The car drove up to the curb on West 145th Street off  Lenox Avenue and Johnny Washington opened the door and stepped out into a puddle.  He pulled his coat over his hat and trotted through the slanting rain to the awning over the front door of El Morocco. A white suited gentlemen put his arm out to block him.  "It's OK," another said, "the boss is expecting him."  Johnny reached into his pocket, took out sixty cents for the doorman, and went inside the club.


Johnny looked around at the large crowd and then wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.  He did not want anyone to mistake the dripping rain for sweat and think he was afraid.  Lionel Hampton and his jazz band were playing on stage.  Johnny pushed his way through the crowd. "You're late," Joey Sarrow said, walking towards him, holding his elbow and taking him towards the front of the room. "You were supposed to be here an hour ago.  He coulda left, you know. What are you thinking?"


Joey led Johnny to a small round table off to one side but not far from the stage. Johnny approached, first taking note of the exit door just a few paces away.  He placed his coat on the back of his chair and took off his hat.   “Mr. Manfredi, my apologies,” Johnny said bowing slightly to the big fat man sitting there.

"Johnny, Johnny boy, where have you been?  Have a seat.  Right there.  Moe, you know Johnny?”   Vincenzo Manfredi, or “The Needle” as he was known, motioned to Johnny, and the others at the table stood up, reluctantly, and shook Johnny’s hand.  Johnny sat down and placed his hat on his lap, a small pistol still taped inside of it.  He always carried it, just for good measure.

“You always ask me if I know Johnny," said Moe Schneider, the snappy dressed owner of El Morocco, the best and most popular club in Harlem. "Sure, I know Johnny.  How ya doin’ Johnny, good to see you.  You’re looking good tonight, Johnny."

Vincenzo motioned for a cigarette girl to come over. An attractive slim blonde walked towards the table. “No, not that one, send over the redhead,” he snapped, and Moe waved her away.  In a moment a tall red head approached.  “That’s more like, it.  How are ya Peaches,” Vincenzo said, slapping her behind as she giggled and bent over to let him take a cigar.  He offered one to Johnny who politely declined.  “Don’t be gone too long, you come back to see me soon,“ he said to Peaches, slapping her gently again, and she winked at him and walked away.

“I hate when you do that," complained Lola Sunday.  Lola, a short but pretty girl sitting next to Vincenzo, liked to think she was a burlesque star, and Vincenzo's girlfriend, when in fact she was really neither though some days he liked to have her around.  She leaned over and started to rub Vincenzo's bald head. "Why don't give Lola a widdle spanking sometime," she said coyly.

“And I hate when you do that,” he said to Lola, pushing her hand away. "Why don"t you go play with your friends over there," he said, pointing towards a table of women in the back.  "We have business to discuss." She abruptly pushed her chair back, stood up, thew her napkin on the table and walked away in a pout.  Vincenzo took a few puffs of his cigar, and then leaned forward towards Johnny.   “So Johnny. Good to see you."

"We were talking about Truman before you got here, Johnny," Moe Schneider said.  "What do you think?  You think he is going to win in ’48?”

“I don’t think much about those sorts of thing,” Johnny answered, looking not at Moe but at Vincenzo.


“You should,” Vincenzo said. “He has been good to your people.  Look at all you folks here, they should all love him.   Me, I think he is just a two bit local ward politician who got lucky.  But he has guts.  And I like a man who's got guts. Got to give him credit for that.” 


Johnny put his hand under his hat.  He moved slowly.  I can't do this, he thought to himself.  Eddie Lucas, also at the table and Vincenzo’s bodyguard kept his eye on Johnny.   “What does he know about politics anyway,” snapped Eddie. 



“Shut your mouth,” Vincenzo said to Eddie.  “I like Johnny.  I like to know what he thinks.  Don’t I Johnny?”

There was a pause, the air filled with smoke and the loud sound of horns from the band.

“Johnny,” Vincenzo said, looking serious.  “I’m sorry about your brother.  I liked Earl.  It wasn’t personal.  It’s business.  You know that.  We couldn’t control him.   You couldn’t control him.   So he had to go.  I’m sorry.   Just the way it had to be.  You have to let it go."



Eddie Lucas grinned, and started to snicker.  Johnny wanted to rip his face off.   He felt the small cold pistol in his hand.  He should shoot Vincenzo Manfredi, the Needle, because he had to; but he wanted to kill Lucas, because he hated him.



“You see those guys over there, Johnny?”  Vincenzo said, motioning behind him.  “That’s Captain Meadowlark and his boys.  They are watching us, those bastards.  All the time now. I couldn’t  have someone like Earl out there.  Its dangerous Johnny, not like the old days.  Gotta be smart.  Earl wasn’t smart.  Not like you.'



“Yeah,” said Eddie, “ he was just a dumb n –“



“Am I going to tell you again to shut your mouth?” Vincenzo snapped at Eddie again. Vincenzo told Johnny he was going to Miami the next day.  He told Johnny that he should come, he could use his help there.  Little did he know that Johnny was holding a ticket in his pocket to fly to Las Vegas.  There Johnny would have the protection he would need.

Now a pretty camera girl in a short little skirt was passing and, as she does at every table asked if she could take a picture.  Vincenzo, normally dismissive, agreed.  “Why not,” he said.  Vincenzo put down his cigar, leaned towards Johnny, and smiled, and then, the pretty camera down counted 1, 2, 3, and just as the camera clicked and the blinding flash went off, a loud single shot rang out, there were screams, and when he opened his eyes, with the band still playing, Johnny, taken totallly by surprise, saw Vincenzo slumped over onto the table with blood pouring from the back of his large head.   In a split second Johnny put his small, still cold pistol in his pocket, Meadowlark starting shouting orders at his men, Moe Schneider grabbed the camera from the camera girl who hardly knew what even happened, and Joey Sarrow ran up to Johnny and pulled him away towards the exit door and outside into the pouring rain.

Inside El Morocco, through all the pandimonium, the Needle's heart was still beating.