Post 2: Pages 3-6 Released 10/26/10; Continued

 This is a continuation from post on 10/27:  

 "Who the fuck are you asshole?" He said pointing his gun directly at my forehead. I'd just come from around the corner after picking up some lunch to see this man roughing up a smaller Chinese fellow. Something about money, I was sure of that, but i couldn't make out the rest. I then realized that I hadn't answered his question immediately because I was frozen imagining one of his bullets splitting open my head and spraying the sidewalk with my brains. Not happy thoughts.
     "Hey! I'm talking to you!" He yelled.

     "Ok! Ok! Don't shoot! I'm not armed, it's just a roast beef sandwich in the bag." I didn't know why I said that because I don't think he was even looking at the bag.

     "What?"

     "Yeah...um...you want half, I'll give you a half, it's still warm?"

He then stepped forward and pressed the nose of the gun into my temple which hurt really bad.

     "Here take the whole sandwich, of course you want the whole thing, I can get another one. There's a pickle in the bag too."

     "I don't want your goddamn sandwich, what kind of an idiot are you? I'm pointing a fucking gun at your head and in two seconds I could splatter your brains all over the sidewalk." Oh god. "And you're talking about sandwiches...that shit is funny."

     "Look man....I, I am just a tile salesman and I'm only down here because New York XXXXXXX said this sandwich place had one of the top 100 sandwiches in the city. I'm just really hungry that's all, and as far as what I saw you doing before...I don't even remember what you look like." It was a desperate plea but it was the first thing that popped into my head which I was sure was going to explode at any second.  A moment later he eased off the pressure on my temple, which was practically numb, and stood back still pointing the gun in my direction.
     "You are a seriously fucked up individual, most people would have just begged for their life. What kind of tile you sell?" Wait, what? Was he really striking up a conversation?

     "Italian mostly, some from Mexico and some that is made here in the US. All of it is the best quality, we got a showroom on XXX street near XXXX XXXXX."

     "Do you get paid good doing that or what?"

     "Not since the economy tanked in 08, we've been hurting a bit but it seems to be picking up lately. No I'm not really making any money, fucking sucks, but at least I can still run around town looking for new things to eat."

     "Don't tell me...you're one of them foodies right?"

     "Yeah I guess you could say that." More like retarded.

The man with the slick black hair and hulking shoulders inside of a leather sport coat stared at me for what felt like an eternity. I thought for a moment that he was trying to see if I would flinch. He put the gun down and motioned for me to come closer. Not much of a comfort.

     "One of the best sandwiches in the city huh? How come I don't know about this place?"

Because you are as stupid as you look? "Don't know but it's a really small little place over there. Was hoping to give it a try today."

     "What's in it? Smells good."

     "Roast beef, like I said, melted fresh mozzarella and drizzled with the natural au jus on a hero."

     "Au jus? Is that that french dip stuff? Cause I love that."

     "Well sort of I guess."

     "Sounds good, hand it over."

Without hesitation I handed over the warm brown bag filled with what was sure to be a delicious sandwich and a half sour pickle. My life for a sandwich, my life for a sandwich I murmured in my head. A horse is a horse of course of course was in there somewhere too.

     "Here you go."

     "Thanks. The names Jimmy." He nodded his head once.

     "I'm Stephen with a PH."

     "You like sports?"

     "Huh?"

     "You like football? Ever bet on football?" He dug into his pocket and before I could answer he shoved a small white paper in my hand. "Take this and come back and see me next Thursday." When I opened it up I knew exactly what it was but felt it necessary to play a little dumb, so I shrugged my shoulders.

     "Who's your favorite team then?"

     "The Giants."

     "Ok, was that so hard? You can bet on the Giants every week if you want. Just bring me some money and I'll place the bet for you and if they win you'll make a little cash." Way too good to be true. "And if you're feeling really lucky you can bet on a couple of games, the more games you bet on the more money you can win." Those were the magic words to my ears. More money. I could always use more money. That's exactly the moment when I was completely sucked into the world of Jimmy XXXXXXXX.

     He continued. "Every Thursday I'll be sitting in front of the XXXXXXXX XXXXX laundry mat over on XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX. The windows are always steamed up, so you can't miss it." Of course the paper he had just handed me was the reason I bumped into him in the first place when I saw him pummeling that guy. Well actually I didn't see anything at all. Over the years I would occasionally make a friendly wager but never with a real bookie, that was trouble, but who was I to shy away from trouble.

     "Ok, thanks." I said with a grin.

     "Now get the fuck outta here before I change my mind."

And with that I ran. Ran back around the corner to the roast beef sandwich shop to pick up another sandwich because man was my belly growling.

     "Weren't you just in here?" Said the idiot clerk behind the counter.

     "Yeah glad you noticed, just gimme another one...please."

     "You know you got a red lump on the side of your head?" She was pointing at the spot where Jimmy had pressed his glock. I wasn't sure if it was actually a glock, I just liked to say glock.

     "Uh yeah that's from the nozzle of a gun (too much information), nothing to worry about, happens all the time. Can you just get me my sandwich and extra pickles this time?" I immediately turned to look at the mirrored wall next to me to see just how bad it was. She was right to have pointed it out, it was freakin' huge. "Shit." I whispered. "What the hell am I going to tell my wife?"
     That was about the way I remembered it, the way it went down. From then on every Thursday I'd go and see Jimmy sitting outside of the laundry mat smoking one of his awful cigars and smelling like he had poured an entire bottle of cologne over his head. If you had asked me I would've said Jimmy was in his fifties but it wouldn't have shocked me if you told me we were the same age. Smoking can do that to you. I made it a habit of getting over to Jimmy early, usually before lunch, to give myself enough time to pick up something to eat. What I didn't know, what I couldn't have possibly known at that time, was that Jimmy had taken a shine to me and had decided to take me under his wing.

Omitted Times Article Dated 10/9/10, Obtained From Police Central Server On 10/26/10, Incomplete

Unidentified Body Pulled From East River Holds Some Clues But Cops Still Call It A Mystery
By XXXXXXXXX


October 8, 2010 updated 11:22am
In the early hours of Monday morning on October 4th, the NYPD was alerted to a 911 call that stated a body was seen floating in the East River near the Manhattan Bridge. Police rep XXXXXXXXX said that the first squad car arrived at the scene at approximately 5:25 AM to find the body under the bridge exactly as the caller had reported. Back up with equipment arrived the scene to fish out the deceased at approximately 5:49 AM. What was strange, as the cops have stated, was that the body was XXXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX missing a XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX   XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXX XX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX transcript or manuscript XXXXXXX. Not surprisingly the corpse had no identification and so far no witnesses have come forward other than the anonymous caller who of course did not leave a contact number. Police are hoping that someone will eventually turn up and ask that if anyone has information they should contact XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX.



-We were unable to retrieve the rest of the article and no information can be found on the Times website. We have left numerous messages at the Times offices, they have yet to return our calls.

Post 1: Pages 1-2 Released 10/24/10

Chapter 1: The Story Begins

I am a gigantic lump of wasted talent. That's the way I always start this story, the story of me and Jimmy XXXXX and how on that fateful day in his basement everything changed but really didn't. Why I ended up in Jimmy XXXXXX's basement was easy to figure and at that point I thought it might have been the last place I ever saw. Of course it wouldn't even be possible for me to tell this story if I hadn't been able to escape after picking myself up off the floor, left for dead I'd presumed. With two limbs dangling I stumbled out the front door which had surprisingly been left open. Maybe Jimmy let me go for some strange reason, to see if I could do it or maybe he just wanted to prolong my torture. At that point I didn't give a shit and hobbled away as fast as I could.
His Goons had picked me up on XXX  Street earlier in the day while I was on my way down to XXXX Delicatessen to pick up a Pastrami on Rye, my monthly pilgrimage to eat my favorite sandwich. You see there are only two things in life that I am really good at, eating and fucking up, the latter being my expertise. The two always seemed to go hand in hand, one leading to the other. It was a constant stream of greasy food and catastrophe, which for the most part I had been able to avoid up until then.
XXXXX XXXX XXXXXX X XXXX. The Goons, as I liked to call them, had given me a pretty good knock on my head so forgive me if I have forgotten some of the details. For instance, like what kind of vehicle they had thrown me into. I wasn't sure if it was a truck or van, all I remember is that the floor was very hard and didn't taste very good. Being that it wasn't my first time being abducted I understood that it was in my best interest to remain silent and still. There was no point in taking any additional punishment before what was sure to be more punishment later. At that point I had yet to figure out who it was that had grabbed me so abruptly, or why for that matter when they simply could have just asked me to go. It wasn't until I smelled the cologne that I knew it had been Jimmy who'd ordered the pick-up. Great, I thought, he must've figured out what I had done. Jimmy liked to wear a lot of cologne, so much so I could always smell him when he was around.
"Hey buttercup, got any sandwiches for me today...No?" He said with a laugh and yanked me by my arm out onto the sidewalk. That was really hard too.

"I could have had a nice pastrami sandwich for you but your Goons never let me get to XXXX,  besides was it really necessary for them to give me such a hard whack on my head, was that really necessary?"

Jimmy looked at me with a shit eating grin. "I'm sorry buttercup, we wasn't sure you would come so easily, better that way, you know?"

"What's better about it?" I said. "By the way, why are you calling me buttercup?" He didn't answer and that's when Jimmy and the Goons dragged me down into the dreaded basement.

Everyone had heard the rumors I guess. I was only familiar with the one that said there was dried blood splattered all over the walls and there was a hole in the floor where he threw all the bodies. Jimmy's basement was known by most as The Roach Motel, you know like the commercial...'roaches check in but they don't check out' sort of thing. All I knew was that there wasn't anything good about them bringing me there. So you could imagine my surprise when it was nothing like what I had heard, it was actually nice. The floor was smooth concrete and had been painted a dark speckled grey that matched the walls, all except one that I assumed had been intentionally left bare to expose the bricks. Nice touch. There was a faint smell of Pine-Sol in the air but I couldn't figure out if that had recently been used to scrub the place down or not, so I just pushed that thought aside. In the middle of the room was single wooden chair that to me looked like a vintage piece from the fifties, maybe an Eames chair, but I noticed it was all rusted and chipped. Too bad, no re-sale value. Opposite that was a smallish green sofa with a tweedy fabric that you might find in the waiting room of a doctors office, that was in fine shape however. Somehow I felt comforted by the simplicity of it all. Just then Jimmy motioned to one of his Goons and whispered loud enough so that I could hear. "Go get me the plastic tarp, we gonna need it." I no longer felt comforted and barfed all over the green sofa.

There are two reasons why I knew Jimmy and his band of merry men.

One: he was my bookie.

Two: I am a complete dumbass.

If you are not sure what a bookie is exactly it means that he takes sports bets for the mob (yeah that mob) from shitheads like me who actually think they could win some money. Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Horse Racing and even the English Premier League across the pond. Whatever sport you wanted to bet on you could do that through Jimmy and he was more than happy to take your money. Why was he happy you say? Because he knew full well he wouldn't be giving any of it back. You see when someone actually won from Jimmy he would say something like..."Let it ride." Or "I'll just hold onto the money for you until you really need it." We had no choice at that point because it was already too late, his hooks were already deep into our backs. There was no easy way to ask for the money either, anyone who ever had now walked with a limp or even disappeared completely. After that Jimmy would use us for favors, or I should say we were forced to do things like XXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX. Sickening I know but Jimmy did throw us, I mean me, a bone every once in a while. The first time we met was a rather memorable experience since he almost shot me dead outside of XXXXXXXXXXX after I had walked over to XXXXXXXXXX, to pick up a Roast Beef sandwich for lunch.