Introduction to the Neighborhood

I could not say a word, so I wrote it down. I can’t say I always wanted to be in law enforcement. My father was in the Air Force so I grew up a military brat. I was born Reese Jacob Campbell in Savannah, Georgia while my parents were visiting her family. She grew up in an Antebellum house that survived the War Between the States and had a vacation home near Atlanta. Her father was a respected lawyer and her mother was a socialite. My mother was the sophisticated Southern Belle who had a dozen beauty queen crowns in her childhood closet. She had a newspaper clipping of her cotillion in her photo album. Father lived his whole life in Macon, Georgia where his father worked in a cotton mill until drafted into the Vietnam War. His war widow mother survived off a widow’s pension and worked as a church secretary to earn extra money. My parents met while they were at the University of Georgia where father was earning an officer commission and military science degree while learning to fly airplanes. Mother was a sorority girl earning an art history degree. Mother always said they met taking the same Algebra class. Father always said they met when she came looking for a tutor for Algebra and he was appointed to her. She talked him into helping with the carnival games to fundraise for the art museum she volunteered at. He sat in the dunk tank baring his muscular chest and as they say, the rest was history. Mother studied for a year in Paris at the Louvre Art Museum as a foreign exchange student during her third year. Father devoted himself to his studies and called her when he could. This separation made mother realized how much father really loved her, the most beautiful woman he ever met. Once she returned to her sorority house for their fourth year, father took her out to dinner and offered his air force ring to her. She has worn it ever since.

Mother introduced her parents to her boyfriend during Parents Weekend. Mother always said her parents may have disapproved of my father’s poor family, but he had a bright future as a Second Lieutenant upon graduation so they were given their blessing when they later became engaged. His mother may have been most disappointed her son wanted to be in the military, but she accepted it when he got married to take mostly desk jobs. Don’t get me wrong, he still flew planes in training maneuvers. My father loved reenacting Georgia’s battles in the summers and I joined him reaching my teens. My family traveled the world and I got to adjust to every culture, language, and religion to become quite the chameleon. Like other military brats, I didn’t really belong anywhere or had a group of friends with me my whole life. My only solace was comic books of superheroes. Mother joined women’s groups and a devoted Catholic, which came in handy in Catholic European countries when in need of assistance. Fellow church members told mother where to shop, the best doctors, and invited her to join their charity activities. She loved reading novels and fashion magazines. Mother took me to the theater to see operas and ballets she enjoyed. Father took me the movies and Renaissance Fairs he enjoyed. It was quite amusing watching him joust in full armor standing by as his squire. We visited my grandparents for the holidays and during the summer. We visited my grandfather’s grave in a Macon cemetery and found his name on the Vietnam Wall. My other grandfather would take me fishing and sailing along the Savannah River. Every Halloween I wanted to be Superman or Batman while other boys at school chose Darth Vader. They say they could tell who lived on the American base because they desired to be heroes. One year I dressed as a soldier wearing my grandfather’s dog tags father kept in a box.

As I grew to become a man earning a Black Belt in Karate my father insisted upon and earning my private airplane license my father trained me to get, I looked at colleges to attend sitting in the latest base housing in Panama City, Florida where father was the brigadier general in charge. I promised my widowed grandmother not to join the military with Operation Desert Storm raging on in Iraq, so I thought about foreign service with my vast knowledge of cultures in my head. I was accepted to Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and once there, a professor suggested I consider law enforcement. He believed I would excel in forensics with an A in his chemistry class. I considered it and switched to law. I kept up with my karate by teaching a Saturday morning class to children at a community center. Like my father, I fell in love with a girl I met in college taking the same classes to marry her upon graduation. She was the daughter of a Spanish diplomat working at the embassy who majored in foreign service like I had. After graduation, I took a job teaching karate five days a week to leave upon joining the law enforcement academy to enter the Capitol Police. My father-in-law enjoyed taking us on vacations to Spain and I showed off my knowledge of Seville I’ve seen before. I loved her with all my heart, but I think she thought she was marrying potential status once I got my career going to become a future director of the CIA. We had a daughter named Consuelo Juanita Campbell Salas. She loved the ballet and I would read her stories before leaving for the night shift. After several years, I applied to join the FBI. I left to train in Quantico and my wife drifted into the arms of a businessman’s son. Our daughter was six years old when I returned a new Probationary Agent and my wife was infatuated with someone else.

I spent the year after our annulment in New York City behind the action photographing crime scenes and investigating violent crimes with my fellow special agents teaching me everything I need to know. My section volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and visited schools teaching self-defense. The children were always impressed with our breaking boards demonstration. Any child or teenager who can stop their own kidnapping is one less crime for us to investigate. I finally discovered what it was like to be part of a group of friends. Then, the Twin Towers fell and with it the formation of the Department of Homeland Security. My section chief suggested my chameleon personality would be excellent fit to begin working undercover. I had just turned thirty and celebrated Christmas with my family in Georgia. Though my former wife refuses visitation with me after moving back to Spain, she never denies my parents or grandparents visits during holidays. My target would be organized crime used to support terrorists. Since I visited schools and community centers, I had to leave New York City for the large city of Tilby along the Hudson River that was hit hard by industry loss earning the name Rust Belt. It once had factories churning out steel, engines, and vehicles. Since the 1960’s, the factories moved away down south, out west, and out of the country. Tilby had a Little Italy and a Chinatown run by the underworld near the two projects created to destroy the once Irish immigrant slums. It had a shopping district called The East Village holding apartments above the businesses. The suburbs Chilton and Plattsville held the middle class homes and wealthy business owner mansions. The popular drug was crystal meth and it was cheap at rave parties. Heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and oxycodone were well known to be traded as well. It was feared terrorists were taking advantage of these organized crime networks and following their example to raise funds. My cover was I was a construction worker who came to live with my girlfriend and then we broke up after Christmas to live by myself. It was the middle of winter so no construction was being done. I found a hotel room to move into near the projects that was owned by a crime boss, Don Vito Pesciano.

The Clover Hotel was a transient hotel for the poor and homeless. They had a maid named Daphne coming by once a week to clean our rooms and take out the trash. She was maid for several transient hotels working a different one each day. When she didn’t come, another maid named Chloe came by. Both were single mothers and brought their kids to work who played in the hallway with the other kids. I learned by leaving my room fairly tidy that both maids left mini donuts on my dresser that they made in the break room. Rent was paid either by the week or by the month. I talked to my neighbors on the fire escape smoking cigarettes to learn where to do laundry and where to buy cheap food. The room was small with a double bed, small bathroom with a stand up shower, and typical appliances including: microwave, fridge, and coffee maker. The front desk had pay per view options, vending machines, and an ice machine. Many pay per view options were films starring The Don’s strip club dancers while others were pirated movies. I watched one film of Little Red Riding Hood visiting a man in a bed wearing a werewolf mask and well, this story had a happy ending. The stripper wearing a red cape looked familiar and realized I saw her at the front desk picking up the weekly rent. The Spider is what they call her. During my first week in the hotel room, my laptop was stolen. A Bosnian lady said she saw The Spider coming out of my room earlier in the day. Luckily The Spider didn’t find my gun I had stashed under the desk. My laptop also had a tracking device inside of it and led my agents to the fencer’s location at a closed hardware store. Riley Flynn, aged seventeen, was arrested in a fake pawn shop sting and my laptop was recovered. I often saw Riley playing pool at The Blue Moon café bar down the street. I heard the leader of the local gang was called The Crow and it was told he broke a man’s legs with a baseball bat when he failed to pay his loan back.

I applied for various jobs at shops up and down the block. I met a middle aged man who owned The Blue Moon. My fellow hotel inhabitants clued me in on where to get “the good stuff” and The Blue Moon was one of them. The middle aged owner was a widower living by himself with his wife’s cat she found in an alley while taking out the garbage. His children and grandchildren come by to visit The Blue Moon once in a while. He took pity on an unemployed man once I asked if I could have evenings off to cage fight. I explained my ex-wife and child support payments were due, but needed extra money that was unstable enough not to require larger payments. He said I could be his new bus boy, dishwasher, and bouncer when needed. I started working out at a local gym that hosts amateur cage fights. I signed up for practices with the training coach for the fights. He said I had good form and could tell I had experience. Never won any championships during my teen years in Japan, but I did receive Fourth Place in a Georgetown Karate Tournament when I was twenty. My new boss even was kind enough to drive me to my first cage fight and I’m sure he bet on me. I was introduced as The Chameleon and wore camouflage pants. I often won, but sometimes the judges voted against me.

Soon my boss advised me to join him at mass on Sundays at the nearby cathedral. A few of his grandchildren sang in the choir and one was an altar boy. It was a good place to meet people in the neighborhood. I thought I met plenty of people at the laundromat and on the city bus, but this place would cover a more variety of people. They had guide book tours of the artwork, stain glass windows, and statues available for purchase in the Lady Chapel with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary. In the All Saints Chapel covered in tile mosaics, they sold tickets to walk up to the bell tower and outer balcony overlooking the city. The nuns asked visitors to be respectful of the people praying and not to disturb choir practices. Naturally I had to take the tours. It was a beautiful piece of architecture and came by once in a while to pray. I completed my first confessional in it and lit a candle for my daughter learning French from a boarding school in Switzerland. I spoke to the nuns about joining the congregation and they gave me a form to fill out stating my contact information and former church I was transferring from. They seemed delighted I came from St. Patrick’s in New York City. Soon I was receiving newsletters in the mail announcing events and charity projects. My boss cooked in their soup kitchen once a week. I joined him baking rolls and stirring gravy. I quickly learned The Blue Moon’s owner, Carmine Lucci, knew the crime boss and my rent collector very well. We saw the crime boss at the cathedral with his family. Mr. Lucci introduced me as his new kid. The man was old enough to be my father so I was regarded as a kid to him.

The crime boss was very interested in my cage fighting hobby. Sitting in the car on the way home, I asked Mr. Lucci about his familiar stance with the neighborhood. He lived in the area his whole life. He met the Don in Sunday School and been friends since then. When he wanted to open a bar, the crew ringleader at the time bought the space for him and he paid him back. To this day, the Don will come to the café bar on Christmas Eve to deliver a turkey and share a meal with the man’s family before going to midnight mass. He pays the protection payments as insurance against robberies. He has been robbed a few times and lodged a complaint with The Don to find the culprit dealt with one way or another. One robber broke his jaw and two days later a drive by shooting occurred two blocks away. Also if a gang member is to be killed in his bar, he is told ahead of time so he can clear the line of fire. The Spider on the other hand was a different story. He went to school with her grandmother. The grandmother married her high school sweetheart who joined the army during the Vietnam War. Her husband returned a broken man and later died after being hit by a car. She raised her daughter alone with her widow’s pension and then her granddaughter when her daughter turned fifteen. The Spider’s mother lived to get high and worked as a go-go dancer at the club down the street that was owned by Don Pesciano. The grandmother died when she was five and the bar owner was a pall bearer at her funeral. Once her mother died of an overdose when she was ten, a beautician who owns a shop across the street took her in. The Spider was very close to her son Mickey and had his son who lives with the beautician. The beautician’s son died during a bar fight. The Spider then had a girl with her best friend, The Crow who is currently boss of the block. The Spider now lives in her own apartment in the projects with her best friend and a kid from his girlfriend who died from an overdose. They both work for the Don collecting rent for him, among other things. I met the beautician and the kids at mass shortly after meeting the crime boss. The older boy Little Mickey looked like a tough boy and future criminal. The younger boy Cameron was more like a lost soul and future addict. The girl Betsy had cerebral palsy and sat in a wheelchair with her Rugrats Angelica doll. The beautician Francesca insisted I come to her shop “Francie’s” and get a haircut cause my split ends were upsetting her. I promised to come next Saturday afternoon.

When I got back home from mass, I requested files of Francesca’s son Michael O’Donnell, rent collector Elizabeth Van Doren, and best friend Daniel Vario in the police and social service records. Low level thugs without much of a rap sheet beyond assault and street racing since turning eighteen. Mickey was stabbed at a bar over a fight about a woman and died before the police arrived. My section chief got into their juvenile files. Petty shoplifting and underage drinking was the most of it. Mickey’s father was said to be in jail for shooting a clerk during a bank robbery. Mickey received probation over a murder of a man found in a dumpster and the police grew suspicious when a woman overdosed at the same time. The report included the deal where the Mickey admitted to the murder of the man upon finding out his friend’s virginity had been sold to the man and spiked the prostitute’s drug delivery for arranging it. Elizabeth’s mother died from cyanide mixed in her heroin dose. The terms of the deal were that he had to finish high school and only take approved jobs during his probation. His probation ended on his eighteenth birthday and I read reports from the cathedral bishop who runs the alternative school how he gave Mickey a camera to steer the youth in a more legal profession. He also worked at The Blue Moon as a dishwasher. Danny’s father was listed unknown and his mother was stabbed by her boyfriend during an argument in their apartment. Danny was at her side as she died while calling for help. The police arrested her boyfriend at a bar across the street. Looking at social services reports on Elizabeth’s son and daughter, I found the cathedral bishop was involved in helping decide who should be guardian of the teenage mother’s children.

The service reports had the same bishop recommended Francie take care of Elizabeth and Danny when their mothers died when they were ten and thirteen respectively. The mothers were best friends in school, but only Francesca managed not to become a junkie like the other two. Francesca didn’t want the kids to end up in foster care so she took them in. It was mentioned Danny had been raped by a pedophile living on the same floor when he was nine and Mickey had stated that he took care of the pervert. A copy of a police report was in the file declaring the tenant had been shot and two men were seen leaving the room, but no neighbors could identify them because they wore hooded sweatshirts. The social worker was sure Mickey was not the shooter being twelve-years-old at the time and too short to be mistaken for a grown man. It was mentioned The Spider was familiar with the mechanics of sexual contact when her mother died, but that could have been from her mother’s job being done in the home. A medical report stated she was a virgin when her mother died. The report later declared that The Spider had moved into Mickey’s room and slept on a second bed because of her nightmares. The social worker noted The Spider clings to Mickey like a life preserver. No wonder the girl got pregnant at age thirteen and had a son at fourteen. She had her daughter at seventeen after Mickey’s death. Custody was given to Francie after The Spider was pulled over for drunk driving with the girl in the back seat.

After getting arrested for shoplifting at ages ten and twelve, the bishop offered to take in Elizabeth and Danny into the church’s school. The cathedral’s school next door contains a daycare, preschool, and alternative school mainly for homeless children who can’t handle public school because they are always moving around. Youths in trouble with the law often attend to get the discipline they fail to get at home since the bishop is also a child’s advocate. The school provides food, clothing, school supplies, and spiritual care for the students free of charge. I found out the nuns sell bread loaves and honey to make money to support the school programs and obtain many donations through its congregation. I also looked up the dead girlfriend’s kid to find an unknown father and mother was on welfare. I found it strange the boyfriend listed was not Danny’s name, but someone who was a disabled machinist who received public assistance. Were they subletting a project apartment from this man? Time would reveal the story. A call came in a year ago claiming the boy said to his Sunday School class his father had a party the night before and naked people were in his living room when he woke up. The Bishop came over to find out it was true and assured the social worker at her visit days later the parties would not continue there. A month later the social worker visited again and the boy seemed happy playing in his room with his toys. I met the kids later at the salon sitting in a small play area. Francie’s mother was also there getting her hair done while her husband visited friends in the neighborhood. Francie’s mother reminded me of my own socialite mother chattering on about her friends and neighbors. Discovered Francie has a brother who owns a music store and plays guitar in a local band. Francie’s mother runs the music shop while her father repairs cars in the back garage. I heard her whisper something about Francie’s husband calling later in the day. I simply asked Francie’s mother where he would be calling from. She answered he was in jail, but we don’t speak of him in front of Francie. She whispered Francie’s husband killed a bank clerk during a robbery and serving life without parole in maximum security. Her son Mickey was seven when he was arrested. Francie took her call in the back room and Little Mickey chatted with his grandfather too. I decided to go into the cathedral confessional and confessed my deceitful ways avoiding child support payments. I prayed for my daughter in the pew and lit a candle. I viewed the Don’s wife who failed to recognize me and I pretended to be praying as she walked by.

I arranged a meeting with The Spider by having my monthly rent check bounce. Before that occurred, I had the pleasure to meet The Spider when she arrived walking down the alley behind the bar. She wore knee high black boots with a long fur coat hiding her dress. My smoking coworkers suddenly cast their cigarettes onto the pavement and ran inside. Surprised at the sudden departure, she relayed how she hoped they didn’t leave because of her. I answered they were afraid of spiders. She asked why I was still there. I answered that I was a cage fighter so it takes a lot to scare me. She seemed interested. I explained that was how I got my new job, I could double as a bouncer as needed. I invited her to one of my cage fights that took place next week. She failed to answer if she would be there, but at least I had the possibility someone she knew would be there. She casually walked away to wherever she was going. My undercover angle was to be someone wanting to earn money off the books that a criminal could use and I intended to let them use me, right into a jail cell. My mixed marital art fight did attract another undercover agent my section chief told me about. I had his cell number so texted him a few times, but never met face to face. We met in my dressing room and planned my introduction into the gangsta life. He did a few fights himself to impress the bad boys of the block. His stage name was The Pirate wearing all black. The Crow was at the fight being the main bookie taking bets on the fighters. Any other bookies wanting to do business had to pay two percent of their profit to him because it was his block. The Pirate said I was 3 to 1 with him. The Crow’s main business was porn inside an abandoned factory and warehouse. He did a lot of photography for advertisements of local businesses. In fact, he took our pictures for the posters put up around the gym. I heard he often sells posters and shirts outside concerts that would fall under copyright infringement. I checked out one of his porn websites to find The Spider and very stimulating brief videos being advertised. I noticed The Don’s strip clubs were advertised on the website. Soon after, The Spider was at the bar demanding to see me. She informed me that my rent check bounced and demanded the cash, or face eviction. She was aware I had won my last fight and had the money. I informed her that I knew she took my laptop from my room so she already collected my rent. She fully denied taking my laptop and again demanded the money. Alright, I said, I can negotiate. I walked back into the kitchen and out into the alley with her following. I offered to pay the rent when she lifts her dress for me. She shifts her feet to announce I bounced that check on purpose. I admitted my guilt.

I reported that I could speak to her boss about the tabs her and her friends have rung up at the bar. The Boss would be unhappy buying their debts. She backed down stating my rent is considered paid for the month, but no others. I agreed to the terms. We met again after my shift was over and she took me to one of her hiding places. A converted utility closet in one of the buildings contained a bed, TV, fridge, and microwave. She took off her fur coat to reveal a halter dress popular in neighborhood. She demanded that I promise that my stolen laptop would be paid after this time with her, she only got three hundred dollars for it. I told her that I spent four thousand on it at the store. She paid her laptop debt on the bed and I gave her a hickey to remember me by. I asked why she agreed to this so easily and she said if I was so sneaky at getting to meet her that I was worth the attention. She commented how gentle I was compared to her rough gangbanger friends. I told her about my ex-wife and confirmed my skills at pleasuring women. I asked her if she enjoyed her time with her other men. She said it was just sex and feels completely numb about it. I invited her to be my date for my next fight. She refused to give an answer. I invited the hotel maid Daphne and her two kids to join me watching the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown. Her boyfriend was working the night shift smuggling whatever into town. I impressed them knowing Chinese I picked up in my years in California studying Kung Fu. During a day off, Daphne came by to thank me for the good time I gave her kids spending the afternoon with me. She talked about her meth addict boyfriend and I asked about The Spider. Did she have a boyfriend? Daphne didn’t know if she could ever have one because men would have to deal with The Crow. I saw The Spider on occasion as I cleared tables of dishes for her friends. The Crow was often by her side, but I never saw great affection between them. I soon got on The Crow’s bad side when he noticed I was looking at the group. I defended I was checking if they needed their plates removed since I was clearing tables. I came over to take their plates and silverware.

As I walked away, I heard the other undercover guy claim that looked familiar. I said it was possible since I cage fight. He announced my fighter name The Chameleon who wears fatigues. The Crow suddenly remembered taking my picture at the gym. I explained being a military brat traveling all over the world to earn the nickname in school. I signed my autograph for the group on the back of receipt paper and thanked them for betting on me. I do try to win, but judges don’t always agree with me. The Spider seemed uncomfortable in my presence as if she were hiding the fact we had sex in exchange for rent money, which she took from my wallet when I was tying my shoes. The next day after signing autographs when I was in the shower, she broke into my room again. At first I thought it was the maid, but they always announce that they are entering. I turned the shower off and asked if somebody was there. I came out to find The Spider sitting on the toilet staring at me. I asked if she liked what she saw. She asked what I wanted with her. I answered that I wanted the same thing a man who sees a beautiful woman wants. She admitted to pleasuring men since she was nine, but I looked at her differently. She asked again what I wanted with her. I answered I wanted her on my arm when I arrive at a cage fight, I wanted to kiss her good night, and I wanted her in my shower with me. She looked at me with a poker face as I bent over to kiss her. I asked whispering in her ear what was the secret to getting into her heart. I could tell she wasn’t accustomed to being loved, but being used in one-sided relationships. Her icy exterior began to melt as she touched my arms to tell me she liked guys with muscles. We finished my shower and I offered her a mini donut covered in powdered sugar Chloe had made. The Spider said there was a mini donut maker in the break room for the kids to have breakfast before school. I had to leave for work and The Spider visited the manager for the weekly rent.

I saw her again in the alley two days later and she allowed me to hold her for five minutes. She used her fur coat to hide me groping her under her dress. Not sure what was going through her head, but I wasn’t going to complain. I think her charms were used to check me out and see if I could be used by her association. I whispered in her ear that I was intrigued by a young woman who causes so much fear in people. I want to solve the mystery on what is so scary about her. She grinned and said it was the people she knew who were scarier than her. She warned that we have to keep our relationship a secret and I had to act like a customer, not a lover. We celebrated Fat Tuesday at a warehouse rave connected to a closed factory. The walls were painted with swirling designs of white paint that glowed in the black lights shining on them. Topless dancers in hot pants and knee high white boots were in cages on the opposite sides of the DJ stage. Drugs of all kinds were available and we drank margaritas from the bar. I discovered there was a Peep Show on the second floor where patrons can watch couples in a booth. The Spider asked if I wanted to see the Peep Show. I replied she had to come with me. She got us in a booth for free and I squeezed her watching the performance. The Crow and his men tossed beads into the audience from a balcony on the second floor. He kissed a dancer as the audience cheered. I noticed he disappeared behind the door with a Latina dancer. The Spider said her friend was a player and women threw themselves at him all the time. They refused to toss any beads until the girls’ shirts were lifted in the audience. The Spider gladly untied her halter top to expose herself. The Crow stayed on the balcony to dance with his girls.

I could tell she was getting drunk when she removed her top and gave it to a bouncer. We danced with her in only jeans and boots. Naturally other guys wanted a turn and she gladly grinded with them. I had to keep my distance and danced with her go-go dancer friend Desiree, but kept an eye on The Spider. Then it happened, a guy tried to walk off with my date. Desiree quickly found a new partner. I followed them to the factory steps that go to the basement and upper floors to confront the man. The Spider was so out of it she couldn’t even talk. I explained that was my friend he was taking upstairs. The guy brushed me off until I threw the first punch. Everyone around us was happy to watch a fight, but it ended swiftly with a few punches and the guy on the floor. One of bouncers waved at me to follow him carrying The Spider. We climbed some stairs that led to the room behind the balcony where The Crow was with the Latina girl on his lap. I explained I was her date tonight. We ran into each other at the Blue Moon where I asked for her number. She didn’t give it to me, but invited me to meet her here. I could play this game she wanted me to play. In the end, I had to leave her behind to return home with The Crow. I attended the Lent service the next day in the cathedral. Later in the day, The Spider told me she woke up in their apartment not remembering much of the night. Her best friend questioned her about her date and she answered I was that fighter she saw at The Blue Moon. She defended I keep asking her out to my fight, so she thought to give me some charity for Fat Tuesday. I told her about the fight and leaving her behind with The Crow. I skipped the topless dancing part since it seemed rude.

I finally got her on my arm as I arrived for my next fight and her cell phone number. The Crow must be warming up to me. Someone from the arena took our picture and posted it on their website. The caption called her a local dancer. I could tell The Crow was watching me and he sat next to The Spider during my exhibition of skill. After the fight, we ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. She seemed uncomfortable around our waiter. Apparently, her boss did business with his boss, but in public they had to act like they never met. Suddenly, she asked to visit the tea room with me. Two dancers with fans came out. I thanked them for the dance as we sipped tea in porcelain cups. Then the waiter came in to sit down as if he were a guest. He asked who I was and she replied I was cool. He gave her a box in the shape of a swan and left. I asked what was in the box. She didn’t answer and finished her tea. Another woman came in and read our fortunes in the tea leaves. The swan of love and snake of deception was in our future. I didn’t need a fortune teller to inform me of that. We went our separate ways outside the restaurant arranging to meet in four days. We spent one more time in the utility closet and I called her by her given name. She seemed surprised I knew it. I explained how the bar owner favors her. She says the bar owner talks too much. I told her I saw her as Little Red Riding Hood on pay per view and she replied the werewolf was her old boyfriend Mickey. She shut down after the thought of Mickey and I noted that she loved him. I asked her to tell me about this Mickey. She replied he was dead so there was nothing to tell. I told her he lived in her heart. I caught a tear seeping down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away. It must be exhausting being so strong. I hugged her and she squeaked out she loved Mickey because he protected her from bad boys of the neighborhood. She really enjoyed being his girl because nobody messed with her and he let her join his gang. Her best friend now fulfills this capacity.

I asked if I came to her strip club she works at that I could get a lap dance out of her. I would leave good tip in her garter. She actually blushed and said she could work something out. She only danced on Saturdays because the Boss demanded it and gets his service in the VIP room. She spent very little time on the public floor with the other dancers. I asked how long the Boss received her service. She answered five years ago she killed one of his men who had killed Mickey. She got a ride in his limo to his house and she thought she was about to be murdered. She arrived at The Don’s house and she explained she was carrying the child of the friend his guy killed. He allowed her to join his gang and become his mistress. The alternative was he could kill her and her baby to bury them where nobody would ever find them. She agreed to be the mistress when she had her baby and did whatever job he gave her. The baby ended up being her Danny’s kid from the DNA test. She traveled in The Don’s private jet on business and she collected the rent for him. I asked what The Crow thought of all this. She replied he accepted the situation and had his own gang who paid tribute to the Don. I asked about the Don’s wife I saw in the cathedral looking very sad. She explained her father was in the hospital with cancer and doesn’t have long to live. I observed her emotional distance and told her she must have truly loved this Mickey to be afraid to love again. Silence filled the room and I broke it by telling her she didn’t need to answer that. We spent a few more times in the utility closet before I decided to come her strip club.

My fellow bar employees got off work on Saturday and went to the club having Full Nudity Night. The laws down say alcohol can be served at topless bars, but not full nudity bars. So this club run by a front man for The Don came up with Full Nudity night beginning at 6 P.M. Alcohol is served during topless hours, and ends at full nudity hours. They played rap music as the strippers danced in g-strings, garters, and stiletto heels. The waitresses wore lace lingerie. We got a pitcher of beer and I noticed The Crow entering the VIP rooms. The Spider came down from her web and gave me a lap dance as promised. She left a note in my jeans pocket to meet her in the VIP entrance at 6. I presented the note at the entrance and the bouncer let me in. The room was quiet with the outside music playing through the walls. The Spider came out on the miniature stage and danced for me. She told me I had leave, the crew spotted us coming out of utility closet and reported to Danny. If Danny knew she was dancing for me for free, he would be unpleasant so I had to pay for my time with her from now on. I slipped money in her garter and thanked Elizabeth for the warning. I left the bar with my coworkers still in it and went back to my hotel room. After I left, the boss came in for his service and then Danny confronted Elizabeth in the manager’s office. He reported the rumors he heard about her new customer and accused her of not giving her ten percent of her hook ups to him. He hit her for her deception, burned her with cigarettes demanding how many times we were together, and finally raped her holding her down on the desk upon realizing I had her company for free. He took her tips for the night as a down payment. She knocked on my window from the fire escape to let her stay in my room until he calmed down. Covered in bruises and burns, I naturally took care of her. I got ice out in the hallway for her and ordered a pizza for us.

The next few days she wore my clothes sleeping in my bed all day while I worked. At night while I slept, she watched TV. She loved watching Crouching Dragon Hidden Dragon and The Osbornes. The landlord played all stations from stealing cable next door, which was a known store front for illegal narcotics. Despite how tough she was, in those few days in my room she was very vulnerable. I was made vulnerable myself when my daughter called my cell phone. I was getting ready for work and took the call in the bathroom. My ex-wife discovered her new husband gained a mistress and the fight was ugly. Consuelo wanted to come live with me, she was tired of the Swiss boarding school. I explained her mother would never allow that. I suggested she ask to visit her grandfather in Madrid for the rest of her Spring Break. She answered that he was in Rio right now. Alright, then say she wanted to visit her great-grandparents in Georgia for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. She said she would try that. I promised her to meet her in Georgia if she came. I ended the call and returned to bed. Well, Elizabeth was awake when I ended the conversation and asked who Connie was. I answered my daughter and explained my ex-wife’s just desserts. She smiled and patted the bed. We cuddled until I had to leave for work. After she was feeling better, she returned to her best friend and their apartment in the projects. The boy Cameron kept calling her cell phone to make her promise that she was coming home. She said she was in Mexico and would return home. I thought it was amazing how much they cared for this boy. They stole the identity of the original renter and his girlfriend who had the kid to keep the apartment for his cutting room to move the cutting room when the kid blabbed about naked people in the living room, and with no other reason than keep collecting disability and welfare checks with a food stamps card to keep that apartment. Guess they don’t want to let the cat out of the bag. I made a promise to myself that Cameron would not grow up to become a gangster. On the news, a great fire broke out in an abandoned factory that was suspected of being a meth lab. They showed homeless people living there being cared for by the cathedral sisters who ran two shelters in the neighborhood. Soon after, Danny was at The Blue Moon to hire me as a construction worker to help create a new studio in an abandoned store. I told Elizabeth I had been a construction manager. After getting a strip club stage done, he auditioned dancers for future films. While on a ladder, I felt dizzy and fell on the way down. Danny took me to the hospital to find I had fractured ribs and worse, pneumonia. I was forced to quit smoking until I healed. I missed St. Patrick Day and Easter in Savannah with my daughter. I was on strict bed rest for six weeks and dependent on coworkers and Elizabeth to bring food. Danny offered to get my prescription oxycodone for me. I found out from Elizabeth he forged more prescriptions and increased his drug business. When I got off bedrest, I could no longer fight and continued my bus boy duties.

Inches Closer

I got the feeling Danny was coming around with me being with Elizabeth. He finished the studio I started and business was booming with local merchants needing advertisements for the summer season. He got a new laptop with a webcam for his models to have thirty minute appointments with customers in a specially made bedroom set that took phone sex to a new level. I set up the laptop with a twenty-inch screen and taught the ten selected models to use the program. Naturally, Elizabeth was a model and I had to listen to her fake orgasms through the plywood walls. Danny had me record those appointments too to use in advertisement videos and previews to upcoming films. Offers of dates came with the territory and they were all rejected. Dates would only come in the VIP rooms at strip clubs they worked at. He also replaced his screen t-shirt printer with a digital t-shirt printer to make better shirts for concerts. His poster printer broke down and quickly replaced it to fulfill back orders for a local boutique. A favorite was a salamander holding a pina colada. One bakery needed new posters to advertise their wedding cakes and selected Elizabeth and her friend Daisy to model as brides. Afterwards, Danny had them model in white lingerie with their bouquets and veils for his website. Daisy was a crew member’s girlfriend who was a dancer at the club and cut drugs for Danny. A local designer named Carlo Luigi who created the popular salamander shirt wanted to put on a fashion show in the local park. Danny quickly found models for it and took all the pictures for the designer to use. My Elizabeth strutted her stuff in various dresses, shorts, and swimsuits. I sat in the audience and applauded. The after-party was fun with Danny approving our relationship as we drank champagne. I came to suspect this change came about because he was making plans for me. I was invited to the Saturday night party in the apartment. A few nights after raves in a different warehouse Elizabeth slept over in my hotel room to eat breakfast with me. We celebrated Danny’s twenty-third birthday at the strip club. Elizabeth gave me a gold loop to give him and he put it in his eyebrow. Elizabeth danced for us and only us in the VIP room. I think I got a spiked drink when I woke up in on Elizabeth’s sofa bed without memory of how I got there. Danny was in his room with two women, one was Daisy and the other was Desiree. Cameron was eating cereal at the kitchen table. I said good morning to him and checked the fridge for food. It contained mostly beer and leftover pizza. I let the others have pizza for breakfast. I took Cameron down the street to get donuts and came back with a dozen. We also got bread, eggs, syrup, butter, and milk to make French toast. Cameron never heard of French toast. He rather enjoyed it. Danny and Elizabeth enjoyed it too. They remember eating French toast sticks at school lunch a few times.

I next attended Cameron’s First Communion and gave him a book of Bible stories. I’m sure Danny thought I was strange staying with one woman, but then his mother had a revolving door of men so couldn’t expect him to know what falling in love with one person was like. I asked about Mickey’s father since Francie didn’t have boyfriends around. Elizabeth said he was in jail and she is still married to him. He killed someone while robbing a bank so serving life in prison. Mickey was seven years old when he was arrested. Francie borrowed money from The Don to start her beauty shop to support her son. Francie writes to her husband and sends pictures of his grandson, but he can’t have visitors or very many phone calls. Francie had sent him pictures of Mickey’s funeral. I quit my job as busboy and began my porn editing career. I walked into Mickey’s Studio in a former retail store. The front was set up for family photographs. A student of the local community college took the family photographs. She was quite chatty and made good coffee in the break room. Danny would take the pictures when she was taking classes. The back room had two women making posters and t-shirts. Both of them were on welfare and worked in retail stores part-time. Their kids were in school and were earning extra money off the books. Orders usually weren’t that big and they left when the work was done because Danny paid by the item made. Then I walked into the large storage room I helped build into hotel room and strip club sets. I was set up in an office with a laptop and given the keys to the outside doors. Danny’s office was next to mine. I sat at a computer all day adding music and editing takes to upload his movies onto the internet. I was paid by the hour. Danny had almost twenty websites for his merchandise including posters and calendars. He had some print shop make his calendars since they were a once a year thing. His sole advertiser on his websites was The Don’s strip clubs where most of the models came from. Elizabeth’s stage name was Destiny. I also helped in the studios. We held cameras for his livestream shows of couples on a stage twice a week. The audience’s favorite was the strip club stage. The youngest performers were twelve and girlfriends of his newly jumped in fourteen-year-old gang members who sold drugs for him. They also came to practice their dancing for his parties and raves. He paid these dancers well enough for them to keep coming back. He had some films printed on DVDs and pictures on paper to sell to porn shops that also sold his calendars and posters. I created some of the DVDs and mailed them to subscribers. I secretly printed one of Elizabeth’s pictures of her as a bride and taped it up on my wall.

I found one model posing for Danny didn’t speak English as she was filling out the release to publish her photos and movies. I remembered her dancing with Danny at the raves. She spoke in Spanish and was happy to meet someone with a Spanish ex-wife. Danny knew a little Spanish, but they mostly spoke in Latin. I explained the release form allowed Danny to put out her photos and films in the mass media. If she didn’t sign it, then they were forbidden from using it outside the studio. She signed her name and asked when she got paid. She worked for The Don’s strip club as the dancer Esperanza and wanted her freedom they promised when she paid her travel expenses. The other girls said Danny paid well and wanted out of debt as quickly as possible, she hated the sex industry. I asked how she got into it. Constanza was born in Columbia in a village along a river near the city Arauca. Her family raised cattle and nearby was a coffee farm where many people worked. She left home to be a maid to get raped by her employer who sent her to live in a brothel. She was beaten, drugged, and starved in that rathole until her keepers sent her to work in America. She and a few other girls were sold to the American strip club manager. There the girls were very nice and didn’t seem to act like prisoners. She gets paychecks, a card to show any local clinic for the club to pay the medical expenses, and gave her an apartment to live in. She shares her three-bedroom apartment with five other girls. The girls told her how to make extra money to pay off her debt faster and encouraged her to take English classes for when she does get free. She started her English classes a month ago to learn the alphabet, numbers, and colors. She couldn’t form a full sentence yet. She joined them at Danny’s raves and parties to earn good money in tips she got to keep ninety percent of. They told her she had to pay off her travel expenses before she could leave her job. They take her apartment rent and travel expenses out of her paychecks. She assured me they gave her enough for food and proudly declared she spent her first paycheck on a Shakira CD. She would like to open her own restaurant making Columbian food she grew up with.

I gave her the card of the lawyer I was told to contact if I got arrested. I explained if she was forced to come here, then she was entitled to a real visa by law. She eagerly left and I told Danny that I saw the way he looked at her so just take the girl out on a date. I explained her predicament and he could be her hero if he wanted her that bad. I left him to his thoughts. Two days later he took her to a pizzeria and learned she loved the Columbian singer Shakira whose first English album came out last year. He promised to get tickets to one of her concerts. Esperanza’s predicament made the local news and she sat through an interview with her lawyer. The warehouse where illegal workers were held was raided and strip club manager asserted to the reporter he didn’t know she was illegal when given papers by the smugglers. To his knowledge, he met a group of dancers at a hotel presented by a talent agent from Columbia and he chose which dancers he wanted. He holds nobody prisoner and the accountant pays everyone after withholding health coverage, housing, and recovery of travel expenses. Constanza announced she moved out of the apartment and paid off her travel expenses with help from her American friends. With her real visa, she has been sponsored in a job as a cook at a restaurant and looking forward to it. We all went to see The Fast and the Furious at the movie theater to celebrate. I looked forward to what Constanza would add to the menu at Mr. Lucci’s café bar. I saw her again visiting Elizabeth in their apartment. She was quite happy sleeping in Danny’s bed and teaching him Columbian food cuisine. I spent Saturday night in the apartment and walked with Francie to the cathedral in the morning. Constanza stayed with Francie during party night and stopped attending the raves. She was happy working at Mr. Lucci’s and coming home to Danny. Cameron liked her a lot and she taught him to speak Spanish as she learned English. She soon wanted to return home to Columbia and see her family. Danny took her to Columbia and brought back cocaine in the wine cases.

As summer came around and the studio business was hectic with lingerie models for autumn advertisements, Elizabeth brought me to a party in the new cutting room in an office next to the studio. I was sure it was more than a heroin cutting room, but said nothing. I drank beer from the bottle slowly. Suddenly out of the blue, The Don dropped by in his Armani suit, gold rings, and reeking of cologne. I had to explain no more cage fighting since my rib fractures mostly have healed. He asked if I knew anyone who needed money and possibly take a fall. I said The Pirate would, he needed money for a new car. They got together and I was next to the cage with Elizabeth as the fight began. In the fourth round, my guy tore a ligament in his shoulder (or so he said) and lost the fight. We both walked away rich men and I flew us to Atlantic City. I mentioned during my bedrest that I flew private planes and we chartered one for the weekend. I asked her about getting a new tattoo. I thought it was time to heal from my ex. Elizabeth knew the right place in the neighborhood. In the casino hotel room, I asked how she met all her friends. She, Danny, and Mickey had mothers who were friends so she knew them since birth. Danny and her lived on the same floor of their apartment building and walked to school with the other children of the building. Mickey lived across the street and she was taken to Francie’s beauty shop by her grandmother. She had been best friends with Danny since preschool, even though he was two years older. She fell in love with Mickey who was five years older than her who took care of her like a sister. She explained once meeting Mickey while Danny and her were looking in garbage cans for food and Mickey came by with his friends. This was after her grandmother died and her mother was too strung out to cook anything that day. The boys laughed at us and went in a door. When they came out, they split up different ways. Mickey told us to follow him and we ended up at the back of a bakery. They toss the unsold bread loaves so we got a few loaves of Italian bread to take home.

He taught us to be the look out when he shoplifted and got a share from the fencer Nico who was eight years older than Mickey. I asked if this was Danny’s enforcer Nico. She said he was. I thought Danny at age eighteen a little young to be a gang ringleader when Mickey was killed. She answered Danny shot a member who disapproved and then appointed Nico as his second in command to quickly gain approval. Nico graduated fencing and got into the drug trafficker under Mickey’s friend Toro. When Toro was hauled off the jail, Nico took over his business and used Mickey’s business as a front. When Mickey was killed, Danny took over and made Nico his partner as second in command/enforcer. Danny is boss of the block because he is the front man. For Nico to be boss, he would have to get his own buildings. I asked what happened to Toro. She said he was found a prison room beaten to death and nobody knows what happened. The coroner said his lungs filled up with blood to suffocate him. I asked about her relationship with my former boss since her and the kids spend holidays with his family. She replied Mr. Lucci was the only one kind enough to give them free meals, since he knew her grandmother and couldn’t bear to see her starve. He is like the grandfather she never had. I kissed her and assured her that I also could not bear to see her suffer. When we got back, she took me to a shop and I asked for a rose tattoo with Consuelo swirled into a stem on my upper arm. She would like that. Then Elizabeth asked if I would put her on a tattoo someday. I said that would depend on what happened between us. We only known each other for six months so the future is hard to see. After being married and divorced, I’m cautious about falling in love so fast. She understood.

After making her friends rich from the fixed fight, I started in on the drug trade in the cutting room. I paid prescription buyers for their pills and sold Danny’s forged prescriptions. Soon it was Elizabeth’s twenty-first birthday. I joked how she would be legal to buy her own booze if she ever had a real driver’s license. I bought her a gold and black pearl ring. They had a party at The Blue Moon and another party in the cutting room with her gang. I spent the night in her sofa after the party ended at sunrise. I was with Danny in the cutting room when he sold guns out to fellow criminals who looked a little foreign. I thought we may have reached our terrorist target. The guns ended up being used in a robbery in another neighborhood and homemade bomb materials were found when my section team tracked them down. Business continued gathering information on our targets. They didn’t seem to have much of a connection to terrorists other than being gun suppliers and loaning them money. The foreign immigrants learned quickly to pay back the American loan sharks. I scared a few borrowers just by standing on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette outside their front stores. I explained to the debtors a small payment would be better than no payment. I punched a few debtors and maybe fractured a few bones, but didn’t kill anyone. Nico would be the one to kill them if necessary. We turned a few foreigners into prescription buyers to help pay off their debt. Unfortunately, one of the buyers went to the same pharmacy twice in one day to get arrested for phony prescriptions in their car. I was worried the buyer would turn on me and I was prepared to have my cover blown to pieces. I laid low for a while in the secret hiding place Elizabeth showed me. Danny was questioned about the office next door and he pleaded ignorance of what happened next to his studio. The lawyer of The Don was good, but not good enough to keep the prescription buyer from being deported back to Egypt. He quickly found another cutting room when I stopped hiding. His rave warehouse was raided too so we went on the hunt for a new rave room.

Soon Danny had a party in his new cutting room inside the back room of a front store. A grocery store owner owed him money so he paid by allowing his men in a back office to cut their drugs. The strippers who came to cut had it down to an art. Danny made them walk around in lace lingerie and face masks to keep them from stealing. Soon the drug dealers arrived to pick up their deliveries to the front stores and special deliveries to customers. I went along with Riley, who fenced my laptop, on special deliveries to learn the customers in the two project buildings. His girlfriend lived there and had a crying baby boy with her. I thought the baby sounded hungry, but his mother was concerned with preparing her smoke. Riley said there was milk in the cupboard. I opened the cupboard door and found a rat. I jumped in surprise and Riley told me to stand aside. He shot the rat and dropped it down the garbage shoot. I fed the baby boy and set him down for a nap. Our last stop was the strip club where Elizabeth worked. We walked in the VIP room where there are no cameras and a few dancers gave us lap dances. We made our deliveries and went on our way. To celebrate the new cutting room, we drank beer from the grocery cooler and Elizabeth cooked in the break room microwave some chow mein for us. Someone made a crack on her being a housewife to the gang and she turned around to shoot him in the shoulder. He also found a new place for his crystal meth lab, an abandoned department store that made a good new rave place. We built a new stage, dancing cages, peep show stalls, balcony, and bar. We went shopping for liquors for the bar. Danny mixed his drinks into the bottles so the bartenders that were underage just had to pour them out of the bottle and add ice or lemon slices.

I woke up on her sofa bed in the morning. I stayed in the apartment watching TV with Cameron. We played some video games and then got ready to go to a rave. Danny convinced Constanza to dance in the balcony with him. I remained on the ground floor selling ecstasy pills while Elizabeth danced in a cage for Grand Opening. When I ran out of pills, I took my turn as collector for the Peep Show and chased people out of the stalls when the shows were over. I heard the DJ announce a treat for the Grand Opening, the topless dancers would remove their hotpants the rest of the night if he collected a hundred dollars in the jars on the stage by midnight. Danny made a fortune that night and the audience got their striptease from the dancers. Thereafter, the challenge was presented at every rave. Danny more cautious about his raves that keep getting raided, we just stay for the first two hours and left. The exception was celebrations where we stayed all night. Working my editing job, I discovered Danny saved everything he and Mickey ever recorded. I found some videos of an underage Elizabeth still available for viewing. I made some copies of my own of the underage videos and photos to mail a box full of external hard drives to my boss’s office. Naturally, I included the websites and access codes to view the subscribers on a piece of hotel stationary. Danny had no argument against me backing up his system. All his of stuff was on the internet so he wasn’t worried about losing anything on his computer until he met me. My undercover friend and I bugged every place we went when nobody was around. But, most of my day was adding music to videos. I learned the business began ten years when their friend Mickey got into trouble with the law. To make money to help out his mother, he took photographs around the city to sell. This led to strippers posing for him to help promote themselves in the want ads. Stripping for profit is legal, just the sex that can come with it is not. I learned their Chinese partners import heroin from Afghanistan and Danny’s men import meth from Mexico.

Danny confided that Elizabeth’s mother Dinah discovered her customer was teaching Elizabeth hand jobs while she was sleeping. She demanded money for Elizabeth’s services and once an offer came for Elizabeth to lose her virginity to a customer, Mickey was furious and poisoned her fix. He set the whole thing up so Elizabeth was with Danny playing video games at his apartment down the hall when it happened. What he didn’t plan on was a customer being present when he arrived with his usual delivery. He stabbed the guy in the living room while Dinah was in the bedroom getting her fix. He came over covered in blood from his first murder at age fifteen and called his friend Toro to help him cause the plan went awry. Danny was the look out while Mickey and Toro disposed of the customer down the garbage shoot. The garbage collectors found the body and called the police. Knowing of the death of Dinah from an overdose at the same time, the police put the pieces together. The police detective told Mickey he shouldn’t have used a bed sheet from the prostitute’s bed to dispose of the body. Mickey relayed his sob story of Elizabeth about to be sold into prostitution and the detective assured him of a deal where he got probation for two years. He got the camera from the Bishop trying to steer him in a legal profession. Francie took Elizabeth into her home and once Danny’s mother Rachel died of an overdose (not on purpose this time) a year later he lived in the apartment too. That would explain a lot. I didn’t tell him that Mr. Lucci said his mother was killed by her boyfriend, it seemed rude at the time. The three became very close, just like their mothers. Danny took over Mickey’s business when he was killed in a bar fight since he was the underboss of Mickey so to speak. Elizabeth shot the man who killed the twenty-one-year old porn director by lying in wait for him to come out of a bar and confronted him on the sidewalk with Mickey’s gun. She was sixteen at her first murder and earned the name The Spider. I told him Elizabeth had said he shot someone who disagreed with his takeover. He smirked and assured me it was not his first murder. He killed someone at age fifteen who had robbed Mr. Lucci and broke his jaw. It was someone from the neighboring gang territory a few blocks away. They put the word out and a bartender informed The Don’s men of someone bragging about robbing and beating up an old man outside a bar. Mickey gave him the gun to shoot the braggart and said he would his underboss if he succeeded. Nico drove the car when Danny shot the named culprit to affirm he actually succeeded.

Naturally I had to ask why Danny was called The Crow. He refused to answer, but Elizabeth told me it was because he murdered the men who gang-raped his girlfriend at a party. She was pregnant with Danny’s child and had a miscarriage after the rape. Danny got wind from a waiter who overheard of the culprits bragging about their crime to their friends. In the darkness, he waited for revenge and took it violently. His friends nicknamed him after the character who avenges his love’s death by killing her killers. He was seventeen and adopted Cameron as his son because of it. I asked what happened to the girl. Elizabeth said she fell asleep at a party a year ago and never woke up. She moved in and Cameron accepted her as his new mother. Then got them in trouble after the party that made them move his cutting room into an abandoned factory. Cameron received the belt for that and got sent over to Francie’s when they have parties. The parties were all the same with underage girls dancing on tables and providing services in the bedrooms when someone paid Danny for it. People were smoking from drug bongs, snorting powder on mirrors, and injecting in the bathroom. I slowly drank a beer from a bottle and spent time with Elizabeth in a closet.

I was told the junkie man who lived here after he was injured at a construction job took Danny’s dope for the pain. Soon he found a woman with a three-month-old baby boy sleeping in the basement and they moved in with him. They used baby formula to cut the dope so there was plenty for the baby to drink. They didn’t know who the father was. Then the man overdosed and Danny didn’t want to give up the apartment so he stole his identity and disability checks. They dumped the man in the river so nobody would find him. Danny said he sunk like a rock. Danny also took over the girlfriend who ended up getting raped during a party of his and then miscarried his baby. When she overdosed last year, she went into the river too and Elizabeth stole her identity. The junkie girlfriend once let Elizabeth take Cameron over for preschool registration so she could sleep. They wore disguises so the nuns wouldn’t recognize them. Putting him in Kindergarten at the public school was easier and nobody recognized them. The plan only went awry when the kid blabbed about their parties to his Sunday School teacher. The Bishop pounded on the door and demanded to know what was going on. Elizabeth imitated how the Bishop asserted how he knew the pair since their baptism so do not lie to him. He ordered the cutting in the apartment to stop and protect the kid from the parties. His concern was more for the welfare of the child than their illegal activities. He would pray for them, but what goes around comes around. The kid walked to Kindergarten with the other apartment children and played with them after school. During the summer, he plays with the neighbors, with Little Mickey, and at the beauty shop.

In Like Flynn

I finally received the greatest honor on the Fourth of July. We were at a party being hosted by the Don in his mansion in Chilton and I was given permission to move in with Elizabeth. They had judged me worthy of the position, though I had to still put up with Elizabeth still giving services when demanded. We watched fireworks in The Don’s backyard to leave to go to work on Danny’s rave he had to put on for the holiday. Danny crossed the room with Constanza to give a speech standing next to the DJ. He thanked his customers for coming and announced the hundred-dollar challenge for the dancers. He then went up to the balcony to toss beads to the audience who adored him. Elizabeth and Constanza danced on the balcony while I helped Danny toss beads. Elizabeth and I snuck into the room behind the balcony where chairs and sofas were located. It was our break room complete with a cooler full of beer bottles. We came home to the apartment that would become my new home. A week later, we celebrated her son Mickey’s seventh birthday at the café bar where my former employer had made him a cake. We helped carry the presents to Francie’s apartment and she cooked spaghetti and meatballs for us. Mickey enjoyed the toy planes I brought for him. Cameron loved the toy cars Francie gave him. The girl Betsy clung to her Rugrats Angelica doll and showed us her triumph walk using her walker. Francie said the priest in charge of the church school offered to have a therapist come to the preschool with the hope that Betsy could learn to walk. It was mentioned the pilot of the Don’s private plane came down with the flu and they needed a quick replacement. I was offered the privilege of flying down to Texas for them. I was soon going on trips to California, Arizona, and New Mexico. I signed out of my hotel room forever and turned in the key (which shocked the front desk guy). I slept on the sofa bed with Elizabeth and got accustomed to cold showers. Life in the project building wasn’t that bad. Fist fights were entertainment around here and listening to music was free. Every weekend had a party in someone’s apartment. Constanza and I did the laundry to take Cameron with us to the laundromat down the street. We read books and Constanza practiced her English. I would spend time with him listening to him read and encouraged him to practice writing. It was nice acting like a parent again. Elizabeth said I smiled when around the kids. I missed my daughter who would be turning eight this year and I wouldn’t be there. Soon Constanza was pregnant and I was certain Danny was praying for another child. He would take extra care of Constanza and released her from dancing at raves. We celebrated Betsy’s fourth birthday and I gave her a coloring book with new crayons. We shopped for school supplies for the kids and made a donation to the cathedral’s drive for their school.

When school began, Cameron was picked up in the morning by neighbor kids and walked to the bus stop together so the adults could sleep in. I always got up to fix him breakfast. He was accustomed to eating cereal by himself so he enjoyed the novelty of French toast and scrambled eggs added to his diet. We took him out to buy his Halloween costume. He chose Darth Maul from the new Star Wars movie. We went to the mall for our trick or treating with the other kids dressed as Darth Vader and Cinderella. Then we left Cameron at Francie’s to enjoy a costume party at a rave in an abandoned warehouse Danny found after the cops busted his abandoned store place during Labor Day Weekend. Most of the time he arrived for a few hours, then leaves. Danny was The Joker from Batman, with Constanza as Harlequin. Elizabeth and I went as Poison Ivy and Bane. My undercover friend showed up as a jailbird and his date a sexy cop. I found out later she was a coworker of his who wanted a night of undercover. While the party was going on, a shipment of crystal meth from Mexico arrived late in a van. We employees had to go to the back room and divide it into packets for the pushers. Each candyman came for a package to sell to the crowd and it quickly disappeared. One member of the crew pocketed some of the packets of the finished product before it was counted for delivery. Danny lost it and grabbed his shirt collar. He forced the guy to the floor and shot him in the head. He removed six packets from the guy’s pockets and we stood in silence. He asked me to help him dispose of the vermin while the last of the packages were given out. We carried the dead guy to the dumpster out back. Then my cell phone buzzed and I checked the caller ID to find it was my undercover friend. He sent a text message to find him asap. We entered the back room to find Elizabeth asking for binoculars. There were flashing lights a block away and wanted to check it out. We found my undercover people and went up to the third floor offices full of people smoking and necking. Danny said the flashing lights were by Nico’s rave in an abandoned factory. He gave the order to close up shop. The announcement was made and the crew quickly filled a van with boxes of leftover booze. We rushed to remove the DJ table and speakers.

Then, we met the police’s SWAT teams. We all got hauled to the county jail. During my questioning, the police said they matched my prints to an FBI agent. I replied that there were two others who were undercover as well. I asserted I was an inch away from discovering the source of their drug supplies, their fencing contacts in electronics and jewels, and their gun suppliers. I begged for them to release me to finish my job and put The Don away for the rest of his life. I was brought before a judge and pleaded not guilty to anything beyond attending an illegal rave. It was illegal from not having a liquor license, underage dancers, and not checking for underage customers. We were inside taking apart the speakers when SWAT barged in. The crowd rushed them trying to escape, but we were in the corner and were last to leave. So, you could say they didn’t really have a good view of what we were doing when they came in. Danny crawled under the DJ stage and moved a board that revealed a safe he stuffed his money in. Nobody from the crew caught outside with the van told the police who they were working for. The packets of meth were given to the pushers who went out into the crowd so there wasn’t more than a few grams left in the whole place when they arrived to charge us with. Any unsold packets and some large bills were tossed on the floor to avoid giving themselves away as a dealer. The staff wore regular clothes so they all stated they were just there to party to the music. Francie arrived to bail the three of us out and Danny paid her back. The cops failed to find the safe under the floor boards and we went back at night to recover what we could. Soon after, we had to find another place for the raves.

We found another abandoned store with a very large backroom. We quickly set up shop and held another Grand Opening. This time Danny stayed away more and made an appearance for an hour before leaving. Our trial dates were set in January and I had two months to close my case. With my stories of telling off the police in the interrogation room, I impressed my crew and got offered another job. This time I was going to Paris. The Don wanted to visit his business contact there and even got tickets to the theater. I was given a gun to act as his bodyguard. I never felt so trusted in my life. Elizabeth came as well as his arm candy. His business contact adored her and she gave him service in his bedroom. I got my first lesson in stealing jewels. I was rehearsed in costume changing and geography. I had to know the subways, alleyways, and streets to get away quickly. We went inside the shop acting as a couple looking for an engagement ring. Two days later, I guarded the door while Elizabeth and a French guy of the business contact robbed the place. We ran down the street and into the subway station. We dropped our wigs and outer clothes in the rest room to walk out of the subway exit calm as can be. I thought that was a nice ruse. The Don and the business contact split the jewels. We hid the real stones to smuggle into the States and replaced them with cubic zirconia to sell. Elizabeth kept a fourteen karat gold ring with fake sapphires. We sold the twenty-four carat gold pieces to a jewelry dealer who also sold coins.

Once Cameron blabbed about Constanza’s and my presence in the apartment at school, social services arrived to question relationship with the couples. He received the belt from Danny when social services called the apartment. When the woman arrived, I presented myself as Valerie’s cousin who just lost a job and sleeping on her sofa bed temporarily. Constanza was my girlfriend. I ordered Cameron into his room to play so the adults could talk. I leaned over the nervous woman and whispered how I was really an undercover agent to give her the number of my office to confirm the information. I assured her the apartment was bugged and no harm would come to the boy. When the tenants would be sent to jail, Cameron would be happy with Francesca and the kids. I told her about Constanza’s pregnancy and assured that the visa holder was not involved in their illicit activities. She left in shock, but assured me of her silence in this matter. We celebrated Cameron’s seventh birthday at Laser Tag and invited friends from school. Then we attended the Shakira concert and Cameron got an autographed poster from Danny buying Meet and Greet tickets along with our front row seats. Had Thanksgiving dinner at my former employer’s café bar. Next thing I knew, I started flying to Mexico as my reward for smoothing things over with the social worker. I flew to Cancun and visited the Mayan ruins with Danny and Elizabeth. I bought her a turquoise necklace and souvenirs for the kids. Met Danny’s Mexican business contacts over dinner in the hotel café. Elizabeth and I enjoyed a romantic weekend.

The return flight was uneventful. The cargo-hold held our luggage and several crates of tequila, mescal, and rum for the clubs. Danny explained to the customs officials he was in Mexico obtaining liquors for his boss who owned the plane. The drugs were in sealed bags in false bottoms and packed in coffee grounds to throw off the drug sniffing dogs. When we arrived home, Elizabeth removed the jewels from her clothes and fake hair. We delivered the goods to their proper destination. They gave me several passports to use as we imported liquors for the clubs. During the Christmas shopping season, we went on vacation to Australia. I did my Christmas shopping there. I whispered to Elizabeth that I loved her and was uncertain if she was asleep when I said it. She didn’t seem to respond to my long withheld words. Danny, Elizabeth, and I returned after a few days with beer and wine. I celebrated my thirty-first birthday at the strip club complete with a dance and service from Elizabeth. Danny gave me a watch that I was sure was fenced. We later set off for Amsterdam and Rome for gin and amaretto. Hidden from view were stolen jewelry, electronics, among other things. Christmas Eve was spent at the café bar and The Don came for dinner carrying a turkey for tomorrow to drive us to the cathedral for midnight mass. Christmas Day Cameron woke up to a toy gun in his stocking. He got video games, movies, Legos, and a dump truck from me to occupy his time. Elizabeth gave me a gold ring I recognized in the Sydney shop that I had said I liked, but was shopping for other people. I gave her a mink fur coat and a diamond bracelet. Danny and Constanza gave me action movies with lots of karate scenes. We walked over to the café bar to taste The Don’s turkey. It was a happy day. When The Boss wanted his plane for vacation in Aruba the day after Christmas, I flew the plane and drove the car around. His family was very quiet and hardly spoke to each other. I showed the false ceiling I added to the plane so they could store any valuables in it. I forgot about the portable DVD player we had up there to watch movies during the flight. The kids enjoyed the discovery and bought some new movies in Aruba to watch on the way back. I actually missed Elizabeth and was told I spoke her name in my sleep. I woke up to find Mrs. Pesciano drinking gin in the moonlight. I asked her opinion on falling in love with an impossible relationship. Elizabeth could never really be mine and we would never live happily ever after. She simply stated love has no boundaries and returned to her husband.

My Last Act

Upon returning home, the shit hit the fan. Danny was arrested for smuggling at his studio when a van full of Mexican meth while I was sleeping from my long flight. Elizabeth went looking for bail money in my secret hiding place behind the master bedroom dresser. I woke up to my gun in my face held by a woman who found my FBI badge. She shot the pillow and I begged her not to shoot me. Danny’s arrest was not my fault. She backed away towards the door as I tried to get up. Tears fell down her cheeks as she explained she had to do this. She fired two shots into my chest and I thought I died. I heard her run out the door. Silence filled the room. Then my cell phone went off and I knew the guys listening in on the bugs heard the shots. I laid there for a long time waiting for a higher spirit to take my soul. I blacked out. I woke up to my undercover friend shouting at me the bullets hit my ribs. I was going to be fine if I didn’t bleed to death. Cameron came home from a neighbor to find paramedics in his living room. My undercover friend took Cameron to Francie’s and put the family in protective custody. His cover blown up by now, he left with them assuring I was going to survive. I woke up again in the hospital with my parents, my grandparents, and daughter happy I was still with them. Happy New Year. When I was released from the hospital, I went to visit Danny. After he was bailed out by Constanza and told I was FBI, Danny went to his apartment to pack up his stuff to go into hiding. Elizabeth took off to one of her hiding places. Constanza was packing with him when Nico arrived asking if he were going somewhere. Danny sent Constanza out for cigarettes.

Danny knew what was coming and they had a standoff pointing guns at each other until Nico fired at him. They exchanged shots and Danny got hit in the head. Nico suffered a collar bone wound and was arrested the hallway. Constanza returned to see the police outside her apartment building and people talking about The Crow being shot. She ran to where Elizabeth was hiding with the cigarettes. Danny was in a coma for week. The agents got to him in time to save his life, but when he woke up he couldn’t speak. I assured him that his girlfriend and daughter were safe and in the protective custody with my undercover friend he knew. He seemed at peace with his situation in the prison wing. I knew he was simmering with anger at his close friend who helped him dispose of a body was a false friend who wanted him in jail. I told him Elizabeth and Constanza had fled the country on a chartered plane and I had a feeling she went to Paris because that business associate would certainly hide her. When the agents asked me where would Elizabeth go when I was in my hospital bed, I called the Paris contact to leave a message for Elizabeth to let go of Esperanza affirming she wouldn’t understand what was happening to her. Someone dropped her off at a police station with a note in French stating Americans were looking for her. I actually apologized to Danny for deceiving him for so long, it was my job. I did care for him and rather see him in jail than have The Don kill him for employing the enemy. I finished explaining how I knew about the stabbing death of his mother, how Mickey poisoned Elizabeth’s mother, discovered he was raped as a kid, and the mysterious men who shot his rapist. His eyes grew realizing I knew the truth about his deep, dark secrets. I said I was sorry he didn’t have much of a chance to live a good life because being a gangster was the only way he was ever going to succeed. I wiped the sweat off his face and walked away.

Once he formed words a month later, I asked him to cooperate with the authorities because the evidence was really stacked up against him. All he could say in return was “You put me here.” I was determined to visit him to use his hatred for me to drive him to walk again. I was there when they presented him with the parallel bars. I could tell he hated me viewing him as weak. He grabbed the bars and slowly struggled across them. Half way across he fell. I helped pick him up and carry him back to the wheelchair. He wanted to try again. We stood him up and he struggled across to make it only half way. The therapist continued building his muscles. After the therapy session, the nurse brought his food and struggled with the spoon. I opened his pudding pack and fed it to him. I said he had every right to hate me and wouldn’t blame him if he put a hit out on me. I told him about preparing to testify against The Don. He refused to testify, but did agree to a deal with the prosecutor. He was brought to the judge in a wheelchair. He stuttered that he understood the deal presented to him and agreed to the terms. I was offered a chance to speak. It was the first time Danny heard my real name.

He only had known me as Jake Connor. I recited a tale of befriending him and his best friend, building him a studio, fixing a fight, doing their laundry, selling his drugs, playing games with his kid, and helping him dispose of a body. On his good side, he cared for his girlfriend’s son before and after she died even though he didn’t have to. He even gave some of the formula that was used to cut heroin to the baby Cameron when his mother was tripping. He cared for his daughter and saw her every Sunday for lunch. He is about to become a father to a son soon. This man is not evil. This man didn’t have much opportunity to succeed outside the ghetto that was his home. Living in the apartment for months, I have grown to care what happens to him. He is not a statistic to me. I would testify against him and keep him in jail if only to keep him safe from his boss who sent an assassin to kill him. The judge accepted the plea deal of fifteen years with parole in eight. I knew Danny was still angry with me, but I think he was accepting me as someone who really did care about him, but at the same time wasn’t a doormat he was used to. When The Don’s trial produced a guilty verdict, he got twenty-five years to life. Nico went to jail for attempted murder and sentenced to fifteen years.

By the time Elizabeth was arrested in Paris and extradited back, Danny was able to walk again using a walker. He used silverware awkwardly, but could feed himself. He remained in a special area to keep him isolated from other prisoners. Anyone of them could kill him and make The Don very happy. I continued to visit him and give him letters from Francie with photos of the children. He smiled when Constanza named their son Jose after her father and stared at his son’s picture a whole minute. I told him Elizabeth had been caught in Paris. She was picking up stolen jewels from her French contacts and the law found her walking down the street after her subway restroom ruse. They followed her a block and then cut her off to arrest her. She was extradited within two months and I went to visit Elizabeth shortly after her arrival. I had gotten in a tussle arresting smugglers the day before at the airport and had my left arm in a sling from a torn tendon. She was being interviewed by the agents when I arrived. She refused to looked at me while I explained how the bullets hit my ribs to save my life. I apologized for deceiving her for so long, it was my job. She wiped her face so I wouldn’t see her cry. She asked me to leave. I refused. I asked why she was crying, was she happy I survived? She turned towards me and announced she was pregnant. The doctor in Paris said the conception date was around the time we were in Sydney, Australia. I promised I would see her again soon. Her lawyer from The Don came and ended our conversation. He gave her an envelope with a message from The Don. The envelope contained a powder she promptly snorted and rapidly went into convulsions. The doctor gave her an adrenaline shot for the overdose and saved her. Her recovery in the hospital wing involved being chained to the bed. I visited her again to beg her cooperation, the authorities have tons of evidence against her and the attempted murder of a federal agent would put her away forever. I would testify against her if only to keep her safe for The Don. Nobody told her what happened to Danny. I showed her a video I had of him telling her to be strong. When she was released from the hospital wing and put in isolation, I visited her again. This time she asked if anything of our time together was real. I told her that baby she was carrying was real. My caring for Cameron and Constanza was real. My encouragement to get Danny walking again was real.

She commented how the Bishop at their church said to her once that I was not all that I seemed. Did I tell I him I was an undercover agent and was warning her of my deception? I told her no. I had met with him in the confessional and confessed affection toward her was not part of The Plan. I explained how terrified I was to fall in love with someone I couldn’t have a future with. We are completely different people from different worlds that would only collide. The bishop was warning her of my infatuation of her. She was relieved that our time was real. She felt a little better handing over our baby to me when he or she was born. I kissed her good-bye. I heard she took a deal and I was sent over to speak at her sentencing. At the sentencing, I spoke of a girl who tried her best to survive, she made money where she could, and absorbed the lifestyle of people who took care of her. I explained she was pregnant with my child and believed her to be a loving mother who visited her children every Sunday at lunch while caring for someone else’s kid when she didn’t have to. She understood well how hard it is for children to raise themselves. She protected Constanza when she knew she was in danger of getting killed by The Don and then turned her in to the French police when I requested it. She never really had a chance to succeed outside the ghetto that was her home. I finished with stating that I petitioned the family court for custody and willingly committed to raising the child. The judge accepted the plea deal of fifteen years, parole in eight.

I only had a few more months to wait for the birth of my son Jacob named after my middle name I used as my undercover name. My daughter enjoyed my pictures of her half-brother and my ex-wife allowed her to visit us near Atlanta where I moved into my grandparents’ vacation house. My grandfather’s Parkinson’s disease got worse and they moved into a retirement community with assisted living area. My parents moved into their Antebellum house in Savannah when my father started his retirement. I transferred to take a desk job transcribing bugged conversations onto documents on my computer. I teach karate at the local community center and visit schools to teach self-defense to youngsters. My son seems happy with his nanny and learning to open doors now. We are preparing to visit his mother and Danny for Christmas. Naturally we are picking up Francie, Constanza, and the kids in the Midwest to take with us. Then we will take them down to Savannah to join my daughter and my parents in celebrating the New Year. Life is not perfect, but I’m happy with it.