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Post by Lily Brousseau on Sept 12, 2014 1:01:28 GMT
MERMAID CATHOUSE 17 JAN 1920 - 10:45 P.M. Mermaid Ave., Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York
He was the sort of man you knew was slime just by the way he looked at you. Hell, Lily could see it in the way he walked. And his voice, it was like scratching glass. But, "new" clients always got the star treatment. Which meant: a night with little Miss Lily. For these special clients, she was expected to be on her best behavior. No talking back and no refusing anything. If they wanted it, they got it and in turn, Lily was to get them to talk.
He'd had a hardon the second he walked in the room and wasted no time ridding himself of his shirt. Downstairs, Black Hand boys waited for her to work her magic, but when Lily took in the sight of him, she internally shuddered. He wasn't small by any means and when he clenched on fist, causing the muscle to bulge up his arm, she knew exactly the sort of lover he would be.
Some men liked that. Making a woman a cry before having his way with her. Lily saw that sort of man as a coward who couldn't handle a strong woman. She gritted her teeth when he grabbed her ankle, pulling her to the edge of the bed. "We have all night." She murmured, hoping to get him to relax a bit. His only response was a grimace and a swift slap to her face, followed by a menacing grin.
This man was pure evil.
Lily tried not to flinch, but the burn across her cheek was hard to ignore. In the next instant, he had her by the neck, picking her up to her knees as he stared down at her. "What a pretty little thing. The boys just love talking about you. But now I think you need a real man, and a little breaking." Just as he finished with the words, Lily found herself tossed to the floor.
She cried out before she could control her reaction and that seemed to only spur him on. Her attempt to crawl away was interrupted by a hand grasping her dark, long hair and forcing her to her feet. Her robe had come untied, exposing smooth, perky breasts and a lean, but curvy figure. Teeth at her chest elicited a scream as she did all she could to wrench free from his grasp.
"Mmm. Ya got a bit a fight in ya. I like that." At those words, Lily spit in his face. Which earned her a punch to the face before he tossed her back on the bed. He was pinning her down, forcing her legs open as he messed with his belt. Lily tasted blood and gagged, fighting him. In her struggle, she knocked over her bedside lamp which shattered on the floor.
In the hall, the girls all could hear and each by grew increasingly worried. A couple had already run downstairs, panic on their faces. "He's going to KILL HER!" One woman shrieked, a little dramatic.
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Post by Vittorio Castucci on Sept 12, 2014 1:42:39 GMT
Vittorio sat at the bar, downstairs in the front room parlor of the establishment. Milky, the tender, who earned his nickname on account of never touching a drop of liquor, yet being able to make any drink known to man, was wiping down the inside of a beer glass he'd just washed and seemed a little jumpy, flinching at the few bumps going on upstairs. It was nothing sub-par, not really. Vito knew a lot of guys like to have it rough; they'd use the walls, tables, doors. Bumps and bangs from upstairs were nothing new to this reputable building. He shrugged it off and went back to his drink, returning to his conversation with fellow gangster Willie Altieri.
"I'm tellin' ya, I got moonshine up to my fuckin' eyeballs, Willie. I got every household on West 29th makin' shine for me. Water it down, so nobody ends up poisoned by that shit, and every speak in Brooklyn's gonna be happy to serve this piss water to their customers. It's win-win. Who the fuck could lose?"
"You business nuts..." Willie joked. "All's I need to make money is these babies right here."
Willie had gestured to his two daggers which sat interlocked on the bar in front on him. "Two-Knives" was Willie's nickname, and he did a lot of killing with them. A few minutes earlier, he'd been showing off to some of the girls by playing five finger fillet, which had left markings all over the wood that made it look like a rabid dog had attacked it.
A moment later, and a smash came from upstairs. Again, Vito shrugged it off. People get careless, he could charge the clumsy bastard for it when he was finished. Before he could get back to his drink, Vito started to hear more commotion and one girl and the client she'd been with came dashing down the stairs, distressed, as others ran past them to take their place and see what all the fuss is about. Vito and Willie looked at each other, a co-operative glare to decide which of them would handle the problem, whatever it may be.
"Marone a mi!" Vito snapped as he took to his feet and headed for the stairs.
"He's going to KILL HER!" The prostitute shrieked as Vito passed her by.
Giving him more reason for concern, he drew his pistol from a holster beneath his arm and rushed through the crowd that had gathered at the top of the stairs. The sidearm was a Colt 1903 which carried eight .38 ACP rounds in a box magazine, enough to waste anyone foolish enough to contend with it. As he reached the room he quickly discovered that the door had been locked from the other side, but it did not deter Vito, who was now quite sure that foul play was going on on the other side. With a few steps back and three or fours powerful kicks, he caved in the lock and the door swung open. There were blood on the sheets and on the floor. Lily was on the ground, her hair in the hand of a grotesque looking ogre of a man. The man, upon realizing the intrusion, dropped Lily on the spot and came right at Vito. He brought the pistol up to waist height and squeezed the trigger once, which plugged the raging bull that was charging him right in the belly. With a twist, the man staggered and fell to one knee. Vito approached him and began to strike his head repeatedly with the weapon in his hand. Blood was now spurting onto Vito's suit and contributing to the amount that had already baptized the floor.
The man was, undoubtedly, subdued; "not enough" thought Vito, "an example must be made", but before he dealt with the beast, he allowed Lily some time to recover herself and get out of view of anything she did not wish to see. The scene was about to get violent.
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Post by Lily Brousseau on Sept 12, 2014 12:10:11 GMT
Her struggling only made the man more wild and more intent on inflicting pain and getting whatever it was he wanted. Lily knew fear, she knew what it was like to fear death, but this... he wasn't going to kill her. He was going to degrade her and beat her in the process. That brought about an entire different sort of fear from the girl. When she fought too hard on the bed, he once more drug her to the floor with a tight grip to her neck and a handful of her hair. He'd been in the process of loosening his pants when the door was first hit. He didn't pause at that point and Lily began to feel tears streak her face, or was that blood? He had her head wrenched back painfully when the door was busted in.
She hit the floor hard when he suddenly released her and her first reaction was to make herself as small as possible. The gunshot startled her and she flinched as she saw the man brought to his knees. In a mad scramble, she crawled across the floor, hand covering her mouth in absolute shock. Finding the furthest wall, she cowered in the corner, blood trailing from her nose and the large gash in her cheek and blood soaked the front of her robe from the bite on her breast.
Absolute horror. That was the look on her face. It hardly registered that she was safe now, that the man was being taken care of. Lily hadn't even noticed that it was Vito taking matters into his own hands. No, she simply cowered in the corner and shielded her eyes from the gruesome scene that was about to unfold.
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Post by Vittorio Castucci on Sept 12, 2014 12:39:07 GMT
Vito was breathing pretty himself at this point, having brought his gun down like a hammer to a nail upon the big fella's head eight times. In an almost futile act to try and get what was left of the man to speak, Vito held the pistol to the man's temple, which prompted eardrum bursting shrieks from the onlookers behind him.
"Where you from, you fat fuck!?"
There was no response, a few groans.
"Last chance you tub o' lard. Where you from?"
Again, the guy said nothing, just groans. Vito took a step back and straightened up his arm as if he intended to spread the ugly troll's brains across the room. The witnesses winced and some turned away, but not Willie, who had now made his way to the top of the stairs; a direct result of hearing the gunshot. As he was about to squeeze the trigger for the second time in less than two minutes, Vito had a change of heart. The spectators seemed relieved as Vito rummaged through the man's pockets, retrieving twenty seven dollars and leaving the coins sat in the thick, musky grime that had become mangled with the loose threads at the bottom. With one last look back at the gathered crowd Vito gave a nod to Willie, who returned it, prompting Vito to speak.
"Spero che tu possa atterrare il piedi."
Very few of the girls were Italians, so they had no idea what Vittorio had said to the beaten man. It would be to their surprise and horror then, when Vito began dragging him towards the back of the room by his collar, his limp legs trailing behind him. Vito took a look outside into the alleyway below. There were a few kids playing further down the way, but no viable witnesses to the act he was about to commit. He lifted the guy up by his vest and grappled his other hand onto his back, before taking a few steps back, running forward and launching the bloody, sweaty mess straight through the glass and down three floors to the hard ground below. Under ordinary circumstances, this would probably have been an overreaction, but as the Mermaid Cathouse was a new establishment owned by Frankie Yale, and his close friend had entrusted him to run the business, Vito thought it only proper to set a new ground rule: You mess with the girls, you go out the window. They were their livelihood, after all.
In the alley, the curious boys from up the way had already sprinted to see the corpse, now lay in a pool of wet blood, spread brains and soft bone, surrounded by shards off glass on every side. Willie had already disappeared, he knew they needed to at least move the body to keep the heat away from the Mermaid. The boys looked up to the broken window as Vittorio looked down at them, his menacing, droopy eye enough to scare them back away to what they were previously doing. He turned back into the room and approached Lily as the gathering began to dissipate.
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Post by Lily Brousseau on Sept 12, 2014 13:16:45 GMT
She'd expected more gunshots, more blood and to witness the sort of murder that would haunt her dreams. But, when Vito didn't pull the trigger again and his voice lifted over everything just as the sounds of horror faded from those gathered in the hall and doorway, Lily looked up. Just in time to watch the large be thrust through the window - falling to his death. Glass shattered and the bloody thud in the alley almost echoed through the silence that replaced all the chaos. She hadn't known what he asked the man, but it had to have been something to do with the matter of his death.
Lily watched as Vito moved towards her. Most were scared of him - intimidated by the power he had under his buddy, Frankie Yale. Yet, Lily was just stupid enough to not feel that at all. Besides the fact that he most definitely just saved her life. For the moment, she looked up to him in awe, as her savior and white knight - although there was hardly anything pure about him.
"I'm so sorry. He just... he wouldna of talked. He just wanted..." Lily shuddered, her knees shifting from up under her chin to the floor, exposing the bloodied robe, gruesome bite and torn flesh. A splattering of bruises had already begun to form across her shoulder, around her neck and across her cheek and temple. She licked her lips, tasting blood and forced herself not to gag again. With the taste on her tongue, she now became completely aware of the stench of blood all around her. Hers, the dead man's... it all mingled together and made her sick to her stomach. She clapped her hand over her mouth in horror while doing all she could not to cry.
Lily didn't cry. She couldn't. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction - even if he was dead.
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Post by Vittorio Castucci on Sept 12, 2014 14:02:15 GMT
"Forget about it. Nobody fucks around in here." Vito said nonchalantly, indicative of how this was just another occurrence for a man like himself.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and shook his hand a few times to open it at the folds. As he wiped the blood from his hands, he spoke calmly to the girl.
"He say where he was from?"
He could see she was still shell shocked, but his question was only half-assed. He handed over his bloodied cloth so that she could clean herself up a little, then clicked his fingers towards the door from where two of the brothel's other girls scurried to him. He moved to them and whispered a few things into their ears; orders. They were being told to make sure Lily got a few days off, and was cleaned up and looked after properly as well as given a new room. He couldn't have any flaws in the establishment's biggest diamond. This was business, something Vittorio took very seriously.
They nodded and bolted away to fetch a bowl of hot water and some ointments to see Lily through the next few hours. The window was a matter that needed to be addressed, but Vito could see to boarding that up as soon as the girls had come back and taken Lily somewhere more comfortable. While he stood around, Vittorio used the time to take out some smokes, which were always good to calm the nerves. He lit one in his house and then dropped the pack to Lily, who could probably have used one, even if she wasn't accustomed to cigarettes.
Next came the grueling task of finding out about the mystery man who'd taken a fall out the window; was he from the White Hand? The Camorra? Maybe just an unlucky freak that tried some rough and tumble in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whoever he was, Vito wanted answers.
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Post by Lily Brousseau on Sept 12, 2014 14:47:36 GMT
Gingerly, she picked herself up off the floor, her slightly curvy figure flashed before she wrapped the stained robe tighter around her waist. Lily took the offered handkerchief and dabbed at her upper lip and then her cheek, hissing in a breath when she touched the delicate, broken skin. His attitude was cold, callous and everything she would have expected from a Black Hand boy. She was trying to get her thoughts in order, but her hands were trembling uncontrollable and remembering anything besides what it felt like to be hit was harder than it should have been. Lily sat on the edge of the bed, not daring to look at the blood stains left from her face. The slight girl looked even smaller there, perched on the edge of the mattress as if something would jump out at her.
"He said something about hanging out in the Bronx, but I knew he was lyin'." She swallowed hard, just as the two women reappeared, sympathetic expressions on their faces as they rounded the bed and got ready to help clean Lily up. "I'm sure he would have talked anyone's ear off if he hadn't been so keen ta..." She trailed off. "He asked if you was here. But, wouldn't talk no more after that."
Lily would have done anything to escape that room, but no one else moved and as one of the girls pressed a cloth soaked in warm water to her breast, she all but collapsed on the bed. She'd never been bitten like that before. Sure, biting could be fun, but that man had more or less taken a chunk out of her. It was nowhere near the playful, dominant sort of thing a lot of men got off on. He was insane, simple as that. "Here, hold that. It'll make it hurt a bit less." The girl picked up Lily's hand and placed it over the cloth before moving out of the way so the other could dab at her face, wiping away blood while making sure to not open the wounds again.
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Post by Vittorio Castucci on Sept 12, 2014 15:23:39 GMT
Vito sucked away at the cigarette while Lily said her piece. Then he seemed perplexed. On the one hand, she seemed confident that the man was lying about being from the Bronx. On the other hand, Vittorio definitely had enemies in the Bronx, and she did mention that the man had asked after her. The Camorra were the Black Hand's sworn Italian enemies in the Bronx, a vendetta which Frankie Yale would have been willing to overlook had it not been for the Camorra's xenophobic attitude towards all other Italians that were not of Neapolitan ancestry. Yale's gang were the most forward thinking of all Italians, willing to work with Jews, Irish, anybody, but even the Morello outfit didn't have a policy of strictly working with their own kind. The man didn't look Italian, and there were a number of Irish bootleggers in Brooklyn that would've loved to get the jump on Vito, but you can never be too sure about these things. Still, for one of the Camorra to come down to Brooklyn alone without the intention of directly attacking Vito, was unlikely. Lily was probably right about it being a lie.
"That fat prick give you a name?" Vito asked Lily, who was clearly in some pain.
A faint scraping of shovels scooping up the brains outside was coming from the smashed window now, accompanied by the banshee like wailing of the wind. Willie would've been out there with a few of the door men, moving Mr. Nobody to someplace else.
As a show of encouragement, following her rather arduous attempt to fend the man off for herself, Vito placed his cigarette back in his mouth and brought his hand to the side of her face where she had been unharmed. He extended the knuckle of his index finger and gave her cheek a rub before retracting it and going back to his smoke. With his other hand, he went into his pocket and retrieved some bills, leaving a fifty on the side dresser as compensation for her troubles.
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Post by Lily Brousseau on Sept 12, 2014 15:46:53 GMT
She'd forgotten completely about the cigarette pack he'd tossed at her before she'd gotten up, which was no held tight in her hand. Still a bit shaky, she fished one out, letting it dangle between two fingers. Lily glanced over at him, one hand still holding the cloth to her chest. She could see him thinking. He always had that serious expression on his face, something almost close to a grimace. She didn't know him well, couldn't say she knew him at all, but Vittorio was an all-business kind of man from her point of view. No fooling around, not horse shit... just work.
"Tony." Lily offered, cringing when the woman lifted the cloth and began to put some sort of ointment on the bite, hardly caring that she was almost completely uncovered now. Lily fiddled with the cigarette while they girls did their work. "Gotta light?" She asked, holding it up to show she had no way of lighting the damned thing. She did her best to ignore the sounds coming from outside, closing her eyes for a moment and taking in a deep breath, both to ease her mind and the pain. "We'll get you set up in a new room, dear."
But, when Vito moved closer, the pair backed away instantly, curious looks on their faces. His hand on her face was unexpected. Honestly, she'd been expecting him to simply leave without giving her another look. Yet, the gesture was appreciated, more so than she would have liked to admit. Yet, the girl's need to feel wanted and loved far outweighed her desire to get away from her current line of work. She'd take what she could get. Affection from admirers was normal. Vito touching her at all... was not. Her bright eyes fixated on his face and the way the cigarette hung from his lips. And then he backed away just as quickly, tossing money on the dresser.
At least he knew what she wanted in the end.
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Post by Vittorio Castucci on Sept 12, 2014 16:05:11 GMT
This wasn't the first time Vito had been looked up at with an innocent pair of eyes. He worked hard to establish himself as a ruthless figure that wasn't to be double crossed, even got vicious killers like Willie and Joe Adonis on his side as friends and allies, all of them working together under Frankie Yale. He wasn't about to let some young, good looking dame tarnish that reputation by making him out to be some knight in shining armor, so it was back to business. On his way out of the room he took a matchbox from his pocket, held it up, gave it a shake to let them know he was making a gesture and then set it down on top of the fifty dollar bill.
"Tony?" Vito remarked. "Never heard of him."
This was the truth. He didn't know of any Tony that wanted to find him, though the name did sound more likely to belong to an Italian than anyone else. What mattered now was the guy was dead and people knew not to fuck around in the Mermaid Cathouse. He left the room and closed the door, at which point he discovered there were still half a dozen people standing around gawking.
"The fuck you's lookin' at? Ain't you got shit to do?"
He let out a sigh as the cigarette in his mouth had now almost burned to the filter. He needed to speak to Frankie before he did anything else.
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Post by Lily Brousseau on Sept 12, 2014 16:26:13 GMT
Lily knew the sort of men she catered to. It paid well to be young and pretty, but it sure as hell wasn't easy. And the jealousy that ran rampant among the girls made even worse at times. Luckily, the two that were helping her legitimately liked her - otherwise, she would have been worried the ointment would make her get some horrible deforming disease. She worried about scarring above all else. There would be nothing worse than a nasty scar on her smooth, pale skin and right on her chest? Bad for business.
She shot Vito a glare when he set the matches on the dresser top, instead of simply handing one to her, and even snorted her disapproval. Lily didn't bother thanking him. She had already owed her life to the Black Hand Gang, there was no point in stating it. Besides, he had made it quite obvious that this was just another day to him. Now, Lily had to simply get better, get over it, and get back to work. This is what she got for agreeing to be their little spy and informant.
The door shut with a thud and she almost laughed when she heard his shout on the other side.
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