Find Big Fat Fanny Fast (12 page)

The fact that Junior was wearing a bullet proof vest under his leather jacket, made rushing Norman an even better bet.

So Junior grunted and charged, and Norman fired, hitting Junior right between the boobs, propelling Junior hard backwards to the wooden apartment floor. Norman jumped over Junior, rushed out of the apartment, down the long hall and into the stairwell.

Junior rolled over on his stomach and reached for his walkie-talkie in the back pocket of his pants. He fumbled with the buttons.

“He's on the loose!” Junior yelled into the walkie-talkie.

Junior staggered to his feet, unzipped his leather jacket and checked his bullet proof vest. A slug was stuck in the middle of the vest and he hurt like hell, but he saw no blood.

“The Chinaman bastard shot me, but I'm OK,” Junior told Nickie Knuckles and Billy the Blade.

Junior dashed into the hallway, but no one was there.

Norman must have taken the stairs either to the roof, or to the lobby. The roof was more likely, since it was only three floors above Norman's sixth floor apartment. The only problem, there was a stairwell on each end of the hallway and Junior didn't get to his feet fast enough to see which way Norman had run.

Junior barked into the walkie-
talkie.
“Billy, he probably headed to the roof. Be careful. He's got a gun. Nickie, you watch the lobby, just in case he runs downstairs.”

Billy the Blade stood on the roof, directly between the two stairwells, rotating his head, and so he could watch both stairwells at the same time. The Blade had no gun and he never needed one. He was so accurate with his knife, he could circumcise a fly at fifty paces. It was already dark, so extra accuracy with the knife was definitely required.

Suddenly, Norman ran out of the stairwell on The Blade's left. He spotted The Blade and fired five quick shots in his direction. Even though The Blade was no more than 30 feet away, none of the bullets came even close.

“Blind Chink bastard,” The Blade said. He pulled out his trusty stiletto.

Norman ran toward the tenth floor of the J Building, screaming “Open the freaking window!”

In a second, a window flung open and a fat, female Chinese face, maybe 50 years old, appeared. Quickly sizing up the situation, she screamed in broken English, “Hurry Norman. He's wight behind you.”

And The Blade was, maybe twenty feet behind Norman and closing fast.

Two feet from the open window, Norman launched himself head-first, hoping to land inside the apartment. At the same instant, The Blade flung his stiletto. It hit Norman square in the back. The fat Chinese woman screamed, as Norman fell face-first through the open window, his legs dangling on the roof's tar-papered floor.

The Blade raced forward. He pulled the knife from Norman's back, and as the fat Chinese woman wailed in horror, The Blade stabbed Norman three more times in the back, then slit his throat from ear to ear.

Norman was now quite dead, half in and half out of the fat Chinese woman's apartment.

The Blade pointed the knife at the fat Chinese woman's face. “You didn't see anything, you understand?”

The fat Chinese woman nodded her head. “No see nothing.”

The Blade grabbed Norman's body and dragged it to Catherine Street side of the roof. He looked down below and spotted two neighborhood Italian men standing in front of the pizzeria.

The Blade yelled, “Hey guys, watch out! Incoming!”

The Blade dropped Norman's body off the roof, as the two men scattered back inside the pizzeria.

Norman landed face-first on the hood of a parked car, smashing the windshield with his head. His body had settled on the hood, but his head was inside the car, lying on the dashboard.

When two police officers arrived in a squad car ten minutes later, they were told by witnesses that the man had jumped off the roof in an apparent suicide.

Sergeant O'Leary examined the body without touching it, as a group of maybe fifty people surveyed the scene from a safe distance, in case more bodies fell from the sky.

“Yeah, it looks like suicide to me,” he told Patrolman Walsh.

Patrolman Walsh shook his head. “But his throat is cut from ear to ear.”

“So what?” Sergeant O'Leary said. “The cut on his throat came from the impact of his neck smashing into the windshield. Good thing he wasn't decapitated.”

“But what about the three stab wounds in his back?” Patrolmen Walsh said.

“Ah, that's nothing,” Sergeant O'Leary said. “You know how these kids are around here. Some young punks must have done that for kicks, just to throw us off the track. They hate cops in this neighborhood. Anything to screw with our heads.”

Patrolman Walsh cocked his head, “You're kidding me, right?”

An ambulance pulled up, siren screeching. Sergeant O'Leary grabbed Patrolman Walsh's arm and squeezed hard. “It happened like I said it happened, understand? Or maybe you'd like to walk a beat in Harlem on the overnight shift until you retire?”

Patrolman Walsh smiled. “No, you're right. It looks like a roof-jumping suicide to me.”

“Good boy,” Sergeant O'Leary said. “I'll fill out the paperwork. You tell the ambulance guys to take the body straight to the morgue. I'll handle the rest.”

And so it was done.

The very next day, Sergeant O'Leary received a nice contribution, and not his first, from Tony B to the Sergeant O'Leary Retirement Fund.

As for Patrolman Walsh, he got a ham sandwich and a reminder on how rich he could get when he finally made sergeant.

*****

Tony B sat in a tattered recliner in his living room at Chatham Green. The 25-inch Sony TV he was watching was set to the new Discover Channel. Tony B loved to watch wild animals eat other wild animals, which happened quite often on the Discovery Channel and also in Tony's B's mobster world.

“This world is dog eat dog,” he often told his son Junior, starting from the time the kid was old enough to hear. “It's the survival of the fittest. You're either the hammer, or the nail. Top of the totem pole, or you are on the freakin' bottom. And shit always flows downhill.”

After Tony B's wife Ann died during childbirth, Tony B did the best he could to raise his son properly, but Junior's two grandmothers did most of the child rearing. Tony B's mother Dria took Junior into her home right after he was born. But when it came time for Junior to go to school, all thought it was best for Junior to live with his grandmother Betty in Greenwood Lake, far away from the scum who populated the New York City schools system.

Tony B forbid Junior to go to a Catholic High School. He didn't want his son to go to a school taught by Catholic priests, who Tony B felt were mostly wretched child molesters. No private high school for Junior either. In fact, Junior could not attend any school where Tony B had to pay even one cent for tuition.

“Hey, I pay my taxes,” Tony B said. “My son is entitled to a free education.”

Tony B would visit his son on weekends, and every time he left to go back to New York City on Sunday night, little Junior would throw a tantrum. Crying, bawling, screaming, “I want my Daddy! I want my Daddy!” Junior kept up his tirades until he was 17 years old and had graduated from Warwick Valley High School in Warwick, New York.

Tired of hearing his son's constant wailing, Tony B took Junior to live with him in New York City. Tony B soon found out Junior was definitely a chip off the old block. Tough and tenacious to the core. Maybe not quite as vicious as he could be, but Tony B figured that would come with time.

Tony B quickly integrated Junior into his many rackets. First as a numbers runner. Then as a bookie. And finally as the chief collector of Tony B's shylocking money.

Yet the last entry on Junior's resume did not work out too well. The scorecard listed one dead Chinaman and the evaporation of twenty grand of Tony B's money, now uncollectable, because dead men don't pay.

Not that it was all Junior's fault. The Chink pulled a gun and shot Junior in the chest. But going to the Chink's apartment in the first place was not the smartest thing in the world to do. Unless you were there to whack him, which was not yet on Tony B's agenda. Nor was Junior in the category of hit man yet. Whacking people needed a certain breed of man. Tony B was not sure his son was, or ever would ever be someone who pushed a button when such action was required. Which was just fine with Tony B, because whackers sometimes become dead men themselves.

Because of the heat from the Norman-the-Chinaman-off-the-roof incident, Tony B sent Junior down to Sarasota, Florida to scout locations for a ritzy nightclub, which would be the base of operations for Tony B's “Southern Venture,” as he like to call it. Sarasota was wide open. Meaning there were no wiseguys in town and anyone who said they were wiseguys were lying, and should be and would be shot, as soon as Tony B dropped anchor in Sarasota. Junior had left on Monday and would be back in seven days with his reports. Which meant Tony B had the apartment to himself for at least the next two nights.

*****

Imagine a small mountain moving slowly down Mulberry Street, preceded by a large cloud of dust. And there you have Big Fat Fanny Fanelli, feared captain in the Bentimova Crime Family.

Big Fat Fanny had made a name for herself in the Mob, by steamrolling everyone and everything in her path. At six-feet, six-inches, and six hundred and sixty pounds, Big Fat Fanny can easily hide a knife, a small pistol, or a 44 magnum, if needed, in her massive hands, between her meaty armpits, or under one of her super-sized breasts. She could also slip a stiletto from the folds of fat on her belly and stab someone in the gut before they could say, “Well, hello there Big Fat Fanny.”

Big Fat Fanny first made her mark in the mob when she became the
goumada
of mob boss Tony Bentimova. Since then, Big Fat Fanny has shot, stabbed, choked and sometimes sat-on-to-death whomever Tony B had fingered for the fall.

Now Big Fat Fanny had an important job to do for her boss. One that must be done quickly, quietly and effectively. Tony B knew she was certainly up to the task.

*****

There was a knock on Tony B's front door. He got up, strode to the front door and peeked though the peephole. He opened the door and in walked Big Fat Fanny Fanelli. Tony B locked the door and slipped on the inside chain, just in case.

To say that Big Fat Fanny walked in would not exactly be accurate. She sort of like oozed into a room, like a giant glacier slowing navigating the icy waters of the Antarctic. But to Tony B, Big Fat Fanny was a nice diversion from the broads he usually connected with. A nice big diversion.

First of all, Big Fat Fanny was tall. Strikingly tall. Six and a half feet tall to be exact. She could reach for things in high kitchen cabinets, Tony B usually had to stand on a chair for.

Secondly, Big Fat Fanny was wide, incredibly wide. As wide as a six hundred and sixty pound woman can possible be. Any room Big Fat Fanny entered immediately became the size of an small closet.

Thirdly, being as big as she was, Big Fat Fanny's breasts were the size of watermelons, and with the support of special bras, which weighted ten pounds themselves, she was a godsend for men who loved woman with big racks.

Number four, Big Fat Fanny for all her blubber, had an amazingly beautiful face. With her blond hair teased high on her head, she was a dead ringer for a young Doris Day, if Doris had been injected with about six hundred pounds of pure helium.

And most importantly, Big Fat Fanny was a capable assassin for Tony B. Whenever Tony B wanted someone very dead, and that someone was very careful about not putting themselves into a position of being very dead, Big Fat Fanny had the uncanny ability to make that person very dead indeed. Very few people in the Lower East Side knew about Big Fat Fanny's part-time job, which made killing unsuspecting suckers that much easier.

Big Fat Fanny set up her prey with her beauty and her charm. She lured her target into bed, or sometimes even in the back seat of a car. Big Fat Fanny's method of death was more often than not a stiletto, which she hid under one of her gargantuan breasts. Guns make noises. Knives were silent. And Big Fat Fanny decided it was better, for safety purposes, when you were killing somebody to cause as little noise as possible. That didn't mean Big Fat Fanny didn't use guns on occasions. She did. Because sometimes she couldn't get close enough to her prey to insert a stiletto. But all in all, Big Fat Fanny preferred the knife to a pop gun. Hey, everyone has their druthers.

When Big Fat Fanny felt the time was right, she would quietly slip the stiletto from under her breast and stab hard into the middle of her mark's chest, piercing his heart.

The death was mostly painless and largely bloodless, because guys stabbed in the heart usually bleed internally, therefore not making a big bloody mess for Big Fat Fanny to clean up. Big Fat Fanny hated bloody messes, but sometimes it came with the territory.

Today was the day Big Fat Fanny would get another assignment from Tony B. All she knew for sure was that her victim was a high ranking Chinaman in Chinatown. Tony B had slipped the word to the Chinaman, through his flunkies of course, that Big Fat Fanny was available for a little side work. For a fee of course, most of which would make its way up to Tony B. This Chink wanted another Chink dead, and Tony B, for his own selfish reasons, wanted them both dead. But due to the logistics of the situation, Tony B could only do one of them at a time. And Chinaman victim number one was much easier to get to, so he had to go first. Via Big Fat Fanny.