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would become larger than life. Dominate the tabloids. If he couldn’t claim to be the most powerful and didn’t have the juice to change the name of his own gang, then he would secure the title of best-known and most-liked alleged crime boss.
    And so the makeover began. He had his hair cut by Mr. Jon (the same guy who cuts Hugh Jackman’s hair when he’s in town). He lost twenty pounds. He bought designer suits. He spray tanned. And then he paraded around the hippest, hottest restaurants and clubs with his new look and a series of models, each thinner and nip-slip-ier than the last. The tabloids took notice. Soon Frank Fortunato had become the character he had dreamed of being, landing on the front pages several times a month. The public ate it up. He was bigger than the Mafia. The one flaw in his plan was born from a seemingly minor character trait.
    He was cheap. Frank was cheaper than a backup dancer’s weaves. He loved to look the part, but he couldn’t stomach paying for it. So he traded Mr. Jon a set of stolen rims for his haircut, had the finished product photographed from every possible angle, and then went to Vinnie DiMassio in the old neighborhood for all subsequent shearings. He made a big to-do about buying a seven thousand dollar Brioni suit, and then had it quietly returned after it was knocked off by a backroom tailor on the Lower East Side. Certainly he could have worn some of the expensive suits that so often ended up in his meat locker after falling off a truck, but that would have been cash out of his pocket. Those suits were to be sold. For money. Even his spray tan was straight from a bottle picked up at Duane Reade by an underling who knew better than to open his yap about it.
    Frank Fortunato was a chiseling bastard.
    And finally the tabloids that weren’t paid off by the Mafia noticed that too. The Daily News was first on the case. An ambitious (read naïve) reporter spotted a knockoff designer tie around Frank’s neck. Hermes was spelled Hemres .
    It made the front page. The headline read, “Cheapfella!”
    Naturally, the reporter was never heard from again. But it was too late. The damage had been done. After elevating himself to celebrity status, Frank Fortunato had been turned into a gigantic human target thanks to his New England-esque frugality. The rest of the tabloids picked up on the angle and the New York Post dubbed him Frank “Fancypants” Fortunato. It was not the nickname Frank had in mind. In fact, it was crazy-making for him. He denied wearing knockoffs, but to no avail. All his hard work to remake himself. And for what? To become a joke? Not likely.
    The timing of the story was serendipitous. It came the same day Frank found out he had made almost no progress in his fight against stage four prostate cancer.
    The beam therapy had failed. Chemo failed. The seeds had given him bowels irritable in Russell Crowe proportions—he was terrified to fart for fear of unexpectedly dropping a load in the middle of a sit down. That would not exactly jibe with the elegant mob boss persona he had put so much effort into developing.
    And he didn’t care how advanced certain medical practices were and how much they claimed to have lowered the risk of impotence. Any risk in that department was too much risk.
    Which meant, according to the best doctors in the Northeast, Frank’s options were now exhausted. And there was a ticking time bomb up his ass.
    The whole business put him in a foul mood. But it did help him focus on what was really important. They wanted to make fun of Francis Albert Fortunato? Fine. He would reinvent himself again. Only this time, he wouldn’t be a target. This time he would make sure the legacy he left was not “one of” but the most powerful crime boss in the city. Undisputed.
    Aside from frequent trips to the bathroom—just in case—any actions Frank took now were not based on any short-term plans.