I had a few things going on, you know, the usual street stuff which I kept under close observation, and of course I’d get my hands dirty on some of the more lucrative stuff, or just those things we have to do from time to time to put a little heat under the competition if you know what I mean.

So one day I’m meeting a guy who works downtown, he’s a guy who I do favours for every once in a while, you know, make sure his kids don’t go without, make sure he can afford to buy his wife the sort of gifts you can’t get on a government wage…. and I get things in return from him. Anyways, so we’re sittin’, chitchattin’, like friends do, even though we’re definitely not friends, and he says, “Eggs, you need a legitimate income. You need to be able to show where your money comes from”. So I says “yeah, yeah, I know, but no-one’s gonna pay any attention to me, I keep my stuff quiet”. But he tells me some people from the IRS are startin’ to take an interest in the Italian community, particularly a few people who have been known to make charitable contributions, to the Saint Vincent de Paul, that kind o’ thing.

I started talkin’ to a few of the guys from the old country, and they were sayin’ how it’s hard to get proper Italian food, and how they know this guy at home who makes the most amazin’ olive oil, and that guy at home who makes the most amazin’ salami, and some other guy who makes this beautiful cheese, and even though times are hard they’d find a way of getting a taste of home if they could. So I says to myself “Eggs, this is what you need to get in to”.

So I had some letters written, I arranged some visits, and I made some plans. It all took a while but that gave me time to find a warehouse before I left, somewhere near the port but close enough to home that it was no sweat getting’ there. It’s a depression so the rent is cheap, especially since I signed a long lease, and I paid a little extra for some privacy. I took a ship and went back home to Napoli, and I drank some wine and I ate some food and I did some business.

And that’s how I got in to the import business. I thought this was just going to be something to generate some paperwork, to keep the people who care happy, but it became so much more than that. Shipping stuff in meant I could get things in the crates that weren’t on the manifest, things I didn’t want no-one to know about. And I started to bring in a lot of stuff. We were wholesaling it all to begin with, everything that came in found a home real quick. And then I started to think why don’t I start retailing it too. So I opened a deli, just at the side of the warehouse, and the stuff we sold was good, so good the shelves would be stripped pretty soon after they were filled. So I opened another deli, and before too long there were a bunch of them. There were people I knew in the neighbourhood, good people, who needed a little help from time to time, so they got it. It helped build my reputation.

Now the thing with the delis is people don’t always want to carry the stuff home. So you deliver it to them. And that means the people who you do the favours for don’t need to meet you face to face no more. You can send them a delivery with a little something extra tucked in an envelope inside and no-one walkin’ by pays any attention to a grocery delivery. It was beautiful. I even opened a little place in the back of the warehouse for hard-workin’ men to quench their thirst after a long day or night’s work. It was very discrete, an’ people respected that. Business was good.

So I opened a few delis in other places, out of town. The out of town places were meant to be strictly legit, well kinda, see, they helped wash the money coming in from other, errr, activities. But they also meant I could get guys to look around, see what opportunities there might be, if there was nothin’ doing on the less legitimate front then sobeit, but if there was a buck to be made, I wanted to make it.

Now Providence is an odd kind of town. It’s close to Boston, so the Irish have some influence there, but in our circles it’s mainly Italian. And it’s not very strong. If it was the Boston Micks would get all agitated, so it is allowed to do it’s own thing, the locals have some ties to New York, but they’re pretty independent day-to-day. and because of that the Micks leave it alone. But for the legit side it seemed perfect. There’s an Italian community there who would buy our stuff. There’s money there, not so much in Prividence itself, but in Newport and places like that, old money, and those guys are always looking to say “Oh try these olives Father, I get them imported from Italy and they are just delightful”. I could get stuff for Providence shipped in to Boston, so I split my risk on the stuff I’m bringin’ in that I mentioned before, the stuff I don’t want no-one to find. And if the locals are a bit sloppy in this sleepy town there could be opportunities to pick up the slack so to speak. This place would be perfect.

I gotta tell ya’, Providence was not perfect.

So I needed someone to go up to Providence and run things. I had a guy I trust go and find premises, get distribution, shake hands on some deals and get things off the ground. But he’s too useful to leave in Rhode Island for long, and I need someone who can look at things differently from this guy. I’m talking to some friends of ours and one of them says “I got this guy Dominic working numbers for me. He’s a good kid, keen, wants to do well for himself, this could be a way for him to cut his teeth with a little more responsibility?”. So, I met the kid, he seems OK and he has references so to speak, so long story short he comes to work for me. He’s happy as a dog with two dicks and can’t wait to get up there. And things were goin’ pretty well for a while.

Now the thing with Wise Guys is this. They do what they gotta do to keep the higher-ups quiet. They kick up what they have to kick up, if you tell them you want something taken care of they take care of it, mostly. But they’re Wise Guys, they’re always lookin’ to earn, and the kids you gotta keep on a tight leash sometimes in case they start hidin’ what they’re earnin’ and not kickin’ up enough. Dominic was told there would be opportunities, but he needed to clear anything new before he started. I told him this, but I guess he didn’t listen.

See, it turned out that within a few months he’d started doin’ a little freelancin’. We had a couple of things goin’ that I sanctioned, nothin’ big, a little help for the students to work through the night, that sort of thing. It didn’t bother no-one, the local crew was too busy with protection and bootleggin’ to pay much attention. But then he started puttin’ a little money out on the streets, and that got the local crew’s attention. He hadn’t asked, I guess he thought he could keep it quiet. It turned out he’d got a coupla guys to make collections for him, guys who used to do some heavy work for the locals, so guess what? They found out. And they were pissed. Shylockin’ was good business for them, and this wasn’t just standin’ on their toes, it was punchin’ them in the face.  

One of his bagmen comes back one day all beat up. Dominic pays little attention. The next day the other guys comes back all beat up. Dominic’s solution? He gives them both guns. This kid is in way above his head and he don’t know it.

I didn’t know nothin’ about it until he calls.

“Eggs, I got a problem up here. One of the trucks got hijacked today, they torched the truck and the driver’s in the hospital”

“What? Fuck? What did we lose?”

“A truck”

“Yeah I know we lost a fuckin’ truck, you told me they torched it, what was in it?”

“Nothin’…”

“Nothin’? What the fuck do you mean nothin’? They must have taken somethin’”

“It was empty, it was on it’s way back to the yard. I think it must have been meant as a message”

“A message? Who the fuck wants to send us a message in Providence?...... OK, listen, I’m comin’ up there tomorrow, I’ll take a train, I’ll bring a couple of guys and you’re gonna tell me exactly what the fuck is goin’ on up there, and then we’re gonna take care of it.”

So I make a couple of calls, we’ll meet at Penn Station and head up there in the morning. First train.

I was on my way out when I spotted a big automobile parked out front of the warehouse. Turned out my little watering hole was being visited by an important friend of ours and I went to pay my respects. A few hours later I actually left, it had turned in to a fun night, one that would leave it’s mark in the morning, nothin’ strong coffee and some shuteye on the train wouldn’t take care of, but we didn’t take the first train.

A little before 2pm I was shaken awake. “We’re here, time to go”. I slipped on my jacket, fixed my tie, and put on my hat, pulling the brim down to shade my eyes from the early-afternoon sunshine. We took a cab to the deli and walked straight round back to the office. I could see Dominic silhouetted through the frosted glass in the door, pacing up and down, I could hear his voice but I couldn’t make out the words and I wondered who else was in there with him. The door was opened and we walked in, there was no-one else there. He’d been talkin’ to himself. Probably trying to get his story straight.

I knew this kid wasn’t stupid, well, not completely stupid, and he proved it. He didn’t give me no bullshit, he told me what had happened, what he’s been doin’, and that was probably why the truck got torched. The kid didn’t know it, but his decision not to bullshit me saved his life. It wouldn’t have been hard for me to find out what had happened, he probably knew that much, but if I’d found out after he’d tried to give me some load of shit, he’d have been dead. No question.

Now I’d got no muscle in Providence, and no easy way of getting any there. I was stretched pretty thin at the moment, goons were two a penny, but we were way out of town here, if I needed muscle here it had to be people I trusted. And I needed those guys in New York. Besides, I told ya, there were the Micks to think about, if New York guys started movin’ up to Providence they’d see that as a threat, and respond, and that I really didn’t need. No, this called for diplomacy, if it needed to be gunboat diplomacy with the local crew even that might be a problem, this needed to be all smoothed over nice and easy. But I needed to at least break even.

“You know who these guys are, and where to find them?”

“Yeah, I know”

“OK, go tell them I’m here and I want to meet. Tell them I’ll be in the restaurant at the Hotel Providence on Matthewson, that’s where I stayed before isn’t it? Yeah, OK, tell ‘em I’ll be there at 5pm, and don’t be late, make sure you don’t forget that bit”

It was important to add the part about not being late. I needed to establish myself with these guys, they needed to see that I was confident, that I was not fucking around, and they needed to take me seriously. They needed to come to this with some level of uneasiness, that would make an agreement easier. And I wanted an easy agreement.

“You want ME to go? They’ll probably break my legs!”

“Well, if they do that I’ll know what we’re dealin’ with won’t I? This is your fuckin’ fault Dominic, and you’re not gonna go pussy on me, and besides, if you don’t go Bruno here will break your fuckin’ arms AND your legs. Capiche?

And don’t go in there all big-balls, you’re deliverin’ a message, that’s all, and I want them to see you as the messenger boy, nothin’ else, they don’t gotta respect you here, in fact it’s better if they don’t”.

While Dominic was out running his errand I had the girl in the office call the hotel and make a reservation, table for 6, 4.30pm. I wanted to be there when they arrived, no surprises. She came back in and told me the restaurant doesn’t open to non-residents until 5pm, so I got her to book me a room too. I didn’t plan on usin’ it, but sittin’ here wasn’t no good neither. The sooner we met, the sooner I’d be on the train back to New York, and I already knew my plan.

We got to the hotel at 4.30 sharp. Dominic drove us there which, if you haven’t already cottoned on, means they didn’t break his legs. I told him to wait out front in the car. I checked in, got a room key, and we went straight into the restaurant. We were the only people there, not surprising at 4.30, well, 4.40 by the time I’d checked in and paid for the room. A few minutes after we sat down two goons appeared in the doorway, had a look around, then one left, leaving the other to stand seemingly nervously by the door. Five minutes later and four guys walk in. They looked like fuckin’ cartoons, not an ounce of style amongst them but all dressed up like gangsters, like they were goin’ to a costume party. If this was meant to impress me it didn’t work, but I tried to hide my amusement.

OK, so I learned two things straight away, apart from the fact these guys need to meet a new tailor. They came, so they wanted to straighten this shit out. That was good. And they weren’t late, that meant they were doin’ what I said already. OK, they probably wanted to make sure I didn’t have the joint packed out with shooters, but they came straight after their guys scoped it out. And there’s somethin’ else. They looked uncomfortable, kinda nervous, I started thinkin’ maybe I could go a little harder, but not too hard.

“You’re early” I said, standing to greet them, I offered my hand and it was taken a little reluctantly at first I thought, the grip a little too firm, like he was really tryin’. If he was tryin’ to intimidate me this shit was never gonna work. And if he was tryin’ to impress me, nearly breakin’ my fuckin’ hand wasn’t gonna work neither. He released his grip, introductions were made and I invited them to sit.

“There ain’t enough places”.

“Well, that’s unfortunate, I guess you’re gonna to have to decide who’s the least hungry”.

They turned and spoke to each other, quietly at first, then one got animated, another raised his voice in protest, then turned and left muttering under his breath as he walked away towards the two goons while the other three took their seats.

“I’d offer you wine, but, prohibition” I said. “I must speak to the manager when we’re done, see if I can’t help him do something about that. So, first things first, let’s order and then we can talk business.”

They all ordered the most expensive things on the menu. Of course they did, we were even on points after the matter of the wine. But that was OK, it was good for them to feel like they had made a point, however minor. They could have this.

Placing the order was the only time I heard two of their voices. It was obvious who was in charge, so that’s another thing I know, I know who I’m dealin’ with and I know who is the protection. And so do my guys. But there are three of us, and six of them, this needs to stay verbal. I knew they’d outnumber us, this was their town after all, but I also needed them to outnumber us, I needed them to see we had balls, that they didn’t scare us, these cartoon gangster pricks. And if they felt they had an upper hand in somethin’, well that worked for me just fine.

“So, it seems we have a problem to resolve, and I would like to make a proposal”

 It wasn’t difficult to sound calm, I’d had lots of practice, although I have to admit I was trying to think a few moves ahead, and I’d decided that I needed to try to speak a little more ‘genteel-like’ to try to sound, you know, in control. I’d seen this done as I was comin’ up, and it can work. You just sound confident and not try to use words you don’t know, that just makes you look like a prick and no-one wants to look like a prick.

“We’re listenin’”

“Well, I’ve been told that… let’s call him a friend of mine, has been taking an interest in things that, ahem, conflict with your interests. I have no desire to do that, so my proposal is this: I bring him back down to New York and I replace him with someone who can behave himself, someone who knows where your toes are and knows he must not step on them, everythin”.

“That’s agreeable”.

“So, that leaves the issue of me needing a replacement truck for the one that, ahem, there was an incident with”.

“I don’t follow”.

“No, I’m sure you don’t. OK, that’s understandable, let’s come back to that”

“There’s nothin’ to come back to, I don’t know about no truck”

“Right, I understand, forget about the truck. Now, if I’m takin’ this guy out of town and handin’ over his activities there’s money out that needs collectin’, so I suggest we sell you his book, you pay off anything that’s outstanding less the vig and you take over the debts. I’ll tell you how much the book is worth, you pay me that money, and then you get the book with names, amounts, vig, all of it. I’m not looking to earn from this, just break even. Hell, I’ll throw in the other stuff around the campus for free, but you buy wholesale from me, and if you expand that, you still buy wholesale from me”.

His denial about the truck was irritating. If you’re gonna send a message at least have the balls to sign it, you know? I’d started to pay less attention to how I spoke, if they were gonna try to play games they needed to know that I ain’t no plaything, this ain’t some Upper East Side pussy he’s dealin’ with.

“I wanna see the book first”.

“That I am not prepared to do”

“Why?”

“Why?” I leaned in to the table, “Because if I show you the details in the book what’s to stop you picking up some of those debts without paying for them? This is something you are gonna have to trust me on, somethin’ I’m not prepared to give way on, and somethin’ that could jeopardise this whole deal if you refuse”.

“And what if we refuse this offer? What if we just walk outta here and take what’s ours?”

I felt like I’d offered him too much, in any negotiation you always push for more from the first offer, in my haste to get this taken care of quickly I’d bet big when the cards were dealt which he had called, now I needed to play a big bluff on the flop, I had to go all in.

Bruno was sitting on my left, I sat back in my chair and turned to him, smiling, and slapped him on the back; “I like this guy! I told you on the way up here these guys would drive a hard deal. Was I right? Was I right?”.

Turning back to Mr Providence I stopped smiling quickly and allowed my gaze to settle on him judging precisely the length of my pause.

“You could do that. Hell of a ballsy move, but you could do it. In some ways I’d respect you for it. But you know the phrase ‘don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth?’ – well this is a gift-horse I’m offerin’ you, and I can see you’re getting’ close to the mouth, well let me tell ya, this horse I’m givin’ ya is no pony, it’s big and it’s strong and it has sharp teeth, lots of teeth, and it bites hard, right to the bone, and it don’t let go, it keeps bitin’ until there’s nothin’ left ta bite”.

I learned a little trick a few years back. If you focus your stare on the bridge of someone’s nose you can seem like you are looking them square in the eye. But looking there instead of their eyes it’s easier to resist blinking. You can do it for a long time. So that’s what I did, and that long unblinking stare worked.

“OK”, he said, “what’s the number?”.

I took a folded sheet of paper from my breast pocket and placed it on the table, wrote a number and blew gently on the ink to dry it, looking him in the eye as I did so, refolded it and slid it across the table to stop in front of him. He opened it, looked at the number and laughed.

“Christ, I thought it would be at least double this!”

“Then I assume you can get the money together quickly and we can conclude our business. Do we have an understanding?”. I stood and offered him my hand.

He rose to his feet and shook my hand, turned to the non-diner still by the door and beckoned him to the table.

“Go see Freddy, tell him to bag up this and you bring it back here”, he handed over the paper and his guy quickly turned and left.

I leant over to Bruno and quietly told him when Frank says the money’s all here he’s to go out to Dominic and get the book, and before he comes in check the little shit has added the entry I told him to make earlier.

An uncomfortable hour went by with little conversation. The bag arrived into the restaurant and I gestured for it to be given to Frank. I gave him the key to my room and told him to count it there in private, inviting our guests to send someone along to keep him company, an offer which was accepted.

Frank returned with the bag and said it was all there, when he heard this Bruno stood, excused himself, and left.  A few minutes later he casually strolled back to the table and put his hand in to his inside pocket, bringing out the book and handing it to me. As he reached his hand in the goons got jumpy, probably thought he was gonna pull a piece, fucking idiots, it was a hotel restaurant, that’s exactly why I chose this place, so no guns would be involved. As soon as they saw the book they calmed down though. Thank God.

I slid the book across the table with my hand still on it. The Providence guy reached out for it but I didn’t release it.

“One more thing, if I’m keeping things strictly legit here from now on, apart from our little supply deal, you don’t touch the place. You let us do business, you continue to buy from us, I’ll give you my word our prices will be good, you don’t start asking for insurance, you don’t start having guys hang around outside intimidating people, none of this happened and nothing with happen in the future, this is a friendly transaction. The only reason for your guys to visit is to collect the wholesale merchandise we spoke about”.

“Agreed”.

I released my hand, “I trust you, don’t disappoint me”.

He started looking at the book, it was all there, original loan, vig, payments made, current debt, everything. The kid had done a good job of the book, I'll give him that.

“What’s this last one? It has your name entered”.

“Oh yes, I took out a small loan today, I got some pretty good terms”.

“This says zero interest and 99 years to repay”.

“Yes it does”.

“The amount, shit, it’s about half of the book”.

“Yes, it’s about the cost of a new truck, but don’t worry, I’m good for it, and I’ll repay the loan exactly on the date it’s due, you can be sure of it”.

“But, this isn’t what we agreed!”

“This is exactly what we agreed, you buy the book for it’s current value, and you run it. Now I’m gonna keep my side of the deal, the kid is comin’ back to New York with me tonight and he’s not comin’ back. I’m not comin’ back unless you give me a reason to, and if you give me reason to come back I won’t be in the mood for dinner and a friendly conversation. Capiche?”

I stood and walked towards the door, flanked by Bruno and Frank, Frank carrying the bag of cash. In honesty it wasn’t much, but the principle was priceless. The two goons stood in the doorway, preventing us from leaving. I stopped, stood, and cleared my throat.

“Get out of their way you idiots”, and the idiots got out of our way.

We drove straight to the train station. Dominic complained he had things to collect but I told him we’d take care of it. Bring the keys to his apartment and bring the keys for the car. Someone else would be coming up who’d need a place to stay and some wheels.

We got back to Penn Station around midnight. I was beat. Bruno and Frank left us as I jumped in a cab with Dominic. I decided I needed a drink, so we headed back to the warehouse. The kid had hardly spoken the whole way back, and that was a good thing. He had fucked up, and right now he needed my providence more than anything.