” he said.
I took a bread stick and bit off the end.
“Do you know anything about two twin brothers who used to be boxers?” I said.
Big Lou thought for a moment. He took a bread stick and snapped it in two. Just before he was about to take a bite, he paused. He waved the piece of bread stick in his right hand. “I think they did some work for Eddie Garavito a few years back.”
“Do you recall their names?” I said.
“I'm thinking, I'm thinking,” he said as he tapped the bread stick on the table. “Jax and Mikey,” he said after a few beats.
“Any idea who Jax and Mikey are working for now?” I said.
As I waited for Big Lou's reply, I noticed Little John's lips moving in sync with Frank Sinatra singing Autumn in New York.
“No,” Big Lou said. “But there are only a few guys scary enough to handle them. Jax and Mikey are really bad dudes. Mean and crazy.”
“Mean and crazy are not a good combination,” I said. “Who would be on that shortlist?”
“Garavito, for one. I'd also include Shamus O'Malley and Jocko Scarpelli on the list.”
“Shamus?” I said.
“True Irish mobster,” Big Lou said. “My bet would be on Scarpelli, though. Make more sense for Jax and Mikey to go from Garavito's to Scarpelli's organization.”
I took another bread stick My mother always told me not to fill up on the bread, but I doubted Big Lou would offer me dinner. So there was nothing to spoil. And the bread sticks had a perfect garlic and butter flavor.
“Is Jocko Scarpelli making loans to customers at the Snake Pit and students at Boston College?” I said.
“Definitely at the Snake Pit,” he said. “Jocko has been in the game there for a long time.”
“How about at Boston College?”
“Maybe. Everybody's trying to expand since I got out of the biz.”
“But this restaurant isn't your only business?” I said.
“I may still have a few side deals,” Big Lou said, “but my loan shark days are behind me. I did, back in the day, control Chestnut Hill.”
“O'Malley operate out of the Snake Pit?” I said.
“No,” Big Lou said. “At least he never did. He had an understanding with Scarpelli.”
“Did you know an accountant named Jack Murphy?”
“Murphy was very good. Shame what happened to him. Being tossed in a dumpster like that. Where's the dignity in it?”
“There isn't any,” I said. “Who'd he work for?”
“Murphy is the type of guy Scarpelli would hire,” he said.
“Tommy Two Fingers told me word on the street is that Jax and Mikey killed Jack Murphy. But he didn't have their names.”
“Just a description of twin brothers who once boxed?” Big Lou said.
I nodded my head.
“I hadn't heard that,” Big Lou said. “I figured it was something else. The Snake Pit being the Snake Pit.”
“What they wanted everyone to think,” I said.
“So that would mean Jocko Scarpelli had Murphy whacked?” Big Lou said. “Why?”
I told Big Lou about the ledgers and recounted the course of my investigation. When I finished, he sat shaking his head.
“And Jocko didn't want you getting as close as you were,” Big Lou said, “so he sent Frankie and Jimmy to scare you off. Makes sense.”
“Yep,” I said.
“So what's your next move?” Big Lou said.
“I bring Mr. Scarpelli and his henchmen to justice.”
“Good luck with that,” Big Lou said. “You’ll need it.”