manger man that if he didn't hurry up with an order I'd tear his eyes out
and skull-fuck him, which did not endear me to the fussy owner
manager. I worked a deserted crab house on Second Avenue, steaming
blue crabs and frying crab cakes. I cooked brunches in SoHo, I slopped
out steam-table chow at a bar on 8th Street to a bunch of drunks.
For a time, I took another chef's job—of sorts—at a moment of need at
Billy's, a combo sit-down/take-out upscale chicken joint on Bleecker
Street. It was an operation that was to be the flagship of another planned
empire, a chain of chicken joints that would stretch across the globe.
At this low point in my career, I didn't care if the place succeeded or not.
I needed the money.
My boss was an older Jewish guy, fresh out of prison, who'd named the
place after his youngest son, Billy, a feckless ne'er-do-well. He had been,
in an earlier life, the head of the counting room at a Las Vegas casino,
and after being caught skimming off millions for the "boys back in New
York and Cincinnati", had been offered a friendly deal should he
cooperate with the prosecutors. He had, admirably, declined, and as a
result spent the last five years eating prison chow. When he got out, a
near-broken man, his old buddies in New York, being Men of Honor, set
him up with this restaurant—with promises of more to come—as a sign
of gratitude for services rendered.
Unfortunately, while in prison, the old man had completely lost his
mind. He may have been a stand-up guy, but he was absolutely barking
mad.
This was not a classic bust-out operation, where the mob deliberately
runs a place into the ground, using a front man/ straw owner to run up
bills, then pillage the place for merchandise and credit. I think that the
wise guys, who from the early days of start-up were always around,
really wanted the poor slob to make money and be a success. They made