Scores

  I hung up the receiver, dialed Sergio’s cell phone, and repeated verbatim what I’d been told to say. Sergio’s reaction was nothing less than euphoric. He promised to immediately reach out to Angelo and set up a dinner within “the next couple of days.”

  True to his word, Sergio called back confirming dinner on the following night at an Italian restaurant in the Bronx. After I wrote down the name and address of the designated establishment, I ended the call and leaned back in my desk chair. A small bistro in the Bronx. Great. If it looks like the restaurant in my dream, I’m not going in. I’m running away.

  The pre-briefing convened in my apartment about two hours before the Bronx meeting was scheduled. The agents brought the standard hardware: F-Bird, microphones, beeper-transmitter. I brought clean underwear with the “Karst pouch.”

  Before commencing the process of attaching the recording equipment to my torso, Karst reached into his briefcase and brought out a file contained in a manila folder. “This is an exact copy of Urgitano’s son’s file at the parole board. It has the records of his prior hearings—both the public records and the board’s private memoranda. If you take a look in there, you’ll see it also has the dates for his new hearing and the board members who will sit on his case this time around. That information has not yet been released to the family, or even to the prison, so he should be quite impressed and convinced you’re dealing with someone deep on the inside.”

  I was myself impressed, and quickly reviewed the entire file, confirming it contained everything detailed. “This is really something, Jack, how did you get it?”

  “Both federal and state prosecutors want to bring a case against Angelo. He’s a longtime soldier with a long history of violence and sadism. A case against him, even at his age, will send the right message: no one in organized crime is safe from prosecution.”

  Reading the confidential notes of the board, I looked up at the agents. “Sergio did lie to me about one thing. This ain’t a ‘good kid.’”

  Armed with an F-Bird, a manila envelope containing Urgitano’s son’s file, and “a song and dance,” I drove north on the FDR Drive toward the Bronx. I was followed by a nondescript car manned by the FBI and, locating the restaurant in a small strip mall close to Sergio’s apartment, parked to the left of the entrance.

  Pulling back on the glass front door, I spied a small bar with stools, separated from the main dining area by an étagère-like wooden wall panel. Sergio looked up from a seat at the bar and rose to his feet, calling, “Michael, come with me, I have a table.”

  As we seated ourselves, Sergio smiled. “I’ve already ordered the whole dinner; I know everything you like.” He motioned to the waiter to start serving their appetizers, and requested a round of liquid refreshment.

  When the waiter passed beyond reasonable listening distance, Sergio peered at me greedily. “Angelo can’t stay for dinner, but he’ll be here soon. Tell me what’s up?”

  I breathed deeply, preparing myself to convincingly recount the carefully constructed tale. Monitoring my verbal tempo, I began: “As I told you, I flew to Albany and met with my friend. He thinks, despite the many obstacles posed by a murder conviction and an organized crime jacket, he can influence the parole decision to come down the right way.”

  Reaching for the manila envelope beside me, I removed the file contained inside. “Here’s a copy of the son’s official parole board file, the file used by actual members on the panel. It has all the information about his upcoming hearing. Angelo can take this home and study it, but he can’t show it to his son’s lawyer, he can’t copy it, and I must have it back soon.”

  Sergio took the file and leafed through it quickly, plainly not taking the time to digest any of its contents. He placed the file to the side of the table. “How bad is the bad news? How much?”

  “I’ll need twenty-five thousand dollars down in cash and an additional one hundred thousand dollars when and if the kid gets paroled. If my friend fails, he gets to keep the deposit and obviously gets nothing more. That’s the deal and it’s non-negotiable.”

  As the meal started arriving, Urgitano entered the room. When Angelo drew Sergio’s attention, he scooped up the file and walked with the veteran Lucchese soldier over to the bar. As I started to move in tandem, Sergio looked back at me. “Stay put, Michael.”

  After about ten minutes, which seemed to me like a crawling hour, Sergio returned to the table alone. “Angelo was in a rush but he couldn’t believe his eyes; he says there’s stuff in that file nobody but the parole board itself could know. He said you’re ‘real.’”

  When I made no response, Sergio freely continued, “He took the file home with him, but he definitely wants to do the deal. He needs a week, so we’ll meet same time, same place. He’ll bring the twenty-five large to you in green.”

  The balance of the dinner was uneventful, but Sergio’s mood was unmistakably upbeat. Perhaps his ego had been inflated as the successful go-between for his pal, or perhaps he’d worked out a potential financial boon for himself if everything went successfully to plan.

  After finishing our dinners and parting ways in the strip mall’s parking lot, Mike stopped short. “Where are you heading now?” he pointedly asked. It was a simple, harmless question, but the way Sergio spoke the words stabbed at me. Not able to respond with the truth, as I was heading directly for a debriefing, I blurted out the first destination to pop into my head. “I have some people to see at Scores.”

  Sergio betrayed no reaction and walked toward his parked car after planting a firm bear hug around me.

  Turning the car’s ignition, I couldn’t shake the curious unease I continued to experience about Sergio’s interest in my next stop. I became convinced the question was more than idle curiosity. Did he or Urgitano suspect something? Did Urgitano order Sergio to keep close tabs on my next moves? Would they have someone following me? The more I pondered, the more paranoia splashed over me.

  After a couple of miles, I grabbed the car phone and dialed Karst. Sharing my concerns about Sergio’s abnormal interest in my comings and goings for the evening, the agents agreed to postpone the office debriefing for an hour. In the interim, I wanted to stop at Scores, just as I said I intended.

  When I pulled the Mercedes onto East Sixtieth Street, I tossed the keys to one of the valets and instructed the car be parked in front. Scores was batteringly loud as I entered, and I felt a potential migraine brewing, cursing myself for choosing the club as my next stop.

  Walking into the menagerie of smoke, music, gyrating topless dancers, and inebriated customers, I was loath to engage in conversation, mindful every spoken word was being recorded by my leg. I needed to find a way to be invisible for a bit. Luck remained my companion still and, as I walked into the dining area, my favorite “massage girl” and friend, Marcie, was walking in the opposite direction. Spurning a waiting customer at my request, she sat with me at a dining room table and administered a long and luxurious foot massage. As usual, some patrons weren’t overly thrilled to be bearing unwilling witness to my massage while enjoying their dinners, but I couldn’t have cared less. As the woman’s strong and practiced fingers worked themselves deeply into my painful arch, I could feel all the night’s tensions draining away.

  When Marcie remarked with a laugh on the sidelong disparaging looks the foot massage was attracting, I simply whispered, “Such are the joys of ownership. Anyway, if they were such sensitive gourmets, they wouldn’t be eating here. Our food is more offensive than my feet.”

  After the massage, Willie Marshall stopped by the table as I was putting myself back together and preparing to depart. “I had a conversation with Andrew earlier,” Marshall shared. “He told me about the Scores IPO. I sound like a broker now, right? All I can say is you guys are fucking amazing. I’m gonna set up a dinner with my boss, you know, what’s-his-name.” As he ended the sentence, he crossed his lips with a finger revealing his desire not to say “DePalma” aloud.

  “That’s good n
ews, Willie. We’re gonna need him, and you, to make the IPO work, and make us all rich.”

  “In your case, don’t you mean richer?”

  I laughed in response, walking toward the club’s outer vestibule. Reaching the front door, I heard someone calling my name. Turning back, it was Steve Sergio seeking my attention from behind the cash register.

  As I retraced my steps, Sergio the Younger said, “I spoke to my dad a little while ago and he said you did him a big favor tonight. He said you’re the ‘greatest guy in the world.’ But you know he’s really getting a little crazy as he gets older; he didn’t want to talk to you and he didn’t want you to know he called. He just wanted to see if you were here.”

  Unhappy at the information, I thought to myself, If your father didn’t want me to know he called, why are you telling me? But to Steve, I replied with a smile, “I guess he was just worried about my driving here from the Bronx safely. I drank too much club soda at dinner.”

  Leaving Steve laughing, I retrieved my car and drove it into the night on my way back to the office. To put it mildly, I wasn’t New York’s happiest camper, my thoughts turning in rapid-fire succession. Sergio has a bug up his ass about something. He has never called to check up on whether I actually went somewhere I said I was going. There’s more to this than meets the eye, but I don’t have a clue what it could be.

  I decided to raise my concerns as the first issue at the debriefing.

  Seven nights later, I was nervously pacing my living room, waiting alone for Karst and Ready to appear for another Urgitano pre-briefing. I’d been out with the agents on multiple weekly missions for months now, and between those late-night escapades, daytime office filmings, proffers with the United States Attorney, and constant conversations with my lawyers, I was mentally and physically exhausted. The strain was becoming unbearable, and for the most part, was being borne by me—alone. I was fearful of burning out.

  Noticing the FBI was unusually late, I was relieved when the phone rang and caller ID revealed my friend Marisa Anderson on the line. Anderson, a friend, law client, and practicing psychic, was one of the very few intimates with whom I shared the fact of my undercover activities. Her counsel and empathetic personality repeatedly served to brighten my spirits in my darkest moods.

  After answering the call, we exchanged pleasantries. Marisa focused the conversation when she asked, “You’re not going out tonight on one of those missions, are you?”

  I felt a spark of panic. “Why are you asking?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, I’ve just been uneasy about you all day. But if you’re going out tonight, I feel there may be trouble. Nothing you can’t handle, but you need to be on alert, something is brewing around you.”

  I was about to launch into a vigorous cross-examination of my psychic friend when the lobby phone sang to signal guests had arrived. I asked Marisa to hold, ran to the phone, authorized the visitors through security, and sprinted back to the call. “Are you sure I’ll be able to handle what’s coming?”

  A pause followed, throwing me into an even greater degree of concern. “Yes I’m quite sure, but be on your toes. You’re too smart to get caught, but tonight’s going to be a test.”

  The ringing of the doorbell demanded an end to the call, and I was denied the opportunity to ask the myriad of questions crisscrossing my imagination. Distracting nervousness pulsed through my senses as I regretfully replaced the phone in its cradle and walked to the front door.

  Anticipating only Karst and Ready, I was surprised when a parade of strangers walked into the condo. In addition to the regular duo, Paul Roman appeared with three unidentified middle-aged women. Noticing the confusion on my face, Karst smiled. He introduced the three women as agents of the Internal Revenue Service.

  “We’re gonna send the IRS agents ahead to the restaurant. We want you to try to count the money in a way they can observe. They’re not going to try to total the cash with you; they just need to verify that ‘cash’ was turned over to you by Sergio and Urgitano. Questions?”

  When I shook my head, Karst sent the agents on their way. As she was leaving, one of them stopped and said, “When you receive the currency, I’ll probably get up and cast a glance at you as I head to a phone or the bathroom. Don’t look at me or notice me, and please don’t make the mistake of acknowledging me by a smile or gesture.”

  Signifying my understanding, they departed and the FBI proceeded to fill my underwear pouch with the F-Bird.

  The drive to the restaurant had been pure, unmitigated torture. I was sorely tempted to call Marisa back on the car phone, but that would have meant recording our conversation. The government would certainly have been mightily displeased to learn I was consulting a psychic and that she was aware of the secret investigation. Following the same road map as the previous week, I walked through the restaurant’s front door and, except for a few tables, the place was empty and eerily quiet. Sergio and Urgitano were seated at the bar and, to my dismay, neither was drinking anything.

  Sergio rose and kissed me on the cheek. He gestured toward a stool between them and, removing a wire hanger from a nearby standing rack, offered to hang my suit jacket. Bells and buzzers of alarm rang through me immediately. In the years of our friendship, through dozens of meals and meetings, he’d never once assisted in the removal of my suit jacket. Clearly, an orchestrated game plan was at play, and I feared I was the mouse in the maze.

  Seeking to compose myself and set order to my wildly dispersed thoughts, I desperately needed a few moments alone. Removing my jacket and handing it to Sergio, I indicated a need to use the facilities. Neither one seemed to care.

  In the bathroom, my bottled-up panic escaped control; fear was my dominant emotion. All my instincts screamed for me to abort the mission, “live to fight another day” emerging as my mantra of the moment. But painful reality couldn’t be avoided. If I ran without accepting or counting the cash, the proverbial “jig” would be up, investigation over, trust forever gone, and legal problems up the ying-yang.

  Walking into a stall, fearing one of the men would come to check on me, I lectured myself into the merest semblance of calm. Think! Be smart! Do something! I repeated these words as a war cry. The first move I took, in deference to my psychic friend’s warning, was to open my shirt and move the chest microphones below my belt. I didn’t care if the sound was impaired, it was better than getting caught.

  After straightening myself up, throwing cold water on my face, and patting off the remaining beaded mixture of sweat and water with a brown paper towel, I looked in the mirror. What the fuck, this is why you get the big bucks. Better this than a cell mate named Bubba!

  Walking back to the bar, consciously painting a smile on my lips, I had a comforting thought. Maybe it’s a mafia custom to remove your jacket when counting money.

  Resuming my reserved place at the bar between my hosts, Urgitano motioned toward the bartender, who reached under the frame and came up with a crumpled paper bag. Sergio reached for the bag and removed slipshod bundles of cash. He divided the bundles in front of himself and handed one to me. “Count it, each should be five large.”

  I picked up the bundle, removed the rubber band, and started to count. I hoped the small tremors in my hands weren’t visible. As I continued counting, Urgitano demanded a glass of ice water from the bartender. As the glass was handed across the bar, he began coughing wildly and spilled the water directly onto my shoulder and sleeve. While a witness might have honestly described the spillage as a mere accident, there wasn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that both Urgitano’s coughing fit and his water mishap were intended actions.

  Grabbing a towel that had been conveniently placed on the bar top, Urgitano maneuvered me into a standing position. The old man’s sure hands started wiping down my shirt, carefully passing directly over areas where tiny F-Bird microphones had recently nested. When the overattention to a purported simple water spill ended, with Angelo apparently satisfied my upper body was clean, we
reseated ourselves and the counting resumed.

  When I reached the third bundle, a small woman approaching the bar caught my eye. She asked the bartender for the bathroom, and glanced casually at the cash sitting in front of the trio of patrons. I made every effort and ignored the IRS agent—despite a weird compulsion to do the opposite. I was actually beginning to calm down, believing the worst was now over, with the searches at an end. But as I began to count the fourth bundle, Urgitano placed his right hand on my left knee, the knee unfortunately attached to the leg bearing the F-Bird. Although the gesture was disturbingly inappropriate in any circumstance, no sense of alarm arose in me until the hand started to move in an upward circular patterned rotation.

  Biting down stomach acid, and impossibly trying to maintain an accurate count of the cash, realization dawned that I was in deep shit. The massaging continued, slowly but unrelentingly, on a direct course up the leg and toward my privates. He’s fucking searching for an F-Bird, I silently yelled, and he’s gonna find it real soon!

  It was crystal clear, I needed to do something, anything; inaction was not a viable option as Urgitano’s tender touching was already merely inches from the mechanism. A dozen possibilities tore through my brain in the course of a second: another bathroom trip, a coughing fit of my own, dropping the cash, asking for a drink. But as swiftly as each thought was born, it was rejected as obvious, telltale, or just plain dumb.

  Finally, an absurd and desperate notion took hold. It was outrageous, bold, offensive, insane, but perhaps a brilliant counterstrategy. It called for more courage than I believed I possessed, yet somehow I knew in my gut it was the only possible course to salvation. On the other hand, I also realized what I was contemplating might get me killed on its own merits.