Chapter 5. The High Hat Gentlemen's Club might very well have been the most ironically named

venue operating in the city limits. Once, more than three years ago now, it had operated under a fine old name and catered to the city's elite.

But hard times were hard times, and when the club was beset by financial trouble after the stock market collapse,

its members were too preoccupied with their own losses to ride to the rescue.

The building had been briefly shuttered, then sold by the bankruptcy court to a company

which was known throughout the city as a blind for Big Joe Tenuti.

But knowing such a thing and proving it were two very different matters,

and despite the howls of protest from the mayor's office and the Citizens Committee for Public

Decency, the old standard was torn down, and the flickering neon top hat that now graced the

building's edifice was erected. Officially, the high hat was a private club, with a membership

every bit as exclusive as the Club McCaw.

But to gain admission, one only needed to be a well-placed raceteer or gangster.

Since the change of ownership, the High Hat had been regarded as neutral ground,

a place free from the life and death rivalries of Gangland.

Business might be discussed, but only in civil

terms, which for the criminal scum who frequented the high hat had meant only that no weapons

were allowed. Those days of mock civility were over now. Those who remained atop the food chain

of Toronto's underworld knew that they could never let their guard down,

and that they would never be truly safe. But as long as Big Joe held the high hat, there was still

one place they could retreat to and plan their vile strategies, hunted though they may be.

The nightclub was as wild as any could be, for the police had long known that it was death

to set foot on the grounds.

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