Bal Harbour Blues

By John Scheinman

In 1991, John has a good life running the numbers racket In Brooklyn and Staten Island until his mob boss, Louie the Finger, pulls him out with a late-night phone call. New York state lottery is moving into the mob's turf, so The Finger is shifting business to crack and prostitution. In his mid-fifties and with no interest in the drug trade, John takes Louie's offer to retire on a mob pension to a tacky South Florida high-rise with his wife, Eleanor. Cast out of New York and adrift without purpose, John begins to dissipate in the heat. But Eleanor has other ideas and quietly begins making forays into the Miami underworld with one goal in mind - to develop the perfect crime to help her husband get his mojo back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lost Valley Press
• Release date: Jul 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781935874423

John Scheinman

John Scheinman grew up on Long Island and is a writer and editor living in Baltimore. The last turf beat writer for The Washington Post, he is a two-time Eclipse Award winner for excellence in writing about thoroughbred racing. His piece “Memories of a Master” was named a notable sports story in “The Best American Sports Writing 2015” anthology. His headline writing and general reporting has been honored by the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and Society of Professional Journalists. His sketch comedy has been performed at the Warehouse and Source theaters in Washington, D.C. and Theatre Odyssey in Sarasota, Florida. He made his standup comedy debut in 2019 at the DC Improv Comedy Club. A graduate of American University, he studied writing with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor and improvisational comedy and performance at The Theatre Lab in Washington. He began his journalism career at The Ring, “The Bible of Boxing.”

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What people are saying . . .

In an era before most horseplayers bet with a computer or a smartphone, racetracks were among the most colorful places on earth, filled with wise guys and hustlers and an assortment of characters looking to make a fast buck. John Scheinman’s Bal Harbour Blues, set in Miami in 1991, evokes these memorable days. John has a Runyonesque feel for the lingo of the racetrack, and an irrepressible affection for even the crooks and con men who populate it. I loved this story.

— Andrew Beyer, author of Picking Winners

What do you do when you get an offer from Louie the Finger that you can’t refuse? Unless you believe that a lead pipe against the side of your head is beneficial to your health and happiness, you take it. John Scheinman has crafted a novella as funny as it is literate.

— Jerry Izenberg, Hall of Fame sports columnist

If you like plain-spoken, hard-boiled pulp fiction written by Mickey Spillane, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler, you will love Bal Harbour Blues. In a spot-on noir voice, his story of scams, numbers and racing goes deep, as it’s also about family, love, and trust, with a touch of humor in all the right places.

— Sasscer Hill, multi-award-winning author of

Flamingo Road and Full Mortality

Bal Harbour

Blues

by

John Scheinman

Lost Valley Press

Hardwick, MA

Copyright © 2021 John Scheinman

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Any characters, names and incidents appearing in this work are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover Photo: Andre Jenny/Alamy Stock Photo

ISBN: 978-1-935874-41-6 print

ISBN: 978-1-935874-42-3 eBook

Lost Valley Press

An Imprint of Satya House Publications

PO Box 122

Hardwick, MA 01037

For my late pals

Clem Florio, Bert Sugar, Vic Ziegel,

Jack Obermayer, Bobby Abbo, and Pajeen Delp.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my sister Julie Murkette, the family book publisher and editor, who midwifed this novella; Eric Bottjer; Ryan Goldberg; Professor Joe Tinkelman; my brother Andrew; sister Nancy; and my late grandfather Tony, who said his friends were all in Sing Sing.

1

Bal Harbour, Florida, 1991 — Why did I agree to come back to Florida? I mean, I’m fifty-five not seventy-five, and it’s not like I’m itching to spend the rest of my life doing battle with the claimers at Calder or die of a stroke watching Jai alai. They’re putting me out to pasture here. Sixty-five grand a year and the condo are fine, I guess, but a man has got to live.

Louie the Finger calls me up at 3 o’clock in the morning . . . on a Sunday.

Johnny, we’re pulling you out.

Louie, I say. My numbers are running 20,000 strong a week. My clients have got more faith in me than the pope. And what are you calling at 3 o’clock for?

The rates are cheaper. And by the way, I can sign you up for MCI’s Friends and Family program. It’ll save me twenty dollars a month.

Can you believe this guy? Louie the Finger controls the whole fucking world, and, as if that’s not enough, his fat Ethel Merman daughter owns the only deli in Queens selling Parma prosciutto for $12.99 a pound for which the whole neighborhood treats them like God and lines up around the block. I mean it’s not like Louie needs a better phone plan.

When I hang up, my wife, Eleanor, rolls over in bed and asks me why they call him Louie the Finger. I’ve known this