Larry Massa (9:45)
I'm waiting for this guy Charles to pull up. I'm looking out the window. I needed a drink to calm my nerves a little bit. And I remember it was vodka instead of wine. So I'm sipping a vodka and I'm still thinking he's a doctor or some kind of traveling businessman. I see cars go by and my heart's pounding a little bit. Finally, this big black Fleetwood Brome Caddy. The cars were like limousines. He pulls in the driveway, expensive hubcaps on. The door opens. He gets out of the car and he doesn't start walking to the house. He swaggers. He had a walk that almost like a shark. If the car blew the horn, he didn't turn his head. His whole body turned. I noticed the dark sunglasses at night, the jewelry, the pinky ring. He had a sport jacket on, dress slacks. If you looked in a dictionary on the mobster, you'd see that picture. As he walks up the step, I open the door and I say, hi, I'm Larry. He sticks his hand out and in a deep Barry White type voice says to me, I'm Greg. I'm stunned. I put my hand out, shake his hand and he puts a smile on his face. Pleasure to meet you. I follow him into the kitchen. He grabs a bottle of scotch, pours two scotches. I says, okay, I'll have a scotch with him. I never had scotch before in my life and I remember not liking the taste. But I sipped it with him. I knew it was a smart thing to do, so I took a sip of it with him. He says he's gonna go upstairs for a few minutes and change. Soon as he walks out of that room and goes upstairs, I tell Linda, greg, I thought his name was Charles. And she Starts laughing like it's funny. And I says, what's going on? She says, oh, he just uses that name. People just use other names. I don't get it. We now start walking out to the car. Greg takes the lead. She wants me to sit in the front with both of them. I says, no, Linda, I'll sit in the back. Everybody should be comfortable. Let make sure he's comfortable while he's driving. He's telling me to sit in the front, but I says, no, no, I'm okay. I'll sit in the back. I get in the back, and I see him looking at me through the mirror while he's talking to me. And I'm just still wondering how this is all happening. We go a few miles to a restaurant called Sorrento's. When we walked in, everybody in the place. The cook came out of the back. Who was the owner? Ralph. The waiters came over to him. The bartender, who was Ralph's son, came from behind the bar. Everybody shook his hand or kissed him, which is the first time I saw two men kiss, and walked us to the back table. Greg's table. There was already a bottle of white wine and a bottle of red wine on the table. His favorite two wines. And I could see at that moment this guy was somebody. Greg told them, I found our new sales manager. Larry, say hello. I started right away. I started going to different stores. I had a list given to me. I go to these stores and I tell them who I was from Hewlett Supply Company. And every one of these stores allowed me to take care of their fire extinguishers. We have paper products, cleaning products. And they all said yes. I was getting accounts. I was like a star salesman. Greg tells me he'd like me to come to his office, his headquarters on 13th Avenue, where I'm getting all these accounts. So one day I go and I see a sign on the front. Wimpy Boys Social Club. This is in a Hewlett Supply Company office. I walk in, there's all guys that are dressed like Greg. They all have jewelry on. And Greg has an office in the back. There's a desk, a couch, a chair in front of his desk. And he sits in a big chair behind the desk that's almost like a throne. And he sits there like the king. Tell Greg. Yeah, a couple of stores between 71st and 72nd wouldn't do business with me. Carmine. He calls Carmine in. Go see these two stores the next day. They treated me like I was the mayor. This is all fine and Good on one front, where my business is growing. But on the other hand, I realized this man is not someone to be messing around with. And I'm still sleeping with his wife. And it's starting to weigh heavily on me. He's almost becoming a friend to me, helping me out, setting me up in business. And here I am when he goes off on business trips. I'm spending the night with his wife. If he finds out what happens in this world. But I was thinking with the wrong head. We were addicted to each other, Linda and I. We were having sex at an abnormal rate. Morning, noon, night, overnight, waking up in the middle of the night. The chemistry was so perfect. This older woman with a testosterone laden 18 year old young kid. I couldn't overcome it. We started getting careless. Linda was very callous about it. There was one time where we were coming back from the restaurant and Greg said, you go home with Linda, I'm going to go pick up the kids. The kids will buy a friend's house or a cousin's house. So that would give us about 10 or 15 minutes. We walk in the door, we didn't even close the door. Our clothes were coming off. And I see the car coming down the avenue. I'm a nervous wreck. The car is in the driveway, the doors are opening. She runs out upstairs and I'm fumbling to get my pants up, waiting for him and the kids to come in. And I feel flush and red and he's gonna notice. He comes in, he goes and gets two scotches. Linda comes walking back down with a nice nightgown on and a big smile on her face. And Greg says, you look like the cat that ate the canary. And I turned red. I mean, the butterflies. I can't even explain it. It's like a championship football game and you have the butterflies and you can't wait to run out on the field. I felt this, the worry, and Lint is laughing. And I sipped the scotch. I became a scotch drinker now. And when he goes up to change, I told her, I says, linda, I says, we, we gotta stop. So I'm at the club every day. Greg, he's confiding in me and I see all these piles of money coming in on a daily basis. And I'm not a dummy, I know it's not legal, but what they were doing to me was something, even at that age, I thought was accepted, you know, in Brooklyn, New York. It was so much of it around, there was social clubs everywhere. He's introducing me to others as his nephew now. I'm getting respect from these guys, other made guys, captains. He's sort of grooming me, showing me how to act like the other men. And Linda is in his ear all the time. I want Larry to be successful. I want him to be respected like you.
