Nothing But Money by Greg Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

to Stanford, without mentioning Boston University. BU had been replaced by the Ivy League and all its implications, without all the hassle of graduation. And, if it wasn’t too much of a problem, could he borrow $3,000? He was having a little cash flow issue, temporary of course. No problem, said Jeffrey. And do you know about our “credit adjustment” feature we offer all our customers?

    Whether Jeffrey Pokross believed anything Cary told him did not matter even a little, because he must have known that Cary was a guy just like him—a guy who looked at people to see what they had to offer. Cary was aware of this.

    “I didn’t come into that relationship with Jeffrey painting a true picture,” Cary would admit. “I didn’t tell Jeffrey, well, I’m totally broke and destitute. Jeffrey had an understanding that I was having financial problems, but Jeffrey is intelligent enough to know that I brought something to the table, which was—at that point in time—a legitimate résumé.” Everybody involved knew it was a relationship based entirely on self-interest: “We both saw in the other individual an opportunity to make money together. I mean, to leverage off one another.”

    Jeffrey promised to take care of the Mercedes situation as soon as possible. In the meantime, he had a proposition.

    There was this deal in the works that would make them all millionaires. Overnight. Guaran-fucking-teed. Cary would be getting $1,500 a week, a free office at Three Star and a free car thrown in. Jeffrey would just need to borrow Cary and his broker’s license for a little bit. And if Cary had the temerity, he could make a lot of money in a short period of time. Cary said, “That’s interesting.”

    Jeffrey went to work.

CHAPTER FIVE

    Early 1989

     
    Bobby Lino Sr. lay in a hospital bed in Brooklyn. Most of his life he weighed in around 180, 190 pounds. Now he was down to 90 pounds, with shoes. There were tubes and machines that beeped and nurses in and out scribbling on clipboards. An air of festivity was not present. At his bedside were his cousin Frank, and two old friends, Good Looking Sal and Big Louie. They had known each other for years, back from the old neighborhood in Gravesend, Brooklyn. They had lived the life of la cosa nostra every day, done pieces of work together, schemed their days away. Oh, the capers! They met all the big names—Tony Ducks, Rusty Rastelli, Big Paulie and even the guy on the cover of Time magazine, John Gotti. They strutted down Mulberry Street with a roll of bills and a smile and a slap on the arm for their fellow good fellows. But it wasn’t the same now. It wasn’t The Godfather anymore. It wasn’t as much fun.

    It all went bad with that business with Donnie Brasco, the FBI agent who’d conned them all. That was bad news for everybody. A lot of guys with families to feed had taken it in the neck on that one. Sure Bobby Senior had walked away from that mess. Donnie Brasco hadn’t touched him. But look at him now. He was Bobby Senior, soldier in the Bonanno organized crime family of New York City, down to ninety pounds, the Big C hanging over his head. All the chemicals and tubes and machines weren’t turning the tide. He was on his way. The current was pulling him downstream toward the big waterfall. True, he had done some very bad things in his life. Now it was time to set the record straight.

    First off, Bobby Senior couldn’t have helped any of it. He was born into the life. His mother and father and most of the Lino family had come from Sicily back in the 1920s when the Black Hand—a group of marginally organized criminals that would eventually become the particular version of organized crime called the American Mafia—did certain favors for people in the neighborhood, in exchange for which these people owed them for the rest of their natural born days. Way back in the 1930s it started with Bobby Senior’s uncle, Frank Lino Sr. He’d done a big favor for a guy named