Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ultimatums

New York City’s Chinatown, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, June 1985

He had been mindful of the risk factor which came with his indulgence, but his favourite Chinese restaurant stood on the very public thoroughfare of Canal Street so he had considered the risk to be slight. Nevertheless he had chosen his table with care, and whilst enjoying his meal had also enjoyed an unrestricted view of the main doorway and the busy street visible to him through the restaurant’s large plate-glass window.

Having satisfied his indulgence and paid his bill, Carmine Forza was fairly relaxed as he stepped out into the street which immediately began shedding its camouflage. His back had barely cleared the restaurant’s entrance door when he felt it close behind him and heard the sound of a bolt clicking home. Other surprises were instantly evident, and he knew he was about to pay a heavier second price for his Chinatown meal. He stood perfectly still, because he had no other non-life-threatening option. Knowing the Hip Sing Tong had rendered his skills useless. In the seconds which had elapsed following his appearance, the street scene had been transforming itself before his eyes. Like a Hollywood film set crewed by operatives who could quickly alter reality with deceptive ease, was his bitter realization.

Most of the pedestrians he had witnessed from his carefully chosen table with its window view, had disappeared into other establishments whose own window blinds were still being closed as he watched. His peripheral vision told him the same thing was happening on his flanks. Vehicle traffic, obviously also under control, had simply stopped and the street in front of him was now bereft of passing cars. But not all of the pedestrians had made themselves scarce to order. He counted eight that he could see who had remained to form the impenetrable semi-circle in front of him. Each of them was aiming at him their armed and deadly crossbows, but he was in no doubt that there would be others he couldn’t see who also had him in the sights of their weapons of choice.

Forza saw two of the crossbow carriers move slightly, creating a gap through which two other Chinamen appeared carrying a dojo mat. They approached to within a few feet of where he stood, before dropping the mat on the ground and retreating. He didn’t move, but for the first time began to think that he might live through this. As a limousine quietly purred to a stop at the pavement’s edge in front of the restaurant, one of the men who had carried the dojo mat opened the rear door of the vehicle to allow the emergence of Wan Cheng-Jian.

Carmine Forza silently calculated that less than five minutes had passed since he himself had stepped out into the street scene which had been created by the Hip Sing Tong leader. He watched now as the man approached to position himself so that he did not impede the flight path of the crossbow arrows, but was sufficiently close enough to be heard.

“We have perhaps another five minutes, Forza,” he began, “before the street must return to its normal life. So I will be brief. Whether you live or die when I have finished is entirely in your hands. Your deadly skills are known to me, which is one of the reasons for the elaborate but nevertheless effective scene before you now. The other reason is to demonstrate to you that I can replicate this scenario in any number of places at any time I choose to, but that its outcome would certainly result in your death without debate. You are also an intelligent man, Forza, as was perceived by your ability to correctly interpret my Monkey message and thus ensure that I received from the dwarf the merchandise which I had paid for.”

The Tong leader stepped in closer to deliver more softly spoken words.

“You must also pay for the life of Ye Cheng Hok, and you can do so by saving your own life and assisting me with a consignment of Heroin which will be brought in using one of the tools of your martial arts.” He nodded towards the dojo mat as he continued, “A theatrical way of indicating my point, maybe, but it held your attention. It will be to Tanzen Kimoto’s dojo that the shipment will be consigned, and you will be on hand to ensure that nothing goes wrong. You are currently attempting to persuade him to take you on as a partner, are you not? So you and he will not be strangers, and your presence may comfort him during the times ahead.”

“Tanzen Kimoto will never allow it,” said Forza, then told himself he should have kept quiet.

Wan Cheng-Jian glanced at his watch as he responded, and his words were coming quickly now. “Two hours ago the daughter of your prospective Japanese partner was taken into the care of my Tong. Tanzen Kimoto has been told not to contact the police if he wishes to see his daughter again, and I feel sure he will comply with that command. He has also been told that should you return to the gymnasium, he is to co-operate with you when you make known to him the agreement which you and I may still reach this evening.”

Forza watched as the Tong leader stepped back slightly and held up an outstretched hand with the thumb raised. Like a fucking Roman emperor, he thought bitterly.

“Talk time is over, Forza. Your choice. Live to assist, or resist and die.”

“Live to assist,” replied Forza, already knowing it would be no kind of life worth talking about, and wondering how long he would live anyway when he faced Tanzen Kimoto.

One of the crossbow men advanced towards him with the weapon lowered, and gave him an envelope before walking backwards away from him.

“Your instructions are inside, Forza,” said Wan Cheng-Jian before turning away to be escorted back to his limousine.

Forza watched the street come back to life even quicker than it had died on him. Nobody paid him the slightest attention as he stood there thinking about the price he had paid for his favourite Chinese meal.

New York City’s Garment District, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, June 1985

“Okay, Luigi,” said the man who had listened and now became the rapid-fire speaker, “let’s say someone is owed for the move which may have been made to disappear that so-called witness to what was alleged to have been a gangland slaying which had nothing to do with you and me. So I’m gonna’ do this thing for you at a discount, but here’s what I gotta’ tell you. I will give Canizzaro your final message, but I won’t talk to the daughter of Giovanni Orsinni.”

The man declaring his position up front in his own coded language was Antonio Crocci. A Sicilian by birth, Crocci was known to his underworld associates as ‘Tony the Croc.’ He was so-named because, figuratively speaking, when Crocci got his teeth into someone he didn’t let go until that someone had been consigned to the history books which would never be written.

“I gotta’ tell you, Tony, I am royally pissed off to hear you say that,” responded Rinaldi.

Luigi Rinaldi sighed. He felt depressed today. The sour memory of the candy store incident was still fresh in his mind, so he had chosen to hold this meeting in sight of his beloved Pickle Guys store. He was seated in the same booth he had used to talk to the Jew guy. The smart-mouthed one who had walked away with a swollen Swiss bank account and had failed to deliver what he had been paid for with money which could never be recovered. Rinaldi sighed again.

“Giovanni Orsinni,” said Crocci, “is not a man you can cross and then hope not to be found. He might be retired, but if anyone spoke harshly to his daughter he would retaliate. He still has the ear of the Bartalucci Don, and I want my family to stay above the ground.”

Rinaldi sighed. He couldn’t even chastise Forza for recommending the Jew schmuck. Forza was no longer on the payroll. Forza was playing fucking Bruce Lee games at his dopey downtown dojo with the Jap guy. He saw Crocci shifting his bony ass on the seat, like he was impatient maybe, like he was a busier man than Luigi Rinaldi and had places to go. Rinaldi thought the always dapperly dressed man seated opposite him was a faggot, but he wasn’t about to ask for confirmation. The Sicilian was a pencil-thin guy with a face that reminded Rinaldi of pictures of that Hollywood creep, Valentino. When Crocci looked at you, you could never tell whether the face was smiling or sneering at you or measuring you up for a bite.

“So you’re worried about this Sicilian vendetta thing biting you in the ass?”

Rinaldi watched as Crocci reactively shifted his bony ass again on the seat.

“It would be your ass too, Luigi,” growled Crocci, “and baby-face over there wouldn’t stop them getting to it.”

Rinaldi sighed again. Crocci had a point there. His new bodyguard was his sister’s kid Tommy, hired under sibling duress, and now seated near enough to be of use if something went down, and far enough away to prevent him hearing anything which could be told to his mother.

Rinaldi sighed for a fourth time. Now he himself was seated across from a Sicilian who was saying he wouldn’t take out another Sicilian for fear of reprisal. Rinaldi sighed again. The Sicilian bitch seemingly destined to escape his vengeance, was the one who had herself taken out Frank Conti. Rinaldi sighed for the sixth time. Frank Conti had been the guy who used to handle this kind of negotiating thing on his behalf. Thereby sparing him from all this haggling shit.

“I gotta’ tell you, Tony, I am not happy about this condition you’re laying on me here.”

“That’s the way its gotta’ be,” growled ‘Tony the Croc’, “take it or leave it.”

Rinaldi sighed again. “I’ll take it,” he said, resigned to settling for a single life. He realized now that he should have given the contract to one of his own in the first place. With Tony here, there had been none of that button-holed carnation shit along with the pickles riddles. From ‘Tony the Croc’ he would be getting something in return for his money this time. Which was better than the zero return from the Jew guy Forza had said was a sure thing.

Rinaldi sighed for the eighth and last time. Canizzaro dead all by himself would have to do.

New York City’s ‘Little Italy’ District, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, June 1985

“They warned me,” said Tanzen Kimoto, “not to contact the police, and told me I must allow you to use the dojo as you see fit. They did not explain what they meant by that.”

Forza knew that the man he faced possessed knowledge and skills which far surpassed his own. He knew he could never beat this man in combat. The Jap was at least a decade older than him, but that just meant he had the advantage of ten more years of training under his belt and in his head. What he also knew was that any hope of forming a partnership with this man was dead in the water.

“I didn’t know this was going to happen,” he said, knowing it made no difference whatsoever.

They were standing in the ground level training dojo on Grand Street, and above them was the second floor which held the mainstream gymnasium. Forza glanced through a window offering a view of the junction with ‘Little Italy’s Centre Street and the wooden construction barriers. He tried not to think about what was behind those barriers, but did so anyway. Behind those barriers was what might have been for Carmine Forza, was his forlorn thought.

“But you know these men who have taken my daughter,” said Kimoto quietly.

Forza’s eyes were drawn to the window again; to the barriers. Behind them stood the almost completed luxury apartments now contained within the Baroque-style edifice which had housed the headquarters of New York’s police force for almost three quarters of a century. But New York’s ‘finest’ had vacated the building a decade ago, leaving its Corinthian columns and roof dome to now form striking features of the new apartments awaiting occupancy.

“The people who have your daughter call themselves the Hip Sing Tong.”

Forza saw the flash of rage in Kimoto’s eyes and looked away from him, knowing the man’s anger was not intended to be seen.

“And they of course know you,” said Kimoto in his still quiet voice, “Why else would they have chosen you to be their Trojan horse.”

“I killed one of them,” replied Forza, knowing he had to give this man an explanation to stop him thinking he had engineered this whole thing from the beginning. “They say I have to pay for that by helping them, by persuading you to play ball.”

“By colluding in the kidnap of my daughter,” responded Kimoto, his contempt unconcealed.

Forza’s eyes found the window’s view again; the construction site barriers; the dome towering into the night sky above, and was forced to think of his own constructed dreams being blown sky-high. Less than a year ago, he had entertained the thought of buying one of those apartments. Less than a month ago he had put down a deposit on one. Less than an hour ago, listening to the voice of Wan Cheng-Jian, he had began to think that he would never see the inside of one. Listening to Kimoto now, he was hearing the crash of another dream.

“You’ll get your daughter back,” he said, knowing his words just made him sound like one of the kidnappers, “We just have to do what they tell us to do.”

“It is I who have to do their bidding,” responded Kimoto, “you chose to do so. But you can tell them I will do nothing until I have heard from my daughter. My judgement of you was correct,” he continued, “and I was right to reject your offer of a partnership. They have told me I will receive a telephone call from my daughter every evening at six. They said she will read to me the headlines of that day’s New York Times.”

Forza couldn’t look away this time. He was held by the intensity of Kimoto’s stare. He saw in the man’s eyes the fear of the unknown conflicting with the burning certainty, and heard all the anguish and deadly rage being contained by the quiet voice as it continued.

“So I have told this to my daughter’s mother. Who is in shock as we speak here. Who waits, as I do, for the first telephone call. Who wonders, as I do, how many calls we must wait for before our daughter is returned to us.”

Forza saw Kimoto take two carefully measured steps back, deliberately increasing the distance between them. Not because he feared attack, knew Forza, but to indicate he was exercising supreme control over his rage. The pitch of the voice didn’t alter, but the words reached across the space between them to strike like blows.

“Can you imagine how my wife will feel if the promised daily call is simply delayed? Or how she would be if we do not receive a call at all? ”

Forza saw the Japanese master take one more step back, but the man seemed to grow larger in his vision and the voice was suddenly louder in his ears.

“If my daughter is not finally returned to her mother in the same condition she was in when she was taken, you will not have to use your imagination Forza. You could not even begin to imagine what I will do to you.”

Forza watched him turn and walk away, and wondered when he would finally have to fight the man he knew he couldn’t defeat.