GASPIPE: CONFESSIONS OF A MAFIA BOSS

Prologue

Main Entry: ²revenge
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French revenge, revenche, from revengier, revenchier to revenge
1 : an act or instance of retaliating in order to get even <plotted her revenge>
2 : an opportunity for getting satisfaction <sought revenge through a rematch>

La Vendetta

Now, finally, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso would have revenge. Twenty-two days ago, on September 14th, 1986, there had been an attempt on his life. He had been shot six times, luckily escaped within an inch of his life. Even now, there were two slugs still lodged in his body. He had become used to them, the dull pain they emitted. Wearing a beige colored suede jacket as soft as butter, a diamond pinky ring the size of a macadamia nut on his right hand, he sat in the Toys ‘R Us parking lot just off Brooklyn’s Belt Parkway in the King’s Plaza Mall, waiting for the man who was responsible for the attempt on his life. His dark eyes were cold. His lips a parched, unfeeling slip.

Seething, Casso was as still as stone, his mind playing over the world of pain he’d inflict on the man who tried to kill him. Colorful scenarios of torture slowly moved through Casso’s head, as though hungry sharks around a bleeding man. Until Casso had revenge, he would not be whole -- he would not be complete. He’d be a mere shell of the man he’d been.

Casso looked left and saw the black Plymouth with blackwall tires slowly, cautiously approaching. There were two stoic men in the front seat. They were New York City detectives -- crooked cops on Casso’s payroll –– ice cold killers both. With few words exchanged, Casso took the car they were driving. Though he wanted to speed to the place of torture, fly there at 200 miles an hour, he drove slowly, the quintessential professional, making sure to abide by all traffic regulations, his muscles tense, his heart racing, adrenalin slowly slipping through his muscular body. He reached the safe house, pulled into the garage, and opened the trunk.

Tussled up like a Thanksgiving turkey was a big, blond-headed man. His wrists and ankles were cuffed tightly, his mouth taped shut. When he saw Casso, his eyes nearly popped out of his head, cartoon-like. Casso seemed possessed of super-human strength. He grabbed the man by his handcuffed legs and wrists and effortlessly heaved him from the car.

The well-choreographed ballet of pain Casso had in his head was suddenly forgotten. Now a primordial, atavistic world of emotions overtook him. With an animal-like ferocity, he kicked and beat his enemy, his nemesis -- this man who would have been his assassin. He kicked him and pummeled him…kicked and pummeled him.

Breathing heavily now, sweating, Casso dragged him to the place where he would slowly die. To an uninformed observer, it looked like a carefully laid tarp in the corner of the room. What it was in reality was a grave, a popular place for Mafiosi to murder. Casso took out a knife and proceeded to cut off all his clothes. He was careful not to slice any arteries. He wanted this death to be long and drawn out. He was intent upon that.

Casso, like few others in La Cosa Nostra, had mastered the art of murder. Indeed, he had a doctorate degree in the killing of human beings. Casso -- a boss in the Lucchese crime family --turned and walked the full length of the room. It was a finished basement with wood paneled walls. There were no windows. No fresh air. It would soon be a tomb.

Since he was a young boy, Casso had been an expert marksman. He now drew out a sleek blue-black 16-shot .22 automatic fitted with a silencer. The gun seemed a lethal, natural extension of his body. Casso’s intention was not to kill the man but to make him suffer, make him talk. With a hand as steady as a diamond cutter’s, Casso began the torture.