Chapter 1
Evenin' friends. The name is Rayford- Rayford Clay Fortmeyer- and I'm gonna tell you a little story. I'd be afraid to tell it to ya if I didn't know that everybody involved in the story is now sittin' behind bars. But fortunately for me, that's where they all are like a bunch of caged up birds. I'm about to tell you how they all got there, and who they' are. It all started back in 1992, in a convenience store located in a small town in central North Carolina. I worked the cash register every night. Now this convenience store was located right off the interstate, so we got visitors of all sorts to come in throughout the night; especially since we were open twenty-four hours. Well little did I know that the visitors to the store that night would change my life forever.
It was probably around 2:30 in the morning, and the store had hit its usual dry spell of no customers at that time of night. I was sitting on top of my favorite black stool behind the register, looking at the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. As I looked up for a moment to see if any of the windows needed cleaning, this big, black Cadillac pulled up to one of the pumps outside. The two front doors opened, and two of the shiniest suits I've ever laid my eyes on got out of the car. There was one pretty tall and lanky guy, and he had one of those "rat-lookin' " faces. The other guy was a little shorter, with a sorta muscular, yet sorta fat kind of build. Despite the shorter stature, I could tell this was the guy in charge. Although he had a kind of chubby face, there was just somethin' about his eyes. His facial expression was just the kind that said, "Yeah, I'm somebodysomebody you will respect." The two fellas came inside and looked around. They didn't seem to be in any big hurry, just stopping in for the usual gas fill-up and something to drink. The shorter fella walked up and gave the breath mints a look-over. He noticed me and said, "Howyadoin'?" "Yep, definitely a Yankee," I thought to myself as I nodded my head to him. The tall dude spoke up from the Cold Drinks' section, "Hey Joey you wanna try this Sun Drop stuff?" The Joey guy looked over to him and replied "Yeah, but grab some of that RC stuff, too. It's fantastic!" Joey then looked back at me and asked, "So you got any good reading materials back there behind the counter?" I pulled out the latest editions of the most popular "Gentlemen's" magazines. I thought to myself "These yanks ain't that bad." Heck they liked nudie magazines like anybody else and they even liked RC cola! Joey and his friend came up to the register, breath mints and all. Joey then asked me to also throw in twenty dollars for gas. I began to ring them up, when the big glass door opened, with the obnoxious cowbell that was attached clangin' away as usual. A short, well-built black man walked in, wearing a long trench coat. I looked at my two new Yankee visitors and said sarcastically "Wow, this is a busy night."
Suddenly, the black man brought a sawed-off twelve - gauge out from his coat and cocked it. First he aimed it at me and yelled "Gimme da cash, and be quick about it!" I started cleaning out the drawer, keeping one hand just out of sight and reaching for my Louisville Slugger. The black man noticed my Yankee friends' shiny suits and the Caddy outside. He then stopped aiming at me and pointed the gun at the Yanks. The tall one said "You don't wanna do dat." The black man yelled "What you gonna do about it, white boy? I changed my mind. I think you and yo friend look like mo' money than this hole-in-the-wall sto!" Without any warning, the tall one knocked the twelve-gauge outta the man's hands and punched him in the gut. As the crook stooped over, out of breath, I saw his hand slip into one of the pockets of his coat. The black guy pulled out a pistol and got off a shot. He winged "Tall Guy" in the arm. Just as he was about to shoot Joey, I brought my ol' Slugger over the count! er as hard and as fast as I could. I cracked the black dude right on top of the head; he was out cold! Suddenly Joey grabbed the bat from me and proceeded to beat the tar out of the already unconscious mass on the floor. "Tall Guy" struggled a little bit getting off the floor, but did manage to have enough in him to assist Joey by kicking the black guy repeatedly in the head. After a couple of minutes of senseless beating, the two Yanks finally simmered down. I just stood there, staring at the bloody pulp of a mess sitting there in the floor. I could not believe what had just happened. Just when I was about to ask the two brutes what exactly they planned to do to clean up the mess, Joey asked "So you got any extra large trash bags?" I pointed out the aisle where the trash bags were found. Joey then looked me in the eyes. He said "Don't worry about this mess. We'll clean this up. By the way, the name's Joey Joey Provincios. The newly one-armed bandit over there is Tony. You! , my friend, saved my life. For that, I am indebted to you." And now y ou know how it all started; the first of many experiences with the Provincios family. I reckon a night like that would be hard for anyone to forget; especially a good ol' boy like me. You wanna hear the scary part? Compared to all the other stuff I would be exposed to later, that was just the tip of the iceberg. I don't remember much about the rest of that night following the commotion in the store. I do remember what Joey said to me before I ventured up North with them. As we stood outside the store, behind the Caddy, Joey and Tony carefully placed the wrapped up body in the trunk. Tony went to the driver-side door, climbed in, and cranked the engine. Before Joey closed the trunk, he looked me in the eyes again and said "It would be in your best interest to come to Brooklyn with us. We didn't exactly have much choice as to how the events tonight turned out. These things happen. However, since you saved my life, I would feel like a real grease-ball if we left you here to take the rap for this. Besides, we got a job you can do for us back home." I was still confused as to why I had to come along, but I couldn't help but be curious about any available job outside the convenience store business! So I asked Joey, "Job? What kind of job?" He closed the trunk, then kind of looked me over and said, "Well, you are not exactly what we would call a small person. And it has occurred to me that you might be good at this life savin' business. So the way I figure it, you would make a pretty good bodyguard for my father." Well as soon as he mentioned his family, I realized what kind of Yankees I was dealing with here. However, I felt like Joey was insisting I go without having to threaten me, so I headed for the back door behind Tony. Before I got in and as Joey got back around front, I asked "So what about him?" I motioned with my head toward the trunk. He smiled and said, "Oh don't worry. We've done this kind of thing before. We'll stop somewhere up the interstate and bury him where nobody will find him. You won't have to do anything. We'll take care of it." Yeah, sure... I am sure you can imagine the comfort I felt in those words. So off we went- in the black North Carolina night. After a "brief stop" to bury the body up the road aways, we drove on through the rest of the morning. After the events from the previous night, I don't think I slept a wink during the entire road trip back to Brooklyn. I was too dad-gum wired; what with all the excitement, danger, and stress I could handle in one night. I remember when we first crossed the New York line that afternoon. Joey turned around and said, "You know, you look like you don't get near enough sleep. Your eyes are lookin' a little on the red side. You oughtta get that checked out." I remember thinking to myself, "Dang! You think I do this kind of thing all the time?" Then I also remember thinking that I had better be careful about what I think. The kind of thoughts I had were enough to make anybody crazy, but they were also the kind of thoughts that Joey and Tony wouldn't want to hear bout. Thoughts like "I wonder how much longer I am going to live," or "Can I actually trust two men who just killed a man?" Needless to say, my conscience was not exactly sitting right with me, even though I really couldn't have prevented the events that had taken place.
About the time that I finally convinced myself that none of this stuff was my fault, we were on some street in the heart of Brooklyn. Tony drove the Caddy right up to the curb in front of this little Italian restaurant. I couldn't believe it. It was like I was stuck in some Mafia movie, like Goodfellas or something. The name of the restaurant - you guessed it; it was Provincios'. You could smell the aroma from the authentic Italian food, coming out through one of the doors propped open by a large barrel. On top of the barrel there was this sad, droopy lookin' Basset Hound all curled up. Going down the rest of the front of the building, there were two large glass windows. Near the door that was closed, there was a neon 'OPEN' sign glowing from the other side of the glass. Joey turned back to me as the car came to a stop. "Ah Home sweet home," he said. As you can imagine, I was pretty tired, having no sleep and all. Apparently, Joey didn't think anything about it. As soon as we got out of the car, he said "Come with me. There is someone I would like you to meet." I had a feeling he was gonna say something like that. I knew he wanted me to meet his father, so I prepared myself for anything. I followed closely behind Joey, and Tony stayed outside to smoke a cigarette. Joey led me into the restaurant. It really was a nice little place; very Italian. The first large room, the main dining area, was dimly lit, with a small candle at each table. The sunlight coming through the two large front windows was the main light source. There was a small crowd of folks grabbing a late lunch, but they didn't seem to be the people Joey wanted me to meet. Joey led me into the kitchen, and from there we took a lot of little turns around all the kitchenware and cooks. Finally, Joey opened a narrow black door and we walked into what seemed to be some type of living room. There, in the middle of the room, was a card table, with four guys dressed like Joey, playing cards. There was one guy who seemed to be the one in charge. He stood up, came over to Joey, and gave him a big hug and one of those Italian kisses on the cheek that you see in movies.
