The Take Down

by Mark Anthony

  “I let Horse hit it a few days ago,” Angela uncharacteristically said as she smiled and continued to look at the menu. This was the first time that I had seen her let her guard down. She was finally acting like a soft woman and not this hard-as-nails dominant-dictator figure.

  “Get outta here!” I said as I raised my voice.

  Angela went on to say how it was good but that having sex with Horse would have to take some getting used to because he was so large. She then shocked me and told me that it wasn’t just some one-night-stand type of thing and that she could really see herself developing real feelings for Horse.

  “Shuuuut uppp!” I said in shocked response.

  “No really, I could,” Angela replied.

  The waitress came and we ordered our food. “Now about this raping and choking thing,” Angela said as she again started laughing.

  “New subject please,” I blurted out. “I am gonna kill Supreme when I see him!” I yelled out with laughter mixed with embarrassment.

  Against Angela’s wishes I insisted that we switch subjects.

  “So what do you think you’ll do about setting up your own label? Do you think you can get up the money?” I asked.

  “Well first of all, Horse is real hot for the idea. So that is not an issue,” Angela stated.

  I nodded my head.

  “LaCostra Nostra Records. That’s what I’m gonna call it,” Angela continued on.

  “That’s hot!” I replied. LaCostra Nostra meant “this thing of ours,” and that was the term that all made members of the Mafia used to refer to the mob.

  “So where the hell are you gonna get the money to start it?” I asked, knowing that I was really pushing the envelope.

  Angela looked at me and she had suddenly reverted back into the silence that she must have been trained to exhibit growing up in a Mafia household. I thought quick on my feet.

  “Angela, don’t tell me that you got kryptonite in your pussy or something! You got Horse to front you that kind of money?”

  Angela laughed, and I could tell that she again felt comfortable. As our food arrived we adjusted our place settings and Angela said, “Jessica, there are some things that simply go unsaid, but let’s just say I got connections, and we can leave it at that.”

  I knew that I should leave it at that but I needed something more and I had to press my luck. As I put food in my mouth, I nodded my head and whispered, “So this probably works out good, your father can wash some of his money and not have to worry about it since you’ll be overseeing everything, right?”

  Angela didn’t respond, at first she didn’t even look at me. But after putting a fork full of food in her mouth she looked at me and nodded her head up and down in agreement but she cut her eyes at me in a fierce way.

  What Angela didn’t know was that I had a small but powerful miniature tape recorder strapped to my inner thigh really close to my vagina. The miniskirt that I had on gave me easy access to the recorder and so that I wouldn’t incriminate myself I had started recording at the moment I brought up the subject of Angela setting up her record label.

  The thing was, the recorder couldn’t record Angela’s head movement. I needed her to open her mouth and verbally say something in agreement to the money laundering scheme that could implicate both her and her father and Gun Clap records.

  “Angela, I might be talking out of turn but I know your father can trust you to wash his money. But do you think you’re doing the right thing by taking his money and mixing it in with Gun Clap? The feds will be all over that.”

  Angela looked at me and I know she was getting suspicious if she hadn’t been already. She suddenly asked me to escort her to the bathroom. At that point my heart began to beat much faster because I knew that she must have been thinking that the table we were sitting at was possibly bugged or something. I just hoped that she didn’t ask me to strip or anything like that. As we walked to the bathroom Angela placed her hands on my right hip and ran them all the way around my back and over to my other hip.

  “You can walk ahead of me,” she stated, as she pretended to be polite.

  I had on a backless top so if I had on a wire she definitely would have seen the slightest bulge from it. As we reached the bathroom Angela felt my chest, she didn’t bother to go about it nonchalantly as she cupped both of my titties she stated, “I don’t know how you wear a shirt like this, I couldn’t do it, my tata’s need some support. And you don’t even have on a strapless bra.”

  “This is just my style. I like to feel free so every now and again I let the twins hang free,” I quickly replied as the two of us started laughing.

  Angela proceeded to wash her hands and said that was the reason for her coming to the bathroom. She claimed that she hated to eat without first washing her hands. I knew that was a lie because if she were that anal about it she would have excused herself and gone to the bathroom long before any of the food had arrived at the table.

  As she dried her hands I was still washing mine. We were the only ones in the swank little bathroom but Angela seemed to be nervous and looking around, sort of making sure that no one else was present.

  “You know, Jessica, I wanna tell you this and this better be the last time I have to mention this. I don’t understand, what is with you and the million and one fucking questions? You sound like somebody’s informant or something,” Angela said in a serious tone. Her face had become hard like cinder blocks.

  I began to dry my hands and played dumb. “What are you talking about? What did I say? Is it because I asked if you had been with a black guy?”

  Angela put a disgusted smirk on her face. “Jessica, don’t fucking play stupid! You can ask me about who I’m screwing, you can ask me about my clothes, my cars, and you can even ask me about my business, but don’t mention my family unless I bring it up. Okay?”

  I didn’t respond. I just continued to dry my hands.

  “Jessica, do you understand what I’m saying?” Angela asked a bit more sternly.

  Again, I didn’t respond as I purposely tried to disrespect Angela by walking out of the bathroom. Angela grabbed me by the shoulder and prevented me from walking out. I reached in my bag and grabbed a fifty-dollar bill and told Angela to pay for the food and that if she wanted me to drive her back home that we would have to leave right then and there.

  “Oh, Jessica! Would you stop acting like a sensitive little bitch? Jesus Christ!” Angela exclaimed.

  I had to do the best acting job possible because I felt that if Angela began to question my credibility then I would probably be written off by Horse and everyone else involved in Angela’s camp and the whole Gun Clap Records camp.

  “Angela, no disrespect but you just don’t understand. I just try to stay low key, mind my business and not cause any waves but it seems like I always find myself in somebody’s goddamn bathroom getting accosted and accused of being an FBI agent or an informant and I just don’t get it! You and Horse and everybody else are just a bunch of paranoid assholes who are suspicious of everybody that moves!” I stated in Academy Award–winning fashion.

  “FBI agent? Who the hell accused you of being a fed?” Angela asked.

  “Angela, Horse never admitted it to me, but between me and you he had two dyke-looking females threatening to blow my head off that day that we’d gone to his office and you and White Lines had waited out in the car for me. They had me locked in the bathroom and things just got ugly, the bitches were practically raping me. And all of that was because Chris Mims, who was really a snitching-ass rat told Horse and his peoples that I was a fucking agent! So now you know why it had really taken me so long to come back outside that day. But I never said anything because I knew that you would probably believe the lies. And then after Chris got hit—which by the way, Supreme practically told me he ordered the hit—everything seemed to be cool. Or at least up until right now with you, and I’m like here we fucking go again! Now instead of being an agent, you think I’m an informant! I really don’t n
eed this!” As I said this I gave a look as if I was going to cry from the anger.

  “Jessica, I could kill you for not saying anything about that! Why didn’t you tell me?” Angela asked with genuine concern.

  “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to screw up the deal with White Lines.”

  “Jessica, you brought me to Horse, all you would have had to do was say the word that you even thought someone tried to cross you and I would have pulled out of that shit! If there is one thing that I am it’s loyal. You understand me?” Angela asked.

  I didn’t respond as I tried to make my way out of the bathroom. Angela put her hands on the door and she said, “Okay, Jessica here is the deal. My father told me he would get me the three million in cash. He didn’t tell me where it was coming from but I know it’s coming from gambling and drug operations around the city.”

  I nonchalantly nodded my head, acting as if I wasn’t making a big deal over what I was being told. But inside I was screaming and jumping for joy. I was also hoping like hell that the tape recorder had not stopped or malfunctioned in any way.

  Angela immediately interjected, “Now this is the thing, I make my own way, I don’t want any handouts from anybody because then they feel like they can tell you what to do and how to do it. I’ll pay my father back every dime of his money because I don’t want nothing hanging over my head. You understand where I’m coming from?”

  As Angela and I made our way back to our table to finish our lunch I explained to her that I knew exactly where she was coming from and why she would want to pay her father back. After her stern warning that I had better keep my mouth shut about her father and the money I assured Angela that she didn’t have to worry about that.

  What was weird was that as we finished our food, I remember feeling sort of as if I had just bonded with Angela. It was like she had opened herself up to me and trusted me enough to tell me a hugely secretive thing about her world and that sort of made me connect with her.

  So as I sat at the table I reached under my skirt and stopped the tape. I did that because I felt like I could trust Angela with one of my secrets. For my entire life I had never let anyone in on my incestuous past. There are a number of reasons that I’d kept something so dark, so secret, for so long. And never in my wildest dreams did I think that the first time that I would divulge parts of my past that it would be while I was in the middle of an FBI investigation and speaking to someone that I was investigating.

  But something came across me and I just wanted to reveal to Angela something that would definitely help her trust me more but at the same time it would help me fight off demons that had plagued me for years. I figured that the best way for me to bring up the topic was for me to tie everything in to the sexual request that I had put in with Supreme. This way Angela would be able to see how I had come at my sick thoughts.

  “Angela, when I told Supreme that I wanted him to choke me and rape me while we had sex, I had said that because my mind is all screwed up when it comes to sex and relationships.”

  Angela looked intently at me.

  “Basically my whole sexuality is screwed up, and the reason is because when I was young my father … Well, how should I put this? Basically my father used to…”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After I was able to verify from Angela that her father was game to put up the cash to jump-start her record label, we were able to obtain a court order that gave us permission to step up our surveillance on Angela as well as on her father.

  Angela knew how to follow the rules of the Mafia society when she was out in public. She knew what to say and what not to say. She was always aware that a rat might be lurking in the wings. But one thing about Angela is that she lived on her cell phone. And when it came to the Mafia’s unwritten rule of not running your mouth on the phone, well she held no regard for that rule.

  I had begun to spend more and more time with Angela, and in doing so we had also begun to develop a certain bond and trust. Or at least I thought.

  See, Angela had never let on to me that her father had started to have reservations about handing over the three million. I had to learn that through the wiretap that we had on Angela’s phone.

  Angela had a bunch of friends, some who were closer to her than others. But it seemed as if all of her friends dared not to ever disagree with her. They were all yes people. It was sort of like Angela was some sort of goddess or princess in their eyes. And it was through a recorded conversation with her chief yes friend, Pamela, that we learned that Paulie Calvino was having doubts about going through with the whole record label thing.

  “Pamela, do I look like some fucking degenerate or something?” Angela asked.

  “Angela, listen, you are the smartest girl that I know. Of course you’re not a degenerate,” Pamela stated as we continued to listen in on the wire.

  “Well then Pamela, if I’m not a degenerate, you tell me why my father would drag his feet on giving me the money?”

  “Angela, like I said, you are a smart girl and—”

  “Pamela, cut the shit! I know that I’m smart and beautiful and all of that. But I asked you a specific question and I need a specific answer from you. Why is my father dragging his feet with the money for my record label?” Angela asked as if Pamela held some kind of special answer.

  You could tell that Pamela was fearful of saying the wrong thing to Angela as she sort of stuttered in her speech. “See, Angela you just said it. You cut me off from what I was gonna tell you, but that’s just it. You are a beautiful girl. You’re still daddy’s little girl in his eyes, and I think that he’s just worried about his daughter being mixed up in a world with a bunch of gangster rappers.”

  Angela was quiet for a moment before screaming into the phone.

  “Jesus fucking Christ! Pamela, why doesn’t he just give me the money? I’m a grown woman!”

  “Angela, listen. You just have to get your father to build some confidence in the people that you’ll be in business with. That might help,” Pamela said.

  Angela didn’t respond to Pamela’s last statement. She simply sighed into the phone and said, “I need this like I need a hole in my head. Pamela, I gotta go,” she added as she abruptly hung up the phone without the silent mention of a good-bye, or I’ll speak to you later.

  As I sat with my supervisor and his supervisor and the head of the New York Organized Crime Task Force, we all wondered if something had spooked Paulie Calvino. We also wondered if there was some type of information from the inside that had been leaked, which Paulie had become aware of. We just didn’t know why all of a sudden he was not warm to the idea of potentially making real big money in the record business.

  “Look, we’re probably just jumping the gun,” my supervisor stated. “Let’s just give things some time to play themselves out. In the meantime, Jessica, see what you can come up with.”

  I knew that there wasn’t much to be worried about. I was siding with Angela’s friend Pamela in that Paulie Calvino was probably wondering how much he could trust a bunch of gangster rappers around his daughter. Not to mention that three million dollars is a lot of money, it doesn’t matter who you are.

  After about a week or so Angela had finally confided in me the reservations that her father was having. She also told me that her father was leaning toward more than likely going through with the arrangement to put up the money for her but that he needed to have his people meet with Horse and Supreme and his people, so that all of the details could be discussed and worked out.

  Angela had spoken to Horse and in a matter of days she was able to set up a meeting. The meeting was to be held at a little nondescript social club in Queens that Paulie Calvino and his crew frequented daily. The club wasn’t located too far from Angela’s Howard Beach neighborhood.

  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go to the meeting. But with the Mafia, if you had no business or involvement in something then your presence at inappropriate times would only raise the level of suspi
cion.

  The FBI had long known about the Queens social club that Paulie frequented. We were never able to bug it but we were able to rent out a nearby apartment that gave us a direct view of the social club so that we could get photo and video surveillance when we needed it.

  So on the day of the meeting I found myself holed up in the surveillance room watching and waiting for all of the participants to show up to the meeting. And at around 7 P.M. all of the players began to arrive. Angela and her brother, Paul Jr., arrived first in a black Lincoln Navigator. Ten minutes later, Horse, Supreme, and G-Baby showed up in a white Yukon Denali. Soon thereafter a white Lexus pulled up and two known Mafia captains exited the car and went inside.

  We watched and waited for more than an hour and there was no sign of Paulie Calvino, Sr. and it didn’t appear that he was gonna show. We didn’t know what to make of his absence but we felt confident that something productive was going on since the meeting was lasting for so long.

  I would just have to wait to speak to Supreme or Angela to find out exactly what had transpired.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Jessica, on the real, I wanna see that muthafucka put a bullet in my head!” Supreme yelled through the phone as we spoke.

  “’Preme, what exactly happened?” I asked as I tried to get a handle on things.

  “What do you mean, what happened? I told you, the muthafucka Paul left a message on my goddamn phone talking mad reckless! The dude said that he ain’t have a problem doing business with us but that if me or my man Horse or anyone else for that matter so much as looks at his sister the wrong way that he would personally put a bullet in all of our heads,” Supreme explained.

  “’Preme, don’t worry about that. He’s just looking out for his sister,” I said while trying to diffuse the situation.

  “Fuck that! Can’t nobody threaten me like that and live! I don’t care who it is or who his father is!” Supreme yelled.

  I remained quiet for fear of saying the wrong thing.