LiAnn wasn’t about to get into another argument with her former boss on the topic of her decision to retire. “Look, Crigger. I appreciate you calling me and your concern. But what’s done is done, and the reasons why the decision was made are not relevant at this point. I plan on spending what time my parents have left on this earth near them. Period. End of story.”
Crigger sighed. “You always were a hard-headed woman. Okay, I’ve done my duty and passed along Melissa’s message. Have a safe trip, Tuck.”
Before she could respond, the line went dead. LiAnn swallowed the lump in her throat and thought about the things Crigger, the only man who’d captured her heart years ago, hadn’t said. I love you too, Crigger, she whispered to the silent phone.
3
Memories of the Past
Caesar Calvanio secured the heavy briefcase in his wall safe and let out a slight groan. Though he just made another cool two-hundred fifty grand in untraceable cash, he wouldn’t let a smile form. His father taught him that business was not something one took lightly and all transactions–the good, the bad, and the ugly–should be treated with respect.
Once his stash was locked away, he made his way over to the enormous solid teak desk, unlocked the side cabinet, and poured a stiff drink. He settled himself in the high back leather chair and stared out the window to the darkened streets below. A few sets of head and tail lights shimmered in the distance, a stark contrast against the backdrop of the ebony night. He sipped his smooth cognac and let himself enjoy the tranquility as his mind wandered inside the murky walls of his past.
He was proud of his bloodline. It was mob royalty, but only on his father’s side. The paternal family ties stretched from New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Philadelphia, tracing all the way back to Sicily. He was the bastard son of Carlos Calvanio, born from the womb of his Irish whore mother, who had been one of Carlos’ numerous lovers. But the fates intervened and, at the age of three, he went to live with his father and stepmother after the sudden death of his biological mother. Though it was never mentioned (at least not in earshot where he could have heard it), he knew her death had been arranged. His father and stepmother were the parents of four girls, one of which arrived as a surprise when he was fifteen, and there was no male to continue the family’s legacy. After the birth of his baby sister, Carmella, his stepmother couldn’t bear any more children.
Like the rest of the men in the Calvanio lineage, Caesar was a crafty one. He learned and watched at the feet of the masters, and knew his contribution to the family name would not be gained from the limelight, nor from the typical ways the others had made their fortunes. He watched too many of the old guards go down as technology caught up to the mob and the cops were no longer left scratching their heads with no clue how to stop them. He remembered all the shame and humiliation he felt as he watched some of the more prominent dons being led away in handcuffs, their trials splashed across every news channel after RICO arrived on the scene. The glory days were over, the downward spiral started the minute gangs from other parts of the world moved in and the families began expanding their empires during the 80’s. That’s when, in his opinion, things began to fall apart.
He grimaced at the memory. The drug trade was controlled by lowlife Mexican cartel warlords; the prostitution and sex-trafficking trade owned by the Russians; and the numbers game and shakedowns controlled by the Triads from China and the Yakuza from Japan. This new world of crime left little room for the true gangsters. There was no honor, no loyalty, no tradition or respect. It was simply money, bloodlust and depravity that drove the masses.
His father had been an underboss in the Bonanno family. Carlos Calvanio was part of the clan who ruled over Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City. A time back in the glory days when the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese families ruled their territory with bloody turf wars and shakedowns. The mob had their fingers in a multitude of clean business enterprises to launder their vast profits from loan sharking, illegal narcotics, prostitution and murder for hire, among other things.
He recalled with a slight grin the days he sat on the knees of his uncles as a small boy. He had looked forward to their visits as a child, entranced by their stories, clothing and raucous laughter. They held power in their hands and were men of honor. As a teenager, he began actively participating in the wide variety of family business crimes, eager to please the men he worshipped. Even early on, he knew he would have to work twice as hard as the other males to be accepted into the fold, since he was not a full-blooded Italian. He started out small with petty crimes, then graduated to bigger, more violent ones as he aged.
He mastered the art of developing a cold blooded approach to murder and accomplished the task with the precision of a surgeon, carefully planning and strategizing his hits. His stealthy approach as a hitter garnered him the nickname The Cat.
He snuck in, killed with silence and expertise, and slid back out into the night, his prey never seen or heard from again. Even though he was meticulous, he still ended up doing a six year stretch at Attica, one of the toughest Federal prisons in the country.
The rookie mistake he made during a robbery that was to end in murder cost him, but he vowed to learn from it. He swore an oath to himself that he would never again have his freedom taken away by law enforcement. Those six years he spent caged like an animal was when he was introduced into new methods of making money. A new business venture that would keep him under the radar of the police. Though he enjoyed killing some of the low-life thugs he was hired to take out, he wanted more from life.
He owned homes in several states but his favorite place was in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Though the place had a history that included numerous visits during the turn of the century from mob bosses such as Capone and others, the history was just viewed as a sideshow tourist attraction now. The sleepy, quaint town was the perfect place to slip in and begin to build his new venture. He brought along his much younger wife, Romella, and four trusted confidants to set things up: his cousin Vincenzo Molinero, friend Carmine Del Vecchio, and his half-sister Carmella and her husband, Franco. He set Vincenzo up with a respectable funeral parlor, Franco up with an ambulance company, and Carmella with a homecare business, specializing in offering care services to senior citizens.
Once everyone was in place, he started his business. He recalled his entry into the extremely lucrative real estate business sector of senior housing and a crooked smile crossed his lips. He had attended an association meeting in Chicago of the National Investment Center for Senior Housing & Care Industry on the advice of his lawyer Antonio, who could always be counted on to ferret out greedy businessmen who were not too concerned with following the letter of the law.
The association was made up of owners and senior executives who attended the yearly meeting to network and absorb the newest laws affecting their industry. It was also the time they directed their lobbyists on how they wanted them to swing governmental issues important to them. But that wasn’t what drew him to attend. The biggest reason to be seen at the meeting was to make the important connections with senior housing mid-level executives and owners, other private investors, banking and mortgage connections. He needed to set financing deals in motion to acquire properties or participate in a merger with high net worth partners. He needed a legitimate outlet to launder the massive amount of dirty money his other business ventures generated, and move into new investment options to diversify his vast portfolio.
As he strolled through the various senior housing trade show booths, he waited until his gut, and the physical description Antonio provided, told him he’d found the perfect mark. He’d been there less than two hours when the poke in his belly told him he’d found the one. Caesar stood and chatted with the man whose personal greed oozed out of his pores like some slimy medical condition. The guy was just asking to be taken in. He bragged about the money he’d made over the years, both legally and otherwise. He regaled Caesar with how smart his financial stealth maneu
vers were at going undiscovered by state agency regulators, who were brainless sheep feeding at the state trough. The man practically drooled when he mentioned how senior citizens were fat chickens waiting to have their financial feathers plucked.
However, the best part was the obnoxious windbag operated from an office in Hot Springs, Arkansas. And, his company owned a property they were itching to dump. The Magnolia House was a historical landmark in Hot Springs and his new chatty friend, Nick Shonnert, said his company didn’t want to deal with the hassle of the upkeep any longer. Nick’s company had already poured tons of cash into the place just to get it up to fire code regulations, didn’t want to invest any more to completely renovate it to meet Arkansas state regulations for a senior living facility.
Caesar had his eye on the old place for an independent living facility for months and sensed Nick’s vulnerability. He sealed the deal when the two of them had dinner later that night. When he dangled the bait that he was interested in purchasing the property, Nick slobbered all over his plate like a rabid dog. They agreed to meet back in Hot Springs in two days to finalize their negotiations for Caesar to buy the place. The hook was set and he knew just how to reel in the hungry fish.
Nick Shonnert wasn’t overplaying his considerable wealth. Caesar directed Antonio to dig into his financial holdings. Nick was the Chief Financial and Operating Officer of Happy Days Retirement Living, a conglomerate that owned retirement communities across the U.S. He enjoyed toying with Nick the Prick (as Caesar named him–no one had ever had a more fitting nickname) more than the others. His instincts sensed Nick’s envy of the power Caesar wielded during their first meeting and financial discussions. When Caesar became the new owner of The Magnolia House in less than three days, he saw the awe behind the man’s beady eyes.
He knew Nick viewed him as a godsend. The fact that he could produce vast sums of immediate cash to consummate expansion of Nick’s business interests instead of the long struggle of going through a traditional lending institution route, made Nick’s head swim with delight. He counted on Nick’s greed to banish caution from his mind and allow him make a very foolish and life threatening decision: he climbed into bed with Caesar Calvanio. Nick’s fate was sealed.
Thinking about Nick made his stomach sour, so he poured another glass of Cognac. Nick the Prick had gone from a robust, talkative twerp in his late thirties to an intense, brooding shell of his former self. Back when they first met, Nick was a rotund balding man who was clearly impressed by his fifty-percent ownership in Happy Days Retirement Living, along with being the CFO and COO. After their initial dinner and drinks in Chicago, Nick continued bragging about the multitude of ways his company used to separate senior citizens from their retirement funds. He really did not like the man and it angered him to listen to the outrageous lack of respect Nick had for his elderly clients. Caesar had loved his grandmother Teresa and grandfather Tomaso fiercely, and was heartbroken when they passed away. He decided to terrorize the fat little sleaze ball, which would serve two purposes: personal gratification and a lucrative business deal.
As hardened a man as Caesar was, he still remembered the solemn promise he made to his grandfather and Godfather, Don Tomaso. His swore an oath that he would not allow another helpless elder to continue to live in agony. The old man’s gnarled fingers clutched his during his last few pain-filled minutes on earth, and made him promise. Promise to not let senior people suffer by extending their life just to fill the pockets of greedy corporations.
He watched his grandfather die a slow, agonizing death while his liver and pancreas were devoured by cancer. Though the family sent out feelers across their expansive network, a donor hadn’t been found in time. After Don Tomaso died, he decided to forgo the traditional ways his family made their living. It was time for a new resource, a new way to survive and to honor the memory of Don Tomaso. It would consist of seeking out elderly people who were suffering as their days of life were nothing more than one constant gradient of excruciating pain. He would organize the end of their pain, and profit by draining their financial portfolios of his chosen victims as well.
Don Tomaso always said to him, “Get what you want in life right now cause you ain’t gonna take it with you.”
And that is exactly what he’d been doing for the last twenty years, courtesy of his chance meeting with Nick. He showed Nick that he was nothing more than an inexperienced naive fool when it came to structuring and enforcing creative financial shakedowns.
Cloaked in the darkness of his office, he took another sip of the warm brandy and reached across the desk for a stogie. He took a few puffs then kicked his feet up on his desk, admiring the expensive leather of his shoes. Yeah, he’d taken what he wanted in life and helped ease the pain of those who cried out in agony with each heartbeat. He hoped his grandfather was proud of the man his grandson had become. And, he wondered if Tomaso enjoyed watching him torment Nick the Prick as much as he had enjoyed doling it out. His twisted laughter bounced off the cranberry colored walls in his expansive office. The memories of the night he showed Nick his true colors made him smile.
Once the negotiating process to finance Happy Days Retirement Living and The Magnolia House was complete, it was time to educate Nick on how a professional Mafia man of honor cemented a relationship with their mark. He let Nick know he was owned…body and soul. Their office meeting was conducted at Nick’s Hot Springs, Arkansas, senior property, Green Pastures, after all the employees had left for the day. Settled in front of Nick’s fake mahogany desk, he sprang the trap. Grinning like a predatory panther with the deer squarely in his sight, he informed Nick he was now a half owner of Happy Days Retirement Living, as well as all his other properties in seventeen different states.
His first instruction to Nick was to make sure none of the construction of the newest senior property in downtown Little Rock had any problems with delivery of materials and labor. He then informed Nick that twenty thousand dollars per month, in cash, needed to be in his pocket, for protection against any disruption of the work flow.
Nick jumped up from behind his large desk and pointed his finger at him and screamed, “Listen here, you immigrant spaghetti-eater, I’m not about to be taken advantage of like this. You can just forget our financial arrangements. I’m canceling our agreement right now!”
Before Nick could blink twice, Caesar launched himself out of his chair, clasped his strong hands around Nick’s bloated throat and slammed him up against the wall. He continued to squeeze Nick’s meaty jowls until the pudgy slime ball passed out. He let the body crumple in a heap on the floor, then returned to his seat and lit a cigar. He waited until Nick awoke before he said a word.
“I’m going to cut you some slack, Nicky Boy. This is your first, and last, warning. I’ll let your rude behavior slide because I know you don’t realize who you’re dealing with yet. So, let me explain so we’ll be on the same page. I got thirty-six hits. Assassinations is the word you regular civilians understand, all notched on my gutting knife. Underneath this,” he said, waving his wrist in the air, the monogrammed gold cuff links glinting off the overhead light, “Armani suit is the body of a killer. Take a gander at this.”
Nick never said a word or moved an inch from his spot on the floor. Caesar let the man’s terror engulf him as he removed his black jacket and unbuttoned his starched white shirt. Nick’s eyes bulged and Caesar wondered if they would burst out of their sockets.
Caesar turned his body so Nick had a full view of his left shoulder. “See these? This one is from a shotgun blast,” he said, pointing to the small, black ringed circles ranging in size from nickels to dimes. He turned and raised his right arm. The jagged scars started underneath his armpit and wound around past his hip bone. “And these are from being dragged alongside a Ferrari – the guy I just shot in the head trapped my arm inside. That’s a quarter mile of road rash you’re looking at.” Nick gasped when he saw the angry red and purple mass of tortured flesh and lumpy scars. “And this one th
at looks like two red railroad tracks is from a knife fight. My friend Carmine stitched me up on his couch without any pain killers—when I was just fourteen years old.”
He watched Nick blanch while he put his shirt back on, making sure to flex his rock hard biceps and show off his six-pack. “I’m proud to bear the scars. Shows I’m an invincible made man of respect, and not afraid of anything. Ever heard of an offer that can’t be refused?”
“Oh, God, no…please,” Nick stuttered.
Caesar didn’t let the man utter another word. With one swift punch to the saggy jowls of the wimpy jerk, he shut the man’s mouth. He moved to the window and clicked the blinds twice, the signal to Carmine, who was waiting outside in the parking lot. Within minutes, they hefted the disgusting, obese body off the floor and on to phase two of his initiation.
When Nick revived from the vicious assault, he was hanging upside down by his feet suspended from a chain in the ceiling of a cold and dark slaughter house. Nick kept opening his mouth to let out a scream, but failed. Caesar watched as Nick struggled to utter words. Caesar and his life-long friend Carmine laughed at the man’s predicament.
“Well, Nicky Boy is awake. Should we tell him where he is since he looks so confused?”
Carmine laughed, shrugging his beefy shoulders. “Up to you, Boss.”
With a nod of his head, he directed Carmine to lower Nick onto the concrete floor. He unsnapped the chains from his legs and pushed him roughly into a chair next to a long, concrete slab table. Nick groaned in pain and started to pass out again. Caesar came around from behind the chair and slapped Nick’s right cheek.
Blood Ties - A Magnolia Novel Page 3