by Solomon
“Okay,” was all Vito replied. Then he hung up.
Frankie hung up, tapped a cigarette from a packet and lit it. He pictured in his mind Vito relaying the message to Vincenzo, who was sitting right beside him. Vincenzo never spoke on the phone. The old man was smart, Frankie thought, but maybe not smart enough…
The phone rang. Frankie picked up.
“You tell them, they’re free to handle their problem. Our hands are washed,” Vito reported.
“Okay,” Frankie answered, then hung up. He took a drag of his cigarette, savoring the smoke and the godlike power he had in his hands. Of course, it wasn’t his power…not yet. But he knew it was all a matter of time.
He exhaled and dialed another number. The phone was picked up on the second ring.
“Yeah?”
“He just gave the Gambinos the green light.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure the word reaches the kid.”
Frankie hung up, tapped his cigarette in the ashtray and took another long drag. There was nothing he’d like better than to let the Gambinos kill Joey, but he needed him alive just a little longer, to be the scapegoat.
It was all just a matter of time.
The last call was the shortest: two rings and two succinct words.
“Do it.”
Then he hung up and went back in his hole.
Three nights later, Zev sped along the Cross Bronx Expressway in his midnight blue Porsche 940. He was on his way to see Joey, who had a safe house in the Bronx. He smoothly flipped lane to lane, dipping in and out of traffic as he sped toward his destination. He was going to tell Joey that the Gambino family had a hit on him. As he came off the exit, he thought about how he had come to find out.
Mickey had an arrangement with the Gambino family involving shipments of caviar coming from Russia. Their contact was a top-ranking soldier named Peter Amuso. When Mickey was killed, Zev inherited all of his connects. Zev already knew Peter because of Mickey’s contact with the operation. He and Peter hadn’t talked too much; it was always cut and dry, but Peter had taken him aside and said, “I guess congratulations are in order, huh?”
Zev just looked at him.
“What is it you are saying?” Zev asked, emotionlessly, even though he knew exactly what Peter was talking about.
Peter held up his hands and replied, “Hey, no disrespect. It’s just, Brooklyn’s a small place, and we run in similar circles, capice? But I understand, you know, we all gotta go sometime. Me? I got plans too, and I like you, so maybe we can help each other out one day.”
“Maybe,” said Zev.
“And maybe that day is today. You got that thing with Joey D?”
“Joey D?” Zev echoed, playing dumb.
Peter smiled conspiratorially.
“Joey D, you know…anyway Joey’s a good kid; he’s got a future, but things are about to get dark, real dark, if you know what I mean. Tell him to make sure he watches his mirrors. The family’s got the green light,” Peter explained cryptically.
Zev eyed him suspiciously.
“So why do you tell me?”
“Tell you what? I ain’t told you nothin’, and that’s exactly what I’ll say if it ever gets back to me. But you’re a smart guy; I figure you’d know what to do with a gem like that, you know? We run in a tough crowd, so it’s always good to have a favor or two. So keep it between us and nobody’ll know you and Joey owe me, eh?” Peter concluded, then walked quickly away.
For a moment, Zev contemplated not telling Joey the information. He knew how conniving Italians could be, almost as conniving as Russians. So he knew Peter had an angle; he just couldn’t see why you’d risk the wrath of your family just for a favor. Or were the Gambinos testing him to see how he would react? And lastly, why did he even care? Why get mixed up in all of their Italian bullshit? He could just let things play themselves out and make a deal with the last man standing.
Deep down, he knew that Joey would be the last man standing. He had seen more money in the last few months than he had in his whole criminal career, and he had Joey to thank. Sure, he used him to set up Mickey, thereby forcing his hand and making him a conspirator after the fact. But once the smoke cleared, he was now the Boss, a move that would’ve taken a war to pull off on his own. Besides, he did owe Joey a modicum of loyalty because of Seth. Russians are very sentimental…
Which is why he was pulling up to the building in which Joey was holed up. He parked the car and chirped the alarm. He smiled when he spotted the thin homeless woman in the alley, pushing the shopping cart piled with what anyone would assume were her only world possessions. When she saw Zev, she smiled back. It was Maria. The girls rotated, keeping the building under surveillance. All people saw was a crazy bag lady. She was crazy all right, but the kind of street sweeper she had in the cart would sweep more than trash. The building was a seedy, rundown tenement. It was a Black and Latino area, which Joey chose on purpose. That way, any White face would stick out.
Zev took the stairs to the third floor with gun in hand, off safety.
He got to the apartment and knocked. A few moments later he heard, “Who?”
“Me.”
The door opened, and Te Amo was standing there with a Colt .45 in her hand. They both tucked their pistols in as he stepped through the door.
“Where’s Joey?”
“In the salon,” she quipped sarcastically.
“Huh?”
“Go look in the living room,” she answered, heading for the kitchen in the opposite direction.
He walked the length of the dim hallway, toward the living room. Unlike the outside, the apartment was clean and well kept; the living room was adequately furnished. A big screen TV covered one wall, lit with the somber colors of Batman. Chi-Chi lay on the floor, watching it. When he looked to the right, he couldn’t help but laugh despite the gravity of the situation. He understood what Te Amo meant by the salon. Joey was sitting in a leather recliner, reclined and wearing nothing but sweatpants, as Marilyn gave him a pedicure. Maliah was giving him a manicure and Anita was giving him a facial.
Joey looked up when he heard Zev’s laughter, and shook his head. “This is what happens when you go to the mattresses with a bunch of broads.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Anita scolded him, “before you crack your mask.”
“I’m like a Ken doll over here. Hey Zev, please get these cunts somebody to kill, will ya?”
Hearing the word “kill,” Zev’s mind returned to the current situation. “We need to talk.”
Joey nodded, swung his legs to the floor and got up.
“Come on, while I get this shit off my face,” he said.
They went to the bathroom and Zev talked while Joey wiped the cream off with a towel.
“The Gambinos have a price on your head.”
Joey stopped and looked at him, studying him intently.
“Since when?”
“Recently. I don’t know. I learned about it today.”
“From who? Where? Tell me what you know,” Joey demanded in rapid-fire fashion.
Zev started from the beginning and as he talked, Joey paced the floor like a caged jaguar in a zoo. When he finished, Joey growled, “Again, tell me again.”
And Zev did. Joey listened intently, scrutinizing Zev’s every word, stopping him several times, as if he were interrogating him or trying to catch him in a lie. He wanted to know, but the most painful part was to hear that the Gambinos had gotten the green light. That could mean only one thing.
His father had no only turned his back on him, but wanted him removed from the game completely.
When he survived the hit, he told himself that his father would’ve never okayed a hit on his own son. There had to be another explanation. But now, it was rock solid. He knew the Gambinos would never move without the green light and only his father could’ve given that green light.
“Who the fuck is this guy? What’s his name?” Joey probed.
“That is no matter; the poin
t is what will we do now,” Zev replied, trying to keep a lid on Joey’s anger and guide him to a better, clearer state of mind.
It didn’t work.
“Fuck do you mean, it don’t matter? You protecting this guy or something?” Joey barked. “This cock sucker tells you I’m marked and thinks he can play both sides? Who the fuck is he?”
Zev bristled, not at Joey’s tone, but the implications. He spoke calmly in a measured tone, but it was the measure of a cold heart growing frozen.
“I did not have to bring you this. That fact alone I urge you to remember.”
The two eyed each other evenly. Tension filled the bathroom. Joey felt it and reluctantly relented, recognizing Zev’s sincerity in his anger. “Zev…I’m not asking you to go against your word. You have my word that nothing will happen to this guy. I just need to know what I’m dealing with.”
Zev thought for a moment, then his gaze softened. “Peter Amuso.”
Joey nodded then pinched his lip, pensively, pacing as he talked. “Okay…this is what you tell him…tell him I freaked, that I pulled a gun, whatever, dress it up, make it sound good, follow me? And then you follow him. Have someone good pin a tail on him. I don’t care if the fuckin’ Feds are following the son of a bitch; you follow them and him. I wanna know who he goes out of his way to meet, and trust me, he’ll do just that,” Joey surmised.
Zev nodded. “And what will you do?”
“I’m going to a Yankee game; the Red Sox are in town,” Joey replied, then walked out of the bathroom.
At Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox were in town and the Bronx was on its worst behavior. Scalpers peddled their wares openly, because it was as if the police looked the other way for Yankees/Red Sox tickets.
Louis “Bananas” Bonanno and his raven haired six-year-old son walked through the crowd. His son was dressed in Yankee pinstripes from head to toe, Don Mattingly’s Number 23 worn proudly on his back. He carried a right-handed baseball glove because it was still too big for him to wear, but he had to have it. Louie got into the spirit as well, wearing an identical glove as his son’s and a Yankee cap on his head. They looked like the average American father and son, not the gangster and his kid. Louie looked forward to this first time with his son, because it reminded him of the times with his father. He didn’t even have his bodyguards with him when he went to Yankee games. They trailed him to and from the Stadium, but stayed with the car. This was father-son time: a fatal mistake.
The Yankees were looking good, and Louie was enjoying himself, so much so that he never notice the two redheads that sat behind him. He was on the third base side, mid-level, where the overhang made the boisterous cheers and sonorous boos bounce all around.
The two redheads cheered when the crowd cheered, booed when the crowd booed, all as if they were in Rome. They blended in and stood out at the same time, just as they wanted to. They were patient and yet on edge. They were waiting for one thing…
The wave.
The wave was a crowd favorite. In every stadium, at every type of a sporting event, someone would set off the wave. The concept was simple: one section would start it by standing up, throwing up their hands and then sitting down. Isolated, it had no effect, but if everyone in the stadium did it—one right after another—the visual effect truly looked like a human wave. It was fun, it was a huge crowd pleaser, and it was also the perfect moment for a murder.
Right before the 5th inning, it happened. It started in the right field bleachers.
“Look, Daddy, the wave is coming!” Louie’s son exclaimed, excitedly.
“Yeah, that’s a pretty big wave,” Louie chuckled.
“Can we do it, Daddy, please?” the boy pleaded.
“You sure you can swim?” Louie teased.
The people rose and sat in a unison that looked choreographed and not the spontaneous creation that it was. As it made its way around the first base line, Louie felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see who it was and looked into the pretty smile of one of the redheads.
“Remember me?” she asked.
“Nah,” Louie replied coldly. He hated to be interrupted during his father-son outing.
He turned back around, but something in the back of his mind made him remember her eyes, the clear blueness of them, the shimmer—but most of all, he remembered the coldness. He had seen it before; it only took him a second to remember.
“Here we go, Dad!” his son gleefully announced, as the wave engulfed them.
Louie saw his son’s mouth move, but he was oblivious to the words. The sound of cheers all around overwhelmed his senses. The people in front of them and behind them stood up, so he was alone deep in the pocket of the wave. As he turned his head back to look at the girl with the cold blue eyes, he felt a sharp, searing sensation run across his throat, starting at his jugular vein and ending across his Adam’s apple. It stung, but it didn’t burn, and his mind told him what had just happened.
His throat had been cut from ear to ear.
The weapon Alicia had used was a surgeon’s scalpel, an instrument designed to save lives, yet just as effective in taking one. Louie began to gurgle on his blood, as he leaned back in the seat, grasping at his throat. The agony he felt was nothing compared to the agony he would’ve felt had he seen what was happening to his son. At the same time that Alicia was slicing Louie’s throat, Amanda was doing the same thing to his son.
Just as he stood up, throwing his little arms in the air, Amanda grabbed him by the forehead and plunged the scalpel expertly into his neck and slit his entire throat in one smooth motion; then she forced his dying body into a slump in his seat. His neck was so small that, had she cut further, she would’ve decapitated him. Blood sprayed like summer rain onto the man in front of him, but he was having too much fun to notice.
It happened so fast, that by the time the wave had moved onto its completion, the two redheads were making their way up two separate aisles. When they merged with the crowd, they had discarded their wigs and were simple dyed brunettes. People would later tell the police conflicting stories. One story said a redhead that went left; others said a brunette that went right. Still, others said the brunette went left and the redhead went right.
The murder scandalized the City. It was clear that it was a mob hit, but what was unusual was that a child was murdered as well. Everyone knew that La Cosa Nostra didn’t involve wives and kids.
But Joey was sending a message and declaring war on the old ways. If you don’t recognize me, I don’t recognize your rules, and without rules, only the best man would win. He was determined to prove that he was the best man.
The very best there was.
Several days later, Joey jumped out of a cab in front of the Trump Hotel and handed the cabby a $50 bill.
“Keep the change,” he told him.
He adjusted the cuffs on his double-breasted silk pinstriped Brioni suit. His hair looked like he had just stepped out of the stylist’s chair and a diamond pinkie ring winked whenever it was given time to reflect. His swagger turned heads as he headed inside the hotel.
He had come to see Enrico, who had just arrived from Miami with the latest shipment of X-pills. The drug was beginning to really catch on at the clubs and college campuses, up and down the East Coast. Joey’s team was making money hand over fist. Everybody was playing their part, but it was Enrico who had really come though like a champ.
He had the smuggling game down to a science. Instead of using the New York airports, he used Miami International. He told Joey he had a mole in baggage, customs, and maintenance. He knew his trade well, and that impressed Joey. His relationship with the New Yorker was no longer standoffish, but still had an air of tension that Joey felt was time to clear up. Always one to push the button, Joey had come to shove it, open fistedly over the cliff.
Enrico was staying on the 21st floor. When Joey got off the elevator, he almost bumped into a sexy little Asian getting in the elevator.
“Excuse me,” he smiled.
&n
bsp; “Anytime,” she replied, flirtatiously.
They exchanged looks—more like licks—then passed on, each to their respective destinations. Joey arrived at the door and knocked. Several seconds later, Enrico answered it.
“Joey, good to see you! Come on in,” Enrico greeted, shaking his hand.
Joey stepped inside, looking around the luxurious suite.
“Living in the slums, I forgot how the other half lives,” Joey quipped.
Enrico chuckled.
“What are you drinking?” Enrico asked, standing at the bar.
“Anything but vodka,” Joey replied, unbuttoning his suit jacket then sitting down on the couch and crossing his legs, right over left in languid gangster style. “Fuckin’ Zev.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I just dropped off the shipment,” Enrico chuckled.
“Everything good?” Joey asked, knowing that everything was good already, but wanting to see how Enrico rated the situation.
“Good? I’m the best,” Enrico shot back, cockily.
Joey held up his glass, as if to toast his arrogance. “I love a guy with confidence,” he remarked, then drank.
Enrico sat on the arm of the love seat, eyes intent on Joey. “I heard that the Yankee thing with the kid got the cops riled up,” he said.
Joey shrugged. “It’s their job to bust balls; keeps you on your toes.”
“Yeah, but hits don’t usually involve kids. Whoever did it must’ve been…pissed,” Enrico surmised then sipped his drink.
Joey nodded with a slight smirk that seemed to say, “I’ll indulge you.” He sat his glass down on the end table, turning his attention back to Enrico.
“What is it that you’re trying to say, Enrico?” Joey questioned, his tone with an ever so subtle hint of warning.
Unflapped, Enrico simply shrugged and replied, “Just making observations.”
Joey nodded and echoed, “Observations…okay.”
He stood up and grabbed his drink.
“Come on, I wanna show you something,” Joey announced, heading across the room to the balcony. He opened the sliding doors, stepped out then looked back to see Enrico still perched on the arm of the chair. “Whaddya doin’? I said I wanna show you something.”