Its a Dog Eat Dog World

Finally! The schmucks living in this town get some good weather. I think the good Lord realized that we deserved some good weather after surviving the terrors of the storm the night before. Its been fittingly dreary for a few days straight now, but as I opened my eyes saw the sun doing the same over the sleepy horizon. I purposed in my head that it was going to be a day of relaxation. I turned on the TV just because the stare of my reflection in the black lifeless screen made me feel alone, isolated. The fact that Money Making Melina aka Rump Roast Rosie was lying in bed next to me didn't really count for anything because I knew after the "festivities" of last night she would be out for at least 2 more hours...bless her little heart. As I searched through the sheets for my phone I heard Monica Kaufman reporting on the damnedest thing. I turned the volume up, to take a better listen, and felt a slight stir in the covers from Rosie, so I put the captions on to see what was going on. Apparently, a hobo was struck by lightning. I knew that this in and of itself was a very rare occurrence. Seriously, what are the chances of that!?! Then, as I read on, all feelings that had potential to turn into sympathy, fled when they reported his location during the time of the storm. This prick was standing in a TREE! Who does that!?! Everybody knows that the number one rule in a storm is DON'T STAND UNDER A TALL TREE. This ignorant schmuck climbed the damn thing. It would have been easier to have just dropped a toaster in the bath with him. But that probably wasn't news worthy, so I settled that his way out was better. At least he got his 15 minutes of fame.
Speaking of minutes, I cant believe that I still haven't found my phone! Then, as if on que, it rang and disclosed its location. It was Oscar inviting me and Lefty to a little early bird meat sampling get together. I asked him the reason for the urgency, and he told me that he just got the nicest "New York Strip" to have ever set foot in his shop and he wanted us to come see a sample of its money making potential for the loyal participants in the back room activities of the butcher shop. Perfect! A little early morning entertainment was just what I needed to start my day of complete and total relaxation.

Lefty and I arrived at the Oscars around 10:00 to find a car that we had never seen before parked behind the Escalade. We exchanged looks of suspicion, and decided to drive around the block one more time, just in case there was a tail or this was some sort of trap. I pulled the fully automatic out from under the seat and tucked it firmly into my waistline. We walked in to the back room at full attention, only to find Oscar taking shots of Hennessy and puffing on a cigar with a satisfied grin on his face. This dog must really be something to have him so excited. And when I looked to my left, I saw the prettiest, most ferocious looking door that I have ever seen in my life. It was beautiful. I asked whose dogs was going to be the competition, and he told me that an old friend of his named Marcus Manuel was providing the opponent......Marcus Manuel......? Why did that name sound so familiar? I know that I have heard it before, but I just couldn't put my finger on when. Then it hit me! The black van, the thugs, the bridge, the interrogation room. The thug that we took into the interrogation room told us that some Colombian prick had sent him and the other henchmen. While he still had his teeth, he mentioned the name Marcus Manuel. I didn't try that hard to conceal my epiphany from Oscar because the Hennessy was doing all the work for me. I shared my revelation with Lefty, and before I could even finish, he left the shop and went to the car to grab a few "items" that he thought might come in handy. Oscar boomed across the room, "Marcus just called. He said he should be here any minute. I wish he would hurry up! I can't wait to get this battle started. The way he's been bragging on his dog, there's bound to be an all out war in here. I'm talkin about a fight to the death! Only one of these monsters is leaving this room alive."
How right you are my friend; how right you are...

The life i live...

The life I live... I tell you something, it takes a freakin soldier to live the life i live. I was feeling like i needed a drink, so i retreated to my sancuary, also known as the bar. Recently i had noticed that this broad has been hanging around more so than usual. Lefty told me that she was a dancin chick that went by the name of Rosie...or M. Rose. It didnt matter, i never used strippers real names anyway. The stage names were so much more appetizing. Lets be serious, would you rather throw money at Melinda, or Tasty Toya? For me that was something exotic and was definitely a turn on. I figured that i would grace her with some conversation and then make a proposal. I had a good feeling that she could make a lot of money for herself and me (mainly me) if i put her to work. Over the course of my lifetime i had made the proposition so many different times, that by now i had it down to a science. Its really pretty simple. Its all about the dough. Just tell the chick about the non-taxed oodles of money that they would be raking in, and the rest is history. She did the whole "hard-to-get" bit and told me to leave my number and she would contact me after she was able to sit down and think about the offer. Said she had a friend named Chloe that she used to go to school with that she had to discuss the matter with. She told me Chloe was always the one with the better judgement; Uptight even, but friends are friends just the same. Apparently this decision was "too important to answer on the spot." I had heard it all before. I knew she was hooked.

Just as the converstaion was coming to a close, Lefty walked in with an ice cream sandwhich. What the hell kinda mobster eats freaking ice cream sandwhiches!?! He told me he was about to come into the bar when the ice cream came rolling through, with a strong following of overly anxious grade school student. He looks at me and tells me, "Who can resist an ice cream sandwhich?" Can you believe this shmuck!?! Lefty had to have been the meanest ice cream sandwhich eating Italian on the entire east coast. The life i live...you couldnt make this shit up if you tried.

My Jungle

It was time to go pay some debtors of mine a friendly visit. Business is business. At these friendly visits I usually get a chance to introduce my fist to a few faces, my foot to a few midsections, and finally, my long lost children (Franklin, Hamilton, and Jackson) become reaquainted with the inside of my briefcase. I usually enjoy myself far more than the honored guest of the evening. Tonight, however, there was something different in the air. Lefty and I had just finished enjoying some Chinese food (even though we had to struggle to drown out the resturant owner yelling at some guy named Charlie in the back). When we stepped out of the restaurant, there was a tension in the atmosphere; as if the air knew something that I did not, and was having extreme difficulty withholding the information from me. Something was about to happen, I could feel it. I placed my hand on the gun tucked into belt and tried to stay as alert as possible. When Lefty saw my face, he knew that something was bothering me. He asked me several times what I was thinking, and each time my silence was all he got in reply. I could not blink, I could not slip, I had to stay alert. Just then I heard the screech of tires peling out of a spot. It was at that moment that I knew the air could no longer keep its secret. This was the moment that the mood was set for. The screech of the tires almost came as a relief, because that meant that it was either now or never. Whatever was about to happen was either going to happen now, or not at all. Bang,bang, bang!!! I was being shot at! I could not tell yet from where. The sound of a gun firing was anything but unfamilar to me, but i must admit that it had been a long time since i had found someone bold enough and dumb enough to actually pull the trigger. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the location of the threat. The shots were coming from an unmarked black van with three or four occupants inside the vehicle. Lefty and I immediately began to return fire. Lefty had a better shot than Kobe Bryant and managed to accruately put two bullets throught the driver side window. I wasnt sure if it was the bullets or the sleet from earlier in the day that caused the crash, but the van suddenly swirved and crashed head first into the street light at the intersection. The occupants of the vehicle were pretty badly injured, which allowed us pletty of time to disarm, disrobe, and restrain the shooters. (Upon futher inspection, it was definitely the bullets that caused the crash). I told Lefty to put them in the trunk and transfer them to our "interigation room," which was in reality the old undergorund wine celler that was behind the bar. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed about being shot at, and decided that I only needed to question one of the three thugs in the van. The other two....well, lets just hope that the rope around their hands and feet didnt stop them from swinmming to safety after we dumped them off the bridge. After several hours of interigation and whole hell of a lot of smelling salts, we found that some wanna be hot shot Columbian prick put the simple bastard up to it. It never ends!! When will they realize that this is my jungle!?!

I Hate Rats

After a few hours, the rain finally subsided. The sky still looked as if someone had dipped a paintbrush in it and swirled it around because of all the darm ominous clouds. When I saw that Lefty was about to go investigate the roof top, I figured, what the heck, why not go with him? It had been a while since I vistited the Heights last, and I figured that it couldn't hurt just to get out there and show my face. Besides, I absolutely had to know what was on top of that roof. We hopped in Lefty's Mustang, but at the last second we decided to take my favorite car, the Mazerati. When we arrived at the Heights, a few people gawked, a few fled, and the rest were too high to react at all. We made our way through to the elevator, but considering the intensity of the storm that just pasted, we decided that we weren't going to chance. Being stuck on an elevator was the last thing that I needed right now. When we reached the stairs, my attention was immediately drawn to a kitten that was wondering around the stairwell aimlessly, and then to the only other human occupant in the stairwell, besides Lefty and myself, a very disgruntled, annoyed, and obviously rushed woman pushed her way past us both without so much as an acknowledging glance. I had killed a man before, and this woman struck me as cold. But after she pushde passed, we continued our ascent. Finally. We reached the exact spot where we had seen the figure in the storm, but all that was there was a shabby lemonade stand looking table and a small curiously motionless rodent on the ground. I refused to have my presence defied by something as trivial as a rat, so I motioned as if I was going to step on it, and yet it remained still. I bent down to take a closer look at this death defying creature, and i realized...the damn thing was stuffed. Who stuffs a rodents!?! Upon seeing this I became irate in the effort that I had wasted in my quest and began to curse at everything that he a pulse and was within earshot. A stuffed rat...why would anyone? Now being in the mood that I was in after the most anti-climatic investigation in the world, i decided it would make me feel quite a bit better to collect on some of the money that these so called hustlers owed. Surely not all of them would be able to pay me back, but today, that is exactly what I was counting on. Some people have stress balls, I have this. I told Lefty to put the word out that I was collecting today. What can I say? Its simply time to pay the piper.

Roof Top Shadow

While i was in the process of walking over to the rather plump woman in the red dress sitting down in the bar, I noticed a suspicious looking guy sitting at the bar. I had never seen him in there before so naturally I was a bit curious about the fellow. Something about him just wasnt right. He was trying just a little too hard to be noticed. He stank like a pig. He just had that ora about him. I didnt much like reporters in my bar because I figured that they were always up to no good, so imagine how peved I was when I saw this little foul cop in my establishment. I told Left to tell the bar tender to let that pig catch a glimpse of some of the tools that we kept behind the counter just to let him know what he had waiting for him if he ever came back to my place. I couldnt believe this guy. If it aint one thing its another, right? I needed a smoke and some fresh air. The only thing was that I couldnt go for a walk because it was raining cats and dogs outside. The damn whether men never got it right. Hmmp, 72 and partly cloudly...right. I walked over to the window to see if the storm had done any real damage outside. When I looked up at the clouds to try and see which direction the storm was headed, I saw what appeared to be a person standing on the roof of the Washington Heights Apartment buildings. It was kinda hard to make out exactly what they were doing on account of the freakin gale force winds and rain outside but it looked as if they were trying to cover up something on top of that roof. I couldnt make out what it was though. That was just too curious for me to let. I told Lefty that as soon as the storm let up to get up on top of that roof and check things out. Whatever was going on up there was obviously important enough to risk being struck by lightning, meaning that it was definitely something that I needed to know about. Nothing worth while should go on around here, if I didnt know about it. I told Lefty to find out what they were covering up by any means necessary. I wanted to know who was on that building and why. I told Lefty to get the scoop and bring the info on this mystery character to me.

I Still Got It

I knew that today would be a busy one, my days always were. I had sevral "business ventures" to pursue, and even more wrongs that needed to be righted. Being the Boss isn't an easy job. Every now and then I would take a well deserve vaction. Maybe out to Vegas to blow some cash, or mabe back to Italy to pick up to Pastrami. I liked having options. I knew that I was going to have some time to relax later on that night, so I told my right hand man to Lefty to go to the buther shop and buy a New York Strip for $650 on the best piece of meat in the shop. I had been eating this same piece of meat now for three weeks straight and it hadn't disappointed me yet. It was just simply better that all its competion, so it proved to be a worth while investment. The butcher was a real okay guy. He was a beast of a man, and he had no problem choppin up body parts. This much I know from personal expirience.I had him do me a couple favors a while back. I never told him exactly what "animal" it was that I needed him to cut up, and he didnt ask either. Thats just the way I like it. You see, Oscar understood the order of things. He has a few relatives in Columbia who just happen to be good friends of mine, so I tried to make sure that nobody screwed with the poor bastard. But as far as I was concerned, he was a good guy.
When Left came back back and told me that the deed was done, I decided to go downstairs to the bar and see what I could see. Was there any potential customers for my gus to take care of, where my girls making me any money, there was always something to be done. I didnt too much like to get my hands dirty. I have people for that. Those days of me being in the trenches are over now. Im too old to be muckin around in the jungle with these animals. Now, I order, they execute. That is just the order of things. I've grown far too accustomed to the lion's den to leave now. The trick to being the king of the jungle is simply making sure that everyone knows that your the king of the jungle. Some times these young guys get a little too over zealous though. They think with their hearts and not their head. Thats why I got Lefty. Everyone comes through Lefty. Lefty is a stand up guy, and me and him go way back. If he sees any young lions among these scavengers, then we take em' and groom em' and tame em'. If they are anything like I was, then the fire in their eyes and the hunger in the pit of their soul simply wont allow them to be tamed; so I have them taken care of. I hate to see the good ones go, but to let them go may be to bring about my own downfall. Im a business man, and young hungry lions simply arent good for business.
As I took a shot of my usual (Bourbon, straight up) I noticed a women in the bar with some bright red heels on. She was a big woman, but you would be surprised how many requests I got for the mammoths. Well, time to see if I still got it.

The Order of Things

I own this city. I give this city its life and breath. I am the both the heart and the cancer of this place. Nothing goes on here that I dont know about. If I don't give the okay, then there is nothing. This is the Machelli family's territory, and I just happen to be the Boss. I alone have the power to make a man untouchable. Invincibility is released through the movement of my tounge. One would be foolish to believe that because I live in the upper room of a run down bar, that I am to be overlooked. It is a mistake mostly made by two bit thug-wannabe's from out of town, but I see to it that it is a mistake only made once. I am the order in this city. Without me there would be anarchy, and I refuse to live under such conditions.
My family moved to America from glorious Italy back in the 20's. Its amazing, and fortunate for me, that we have been able to keep a pure blood line even since then. I am 100% Italian. Some of the best guys I have ever met have been mixed with something somewhere down the line, and for that reason they can't be Made Men. Only 100% pure, the best of the best will do. My father and my mother tried to earn an earnst living and do everything on the up and up; real squares, when i think about it. But me, I always knew that life wasn't for me. I was always into getting want I wanted by any means neccessary. I was a real wiseguy. Now I am running a modern day empire. There was no public election in this town. My vote was the only one that mattered. The law...they were a joke. I had the entire force in my pocket. Its amazing how much memory loss a little money filled suitcase can cause to a precinct. I was the Boss because i believed in respect, order, and taking care of people. You gotta know how to treat people in this world. Everybody has their price. The cops seem to miss 80% of the kocain and heroine that comes through this town on a monthly basis. Why, you may ask? Because they know its mine, and to interfere with my business would be a very disrepectful thing to do. If anybody makes a move on my girls or my product, it is always the last thing that they do. You cannot mess up the order of things around here. I simply won't allow it. Every pimp, drug dealer, politician, police officer, and even butcher owes me favors around here. I take care of them, and they take care of me. Its a very simply, yet efficient relationship.