by Landon Beach
“Angels,” Nolan said. “They know what they’re up against and do the cold bastard work that needs to be done. I’ve never had a problem. The men and women in blue in this town are tough as nails. Wake up every day and have to deal with their fellow human beings’ shortcomings, which, even after thousands of years of recorded human history and so-called progress, are never in short supply.”
In his brief time here, he’d seen it too. But it felt good to hear it from a veteran like Nolan.
“There is one thing that appeals to me about Cosa Nostra, though, that I can’t separate myself from—even after all of these years trying to bring it down.” Nolan gazed out the window and became distant again. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that he was replaying his twenty-year career in his head right now. “I guess that’s why it still appeals to some people.”
“What is it?” asked Patrick.
“Just the concept of being a man. Taking care of your own problems and not having to run to someone else for protection. No spineless tattletales or calling the police for irrelevant matters. Domestic violence is real and a problem, but a buddy in the Detroit PD said that he now gets calls to go visit homes where he’s met at the door by a husband who says that his wife won’t stop nagging him to lose the twenty pounds he’s put on.” Nolan jeered. “Seriously, what the fuck?”
Patrick shrugged.
“Maybe I’m just getting old, but there is a part of me that—from a purely Darwinian perspective—envies the fact that if an ex-boyfriend cokehead won’t stop stalking the daughter of one of The Association’s members, they bypass all the restraining order, court-appointed counseling baloney and just go fuck the guy up, so he doesn’t come around again. When the punishment for stealing is getting your hand cut off with a meat cleaver, suddenly, you don’t have a lot of thieves, right?”
Patrick gave a nod—not one of agreement, but a slow one of the ‘let’s wrap up this conversation’ variety. Nolan’s point fit his age. When you were either young or old, patience had a way of waning, and more drastic solutions seemed to become appealing. What always kept those solutions in check was the large middle-aged cohort, whose sense and level-headedness about the demoralization and chaos that would ensue if these extreme measures were ever enacted prevented the youth and elders from winning out. In a way, it was like raising kids: The older generation wanted to spank, the youngsters didn’t like the spank but were glad that at least it was over quickly, and in between those extremes you had the middle-aged legion who valued emotional intelligence and used sit-down discussions first and spanking as only a last resort.
Nolan drained his cup and once again pointed at the small color photograph. “Well, anyway, we’ve got to try and locate him.”
“Maybe Nineteen will come through for us.”
“If we play it right.” He paused. “As the new SA running Nineteen, you’ll have access to all of my 302s and 209s. I think they’ll give you a sense of the relationship and how it operates—the kind of information you’re likely to get and when you’re likely to get it. After you review them, I’d be happy to answer any questions you have. They’re pretty standard.”
One of his questions had just been answered. He knew that a 302 was a document that a Special Agent created to detail a meeting with an informant. A 209 was a report that also detailed communication with an informant and any information that had been acquired. But, one of his superiors at the Nashville station had warned him about 209s and 302s. In the past, agents had compromised themselves by sanitizing the reports to protect their informants—and themselves. When caught, the investigation always concluded that the agents had lost their objectivity. They had gotten too close. “By all means, read them and ask questions,” the supervisor had said. “But don’t fully trust what is said in them or the conclusions drawn from them.” He was glad that the subject had come up because he wanted to read the documents concerning Nineteen.
“Thanks. I think I’ll start reading them today as long as nothing else comes our way.”
“Thought you might say that. I pulled the files yesterday and have ‘em ready for you. You can read in here or in your own office if you like. In here might be easier if you have any immediate questions. However you want to work it is fine with me.”
“In here works,” Patrick said. “When do you think we’ll meet with Nineteen?”
“Probably next week. You’ll be through the 302s and 209s by then, and I’ll have had a chance to drive you around to our favorite spots to meet. It’s a good idea to pick out a few new locations, but I’ll show you how I get to each of the current places undetected. I’ll even run you through Nineteen’s routine. He's a master. As you know, if he ever got caught, he’d be executed immediately. The last two guys we flipped were not as good. The one we found in a back-alley dumpster had been shot execution style and had also been shot five times around the mouth—a message to us that he had been silenced to keep him from snitching any more. It also sent a message to other members of The Association: If we find out you have been talking to the Feds, you’re dead. The other one was found in a floating fifty-gallon metal drum in Lake St. Clair. The top had been welded shut. A fisherman hauled it on board his boat and when it was opened on the dock, inside was our man. He had been strangled to death, and his body had been cut in half at the belly button so that the body would fit in the drum.” Nolan raised his eyebrows. “These are the people we’re dealing with. Never forget it.”
“I won’t.”
“Anyway, my last meeting with him was pretty boring. He knew that I’d be turning things over soon and didn’t reveal much. Sure didn’t waste time taking his payment, though.”
“How much have we paid him?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Patrick waited.
Nolan looked at the ceiling. “Over a million dollars.”
“Jesus. And The Association is still operating?”
“That particular million has done a ton of damage to them over the years. But let me be clear. In a game that involves billions of dollars, one million barely gets you a seat at the gambling table. Look, I know it’s ridiculous.”
Patrick shook his head. And there was the answer that all things came down to: money. Strip down the altruistic missions, the worthy causes, the good fights, the movements, the activism, and the solemn vows, and you discovered the language that human beings responded to the most was not found in any dictionary—it was found in currency. “What did our millionaire have to say the last time you spoke with him?”
“Just that one of the capos, Leonardo “Leo” De Luca, the underboss’s son, had finally accomplished the long-awaited goal of unionizing the bouncers in all of the Detroit night clubs.”
“Unionize?”
“Leo set it up so that each club now has two bouncers working every night. The head bouncer gets two hundred a night, but fifty of it goes to The Association. The second bouncer gets one twenty-five a night, and twenty-five of that goes to The Association. So, you figure ten Detroit clubs—”
Patrick’s eyes opened a little more.
“Yeah,” Nolan said. “That’s more than two-hundred and seventy grand a year in cold cash profit. Nothing unusual, though. You see it in all of the major cities.”
“Have we done anything about it?”
Nolan waved his hand. “Nah. Not enough time or manpower. Our main focus is the narcotics.”
“The legalization of marijuana will throw a little bit of a wrench in their operation.”
“Not much. Pot is like potatoes now. The real money is still in heroin—coke and pills after that. And right now, we’ve got an emerging problem: Cocaine being sold that has been laced with an opioid. Bad, bad news. We’ve had five people overdose in Grosse Pointe in under a week. My money is that when the toxicology reports come back, the snowstorms of cocaine floating around—and heroin that they’re selling for people to shove in their veins—is laced with fentanyl, which is around ninety times more pow
erful than morphine. Shit’s cheaper to buy than coco, so dealers mix it in to give them more product to sell. They’re also lacing oxycodone pills with it. Users don’t know until it’s too late.”
“How long until the toxicology reports come back?”
“Maybe a month. I know, I know, ridiculous, right? Anyways, I saw an article the other day that showed just how small of an amount of fentanyl can send you on an early trip to the pearly gates. Ready for this?” Nolan pulled a penny out of his pocket. “Cover Lincoln’s ear and you’ve got your lethal amount. Insane.”
And all at once, he felt the momentary reprieve from his melancholic outlook the other night slipping. Running a Top Echelon Informant had given him hope. He’d now be at the tip of the spear in the fight, but Nolan’s sobering facts were more than a challenge to his heightened sense of right and wrong. The last five minutes had him reconsidering his career choice.
What real good was being done if gangsters were making a million, while people were continuing to drop left and right to overdoses?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Nolan said, frowning. “I was there too when I found out what the program was.”
He needed answers. He needed them now. He had a problem, and he wanted to walk into the professor’s office and have the mental giant explain the answer. “How did you keep going?”
“Like other first-time SAs, I thought of the job primarily in the short term. I wanted action. Let’s get the bad guys. Let’s get ‘em now. I even told my mentor James Carr that when we started to meet with Nineteen together fifteen years ago.” Nolan leaned forward. “I’m gonna bring down this whole motherfuckin’ enterprise by myself if I have to. That kind of shit.” He leaned back. “Hell, during the cold war, the FBI had four hundred agents in New York going after communists—only five after organized crime. Then, when we found out just how big of an organization Cosa Nostra was, we started upping the number of agents and, of course, the moolah. That’s when the FBI came to be known by CN as Forever Bothering Italians.” Nolan cracked his knuckles. “But, as time went on, I learned that you have to play the long game on this one—winning small battles on the road to winning the war. Carr was convinced of it, and so was I. CN knows that we don’t run out of money or time—that’s actual power. Believe me, we’re going to win.”
It could have come across as shop talk dreaming, but instead, Nolan’s hard-won wisdom rang true. They didn’t talk for a minute as the last word, win, hung in the air.
“Here’s something else. We may have already gotten the best thing from him that we’re ever gonna get, and it didn’t have a Goddamned thing to do with the Mafia.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Through his street contacts, he had found out about a small terrorist cell setting up shop in the basement of a local house. He let me know, and in the summer of 2006, we prevented a major terrorist attack that would have crippled Detroit, maybe finished it. I admit that we were monitoring chat rooms a lot back then, and it helped out, but few know that it was Nineteen who gave us the critical information we needed for the raid. Carr was supposed to be transferring, but, after that triumph, they labeled us ‘The Golden Team,’ and Carr stayed on a few more years—mostly advising me and attending the meetings to satisfy the MIOG requirements. Truth was, I was basically running Nineteen at that point and have been ever since.”
The irony. Sometimes he wondered if he could handle information like this. Was there a tipping point where he’d know too much and lose his nerve or become paralyzed with paranoia? He didn’t want to find out, but taking on Nineteen seemed like it would now be a possibility. “I never heard anything about it.”
“And neither did the public.” Nolan itched his nose. “Didn’t come without its costs, though. I lost a friend, SA John Bautista, in the raid. Got blown—” Nolan’s words trailed off. “I was the one who had to notify his wife. He had a small kid too.” He looked away from Patrick. “Can still hear her screams some nights when I’m home alone."
“I haven’t had to do that yet.”
“And I hope you never have to,” Nolan said. “What I’ve found out in this business is that, when you take a view of our world from the moon, everyone is in bed with everyone else. It’s just one giant orgy down here.”
The room went silent again.
“So, who is Nineteen?” Patrick finally asked.
Nolan’s smile returned. “That’s it. Right back in the fight.”
Patrick let out a quick laugh of relief. “Guess I’m not ready to quit yet.”
Nolan nodded in agreement. He pulled a single sheet of paper from his drawer and showed it to Patrick. “Here’s the family structure that Nineteen helped me keep current over the years.”
Patrick studied the paper.
THE DETROIT ASSOCIATION
BOSS
Ilario “The Smile” Russo
Driver/Bodyguard
Giuseppe “Big Joey” Manetti
UNDERBOSS
Fabio “Fabian” De Luca
Driver/Bodyguard
Gino Gregorio “GiGi” Rizzo
CONSIGLIERE
Silvio Verratti
STREET BOSS
Salvatore “Street Sal” Gallo
CAPOREGIMES
Ciro “Ace” Russo
Leonardo “Leo” De Luca
Andrea “Handy Andy” Casale
Anthony “Black Jack Tony” Scala
Roman Abruzzi
Giancarlo Abruzzi
FLORIDA
Dante “Miami” Marino
CANADA
Nico “River Nicky” Colombo
OHIO
Michael “Buckeye Mike” Romano
CALIFORNIA
Paolo “Sunshine Paulie” Esposito
“Only two things have changed—one we know, and one we don’t. We know Ciro is the new Don, but we don’t know who will be the Capo that takes his place.” Nolan itched his nose again. “Speaking of capos, remember the one I was just talking about?”
Patrick ran his hand down the sheet until it stopped at Leonardo “Leo” De Luca. “Leo De Luca?”
“Yeah,” said Nolan. “You ready for this? Nineteen is his dad, Underboss Fabian De Luca.”
16
Grosse Pointe Shores
3 Days Ago…
Big Joey had waxed the shit out of the big black Mercedes, and the sun’s reflection on the surface was so bright that the car looked like an aerodynamic rectangle of ebony glass with sparks of orange moving down the street toward I-94, the Edsel Ford Expressway. Normally, they’d take a more scenic route to Greektown, but he had insisted that they take the Interstate to change up the routine. There would be increased security when they got closer to Monroe Street, but since ambush was always a possibility, they had decided not to take Don Ilario’s quieter route to Greektown. It was almost 1 p.m., and he felt excitement rise in his stomach as if he was having one of those “falling” dreams where he plummeted toward the earth from the puffy clouds high above.
The Edsel Ford Expressway was named after Henry Ford’s only son and had made urban expansion possible after its construction was completed in the mid-1950s. However, Big Joey knew that so-called progress always came at a cost, and one of the major costs of the Edsel Ford Expressway was that nearly three thousand buildings were demolished to accommodate its construction. What came along with the loss of the buildings was the catastrophic displacement of urban neighborhoods—mostly African-American ones. Maybe this was why Don Ilario had always avoided I-94 whenever he could.
But Big Joey couldn’t think of this today as he palmed the wheel and turned, entering the expressway. They’d take the Edsel down to Exit 219 and then take Gratiot southwest. They’d make a left onto Randolph and then the final left onto The Association’s beloved Monroe Street, where business had been conducted for almost ninety years. It was a momentous day for the new Detroit Godfather, Ciro Russo, who sat in the back seat in a double-breasted tailor-made midnight blue su
it, white shirt, and crimson tie. His black hair was combed in a pompadour, and an Omega was around his left wrist. The pompadour was a nice touch, stick it right back at the police for what they did to Rollie Mazza. Damned pork chops had shaved Rollie’s pomp into a mohawk before they released him. Shit wasn’t right. Let ‘em try and do it to Ciro.
Over my two-hundred-and-fifty-pound ass.
On Ciro’s right hand was his father’s gold pinkie ring that had a cursive ‘R’ on the face. The man looked sharp. Joey wished that everything else looked sharp. The family consigliere, Silvio Verratti, was still missing. Ciro’s men had checked his home to find his wife just as curious as to her husband’s whereabouts as Ciro was. The trip to Silvio’s gumar’s apartment had yielded nothing; no one was home. The final trip was to his girlfriend’s house, and it ended up being a waste of time. The door had been forced open, and two Soldati had found the girlfriend in bed with her housekeeper—the housekeeper whom Silvio had hired to not only clean the house but to keep an eye on his girlfriend who had recently experienced a cocaine relapse. On the nightstand next to the bed were two empty packets and a straw. Sweaty from destroying each other’s pussy, both women had sat on the edge of the small bed, speaking at lightning speed trying to explain that they didn’t know where Silvio was, and that, of course, they meant no disrespect to him by sleeping together. The girlfriend had finished with, “He’s my silver teddy bear.”
Big Joey knew that Don Ciro was a little worried about the disappearance of his consigliere, but not worried enough to cancel his first official lunch at the Red Robin Lounge in Greektown. Don Ilario had wanted it that way. “We’ve known my end was coming for a long time, and I have said my goodbyes,” the old Don had said to his son. “Take control immediately, show that there has been an unmistakable and peaceful transition of power, and then bury me.” The Don’s final orders were being followed to the letter by Ciro, who had spent a few of the early morning hours moping around, saddened by the loss of his father. However, the young Don had made a good comeback and was now ready to keep the appointment that Big Joey had arranged, per Don Ilario’s orders, moments after Ciro had woken him up with the news that the wise old man had gone off to meet his maker. After the calls had been placed, the hefty driver had helped the undertaker load Don Ilario’s diminished body into the hearse for his journey to the funeral home. The showing would be in two days followed by a massive funeral. But, first, The Association needed to gather at The Red Robin Lounge and meet the new Don—and ensure that the family business stayed on track. Then, within the next few weeks, Ciro would be able to issue his own directives and vision for The Association. Don Ilario had scripted it all.