The Take Down

by Mark Anthony

  “Paula, that is exactly why your name was on the top of the list. And not for nothing, Paula, you are drop-dead gorgeous and your looks would be the perfect distraction that could help you get these guys to trust you. But, Paula, these guys are hardened, violent criminals. Supreme ran one of the most violent drug gangs in the eighties. Even if you were chosen for the assignment, I am telling you to really consider all of the dangers and other ramifications that would go along with this assignment.”

  I chimed in, “Listen, the hip-hop world is all about the money, the bling-bling, and the women. If I’m added to the operation, my name would be Jessica Jackson and White Chocolate, well that…”

  I sold my superiors on this plan to send me to New York where I would start a modeling agency called White Chocolate Models Inc. White Chocolate Models would be a legitimately run company, funded with government money, but of course it would be a front organization to allow me to develop my necessary contacts in the hip-hop world which would enable me to make some headway into my specific undercover assignment.

  I soon began overselling my qualifications as I stated that if I was added to the investigation I would be able to top the Donnie Brasco investigation.

  See, Donnie Brasco had gone deep undercover as an FBI agent and at the time he was the first agent in FBI history to ever infiltrate the mob as deeply as he’d penetrated it. And because of his investigation, law enforcement agencies all across the country were able to root out and get a foothold on organized crime in a way that had never seemed possible.

  “Why are you so overconfident that you can pull this off? Donnie Brasco was a major piece of work performed by one of the best agents ever in the Bureau … What exactly do you mean that you can top Brasco?” my salt-and-pepper-haired boss asked me.

  “I can top it because as successful as Donnie Brasco was, you even just admitted that he’d only put a dent into the mob, he didn’t get you the mob’s top man. Hell, he didn’t even get you the mob’s top family in New York at the time.… And what I’m saying is that if I get a shot, if you can pull strings for me to get this transfer done and added to this investigation, I am guaranteeing you that I will not only get you the proof that Gun Clap Records was founded with dirty money that the Calvinos needed to launder, but I will get you Paulie Calvino, the head of the Calvino crime family. New York and the country’s largest and most dangerous crime family.”

  I remained silent after I spoke and was hoping that I hadn’t talked myself out of consideration for the transfer. I could tell that my boss was probably thinking that I was just some fantasy-thinking, bored-as-hell FBI agent that wanted out of the slow St. Louis office and was willing to drum up any far-fetched pitch just to get a transfer. But instinctively I knew that I had to continue to sell myself.

  “Boss, I can see the wheels spinning in your head, and I can even see the smiles and smirks starting to form at your skin lines … But please trust me on this. I am not some fantasy thrill-seeking agent who just wants a transfer to New York. It’s deeper than that to me. I know that I can do this! And I know that you’re not seeking any recognition, but if I am able to pull this off don’t you understand that everyone will know where my recommendation came from?”

  “And if you screw up out there, being overambitious, guess who Washington and New York are going to look at? Me! My ass and my reputation will be on the line just as much as your career would be on the line.”

  “White Chocolate?” my boss stated with a whole lot of oddity in his voice.

  “Yeah see, this is the thing. You don’t go after these hip-hop guys by going through the back door, or through the side door or even through the roof for that matter. Those days of investigating like that are long gone. You come at them in the most indirect way but a way that is as natural to them as putting on their pants or taking a shit. And see, that is where the White Chocolate modeling agency will come in. See, what I would need to do is…”

  That day and on several other occasions I continued to sell my boss on my qualifications and on the idea that I had. And over time he began to buy everything that I sold to him. He bought what I was selling simply because I had backed off and I hadn’t given him too much to digest at one time. It’s like if I give someone a slice of pizza, and they enjoy the slice then chances are they will want another slice. And when they finish that other slice they will probably ask for another and then another and so on until the whole pizza pie is completely eaten up. But if I ram the whole goddamn pizza pie down their throat at one time then they will forever be turned off by pizza.

  So after a couple of months of continuing to sell my qualifications and pitching my idea to my superior and then to his superiors, the whole Bureau had bought into my idea and my skills. The fact that I look much like the actress Halle Berry—I’m sure that somewhere along the line that also helped influence my male bosses’ decision to let me go deep undercover in New York. But hey, women have to use what we got in order to get what we want.

  In further detailing my plan I had explained how I didn’t think it would be smart to be assigned to the FBI’s Organized Crime Task Force. I wanted free rein to develop my own contacts and that in doing so I would be more effective. I might have been young with limited experience, but I was sharp as a whip and smart as hell.

  Unfortunately for me, that was where the Bureau had to draw the line. They were cool with the Jessica Jackson name and the White Chocolate Models but they made it clear to me that there were already highly experienced lead agents on the case from the organized-crime unit who had made major headway and that I was simply going to be brought in to further assist the work of those agents. I wasn’t going to be a lead agent or some dynamo on the loose with no reins who could potentially screw everything up. My role and tasks were clear: get close to Horse and Supreme and get the concrete indisputable evidence that the FBI needed to prove that Gun Clap Records was knowingly started and funded with laundered mob money.

  To passify my bosses and to get put on the investigation, I knew that I had to pretend to follow the lead and the directives of the FBI and that of the other senior agents on the case. But I had a lot of cards in my hand that I hadn’t told my superiors about because I knew that they would not have had the foresight to see my vision. But the cards that I was planning to play in the White Chocolate undercover operation were gonna be played so I could advance my own personal hustling agenda, and those cards were an ace of spades that went by the name of Tyrone “Horse” Hopkins and an ace of diamonds that went by the name of Angela Calvino, the daughter of Mafia don, Paulie Calvino.

  After I’d dreamed up the plan for White Chocolate Models I began to proactively study the New York hip-hop world and the New York Mafia world. One, a white-Italian-dominated world, and the other, a black-dominated world, and I knew that being half-black and half-white I was the perfect person to find out exactly how these two worlds came to be connected. But something kept telling me that despite what my superiors and lead agents wanted from me, that if I wanted to really get this investigation on and poppin’ and to get paid off of it that it would be smarter for me to secretly create a brand new union between the two worlds of hip-hop and the mob.

  Unfortunately I knew that if I committed to this transfer that my personal life and my relationship with my family and especially my relationship with my fiancé was gonna suffer big time. But I was willing to make that personal sacrifice because I knew all that I stood to gain if I were to freak this investigation to my advantage.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In no time Horse had managed to make his bail. He had put up $2.5 million of his own money in order to regain his freedom. He was a free man but the federal government was gonna do everything within our power to make sure that we kept the pressure on him until his trial.

  I stared at the television screen and I watched Horse spin everything that he had been accused of. He had one of the most powerful public relations firms working in his corner and in the upcoming weeks and months I wa
s sure that they would earn every penny that Horse would pay them.

  “They got nada. Naaada … Nothing! None of these charges will stick. I was basically set up and framed. But it’s okay ’cause I got a strong legal team behind me and all I can say is that when we get our day in court, everyone will see for themselves that I’m innocent,” Horse confidently and emphatically stated with much charisma to the media as he held his own damage-control press conference.

  “So Horse, how do you explain the fact that they found the murder weapon in your home?” one of the reporters asked.

  Horse was silent as his lawyer whispered something into his ear.

  “All I can say is that everything comes out in the wash…” Horse replied.

  “So are you insinuating that the government framed you on all of the charges?”

  Horse smiled and commented, “All I’m saying is that I wanna get back to making hit records. I make hit records and I make a lot of money. Everything I got I’ve worked my ass off to get and…”

  One of the reporters interrupted Horse while he was speaking. “Horse, what about the government’s allegations that Gun Clap Records was started with ‘mobbed up drug money’?”

  “What about it?” Horse replied in his true-to-form cocky manner.

  “Do you deny it? Is there any truth to it?”

  “Look, this is the thing: when people can’t explain my success, when they don’t wanna attribute my success to hard work, then they try to come up with all kinds of myths to explain what it is that they cannot seem to logically understand.”

  “So you’re denying the allegations that Gun Clap Records was founded with mob money?”

  Horse smiled and stated, “I’m saying that I’ve worked twenty-two hours a day, every day for as long as I can remember. While the rest of ya’ll are sleeping, I’m in the studio making hit records and when I leave the studio I’m in my office grinding it out every day. I don’t sleep! I worked my ass off for what I got. Everybody in my company has worked their asses off to help build Gun Clap to be where we are today, and to insinuate anything less than that would be an insult to my whole team. All I know is that Gun Clap was founded on hard work, it was founded on the principle that it’s okay to party hard and to play hard, just as long as you work hard.… So you best believe that ya’ll are gonna keep seeing me flying in Lear jets and driving around in a Rolls-Royce or a Maybach or whatever is hot. I mean it’s only right, ya’ dig?” Horse said, sounding like a braggadocio.

  At that point Horse’s lawyer whispered something else into his ear.

  “Listen, I wanna thank ya’ll for coming out, and again I wanna state and make it perfectly clear that I’m innocent of all these charges that have been brought against me. And on the advice of my lawyers, I won’t be answering any more questions today, thank you…” Horse ended and was quickly flanked by his entourage which included his ten-year-old son, Darius.

  “Horse, what about your affiliation with Supreme? I mean he was once convicted of drug trafficking. Do you have any comments on that?” a reporter blurted out.

  Stopping dead in his tracks and freeing himself from his entourage, Horse spun to answer that reporter’s question. “Yeah, I can comment on that. I’ve known Supreme all my life. That’s my nigga fo’ sho and he’ll always be my nigga. Understand this, if I choose to hang with ’Preme or anyone else for that matter, then that’s who I’m gonna hang with. I’m a street nigga! All my life I’ve been a street nigga. I’m from the bottom but I came up! Ya’ dig? Yeah, I might have made some hit records for people that are mainstream or for cats that crossed over, but at the end of the day I’m a street nigga born and raised in Southside Jamaica, Queens. Street niggas is who I trust and who I know.… Ya’ll can take this to the bank, whether I’m free or locked behind bars for twenty years, until my casket drops I’m always rolling with Supreme and there ain’t no man or woman alive who’s gonna regulate who the fuck I associate with!”

  See those were Horse’s words to the media and to the public. But behind closed doors when he had been interrogated, even with his lawyer present, it was a completely different story. Horse was scared like a bitch. He feared that his empire was gonna be taken away from him right from underneath his feet. He also insanely feared that his son, his most prized possession and future heir to the Gun Clap throne might also be taken from his custody, but in the public’s eye he never let anybody see him sweat.

  As soon as the press conference was over I immediately placed a call to Gun Clap Records. I knew that Horse wasn’t there but I wanted to make everything appear to Horse that I was still in his corner.

  “Gun Clap Records, how can I help you?” the receptionist answered, sounding very exhausted.

  “Hey Tamika, this is Jessica from White Chocolate Models … Listen, I know that everything must be crazy over there with all the drama that’s been going on but I just wanted to leave a message for Horse … Can you tell him to call me as soon as he gets a chance?”

  “Okay, I’ll give him the message.”

  “Tamika, did he turn off his cell phone or something?” I asked, trying to sound sincere and concerned at the same time.

  “Look, I really can’t comment on anything right now. It is a zoo up in here. We’re still waiting to get our computers and everything back that was confiscated by the feds. But I will make a note to tell him that you called.”

  “Okay, thank you.”

  The truth of the matter was that I knew that Horse had turned off his cell phone. In fact everyone associated with Horse had been ordered to turn off their cell phones and to turn off their two-way pagers. The FBI had been monitoring all of the communications that were going on between the two-way pagers and the cell phones, and someone in Horse’s camp must have suspected that we were eavesdropping on them.

  In a matter of days we had gone from having so much access to the conversations of those associated with Horse to virtually having no conversations to monitor whatsoever.

  Horse also had security experts dispatched to his offices, his homes, the homes of his associates, his cars, and all of his associate’s cars in an effort to look for and remove all of the bugs that the FBI had strategically placed.

  It was at that point that I started to second-guess myself and I began wondering if I had moved too quickly. See, it had been on my word that the raids had been ordered. I just felt that it had been time to put the pressure on Horse and my gut told me that if we applied the right pressure to him he would fold. But what I hadn’t calculated was that he would be smart enough to discard his phones and look for bugs.

  I knew that I had to rely on my instincts and trust that the investigation would continue to go the way that I wanted it to. So with Horse now virtually off the radar screen, I decided to work the other side of my investigation until I could get in touch with him. In fact, I knew that it was time to really try and accelerate that other side of the investigation.

  After I hung up with the receptionist at Gun Clap, I placed a call to Angela Calvino just to chat her up and to see how she was doing.

  The way I had met Angela was similar to the way in which I had met Horse, and that was by religiously hanging around all of the routine places that they hung out and cautiously looking for opportunities to genuinely get to know them without appearing suspicious or coming across like a groupie or an annoying hound.

  For a few months straight I had been purposely going to the same day spa that Angela had been going to on the exact same days and times as she. I also had been going to some of the same Manhattan and Long Island nightclubs that she went to.

  Angela had also tried her hand in the modeling business, which was something that I knew about her way before I had decided to leave the FBI office in St. Louis. Through the modeling business she had met a model who ditched modeling for the record industry and subsequently went on to make millions of dollars as a singer. Angela had always beaten herself up for not having been the one to manage the young lady’s career, and she vo
wed to never let another opportunity like that pass her by. So as she worked in the modeling industry she did so always with the hopes of finding that model that could be the next Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera.

  “Hello…”

  “Hi Angela, this is Jessica. Are you busy right now?”

  “No, I can talk. What’s up hon?” Angela replied. She sounded as if she was in a good mood, but if there was one thing about Angela it was that she was one moody blond-haired beautiful bitch that thought the world absolutely revolved around her.

  “How would you like to meet Tyrone Hopkins?”

  After a slight pause Angela responded very bluntly. “Who the fuck is Tyrone Hopkins and why would I want to meet him?”

  “Horse? Angela, come on, you never heard of the record producer named Horse? Well his real name is Tyrone Hopkins.”

  “Oh, okay. Yeah, he’s been all over the news lately. Why would I wanna meet him? No offense but he seems like nigger trash.”

  “Angela, come on, think with me. What do you always say is one of your biggest regrets?”

  “Jessica, I don’t have all day. Would you hurry up and get to the goddamn point of your call?”

  That was Angela’s style of always trying to be the one in control. Usually she didn’t mean anything by the way she spoke to people, she was just brash by nature and if you didn’t know her you could easily take it as her being rude. I knew Angela’s ways because I had studied them. So I knew how to respond to her.

  “No, Angela slow up a minute … Just think. You always talk about how you let that model get away from you and sell all of those records over in Great Britain or Australia or wherever the fuck she lives. Now here I am telling you that I can introduce you to Horse and you can’t make the connection.”