by Landon Beach
Fabian walked toward the hodgepodge of coats jammed close together, and GiGi locked the door that opened into the alley. Then, one soldier stationed himself in front of it. The other two soldiers covered the entrance to the mission’s main room, where the food would be served. GiGi drew apace with Fabian, and soon Father Tony had dropped his hands from his gut and was waddling toward them, whistling “How Great Thou Art.” A few steps later, he stopped next to Fabian and GiGi at the coat rack.
“I’d like to take a further look at this one,” Fabian said, pointing to a charcoal covered overcoat.
“I thought you might,” Father Tony said. He glanced around as if there were security cameras watching his every move. There weren’t. The fat priest ushered the two men to the side of the coat rack and then reached behind a light blue down-filled child’s coat and pulled a lever. The priest’s eyes had narrowed.
The coat rack and wall behind it swung open, exposing a doorway that was only five feet high. Father Tony took the large crucifix that hung from a gold chain around his neck and, after fiddling with it for a moment, popped the crucifix open. He withdrew a key and opened the small door.
Fabian inclined his head to say thanks, and GiGi led the way into a darkened soundproof room. The priest brought up the rear, and, after one of the soldiers had closed the coat rack and wall, he closed the small door behind them.
Seated at a stainless-steel chair that was bolted to the floor was Don Russo’s Consigliere, Silvio Verratti. The old man’s once immaculately combed white hair now looked like the aftermath of a thousand noogies. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his mouth was gagged with his own pink handkerchief. The other eye nervously cycled, looking at each man entering the room. The expensive cream-colored linen suit jacket hung off one shoulder and was splattered with blood that had erupted from Silvio’s nose. On the floor in front of him was the body of his twenty-six-year-old mistress. The distinct garrote line showed on her neck like a red pen line drawn across the middle of a piece of copy paper that was turning more purple by the minute. She was still dressed in her white blouse and orange skirt.
Father Tony made the sign of the cross over his face and chest and then rested up against the wall. “He wouldn’t tell me where it was,” said the old priest.
Fabian stood in front of Silvio. “The money that you, Don Russo, and Ciro stole. Where is it?”
Silvio let out an angry exhale from his nose, blowing snot and dried blood onto his upper lip. His open eye burned into Fabian’s.
For whatever else that could be said about the old man, Silvio Verratti was stone-faced old-school. He would not plead for mercy, would not cry, would not beg for forgiveness. He knew he was dead. But, with enough persuasion, would he give them the location of the millions that had been hoarded by him, the Don, and the Don’s son? Fabian motioned to GiGi, who took out a dagger. Then, the bodyguard took out a lighter and began to heat the blade.
Silvio may have been tough, but he wasn’t stupid. He immediately started trying to say something behind his pink handkerchief. GiGi continued to move the blade across the lighter’s flame.
Fabian spoke to Silvio. “Do you know where the money is?”
Silvio shook his head no.
“I don’t believe you,” Fabian said. He met eyes with GiGi and then moved his eyes to Silvio’s shaking legs. “Either one,” Fabian commanded.
GiGi turned the lighter off and then plunged the hot blade into Silvio’s right thigh. The bodyguard’s eyes opened in what appeared to be surprise at how easily the knife entered the meaty portion of the consigliere’s leg.
Silvio screamed, but all that came out was a muffled moan through the pink piece of cloth in his mouth.
Fabian waved his hand, and GiGi removed the dagger, bringing blood and gristle with it.
Fabian approached Silvio and pulled the old man’s hair back. “Where. Is. The. Money?” He let go of his hair.
With a final surge of strength, Silvio shook his head violently back and forth.
Fabian paused and then said to GiGi, who was warming the blade again, “Give me that.”
His bodyguard handed it over, and, in one quick motion, Fabian sliced through the pink handkerchief.
Silvio gasped for air and then began to cough.
Father Tony grasped his crucifix and brought it to his lips while closing his eyes. Then he let the heavy cross drop down and rest against his bursting belly. He picked up a wine bottle that was resting on a table next to him. After removing the cork, he poured the red liquid into a golden chalice. “I do not believe that he knows,” he said and then took a long drink.
Silvio stopped coughing and managed to get out, “I do not know!”
Fabian passed the dagger back to GiGi and then studied the old advisor. Was he telling the truth? He wanted to believe him. “But you know about the money?” he asked.
Silvio sat back. “A drink of wine.”
Fabian turned to Father Tony and pointed to the chalice. “Give it to him.”
Father Tony gave a small bow and did as he was told.
Silvio gulped as the priest tipped the cup back until it was empty. “Thank you,” Silvio said.
GiGi watched while heating the blade, the small bits of flesh still clinging to the edge blazing up and then turning black.
The smell reminded Fabian of a visit to the dentist when he was a teenager. One adult canine tooth was refusing to come down and fill in the open space on the left side of his smile. So, he had undergone surgery to have the tooth exposed and a bracket and wire run through it to pull it down. Numbed, he could not feel the pain, only smell his burning flesh as the dentist cut away at the roof of his mouth to find the tooth. Fabian pulled a handgun with a silencer attached to it from the inside of his own linen blazer. Holding the weapon in his right hand, he gently dragged the silencer across Silvio’s forehead, then over the top of his head and then down his neck. “Do you know about the money?” he asked again.
Silvio hesitated.
Fabian grabbed a handful of the old man’s hair and then forced the silencer into his mouth. He motioned to GiGi, who took the dagger’s blade out from over the flame and, with a quick downward jab, inserted it into Silvio’s other thigh. The old man bit down on the silencer as he tried to yell. Fabian held the weapon firmly in place, making the old man gag. “Out,” Fabian said.
GiGi pulled the blade out of Silvio’s thigh.
With a forceful push, Fabian pushed the end of the silencer into the man’s throat, and then pulled it out and stepped back.
Silvio Verratti vomited the red wine he had just consumed all over his pants, some of it going into the burning holes in his thighs.
Fabian walked over and poured himself a glass of wine and drank. GiGi was back to heating the blade. The smell of charred flesh was stronger now.
After he swallowed a sip, Fabian said, “The money, Silvio?”
Silvio’s head bobbed up and down before he raised it enough to eye the family’s underboss. “I know about it,” he said, and then tried to clean his nose cavities of the vomit in them by blowing as hard as he could. “But I do not know where it is.” He paused. “That is all I know.”
GiGi stopped heating the blade.
Fabian gave Silvio a nod of validation at first but then frowned, knowing that the family was about to be forever changed. The peaceful transition of power that had taken place ever since the 1920s would end with the elimination of Silvio Verratti. There would be no turning back. Previous Dons had died due to natural causes like pneumonia, and for others, it had been the lure of semi-retirement. Never had the throne been usurped through assassination. That only happened in New York and in the works of William Shakespeare—works he had read at the behest of Father Tony. In fact, 1934 was the last time a family member had gone to prison for murder. One hundred years of diplomatic, seamless transitions through depressions, world wars, impeachments, inflation, space disasters, stock market crashes, excesses, and recessions. Papa Pete’s fath
er and Don Russo’s father had both served in World War II, most notably Operation Market Garden, and had told the family when they returned that they would never put on a parachute again and that any dispute within The Association would and must be handled diplomatically. No future generation should ever have to see the things that they had seen. This maxim did not, however, apply to anyone outside of the family. Rivals and traitors must be handled with a show of unwavering strength. And if that meant killing, then so be it. Papa Pete had told him that the faces would change, but that the game would remain the same. Again, his uncle was referring to numbers. And it was numbers that drove the family to allow the post-World War II heroin boom in Detroit. If The Association had not, then there would have been someone else who would have, and when those people had gained enough money, they would have become a threat to the family’s power. There was nothing good about heroin except the number of dollars its sales brought in. The family had even become strange bedfellows with the CIA at one point, helping the U.S. government stop the spread of communism in Italy in exchange for the agency looking the other way as heroin, or ‘babania’ as it was referred to by Cosa Nostra, traveled the pipeline from Sicily to France to Canada and then poured into Detroit via trafficking boats across the Detroit river via the grandfather of Nico Colombo—The Association’s current runner from Canada to Detroit. This was back in the days of Cosa Nostra’s network called “The Pizza Connection,” where loads of China White Heroin were smuggled into the United States and distributed via pizza parlors from the mid-1970s until the Feds broke it up in the mid-1980s. His uncle had owned two parlors in Detroit, which had been converted from Papa Pete’s favorite pool halls that he had played at in his youth. The pizza was the best in town, and the China White had come in and left the building as often as the customers. The national pipeline’s profits were around two billion, and New York had taken a hefty cut, which was only fair since they controlled the docks and the labor unions that worked the docks where the ships carrying the drugs arrived. An astounding ninety-five percent of the heroin coming into the United States was brought in by the five New York Families.
Speaking of New York...if they were one of the five New York Families, then they would have to get The Commission’s approval to rub out a boss. Charles “Lucky” Luciano had formed The Commission for decisions like these, and he had also created the position of consigliere so that each family had a skilled advisor. And Fabian’s future consigliere, Papa Pete, had diplomatically told him that because they were taking out a major city’s Godfather, Fabian should grease the skids to ensure a quick and peaceful transition after the hit. Ultimately, blood was bad for business. Ever since the 1970 Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act had been passed as a part of Congress’s Organized Crime Control Act, avoiding large wars had been essential to keeping the Feds off their backs. Things had gotten even worse in 1983 when Rudolph Giuliani had formed his version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s super posse by joining elements of the FBI, DEA, Justice Department federal attorneys, INS, IRS, and local and state cops to destroy Cosa Nostra. Twelve Task Forces, fully funded and equipped, were formed and sent to major U.S. cities. The results had been devastating for organized crime. Hence, there had been a retreat to the shadows, and wars were to be avoided. So, on Papa Pete’s advice, Fabian had sent a trusted made man to secretly meet with one of Papa Pete’s oldest friends: Don Vito Padovano, who just happened to be the capo di tutti capi—boss of bosses—of the five New York Families. At Don Padovano’s mansion on Staten Island, Papa Pete’s man had waited in a living room for three hours, while being served an elaborate lunch, until the Don’s consigliere entered the room and passed a sealed envelope to him. The man had returned to Detroit that evening and delivered it to Papa Pete. The coded letter had said that if Don Russo was removed, then The Commission would accept Fabian as the new Godfather of Detroit. Fabian had watched as Papa Pete walked to the fireplace in Fabian’s study and tossed the envelope and note into the fire, both men witnessing it burn to a crisp like Silvio’s thigh flesh on the dagger.
Fabian looked at the consigliere’s tired eyes, which were focused on the body of the top advisor’s dead mistress. Silvio’s confirmation of the money signaled a point of no return, but a prolonged war for power would only ultimately weaken The Association. Fabian’s stroke must be swift and absolute.
With tears in his eyes, Father Tony came over and gave the old man a loving yet fatalistic pat on the back. “I will pray with you, my old friend.”
As the priest delivered the last rites, Fabian watched as GiGi bent down and, using the dead mistress’s blouse, wiped the dagger’s blade clean. He then pulled GiGi aside.
“Are we ready to move on Ciro?”
“Everything is in place,” GiGi replied. “Papa Pete is heading over to meet with Don Russo as we speak.”
“Have two of our men help Father Tony dispose of these bodies.”
“Further south? Or should the good Father take a nighttime fishing trip out in Lake St. Clair? Or,” he said, eyes gleaming, “Can I get my set of carving knives and saws out of the trunk of the car?”
“Further south” meant that the bodies would be taken to the funeral parlor that Papa Pete still owned. There, many bodies had been quietly disposed of through an old trick. In a hidden room in the parlor’s basement, the undertaker stored special two-tiered coffins that had a secret compartment underneath the main one for the recorded corpse. That way, two bodies could be buried simultaneously. How many graveyard ceremonies had been conducted where the grieving family circled around the coffin had no idea that underneath their beloved was the body of a person whom The Association needed to disappear? He’d lost count after fifty.
“Fishing trip” meant that the bodies would be weighted down and dumped over the deepest point in Lake St. Clair.
GiGi’s set of knives and saws were a gift that Fabian had given him years ago. Since then, GiGi had studied books on dissection and had perfected the art and science of cutting up a victim and making the parts vanish. It had become his obsession, which Fabian had to now keep in check. If he gave permission, GiGi would stab Silvio in the heart multiple times to stop the blood flow and then wait for approximately forty-five minutes for Silvio’s blood to harden before GiGi cut him up.
Fabian looked around GiGi’s head at the chubby priest praying with Silvio Verratti. “Fishing trip,” he said.
“Understood.”
“We move tomorrow morning on Ciro, Stansie,” he said, looking back into the black eyes of his driver and bodyguard, “all of them.”
“I am finished,” Father Tony announced and headed for the table with the wine.
Fabian calmly walked over, raised his gun, and fired two shots into Silvio’s skull from behind. He placed the weapon back inside his coat. “Let’s go feed our lost brothers and sisters, Father,” Fabian said.
“Amen,” Father Tony replied.
11
Grosse Pointe Shores
4 Days Ago…
"Has anyone heard from Silvio?” asked Ciro Russo, who was pacing the floor of his father’s study. It was 7 p.m., and no one in the family had heard from the Don’s consigliere since breakfast.
“Not a peep,” said his father’s driver and bodyguard, Giuseppe “Big Joey” Manetti. “He was shacking up with that waitress again, but as far as our men can tell, they never left his house.” Big Joey paused, and Ciro could sense his discomfort. “They might be making their move, kid.”
He did not want to believe it. This is not how the Don had predicted Fabian would come at them. He shook his head. “No, Papa Pete just left here an hour ago. His cheeks were wet when he embraced me, and he spoke with mamma for almost an hour in the library. They have always been close. No, he would not have come if Fabian was moving on us. Fabian would not put his own uncle in that kind of danger.”
Big Joey regarded the young man. “That is the logical conclusion,” he finally said. “But Papa Pete has alw
ays had a silver tongue, and his charm is what disarms people. Then he strikes like a coiled snake.”
The statement made Ciro’s stomach feel like a hollow cave that had suddenly been flooded with bats. Was it happening right now? He thought he would have more time. After all, his father was still alive.
The money.
He was sure it was still safe.
Three days ago, his father had told them of the secret room in the estate. Even being his son, a made member of the family business, and the heir apparent had not qualified him to know about the existence of the room until that point. This was yet another lesson to him in the ways of running an empire. At the top, you still need to keep secrets. When his father told him where the room was and how to access it, Ciro had lowered his head for a moment and shook it side to side in disbelief. Before the fitness center had been constructed for Stansie and Conrad, the main family exercise room had been located on the second story. It was rarely used now but still had old school charm: free weights, a massage table, a sauna, an exercise bike, stacked towels with the family crest on them, a wet bar—only his father could appreciate the irony of working up a sweat and then hydrating with a Bloody Mary—and a small boxing ring with a variety of headgear and gloves hanging on the wall. One wall was dominated by a mirror where the Don and his bodyguards could study their form while lifting. Ciro had never used the gym for fitness. He was a runner and a basketball player. However, he had used the gym over the years for quickies with his high school girlfriends, cleaning staff, and other guests. In those situations, the mirrored wall was indispensable. So, he was surprised when his father told him that once the main doors to the gym were deadbolted, a sensor in the lock allowed for a piece of flooring behind the bar to be removed by a special key. Underneath the removed section was a lever that, when pulled, engaged the hydraulic mechanism that slid a portion of the mirror into the wall, exposing a circular staircase that led down into darkness. While the mirror was retracting into the wall, speakers automatically blared music—America’s Greatest Hits—to mask the sound of the sliding door. At the bottom of the staircase was a door. Using the same key he had used to remove the flooring behind the bar, he had opened the door and saw what his father had described to him: the millions skimmed off the family’s business, kept in a dozen black duffle bags on a u-shaped stainless-steel counter that ran along three walls of the small room. When Ciro asked his father who else knew about the room, his father had said that other than himself, only Big Joey, whose job it had been to take the stolen cash and stow it in the room’s bags at the end of each month—for years.