Man's Days Are As Grass
by Shel Damsky

Chapter One

“Nobody fucking brings me down,” Angie roared, his voice rising close to a scream, his dark face mottled with rage. “I built this city. I took it away from the rich and gave it to the people.” He paused, then, “Nobody takes my city away from me.”

Somebody had said once that getting yelled at by Angie was worse than being hit by anybody else and the small group of lawyers, politicians, judges, businessmen he had made rich, and yes men sitting around the otherwise empty restaurant dining room knew at the moment, if they hadn’t really known before, just what that meant.

Angie paced the room, waving the morning paper, the Daily Press, too fast for any of them to read the headlines, but each one knew what they said: Under the now daily banner of “Sin City” in bold print, the headline below read “Governor Names Special Prosecutor, Special Justice.”

Finally he stopped pacing, threw the paper to the floor like it was so much trash and faced the group. “Stupid son-of-a-bitch has got more money than brains. I’ve made governors,” he said, his voice almost a whisper now. “I made Roosevelt governor and he’s depended on me ever since. I’ve dealt with people like Dan O’Connell in Albany and Daley in Chicago and people like them all over. For chrissakes, the son-of-a-bitch governor who started all this, I got the crazy bastard elected.”

 He paused, caught his breath. He pointed at one of the men. “You, call Leo Murphy, in Syracuse. Tell him I want him now. And tell him to get in touch with that kid that used to live here, that Jonathan Abrams, and get him here too.”

He took in each man in the room

“Nobody,” he said again. “Nobody takes Olympia away from me.”