by Ws Greer
Ricky’s face is still hard, but he relents and doesn’t ask another question. As for the rest of them, Rock and Marcell just sit there, waiting for a full explanation.
“Reina has been pulling off the world’s greatest con job,” I continue, addressing them all. “For the past three months, she’s been on the inside with Dante Rossi.”
“On the inside?” Rock asks.
“That’s right,” I reply. “The same way Dante sent that little weasel Tim Sandusky to us as a mole on the inside, Reina has been on the inside for me—I just didn’t know it until recently.”
“What does that mean?” Ricky asks
“Don’t worry about it,” I snip, annoyed by his questioning. “Just know that she’s been conning him for the past three months, getting valuable information for us to use against him, and yesterday, she got the final piece.”
“Is that why you’re calling us in a day earlier than we’d expected?” Marcell asks now.
“Yes. We have a change of plans, so listen up, because it’s gonna take skill and accuracy to pull this off. Reina.” I look to her, giving her permission to step up and fill in the crew on who she is and what she knows. If we want them to trust her, it’ll start with this.
“Okay,” Reina says without hesitation before turning to the men at the table. “I know you don’t know me and don’t trust me, and that’s fine. I don’t know or trust you either, so welcome to the party. But, Solomon trusts you, and I trust him, so it looks like we’re in this together. I know you all want to take Dante Rossi out of the picture for good. He has a monopoly on criminal activity in this city because he’s next in line to the Scarfo family throne. Angelo Scarfo is dying, and Dante is destined to take over. Right now, his game plan is to grab power wherever he can find it, and he won’t allow anyone else to have any, that’s why he tried to kill Solomon and Nix a few days ago.”
“And you know all of this from all the time you two spend together?” Ricky interrupts, his voice coated with sarcasm.
“I couldn’t con him if I didn’t spend time with him, genius!” Reina snips, glaring at Ricky. “Geez, what’s with this guy?” she asks me, frustration creeping into her voice.
“Ricky’s brother was killed recently. Dante is essentially to blame since he was the one who sent Detective Mason to us in the first place,” I tell her.
“Aww,” Reina replies with a sad face directed at Ricky, and I can barely tell if she’s kidding or serious. “Okay, I’ll forgive your grumpiness, Ricky. So anyway, over my time with Dante, I’ve learned his habits, his routines, and quite a bit of other information that wasn’t really of any use until yesterday. He’s good about keeping things to himself and being hard to track. He knows being a mob boss is a tough job and can be short-lived, so he keeps a low profile and avoids public issues. But, I managed to pry some information from him a while back. He told me about these three hotels he deals with. He called them his piggy banks because the owners pay him money to keep them protected and in business. They’re the Rittenhouse, Kimpton Palomar, and Franklin Hotel. Each of these three businesses has owners that let Dante skim off the top to keep them safe from crime that of course would be carried out by Dante’s minions of they didn’t pay. But, since they’re big time hotels, they pay a huge chunk of change to the underboss.”
“How much?” Marcell asks, intrigued by the thought of money.
“I don’t know how much,” Reina answers. “The guy’s an underboss for the mafia, he doesn’t divulge all the information. It was hard enough trying to pull this out of him. So, you need to take this information, and put it to good use. That’s where my Solomon comes in.”
“Okay, so when is he supposed to deal with these three hotel owners, and what are we supposed to do about it?”
At the sound of the question, I smile from ear to ear, feeling motivated by the challenge of ruining Dante before taking him out completely.
“That’s the beauty of it, gentlemen, Dante goes to pick up the money from these three hotels tomorrow evening,” I tell them, and they react with the worry and confusion I expected they’d have.
“Tomorrow?” Rock says. “Damn Solomon, that’s fast. We were just staking out Mason’s house earlier today, now you wanna drop that and go with your girl’s idea?”
“Yes I do, and that’s exactly what we’re gonna do,” I answer. “We have a narrow window of opportunity to severely hit Dante’s wallet with this. If we kill those payoffs, he’ll be perceived as vulnerable and weak, because the mob doesn’t like guys who get their things stolen from them.”
“So you wanna steal the payoffs?” Marcell asks.
“No, I want to do much more than that,” I tell him. “I want to ruin him all in one day, and I want it to be big and public so that everyone in his little family knows it was me who did it to him—it was me who embarrassed him and took everything away from him. That’s what I want to do.”
“Okay, and what about Mason?” Ricky asks with a furrowed brow.
“It’s not Mason’s day to die,” I answer quickly, although I know it’s not what he wants to hear. “Tomorrow is the day we take Dante out. I promise you, Ricky, Detective Anthony Mason will have his day, and you’ll be the one to end him.”
Ricky doesn’t answer, he just nods his head in silent approval.
“Alright then,” Rock says, speaking for the entire group. “So we know what he wants to do, and we know when. Now, how do we go about bringing it all down?”
I take a big sip from my cup of cognac and smile at the entire group.
“Settle in, boys,” I tell them. “We’ve got a long night of planning ahead of us. Tomorrow, we’re gonna bring chaos to Dante Rossi’s doorstep.”
“THESE ARE AMAZING! What made you decide to go with this image? Oh wait, never mind, I remember. How could I forget that?”
I smile at Reina as we stack up the freshly printed papers and place them behind the unconscious man, right next to the stuffed duffel bag. I kneel down and place the radio under the passenger seat while Reina gets to work behind me, being careful not to bump into anything.
“This way, in the end, he knows who it is,” I reply to Reina with a wide smile. “Everyone will know who it is, and if they don’t know, they’ll wonder. They’ll think about it at night when they go to bed. Soon, everyone will know, but won’t be able to finger us for anything. There won’t be any witnesses, but they’ll still know.”
Reina finishes tying the knot in the thick rope and backs away, nearly hitting her head on the ceiling.
“Okay, I’m done,” she says. “This is really it, isn’t it? This is the beginning.”
“Yes it is,” I reply as I grab her by the waist and pull her in for a kiss. We press our mouths together and embrace both each other and the moment, our all-black outfits matching like a his-and-hers set. “Alright, baby. Let’s go watch it all come crumbling down.”
“Wait, so how does this work again? You just call the number, and that’s it?” she asks, looking down at the phone in the duffel bag.
“Yeah. Just call the number, it’ll ring once or twice, and then, fireworks!”
“Oh my god, I can’t wait!”
“Me either. Alright, now let’s go.”
After you, my love,” Reina responds with a grin, and the two of us climb out, closing the doors and taking the keys with us.
Dante’s house is well-guarded, so we don’t waste time trying to setup camp somewhere where we’d have to worry about being seen. Instead, we park five houses down from his, and wait for him to leave, taking the road we know he’ll take, on the way to the place we know he’s going first. Reina and I sit side by side in a rented black Honda Accord, keeping a low profile while we wait for Dante to make his move. We’re in complete silence as the time we expect him to leave approaches, and we just hope we got all of this right, because the wheels have already been put in motion. There’s no going back now. We’re all in this together.
“Did Rock do what he needed to
do?” Reina asks as she looks past me, trying to see if Dante is on the move yet.
“Rock’s done, so are Ricky and Nix, although Nix tells me his situation got a little messy,” I reply, looking out my window.
“Messy? Did they kill him?”
“Yep. It’s fine. As long as they got it, it doesn’t matter how. I don’t have all the details yet, but Nix will fill me in once I get him on the phone,” I reply. “Alright, here we go.”
Down the street, we see Dante’s Mercedes being driven out of his giant white gate and onto the road. The car takes a left turn and drives towards us. Once it passes behind us, Reina and I smile at each other as I start up the rental car and back out of the driveway. The game has begun!
We follow Dante’s car at a distance. The last thing we need is to have him spot us and take a detour from what we have waiting for him. All we need is to stay close enough to see him. In all honesty, we don’t even have to be doing this. Reina and I could’ve just set up camp at the first location and waited for him to arrive, but I decided to do it this way. I wanted to be there for every moment of this day. I wanted to see his face, feel his anger, and watch the pressure and confusion build up on his face as he drives along, his life collapsing around him. Our plan has been thought out and put together using our six collective minds, and as long as Dante stays on the path, by the time today’s over, he’ll know who owns Philly, and so will everyone else.
We follow the Mercedes as it exits the freeway and heads towards our first destination: Rittenhouse Hotel. As we approach, I tell Reina to use the burner phone we put into rotation first thing this morning to call Rock. He answers on the first ring.
“We’re close,” I tell him. “Everything in place?”
“You know it. Channel seven,” he answers, and we end the call.
I park the rental down the street from the alley behind Rittenhouse. From this distance, we can see Dante’s Mercedes pulling up to the back of the hotel and coming to a stop. However, not only can we see it, we can hear it all too. Our resident criminal genius, Marcell, was kind enough to find us four long-range walkie-talkie radios to use today. Rock planted one under the dumpster next to the back door of the hotel and used it as a baby monitor. We can hear everything, and they have no clue we’re listening. When Dante and Tony get out of their car, I grab my radio and flip it to channel seven. It lets out a short hiss of static before clearing up and granting me access to the show playing out in front of us. We can hear Tony banging on the back door to Rittenhouse as clear as day. Let the show begin!
The door swings open and Dante is greeted by a young black kid he obviously wasn’t expecting to see. The kid has a smooth face accented with a scowl as he sticks his head out to look at them. Tony’s body language tightens at the minor inconvenience, and I smile at Reina, who watches with a nervous expression.
“Can I help you?” the black kid says as he glares at the two gangsters, both of them wearing black suits and the scowls of made men who are used to everything working out the way they want it to.
“Where’s Matteo?” Tony asks on behalf of Dante, who stands behind him with his hands in his pockets, trying his best to look completely disinterested the way a mob boss would in this situation. The only problem is that his scowl and confused face give him away. He was expecting Matteo to answer the door, but instead, he’s greeted by this nobody.
“Umm, he’s inside. Upstairs,” the kid replies with a deep, puzzled furrow in his brow.
“Well, go get him!” Tony snaps.
The kid jumps at the volume of the command and closes the door as he runs to tell Matteo someone is here for him. Thirty seconds later, Matteo opens the door and pokes his head out. Immediately, I see the bewilderment overtake him.
“Dante?” he says as he steps outside and closes the door behind him. “What do I owe the surprise?”
“Surprise?” Dante asks. “You knew I was coming. How could you be surprised?”
“I figured you had no reason to come after earlier,” Matteo replies.
I kind of feel bad for the guy, because I know how this ends for him. But, all’s fair in war, including collateral damage.
“Earlier? What are you talking about?” Dante says as he finally pulls his stubby little hands from his pockets and steps towards the hotel owner who’s really about to piss him off in the next few seconds.
“Earlier,” Matteo says, wondering why Dante isn’t catching on. “You know, when I dealt with your guy.”
Dante’s eyes widen and look like they actually might fall out of his face.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he snips. “What guy? I didn’t send no guy.”
Poor Matteo turns as white as a ghost. If what Dante just said is true, he knows what it means. He takes a second, looking back and forth between Dante and Tony, before swallowing hard and speaking up.
“Now, wait a minute, Dante,” he says, raising his hands in fear. “He said he worked for you and that I was to give the money to him.”
Tony glances over at Dante and the two of them look livid and shocked at the same time.
“What? Who told you that?” Tony shouts as Dante moves in and grabs Matteo by the collar on his black button-up and slams him against the door.
“You gave my money to someone else?” Dante barks into Matteo’s face. “Is that what you’re telling me, Matteo? After six years of me coming over here and making this pickup myself, you decided to give my money to someone else?”
Matteo has crossed the line from panicked to purely terrified now. His eyes are wide and he’s turning bright red as sweat starts to gather on his forehead.
“I thought you sent him! He said you sent him!” Matteo tries to explain. “And I told him I didn’t believe him at first. I swear I did! But then he showed me pictures of my wife that were obviously taken from outside our kitchen window at my house. He’d been at my house, and I thought that was something you might actually do if I didn’t give over the money, so I gave it to him. What was I supposed to think? What was I supposed to do? He had pictures of my wife!”
“What were you supposed to do?” Dante bellows as he reaches back and punches the hotel owner in the stomach. Matteo crumbles to the floor, gasping for air. “You were supposed to keep my money until I came and picked it up, Matteo. If a guy threatens your wife over it, then I guess you prepare yourself for her death. But what you don’t do, under any circumstances, is give my money to someone else. I trusted you, and thought we had a good, understanding relationship after all this time, and this is what you do. Damn you, Matteo. Why you gotta make me do this, huh? Damn it!”
“I’m sorry, Dante, I didn’t know,” Matteo says in between gasps of air. He looks up at Dante, pleading with his watery eyes. “Please forgive me, Dante. You know I would never do something like this on purpose. We go back, you and me. We’ve been business partners for six years. You know me! Give me another chance, and I swear I’ll get the money back. I swear it, Dante, please.”
Reina and I watch from the end of the alley as Matteo crawls towards Dante and grabs his leg. The Italian man literally grovels at the feet of the soon-to-be boss, begging to be spared his life. Honestly, it’s sickening to watch. Who the hell begs like this? No one worth respecting would do this sort of thing. I’d rather be shot in the face than beg like this. Not to mention that it won’t do him any good. Matteo will plead for his life without a bit of dignity, but in the end, Dante will have him clipped anyway. I wouldn’t want my last moments to be this way.
Dante looks over at Tony, who shrugs his chubby shoulders. Looking down at Matteo now, Dante kicks his leg, knocking the man off of him.
“You know me better than that, Matteo,” he tells him. “Now tell me what this guy looked like.”
“Umm, he was a black guy,” Matteo says, describing my associate, Rock. “Big shoulders and arms. He had a scar on his face, and he had pictures of Laney on his cell phone. Oh please forgive me, Dante. Let me get the money back for you. I pr
omise I’ll track him down. I don’t care how long it takes.”
Dante takes a moment to think about the description he was given. I don’t know if he knows Rock well enough to be able to draw him based on that description, but he’ll have something to go off of now. Rock knew that going in, and he didn’t give a damn. Rock is a bit off his rocker, so when we were figuring out who would go where, he didn’t hesitate to volunteer to be the one to take the money from Matteo. He knew he could convince him, and we didn’t question the method he’d use. I just trusted him. I guess the pictures of the guy’s wife were his secret weapon. Way to go, Rock!
“Please, Dante,” Matteo continues to beg as Dante lets out a loud breath.
“Shut up, Matteo,” he says, before shoving his hands back into his pants pockets and turning on his heel, leaving the hotel owner on the dirty concrete.
On his way to the Mercedes, Dante nods to Tony before opening the door and climbing into the passenger seat without looking back.
“Okay,” Matteo says, turning his attention to Tony. “Okay. Is he letting me go?”
Tony slowly shakes his head as he pulls a black nine millimeter from a harness inside the jacket of his suit. He quickly attaches a silencer to the barrel just as Matteo’s panic becomes evident.
“No! No please, Tony!” Matteo begs one last time. “Please don’t. You know I have a family!”
“Sorry, Matteo,” Tony says just as he points the weapon at Matteo’s forehead. “You picked a bad time to mess up. Sorry.”
The gun lets out a soft pop, and Matteo’s brains eject from the back of his head before he collapses onto the ground, facedown. Without any regard for Matteo’s body or the fact that the kid who answered the door could ID them, Tony turns around and gets back in the car, and the two of them drive away as blood pools around poor Matteo’s head.