Arnie Palmer wasn’t his real name, but he acquired the name because he loved golf so much. Arnie Palmer, they’d say. Like the golfer. But other than the similar name, and the similar interest in a certain sport, there was no comparison between the two.
He was in Boston. At a bar. And the door to the office above that bar suddenly opened, and one of his men peeped in. “Naughty here to see you, Boss,” he said.
Arnie continued feeding his face. Ravioli this time. “Send him in,” he said.
A few seconds later, and the enforcer, Wilk McNaughtry, called Naughty by most, walked in, with the guard closing the door behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Arnie asked. “Why aren’t you in Jericho?”
“We’ve got problems, Boss,” Naughty said.
“What kind of problems?” He continued to eat.
“The cops arrested Ben and Smitty.”
“And?”
“And they apparently told Sinatra about Lou Fontaine.”
“And?”
Naughty was surprised that Arnie wasn’t more surprised. “And we had to take her out before she told too much, although we aren’t even sure if she told too much already. We got problems.”
Arnie continued to eat, waiting to hear more. When more didn’t come, he looked at Naughty. “That’s it?” he asked.
“That’s it? You’re asking me if that’s it? Ain’t that a fucking ‘nough?”
Arnie smiled. “That’s nothing! What the fuck I care about some old lady kicking the can and two thugs in jail? Kill’em all, far as I give a shit. They’re just a means to an end. Same as everybody else in that rathole town.”
But Naughty, Arnie’s second-in-command, was upset. “Mind telling me what the end is, Boss? Because I don’t get it. Mind telling me what the fuck we’re trying to do here?”
“We ain’t trying to do shit. But what we will do is bring a Sinatra down. That’s what we’re going to do. And when it happens, it’s going to be spectacular. All this bullshit you’re telling me about is just prep work. The prelude to the kiss. All we’re doing now is what we need to do to smoke him out.”
But Naughty was still confused. “Smoke who out?” he asked. “Big Daddy Sinatra?”
Arnie smiled again. “Mick Sinatra,” he said. “The king cobra. But the only way to get him out of his hole these days, is to put his beloved big brother in one. And then we’ll have a battle on our hands. But not on his turf. I’m man enough to admit we can’t fight Mick Sinatra on Mick Sinatra’s turf. But here in Maine? In that backward-ass Jericho? We can not only fight him, but we can defeat him.”
“By killing his brother?” Naughty asked. “Is that how we achieve our goal? By killing Big Daddy Sinatra?”
“By creating a climate,” Arnie said, “where Big Daddy Sinatra will have no choice but to call in backup. I’m talking gangster backup. I’m talking Mick the Tick backup. But we’ve already got the landscape boobytrapped. We’re already suited up and ready to go, when he hasn’t even made it to the locker room.”
But Naughty was shaking his head. “But I still don’t get it! I say we just take Big Daddy out. That’ll smoke Mick the Tick out. He’ll come then.”
Arnie couldn’t believe it. “We kill Mick’s brother, you idiot, and it’ll be total war. What are you nuts? You can’t just walk up and kill Mick the Tick’s brother and expect no Armageddon-style retribution! We have to keep our shit subtle. We have to waterboard his ass. And then, when Micky comes, he’ll think he’s stepping into his brother’s downfall, when he’s really stepping into his own. That’s the beauty of what I’m doing. That’s the beauty of my beautiful mind.”
But then Arnie’s look became harder. “You just keep doing what I tell you to do, and stop worrying about the blowback. The blowback is essential to the war to come. And after the war, when this is all said and done, I’m not only going to have Mick the Tick’s scalp as my trophy, but I’m going to own Jericho and everything Big Daddy owns as my sweet little side reward too. That’s how win-win this shit is for us. We can’t lose. I’m telling you, Naughty. We can’t lose!”