Just Supposed to be a Summer Job

"How much of a head start were you thinking of giving Romeo and Juliet?" he asked.

"I figure about half an hour should be right," Stevie replied.

The third member of this little party, process server Gilbert Harrison, sat quietly in the back seat of Stevie's Ford LTD listening to the two men in the front.

At the 30-minute mark, the three men headed by foot over to Stevie's house. Stevie went to the front door and turned the handle. It was still unlocked. The trio walked in silently. The house was quiet as Stevie started ascending the stairs to the master bedroom -- where he and Traci had sworn eternal love to each other dozens of times while they were making sensuous love -- or having a rip-roaring fuck session. Stevie noted how the house felt so different right now.

Halfway up the stairs, Stevie heard the noises: flesh slapping flesh, Traci making small moaning noises, Sal grunting in response. They hadn't even closed the bedroom door, Stevie thought to himself as he stood in the doorway and watched for a moment. Laying on top with his back to the door, Sal couldn't see Stevie pull out his Sig Sauer P220, and Traci, lying underneath, couldn't see Stevie either. But they both heard the roar of the gun as Stevie fired one bullet through the framed wedding photograph of Stevie and Traci that hung right above their bed. Both occupants reflexively ducked for cover and stopped their movements, although Sal hadn't dismounted.

"Damned drywallers are going to be all over my ass when I ask them to fix that for me," Stevie calmly said to the pair as they turned to see Stevie in the doorway.

Traci gave a loud shriek and tried to hide further under Sal, whose look of fear was turning to smugness as he realized it was Stevie in the doorway.

"I'd wipe that smirk off your face damned quick if you don't want the next bullet to be in your head," Stevie yelled at Sal. "I've been carrying a gun since I was a kid working for my dad in Bed-Stuy, and I know how to use it!"

Sal's face lost the smirk and became blank. Traci figured that was her cue to be stupid.

"It's not what it looks like, Stevie," Traci cried out.

Stevie pointed the gun at his wife. She immediately shut up.

"Gary, could you come in here for a second," Stevie called out behind him.

Traci tried to shrivel up smaller when Gary entered the room.

"What does this look like to you, Gary?" Stevie asked his friend.

"It looks like two scumbags fucking around on your bed, Stevie," Gary answered.

"Then apparently it's exactly what it looks like, Traci," Stevie said.

Stevie looked behind him again.

"Mr. Harrison, if you would."

The process server entered the room, walked over to the bed and handed Traci the manila envelope.

"Mrs. Tanner, you've been served."

The pair had disentangled at this point. Sal started to rise from the side of the bed.

"Uh, uh, Sally. You reach for your piece and I'll blow both of your kneecaps to hell."

Gary went over to Sal's clothes and got the .38 that Sal always carried.

"You'd better thank Charlie Figs that you're still alive," Stevie said as the process server and Gary left the room. Still with his gun drawn, Stevie went into his closet, pulled out a suitcase and loaded it with some clothes and essentials.

Charlie was in his office at the construction company when Stevie and Gary got back. As usual, the door was open, so Stevie walked in and laid Sal's .38 on Charlie's desk.

"Why are you carrying Sal's gun?" a surprised Charlie inquired.

"Because I took it from him so he wouldn't shoot me after I caught him fucking Traci in my house today, Charlie. I had my own drawn on him at the time, but he got the Charlie Figs' discount and I didn't blow his fucking brains out!" Stevie started to shout. "He was fucking her in my bed, that piece of shit! Tell that piece of shit I hope he has a nice life with the slut, because since he broke it, he bought it!"

Just as Stevie reached his own office, his office phone rang.

"Stevie, don't hang up, it's me," Traci said in a jumble of words. "Look, I know I screwed up, but can't we talk about this? It was just sex, really. He doesn't mean anything to me. I love you, and I don't want a divorce!"

"Wow, the old 'it was just sex' excuse. I would have thought that if you really loved me, the least you could have done was come up with something better than a lame excuse. Get a lawyer, and have him call Stu Klein.

"In our bed, Traci? Really?"

Traci was still talking when Stevie hung up the phone.

Unlike some people who become less productive under emotional pressure, Stevie actually was able to focus better. He had recently read the Martin Gosch and Richard Hammer book, "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano," which detailed the former Mafia kingpin's monetary struggles in his last years, and he wondered if Charlie Figs wouldn't have the same difficulties in his later years. Stevie thought he could do better for his friend and boss.

In the seven months it took for his divorce to go through, Stevie studied up on the various investment strategies espoused by the day's top moneymakers. He settled on the model used by the financial services firm Edward D. Jones, with a conservative invest and hold strategy, and then set out to teach himself about investing and what to look for in firms. He differed from the Jones method of using funds, however, and invested directly into companies. After his first couple of investments paid off in good returns, Stevie went to Charlie Figs, showed him the success he had, and offered to invest for Charlie Figs, with a small percentage coming off the top.

"I guess if I trusted you to treat my wife good all those years ago, I can trust you with my money now," Charlie said.

Six months after his divorce was finalized, Stevie and Gary took a three-day weekend trip to Des Moines, IA, where they me up with the other half of El Quattro, Rich and Andy. The weekend was planned several months in advance, as was the private meeting in Andy's office between Stevie and Rich on Friday afternoon. Andy was a junior partner in a law firm in Des Moines, and minutes after the four friends met in Andy's office, he and Gary took a lunch break at a restaurant near the firm, leaving Stevie and Rich to talk alone. Andy had already checked to make sure there were no bugs in his office, but Rich, a field agent for the FBI, did his own check before the two friends began to talk quietly.

Whenever Rich had visited Stevie and Gary, he claimed to be a businessman from Philadelphia. In reality, he had been working as a field agent for the FBI since shortly after he graduated from Iowa, but for practical purposes it was decided that no one else but Gary among Stevie's work and personal friends needed to know about that. It probably wouldn't have looked too good for either man if Rich's true employment was known, but Rich and Stevie had long ago decided that their occupations were not going to stand in the way of their friendship.

"I need a small favor, Rich," Stevie began. "I need the bureau to pull Sal Costa in for some questions about Lufthansa."

Rich raised an eyebrow. The Lufthansa heist over three years ago at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York had netted the thieves almost $6 million in cash and jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil. The FBI had not made any significant headway on the case, even though agents were sure that Lucchese crime family associate Jimmy Burke was reputed to be the mastermind. But none of the money showed up anywhere, although several bodies of supposed "players" had shown up.

"Is this what I think it is, Stevie?" Rich said. "Isn't Costa the jerkwad who Traci was fucking?"

"Fucking her right in my own bed, Rich. I never mentioned that before, did I? And I'm sure Gary wouldn't have mentioned it either when you two talked. I'm not going to ask Jimmy Burke for any favors ... but I won't lose a minute's sleep if nature and/or Jimmy's paranoia takes its natural course. We good?"

Rich was quiet for about 30 seconds, and his eyes searched the ceiling for a bit before he finally returned Stevie's gaze.

"Sometimes the herd has to be thinned," he responded.

The two friends shook hands, then left the office and headed to the restaurant to join Andy and Gary.

Two weeks later, a pair of FBI field agents from New York arrested Sal Costa at the house he shared with his new wife, the former Traci Tanner, on suspicion that he was involved in the Lufthansa heist. As he was being led out of his house, he told Traci to call Charlie Figs. Traci did as she was told, and a lawyer was at FBI headquarters soon after Sal got there.

The FBI was getting nowhere with Sal because, in truth, he didn't have anything to do with the heist, but in questioning him he admitted to occasionally hanging out with one Henry Hill, a known associate of Jimmy Burke and someone who had shown up on police radars soon after the heist. Henry and Sal had occasionally caroused the bars together, a fact that several bartenders in the city soon corroborated.

Sal was turned loose several hours later, and FBI agents began to check out his alibi for that night and some of the nightspots he was known to hit. Charlie Figs was not amused with the attention being paid to one of his guys.

"God damn it, Sally! How many times did I warn you to stay away from that cocksucker Hill. He's a weasly fucker, and I knew sooner or later the cops were going to be fucking with him," Charlie told Sal in a late-night meeting at his olive oil company. Charlie never met with Sal at the construction company because Stevie insisted that Sal hanging around wasn't good for business ... and this was well before Sal and Traci became an item.

A month later when Sal didn't show up for work one morning, Charlie Figs sent a couple of guys over to his house. There they found a bound, gagged, and blindfolded Traci, but no sign of Sal. His decomposing body turned up two weeks later in a ditch along the Wantagh Parkway. Stevie showed absolutely no emotion when Charlie Figs told his crew, Figs noted to himself. Charlie also noted that Stevie didn't show up for the viewing nor the funeral.

++++++++++

Stevie had gone out fishing for fluke off a party boat at the Captree Boat Basin and got back in at 2. He had gotten his share of fish on the trip, and decided to hit his favorite diner, Mario's, for a late lunch before going home. He usually stopped at Mario's a couple of times a week for breakfast before work and was familiar with most of the staff there, but since he hardly went in on the weekend, there were a few faces around the diner he didn't recognize as he took a seat at the counter. One of those faces belonged to a girl of about 10 with darker skin and a mop of brown curls who was wearing an apron and approached him with a pot of coffee and an empty cup in her hand.

"Coffee mister?" she asked.

"Sure, sweetie," Stevie answered.

The diner's owner, Mario Sorrentino, was walking past just then, and as a semi-regular, Stevie knew Mario enjoyed bantering with his customers.

"Hey, cheapskate, you think you can hire them at half-salary because they're half-sized?" Stevie inquired of Mario, who looked to be somewhere in his mid-50s.

"A man's got to cut costs where he can with cheap customers like you," he blustered back to Stevie.

Both men and several of the customers in the area who heard the exchange chuckled.

"Seriously, though, Stevie, this is my granddaughter, Annalise. She's nine. She comes with her mother on Saturdays when I need the help.

Although he tried not to show it on his face, Stevie was surprised that the munchkin was Mario's granddaughter. Her skin tone just about matched Stevie's, and the two had similar type hair. Mario always struck Stevie as an old-school type of person, and while Mario had never shown any prejudice to him, having a mixed race family didn't seem to fit with what he knew of Mario, who was awfully proud of roots that went back many generations to Sicily in Italy.

Just then a woman he guessed to be Mario's daughter came up to the counter to take Stevie's order. As Stevie turned back to the waitress, he caught a glimpse of her legs in the shortish waitress uniform Mario's staff wore.

"The greatest legs to ever stride the earth," Stevie thought to himself as he lifted his eyes from her legs to her face. He sort of recognized the face and took another look at the legs before the light bulb of recognition came upon him.

"You're one of Traci's friends. I met you a few years back, didn't I?" Stevie stammered out.

"Oh yeah, I remember that now. That was when you two got back together. I'm Jennifer Sorrentino," the dark-haired beauty with big brown eyes said. "Actually, the day we met you, she was supposed to introduce you to me, but she got so carried away with you that she never turned you over to me, and then when she wrote her number on your hand, I knew I wasn't going to get a chance. And then you two started going out again, and got married ..."

"...And now divorced about a year," I interjected.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Jennifer said, but not really looking too sorry, Stevie thought. "We kind of drifted apart a bit, she with her life and me with mine."

"And that's part of your life," Stevie said as glanced at Annalise. "Any more parts running around here?"

"No, it's just Annalise and me. Has been since she was born. I made a stupid mistake, and baby daddy wasn't hanging around to help me out."

"Hey, I'm not paying you to socialize. Take a quick trip around to see if anybody needs anything," Mario called over.

Promising Stevie to be back, Jennifer left to take care of customers. Stevie turned to Mario, who was now standing by the register, and in fluent Italian asked Mario why he didn't tell him he had a beautiful daughter.

"Because none of you bums are good enough for her," Mario replied back in Italian.

"But I'm the vice president of the most successful construction company on Long Island," Stevie responded back, keeping the conversation in Italian. "Can't I at least take her out on a date?"

"One date, if she even gives you the time of day," Mario harrumphed.

"What were you two muttering about in Italian?" Jennifer asked as she gave Stevie's coffee a warmover.

"Handsome single guy here asked Grandpa if he could take you out," Annalise interjected from a few feet away.

Jennifer blushed deeply, then got a surprised look on her face.

"Who taught you Italian?" she asked Annalise.

"Grandpa did. Said it's always good to know things about your heritage."

"Don't tell me he taught you, too," Jennifer said to Stevie.

"No, I picked it up at work. A lot of the guys who work with me are of Italian decent, and they learned it at home growing up. I figured I'd better learn some if I didn't want those Bozos talking behind my back. I've also picked up some Spanish along the way, and from home I learned a little Yiddish."

"Are you really a black Jew, like Sammy Davis, Jr.?" Annalise asked wide-eyed.

"Except he converted to Judaism. I was born Jewish," Stevie answered. "and I guess to be totally accurate, I'm only half-black."

"So am I," Annalise said happily.

"Actually, you two look more alike than you and your mother," said another semi-regular, Mike, as he was passing by on the way to the cash register.

Jennifer blushed again, then went off to tend to some more customers.

Stevie never did order lunch, but when he left the diner a half-hour later he did have Jennifer's phone number written down on his hand, and an acceptance for a date the next Friday night.

Stevie had asked Jennifer out to Borrelli's a good Italian restaurant in East Meadow. When he showed up at her door on Friday night, Annalise answered and let him in. As he stepped inside the small house, a goddess in a "little black dress" strode into the room. Stevie was instantly overwhelmed, eyeing Jennifer from head to toe, particularly stopping for a long look at her magnificent, olive-skinned legs.

"Now I really remember you!" Jennifer exclaimed. "I remember you staring at my legs and Traci being pissed off."

Jennifer and Stevie had a good time and ate a great meal. Jennifer agreed to let Stevie take her and Annalise to a Yankees game the next Saturday. When he left her at the door, Stevie hesitated, trying to decide if he would seek out a good-night kiss. Jennifer could see the wheels spinning in Stevie's head, so she made the decision for him, leaning in and giving him a soft but loving kiss on the lips. Stevie left a happy man.

Stevie hit Mario's for breakfast on Tuesday morning. He expected Mario to at least be his usual wise-ass self, maybe give Stevie some shit for dating his daughter, but the older man was almost cold to Stevie throughout his time in the diner. As he was paying his bill and leaving, Mario came over and asked if he could meet with Stevie in his office. Stevie felt like he was 15 years old again as he followed Mario to his small office in the back.

"Look, Stevie, I know you and I like you, and everybody says you're a good guy, but I feel it's only right to warn you: you and Jennifer are adults, and understand life ebbs and flows. My granddaughter is a little girl, however, and doesn't understand life's subtleties. So if you break that little girl's heart, Stevie, I swear to you by all that is holy that I will make you pay -- even if you work for a bigshot like Charlie Bonafiglio. You got that ..."

Mario started to choke up, and Stevie was wondering what he was going to do if Mario started to cry.

"It hasn't been easy for her, being the only bi-racial kid in her class. Sometimes another kid will get mouthy, usually reflecting the stupidity of his or her parents ... but Annalise is still just a little girl. So she's very sensitive, and doesn't have a lot of close friends. She hangs out a lot with Marianne and I ..."

"Mario, if there's anyone in the world who gets it, it's me. At least I was lucky enough to have my father."

Mario took a deep breath, then exhaled.

"Hey, I've got work to do, get out of here, you hippy. And have a good time. You do know the kid's a Mets fan, right?"

"Damn, I wish I'd have known that before I asked them out. Jennifer didn't tell me her daughter had a defective baseball gene ... just like her old man!"

"Fuck you!" Mario threw at Stevie in Italian. "Get the fuck out of my office."

Stevie thought both girls looked wonderful when he picked them up late Saturday morning for the trip to Yankee Stadium. Jennifer was wearing Daisy Duke shorts to show off what she knew was her best asset, those incredible toned legs, although her 36C boobs and tight ass certainly were nothing to sneeze at. Annalise had on what appeared to be a brand new Mets cap, probably a gift from Mario. That would look really great in the construction company's box seats on the first base side of the field near the home dugout, Stevie thought to himself as he chuckled.

The Yankees beat the Orioles, 4-3, getting two runs in the bottom of the ninth. As the second Yankee touched home for the winning run, an excited Jennifer leaned over and planted a kiss full on Stevie's mouth. As the kiss ended, he looked down to see Annalise give him a happy thumbs-up. He wondered if that was for the thrilling win or for the thrilling kiss.

By the time the game ended, Stevie had bought both girls new Yankee caps. Annalise wore hers perched on top of her Mets cap. Stevie sat in between the two girls for the game, teaching Annalise how to score.

Jennifer worked for a school corporation. She still helped her father on some Saturdays, and usually took Annalise with her on those days. Mario liked the fact that a third generation was learning the business from the ground up.

Stevie took out both Jennifer and Annalise on the next two Saturday nights. On the second night, the three spent an evening at Adventurer's Inn, a small amusement park in Farmingdale. Jennifer got to see Stevie's childish side, especially when they rode the bumper cars. She noted that her normally reserved daughter didn't seem to be holding anything back with Stevie, as she had with most of the other men she had dated when they were around the child.