da mafia

We were having a pretty intense conversation at work yesterday about the mafia.
As people do, when poring over computer screens, slamming down staplers and mumbling unidentifiable things into telephone receivers.
Which got me thinking. The mafia is a rather creative bunch. Usually they ‘do’ their nemeses with a simple bullet in the back of the head. You know, clean, clinical killing. But often, they’ve been the perpetrating ‘thinking out of the box’ types, where some of the most obscene murders have been more than flamboyant.

I wonder - do they have staff meetings? You know, at head office, around a boardroom table (…), to discuss how their next victim will die?

[Cut to giant mansion in Palermo, Sicily – overlooking the expansive turquoise waters of the exquisite Amalfi coastline….]

Donnie Brasco: I am gonna kill dat son of’bitch, Al Capone. And a bullet to da head is too purile for dat weasel.

Frank Sinatra: I hear you Big Dawnie [Donnie]. Let’s smash him in’kneecaps.

Donnie Brasco: Don’t be so hasty Frank. Dat got us in trouble da last time. No. Dis time I draw da line. I asked him to gimme da damn money, and he just laffed in my face. Dis time, he’s a dead man. He’s embezzled haff my cash, not to mention my wife, in da Caymans.

Frank Sinatra: Who, Maria?

Donnie Brasco: No, dat’s my mistress you idiot. We need something so cunning, so brutal…’so never tried before’.

Frank Sinatra: We can tar and feather him.

Donnie Brasco: It’s been done.

Frank Sinatra: OK, what about napalming his house?

Donnie Brasco: Frank you’re a fool. We don’t know where he lives. If we did, he’d be dead already.

Frank Sinatra: I goddit. Let’s put plutonium in his fusilli!

Donnie Brasco: Frank. I know we have ties with Fidel Castro who tells me he has a Cuba-sized chunk of plute in his basement, but dat’s very….KGB. No Frank, we gotta bit more creative panache dan dat.

Frank: A bow and arrow to da heart?

Donnie: You’re startin’ to irritate me Frank…and we know what happens when Donnie gets irritated.

Frank: Sorry bawce [boss]. I’ve always Done It My Way.

[pause]

Donnie: Dat’s not funny Frank. You think you’re funny? You’re funny now, huh wise guy? Are you a wise guy now Frank?

Frank: No bawce. Just kidding bawce.

Donnie: F’you not careful Frank, I’ll slip somethin’ into your soda dat’ll make your balls start to itch somethin’ epic. You want dat Frank?

Frank: No bawce.

Donnie: Sing me a song Sinatra, while I think of what I’m gonna do to dat ferret ass Capone.

Frank: “Start spreadin’ the noooz…I’m leavin’ today…I wanna be a part of it….Noo York, Noo York….These liddle town blooz…”

Donnie: OK shuddup. I godda plan.
We gonna smoke this liddle cretin right outta his hole, Sinatra. And it ain’t gonna be preddy.
We gonna… bagel him.

Frank: huh?

Donnie: My henchmen tell me he’s in Da Big Apple. I’m gonna do somethin’ even the people of Noo York will appreciate. Al Capone’s head, by the end of dis week – mark my words Sinatra – is gonna be spread like cream cheese over da biggest bagel da world has ever seen.

Frank: You can’t be serious bawce.

Donnie: Oh I’m serious Frank. I’ll get Daniella from Gino’s Bakery, on da corner of 23rd and 10th, to bake me a man-sized bagel. Then I’ll saw da bagel in haff, stuff him in, and display it in da middle of Times Square. With a sign: ‘This is an Al Capone bagel.’

Frank: You. You’re good you. No. You. You’re good you.

Donnie: Yeah all dat and a bag of chips. Sing me another song Sinatra.

I think I’ve been reading too much American Pyscho.