Disco's Dead and so is Mo-Mo

Prologue

SEPTEMBER 1978This is the zany tale of Sammy Mohammed “Mo-Mo” Martine, a dime-store mobster as attractive as he was aggressive. How factual it really is, is anyone’s guess, but all gossip and hearsay, even that related to murder and mayhem, begin with some kernel of truth. And here, as I heard it, are a kernel or three …

… It was a warm, breezy night off rue Jean-Talon in the north end of Montréal (that’s in Québec Canada, for those folks not familiar with that part of the world). Little Italy, or Petite Italie if you’re French, was a modest community consisting of family-owned restaurants and cafés, a sundry of small shops, numerous churches, a community center, the requisite bocci court, and the splendid decades-old Jean-Talon market.

rue Petite ItalieThe odd person not still feasting on fresh pesce or homemade zuppa or sugary torta, listening to the news or sports, or watching the new prime-time soap, Dallas, was ambling along cracked, leaf-strewn sidewalks, enjoying the simplicity of being. Perhaps he or she was remembering the events of the day, considering the new government led by Giulio Andreotti that had been installed in Italy with the support of the Communist Party, or contemplating the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, or mulling over the inevitable plight of disco.

pesce zuppa tortaDallasParked on side streets lined with small but immaculate lawns and a few Madonnas (not of the singing variety), were typical cars of the period—a Ford Bronco, two Buick Skylarks, a Pacer, two Matadors, a GMC moving truck and, strangely enough, four Gremlins. Corvettes and Cadillacs were few and far between in the neighborhood, but certainly not unheard of, particularly if you enjoyed an affiliation with the Martine family.

Strolling along one of those side streets were three men—one would be reluctant to call them gentlemen, for reasons that might become clear much later—who had just finished a two-hour stick-to-your-ribs meal at Reg’s Parmigiano, owned by gourmand-glutton Regulus Febrezia, a rotund and rapacious young proprietor. The dinner had consisted of crostini de fegato, quaglie, tortellini and tagliatelli, and osso buco, a favorite of Sammy Mo-Mo Martine’s, and three bottles of Regulus’ homemade red wine, an intriguing little red number that might not have made the top ten list in Wine Spectator, but received rave reviews from the locals because of the way it pricked the palate with salty-sweet astringency, not to mention the way it complemented any dish.

crostini de fegatoquaglieWine Spectator, As always, Regulus’ dishes were superb: fresh, rich, and plentiful. And the waitress,

an equally intriguing little red number named Sonja, had been in usual fine form. The

nineteen-year-old redhead might not have pricked your palate, but she could have knocked

you on your butt—with a bawdy verse, limerick, or joke. And those 40C jugs were easy on the eyes as far as the male clientele and company were concerned.

Twenty-eight-year-old Sammy Mohammed Martine, called Mo-Mo by friends and

foes alike, was sauntering happily if not dreamily along, wedged between two burly fellows: Louie “The Lip” Walfisch and Isaiah “Dragonfly” Browne. The nicknames had been aptly granted. Louie had no upper lip, but a fat, ugly bratwurst-shaped and braunschweiger-sized bottom lip while Isaiah, whose father had a penchant for Hebrew prophet names, made an odd, buzzing sound when he spoke. It wasn’t a lisp but a drone or persistent hum and, like a dragonfly, he tended to hover—right on the tips of people’s toes.

The fellows were joking about guy things (probably, alas, those jugs) as they headed

toward a colleague’s house two streets over. It was unlikely they noticed what an astonishingly bright and starry night it was, how the burgeoning breeze was swirling subtle scents of vin du pays, smoked meats, and garlic around them, that someone had Tony Bennett cranked, perhaps to drown out Paul Anka, who was belting out what a lonely boy he was three doors down, or that a big fat black cat had crossed their path.

Louie took it first, ironically, in the lip. A 9x19mm Parabellum, to be precise, whizzed across the narrow street and removed the bratwurst-shaped and braunschweiger-sized lip, sheared it off as easily and as quickly as if a gardener with an ephedrine buzz had gleefully taken electric clippers to an errant hedge. There’d be no opportunity to change the young man’s name to Louie “No Lip” Walfisch.

The shot or shriek—witnesses couldn’t agree which—prompted Mo-Mo to hit the

dirt. Or maybe it was Isaiah’s quick-thinking clout to the back. In any event, as Mo-Mo fell and Louie kissed the sidewalk, not an easy feat for someone no longer sporting lips, and while flesh bussed concrete, the left side of Isaiah’s leather-tough neck turned into striated red goo. He fumbled for his piece as Louie staggered to his feet.

The lipless one received a bullet in the shoulder, which prompted him to perform an odd step-close-step-close pattern, somewhat like a samba, making him appear as if he were in heat, denial, or having a grand old time. Another bullet caught him in the vicinity of the liver.

As the dance was taking place, Isaiah plowed into a natty rose bush, shouted “vengeance will be mine!” or “vermicelli with mushrooms!”—two witnesses claimed it was the former, two the latter—and remained still, slumped like a scarecrow that had collided with a rampaging combine.

A glossy-green, four-door Lincoln Continental sedan careened to a stop before the immobilized trio and a tall man in black jumped out. Depending on who you wanted to believe, he resembled: Ernest Borgnine in a velveteen suit; Vincent Price in a jet cape and tux; Porky Peters in his plumber coveralls; or Meatballs Avila, Johnny “Baloney” Tino Vespuzzi’s left-hand man (technically, he couldn’t be a right-hand man because he’d lost it during a bowling lane free-for-all the preceding summer).

Mo-Mo, stunned, stupefied and/or scared shitless, was thrown into the rear of the

gas-guzzling submarine as if he were little more than a crushed cardboard pizza box and was never heard from or seen again … until today.

His remains had been found, bizarrely enough, in a water storage drum not far from Bellows Field Beach Park. This had media eagerly dredging up history and theories. And had the three of us wondering which was the more pressing mystery.

How/when had Mo-Mo gotten from the eastern region of Canada to Oahu, given the k********g happened so many years ago? Back then, his disappearance had made the news for months. Many had claimed fellow dime-store mobsters had wanted to take over Mo-Mo’s turf and enterprises, so the a*******n came as no surprise.

Who had killed him by pumping three 9x19mm cartridges into him? Two had been found still wedged in his skull and the third at the bottom of the drum. And how had the killer(s) managed to transport the dead body here?

It was a head-scratcher … and one we gals from the Triple Threat Investigation Agency had just been hired to solve.