Kerplunk! I stood under the Verazzano Narrows bridge and watched Jimmy Coducci's big body sink into the black water. Tommy Sardinia took the gun outta my hand and threw it in the water. Then he crossed himself. "Jimmy, you stupid sonofabitch you're sleeping with the fishes now." It was my first hit, I was making my bones in the Anchovie Family. I was carrying out orders from our boss, Tony Anchovie. He said whack Jimmy. And so my crew whacked Jimmy. It didn't matter that I'd known Jimmy Coducci since we were little brats eating icies on 18th Avenue, it didn't matter because it was sanctioned, it was on the record and that was the life we lived, the code we lived by. Jimmy messed up and went against the family. We went back to Tommy Sardinia's place and his mother cooked us a big breakfast. I felt a little confused and took a long hot shower. I was thinking: Am I supposed to feel remorse? Aren't I supposed to feel something? I felt nothing except maybe...well.... I felt kind of good, like high. Like maybe even superhuman. It wasn't that I was happy or proud of myself, I was never happy about whacking guys I knew, grew up with or something. Especially that time I had to chop up my wife's kid brother. No, never happy, but I did feel powerful. It's just that killing came easy to me. You could say it was something I was good at.

After that I didn't have to stand on lines anymore. When I went to a club or somewhere instead of standing on line, a guy would come out and whisper to the bouncer and then they'd say: Sammy, don't stand on line, come in, come in. And inside, they'd clear a table for me and say: Sammy, what'll you have, it's on the house. I started to get some respect. Word was that Tony Anchovie had heard I did nice work on the Coducci hit and if I kept up the good work I'd be a made guy before long. And that's just what happened.