Super Born: Seduction of Being (17 page)

Had my mind been working then, I
would have questioned her presence and saved myself a lot of grief
later. I might have remembered her mentioning the woman who’d
marked me, and the fact that she was looking for her.
Why?

I looked back to find her in the crowd, only to
find her standing right in front of me.

“
Well, if it isn’t Mr. Penn State.
What are you doing here, Tom?”

My body remembered the panic I had felt at our
last meeting, and I experienced instant ‘shrinkage’ as she said the
name Tom. I pretended not to remember her at first so she would not
realize the effect she had had on me. I pointed at her. “Ms….I’m
sorry, I can’t place your face, but I’m sure we’ve met.”

“
That’s cause it wasn’t my face you
were looking at.” She held out her hand, and apparently decided to
play along with my game. “Jennifer Lowe, I did the psychology
department survey on women who lose their parents…at the coffee
shop, remember?”

“
Oh, yes! We never did get your
answers…or my pen. How’s that coming along?”

“
The B.I.B. doing the survey
too?”

I gave her a very fake laugh. “Nooo. I’m also a
free-lance writer. Thought this would be quite a story…guess
not.”

“
Why’d you come if you knew she
wouldn’t be here?”

“
What?” I said, reprising the same
responses that had worked so well for me at our last conversation
with her.

“
She told you she wasn’t falling for
this, didn’t she?”

“
Who?”

“
God, I’m not going to stand here
and play this game with you all night,” she said, turning to leave.
“Call me when you figure out what’s good for both of you.” She
looked back at me over her shoulder and walked away.

Well, that went well. After a moment and some
deep breaths, my little friend had the courage to return and
together we watched the crowd leave. Finally, it was just me and a
few workers in the cleanup crew. I stared up at the night sky. It
had seemed so alive with anticipation, but now just felt cold and
dark as the wind blew discarded cocktail napkins around my
head.

* * *

On the rooftops, my sniper teams tried to piece
together what had happened. Everything was a blank for them, from
the moment when the searchlight had been switched on until now. The
whole crew was struggling to put together what had just happened.
Why had they dropped their equipment on the ground? Why didn’t they
remember the last few minutes? What had made them look up at the
searchlight beam?

The spotter hadn’t thought it through either,
but clearly knew, instinctively, the mission was over. “Abort, all
teams, abort. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

All I thought was,
what a royal fuck-up
.
Gambrelli’s gonna have my
ass.

Chapter 13

The Mob Gets Even—or
Odd…Whatever

I didn’t know how Gregorio was going to take
it. I’d seen him dunk guy’s faces into a boiling pot of pasta over
crap like this. (Just a bit of advice, that ain’t the best way to
eat pasta.) The only thing I, Carmine Camino, had going for me was
the lesson learned from the mayor’s aide, Edwards. Just the way he
had distanced himself from the mayor with his comments to me
regarding the potential failure of the searchlight scheme, I had
done the same with Gambrelli. I had made it clear that I would do
my job, but that I had doubts about sack of shit’s plan. Even
though he had learned of the Searchlight Event disaster immediately
after it had happened, the reminder of it in the next morning’s
paper stirred the embers of his anger. He sat in his booth at
Giovanni’s scowling at the front page while I stood a safe distance
away.

“
B.I.B. A NO SHOW,” read the
headline.

“
EMERGENCY SERVICES OVERWHLEMED BY
HUNDREDS OF ACCIDENTS,” read a smaller heading, accompanied
by:

“
FAA SEARCHING WRECKAGE OF EIGHT
AIRCRAFT FOR CAUSE OF CRASHES”—

“
INSURANCE INSTITUTE SAYS IT MAY
TAKE WEEKS TO TOTAL LAST NIGHT’S DAMAGE”—

“
MAYOR DECLINES COMMENT ON NIGHT’S
EVENTS”—

“
10% OFF SALE AT MACY’S.”

Gregorio slammed down the paper which fell to
the floor in an unfolded mess. “Just 10 percent? Such bullshit,” he
muttered. He looked up at the faces of his crime-boss ancestors as
they stared down at him from photographs ringing the booth. “Hey,
Camino? You see all these assholes up here?” he said pointing to
the circle of pictures over his head.

I nodded, “Sure, Boss. Aren’t those your
people?

“
Yeah, yeah, my people. You know
what they’re doing right now? Laughing. They’re laughing their
asses off at what a fuck-up I am!”

“
Na, boss. They wouldn’t do
that.”

“
They are, right now. Don’t you hear
it?” Gambrelli glanced around at the pictures as if they were
alive.

I didn’t know if Gambrelli was joking or if
he’d really lost it, so I kept quiet.

“
Go ahead and laugh…you old fucks!
But you’re all dead!” Then he turned quickly to his grandmother, as
if she had spoken to him. “Shut up, you old bitch!” He lean over to
her picture and pointed at it. “This one, you see this one, Camino?
Did you see what she just did? Huh?”

“
No, boss.”

“
She just stuck her tongue out, put
her thumbs in her ears, and stuck out her tongue! She always hated
me. An old woman giving her grandson the raspberries, how dignified
is that?” He turned away then turned back to the picture and stuck
my tongue out at her right back.

He lowered his head, a man defeated by his
trust in a politician. He reflected for a long moment, and then
raised his head back up as a mob leader who was in charge. He
fumbled through the pockets of his suit and pulled out a mobile
phone, but then pulled out another and another, until five of them
were on the table before him. The sixth and last proved to be the
one to call the mayor.

“
What’s up, boss?”

“
Calling the mayor. As much I hate
that little prick, he can still be useful. I’ll give him a job he
can handle this time. You, you go get the son of a bitch and bring
him here.”

With that he made the call, and I began
breathing again, glad my head hadn’t taken a bath in a boiling pot
of fettucinne..

* * *

I stormed passed the mayor’s receptionist and
found him in the private bathroom of his office at city hall,
taking a leak. The boss was right; he was a little
prick.

I escorted the mayor to Gregorio’s
booth and then stood beside the table. The sheepish, neutered mayor
slid into the booth like a dog with his tail between his
legs?

“
I have a job for you, and this time
don’t cock it up, putz,” Gregorio said, shaking a forkful of pasta
at the mayor.

With his head down, the mayor answered, “What
do you want me to do?”

“
You talk to the DA and get the
jurisdiction changed on Tony Turtulio’s indictment. Get him moved
from city jail to county. Let all the details of the transfer leak
to the media, and be sure all the right cops are driving escort for
the transfer.”

The mayor was quiet for a moment, most likely
trying to measure his response to avoid sounding combative. “You’ve
already made it clear that Tony will never serve a day of prison
time. She’ll know you’re gonna spring him. She’ll be waiting for
you”.

Gregorio’s face soured with frustration. He
could not reach the mayor over the long table, so he gestured to
me. I smacked the mayor on the side of the head.

“
I don’t pay you to think anymore,
understand? You just do it! Understand?
Comprende? Capisce?”

The mayor nodded. Gregorio nodded. I pulled the
mayor out of the booth and sent him on his way, wiping my hands
with a napkin afterward to remove the slime.

After finishing the forkful in his hand,
Gregorio wiped his mouth with his napkin and started making phone
calls.

“
Boss, I know it’s none of my
business but…what’s the plan here?”

“
You too, Camino?” Gambrelli shook
his head and put down the phone. “It is a curse to be the only one
in the room who can think! That black bitch can’t let us spring the
Tool. We know she’ll be there to stop our guys.”

“
Yeah, she’ll be there with bells
on.”

“
Exactly,” he said, smiling, clearly
enjoying the image of her with bells on. “So we know where she will
be. Understand?”

“
Yeah,” I said, getting it. “So when
she stops our guys, we have more guys waiting to jump her. Like a
trap!”

“
Like a trap.” Then Gambrelli
returned to his phone. As he dialed, he suddenly turned to look up
at his grandmother’s picture, as if it had spoken to him. “The same
to you, puttana!” he yelled at the picture before flipping her
off.

* * *

The sniffles that had come on after we left the
Batman premiere had turned into a full-blown cold. I lay on my
couch with a sore, red nose and tissue in hand, watching the
evening news. I had been to work that day, but now realized I
shouldn’t have. I sipped a Miner’s Lite beer for purely medicinal
purposes, feeling that it would do wonders for the aches and
pains.

From the TV came the name
Tony “The Tool” Turtulio,
which caught my attention.

“…
Tensions are running high over the
transfer of The Tool, who has repeatedly stated that no jail can
hold him, and that he will never serve a day of his sentence. The
transfer will take place tomorrow morning, accompanied by a heavily
armed escort. Parts of several city streets will be closed during
the transfer.…”

I sniffled and sipped my beer. I reflected for
a long moment, then said to myself in a very nasal tone, “If you
boys wanna play, we’ll play.” And blew my nose.

Just then, Paige came into the room. “Are we
eating dinner, or are we gonna starve?”

* * *

Journalism. I’m quite proud of this
story. I had to talk to at least a dozen people over a four or five
day period to get the facts right. I wanted to tell the story of
the Transfer of Tony “The Tool,” but the witnesses to the event
were unavailable.
The official story
regarding the transfer of Tony “The Tool” had the B.I.B’s prints
all over it, but no one seemed to pick up on that. So I decided to
get the lowdown on it myself. I had to talk to at least a dozen
people over a four or five day period to get the facts straight,
but I did. What follows here is the real story.

But here is the true story.

Most of my info comes from Shaun Dugan, and
some cops I got to know while researching other stories. Shaun’s
uncle, Jimmy, is a career cop. From what I could find out, Jimmy’s
not the arrow you should shoot if you wanted it to fly straight, if
you know what I mean. Over the years he had worked “special”
details of mob-related events that, shall we say, didn’t always go
by the book. From these events, he had gotten promotions, money to
blow in Vegas, and contributions for his kid’s schooling. So no one
in the know was surprised when he was tapped to be the driver of
the prison transfer truck for Tony “The Tool.” Being a family guy,
Jimmy lobbied for his nephew Shaun, a rookie cop, to ride shotgun
in the van.

Understandably, Shaun was nervous, as the truck
carrying them and “The Tool” approached the abandoned parking lot,
where they were to change escort cars. Shaun said to his uncle,
“Jimmy, I don’t like the looks of this. Why are we stopping here?
We’re sitting ducks.”

“
Don’t worry. Just follow orders,”
his uncle told him. They stopped and the escort cars drove away.
“In a few minutes, it will be all over. It’s just to mislead anyone
following us. Those cars will stay on this route, lead a dummy
truck, and a new set of cars will take us on a different route. ”
(In case you didn’t notice, that is what qualifies as Grade A
bullshit. What was really going on was this: the escort cars were
being switched to give Gambrelli’s crew the opportunity to spring
The Tool from the truck.)

Shaun trusted his uncle and kept quiet, but the
whole procedure seemed high risk to him.

After a couple of minutes, he heard the back
door of the van open. Shaun started to get up out of his seat, but
Jimmy put his hand on Shaun’s shoulder and pushed him back down.
“Relax. Just relax. That’s standard procedure. Thompson’s verifying
that everything’s clear. ” In reality, Jimmy knew that a group of
Gambrelli’s men had shown up to spring The Tool and trap on the
B.I.B, who was sure to have shown up to try to stop
them.

Shaun remained nervous, but Jimmy sat back in
his chair and sipped some coffee. “Just relax. We’re cool. Shaun, I
should let you know that being a cop isn’t always by the book.
Sometimes you need to follow orders that won’t seem to be the right
thing to do, but in the long run, it’s better for
everyone.”

“
Like what, Jimmy?”

“
Like this. You’re getting all
nervous when you don’t have to be. Look at me, am I nervous? No,
cause I’m following orders. I know if I do that, everything will be
just fine.”