Acquire Girl

By Bill DePaolo

Jilian Hildebrand, a beautiful African-American former model and sometime escort is arrested
by two overzealous New York City detectives on questionable solicitation charges stemming from
her involvement with major crime boss “Big Jimmy,” whom the detectives are investigating. Her
misguided loyalty to and fear of reprisal from Big Jim precludes her from giving the detectives information that could close several unsolved mob cases.

In her attempt to make bail she calls prominent members on her client list,
who, for obvious reasons do not wish to be linked to a possible scandal. With nowhere else to turn
she is compelled to accept the services of Nick Barone, an underachieving, yet capable attorney
from the Public Defender’s office. Nick, with the help of a friendly bail bondsman, secures her
release and guarantees her return to court to answer the additional charges being leveraged
against her by the DA’s office in the mob probe.

Upon her release she learns that the mother she has neglected has passed away. Grieve stricken,
alone and filled with guilt and remorse, she reluctantly accepts Nick’s invitation to accompany
him to visit his parent’s home upstate until her required court appearance the next Monday morning.
On the trip they develop a relationship that slowly evolves into a budding romance, pitting the
jealous and violent mobster against Nick for Jilian’s affections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill DePaolo
• Release date: Aug 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301133222

Bill DePaolo

Bill DePaolo is a former lithographer and journalist. Currently he works as a freelance writer and novelist. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including The New York Times.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Big Jimmy always let Jilian pick the restaurant as long as it was one he wanted to go to. He liked tables in front of a window; or, in the warmer months, alfresco seating where everyone could see him and his guests. Jimmy cherished his celebrity and liked to be seen. at the hottest spots in town. And he liked to show off. Expensive cars. Elegant Italian cut suits. And the most beautiful women money could buy. He stared intently at her light brown skin, her greenish-gray eyes, which sparkled in the late day summer sun. He liked the way she tilted her head and flashed her radiant, white smile every time he got off one of his lame jokes. Every man who walked by seemed similarly smitten, furtively checking her out. Even the guys out with their wives or girlfriends couldn’t look away even if it meant getting a wrap in the ribs for their improprieties.

Alfredo, the owner of Carlo’s liked when Jimmy or other wise guys stopped by his eatery. It had become a tourist attraction for Kansans, Nebraskans, Iowans and other middle Americans hoping to glimpse some authentic New York mob guys in their natural habitat.

A major bus touring company began running a special Mob tour that included stops in all five boroughs. Alfredo had lobbied for Carlo’s inclusion in the Manhattan leg of the tour. It had become the third most popular stop after Umberto’s in Little Italy where Joey Gallo, an errant member of the Colombo crime family, was gunned down as he feasted on a plate of scungilli; and the Sparks Steak House in midtown -- the last stop for Big Paul Castellano who dined one December evening on lead gnocchi rather than his usual New York Strip.

Alfredo usually stood out front of the restaurant behind a small rostrum, trying his best to charm potential diners to any empty table. If guest celebrities were present he did everything short of tap dancing in front of their table to draw attention to them, hoping for another Page Six mention in The Post. When Jimmy was there he personally attended to his every wish, sometimes staying in his proximity to the point of annoyance, merely to get a whiff of Jillian.

Jilian knew the powers she held over men. In her teens she had escaped the poverty that entrapped her mother, who had migrated from Houston, by becoming one of the hottest and highest paid fashion models in the city. It was easy for her to parlay her feminine charms into a life of luxury. And if her mother thought the whole charade immoral that was her problem. She wasn’t about to commit herself to a life of servitude, like her mother, working fourteen-hour days, scrubbing other people’s floors and toilets to be moral. Now in her mid-thirties, her modeling career was bottoming out. There were still a few gigs from time to time mostly from friends in the business who periodically threw her a bone hoping to re-visit the rapture of Jilian. She played along because her status as an A model was diminishing faster than snow April and she knew it. She had hoped early on to latch on to a big money guy like the ones she had bedded in her heyday. Then she had her choice. There always seemed to be somebody more powerful or richer lurking on the horizon. Now the pickings were thinner and continued to attenuate. Jimmy was fun, exciting and dangerous. His wise guy routine amused her. But in her mind Jimmy was not a final destination. Not that she was looking for a guy who would give her two kids and a white, picket fence. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. But guys like Jimmy at least made her feel safe and provided her with nice things, like the emerald necklace he had surprised her with before they went to dinner.

Come on, Jilian, finish your coffee. You’ve been nursing it for half an hour.

What, you’re timing me?

That coffee got to be ice cold, Jimmy said as he shook his head.

Maybe I like cold coffee.

Jimmy grimaced. He disdained tepid coffee.

You got a plane to catch or what?

I just want to do something else.

Jilian eyed him contemptuously. You said you’d be willing to do anything I wanted to do today, Jimmy. After all, I haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks.

Ok, but do we have to sit here all night. I paid the tab 45 minutes ago for Chrissakes. Let’s get out of here. If Alfredo comes over one more time to tell me how happy he is to see me, I’m gonna wack him upside the head with this empty Barolo bottle.

The diners around them seemed annoyed at the volume of their conversation. One woman shot Jimmy a dirty look.

Is there anything I could do for you, lady? Jimmy’s tone was intimidating.

She looked like she was about to say something when her companion, an effeminate fellow with black horn rimmed glasses and a white pearl earring in either ear, reached across their table and grabbed an arm to silence her. The man looked like an academic from a non-descript, minor, central Pennsylvania university who probably walked around the campus during the fall semester in a leather, elbow-padded corduroy blazer and shirt collar clamped with a bowtie. His companion heeded his advice

Jilian took her last sip of coffee, rose and slid her chair from the table.

Finally. So what do we do next? You must have a pretty good idea what I’d like to do. As you said it has been two weeks.

Keep your pants on Jimmy. It’s early. Let’s walk through the park.

What are you in high school. Walk in the park? Speaking of high school, I ever tell you, you remind me of a black girl I knew at Clinton-- Evelyn Jenkins. A beautiful girl. I used to play football with her brother. She was a lot darker than you but sweet. Did I have a hard on for her.

I’m guessing, though, you didn’t take her to the prom.

You nuts. The guys in my neighborhood would have killed me if I had gone out with a black girl back then.

But now it’s cool, I guess, huh.

Things have changed.

Have they? Like what?

Like what? Like A to Z; top to bottom. Hey, the pope’s not even Italian anymore. My grandmother’s probably rolling over in her grave.

So’s mine.

Yours?

If she knew I was going out with an Italian guy.

You kiddin? Black women love Italians.

Yeah, she said, smiling. Everyone loves Italians so you’ve told me a hundred times.

She tightened her grip on his hand as they walked along the periphery of Central Park, entering at 72nd Street. There were two mounted policemen at the entrance. They were sitting atop horses one step removed from the glue factory. One officer was being asked directions by a small group of Japanese tourists who had just disembarked from a red, double-decker sightseeing bus. The other just waited to resume his conversation with his co- worker. Some of the tourists snapped his picture while he hammed it up. Every member of the Japanese contingent was smiling broadly and nodding incessantly. Together they looked like an army of animated bobble head dolls.

Don’t these cops have anything better to do than play cowboys? Jimmy asked as he made his way to one of the three hot dog vendors who set up shop with a host of other entrepreneurs on the crowded sidewalk selling drawings and photos mostly of the Imagine mosaic in Strawberry Fields and other Lennon esoterica.

Are you kidding. We just had a big meal.

That walk made me hungry.

It was three blocks!

Hey, I’m a growing boy. One with the works, he barked at the hot dog guy, who was dressed in traditional Pakistani garb.

I don’t believe you, Jilian said, shaking her head.

Yeah, would you ever believe you’d see towel heads in Central Park selling hot dogs? What’s next apple pies.

Let’s sit down over there, she said, pointing to a vacant bench. As Jimmy wolfed down his hot dog, Jilian surveyed the panorama.

There were bicyclists and skaters speeding by; young lovers holding hands tightly, oblivious to those around them, as if they had the park all to themselves; young mothers, some with men, some not,

pushing strollers. Older couples sitting and reading. Jilian took it all in and wondered to herself why she couldn’t relate to any of it. Why she always felt alone and afraid as if impending doom was stalking her. She looked again at the young mothers with their children and thought about her own mother, elderly and ailing and neglected. Even though there was nothing pressing in her life she always found something more important to do than visit her. She would, she promised herself. But she had made similar plans only to replace them with others. She’d call her. Take her out for lunch or a show. They hadn’t done anything like that in a long time. Her mother would like that. Her reverie was interrupted by a loud belch from Jimmy which perfumed the immediate air space with the scent of red onions.

You’re such a pig, Jimmy.

If you don’t let it out, you get agida.

You’re a slob. She opened her purse and took out a small package. Here’s a piece of gum.

Who asked for gum?

Just take it.

Are you ready to go now?

Not until we take a hansom cab ride all around the park.

A what?

Chapter 2

Nick was going through his things wondering what to bring for his trek upstate to his mother’s 70th birthday party. He had spent

another sleepless night wrestling with himself as to how he would break the news. The last thing he wanted to do was make his mother unhappy. And he knew the news about him and Jeanie splitting up after five years would put a damper on the big birthday bash. The celebration was already hitting some major turbulence. His sister, Claire, was called away to Italy at the last minute. She was a buyer for a high end store in Manhattan and was called to Milan by Donnatella herself to iron out some difficulties about a new line Versace was creating exclusively for Claire’s company. Refusal was out of the question. And her mother, although greatly tempted, politely rejected the invitation to spend her seventieth birthday in Italy away from her friends, who had talked about the event for months. Nick had hoped she would accept to spare him the unpleasant chore. His mother liked Jeanie and hoped he would marry her. He had wanted to himself but something in the last year and a half had soured his intentions.

She was a wonderful girl. Beautiful, intelligent; a great attorney who worked for a top firm in the city. She was making triple what he was earning in the Public Defender’s office where they’d met. But she had moved on; he hadn’t. They simply drifted apart.

Her new life had taken her to places that were anathema to Nick. Both had started as idealistic advocates for the downtrodden but she seemed to metamorphose once she entered the realm of the big city law firm. It was the kind of firm Jeanie early on had loathed and loved to beat in court. And a victory against any one of them was sweet satisfaction. After one such drubbing Jeanie had meted out to an associate at the firm of Firnbach, Firnbach and Epstein,

things started to change in their relationship. One of the partners took notice of her skillful handling of the case and began a full court press to get her to fill the vacancy of the vanquished barrister she had vivisectioned in court. She had resisted other entreaties from firms she had similarly impressed. But Firnbach, Firnbach and Epstein recognized her exceptional talent and would not stop courting her until she agreed to join them.

Nick had also been offered positions at private firms during his tenure in the Public Defenders’ office but had rejected them out of hand. When Jeanie told him she was taking the Firnbach offer, Nick was incredulous.

To him she was crossing over to the other side. The side of darkness: big expense accounts and single malt scotch, drunk from thick crystal tumblers in the wee hours preparing for a big case or celebrating a victory in one. It was only a matter of time, Nick lamented, from her first pronouncement that she was taking the offer, till they parted ways.

It had been two months since they last spoke. Nick had neatly packed her belongings hoping that she would stop by to pick them up. Maybe reconcile. But she hadn’t. And Jeanie rejected Nick’s offer to bring them to her place. The items were mostly cosmetic paraphernalia that weren’t important to her . But there were other things like the photographs of them on vacations and at parties and with his beloved Labrador Retriever, Finbar, who had passed on the winter before. There were knic knacs bought at flea markets in New England on autumn weekends. There were CD’s of the music they both loved and sang to on long drives or when they were together making dinner in the apartment. And what about her Red Sox jersey? An avid Sox fan, Jeanie grew up in Connecticut and lived and died with the ebb and flow of Team Beantown. He had risked life and limb with her during countless games at the Stadium when Boston was in town, coming close to blows with drunken fanatics on several occasions when she cheered a good play by the Sox or booed one by the Yanks. If he had any thought of reconciliation, it was dashed by the fact that she had abandoned that jersey. Just as she had abandoned him.

He finished packing, fighting through sadness and trying to be hopeful that things would get better. Someone would emerge from the shadows to shake him from the doldrums. But who and when? Before he met Jeanie he had relationships with other beautiful, intelligent women. He would meet someone. But where? The video rental, a museum, Gristedes, a bagel joint in midtown? A friend of Claire’s ?. He really wanted to believe it. He had no choice.

He surveyed his apartment. The last traces of Jeanie were now relegated to two cardboard boxes. Jeannie had been purged from his life. He would give her another 30 days -- the legal requirement -- to retrieve them. If she didn’t claim her stuff by then he would dump it all, unceremoniously like she had dumped him. The Red Sox jersey he would give to the kid down the hall. He, too, was a misguided Red Sox fan.

Chapter 3

The ambulance, siren blaring, sped down Amsterdam Avenue and stopped at 112th street in front of one of the old brownstones on one of the last tree-lined streets in Harlem. A small group of people crowded the sidewalk trying to find out what was going on. They were a tight knit community of concerned neighbors who looked out for one another.

Lillian Jones had a queasy feeling in her stomach that her good friend and next door neighbor of 35 years, Miss Hattie Williams, had finally succumbed to the maladies that had pestered her for the past six months. Her attempts to enter the building were thwarted by police on the scene and the EMS workers who were called in by the building superintendent. Only Rev. Appleton, the vicar of Hattie’s church, was allowed inside.

That poor woman all alone without her friends there, Lillian said to a gray haired man, who was standing next to her.

Hattie? he asked in a reverential tone.

She nodded affirmatively, intuitively, as if she knew though she had spoken to no one. She had been close to the older woman and had been spending a lot of time with her. She knew the end was near but hoped divine providence might intervene, especially after a terrible turn for the worst. Hattie lost her appetite and had withered away to nothing. Her healthcare attendant had been coming every day. But when she left at 6 P.M. folks in the neighborhood stopped in to check on her to