Eight or nine guys sat around doing nothing. Most of them were middle-aged, with a few young guys and a few older men thrown into the mix. Several of them were playing cards around an old poker table. A few of them were having a drink at the counter pass-through between the main room and the kitchen. One was sitting in the corner reading the newspaper. One was clipping his fingernails. Two were having a heated argument, to which the others were paying no attention whatsoever. Rosetti spoke to these two, “You two cafoni, shut up. We’ve got a visitor.”
They immediately stopped arguing like someone had flicked off a light switch.
“Everybody, listen up. This is the guy I was telling you about. The actor. Joey Volpe. Joey the Fox, I call him. He’s going to be helping us on the convention job.”
Joey the Fox? I’d been in the Mafia ten seconds and I already had a moniker.
I didn’t have time to think about that because suddenly the whole atmosphere of the room changed. It was if Frank Sinatra had walked through the door. Several of the guys applauded. Some of them made that strange “Whoa” diphthong sound that you would hear on The Sopranos. They patted me on the back. They shook my hand. They punched me on the shoulder. And, of course, they began asking questions:
“Hey, you were the one who died on the toilet, right? I had an uncle who died the same way. Heart attack caused by constipation. Can you believe it?”
“Well …” I said.
“No, you asshole,” said another. “This was the guy who hung himself in his basement because Tony wouldn’t let him retire to Florida.”
“Fuck both of you idiots,” said another guy. “Joey is the one who played the guy that Christopher carved up in the butcher shop. Remember? Christopher said, ‘It’s going to be a long time before I eat at Satriale’s again.’”
“I’m a method actor,” I said, “but I draw the line at playing a slice of salami.”
Everybody laughed at that. Although I wondered how many of these mobsters knew what a method actor was.
“Hey, Joey, I loved Button Men. How come you never got a chance to play the big role on any of the episodes?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. We had gotten through The Sopranos interrogation without me having to admit I never had more than a walk-on.
“Well, the producers told me my big show was coming up in the second season. But we never got that far. We got canceled.”
“That was a goddamn shame,” said one guy. “I loved that show.”
“Me too,” said several of them at once.
These guys were nicer than I thought they’d be!
“All right, all right,” said Rosetti. “You guys sound like a bunch of women at a book-of-the-month club. Before we break out the mah-jongg tiles, we got some business to discuss with Joey. Paulie, Carlo … you two come into the back room with Joey and me. Mike, bring us four espressos. Then run down to the pastry shop and buy us a box of sfogliatelle. We’ve got some planning to do.”
Rosetti led us into the back room and all four of us sat down at a conference table. It was just another cheap metallic dinette with a dirty Formica top like the ones in the social room.
“Carlo, get the map of the convention center in Boston and lay it out on the table here.”
“Wait a second—”
“Hang on, Joey, let’s take a look at the lay of the land first. Then we can discuss our strategy.”
“But—”
“Hold your horses, Joey.”
Carlo laid the map on the table and smoothed out the wrinkles and folds. Mike arrived with five espressos and put one down in front of each of us. Then he left the room and closed the door behind him.
“Okay, here’s what we’ve got.”
“Mr. Rosetti …”
“What the fuck is it, Joey? It’s not time for you to talk yet. I’ll let you know when we need your advice.”
“I’m not in the Boston convention, sir.”
“You’re not in it? What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to the Boston Fan-Con.”
“You sure as hell are. You’re going if I have to put a gun to your head and walk your ass all the way up I-95.”
“Mr. Rosetti. Tony. Sir. It’s not that. I’d like to go.” (Actually, I wanted to avoid going at all costs.) “But I haven’t been invited.”
“Not invited?”
“I don’t get to go to all these Fan-Cons. I have to apply. I even have to pay a fee. Sometimes my application gets denied. The Boston convention turned me down.”
“Turned you down?”
“The big conventions often turn me down.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not William Shatner or Patrick Stewart or George Takei.”
“Who the fuck are they?” said the mobster named Carlo, who was obviously not a Star Trek fan.
“They are stars. I’m just an actor.”
“Oh, shit,” said Rosetti. “I hadn’t thought of this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“So what’s the next convention you are going to?”
“Columbus, Ohio.”
“I like Columbus,” said the mobster named Paulie.
“You’ve been there?” asked Rosetti.
“No, I like Columbus the explorer guy. He was Italian.”
“Please shut the fuck up,” said Rosetti. “Everybody shut the fuck up unless you have something useful to say.”
There was a long silence.
“Mr. Rosetti?”
“Is this going to be useful, Joey?”
“I think so.”
“Go ahead, then.”
“You don’t need any maps or blueprints. All these events are set up exactly the same.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a big exhibit hall. The security checkpoint is usually located just outside the exhibit hall at the main doors. The celebrities are sitting at long folding tables lined up along the periphery of the room. Some of the more important celebrities have stanchions set up to control the line. Some of the smaller celebrities … like me,” I added, “are sitting at tables and the line forms in front of them.”
“What’s a stanchion?” said Paulie.
“It’s like those metal poles and velvet ropes you see when you’re waiting in line at the bank,” I said.
“I don’t wait in the line at the bank,” said Carlo. “I go in with my guns blazing.”
“Carlo, can we get through this without making any more stupid jokes?” said Rosetti.
“Yeah. Okay. Sorry, boss.”
“Let me tell you what we were thinking, Joey,” said Rosetti, “and you can tell me if it’s a good idea, okay?”
I shrugged my shoulders as if to say I wasn’t an expert on these matters. He went on anyway.
“We get Carlo and Paulie here dressed up like movie gangsters. You know, like Edward G. Robinson. Or that other little guy. That Yankee Doodle guy, you know, ‘You dirty rat, you killed my brother …’”
“James Cagney.”
“Yeah, Jimmy Cagney. I always liked him. I liked when he stuck the pineapple in that girl’s face.”
“Grapefruit.”
“What?”
“He stuck a grapefruit in his wife’s face,” I said.
“What the fuck difference does it make? Maybe it was a kumquat. Just shut the fuck up and listen to me.”
“Sorry.”
“May I continue?”
I nodded.
“So anyway, we dress Carlo and Paulie up in movie gangster outfits. Pinstripe suits. Fedoras. Spats on their shoes. Diamond stickpins in their ties. Pinky rings.”
I looked at the guys around the table. All three of them were wearing glittering diamond pinky rings.
“Looks like you’ve already got that part of the wardrobe covered,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But listen to this. We give Paulie and Carlo a couple of big machine guns to carry. Real monsters, like they used to use during Prohibition.”
“
They’ll never get past security,” I said.
“Shut up and listen. They will get past security because they’re made of plastic. They’re toy guns.”
“So you’re going to rob people using toy machine guns? That’s pretty gutsy. You understand, don’t you, that the security guards will have real guns?”
“So will we.”
“You just said—”
“I know what I said.”
“Then how are you going to get real guns inside?”
“You’re going to bring them in for us,” said Rosetti with a grin.
His plan stunned me. I almost stood up and walked out. Then I remembered what happened to Gizmo. What could happen, God forbid, to Caitlin or Bianca. So I just sat there without saying a word for what seemed like centuries. It was only a moment before Rosetti asked me a question. “Remember when you did the panel discussion the other day, Joey?”
I nodded.
“The security guard didn’t pat you down. He didn’t make you walk through a metal detector. He didn’t even look through that little girlie purse you carry. He just checked your name off a list, right? Then he let you walk right through. Because you’re a big star.”
“I’m not a—”
“I know you’re not a star, Joey. That’s why we’re going to Columbus Freakin’ Ohio instead of Boston. When is the Columbus convention, by the way?”
“Next month.”
“Okay, we’ll just have to cool our heels for a while. Do you see anything wrong with our plan, Joey? Do you see any holes in it?”
“Even if the security guard doesn’t pat me down, I think he’ll notice if I’m carrying two machine guns.”
“We’re going to give you two small pistols, that’s all. The newspapers call them Saturday Night Specials. That’s all we need to do the job. You can stick them in your underpants. Nobody will notice. Or you can put them in your little purse.”
“It’s a men’s carryall bag,” I said.
“Whatever.”
I thought about it for a moment.
“What do we do … I mean, what do you guys do once you’ve got the real guns in your hands. What happens then?”
I waited. After a moment or two, it became clear they hadn’t thought this far ahead. I remembered the Philadelphia mob didn’t have a sterling reputation for competence. “What do you do next?” I said again.
“We rob ’em,” said Carlo.
“You rob whom?”
“We rob everyone there. Whom do you think?”
“You’re going to rob everyone in the main exhibit hall? There may be two or three thousand people there.”
“I thought you said Columbus was a small convention,” said Rosetti.
“It is a small one. At the Comic-Con in San Diego, you might have ten thousand people in the main exhibit hall. In Columbus, there might be two thousand. You’re going to rob them all with two guys and two pistols? By the time the security guards are finished with you, you guys will look like Bonnie and Clyde.”
Silence.
“You’ll look like Sonny Corleone at the tollbooth,” I added.
“We get the picture,” said Rosetti. “You got a better idea?”
I didn’t know whether to help them or hinder them. Part of me wanted them to screw this up, which would get me off the hook for good. I realized Rosetti wasn’t even planning to be there himself. If Paulie and Carlo screwed the pooch, I’d still have Rosetti on my ass. Worse yet, he’d be mad. He’d blame me for the mess. So I decided to cooperate.
“Look,” I said, “there’s no point in robbing all the fans. They don’t have any cash on them. Maybe they have some walking-around money, but that’s all. You want to rob the celebrities. They’re the ones with the cash stuck in their underpants and their shoes. It’s like what Willie Sutton used to say.”
“Who’s Willie Sutton?” said Carlo.
I couldn’t help but wonder about the sorry state of American education nowadays. I mean, here was a criminal by trade and he had no idea who one of the most notorious criminals in history was.
“He was a famous bank robber.”
“So what did he say?” asked Carlo.
“The reporters asked him why he robbed banks, and he said, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’”
“Well, duh,” said Paulie. “He doesn’t sound so smart to me.”
“My point is the celebrities have all the money, so you want to isolate them from the rest of the crowd. Like cutting cattle from the herd. You separate the young bulls who need to be castrated from all the others.”
I surprised myself with that analogy. Where does a kid who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and went to Haverford and Yale come up with a metaphor from cattle ranching? I guess I saw a lot of Westerns over the years.
“And how do you propose we do that, Tex?” said Rosetti.
I hesitated. Did I want to help them this much? The image of Caitlin and Bianca floating in the East River made me go on.
“It’s pretty easy,” I said. “You don’t want to rob them in the main room. You want to rob them in the greenroom.”
“What difference does the color of the room make?” said Paulie.
“No, the greenroom is like a waiting room for actors. Most of the time greenrooms aren’t even green. It’s just what they’re always called in show business. I think it’s because the actors are so nervous they turn green. Or maybe the green is supposed to calm their nerves. I can never remember which.”
“So where’s the greenroom?” said Rosetti.
“It’s usually behind the flats.”
“The flats? What, are you going cowboy on us again? Like the flats in Utah?”
“No, no, no. It’s another theatrical term. A flat is a backdrop that’s part of the scenery in a play. In this case they’re just thin boards covered with black velvet. Or sometimes they use black curtains. They’re behind the tables where the celebrities are signing autographs.”
“Yeah, go on,” said Rosetti.
“Well, there are little openings in those flats. When the autograph session is over and it’s time for the celebrities to have lunch, they slip through the flats and walk to the greenroom. Usually, there’s a buffet for the celebrities and some tables and chairs set up for them to eat lunch at. That’s where you want to hit them.”
That’s where you want to hit them? I couldn’t believe I said that.
A slow grin began to form on Rosetti’s face.
“That sounds perfect,” he said.
I couldn’t help smiling myself. I guess I had a natural talent for grand larceny.
“Here’s the deal,” Rosetti said to his two henchmen. “While Joey is signing autographs, you two guys stand on either side of him with your machine guns like you’re his bodyguards. You’ll dress like gangsters, so nobody will think anything of it. You’ll look like you’re part of the show. Half the people at these things dress up in crazy costumes anyway. You’ll fit right in.”
Carlo and Paulie glanced at each other. They seemed to like this plan.
Rosetti continued, “When Joey breaks for lunch, you two guys go with him behind the blackout curtains to the greenroom. Joey, how much security is there in the greenroom? How many guards?”
I tried to remember all the other Fan-Cons I’d been to, and I thought I knew the answer. I considered the possibility of lying to Rosetti to scare him off, but it was too late for that. I was in this too deep now. I decided to tell him the truth.
“Maybe one guard at the door. It’s like an airport. The security focuses on the main entrance to the exhibit hall. Once you get past that, you’re in the clear. I guess they figure that if you’ve crossed the main security checkpoint, you’re not a threat anymore.”
“Perfect,” said Rosetti. “At some point while you’re signing autographs, you can pass the pistols to Carlo and Paulie. You can do it out in the open if you want. Nobody will give a shit. They’ll think it’s part of your act.”
He turned back
to Carlo and Paulie.
“After you get into the greenroom and everybody is eating lunch, you guys grab the security guard. He’ll probably be a fat melanzane. He won’t know what the fuck hit him. Take his gun off him, too. You can put him in his own handcuffs while you’re at it. Lock the door behind you. There’s only one door in the greenroom, right Joey?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s only one, usually, yes.”
“So lock the door behind you. Then get the celebrities to cough up their cash. Joey said they could have as much as twenty grand each on them. Don’t let them hold out on you. They could have it stuffed in their shoes or in their underpants. Make sure you get it all. Make them take off their clothes if you have to. They’re from Hollywood, they probably like taking off their clothes in public.”
Paulie and Carlo found that remark amusing.
“Joey, we can work out the minor details from here. I’ve got to say you’ve been a big help. I was going to give you ten percent of the haul. I’d like to bump that up to twenty-five because you’ve shown you’re part of the team today.”
Paulie and Carlo found this less amusing. They frowned.
“No, sir,” I said. “No way.”
“I can’t go any higher than twenty-five percent, Joey. There are four of us here. That makes you an equal partner, for chrissakes.”
“I don’t want any money, Mr. Rosetti. I said I’d do this because … well, let’s be honest, because you forced me to do it. But I’m not a criminal. I’m just an actor. I don’t want any of the spoils.”
“What’s spoiled?” said Carlo. “It sounds sweet to me.”
“I don’t want any of the take. The haul. The action. Whatever you call it. If you’re going to make me do this, I’ll do it. But I don’t want to profit from it.”
“Why not?” said Rosetti.
“Well, I don’t want to go to prison for one thing.”
“Don’t worry, Joey, nobody is going to prison. Not you. Not me. Not any of us. We’ll make sure of that.”
“I hope not,” I said. Maybe Rosetti was right, I thought to myself. I needed the money, that’s for sure. If I played my cards right, nobody would get hurt and nobody would know I was involved.
The Don Con Page 8