Mafioso [Part 1]

by Nisa Santiago

  27

  September 2014

  Wacka sat at the bar drinking his beer and staring at the flat-screen TV perched over the bar. The Mets were losing to the Cubs by one point. The classy Downtown Brooklyn bar had just the right ambience for men to talk business over a few drinks, and for girlfriends to unwind, laugh, and flirt with a few suits. The décor was dark wood interior and high ceilings. It was early evening, and a few scattered patrons chitchatted amongst themselves, but the ballgame was louder.

  A ruffian like Wacka was used to the hole-in-the-wall places with bullet holes, cheap drinks, and loose women, so The Breaker Bar on Fulton seemed out of his league. But he had his reasons for being there.

  Wearing a white button-down and khakis, he’d disguised his real appearance. The demonic and gangland tattoos were covered with clothing, and his bald head was freshly shaved and gleaming like a bowling ball. He wore wire spectacles to soften his dark eyes, never mind the small pistol concealed in an ankle holster.

  It was hard to tell he was a coldblooded killer—to deduce that he’d viciously mowed down a nine-year-old boy in the street. The news had gotten back to him about the boy’s father, Scott West, and the murder contract put out on the street. It was a lot of money, but Wacka doubted anyone knew anything that could lead back to him. Wacka wasn’t worried about consequences coming his way. The kill was clean. The car had been torched, no one had seen his face, and there wasn’t anything incriminating left behind. And his peoples were loyal.

  He downed his beer. “Bartender, let me get another one,” he said.

  The bartender nodded and went to get him a Bud Light.

  It’d had been a slow day, but in a few hours, the nocturnal crowd would converge at the same bar, and it would look like an entirely different place with people, laughter, music, and beautiful women.

  Wacka drank his next beer. New York was his town—big and busy with a lot going on, plenty of women everywhere, and easy to blend in and get lost among the crowds of people. He never had a problem getting business in the city. There was always somebody buying or selling something, even drugs.

  The neatly dressed Caucasian man in a black suit and white tie that walked into the bar was slim and of average height. He was clean-shaven with dark black hair. He looked a Wall Street type. He immediately spotted Wacka at the bar.

  Wacka turned slightly to see Fred Gilliam had finally arrived. He picked up his beer and a leather briefcase and greeted the white boy at a wall booth. They sat opposite each other and started their business.

  “We okay?” Fred asked.

  “Yeah, we good,” Wacka replied.

  “What’s the damage for this load?”

  “Thirty cents on the dollar.”

  “And that’s two stocks, right?” Fred asked.

  “Yeah, two pure stocks definitely up,” Wacka said. Underneath the booth, Wacka slid the leather briefcase closer to Fred.

  Fred carefully picked it up and looked inside. It was what he needed—two kilos. It was Christmas for him. His boys on Wall Street would make him a fortune like always. “I like it,” he said.

  “I know you would. It’s why you were the first person I called.”

  A short waitress with an infectious smile soon came over and asked if they were interested in ordering drinks.

  Wacka was already content with his beer. Fred ordered a whisky sour. She went to get Fred his drink.

  Fred didn’t care how Wacka got the product. It was his now, and he was getting it for a good price. He was already a wealthy man, being an adept stockbroker with the firm Saxon & Smith. Fred Gilliam had attained his Series 7 license when he was twenty-three years old, which was soon followed by his Series 63. He was notorious for his risk-taking and positive attitude, and he had the gift of gab.

  But he had a wild, dangerous side. He grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and was connected to the mafia. He took up drug dealing to satisfy his taste for luxury items and an extravagant lifestyle.

  He subtly handed Wacka a medium package containing thirty thousand dollars.

  Wacka looked inside.

  “We happy?” Fred asked him.

  “Oh, we happy,” Wacka said, smiling.

  “It’s always a pleasure doing business with you, my friend.” Fred removed himself from the booth, buttoned his suit jacket, and walked away with the leather briefcase.

  Wacka remained in the bar and finished his beer. He was a hustler, a drug dealer, a thief, and a contract killer prepared to make his money by any means necessary.

  The waitress came to the table with Fred’s drink but found him gone. “Did he leave?” she asked.

  Wacka smiled at her attractiveness. He removed a knot of hundred-dollar bills and gave her a C-note.

  She was shocked by his generosity. “Thank you.”

  “You’re a beautiful woman. What time do you get off?”

  Her smile continued. Wacka wasn’t a bad-looking man. He carried an aggressive, bad-boy mannerism somewhat alluring to the ladies.

  He handed her another C-note. “I can make it worth your time.”

  She continued to smile and took the cash.

  ***

  Two hours later, the waitress’s face was in Wacka’s lap. Her head rapidly bobbed up and down in the front seat of his car, while Wacka reclined and enjoyed her skills. He cupped her small ass and fingered her tight vagina, stimulating her to some extent.

  During the oral pleasure, his cell phone rang. It was Dagmar. He answered the call while his female friend continued to engulf him gratifyingly below.

  “What up?” Wacka answered with ragged breathing, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Wack, you busy, nigga?”

  “Kinda. What’s up?”

  “We on again. That payment was sent.”

  “A’ight, cool—Oh shit!”

  “You fuckin’ a bitch, nigga?”

  “I’m doin’ me, nigga,” Wacka said. The waitress took all of him in a deep-throat, simultaneously cupping and massaging his balls.

  “Tomorrow then,” Dagmar said.

  Wacka hung up and applied his full attention to the blowjob. “I wanna come in your mouth,” he announced.

  ***

  Bonnie stared at her image in the large mirror on her bedroom wall. She was ready for her first day of school, dressed in a short pleated skirt, white shirt, and green tie under a dark green blazer with her school’s insignia on the breast. Her diamond tennis bracelet, diamond earrings, and diamond necklace—all gifts from her father—were worth close to a hundred thousand dollars.

  She did a minor twirl in the mirror, checked out her backside, and smiled. “Smoking hot,” she said to herself before yelling at Clyde to get a move on.

  For Bonnie, school was more a fashion show than an education. She and Clyde were celebrities at the aristocratic academy school in Mount Vernon, New York. It was an exclusive and very expensive school for the privileged. And Bonnie and Clyde were very privileged. The boys loved Bonnie, and the girls were attracted to Clyde.

  It was the first day of school, but this would be their last year of school in New York. This time next year she and Clyde would be living year-round in Florida and residing in the new lavish homes being built now. They couldn’t wait for the twenty-four/seven sunshine, warmth, and sandy beaches. No more harsh winters, freezing cold, or wet snow. Bonnie wanted to be on the beach with her friends and showing off her bikini-clad body for Christmas and New Year’s. Clyde wanted to swim in the ocean and flirt with the girls that flocked to him because of his playboy swag and muscles he’d gained from seeing his personal trainer three days a week. Handsome and tall with curly black hair, Clyde was becoming a heartthrob and a millionaire playboy at fifteen years old. Both siblings were already sexually active, Clyde more so than Bonnie.

  Bonnie and Clyde left their Manhattan pen
thouse and descended to the main floor in the quiet elevator. The doors opened, and they stepped into the lobby with marble flooring and a stunning antique chandelier centerpiece in the atrium.

  “Good morning,” the front desk clerk greeted them.

  Bonnie and Clyde ignored the man. They weren’t keen on associating with the help.

  Then they were greeted by Sammy the doorman in his Ritz-Carlton uniform. He nodded politely as he opened the glass doors and shepherded them through with a friendly attitude. “Have a wonderful and blessed day,” he said.

  They didn’t tip him. He didn’t mind.

  Their chauffeur stood next to a black Maybach with the rear door already opened and ready for them to enter. There was a bodyguard for the twins, too—a tall, silent man in black looking threatening. Since Gotti’s death, Scott wasn’t taking any chances with his other children.

  Bonnie and Clyde slid inside the vehicle, the chauffeur climbed behind the wheel, and the bodyguard rode shotgun. The twins were on their way to school, a forty-minute ride, depending on the traffic.

  The vehicle traveled north on Park Avenue. The morning traffic was beginning, but it wasn’t crippling. The twins were relaxed in the back seat, on their smartphones listening to music, playing games, and texting. The driver navigated the vehicle through East Harlem, where the local population was flooding the streets on their way to work or school.

  Bonnie and Clyde didn’t care for the area. They’d never been to Harlem, only passed through the urban neighborhood on the way to school. Not once did they gaze out the window and look at anything in the vicinity; their attention was consumed by their smartphones.

  But the car caught people’s attention. A Maybach driving through Harlem had to have someone important inside.

  A red light brought the vehicle to a stop at the intersection of 123rd Street. A small crowd crossed the streets. The car idled next to a red Caravan on the driver’s side, and adjacent to the traffic was the train trestle covering much of the street.

  Unexpectedly, a dark Denali crashed into the Maybach, forcibly jerking the vehicle forward. The impact almost sent the car flying through the red light.

  Bonnie and Clyde were tossed around the back seat. They were in shock.

  “What the fuck!” The chauffeur quickly unfastened his seatbelt and removed himself from the car.

  The bodyguard did the same, his pistol holstered. It appeared to be a fender-bender. Both men scowled at the minor accident.

  “Can’t you fuckin’ drive, you idiot?” the chauffeur shouted.

  The doors of the Denali opened, and two masked men emerged carrying Heckler & Koch MP7A1s. They aimed the deadly weapons at the chauffeur and bodyguard and opened fire before the bodyguard could unholster his gun.

  Bratatatatatatatatatat!

  The barrage of bullets created chaos. The gunmen killed the chauffer and bodyguard with a hail of gunfire, and their bullet-riddled bodies slumped against the street.

  Bonnie shrieked. Clyde panicked. Through the windows of the Maybach, they witnessed the bloodshed of a working man and a hired goon. They were now alone. Tears welled in their eyes. There was nowhere for them to run.

  The gunmen approached the car with their submachine guns aimed at the rear, ready to open fire.

  “Ohmygod, Clyde!” Bonnie shouted in fear.

  “Close your eyes, sis!” Clyde shouted. He tightly grabbed his sister in his arms and did his best to shield her from the danger.

  Bratatatatatatatatatat!

  Another barrage of bullets erupted into the car, shredding metal and then violently riddling the siblings with hot, sharp rounds. Their blood splashed all over the leather seats, and their bodies lay contorted against each other.

  For good measure, one gunman opened the rear door to the car and fired at the bodies once more. Satisfied, they jumped into the idling Caravan and sped off, leaving a massacre behind. There was no longer a need for the Denali; it had served its purpose.

  When the gunfire stopped, everyone was astounded by the daytime execution of four people.

  Shortly after, dozens of police cars, uniformed cops, and homicide detectives flooded the intersection in Harlem. The entire area was cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape, and the looky-loos came in droves to see the murders. They lingered behind the yellow tape wide-eyed at the gangland murder of four people. There were so many shell casings on the street that the detectives would lose count.

  “Fuckin’ Fallujah!” one detective commented about the gruesome crime scene.

  The detectives stood around the Maybach, each sickened by the dead twins in the back seat, dressed appropriately in their uniforms. It was definitely overkill.

  They discovered the dead bodyguard was armed with a Glock 19, which wouldn’t have been much good against the submachine guns.

  The witnesses couldn’t describe the shooters. They wore masks and all black with colored bandanas. They left behind an SUV, which was surface clean and had no visible evidence. A tow truck had to take it back to the crime lab to dust for fingerprints, but it was doubtful. The vehicle had been reported stolen twenty-four hours prior.

  For the moment, the only thing the NYPD could do was identify the bodies from their school IDs—Bonnie and Clyde West, children to businessman and alleged drug kingpin Scott West. The more they looked into the killings, the more it looked like a planned hit.

  ***

  It was a nightmare. There was no way two more of her children were dead. Layla couldn’t grasp it. She refused to accept the truth. The anguish crippled her like an electrocution chair. She had been strapped to it, and the volts hit her fiercely. She might as well die.

  The loss of Bonnie and Clyde was a devastating blow to her. She locked herself in the bedroom in the dark and didn’t want to be bothered by anyone. She cursed the staff and sobbed uncontrollably. It felt like the room was collapsing in on her, and there was no escape.

  Someone was coming after her family. They were killing her children, and most likely, they wanted to kill her too.

  ***

  When Scott received the news about Bonnie and Clyde, he nearly went through the roof with rage. How did they get to his kids? This wasn’t a coincidence; this was an attack on his family. He called every lieutenant, soldier, and associate in his organization to an emergency meeting at one of his city properties. Everyone came armed, and everyone knew it would be a war, but with who? Though Scott was stricken with grief over the death of Bonnie and Clyde, he took charge of the assembly of his goons and clarified it—five million dollars for any information about anything, and another ten million dollars for the names of the people behind the attack. He wanted pain and death to ensue behind his kids’ murders. He wanted total annihilation of the culprits, and he had the men, the resources, and the power to do so. But first he had to bring these foes from out of the dark.

  “From now on, everything fuckin’ stops, and y’all’s only concerns are hunting the people responsible for the death of my children,” Scott commanded.

  They nodded, hungry to implement revenge.

  “Twenty-four hours, seven days a week hunting and finding me information out there. I want faces and names. No one sleeps, no one eats. You treat this incident as the end of the fuckin’ world!” he growled before dismissing them.

  Scott’s eyes were watery but still stern with anger and yearning for vengeance. He was ready to spread his wrath biblically—torch cities and wipe out generations if necessary.

  Whistler stood by Scott’s side. Being the friend and partner he was, he was grieving too, stunned by the boldness of the attacks on innocent kids. “I already made around-the-clock armed security arrangements for the rest of the family.”

  Scott nodded.

  “What enemies do we have out there—past or present?” Whistler asked.

  “In our business, many,” Scott said.


  “Delaware?”

  “Possible,” Scott said.

  Could it have been Deuce? He was a local thug and a dangerous man, from the word on the streets. And supposedly smart too. But Scott felt that Deuce didn’t have enough clout and information to get to his kids.

  If Meyer and Bugsy did things correctly, then they should have been silent in their takeover of the area—no extreme or public violence.

  Though skeptical, Scott put nothing past anyone.

  “I think we have a snitch in our organization,” Whistler said.

  “I agree.”

  “For someone to get to Gotti in Florida—kill him like that—and now Bonnie and Clyde on their first day of school, I strongly feel it’s an inside job.”

  “I want this muthafucka smoked out and brought to me, Whistler. You find this muthafucka quickly.”

  “I’ll get Maze on it. He’s good at infiltration, finding things and people that don’t wanna be found.”

  “I’ll pay him extra for this. And get in touch with my kids. Tell them what happened to Bonnie and Clyde and get Bugsy and Meyer back from Delaware. I need my children here where I can protect them.”

  Scott stood silent for a beat, his heart heavy and his mind boggled with trauma. He felt like he was about to go insane. “I want to be alone,” he said to Whistler.

  Whistler understood. He exited the room, giving his friend some time to grieve. He had never seen Scott in such a state. Though Scott appeared stable, Whistler knew the man was breaking down inside. Because of the manner in which Bonnie and Clyde were killed, Whistler feared more deaths and more agony. Whoever the enemy was, they were vicious and calculated, knowing who to strike and when. They came at Scott’s core, his family, and were working their way through his family tree. First Gotti, and then Bonnie and Clyde. Who would be next?

  Outside in the cold night air, Whistler removed his cell phone and called Lucky. His call went straight to voice mail. He was worried about her. His second call went to her voice mail again. He decided to go to her place to make sure she was okay. He climbed into his Range Rover and made haste to her apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.