"Okay, who wants pignoli?" Carisi burst into the room in his normal animated style. "C'mon my man Falzone, you're too fucking Sicilian to say no to a pignolo." The chill of the room didn't catch Carisi's attention until he was shoving the white paper bag with grease spots towards Falzone. Carisi froze, looked around the room. It was Russo, Venuti, Porcelli, Falzone, and De Rossi in the room. Falzone and Porcelli were the only low level guys, and they were standing closest to the door as if waiting for their next instructions – not ready to so much as take a piss without a direct order. Venuti and Giovinco were drinking scotch and pouring over a ledger in the corner, and De Rossi sat in the middle of the room on a puke ugly couch, the little fat lord of any hellhole he happened to be in.
"Zanatta. Good, you're here. I have some work for you," crooned De Rossi. Carisi hated the way he talked like he thought he was a fucking Gambino instead of the medial scumbag he was.
"Yeah, sure boss." He pushed the bag of pignoli into Falzone's chest. "What'cha got for me?"
De Rossi turned to look at Carisi for the first time since he walked in the room. He closed his eyes—a barely imperceptible movment since his eyelids were already so hooded- and nodded to the far corner of the room.
That's when Dominick saw her. A child, maybe eleven with just the beginning of breast buds hidden under a t-shirt with rhinestones. She was sobbing in utter silence, like a broken radio. Tears falling down doe brown skin; Carisis' stomach dropped. This was different. The MDB didn't use girls for anything. Was this someone's daughter, neice? What the hell was going on?
Dominick didn't miss a beat, he popped out one knee and threw his hands up "Who the hell is that?"
Russo chimed in –"That is our new business venture. Colombios wanna recycle their mules. Reduce, reuse, or whatevah." Someone chuckled. "And chica here can get a pretty price."
"She's a little kid." Dominick thought that should be protest enough, but he added "What the fuck does anyone want with a weepy little twig like that?"
"Sonny, Sonny," De Rossi clucked. "Still so naïve. There are a lot of perverts in this world. So. This is what you're going to do for me. You're going to do…her."
Carisi couldn't help himself. He laughed. "Yeah, yeah, boss. But really what do you want?"
How can one person's mood seem to change the air pressure in a room? "What I want," said De Rossi with little but the corners of his mouth moving, "is for my people to do what I tell them to do" and now he lifted one fat finger, "because I tell them to do it." There was danger in his voice. "I want her broken in. I want you to do it."
Out in the video van, Liv, Dodds, and Rollins were without audio, but they were as surprised and nervous as Carisi to see that little girl and now they all sensed something was about to happne. "What's going on?" Amanda asked nervously. Dodds and Benson simultaneously shushed her.
Russo was trying to explain as if pimping children were a normal lecture topic in any economics class. "Later we'll sell them as virgins. Really make some bank. But startin' on the ground floor, we need…uh… predictability."
Inside, Carisi hesitated. Okay, okay this shit is getting real. Busting the MDB sex trafficking ring is gunna mean busting a child trafficking ring. Okay. He made the mental switch and was ready to dive in. He'd take the bait and make a show of it.
"Yeah, okay." Carisi walked over and grabbed the girls tiny arm, hualing her onto shaky toothpick legs. She was sobbing audibly now. He'd take her to a back room, make some theatrical noises and bring her out in a few minutes, no one the wiser. Then he'd figure out how to get her out of there.
"No, no," De Rossi almost sung the words. "Here."
"Huh?" Carisi was stunned but tried to laugh it off. "Boss you might as well put Venuti in a skirt and tell me to get it up." Venuti was one hairy, sweaty bastard. "You'se guys aint exactly the best fluffers." A few chuckles from around the room. But not from De Rossi.
Russo the Mouthpiece spoke: "Like I said, predictability. This is a learnin' opportunity, Zanatta. For all of us. And you can't expect Falzone and Belotti to do this shit. They're married."
What the hell kinda fucked up moral reasoning is that supposed to be, thought Carisi.
"Boss, I can't do a little kid, especially not in front of these assholes."
"Hmm." De Rossi said nothing else before slowly, horribly, dragging himself vertical. "So." He paused. "You're sayin' you weren't really goin' to fuck her when you said you would just a minute ago here? Are you sayin' you were lyin' to me Zanatta?"
Nobody moved.
" Zanatta, I like you. You're, uh, ya know, almost charming. You're definitely smart. And you know how to think on your feet. These are good things to have in a man." He nodded and jutted out his bottom lip, like he were just thinking aloud, like this wasn't a carefully crafted and premeditated threat. "Yeah, good things to have in a man as we start this new, uh, venture. But what I really wanna know, Zanatta - are you loyal?"
Never words you want to hear from a gangster's mouth, Carisi thought.
"Of course I'm loyal, Boss. But I ain't a perv. And my dick ain't a machine, ya know? What can I do?" He was trying to smile, to be 'almost charmng'.
De Rossi stopped pacing and looked at Carisi. "Maybe you don't know what loyal means. What's the expression…" he mock-snapped is porky fingers, "uh, I say jump, you say—" "
"—how high?" Russo chimed in on cue. De Rossi nodded and motioned Belotti towards Carisi.
"Di preciso. When you work for me, Zanatta, you do what I tell you to do. Is that clear?"
That was Belotti's que and he punched Carisi in the gut. Hard.
Amanda gasped. Liv and Dodds started. But they knew they had to wait it out a bit. Maybe this was an initiation?
De Rossi continued. "You don't question." Another gut punch from Belotti. "You don't hesitate." Belotti again. Carisi let out a groan and his knees buckled, but Falzone grabbed his arms from behind and held him up. Carisi could see the pignoli crumbs still on Falzone's fingers.
"Because if you'se loyal, I own you." Again. "All of you." Again. "Even ya dick." Belotti punched him in the groin, and Carisi let out a shrill yelp. "And what I own," now De Rossi was in his face, "nevah, nevah…"
De Rossi stopped short. Carisi looked at De Rossi, so close to his face he could smell the cigarette-tainted breath. The man appeared to have no muscles in his body, a cariacature, shaped like lard, and so the expression of his face never really changed, nothing moved. But there was something different, a cold foul current seeping out from behind those sagging, puffy eyelids.
"Tell me Zanatta. Why do you need contacts and glasses, I wondah."
Shit.
The MDB had scared Carisi before. But this was the first time he really felt terror. A sour cold sweat began to prickle his skin. De Rossi leaned forward and looked at Carisi's face, and he could see the outline of contacts. De Rossi cocked his head and looked at Carisi's glasses. Thick. He hadn't thought about it before. "Figlio di puttana." He stepped to Carisi's side and Carisi instinctively turned his head. De Rossi grabbed Carisi's jaw so hard Carisi thought he might have broken a tooth and wipped Carisi's head forward. In the same instant, he had grabbed Carisi's gun.
"Don' look at me."
De Rossi was smart.
"Sonny." He sounded disappointed, like a devil just disenchanted with his prey. "What have you done?" Everyone in the room was still, even the borderline moronic Falzone seemed to grasp that something was very wrong. Russo had finally shut up. De Rossi leaned and whispered venom in Carisi's ear: "Who do you work for?"
"I work for you, Boss."
In the van, all that the squad saw on the monitor was a disembodied arm flash across the bottom of the screen and then what looked like vomit pouring down onto Carisi's shoes.
How could a shapeless man hit that hard? Carisi was choking on vomit, unable to catch a breathl
"You a cop, Zannatta?"
"No," Carisi wheezed.
"Do not lie to me, son."
De Rossi pushed Carisi to his knees. "You police?"
Kneeling in his own vomit, Carisi was racking his mind to figure out a plausible explanation. It was obvious that De Rossi knew the glasses were a camera. Claiming he worked for another gang would only get him killed faster. And what other explanation was there for wearing a camera on your face? His head was spinning. Defeated, Dominick closed his eyes and gave a barely perceptible nod.
"I see. Do they know where we are?"
Again Carisi gave the smallest nod. Porcelli and Giovinco were already grabbing papers frantically. Venuti ran to a back room to grab ammo and cash.
"Zannatta, I'm disappointed. Like I said, I liked you." De Rossi covered the glasses with his fat palm, leaving the squad with a dark meaningless monitor. Meanwhile De Rossi he moved the glasses to his own face, only uncovering the lenses again once he'd looked away from Carisi. Smart. Now Liv, Dodds, and Rollins were looking at De Rossi's point of view without knowing the difference. "Okay, Venuti – bring up the escalade from behind. Falzone – kill this piece of shit when we leave. And the girl. She's not worth the risk right now. We'll let the cops follow us until you're done. Rest of you's, back exit. Carry what you can."