by Bill WENHAM
He said if Nellie could ‘worm her way in’, she could perhaps obtain some inside information where they could invest what little they had left and make some of their money back. He emphasized this even more with her present appointment.
She was very good at her job and gave Factor no cause for either complaint or criticism but, in a way, her personal view of the job was like what is sometimes said about ‘greasy spoon’ restaurants – ‘what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve about.”
There was an awful lot about what Nellie did that Factor didn’t see!
For instance, he was totally unaware that his new secretary was passing on the times, dates and locations of all of his appointments and meetings. Nellie Cardilli was providing her murderous husband with a virtual roadmap of all of her boss’s activities and recordings of all of his phone calls.
Factor didn’t see everything his secretary was doing, but her activities would certainly give him plenty to grieve about!
The franchisees all appeared to be ecstatic with Factor’s generous action. However, Vinnie Cardilli, the former farmer who had planned and committed both of the murders, was furious and understandably so.
Chapter Fourteen
Max Torrance’s grandfather, Donato Tarrantino, arrived in New York in the early 1900’s by steamship, along with a large group of other Italian immigrants. They were mostly from southern Italy and Sicily – and had brought some of the more violent elements of their culture to the New World along with them.
After a few months of working around the New York docks, and not being able to find a decent job, Tarrantino became restless. He stole a car and headed for Chicago.
Upon arrival in Chicago, he was almost immediately taken in by a gang of local hoodlums who needed a getaway driver, especially one with his own car. Their specialty was beating up and robbing small business owners.
After a couple of months with them, he decided to take the attractive sister of one of the gang members as his wife. He made no declaration of love for the woman and none was expected in return by her. They were married and that was that.
Over the next couple of years, she bore him two sons, a year apart, before she was shot. He appeared to be emotionless and totally unconcerned at her injuries. But that was just on the surface, for appearances sake only in front of the gang. Inside, though, he was furious since he was aware of the way she’d been shot and by whom, even though he hadn’t been there at the time.
She had been shot, either deliberately or accidentally, in a shootout between his gang and another one in the area. Either way his wife was injured and someone was to blame and would pay for nearly taking his wife’s life by losing his own. Also, in addition to his wife being a victim that day, the leader of his own gang was shot and killed.
Donato Tarrantino had already gained the reputation as being the most vicious enforcer in the gang and took over control without a murmur of protest from any of the other members.
His first task as their leader was to personally eliminate the leader of the gang that had shot his wife. He did it such a way that he was immediately feared as a force to be reckoned with throughout the Chicago underworld. Various pieces of the dead man were delivered to all the other rival gang leaders as a warning. From that that moment on, Tarrantino reigned supreme in his territory.
This all happened in the early days of Chicago, years before anyone had ever even heard of Al Capone and Prohibition. Even so, the streets were still violent and Tarrantino eventually became a target himself. He was killed in another gang war that erupted several years later.
His wife, having recovered from her injuries and fearing for her own safety and that of her two boys, moved to Cleveland. They lived in there in anonymity under her maiden name until the boys were in their late teens.
One of the boys, the younger, remained in Cleveland with his mother and later, as he grew older became a well known lawyer and politician. They say the acorn never falls far from the tree, because it was well known in Cleveland that Fortunato Tarrantino was crooked and his influence could very easily be bought.
When he was twenty, his slightly older brother, Donato Jr., took a bus back to New York. He had heard stories from various sources of the man he knew to have been his father and decided to form his own gang of hoodlums.
His gang, patterned after the style of those of Capone and O’Banion, was soon wreaking havoc in the streets of New York. Prohibition was already over, but intimidation and extortion never would be.
Donato Jr. ruled with an iron fist and although the days of cars driving past speakeasies with Tommy guns blazing were over, the death toll remained just about the same. He also maintained the traditional Sicilian ‘family’ structure of his father.
His name, coincidentally or not, shortened very easily to ‘Don’, the formal mob term of respect. He was known as Don Tarrantino, as was his own father. To continue his family’s and his own lineage, he married a beautiful young girl who was the daughter of the Irish owner and president of a well known company, headquartered in New York.
Donato Tarrantino Jr. and Colleen Sullivan, much to her father and mother’s annoyance, were married in a simple civil ceremony in a New York registry office. They then spent a short honeymoon in Miami.
Donato was well aware of his father-in-law’s anger before he left but didn’t have to face it when he returned home with his new wife from Miami. He was too busy consoling his new bride on the tragic loss of her father.
He had been killed by a hit and run driver on the second day of his daughter’s honeymoon. As soon as he was able, Donato paid the driver, a woman, complimented her on her excellent driving ability and promptly took over control over his deceased father-in-law’s company.
Within a year he’d sold it.
Colleen Sullivan, now Tarrantino, gave birth to a son they called Maxim, or Max, for short. At the time of her marriage and up until the time her baby was 4 months old, she’d been totally unaware of the true nature of her husband’s business. But she was constantly frightened by the hard faced, foul mouthed and uncouth men he constantly associated with.
Young Max was just three months when his mother accidentally witnessed a gangland shooting. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she recognized her husband as the shooter. Suddenly, a lot of other things she had worried and wondered about became frighteningly clear to her.
That night, with her husband out for the evening, she took her sleeping baby son to her bed with her. She laid him gently down beside her and then placed a pillow over his face. Then she took a spare handgun that she’d recently found in her husband’s night table drawer and shot herself in the head.
Her intention had been to smother her young son to prevent him from growing up to be a killer like his father. Her quickly devised plan was thwarted when the single gunshot startled the baby. He screamed and threshed about until the pillow covering his small face fell to the floor.
Donato Jr. found the baby, now asleep again, beside the body of his dead wife when he came home, in the early hours of the morning, from visiting a girl friend.
Unfortunately, although she’d tried and had died doing it, Max’s mother was unable to save her child from his criminal destiny. When he grew up, after twenty five years in the care of nannies and private tutors, he became the head of his father’s criminal ‘family. He was now the Don, a ‘Godfather’, just like his father and grandfather had been before him.
But Max wanted change. His was to be a criminal organization, but with a difference. Times had changed and the ‘family’ had to change with them. These days, shootouts, except by idiots, were uncommon and unprofitable. However, death and the elimination of one’s opposition were not. That would always remain a constant.
For what he thought would be more acceptable for legitimate business purposes, Max anglicized his Italian name from Tarrantino to Torrance. He realized modern day crime had to be modern as well and the Tarrantino name had too many criminal ghosts haunting it from t
he past.
For instance, Max reasoned, it was far easier and safer nowadays to rob a bank with a computer than to go in to one with a mask over your head, a sack in one hand and a shotgun in the other. And that was only part of it. A computer didn’t need a getaway car either.
Just a few key strokes of the right kind and the money was instantly gone.
To all intents and purposes, and unless you were on the inside, the organization Max Torrance headed up was even squeakier clean than many of the multi-nationals who were also based in New York City.
The traditional titles of ‘Don’ and ‘Godfather’ were also gone now, replaced by the ‘Chairman of the Board’ title. But the terror and intimidation generated by his organization, plus his power of life and death over those who opposed him, was still there whenever he chose to use it.
Most times, just the fact it was known to be there, just beneath the surface of this business suited organization was often quite sufficient. At other times, as in the case of Tom Dalton and his nephew, Jim Willoughby, that power could be demonstrated extremely effectively.
The beauty of it was if you were to place Max Torrance in a lineup of twenty high level businessmen, he would probably be the last one picked as being a criminal. That was his secret. He had learned to wear the cloak of respectability very successfully.
Max Torrance would have gladly done away with his own father if he’d known he’d caused his mother’s suicide. As it happened, soon after Max had moved to New York, his father had a stroke and died anyway. Immediately another member of the ‘family’ took over and Max left.
Max’s new ‘organization’ in New York would be set up as a legitimate appearing business in the center of Manhattan and would use stocks and shares instead of shotguns.
There were still some loose ends to be attended to and Max detested loose ends. In order to achieve his objective of legitimacy and control of the criminal element, a number of top level gang leaders, also operating in New York, had to be eliminated first. On Max’s instructions, they were all disposed of in the same gruesome manner attributed to his late father.
The movie makers of the present day had opened up whole new avenues of horror and intimidation. On the screen they were just meant as fantasy and fiction for public entertainment. Over the years, Max Torrance made many of them reality and used them to maximum advantage whenever he could.
He ruled his part of criminal underworld of New York by terror, extortion and the unspoken threat of horrendous and brutal extermination. If anyone doubted the viability of those unspoken threats, photographic examples were always readily available for the disbelievers.
Just the mere fact that they were disbelievers was usually enough for them to be the next source of the horrific photographs.
In spite of his inherited vicious nature, Max Torrance did have one saving grace.
He was intensely loyal to all of those he considered to be his ‘family’.
He lived by a very simple credo; “If you are disloyal to either me or my family – you die!” There could never be a misinterpretation by anyone of what he meant by that.
Max also used a term that he constantly drummed into his people, his own ‘family’. He’d seen a copy of it somewhere years ago. It had been on a sign during the building of the Hoover Dam when many lives had been lost.
It read; “Be careful. Death is so permanent.” – or words to that effect.
It could have several different interpretations. Just a warning, perhaps, or a threat? It could be either.
He was in his early thirties when he decided to get married. It would add an aura of respectability to what he now perceived as his ‘businesslike’ appearance. A year or so later a child was born.
Chapter Fifteen
Cardilli knew what he wanted to do, but was struggling with how to achieve it. Suddenly he grinned and nodded. Problem solved, he thought.
Dean Factor’s beautiful big and now empty house had a three piece bathroom on the main floor plus a two piece for convenience just down the hallway from the living room. The other bathrooms were all three piece en-suites within the upstairs bedrooms.
The plan he had devised as a surprise for Factor and his policewoman girl friend involved disabling the two piece bathroom off the living room. This would be easily accomplished by adjusting the toilet float valve so that it wouldn’t refill the tank.
The next part might be a little tricky since it would both involve using his own voice to make the call and Streeter’s availability to follow up on it. So far she’d come running every time he’d called. Why would this time be any different?
And once again Lady Luck was smiling on him.
On the day before the planned event, a Thursday, he knew, via his wife, that Factor planned to be in his office.
When she was alive, Dellie Factor had hired a woman to come in to come in and vacuum and dust for her once a week. Factor had kept her on to do the same. Her scheduled day was Wednesday and she was the only other person besides Factor who had access to the house. She would have been and gone before Cardilli needed to go in there
Cardilli had abducted and broken the neck of the wife of the second franchisee, Wanda Fullerton, two days previously. She was the wife of multi-millionaire New York stockbroker Colin Fullerton.
Just after noon on Friday, he delivered her naked body to Factor’s house in a stolen van. He raised the garage door with Dellie Factor’s remote opener and backed the van halfway inside the garage. He was wearing a pair of thin black leather gloves.
Mrs. Fullerton was a small, slim woman and Cardilli had no trouble at all carrying her into the downstairs three piece bathroom. He laid her body on the floor while he half filled the bath with warm water. Then he carefully lowered her into the water and turned her face down.
He knew he was perhaps taking a chance that, with the other toilet out action, Factor might want to use this one. It was unlikely, Cardilli thought, but it was a chance he’d have to take.
He closed the bathroom door and went into the kitchen. Now for the next stage, the critical phone call. He picked up the receiver of the cordless phone from its base on the kitchen wall. If the police had call identity, which he was sure they did, it would show that the call had originated from Factor’s own house.
Hoping that Lady Luck was still watching out for him, he made the call.
When Streeter came back into her office around five thirty there was a Post-it note on her phone. One of the staff had put it there but hadn’t signed it. That wasn’t unusual. It read,
“Lieut. A Mr. Factor called. He asked if you could drop by his place at about 7, please.”
Streeter picked up the phone and dialed Factor’s number to ask what he wanted but there was no answer. She dialed his office number as well but a recorded voice told her his office was closed for the weekend.
She pondered what to do for just a moment and then decided. She hadn’t planned to do anything in particular tonight anyway, so why not?
They were both free and single, he wasn’t currently in any trouble and perhaps he was feeling a little romantic. If something along those lines was his intention, she didn’t plan to put up too much resistance.
At 7 p.m. sharp Streeter pulled into his driveway and noted the blackened bricks from the fire had been replaced. She went up the wide front steps, took a deep breath and rang the bell.
A moment or two later a surprised Factor opened the door.
“Liz!” he exclaimed. “What do I owe this pleasant surprise to?”
Streeter was taken aback and felt a little foolish.
“If I told you that you called and asked me to be here at 7, would that give you a little hint?”
Factor laughed.
“Me, Liz? I didn’t call you but I’m delighted you’re here. Come on in.”
Streeter was caught off guard and she was embarrassed. What was he up to, she wondered? She decided, since she was now here anyway, she may as well follow it through to see where it led
.
She stepped past him into the hallway and followed Factor into his large and luxuriously appointed living room. Even the 50” television that would look huge in any normal room, was dwarfed by this one.
“You really didn’t call?” she asked, as she took off her jacket and lowered herself into an armchair that seemed to engulf her.
“No, Liz, I didn’t call you, but I’m very glad you’re here anyway. Maybe it was just someone at the station is playing a trick on you.”
And I’ll kill that person if I ever find out who did this, she thought, hoping her blushing cheeks would soon return to normal.
Factor could see she was really embarrassed and said,
“Listen, Liz, so this wasn’t intentional, but I’m still delighted you’re here. I was planning a beer and pizza evening in front of the TV before you arrived. I’d love to have you join me if you’d like to.”
Beer and pizza wasn’t exactly what she had in mind for her first evening alone with Factor, if there ever was one. But what the hell, you’re here, so go for it , girl, she thought.
Factor’s voice broke into her thoughts with, “I hope you like Budweiser, Liz, because that’s all I’ve got in right now. But you can choose the pizza. How’s that for an incentive to stay?”
Streeter gazed at him, lounging comfortably in the other armchair. Just looking at you fella, is quite enough incentive for me to stay, she thought.
Oh, Good Lord, I didn’t say that out loud, did I?
Factor handed her a phone. He’d already dialed the pizza place’s number. “Order whatever you like, Liz,” he said.
“Is Hawaiian okay with you? It’s my favorite.”
“Mine too,” Factor lied. He hated Hawaiian but he wasn’t going to let the choice of a pizza ruin this moment that had just dropped into his lap.
As Streeter gave the order, she also realized that, just by doing so, she’d already made her decision to stay there with him.