"...the toughest neighborhood in the world." That was Wilson
and Broadway, just two blocks from the Green Mill Bar where
Joe E. Lewis was appearing when he got his throat cut.

In the middle of a fitful sleep, I grew conscious of Lucio shaking me. "Come on," he said. "We have business."

"What time is it?" I asked, trying to focus.

"About 2:00 a.m.," Lucio answered. "We got a job to do for Dominick. He wants to take your boat."

I didn't like the sound of this. It might be a setup. I eased my 25-calibre Beretta into my pants pocket when Lucio wasn't looking. My mind was made up. If this was it, I was gonna take Lucio along with me and any of the Lucchese thugs that stood in my way.

"I'm low on gas," I lied, trying to sound matter-of-fact. "Why don't we take your car?" I figured if Lucio drove, he'd be the easier target.

"Okay," he said. "By the way, does your boat have a full tank?"

"Yeah, it's full," I said, aware this was gonna be more than a short pleasure cruise.

We arrived at Haulover, south of Miami Beach, around 3:00 a.m. It was so quiet I could hear my watch ticking. The longer we waited, the more I sweated in the muggy night air. Finally, the infamous Mauro Brothers appeared out of the blue fumes from the idling motors. They wrestled a heavy, black canvas bag aboard the Knot Guilty.

"What's in the bag?" The words spilled out of my mouth before I could check myself.

"You don't want to know," one of the goons grunted. "Just think of it as garbage."

I was thankful for the moonless night because the sweat was pouring down me like Niagara Falls. My hand automatically closed around the Beretta in my pocket. I was so jumpy, the snap of a twig was all I needed to shoot all three of them. If they were going to do what I figured, they couldn't leave any witnesses, especially an outsider like me.

We had entered international waters, just beyond the 12-mile limit, when I heard the order I'd been dreading. "Okay, you can stop." My grip tightened on the semi-automatic still in my pocket. I held my breath and waited. There was shuffling followed by a giant splash, then silence. I was gonna be fish food in about two seconds...

Yeah, it's like you always hear people say. When a guy's about to die, his whole life flashes before him. How did I get into this stupid mess with these Lucchese killers anyway? Just when everything seemed to be going good for a change, trouble hit like a punch in the solar plexus. In fact, my earliest memories are always of me in some kind of trouble...