Page 49 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

Sal thought he heard it wrong. When he realized he didn’t, he frowned. “Get the fuck out of here! With that name?”

“He’s Croatian by way of Italy, what can I say?” asked Mick. “But Croatia is his homebase.”

“Then what the fuck he wants with me?”

“Not you. But your structure. He’s moving in and he wants the best of the best.”

“Then that means he’s coming for you too?” asked Sal.

Mick was offended. “He wants theobtainablebest of the best. Nobody comes for me.”

Sal knew that wasn’t true. Mick was untouchable, but he’d had his epic battles too. Sal looked at the picture again. “So this is the guy,” he said. “I was thinking maybe Delarosa was up to some of his old shit again.”

“Forget Dela and his lame ass. Jovie’s the guy,” said Mick, pointing at the photo in that file. “Read up on him. He’s a nasty one.”

“Yeah, I got his nasty right here. He’s fucking with the wrong one now. He paid my own capo to try to off me. You heard about that shit?”

“What Markie did? Yeah, I heard about it. I also heard about what Big Graft did, too,” said Mick. “I heard about all that shit.”

“Did you know this same Jovie guy approached Markie and Pauley at a bar and offered them top dollar to come work for him?”

“To come work for him my ass,” said Mick. “Jovie’s not after workers. He’s after the double cross. Get them to spy on you was what he was after.”

Sal nodded in agreement. “We got every available man out looking for this joker, but nobody’s turned up anything. Maybe we’ll get more intel now that we’ve got a name behind the photo.”

“How did you find him?” Robby asked Mick.

But Sal got on Robby’s case. “What you asking him that for? What is that your business, Robby?”

Then Sal looked at Mick. “How did you find this fucker?”

Robby smiled. That was the boss!

“I haven’t found him,” Mick pointed out. “That’s your job. I’ve got enough on my plate. I can only tell you who’s in that picture, and his background, and his keen interest in acquiring top territory in the U.S. for his future enterprise. Your ass got to do the rest.”

“What you got on your plate that’s so vast that you can’t even help me out?” asked Sal. But Mick wasn’t about to answer that.

Sal knew it too. “How did you even know who to look for?” asked Sal. “How did you get this photograph?”

“What is that your business?” asked Mick, and Robby grinned. But Robby stopped grinning when Sal gave him a hard look.

“Thanks for the intel,” said Sal. “He already took over six of the families I was in league with. Only three of them and myself he hasn’t touched. Although that changed this morning.”

Mick looked at Sal. “What changed?”

“Apparently this Jovie character kidnapped the mistresses of all three bosses that’s still have their syndicates intact.”

It was obvious that Mick hadn’t heard that. “When did this happen?”

“Overnight. And all three of those fuckers more upset that he snatched their mistresses than they would have been had he snatched their wives. Can you believe that shit?”

Robby looked at Mick, who was rumored to have his share of mistresses, although he kept his shit so far under the radar nobody really knew what he was up to for sure or what he had going. But Robby wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond to Sal’s question. Robby wasn’t a bit surprised when Mick moved on.

“Check out, Jovie,” Mick said. “He’s at the center of the action.”

“It’s weird that he would approach Pauley and Markie himself, though,” said Sal. “If he’s such a big-time boss.”

“Read up on him,” said Mick. “He likes to work alone. He’s different. Kind of inspiring in his approach.”

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