Six months he'd been in the same house, not allowed to walk out the front door, only out back, only at night. Not that he'd been up for any travel, not with the litany of surgeries he'd gone through: a new nose and chin, a bunch of teeth ripped out and replaced with a permanent implant. They'd lasered off his tattoos, shaved his head, got him to start wearing glasses. And the last thing, he hoped, was this new jaw. Even the surgeries had been done in secret -- driven in the back of a windowless van in the middle of the night and hustled into a doctor's office, Sal shot up full of anesthesia and then waking up back in the house. It was at the point now where he didn't even bother taking the pain medication. Every part of his body hurt and all the Percocets in the world weren't going to make it any better, not while he was being held captive in an elegant two-story house with a saltwater pool, indoor hot tub and sauna, full gym, and a good 500 cable channels pumped into every room in the joint. Excerpted from Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
