Behind Buono’s unassuming façade was the mind of a master thief, with years of successful heists under his belt.
So when Buono needed six men to help him steal a shipment of several million dollars from a currency-handling company located at JFK Airport, he had gone to Pinkie. Pinkie had tapped Gennaro and five others for the task, tellingthem that fifty percent of each of their shares would go to him.
Buono had been hyper-diligent in its planning, so it was no surprise that the heist had gone off without a hitch.
It was what happened after when everything went south.
Buono had instructed Gennaro and the other five to lay low and not spend their shares of the money for a year. They all promised they wouldn’t, then promptly ignored Buono’s directive—paying off debts, buying new cars and clothes, and eating at the finest restaurants.
Just as Buono had warned, their activities drew the attention of the cops, and all six had been arrested.
Each facing sentences of a decade or more, they had ratted on Buono, who was then apprehended and sentenced to more than twenty years in Sing Sing. In reality, it became a death sentence since Buono had died behind bars.
Gennaro had been the first to flip. He wasn’t particularly proud of that fact, but he had to do what he had to do. He ended up spending four years, ten months, and thirteen days in prison.
Once he was out, a couple of the guys he knew told him that Pinkie was still pissed off at everyone he’d sent to help Buono. That was understandable. None of the six had paid Pinkie his share before the police had confiscated their remaining cash. The only person whose share of the take had not been recovered by the cops was Buono’s.
In the end, Gennaro had been the only one of Pinkie’s men allowed back into the syndicate. And that was only because the two men were distantly related.
Gennaro’s reinstatement had come with restriction,however. He’d been given a small bookie operation and told in no uncertain terms that any attempts to turn it into something larger would not be tolerated.
Gennaro had assumed that one day Pinkie would untie his hands, but here he was, more than two decades in, and he was still restricted to being a bit player.
Granted, Gennaro had been able to sneak in some side work, like what he’d arranged for Stefan Howard. But because he couldn’t do things like that too often without drawing Pinkie’s attention, the extra cash he made never felt like enough.
Not a day passed when he didn’t rue being on Buono’s heist team.
The gate buzzer went off in the entryway. Gennaro barely heard it as he continued to brood over the past.
When it sounded again, Rosa yelled from somewhere else in the house, “Can you get that?”
“I’m doing the count,” Gennaro yelled back.
He could hear her muttering as she made her way to the intercom.
A third buzz was cut off when she pushed the talk button and barked, “What?”
Gennaro placed another stack onto the counter and started the machine again, the noise drowning out whatever the person outside said.
When the last bill flipped through, he entered the amount on his spreadsheet.
“Did you hear me?”
Gennaro jumped at the sound of his sister’s voice.
She was staring at him from the other end of the table,her hair in a shower cap and a towel wrapped around her torso.
“What the hell?” he said.
“Someone wants to see you.”
“Who?”
“Said his name is Brady.”
Gennaro stared at her for a moment. When she didn’t go on, he said, “Brady who?”
She frowned in thought. “Who was the president with the peanut farm?”
