So, times are hard here at Salieri, Inc. Last week Morello cost us our best supplier of bootleg, and two days ago I was told the family consigliere had turned and I needed to off him. And I did, as far as they know. In reality, once I found out that the cops were holding Frank's family hostage and forcing him to betray us, I had to let him go. It doesn't help us, of course -- there's still that impending criminal case based on the testimony he gave before scampering off to the French riviera.
Luigi tells me that since I offed Frank, the don's only friend has been the bottle. Well, the good news is that Salieri's best men are on the job of damage control. Sam and Paulie are off de-convincing the witnesses, presumably by violent means, and I've been tasked with sneaking into Oak Hill and doing a little petty burglarly. The delegation makes sense; of the three of us I am by far the snappiest dresser. Paulie's suits are from Woolworth's, and Sam -- Sam wears tuxedos in the middle of the day, for pete's sake. No, for this you want the sole man in this crew with dress sense, and that's me, and for a job of this importance I need a fedora. Obviously.
The job does require hiring a subcontractor, a safe-man named Salvatore. We Salieri men can do many things, most of them involving guns and booze and girls, but finessing delicate equipment ain't one of them. So, I zipped over to Oak Hill in my most stylish car, picked up the shabby-looking Sal, and voila! We were in.
As far as jobs go, this was a doddle. With a bat and a firm enough fedora, a man can do just about anything he puts his mind to.
After engaging in batting practice on that one guard (who happened to own keys to the side door of the mansion), Sal and I crept around to the side of the house and let ourselves in.
We arrived in an office with an impressive safe and an even more impressive library, which was good because Sal took an hour with that safe. I had time to make decent progress in Gibbon's Decline and Fall!
Presently, the councilor arrived from his evening of smoking cigars, drinking brandy, and scheming on how to eat all the poor people (I assume this is how the rich spend their evenings), and I informed Sal to hurry up. Also, I found something else for him to break into.
We sat around the library for a little bit, me with a shotgun on the door, until the councilr stumbled in and got himself to bed, at which point we crept down the stairs. There was one outside guard posted, but I smacked him with the bat, too.
I could have shot him, too, I guess, but that always attracts attention. A bat was fine, and after that I beelined for the Silver Fletcher and told Sal to open `er up. He complied and we drove off into the night, with the important documents and an interesting fountain pen in our pockets.
The next day, Paulie presented the Don with a little opportunity. He'd been in contact with some southern fella, a Bill Gates, who could offer the family a pipline to genuine Kentucky booze. The don decided to buy a trial load, and if it sold we'd buy more. Salieri wanted to be careful given our recent luck in buying liquor, so we decided to go as a party of five -- the Unholy Trinity, plus two dopes.
Sam: Hey, don't these guys look like Billy the Rapist and the Standard-Issue Morello Lackey?
Paulie: They're just here to die and establish drama, Sam. Relax.
Eugenio: Hey!
We met the Dixie boys on the top floor of the commerical deck, and right away I knew something was squirelly because not a one of these guys sounded southern. They might as well have been from Nebraska. I didn't have much time to think on that, though, because after a minute of chit-chat the doors of hell swung open and we were fighting with Morello's entire army.
"A Greal Deal" is, for my money, the second-hardest mission in the entire game, with "The Death of Art" being first. Both missions force the player to wade through an enormous amount of gangsters with no savepoints, but what Great Deal lacks in numbers, it provides in AI stupidity. You must not only survive, but see that Paulie and Sam survive, and given their ardent desire to stand right in front of a spitting tommygun, or to run into the path of advancing flames, that ain't easy.
In truth I can't remember too much of what happened after that, because it involved a lot of noise, explosions, and fumes. Ever mix gasoline and bourbon fumes together? Don't. Just...don't. We were initially ambushed by two carloads of hoods, with a third arriving after the initial fracas. I made things a bit easier by nailing a gas tank, which made Morello's boy's day a bit more hairy. Or less, once it had been burned off by the explosion.
On the next level were two men in the service cage, another waiting in ambush on the right, and still one more hiding behind a white Schubert.
Behind the Schubert, though, I found grenades. Excellent! When you have a lot of trash to take care of, but not a lot of time, Acme Grenades do the job. I oughta write ad copy.
I immediately used the grenades to good effect, first knocking out two dopes waiting in ambush, and then dropping another down a stairwell.
At the bottom, we discovered a roadblock. I made to throw a grenade, and Sam runs right out in front. I yelled for the dumb bastard to clear the area, and fortunately he did, because while I was throwing a grenade the guys behind it were readying molotov cocktails. The area was not friendly to human life for a few moments immediately thereafter.
The explosion took care of most everyone waiting at the bottom, aside from a few who needed a shotgun dispatch.After this, Sam and I agreed we needed to skedaddle while the skedaddling was good. Right outside, though, were three more carloads of hoods. I had to shoot `em all down while Paulie and Sam yelled at me to get in the truck. I got in and promptly took a few detours in case anyone was following. After six years driving cabs in this city, I know so many side trails I can get from the Works Quarter to Oak Hill without even my exhaust tailing me.
Unfortunately I missed a few, and even more unhappily they weren't dumb. After five years of working for the Mob, though, if I know one thing it's how to introduce cars chasing me to lampposts. Even so the creeps kept coming, chasing us all the way to Salieri's headquarters where they perished.
Once we arrived back at the bar, we told the bad news to the Don. Another day, another roasted deal at Morello's hands. The don, however, knew something we didn't: Bill Gates wasn't a Kentucky bootlegger, he was a local thief who had made off with a truck of Morello's booze. We didn't lose a supplier, we stole a few thousand dollars worth of Morello's drink and wasted a few score of his guys. After today's massacre, whatever advantage he had in numbers is gone.
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"A Greal Deal" is usually a mission that for me involves several replays, because at some point Paulie or Sam die -- most often when we reach the bottom and they run into a molotov cocktail. The grenades allowed me to take this in one run, however. The screenshots from the chase afterwards are taken from three different runs: one in which I used my last grenade and a thompson to wipe out everyone chasing us; one from when I tried to evade them; and another from when I did a little shooting and a little evading. In that last photo Morello's goons actually shot me, not the other way around. I'm still sold on the the idea that making a stand outside the parking garage and shooting everyone there is best.
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