Dues and Don'ts

Ironically, my nightmare began shortly after midnight when I was awoken from my sleep by Chief Henderson and told to get my ass down to 2 Torino Tower as quickly as possible. Why? For what? The chief never bothered to explain but as soon as I got in my car, it became all too clear without any doubts clinging to my cobwebs. “The three Gombahs found dead in their penthouse suite,” the police band screamed bloody murder. “Burned to death beyond recognition,” preliminary reports vouched for three piles of dust that were once Tony Arcadio, Richie DeMasi, and Nonny Cozzi, the three richest, most powerful men in the world. When I arrived at their World Headquarters suite, the three piles were still smoldering with a delicate trace of some sort of accelerant cleaving to the air. I cursorily presumed it a leftover remnant utilized by the killer. Upon further investigation, no bottles, cans, or any other fluid-like containers were found in the penthouse. What’s more is that there were no lighters, matches, flares, or any other incendiary devices discovered that could start a fire either. Except for those three piles of dust on the boardroom floor, nothing was out of place. This was substantiated by Lilith Salome, Executive Secretary to Mr. DeMasi. She, along with Building Security, was the first on the scene. Miss Salome was also the one who originally placed the 911 call that night. Remarkably, the fire from this portable inferno was as selective as it was reserved, for nothing in the immediate vicinity of the three piles was burnt, let alone singed. Frank Sampson, the attending coroner that night, stated that the three Gombahs’ bodies reached core temperatures of 3000C. What’s equally fascinating is that not one single rumor of fire was insinuated, let alone distinguished, by any of the seven hundred smoke detectors systematically positioned throughout the penthouse. Ambrose Fossbinder, Building Engineer for 2 Torino Tower, stated the smoke alarms were so acutely calibrated that a match lit three hundred feet away could be detected- they were that sensitive. Fossbinder further related that the units were tested every hour on the hour, but as to how or why the systems all malfunctioned at once, he couldn’t readily explain, not even with a Harvard-educated guess. A slight haze continued to hector sprinkler units that, for some inexplicable reason, were also never activated. I should point out that these sprinkler units were nothing more than elaborate fire hydrants descending as stalactites from a high arched ceiling that supported a thirty foot deep retention pond on the roof. The penthouse, in many respects, resembled a bunker. Not only was it steel reinforced, it was also fireproof and bombproof. Despite taking up the entire two-hundredth floor, there was only one way in and one way out and that was through a massive six-foot thick vault door. Addison Lipscomb, Structural Engineer for Torino Tower, stated a 747 couldn’t breach the Tower’s defenses. I had heard of safety precautions before, but quite frankly, this bordered the paranoid. I concluded it a knee-jerk response to Osama bin Laden and September 11th. It was a logical assumption to make. After all, Torino Tower was built on the site of the old World Trade Centers. The three Gombahs fought for every dollar, every inch, and every buyer, yet there were no scuff marks anywhere on the floor to indicate a struggle for life had ensued here less than an hour before. There wasn’t even a drop of blood in the penthouse. There were also no signs of forced entry. This was indeed baffling- not only as to how the killer got in, but how he got out when the vault was secured from the inside. I couldn’t reconcile a fire that burned so intensely, yet so cautiously. It was the craziest thing. It was as if the fire knew where it was going and why. I’d never seen anything like it. Fire Commissioner Patrick stated that in his thirty years investigating and fighting fires, he had never encountered such an encryptic and controlled burn. Everyone in the penthouse that night was at a loss for words to explain this madness that made no sense on any level, including and especially the two-hundredth floor. In a traditional homicide, the body leaves telltale signs, surrendering clues like a pigeon in Texas hold ‘em. In this particular case, there were no bodies, defense wounds, or physical evidence to establish a timeline of parting this world to the next. How could such things be possible in this most modern of worlds? Didn’t we, after all, know everything, not only about reasons for life, but causes of death? But even without typical earmarks, I too assumed their deaths to be the result of foul play. When you did the math, it was really a no brainier. The Gombahs had it all twenty four-seven, three hundred sixty-five days a year. And wasn’t that, at the end of the rainbow, the ultimate combination to success? They literally had it all: fame, fortune, power, toys, and a revolving door of the finest trophy wives money could not only buy, but keep. That alone was sufficient enough reason for me to believe their deaths were homicides. I mean, you don’t just throw everything away when you’ve got everything to lose. It wasn’t just crazy, it was nuts to think, let alone do. Until that night, I had never met my boyhood idols. Oh sure, over the years I had seen them around town, but never up close and in person. In my wildest dreams, I never could have envisioned our initial meeting to be conducted under these bizarre circumstances. Who could have, besides God, and maybe perhaps Nostradamus? I wanted to say a lot of things to them in my world of murderers, maniacs, and strange things that go bump in the night. But all I could muster was, “I’m terribly sorry.” Nobody, especially my boyhood idols, deserved this period at the end of their earthly sentence, regardless how witchy, bitchy, or Jewish. Now, by the cruelest of twists, their deaths revolved around me. But that orbit was far from complete, no matter how many times it spun around in my head. Despite seeing them in this mortally reduced state, I still couldn’t believe they were dead. The Gombahs were not only larger than life; they were the very epitome of life. They had an incredible run of fifty years to prove it, too. Many a man would be willing to settle for king of the castle one day. Now just imagine fifty years of the finest things the world had to offer for your convenience and pleasure. How could all that be gone? How do you resolve the issue of the most influential and recognizable men in the world being reduced to dust at your feet? Needless to say, it was hard to swallow and digest. I just couldn’t break them down as simple carbohydrates; they were much too complex for such naïve panderings that characterized good guys and bad guys with white and black chapeaus. As I stood, towering over them, I just couldn’t help but think how far they had come from their Spartan origins in the Bronx. If there was ever a rag to riches story, theirs’ was the model and template. But even that now seemed like a million years ago when the Gombahs cut a different kind of deal and headline in the New York Times. Sure, their cause of death was nebulous and murky, but their storied lives were tirelessly highlighted and chronicled. They had perpetuated a paper trail that would’ve envied Nazis. The Gombahs were known on every continent by people who had a more conventional fire insurance policy. In that respect, their lives held no doubt, no mystery, no suspense- their public lives that is. We all knew them like a best seller. And every year, an updated version came out to revise and tweak the old one with a New Age twist of how the three Gombahs could screw people with their pants still on.