Hello there, my name is Terry Panzetti; my friends call me “Big-T”. For you, it’s Mr. Panzetti or I cut your f**king balls off. Back to the point, I’m Mr. Panzetti and I am a mafia boss. I run the cartel that ships in all that sweet-sweet pot you’ve been choking on for the past 2 weeks. How I got here? None of your business, nosey Thompson. I’m paying you a visit for one reason and one reason only: I want to know what you want. Now, before you answer that with some made up bullshit, here’s a little story to put your mind on the right track.
A couple of weeks back, I was opportune to meet my long lost cousin, Pablo. Pablo’s father was my uncle and as far as I know he was the only goddamn family I had till his unfortunate death in ’78. I haven’t seen Pablo since then and the moment I saw his Yankee-doodle pigeon face on my lawn again, I knew he wasn’t here for a family reunion; he was troubled. It turned out Pablo had been duped by a real estate agent somewhere in the city that goes by the name Abett. I hadn’t heard of the guy and it was obvious he hadn’t heard of me too, if not he wouldn’t have gone around duping any member of my family, not even the dog. Pablo came to me complaining and I promised to make Abett pay for what he did and most importantly, get his money back.
The next day, I sent out a search team to gather Intel on Abett and I heard the most insulting things; this guy was a walking scam. From the pictures of him, he looked American, but my men said he spoke French and claimed his birth certificate implied he was from Australia. His head was bald and his abdomen was bigger than my pool, why on earth did Pablo decide to do business with him in the first place? My men reported that he and his family were living in the Hotel De Laurentis somewhere in the penthouse, so I decided to take a few men with me down there and put forward the very same proposition I gave you not so long ago: I want to know what you want. I swear everything was pretty much calm when we payed him a visit and I tried ever so hard to tell the f**king pig that I was only there to talk about my cousin and getting his money back, nobody had to get a bullet in their heads. Abett didn’t concede to my persuasion and one way or the other his wife and his little boy were casualties of what could have been a rather quiet piece of espionage. When Abett found out I wasn’t here for kicks, he opened his heart to me and confessed that he was indebted to a man called Toni Du Plais and my cousins’ money had helped him buy a little time. I assured him that if he had cooperated with me like this, his wife and kid wouldn’t need a coffin no more. I made Abett understand that debt is not a good thing to have on ones neck and Pablo’s money wasn’t the right cha-ching to be buying him a few extra hours to live, then I made him write me a cheque for double what he owed Pablo and I had one of my boys go cash it out in the local bank while I stayed with Abett for a few more words on this Toni Du Plais figure.
By the time my guys came back with the report that the cheque wasn’t a bounce, I explained to Abett that the problem with owing is that you never get out of debt and exploiting younger ones like my cousin, Pablo, wasn’t the right way to go about clearing his name. I also advised him to pick his scapegoats more carefully next time otherwise I wouldn’t be so forgiving if this situation were to repeat itself with anyone even remotely related to me. Then I had my boys carve the capital letter “T” on his inflated belly and left.
So, I suppose that narrative you just heard is definitely making you become a little less creative with your reply to my proposal, so I’ll ask again: What do you want?
The Pursuit of Perfection 