The rumor about Victor Garducci was that he was a master at fixing bets. The easiest for him to fix were fights.
The way it worked for the mobsters was that they gave their money to Victor, who in turn put the money on the guy who was supposed to lose. He then got the winning pick to toss the fight in whatever round that Victor placed his cash, and then Victor returned to the gangsters with exponential amounts of cash. A safe investment for them and Victor got to keep his percentage off the top of the take.
Victor pushed most of his take up to Joe Falzone through a man named Frankie DeRisio. He was a member in Sal Pieri’s crew and Sal answered straight up to Falzone.
Victor’s cash went to Frankie, he took his cut, then the money went to Sal, who took his cut, and from there it went up to Falzone.
Though the mobsters were greedy, they were sort of fair in their own right and told Falzone what a good earner this new guy Vic was. In reality, Victor got his gambling cash straight from the FBI who he was working in concert with. He would just say that he ‘bought’ whatever fighter happened to lose and from there everything worked itself out.
His associates trusted that he kept the information confidential until after the fight. Most believed he did things covertly to keep his system of earning confidential so as to impede others from infringing upon his turf. To them, it wouldn’t be out of place, it would be logical protection of one’s livelihood.
Now, as Victor neared the entrance to Wizeguyz, his heart was pounding and it took every bit of skill to keep the persona of Alex from surfacing while he was anywhere near the Mafia stomping grounds.
He reached out a hand to open the door. His hand resting on the pale green door, Victor felt himself tremble. With a deep breath, the mobster steadied himself.
A moment later he was through the doors and into the smoke-filled room in front of him. In the back was a wooden rectangular bar with a robust and grey-haired bartender who polished the same beer mug over and over. He wore an apron over some jeans and an old, faded, green T-shirt that had the place’s logo stenciled on it.
Three pool tables in a row led outward from the bar towards the door. On the left of the pool tables were four booths and on the right were four freestanding tables. The chairs and booth benches had the same green colored cushions, worn with age.
Two men sat in the rear booth with their backs to the entrance. Two more men stood around the pool table. They were heated over whether or not the bet they made prior to the game was two dollars a ball or five.
“Fuck you Jimmy, I’m telling you I ain’t gonna pay you no more than two a ball and that’s that,” said a small man no more than five feet seven inches tall.
He weighed maybe a hundred forty and had brown hair that fell over one side of his forehead in a nasty cowlick. The other half slicked back parallel with his cheek bones that seemed sunken along with his green eyes. He held the pool cue with his right hand and planted in the floor at his side. His feet were set apart and his bluster was almost laughable against the other fellow who Garducci recognized as Jimmy ‘Jacks’.
He got his name from a haul in Vegas where he took the house for almost thirty grand with four jacks. He kept the cards and ever since that time in Vegas has carried them around in his back pocket for luck.
He was a big man. Jacks stood over six feet tall and two hundred pounds. His dark hair was cropped short and his eyes were brown and hard but not mean looking. He spent a few years in the pen and his muscles showed it as he flexed them, more from habit than from threat, at the smaller man’s rant.
The smaller man was Tim Coughlin. He wasn’t even a WOP, but the Italians kept him around because he helped bring them the Irish in the numbers racket, that and he was a scrapper. Garducci once witnessed the small fellow beat down two men that owed him twenty bucks for a late payment. Twenty bucks and he came away with two bruised fists and two hundred dollars richer.
“I’m telling you Tim, it was five dollars a ball, and if you....”
Victor decided now was as good a time as any. He walked further in and as the door slammed shut behind him he announced his arrival, demanding attention.
“Hey you two grease balls, you see Sal around here anywhere?”
“Holy Shit, if it ain’t Vic back from New Mexico! We heard you was coming back. You better be debt free though, we don’t want some filthy Mexican crew breathing down our necks for your spendthrift ass!”
Jimmy Jacks gave a warm smile and greeted Vic, but Garducci saw that Tim was annoyed. The conversation about who owed whom what was now at an end, and that meant one of them got away with three dollars a ball. Jacks took a quick look at Tim as he hurried toward Victor and smiled at him when he noticed that Tim wasn’t talking economics anymore. He came forward and gave him a firm shake of the hand.
“How you doing Jimmy?” Garducci needed to make small talk, seem as calm as possible. Soon enough the questions would come.
“I’m alright, you know how it goes, winning some, losing some.”
“Tim.” Victor leaned over and clasped the man on the hand.
“Fuck Vic, you better talk to Sal when he gets back. He was happy you was coming home. Shit has been edgy here you know.”
Tim looked troubled and Victor figured that he would hear an earful from Sal when he got back.
“Sal pissed I had to leave so quick?”
Garducci needed to know from what viewpoint to assess the situation in which he thrust himself.
“Nah,” Jimmy interrupted as he rubbed a blue block of chalk along the tip of his cue. “Other things are about to happen. Some shit going on upstairs. It’s between the higher ups and no one knows what crews are siding where. We know where mine and Sal’s crews stand and we know where the Ciancetta’s stand and they ain’t on the same side of the aisle if you get my drift. We stand with Old Man Falzone. “
“Fuck Jimmy, quit talking so much. Vic, the other guys will fill you in over there. Sal should be back soon and then we will know what’s what.”
Tim shot a glance at Jimmy; he was more guarded then his counterpart. He always was the more intelligent of the two.
“Who’s sitting over there?” Garducci didn’t want to go into any situation without realizing what awaited him.
“Just Aldo and Muro,” Tim said with a mischievous grin as he threw his cue on the table and walked through the restroom door on the right of the room.
Jimmy glanced at Victor with his lips pursed in a thin line across his face. The presence of those two men was not lost on Jimmy nor was it lost on Victor. Though Victor was not positive of the hierarchy, Alex Vaughn was. These two men were Falzone’s left and right hands.
Aldo was ancient. He was a thin and bald man with a white goatee. His small stature hid the enormity of his true power. He was by all accounts a genius and had never been arrested in connection with any crime. He knew people who knew people and he could read pretty much any of them with a good degree of certainty. Aldo Marano was Falzone’s brain.
If he was the brain, then Muro was the brawn of Falzone’s enterprise. He was thick and smelled of cheap cologne. He always wore a suit and it made his already broad shoulders seem enormous. His gray hair was speckled with remnants of his primary black, and waved backwards in an unkempt slick. Muro Lucano had been arrested three times, all for murder or being involved in the conspiracy to commit murder. Each time the jury acquitted him. Many were surprised, but not Victor. It seems that everyone has his price.
Victor walked toward the rear booth. There was an ashtray on the table and it was filled with half-smoked butts. Also on the table were several empty shot glasses and the men were murmuring to themselves with apparent unease. The men must have been sitting there a while. As Victor Garducci approached the table, they didn’t notice his arrival. With a clear of his throat, both men jumped and turned glares upon the interruption. When they noticed it was Victor, they glanced at each other then back at Vic.
“The boys told me you wanted to see me 'bou
t something.” Victor felt his hand tremble and slipped it behind his back.
They sat there for a long moment, which to Garducci seemed like an eon. Aldo asked him to have a seat.
“Sit down my boy. It has been a while. Too long. Many things have happened since we saw you last. Your friend Sal is conducting business. He is overdue. Hopefully, he will be back soon.”
Hopefully. That seemed like an odd choice of words. Aldo never used a word without a purpose to it.
“Hopefully, Mr. Marano? Why hopefully? He should be back soon shouldn’t he?” Victor sensed some serious implications here.
“He gets to have all the fun this night,” Muro said as he squished the end of another cigarette on to the glass of the tray in front of him.
“His business is dangerous, but we have confidence in him.” Aldo said the words with a calm and matter-of-fact air, but his tone indicated that he was very worried that things were awry.
“I don’t understand Mr. Marano. What’s going on? Why have you asked to talk with me about all of this?”
Victor was confused. They were being very open with him all of a sudden. He didn’t want them to tell him anything that could be considered ‘too much’ later.
“Well, Sal vouched for you. Now you must do a favor for him, for us.” Aldo was eyeing him now, gauging his reactions.
“Anything Mr. Marano. What do you need?” Victor was worried. His cover wouldn’t last all that long and he didn’t have a lot of time to get back in the good graces of everybody one at a time.
“Real simple Vic. Sal was supposed to collect some money from a client of ours. We don’t know if he made it there to collect since he is running so far behind.”
Muro was talking to him but at the same time his eyes kept shifting to Aldo. Garducci’s sixth sense was buzzing now and he felt like something was out of sorts. He couldn’t put his finger on it.
Aldo looked at Victor and slid a folded piece of paper across the table to him.
“All we want you to do is check on this address. If you see Sal’s car parked down the block from here, and you pass by the address, see if you notice anything out of the ordinary. Then come back to us and let us know what you see.”
Victor Garducci grabbed the piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket.
“Sure thing. I’ll get right on it.”
With that, Victor Garducci stood up and started to leave. As he exited the building, he looked back over his shoulder. He noticed that both men were watching him as he left and both Tim and Jimmy were pretending to play pool once again.
Victor walked out the doors and stood outside breathing in the crisp cool air around him. From under this overhang, the snow and hail danced in front of him. After contemplating the situation for a moment, Victor decided to do as the old men directed.
He figured that if something were indeed going on, at least his loyalty in this situation would endear him enough to get by on the next few days. All he needed was enough time to get over to Inhaled Imports and see who was in the habit of buying Sobranies.
He walked with a brisk gait into the freezing night toward the address now in his hand.
This is for you Jack, he thought. The chill of the night air crawled up his spine and he pulled his jacket in tight around him. Victor Garducci, aka Alex Vaughn, felt total and complete isolation amidst a sea of uncertainty.
Chapter 8
“Oh Sonne boy, wake up Sonne boy.”
Rafael was standing over Sonne and his face was expressionless. Rontego moved his captive to a small metal foldout chair in the kitchen. There was tile in the kitchen; the blood would be easier to clean up later.
Sonne remembered what transpired before the blackness overtook him and now he was starring wide-eyed at the assassin, trying to mumble something. The duct tape that covered his mouth and stuck to the hairs of his mustache with cruel stubbornness would allow nothing but muffled incoherency.
Rafael Rontego noticed that he had Sonne’s full attention. He walked over to his stereo, taking his time, and with a glance at his captive, turned the knob to ‘on’. There was a brief moment of static that irritated the already frayed nerves of Sonne Pieri, as his eyes became even wider.
Rontego took no notice of his victim’s concerns. He flipped through a small black booklet of compact discs. He settled on one with a slight scratch but that Rontego loved all the same.
With a clearing of his throat the assassin put in an album by The Animals. The album, entitled The Animals Is Here was Rontego’s favorite for many reasons, but most of those reasons had to do with the number one track from 1964 called “House of the Rising Sun.” He glanced at Sonne, still eyeing him like a hawk from above the tape that held his mouth silent. Rafael Rontego cranked up the volume one click at a time. The music was coming through the speakers with more clarity now.
Rafael walked towards Sonne as the hypnotic guitar work introduced the song. He lifted his foot and rested it on the knee of his victim. Reaching behind him he pulled his black-handled blade out and rested it against Sonne’s neck.
As the organs began to join the guitar work, Rafael pulled back a corner of the tape from Sonne’s mouth and leaned next to his ear. The breath from the assassin as he spoke, so close to Sonne, sent a chill through his captive. Rontego noticed the goose bumps that found their way down his captive’s neck.
“I’m gonna pull this tape off of your mouth now, Sonne, but I want you to understand a few things. One is, you are going to die. The second is, how many pieces you die in is up to you. I am gonna ask you questions. You answer them you get to keep your fingers, toes, nose and ears. If you so much as lie to me, I start taking them off one at a time. Do you understand me Sonne boy?”
Rontego’s nose was now just a few inches from Sonne’s face. The assassin leaned forward on his knee, his foot still resting on the captive’s leg and his hand still dangling the knife beneath Sonne’s chin. With his eyes shut tight and his breath now coming out in quick rushes Sonne shook his head in agreement.
As Rafael Rontego ripped the duct tape off of Sonne’s mouth there was the noise of hair tearing out of skin, mingled with the lyrics blasting from the speakers:
There is a house in New Orleans/ They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy/ And God I know I’m one
“Shit Rontego, man, I’m just following orders....” Sonne began talking as soon as the tape was free from his mouth.
Rontego snapped his head forward and shut Sonne up before he could finish. Rontego’s forehead blasted into his captive’s nose and splattered it into a bloody mess across his face.
For a moment Sonne’s head fell forward and Rontego thought he might pass out. A sharp sting across his left cheek brought him back to his senses and he looked at Rontego through his watering eyes.
Rafael noticed the tears in Sonne’s eyes—a shattered nose will do that to a man. The blood from his nose was running down his face and into his mouth and down his neck onto his shirt, staining the white Armani a thick, almost purplish, crimson.
My mother was a tailor/She sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gambling man/Down in New Orleans
Sonne, silenced except for a low moan and a slight gurgling of his own blood, looked up at Rontego with a questioning look in his eyes. Rontego almost felt sympathy for the man. In a flash, however, he remembered that this man came here to kill him.
Sonne broke into his home with the intention of murdering him. But why? That was what Rontego needed to find out. Who wanted him dead and why?
Rontego leaned forward, his dark eyes were steeled and his penetrating glance did nothing to assuage the many fears that were no doubt running through the imprisoned capo’s mind. All the while, the song drained on in the background.
Now the only thing a gambler needs/Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he’s satisfied/Is when he’s on a drunk
“Simple question Sonne, and don’t make the
mistake of feeding me excuses again, we aren’t in a confessional. You spoke of orders, before you felt the need to taste your own blood. Whose orders?”
He was met by silence and the slow drip of blood, but Rontego continued.
“And before you answer, remember you have a father and a brother that I can repay for any of your foolishness once you’re far from this world.”
Rontego spoke, not in anger but with a coolness that promised the certainty of his words. He saw Sonne’s eyes flash with the recognition of his truth. Rontego was considered a lot of things, but never a welcher. With a moment of hesitation, Sonne confirmed what Rontego suspected.
“Raf, you know my orders come only from Falzone.”
Oh mother tell your children/Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery/ In the House of the Rising Sun
Pieri continued speaking even as the disc continued spinning the music Rafael chose for this special occasion.
“Man, just let me out of here. Think of it bro, together we can....”
He was cut off by the sudden impact of a solid backhand on his already tender cheek. This time, though, Sonne’s cheek did not absorb the impact of the blow, but rather split into an unnatural seam perpendicular to the scar he already wore on that side of his face. The two marks created an eerie looking crucifix design for a moment before the blood caught up with the sudden rip and dripped over the cross, hiding it beneath the spreading liquid.
The hit, however, had the desired effect. Sonne resumed his silence and waited for the assassin’s next question. Rafael noticed the control shift; there was no doubt whose show this was. He smiled.
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