Super Born: Seduction of Being Read online

  I had dropped so quickly from a high to a low that I took it very hard. I hung my head and just stood as the crowd flowed by me. The mayor had escaped early on with all of his advisers. The news crews and their cameramen had run to cover the real story in the streets below. I remember taking no special notice of it at the time, but I saw Jennifer Lowe in the crowd of people as they filed by me. She wore a long, dark coat and a generic beret, but there was no mistaking her face, which was burned in my memory.

  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.”

  When the truck rocked back and forth, then up and down. Jimmy reassured his nephew that it was just Thompson letting The Tool stretch his legs or something. Shaun later realized that his uncle knew that the boys had to work Thompson over a bit so that The Tool’s escape wouldn’t look too easy. What neither Shaun nor his uncle knew was that the remaining groups of Gambrelli’s men—around twenty-five—had shown up to take out the B.I.B.

  Several minutes later, they heard the back door slam shut, and someone slapped the side of the van to indicate all was ready.When the second set of police cars arrived as escorts, Jimmy said, “What’d I tell you? Okay, here we go. Home free.” As he put the truck in gear, he pulled in line behind the escorts. “Easy as pie.” None of these folksy phrases helped Shaun ignore his gut feeling of concern.

  But when they arrived at the county jail without further incident, Shaun had chilled—a little. He was up and out of the van while Jimmy took his time. The rookie unlocked the rear door and had begun to open it when the weight of something pushed the door open without effort. The unconscious body of a man dressed in a suit fell at his feet. Shaun instinctively unstrapped and raised his 9 mm. When the man didn’t move—but seemed to be breathing—Shaun looked up to find the van littered with unconscious men. He was bending to handcuff the man on the ground when Jimmy rounded the back of the truck and stopped in stark amazement.

  “Jimmy, look,” began Shaun, “This is ‘No Neck’ Nicky, and that’s Franky ‘The Fish.’ There are outstanding warrants on all of these guys! Give me your cuffs,” he said, taking them and clapping them on The Fish. “We’re gonna need a lot more cuffs.”

  Jimmy ran to the front of the van and returned with a box of plastic-wrap restraints that would do for the time being. He and the rookie were busy cuffing, searching, and stacking the henchmen like logs on the garage floor when the other officers arrived, marveled at the sight, and began to help. When they reached the front of the van, under the pile, they found The Tool with a major-league black eye, unconscious but well. Officer Thompson was there too, with a jaw that just didn’t look right. Shaun and Jimmy called the medics.

  After the “catch” had been revived and carted off to jail, Shaun stood tall and accepted handshakes and congratulations from anyone and everyone on a job well done, for a rookie. When everyone had moved on, he stood behind the van for a long while, admiring the scene. That’s when he noticed some plastic-wrap cuffs that hadn’t been used lying on the floor of the van where the pile of mobsters had been minutes before. He proudly picked up the unused cuffs, but then he noticed a used tissue that had been under the stack. He picked it up with ends of two fingers and said to himself, “Someone’s got a cold.”

  * * *

  I put together a picture of what had really happened for the readers of my website to counter the official line that the arrests were a result of a police st
ing operation. I knew, I friggin’ knew, the arrests and the disaster for the mob were the result of B.I.B. and her beauty, strength, and keen intellect. (There are so few of us.)

  Those twenty-five thugs had been outnumbered by an army of one, my girl. She’d dispatched them so quickly that not one of them had a chance to fire a gun. In short order, she’d stacked them in the van and left, tapping the van to tell the drivers to go. The other escort cars had arrived and failed to notice anything a miss.

  I promoted this alternative view in my articles with great success, as people could sense that the official view was BS. Imported BS—you know, the kind that really stinks.

  * * *

  As Gregorio Gambrelli’s right hand man, I was with him that morning. He was full of confidence and anticipation. As he walked around Giovanni’s his steps were light, and he hadn’t put the hurt on anyone all morning—a prince compared to his usual self. I even heard him say, “Hey, it happens,” to a panicked waiter who had dropped his silverware. Even when Gregorio failed to hear reports of his men’s success in dealing with the B.I.B., he did not falter; after all, there were also no reports of failure. He was confident in his boys. Little did he know that there was no one left from the hit squad to report anything.

  The first hint of trouble, in fact disaster, came from a snitch at the police headquarters who regularly called when any of Gregorio’s boys found their way there.

  Gregorio sat down in his private booth to take the call and pressed the speaker phone button. “Who’s it this time?” he barked when he knew who was on the line.

  The man stammered, “Well, it’s everyone…Franky, Nicky, Topo…there must be twenty or thirty guys here!”

  Gregorio looked like the cannoli had gone bad in his stomach. Without any further information, he seemed to know exactly what had happened. “And Tony?”

  “Yeah, yeah, Tony’s here too…he don’t look good. What do you want me to do, boss… boss?”

  Gregorio sent the mobile phone flying. It missed Vito by inches, then flew through the kitchen door as it swung open, landing with a splat in a freshly prepared pot of pasta. Then he took the bowl of linguine with marinara sauce that Vito had been working on and sent it flying into the side of an unlucky waiter’s head.