The SUV stopped at the curb outside of Newness Massage Parlor in southwest Baltimore, and a beefy security guard jumped out and opened the backdoor. Jerardo Jovanni’s small frame stepped out, and made his way, with bodyguard behind him, across the sidewalk and into the parlor.
“Welcome back, Jerardo!” the owner said grandly as she stood behind the desk and smiled at her newest arrival. “We didn’t expect to see you today. Min again?”
“If she’s here, yes.” Jerardo said.
“She’s here. She’s with another client, but I’ll move some things around. I’ll get her. Room 8B is available.”
As the owner picked up the phone to notify Min, Jerardo made his way to Room 8B. His bodyguard walked in first, saw that there was no threat there, and allowed Jerardo to enter. The guard then waited in the hall, and shut the door behind him. It was routine for them.
Jerardo undressed and got onto the massage table, onto his back. He began massaging his dick, which was the main reason why he came. Men who came to Newness came more to fuck than to be massaged, and he never pretended otherwise with any of the ladies who did him. Especially Minna, who was his favorite.
But as he closed his eyes and massaged himself, to prepare himself for Minna, the window curtains the bodyguard didn’t even bother to look behind, moved, and Amelia stepped out behind them. With an object in her hand she moved slowly, effortlessly, toward the table. She wore leather gloves and a red pantsuit, along with her trademark stilettos. But she knew how to walk soundlessly even in her high heels.
But when she made it to the table, her motion changed. She got in a hurry. She jumped on the table, straddling Jerardo, and stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth just as his eyes flew open. As soon as he realized it was not Minna, but Amelia, he panicked and attempted to lift up, but she took the steel object in her hand and clamped it onto his penis. He screamed out in pain, a scream muffled by the handkerchief, and she continued to twist the clamp.
She leaned down to his ear. “Make one false move,” she warned him, “and I’ll squeeze the life out of this motherfucker. Got it?”
He quickly nodded his head.
“Now I am going to ask you three questions, and your ass better answer truthfully.”
He continued to nod quickly as sweat began to appear on his pink forehead. He was in severe pain.
“Did you know about that ambush?” she asked him.
He nodded again.
“Did you order it?”
He nodded again.
“You’re the one who’s taking over my territory?”
But this time he shook his head.
Amelia knew Jerardo Jovanni. He was a crook and a lowlife two-timing scum, but he was no liar.
“I’m going to unclamp your manhood,” she said. “If your guard hears anything and comes in here, I’m going to have to kill him and you, too, and any other bastard who tries anything. Understood?”
Jerardo nodded. She unclamped him.
He was so relieved that his entire clenched body relaxed. He grabbed hold of his penis. But then, as if by reflex, he reached up toward Amelia and swung a hard right. He was going to punch her lights out.
But she ducked, he missed, and she clamped onto his manhood again. This time he screamed before she could put the handkerchief back in his mouth, and the door quickly flung open. Without hesitation, and before the guard could even draw his weapon, Amelia had already pulled out her small J-Frame pistol from her suitcoat pocket and shot him between the eyes. He fell straight back, ladies inside the parlor could be heard screaming and running, and Amelia, knowing her time was limited, put then placed her gun to Jerardo’s head. “Who’s taking over my territory? Tell me now or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”
Jerardo was more afraid of what that clamp was doing to his penis, than what that gun could do to his brains, and he didn’t hesitate. “Those were my men,” he admitted, “but I owed a debt. I was told to hold you hostage while they handled your people, as repayment. That is all!”
“Who did you owe?” Amelia asked urgently. Time was running out. “Who’s taking over my territory?”
Jerardo hesitated.
Amelia tightened her grip on his balls.
He screamed again. Then answered her. “Leo. Leo Tamberelli,” he said quickly.
Amelia couldn’t believe it. “Are you fucking serious? Your ass owed him?” In the mob world, Leo T, as they called him, was almost as big as Mick Sinatra. And almost as feared.
But Jerardo was nodding, with tears dropping from his eyes. He was fucked and he knew it.
“Why my territory?” she asked.
“I don’t know! He doesn’t confide in me! He just ordered me to do that job. We go way back, Amelia. Please release me. Please let me go!”
It sounded like a song she’d heard before. A country song. Maybe even an Elvis song. That was how fucked up this whole situation seemed. Elvis songs, Jerardo crazy enough to get indebted to Leo Tamberelli, and now she had a war on her hands with a fucker that big!
But she wasn’t so confused by the turn of events that she couldn’t realize the urgency. And she didn’t hesitate. Jerardo was dead to her anyway. He didn’t know any more than what he’d told her, and she could hear sirens in the distance. She thought about how one of his men said they could kill her once they got the call. The call from Jerardo that Tamberelli had secured her territory no doubt. And they would have killed her if Hammer had not shown up.
Now she was going to return the favor.
She shot Jerardo through his mouth, and left the clamp on his balls. He nearly caused her her life by agreeing to ambush her in the first place, which made him a dirty rotten bastard as far as she was concerned.
Besides, he was the one who had to tell Tamberelli what territory to take. He was the one who knew about her setup in ways Tamberelli could never know. He did more than just ambush her. He betrayed her.
Big time.
She wasn’t crying any tears for that fucking snitch.
And then she left the building the way she had come: through a side window that led to a back alley.
Her car was waiting two streets over.
She got in it, and took off.