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The skies over New York had opened on that cool, September night. Noticing the ripples of water drops across a paddle in front of me, I checked the street. I jogged off, focusing my attention on the meeting place. Its blue paint had to have been flaking off for years, if not decades. The sign over its entrance was in white font and missing quite a few letters.
“L vings on: Spar Par s & Ac esso r es”
In a Knicks cap to cover my features, I slid open the metal gate to the property. Well down the front yard and slightly to the right, I spotted a large, grayish door. I continued onwards at a steady pace, throwing cautious glances left and right. To my satisfaction, traffic was light. There were four vehicles on the road at the time. An old lady was rolling a cart down the sidewalk, her back to me.
I gripped the latch and yanked it aside, metal grinding into metal as I did. With the latch’s handle still in my palm, I pulled it to the side, until I felt resistance. That door had to have weighed a couple of tons. I heard it slide slowly to the right, some light coming through the gap. I moved around its edge and stepped in. Amazingly, Cesare and Matteo were already there. Cesare was a lot of things. Punctual wasn’t one of them, unlike Matteo. Obviously, our friend’s suggestion to meet in that warehouse had piqued his interest. Right under an old fluorescent light, they were facing me. A blackboard was between those two, Matteo holding a long stick close to its surface.
“Sweet disguise,” Matteo commented as I slid that beast of a door back shut.
“Don’t give me that shit,” I growled, setting off towards them. “I want to know why the hell we had to meet here. What was wrong with my place? Or yours?”
“Patience, young one,” Matteo raised his voice, tapping the end of the stick into the board.
“He’s not familiar with that concept,” Cesare added, his sideways gaze on his cousin. “Maybe you should have explained to him.”
“He’ll get over it,” Matteo assured, before settling his gaze on me. “I took an initiative, Leonardo. I had to know why that Owens-Roselli woman had bothered following me around. So, I paid her a little visit.”
“You did?”
I cocked both eyebrows, waves of surprise hitting me.
“Yup,” he said, the writing on the board getting clearer with every step I took. “I didn’t find her, but I ran into the next best thing. A guy named Rocco DeLuca, the head of her security. You’re not going to believe this, but the girl isn’t part of the organization. The mob’s actually using DeLuca and his associates, to make sure no one’s interfering with their business. That’s the price they had to pay to get out of the organization.”
“So, Owens-Roselli’s crew is what? Watchdogs?” I wondered, my voice rising up an octave as I stared at the blackboard. There was a large circle on top, with “Mob” written in it. Right below that, was a smaller circle, containing the name “Roselli.” Our names were on there, too, but I couldn’t quite figure out how our circles fit in with the bigger ones.
“You got it,” Cesare confirmed with a nod. “They’re like mafia cops.”
“Boys, I hate to say it, but we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Matteo pointed out. “DeLuca is about Cesare’s age. He’s got a lot of experience under his belt. He knows that world inside out. I don’t know about his associates, but it’s going to be abitchtrying to take him out.”
“If it comes down to that, we will,” I said, my voice steady. “I don’t care how experienced he is. We’ll get that motherfucker.”
“Matteo’s right, Leonardo,” Cesare interjected. “Whatever we’ve been planning to do just got a lot harder. We’ll have to beverycareful with those guys, especially now that they’re onto us.”
“It’s all pretty simple, now that we know the score.” Matteo was the next to speak up. “DeLuca’s crew is in a tough spot. They have to watch out for people like us and stop them, or else they’re in danger of getting whacked themselves. He made that pretty clear yesterday.”
“Whatever,” Cesare said, waving his hand in front of his face. “Leonardo, any updates on the truck’s new route?” That had been one of my jobs the past few days.
“Yeah,” I answered, taking my cell phone out of my back pocket. A few swipes later, I held it down in front of those two, to show them the new route of our target. “Before, their route took them through some fairly populated areas, but now they’re trying to skirt those areas and stick to the woods.”
Cesare frowned. “But we attacked them in the middle of the woods. Why wouldn’t they drive down the most well-lit street in the goddamn city?”
Matteo grimaced. “Because they’ve got more backup now. They’re expecting a shootout, and there will be fewer questions if it happens in the middle of nowhere.”
“Those bastards must feel pretty comfortable under the wing of the mob,” Cesare growled. “Look at this shit. That truck’s going to be on dirt tracks for a while. It’s practicallybeggingto be robbed.”
“I hear you but taking them out isn’t going to be easy. If they were going to drive through a town in the middle of the night, I’d recommend a sniper rifle on a rooftop a couple of blocks out, but that’s not going to work in the middle of a forest.”
Matteo had had special weapons training when he was in the army, so he was our arms expert.
“We’ll figure it out,” Cesare said, looking up at him first and then, me. “We’ll need to do some recon, but I think we’ll find a sweet spot. Let’s go.”
Excitement filled me. At last, we were going to do something.
We wouldn’t just talk. Maybe it was the time spent in the hospital, but I was tired of sitting on my ass. Of resting and recuperating. I wasn’t made for that kind of thing, and neither were my buddies.
We needed to get out there and see for ourselves just how we were going to hit that damn truck. I did agree with Matteo. Shooting at a tall, moving vehicle from the ground level would not be easy. We were all good marksmen, but there would be a lot of obstacles along the way. Still, I wouldn’t lose hope. Not after Cesare’s suggestion to scout out the area in the dead of night. There would be fewer people to see us, and it would more closely recreate the conditions we’d be under when we eventually took those bastards out.
12
