Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3)

by C. D. Reiss

  “You need to watch more movies,” he said.

  “Believe me, I’ve seen plenty.”

  “Then you know I can’t just divide my business and walk away. Even with everything the movies get wrong, they get that part right. And with everything the FBI thinks they understand, they get that one thing right: I can’t just walk away. I can’t surrender in the middle of a fight.”

  “Why not, if you have no more skin in the game?" I said. "Why wouldn’t they just let you go?”

  “Imagine this. I act like a reasonable man. I divide everything and walk away. I promise you, I’d be a dead man as soon as I turned my back. And you ask why. Why? It’s because I have information. I’ve done things.”

  I started to ask what, but his expression shushed me.

  “Without my family to protect me, I’ll be picked up by your ex and questioned. Accused. I can either talk or not talk. If I don’t talk, I go to jail, where I’ll be murdered to keep me from talking. Or I’ll talk, and I can choose between a witness protection program, where you can’t join me because of who you are and how well-known your family is. Or I can be murdered in jail for talking.”

  “What if I made a deal with Daniel to leave you alone?”

  He held a finger up in my face, jaw clenched. “Do not—”

  I took his wrist and kissed the inside, on the rough, blue tattoo of Mount Vesuvius. I’d asked him if it had hurt to have it burned into such a sensitive area, and he’d laughed and said he practically slept through it.

  “If you made peace with Paulie, you wouldn’t have to worry about him killing me.”

  He pressed my hands together between us. “It’s been quiet these few days. Zo is working on rebuilding the shop. The Sicilians, Donna Maria and all of them, have stopped complaining that the Neapolitans are fighting. I’m just starting to breathe.”

  “Can I speak my mind?” I said.

  “How can you not?”

  “I don’t trust her patience. When a political opponent doesn’t respond to an attack or an offer, he’s not just sitting there waiting for something to happen; he’s gathering ammunition. The worst thing you can do is give him time to arm himself.”

  He pressed our hands together pensively then kissed my fingertips. “You have a devil of a mind, Contessa.”

  “What are you going to do about it, Capo?”

  He stared down at our pressed hands as if considering something. “There is something distracting the Sicilians. A wedding.”

  “They can’t plan a wedding and run a business at the same time?” I said.

  “Not their wedding. It’s a wedding between a Neapolitan family, the Bortolusis, and a rival Sicilian family, the Leis. This doesn’t happen often. Sicilian mafias have a tower of payoffs. Don, boss, underboss, capo, on and on. I’m Neapolitan camorra. We’re smaller. We don’t step on each other. We don’t have all these people to answer to, just the capo then Napoli if something goes bad.”

  “Like with you and Paulie?”

  “Like that," he said. "But we don’t marry across organizations. Sicilians and Neapolitans don’t have a matching structure. It’s more trouble then it’s worth. So it’s just not done. Because marriage is for love when possible, but for business, when necessary.”

  “And this one is business?”

  “Yes. And it’s a problem, a big problem, because it makes them too powerful, now. And Donna Maria Carloni needs to answer it or get crushed. She has a granddaughter, raised in Sicily, a good match for a nice Neapolitan boy.”

  “Do not even tell me you’re short-listed.”

  He smiled. “They have someone. Nice boy. Little stupido, but he’ll do for her.”

  “And what’s your job in all this?”

  “My job is to fuck you until the neighbors think I’m murdering you.”

  I kissed his cheek, his chin, his lips. He was erect in less than a minute, and when he carried me to the bedroom, I fell into a suit of armor.

  four.

  antonio

  ’d gotten used to helicopters. I’d seen them in Napoli as they blasted along the coast, taking tourists along the beach or finding lost boats. But helicopters—Los Angeles style, with their low circles over a block or house—were a different experience.

  The first time I’d been exposed to the loud thup-thup-thup, I’d been near LAX, having just gotten off the plane in order to do the dirty business of avenging my sister’s rape with certain death.

  “It’s called a double-double,” Paulie said. I didn’t know him yet. He was just the guy who’d met me at the airport and driven me to a restaurant for a hamburger.

  “It’s huge.” I held the humungous thing in one hand and a soda, which was also too big, in the other. In Napoli, we didn’t eat like that until the sun set.

  We stood in the parking lot because there were no seats, and Paulie said it would be more private anyway. He leaned against the red Ferrari and bit into his burger. Sauce dripped down his chin, and he caught it with a napkin. “It’s good. Try it.”

  As soon as I lifted the sandwich, the helicopter came into range. I looked up then back to Paulie.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Not us.”

  I looked up again. The helicopter turned in circles over the skies.

  “It’s three hundred meters away,” I said.

  “Is that far or near? What the fuck is that?”

  “Close. And low. No one cares?”

  “Would you eat the thing? Jesus. I’ll eat it if you don’t want it.”

  I was hungry. I put my soda in the tray that sat on the hood of the car, and bit down.

  “It’s good,” I said, trying to ignore the low-flying helicopter with the letters LAPD painted across it.

  “Molto bene? Right?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” he said.

  “Speak Italian. Ever again, please. It’s like gears grinding.”

  “Fuck you, dago motherfucker.”

  “Porci Americano.”

  “Oink oink, asshole,” he said with a mouth full of food.

  I replied, but I’ve forgotten what I said, and the sound of the helicopter drowned me out anyway. But in the past weeks, the sound of helicopters has reminded me of Paulie and of what had happened to our friendship because of a woman.

  “What do you want to eat?” I asked, when the sound of traffic helicopters woke Theresa. “I’ll have Zia bring it.”

  She rolled onto her stomach, tucking her hands under her thighs. “She hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you.”

  “She won’t look me in the eye.”

  “She doesn’t trust Irish Catholics. It’s not personal.” I drew my hand over her ass, which was snowy and pure. She didn’t fidget in her nudity, didn’t try to cover herself or play at modesty. Not with me.

  “I want to see Katrina," she said. "She’s been calling.”

  The movie director, Katrina Ip, had started the trouble in the first place. Theresa was financing her movie. I supported her talking to Katrina, just not as long as Paulie was acting crazy. “Not yet,” I said. “Soon.”

  She rolled over and got out of the bed. I grabbed her by the wrist. I think I had her more firmly than I’d intended, because she tried to yank away and couldn’t.

  “This is not a joke,” I said. “This is not a competition for who has control over you.”

  She growled. The guttural sound of it stiffened my dick. I pulled her harder. “The first time I lost a woman I loved, it was easy to get my vengeance, but it didn’t bring her back. Nothing brought her back. The second time, when my sister was hurt, they were ready for me. I did what I had to do, but now the consequence is that I can’t go home. If anything happens to you, the consequence will be my death. I’m ready to die if anyone takes you. But they won’t kill or hurt you because I was lazy or because you were proving some point about your independence.”

  “You can’t sustain this, Capo.”

  “I can. As long as P
aulie sets himself against me, you’re a target.”

  She softened, moving into me, so I didn’t have to grip her so hard. “And the next enemy? Who is it going to be? If you win with Paulie, that only sets you up for the next challenge. I can’t live like this.”

  She balled her fists in frustration. I pitied her. She hadn’t been born into this. She didn’t understand it.

  “Let me ask you a question,” I said. “You have a, shall we say, infamous family. You aren’t unknown.”

  “I’ve worked my whole life to be normal.”

  “Good job. You’ve been shopping recently?”

  “Before you holed me up?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I went to Rodeo on—”

  “To the grocery store. To buy towels. Sheets. Soap. Have you ever washed a dish?”

  “Yes, I have," she said. "But I see your point. Even if it’s irrelevant.”

  I pulled her onto the bed and wrapped my arms around her. “Tell me about that scar on your lip, and tell me you haven’t always been protected.”

  She rested her head on my chest and didn’t say anything. I thought she’d fallen asleep. I was considering how to get out from under her, so I could do what I had to do for the day, when she spoke.

  “We rented a cabin every year, up by Santa Barbara. It was a campground, but really, more of a pretend-rustic resort. And there was this kid who lived in the area. He was older than me. I think I was seven when we first met, and he was eleven or twelve. He lived in an RV with his mother, and they just had it arranged so he could go to the schools up there. But, every year I found him by this narrow little river at the edge of the campsite. I was the youngest girl of seven, and I was so sick of my family. My mom just talked to the other moms and drank wine. And my dad talked business with his friends. So boring. And this guy? He was wild. We climbed trees and went past every fence we were supposed to stay behind. I think I was the kid sister he always wanted. Or maybe not. Because…”

  She stopped herself to sigh, wiggling around until she was looking up at me. “I was thirteen, and he was older. We met in the same place, the Thursday of Labor Day weekend. After dinner, same as always. It was different. I was different. We sat on our rock and talked for a while. He showed me his high-school ring, and then he kissed me. You know, I didn’t think about how young I was. I just thought I liked him. And maybe I loved him. Or, maybe I just wanted to. But, God, I never told anyone this before.”

  “You can stop.”

  “He put his fingers in me. I came right there. I just about died. And he… he came, too, all over my shirt. I never even touched him, which I didn’t know could happen. And it was such a mess, and I was so surprised that I laughed. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was nerves, and it was funny. But I must have hurt his feelings because he hit me, and his ring caught my lip. There was blood everywhere. And that’s the scar right here. I told my dad I fell, and he didn’t say a word the whole way to the doctor. Got two stitches. When I got back to the cabin, I realized I had cum all over my shirt, in front of my dad and everything.”

  She laughed to herself, a soft chuckle that sounded like nerves. I touched the scar. You could barely see it unless you were the type of man who looked for damage.

  “What happened to the boy?”

  She rolled over until she faced the ceiling. “They found his body at the bottom of the gulch the next morning. The rocks can be really slippery. I slept in until lunch because of the pills the doctor gave me. If I’d gotten up, who knows what would have happened?”

  “What do you think would have happened?”

  She stared out the window then back to me. “I would have found him. But I was spared that. Same as I’ve been spared everything.”

  five.

  theresa

  ’d told Daniel that story, up to the kid at the bottom of the gulch, but I’d never mentioned the silent car ride, or the sticky adolescent semen all over my shirt. I had never felt safe telling him. Daniel had a suspicious mind, same as Antonio, but he was the DA, and ambitious, and there was no statute of limitations on murder.

  From my window perch, I watched Antonio walk out of the building and toward the bench where Otto sat. Antonio had entered the camorra to avenge his wife. Then he came to Los Angeles to avenge his sister, and as much as he wanted me safe, and as much as I wanted to live, I didn’t want to be the reason for his vengeance. I could ruin his life while I lived, but in dying, I could destroy his soul, so I stayed. For the time being.

  Daniel was on television again, talking, talking, talking. I could count his bullet points off on my fingers, and they’d gotten tighter and meaner, undoubtedly due to Clarice’s influence. There was a distinct lean away from previous talk of generic crime fighting and more emphasis on organized crime. Antonio and I had gotten out of the yellow house, l’uovo with whatever the DA had needed before they got there with his warrant. That fact burned Daniel. He’d planned everything to a T, except the traffic caused by the arson of Antonio’s shop and me shutting off my phone.

  There would come a day when near misses weren’t going to sit well with Daniel anymore. He wasn’t biting his nails or flipping his hair back, but his ambition was challenged, and there was something a little feral about him. No one liked looking foolish. No one liked failing. But Daniel played a high-stakes game, and the more he tried to win, the more I felt like a cornered chess piece.

  six.

  antonio

  o waited in the driver’s seat of my car, under the building’s sign, which read The Afidnes Tower in big gold Grecian letters.

  “Hey,” Zo said as he ripped into a sandwich. “You want some?”

  “No. Where’s Otto?”

  “He went to feel up his wife eighty percent worth.” He laughed at his joke.

  “You need a break?” I said.

  “Me? Nah. We got a bunch of permits cleared for the shop. Had to do a little song and dance, but fuck, I feel like, you know, useful when I’m building shit. Or you know, when I’m telling a bunch of other guys what to build. And I want the shop up and running so that stronzo sees it and sees it good.”

  “All right, all right. Easy.” I slapped his back. “Go take care of it.”

  “You got it.” Zo gave me a thumbs-up and got out of my car. I took his place and headed for a little empty storefront on the east side.

  My cold feelings toward Paulie surprised me. There wasn’t a woman alive who had meant as much to me as Paulie had. Maybe not even a human being. I had no brothers, and my father had been a shade of a man until I walked into his coffee shop at eleven years old to settle a dispute.

  But Paulie, though a camorrista deeply connected to the Carloni family through a couple of generations of business ties, had earned my trust in the first few minutes at the airport.

  I’d been photographed on the Italy side like a criminal, but once I’d arrived in Los Angeles, I was a dot in a newspaper photo. I stood a second too long under the arch of the international terminal, overwhelmed by the size, the multicolored crowd, and the expanse of space and light. The public address system went on and on about loading and unloading, lines, flight times, gates. I smiled through security, had my bag inspected at customs, and got taken aside briefly for questioning. It was easy on the Los Angeles side.

  I went outside to noise and smog that wasn’t much worse than Napoli, which was urban to the teeth at the center and more and more pastoral the closer you got to Vesuvio.

  Paulie stood by a chrome pillar that was stained with an old spray of blackened soda. He wore skinny jeans, white shoes, and Ray Bans, which he flipped up when he saw me.

  “You Racossi?” he asked in shitty Italian.

  “Spinelli,” I replied, nervous about my just-passable English. I felt vulnerable without a weapon, and he must have felt like that, too. As far as I knew, it was impossible to get a gun into the airport, even for people with connections.

  “Donna Carloni wants to talk to you,” he said.


  “I’m not here to get involved. I’m here to finish some business and go home.”

  I dragged my bag and walked away. He caught up, crossing the street to the cabs with me.

  “I don’t think you can refuse.” A bus stopped near us, beeping when it kneeled, the driver shouting over an intercom for passengers to exit through the back. The noise was enormous, and the heat was oppressive.

  “I don’t take orders from Sicilians.” I didn’t know if that came off right in English. In the end, it was Paulie who helped me understand the nuances of the language. But on that day, I could only use the words I knew.

  “You need her say-so to finish this business you got, or she’s going to get in your way. And let’s face it, you don’t know up from down. If she offers you help, you oughta take it.” He stepped in front of me. “She sent me because I’m camorrista. Like you.”

  “There’s enough off-the-boot in your blood. I can see it.”

  “Jesus, man.” He showed me the inside of his left wrist, where a tattoo of a volcano was drawn. The high peak was on the left. I took his wrist and pulled the skin. It wasn’t pen. It was real. I didn’t want to trust it. Anybody can get a tattoo.

  “This is Vesuvio from the Pompeii side,” I said, dropping his hand. I pulled up my left sleeve and held out my wrist, where the active side was drawn on the right.

  “I know, man. Dude got it from a book. What do you want me to tell you? Nobody’s actually been to fucking Naples.”

  “No,” I poked his chest. “Nobody has been to Pompeii.” I walked off, heading for what looked like a taxi stand.

  “What are you going to do?” he said, chasing me. “Walk up and down Sunset, showing a mug shot? You’re gonna get pegged for a narc by the gangs and for a dago criminal by the cops before your tourist visa’s even up.”

  “I have leads.”

  “Not as good as mine. Come on. I know what they did to your sister. And I know why.” He stepped in front of me and dropped his voice. “I’m going to be honest. They got a big chunk of the east side, and I want it. Give me a chance to do business and avenge a lady at the same time.”