If this were any other family, this man would be dead already.All of these men would be dead for the simple fact that they didn’t escalate their insights to the top.You don’t keep secrets like that from family.
I chose my words carefully and drenched them in retrained violence.“Why wasn’t someone from my adopted family’s faction contacted?Mario was here.Convenient.Yet you let Don Conti think it was him.”
Their faces paled.
“It was supposed to be internal.A… misunderstanding.One using a disposable resource,” Vincent said.
That’s one way to describe Johnny Porciello.Not a word I’d ever use for Mario.
These men were fools.No wonder the Conti family was in decline.“How many of your men were involved?”
That’s where he clammed up.Which was even more stupid.Protecting them would get him killed.“I want totalkto them.”
“Talk?Are you sure that translated correctly?”
I glared at him.“Invite yourself to that meeting if you want to know exactly how it translates.”
The leader motioned for the waitstaff to begin service, which effectively pushed the pause button on our conversation.These four were in tune with each other.They did business outside of normal protocols that were observed in most of the older families.I could chalk that up to being insulated here in Chicago.
But what they didn’t realize was twofold.Foremost, you can’t be passive and maintain control.There were international groups making inroads everywhere.Deep money, deep connections.Oil money from East Asia, mineral monopolies from two continents.Corruption grew from roots almost as old as the Sardinian heritage I followed.New faces with crypto and technical expertise.Political factions that favored money over country ideology.If anything worthy of protecting was to survive, you needed to have both hands in the ocean to fish out the wealth and eliminate the rot.That’s why there was a Left Hand.To bring balance when the scales went out of alignment.
And I was more than happy to be that person.It fit me better than being some sacrificial lamb for Don Conti to exploit from beyond the grave.
After the lackluster lunch, I settled into the problem that was Johnny Porciello, going as far as describing him by name.
“This disposable asset, Johnny Porciello, has he been found?”
There were glances around the table.
“We’re working on it.”Vincent said.
I pushed aside the mislabeled cheesecake they’d placed in front of me with fanfare and pride.One bite told me everything I needed to know about their tastes.“Stop.”
The uneasy shifts in posture spoke their complaints without words.
“This is coming from the Left Hand.Any word of him on the streets, comes tome.Understand?”
“We can handle this.”Vincent assured me.
I shook my head.“No, you can’t.You weren’t asked.I was.Personally.”
Vincent laughed.“The bastard son of Don Conti doing thisjob.Convenient, no?”
“That’s my problem, not yours.”
He leaned back, anything but appeased.“Fine.Just make sure it doesn’t… bring pressure on us.”His smile was wicked.The veneer of his spit and polish, and the aw shucks, I’m just a businessman facade dropped, and I knew why he’d been included in this meeting.His youth made him weak.But give him one or two more decades, and the family would have a strong person in place to run the businesses here the right way.
Funny, I wasn’t thinking about the Conti family.I was gauging how Don Manca would react.
The rest of these men were scared.Their livelihoods were unbalanced with the regime change.They didn’t have the fire in them to fight back.But this one did.I’d have to watch my back around him.The knife would come out soon.
I’d just finished updating Don Manca on the events when I got a call.The one I expected.
“I’ve arranged your meeting.We’re square.”Vincent rattled off a location north of the rail yards.It was a no-man’s land of shipping containers, empty rail cars, and ubiquitous white storage sheds that ranged in size from garden tool sized to massive block-long monsters with overhead cranes rivaling most ports.The unit he specified was barely two thousand square feet.An aluminum-sided dumping ground for dusty boxes and two container offices.Outside, the snow had melted in the lot leaving plenty of dry patches, but also deceptively slick drifts that melted into icy black puddles of treachery.
I checked the lay of my weapons as I locked the car to begin the lonely walk from where they signaled I should pull into the building to their little cluster of three men.A fourth lurked in the rafters.He gave himself away by a tiny displacement of dust and mouse turds that trickled through the air like fairy dust.
If this ambush was planned by my team, I’d have a guy on the roof of the second trailer.Perhaps a floating guard behind that pile of boxes.
