Scores

  He was such an infectious sight on the floor, I started laughing uncontrollably as well. We had to be the two worst undercover spies ever sent on a covert mission in the history of intelligence gathering. As our laughter, now born from simple relief, rallied unabated, a strong voice bellowed from behind my car.

  “What the fuck are you two doing? Why is Andrew making a fool of himself?”

  Turning around, I found myself staring at the face of Mike Sergio, holding a string attached to a dainty dangling white bakery box.

  Not knowing what else to say, I replied, “Mike, Andrew’s drunk out of his mind. I told him a really silly joke and he went crazy.”

  Starting to enjoy the situation, Sergio stepped closer. Ignoring Andrew, he said, “What was the joke?”

  What was the joke? I silently screamed to my inner mind. Jerk. Now you’ve really gone and done it, you can’t remember jokes. A joke. I need a damn joke.

  “It was something stupid, Mike,” I stalled, “not really funny except to a drunk.”

  “I’m pretty drunk too.” Sergio’s face was now inches from my nose. “Tell me the joke? I want to hear it.”

  I stepped back, and in my desperation—or by divine intervention—a joke surfaced in my memory. “It was about the Vienna Boys’ Choir on the Titanic. When the boat was sinking, the two priests accompanying the choir were told to get themselves into a lifeboat. The first priest said to his companion, ‘But what about the boys?’ The companion priest answered, ‘Fuck the boys!’ The first priest gave it some thought and asked, ‘Do we have time?’”

  Sergio cracked a smile, but as he realized the point of the humor, he turned serious. “That’s not funny, it’s fucking blasphemous.”

  With Andrew still laughing away and trying to climb off the pavement, Sergio turned to leave. Obviously recalling why he had sought us out in the first place, he turned back and handed the bakery box to me.

  “Here’s some cheese ravioli from Arthur Avenue. They’re for Keri, so give them to the drunk.”

  And then he walked away.

  I made an independent decision during the ride back to the city and dropped off Andrew at home. We were both supposed to meet the agents for debriefing at the law firm, but Andrew was in no shape to be interviewed.

  After parking the car, as I walked toward the entrance to the office building, I glanced at my watch, realizing it was already after midnight. Tired and weary as I was, I was relieved to see two dark shapes huddled to the left of the revolving doors in the shadows. As I approached, Karst walked toward me, smiled, and announced, “Great work tonight.”

  Passing through security, the three of us eventually settled into my office. Although spent of all energy, I happily recounted in detail everything I could remember. Karst pulled out a yellow pad and started jotting notes and peppering me with questions as the night’s events were reviewed. He seemed particularly pleased and interested at the information gathered on the DePalmas and Mikey Scars, whom Karst revealed was really named Michael DiLeonardo, a very high-level Gambino captain.

  As the jovial mood at the evening’s success started running out of steam, Karst leaned back and said, “There’s bad news too.”

  My heart skipped a beat, worried to distraction about some unforeseen calamity that had reared its ugly head. After a pregnant pause, Karst continued, “The phone recorder malfunctioned and we got nothing on tape. We’re going to need to pull off a repeat performance on these subjects.”

  Startled, I looked to Ready, only to find the agent looking down, avoiding my stare. “But didn’t you hear everything off the transmitter? Isn’t that good enough?”

  “We heard almost everything, but if it’s not on tape, the information can’t be used in court, so it doesn’t count.”

  Standing in reflexive reaction, I was confused. “But how can we possibly go over it all again without arousing suspicion? He’ll know something’s up. I’m telling you, he’ll know.”

  Karst motioned for me to sit down. “Listen to me. We had technical problems tonight, but you showed me something. You’re a natural; your questions, your tone, your reactions were all perfect. You’re a born operative and you’ll have no problem getting Sergio to repeat his statements; in fact, he’ll love it. We’ll show you how to do it. I’ve got some ideas. Just trust us.”

  On the way out, Karst put his hand on my back. “Maybe that ‘puke’ code wasn’t the best idea I ever had.”

  “By the way,” Ready added, “I thought the Titanic joke was pretty funny.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sergio’s Encore Performance

  JANUARY 1997

  The encore performance of Mike Sergio was underway. Instead of a bustling restaurant filled with Westchester’s elite, Sergio selected a tiny Italian bistro in the northern Bronx. Red-and-white checkered cloths covered each table and a middle-aged obese waiter, with a white apron wrapped around his ample midsection, stood available to serve. Except for a small table near the front door inhabited by two burly men in cheap suits, we were alone.

  The mood of the group was quiet and reserved. Claiming to have fierce heartburn, Sergio declined any alcoholic refreshment. While his abstinence had no effect on Pearlstein’s intake of martinis, I was feeling more than a little edgy; something in Sergio’s eyes warned me to be wary.

  Unlike the first dinner, the conversation on this night was neither flowing nor expansive. My pre-scripted questions were not having their desired effect. When I asked Sergio about the DePalmas, or Junior Gotti, or Willie Marshall, the subject was brushed off.

  Also unlike the first encounter, Sergio seemed tired and worn, as if he had aged ten years in a matter of days. I tried retreating through a conversational back door, but even talk of Scores and family failed to engage him. This encounter was going to be a complete failure, even if the damn recorder actually did its job.

  As the virtual silence continued into a dessert of cheesecake and espresso, I decided to give the operation one more chance. “Let me ask you something, Sergio, if there’s a problem at Scores, do I call you or Willie Marshall?”

  Sergio picked the napkin off his lap and threw it into the middle of the table. He shook his head as if some wildly offensive odor had just wafted though. Standing up, he turned his head and nodded to the two men sitting at the front table. They stood and slowly ambled toward our table.

  Sergio took a gun out of his pocket and placed it on the table. As he turned back to me, Andrew yelled out, “I think I’m gonna puke!”

  “Shut the fuck up, you moron,” Sergio screamed. He turned to me. “Let me ask you something. We’ve been friends for what? Ten years. In all that time, you don’t give two shits about the ‘family.’ You never wanna know nothing; you never want to talk shop. Now last week, all of a sudden, you can’t get enough information out of me. Tori Locascio? You don’t even know him. Junior Gotti? The DePalmas? You always wanted to stay away from that side of life; that’s my job. Now you want to talk about everything. I’m asking myself, why? Why, Michael? Why are we suddenly talking ‘mafia’ together?”

  I tried to be strong, but I just wanted the FBI agents to understand the gravity of what was happening. “What could I possibly want from you, Mike? What would make you put a gun on the table and bring two tough guys to scare us?”

  “Then you have no idea?” Sergio sneered.

  As Sergio was reaching toward his pistol, the two thugs finally arrived at the table, each taking up a position behind one of us.

  Karst and Ready sat in a dark-colored sedan outside the restaurant. Ready was listening to the transmissions from the beeper with a growing sense of panic. When he heard Andrew vocalize the emergency code, his initial reaction was a guarded, “Here we go again,” but now I was mentioning guns and hit men. He pulled off the headphones and looked at Karst.

  “We’ve got big trouble; Sergio knows what’s going on. We have to deploy now or the boys are dead.”

  Both men pulled their guns and readied them for
firing. Already wearing his armored vest, Ready reached for the handle and pushed the door open. As he stepped out of the car, a single bullet penetrated his forehead and he fell lifeless to the curb.

  Before Karst could maneuver his exit, three bullets fired through the car’s driver’s side window. He slumped back in his seat.

  Three masked men ran to the car. Karst was picked up and thrown into the passenger seat, Ready was tossed into the backseat, and the door abruptly slammed. One of the men jumped behind the wheel and the car sped away, leaving the neighborhood quiet and tranquil—as if nothing at all had happened.

  The slaughter of the FBI agents took less than a minute.

  Hearing the sharp retorts of gunfire outside, Pearlstein and I jumped from raging fear. Suddenly, the monster behind Pearlstein lifted him from his chair and quickly conducted a body search. Finding nothing, he ripped Andrew’s beeper from his belt and removed the cover. Looking at Sergio, he said, “Body’s clean, beeper’s a beeper.”

  Sergio nodded to the other soldier, who reached down and lifted me. After the pat down, he looked at the beeper. “I can’t tell; it could be funny.”

  “Check the phone.”

  The soldier picked up the phone and ripped it apart. He lifted out a round silver chip and held it up to Sergio. “It’s a companion to a recorder; he’s wired.”

  Pearlstein broke away from the large hands holding him. “I don’t know anything about this, Mike. I swear to God. If he’s wired he’s doing it on his own. He’s a traitor to me too.”

  Sergio grinned, raised his gun, and pumped two bullets into Pearlstein. Turning to me, gun still raised, he shook his head.

  I screamed.

  I opened my eyes, but couldn’t see. I was lying on the floor, still crying out, my hands pathetically trying to protect my face from oncoming destruction. Moments later, shaking, I could make out the outlines of my bedroom furniture: first the bed, then the cabinetry.

  It had been a dream, a stupid nightmare.

  Heart still racing, I pulled myself off the floor and onto a high-backed Egyptian-style chair next to the bed. Stunned as to the vivid and terrifying nature of the dream, especially because I almost never remember dreams, I just couldn’t get hold of my runaway emotions. Cradling myself and rocking, I felt like crying.

  I also felt abnormally hot and sticky and, gathering my composure, I walked out onto the bedroom balcony. The cold, fierce winds raging far above the sidewalk were overwhelming, but my body heat, which had been alarming, quickly dissipated. Standing in the cold and bracing myself against the height of the confined space, I suddenly found it hard to breathe. Turning away from the wind did not improve my condition. “I’m just hyperventilating,” I said out loud with the relief of understanding the problem.

  With my chest on fire, I walked off the balcony, through the bedroom, and into the living room. A glance at the clock told me it was slightly after 4 AM. I plopped into my favorite chair and cupped my hands over my open mouth, breathing in and out. After about thirty seconds and fifteen breaths, my respiration normalized.

  I wanted to get something to drink but, before I could act on the impulse, I fell asleep in the chair, sleeping the rest of the night in glorious darkness.

  Showering and shaving in the morning, I decided not to share the dream with anyone—not Andrew, not the agents. I was still shaken, far more than the silly dream deserved. But deep inside, I knew I had been somehow changed; an unwanted metamorphosis had been unwillingly visited upon me, A Christmas Carol style.

  The most ridiculous residual effect of the dream was that I found myself furiously angry with Andrew for his cowardly conduct. How can you be mad at him? I mocked myself. Your imagination is responsible, not him. He’s done a lot of shitty things, but not this time.

  As I left the condo for the law firm, a nagging dread followed me out the door. Perhaps that dread was the uncomfortable realization, previously buried, that I was playing with fire and, odds were, I was not meant to survive the blaze.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Lights, Camera, Action!

  JANUARY 1997—THREE PARK AVENUE

  The rules for filming in the office were explained in repetitious detail. The government had drawn up a list of potential targets and only individuals on the approved list could be recorded. No one else! In fact, should any non-listed individuals wind up being filmed, even inadvertently, the whole operation would probably be closed down. No explanations, just rules.

  We reasoned, in reaction to the stringent limitations, to treat our connected office bathroom as a “lock,” like the Panama Canal. In other words, whenever filming, we would ensure our bathroom doors were locked and, in that way, the customary flow of individuals passing between the law firm and Scores via the bathroom “shortcut” would be cut off.

  We also created a supplementary verbal code to assist each other. Whenever one of us needed to roll a camera, but others were present, preventing open discussion, the phrase, “Do you want to order cappuccinos?” would be invoked. The desired filming site would be identified by an additional remark. For example, “When the cappuccinos get here, I’ll be at Casey’s station,” meant the camera above my secretary’s desk should be activated.

  When all was agreed, I asked Pearlstein, “Can’t we work the word ‘puke’ into our codes for old times’ sake?”

  I was ignored.

  Thursdays were “money” days at the executive offices; envelopes containing rubber-banded stacks of five hundred dollars each awaited distribution. Payments were splits from dancers’ house fees, tips from the President’s Club and Crow’s Nest, and other smaller cash flow streams. Appearances by the Sergios, Willie Marshall, and senior club managers on “Money Thursdays” were ritual. It was well known that Thursday was the best day to show up at the office for any sort of financial accommodation; everybody was happy that day.

  As a result, that was the prime day for filming. Because both Marshall and the Sergios developed patterns of picking up their weekly spoils directly from one of the bookkeepers, the system had to be changed to allow the cameras to capture the actual delivery and counting of extorted funds. To accomplish this, the bookkeepers were instructed to deliver the “Thursday” envelopes to Andrew or me for pickup. It would raise eyebrows, but it was necessary.

  As luck would have it, on the first Thursday of filming, I was alone in the office at the precise moment Mike Sergio arrived for his weekly cash envelopes. Alerted to his presence by the receptionist, I knew Sergio’s first stop would be bookkeeping, to be quickly followed by a detour to my office. I had a short window of time to do the necessary.

  I sprinted to my office, opened the door to my secretary’s station, and instructed Casey not to allow interruptions. I closed the door, locking it as it swung shut, and zipped into the connecting bathroom to lock the door leading to Pearlstein’s side. Secure in the office, but beginning to gasp for air, I ran to my desk, pushed the chair to one side, and opened the bottom storage cabinet. Assuming a prone position with some struggle, I reached up into the cabinet and activated the color-coded switch for my office.

  Just as I began restoring the desk chair to its proper place, a pounding on the bathroom door from the Pearlstein side interrupted my concentration. “Michael, it’s Mike, let me in,” came the unmistakable voice of Sergio. Kicking the cabinet doors closed and about to confirm I would be right there, I thankfully caught myself. Rushing with light steps into the bathroom, I called back, “I’ll be right with you, Mike.”

  Looking in the mirror, I saw myself as a sweaty mess. Wiping my face and hair down with a towel, and after splashing on water and cologne, I reached for the door to the Pearlstein side. Catching myself once again, in what would develop into an important final step, I reached back and flushed the toilet. Nice touch, I congratulated myself.

  Allowing a reasonable post-flush period to pass, I breathed deeply, sprayed some air freshener, and casually strolled into Pearlstein’s lair. Finding Sergio seated i
n a red leather chair facing the desk, I sat down next to him in the companion chair.

  “What’s the deal with the weekly envelopes? The kid says he doesn’t have them. Is this another Pearlstein game, because . . .”

  “It’s not a problem, Mike,” I interrupted. “We’ve had some mix-ups lately, wrong person getting the wrong envelope. So from now on, either Andrew or I will take responsibility. Come into my office and we’ll take care of things.”

  As we trooped together through the bathroom into my office, Sergio limping more pronouncedly than usual, he called back to me, “I wanted to tell you I really enjoyed our dinner. I even repeated your joke to a few guys.”

  “I thought it was great fun; we never do social things.”

  “You know what I think, I think we should try to get together one night every week. That way we can keep on top of things.”

  “You know, we were just saying the same thing. Once a week from now on it shall be. Now, how many envelopes do you get?”

  Sergio went on to identify the various funds he was due from the mafia’s activities at the club. In response to each named category, I pulled an envelope out of my desk drawer and handed it over. With the cameras spinning away, Mike accepted each envelope, checked the amount scribbled on the outside, counted the funds, and placed the cash in his jacket pocket.

  Sergio stayed a while, hoping Andrew would show. He mentioned he needed to talk to him about a problem with Steve and the coatroom. But as Andrew’s absence continued, Mike suddenly got up, noting he had to be on his way.

  When he was gone, I retraced the security steps, turned off the camera, and opened all the doors, all the time thinking, Bingo! That covers extortion, money laundering, tax evasion, and the coatroom.