After her performance and throughout her performance, she found herself unsettled by Tony’s abrupt departure as well as his cryptic words about being afraid. Was he about to be indicted again or worse?
Those thoughts followed her back into the locker room after she collected her cash from the stage.
“Damn girl! Yo ass cleaned up tonight!” Her best friend Lisa Connery said as the two sat on a wooden bench in front of Tiffany’s locker.
“I did alright.” She joked as her yellow skinned fair haired best girl laughed with her. Lisa was gorgeous; maybe not on Tiffany’s level, but more so in Mariah Carey sort of way.
“Are you ok?” Lisa asked.
“I am. But I’m worried about Tony. He wasn’t himself when he left me today.”
“Shit girl, you hadn’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Benny Bingo got whacked today.”
“Shut the fuck up! Are you serious?”
“It’s been on the news all evening. The anchorman speculated that a mafia war may be brewing.”
Before Tiffany could ask another question, a waitress brought her a slip of paper with three names on it.
“Well, I guess I have my marching orders for tonight.” She said to Lisa in regards to the men who would be enjoying her company in a more intimate setting.
“Let me see your list.” Lisa asked.
After Tiffany hands it to her, Lisa goes over what she knows about the men.
“He has a little dick. This one just likes to lick pussy. And the third one…oh shit!”
“Oh shit? Is that a good “oh shit”? Or a bad “oh shit?”
“It depends on your definition of “is”. He likes to ass fuck.”
“He does?”
“Yeah. And he’s hung like a fucking donkey. He has the biggest white dick…no, scratch that, he has the biggest dick I’ve ever seen live and in person.” Lisa informs her.
“He’s done it to you? Did it hurt?”
“Oh no. It slid right in perfectly.” Lisa said sarcastically. “Hell yeah that shit hurt! Do you have any Tylenol? Any Valium? Any of that shit that Rush Limbaugh was hooked on?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, in that case, you’d better stock up on astroglide and stuff for an enema, because that man can bring “shit” out of you that you didn’t know was even there.”
“Based on that, give me one good reason why I should let him anywhere near my asshole?”
“Because he pays double and under the table. Tony will never find out that you’re holding a little bit back.”
“Well, thanks. But based on the other thing you’ve told me. Tony has other things on his plate to ponder versus wondering if I’m being straight with him money wise.”
At that moment in the back office. Tony Lino and his three top guys have a meeting to see where they stand.
“T, this has to be the Dellasondro’s. I say we put a contract on Fat Pete and the Tall Man.”
“And just who are we going to give this “contract” to Sal? Are you willing to take it? You’re a stock broker for Christ sake. Jesus fucking Christ! This was a masterful plan from start to finish.”
“What do you mean by that Tony?” Crazy Nicki asked.
“Think about it. There are two types of wiseguys; you have your gangsters and you have your racketeers. Take Michael Franzese for example. The guy was a made guy, but I doubt if he ever did any wet work.
Now take someone like Roy Demeo. That’s all he did was wet work.
So, whoever is doing this to us is taking out all of our shooters and leaving the racketeers in place.”
“Why?”
“Because, without shooters, we are defenseless. They can swoop in and control our rackets and our money guys now work for them instead.”
“Boss, the way Benny was clipped. Someone broke his fucking neck. That’s not how wise guys kill. That’s some military or ninja type shit.”
“What are you saying Nicki?”
“Either the Dellasandro’s have went through some type of commando style training, or there’s a new player on the block, or…”
“The Tall man had brought in a freelancer.” Tony says as he finished the thought for his underling.
“What does your father think?”
For the first time, Tony shows general agitation. “Fuck my father! I’m running this family, not him! He’s retired and that’s that. I don’t want to have to say that again.”
“Sorry T. So, what do we do?”
“Check with Toody and Muldoon or whatever the fuck our cops names are. See what they know. We need to either find this Rambo motherfucker who has been killing our guys or…”
“Or what T?”
“We need to find our own Rambo.”
Chapter four
Tiffany pulls her Range Rover into the parking lot of the now dimply lit mini mart across the street from her townhome. It was a little after ten pm and she was on a very tight schedule. She’d be entertaining well into the night with three major clients on the books seeking her attention.
Armed with the information that Lisa had given to her, she goes into the store in search of two items, an enema kit and astroglide or something similar.
She quickly finds the items and then promptly makes her way to the counter to complete the transaction. She is now dressed more conservatively than before in a t-shirt, sweats, flip flops and a bandanna on her head.
A far cry from how she looked at the club and an even further stretch away from how she’ll be adorned when her first client makes his appearance.
“Damn it! Where is the cashier?” She asked impatiently as no one had came forward up to ring up her purchase.
She sits the items down on the counter and walks outside to see if the store has been abandoned or worse, if a robber has the clerk possibly tied up in back.
When she gets around to the side of the store, she spots a black man who appears to be close to her age in a store uniform, eating a hotdog, drinking a slushee and smoking a cigarette.
“Excuse me sir? Do you work here?”
Calvin Jefferson looks down at his smock, and then back at the woman and nods.
“Well, if it’s not too much trouble, could you pull yourself away from your gourmet meal and ring me up? I’m a bit in a hurry.” She said impatiently.
Calvin took another bite of his hot dog and another puff of his smoke. He didn’t like rudeness. He didn’t know this person and he didn’t respond well to that level of condescension.
Had she showed him even a modicum of decency, he might have shown more sympathy toward her plight. As it was, she could twist in the wind for all he cared.
“Ma’am I’m on my break. There are self checkout machines inside that you can…”
“No I can’t. The self checkouts only take credit or debit cards. Im paying cash.”
“Well can I at least finish my cigarette?”
Tiffany viewed the man with even more contempt than she had originally thought possible. He was everything that she despised about black men times ten.
No wonder he was working the night shift at a gas station. What other marketable skills could one such as he possibly possess?
“Listen here you 8 dollar an hour hack. If you didn’t want to work with the general public then you should not have taken a job in retail.
Now, I happen to know Dinesh very well and if I call him right now and complain, you’ll be out on your ass quicker than you can say EEOC. Now, do I make myself clear?”
Without another word, Calvin extinguishes his cigarette, collects his debris and after depositing the trash into the trash receptacle, he walks by Tiffany on his way back into the store.