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bedlamsbardAw, shit. London. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in the city, and to the friends and family of those who lost someone or are still searching for someone.
Before we get down to the long-awaited (ha) Chapter Eight,
I've played fast and loose with the form and function of the American Mafia. Less so with the Five Families than with Constantine, but I hope to explain this away by the fact that the Constantine Family is not traditional Mafia. While I've said before that they are "old school", this refers more to things like honor, loyalty, and omerta than to their form. The Constantine Family is more family- and blood-based than most of the Mafia, which is the reason Val Constantine managed to take control at age sixteen, rather than one of his father's capos.
Now, the rest of the New York Mob, at least, is a little more family-based than it apparently is in real life. Both the Families and Constantine are more - feudal, I guess, than the research I've done proves them to be. Most of this is because whenever I write something that involves "families," I tend to make it major families and lesser families sworn to the major families. It's seeming to work in the context of Omerta; I'm not aware if the actual Mafia is built this way.
Just as a side note, most of the Snafu-verse Five Families aren't based specifically on the real Five Families. Rocchegiani, while not featuring heavily in Omerta, is mentioned briefly. The former Rocchegiani boss (John Valachi) is obviously based off of John Gotti, and the Rocchegiani Family can compare more or less to the Gambino Family. The Rocchegiani War, mentioned briefly in Chapter Six, is lightly based off of the Castellamarese War, which I know nothing about, but hey, I might end up having to use it.
The Snafu-Verse Five Families are:
Pagliuca
Dellacroce
Patriso
Lancione
Rocchegiani
As compared to the real life Five Families:
Gambino
Colombo
Bonnano
Genovese
Lucchese
Other Families
Dellamonaca (New Jersey, based off the DeCavalcante Family)
Rossi-Prete (Philadelphia, based off the Bruno-Scarfo Family)
Dell'ferrare (Boston)
*cough* In other news, Omerta Eight is all Mafia, all the time! We learn backstory. Also, Carmine and Val speak Greek. This should endear them to Stella.
When he was nineteen, Ace Aciello had done three years in prison for manslaughter.
If it had gone down twenty years later, he maybe wouldn’t’ve minded so much. Would’ve welcomed the chance to step back from the wear and tear of everyday Mafia life, a chance to relax, cultivate friendships, rivals, informants. If he’d gone to prison twenty years later, it probably would’ve been for a hit he did, or at least in payment for another one he’d done. Maybe not the one he’d been convicted for, but he would’ve deserved it.
The thing was, though, that at nineteen he’d never actually killed anybody, and certainly not the Pelham Boy whose death he’d been sent to prison for. The worst part of it hadn’t been that the Pelham Boy in question had been the youngest son of the Lancione underboss, it had been that one of Ace’s fellow Tanglewood Boys had sworn up and down to the police that Ace had done it. Ace had never ratted him out. Tanglewood business was Mafia business, and Mafia business wasn’t cop business.
Which left him wondering what Val thought he was doing. Darin Pagliuca’s death, or kidnapping, or whatever had happened to him was the Pagliuca Family and the Mafia Commission’s business. Joey hadn’t killed him, that was for sure, and while Ace was no virgin to the idiocies of the law, he didn’t think it was likely Joey would go to prison. Not with Danny’s team handling his case. Ace had heard a lot of things concerning the Crime Scene Unit, but none of them had said that that particular division of the NYPD didn’t know what it was doing. The Constantine Family was old school, and Val almost as much as any of his predecessors.
And yet, he was still screwing around in the business of the Families. The Five Families, who didn’t and never had given a rat’s ass for Constantine. Ace would have preferred it if Val had just left Pagliuca’s fate to his Family and the Commission, and trusted in Danny’s boss to know what he was doing. It wasn’t that Ace didn’t trust Val – he trusted Val with his life, and moreover, his trust – but he really wished Val would let the rest of them know what was going on. Blind loyalty would only get him so far, and not all of Constantine’s people were as sure in Val as Ace or Carmine. It would make him happier to know that Val was locked under guard inside his Bronx apartment or his Yonkers house, not out trying to negotiate with a bunch of maniacs like the Agugliaros. Benito Agugliaro may have been Luciano Constantine’s capo, and later Val’s, but Benito was dead now, and the rest of the Agugliaros were fucking insane. Ace wanted them as far away from Val has possible. Preferably on another planet, but he’d settle for the other side of the city.
On top of that, he was late for his meeting with Astra Pagliuca, and fuck New York traffic anyway. Astra was not the patient type, something that probably came from the fact that she was purebred American Mafia, daughter of the capo di tutti capi and the old Rocchegiani don's only daughter. Not John Valachi; the one he’d murdered, Carlo Rocchegiani. Unless, of course, you listened to certain rumors, ones that said Astra wasn’t who the Pagliuca Family said she was, but Ace would rather believe the rumors were just that. Rumors. Rumors, and by their very nature unreliable and untrue.
Of course, seeing as most of his job depended on rumors, there was something in that belief that was going to come back and bite him in the ass.
*
Astra raised her coffee cup in acknowledgment as his cab pulled into he parking lot of the café she’d chosen for their meeting place this time. Ace waved at her, pulling out several bills from his pocket and thrusting them at the cabby.
“You seemed pretty pissed off over the phone,” were the first words out of her mouth as Ace neared her. The second ones were, predictably, a finger stabbed into his chest and, “You are so buying me breakfast. It’s six in the morning.”
Ace rolled his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the past twenty-four hours,” he snapped. “What, is it too much trouble to answer your phone anymore? Or is that getting too good for you?”
Astra jabbed another finger into his chest. “I do have a life outside of this little spy business, you know. An important one.”
“What, waiting to get married off to some underboss or capo?”
She cocked her head to one side. “Way past my expiration date there, pal. I’m over thirty and unwed. Likely to remain so for the forseeable future, too. Why? You got a problem with that?”
“Would the fact you weren’t answering your phone have something to do with the fact your brother’s missing?” To the waiter, “Table for two, please. In the back. By the wall. In a corner, if it’s possible.”
The waiter didn’t bat an eye. “This way, sir.”
Astra’s mouth was half-open in disbelief. She grabbed onto his elbow and held him in place. “How did you know that?” she hissed. “How did you –”
Ace shoved her forward and into the high-backed seat behind the cracked table. “If you haven’t heard, Pagliuca, Joey Sforza was arrested for his murder. His murder, not his disappearance, and if Pagliuca wants to stay friends with Constantine then they damn well better –”
Astra had regained some of the color in her face. “If you think you’re threatening me, Anthony Aciello, then you –”
“Fuck yes I’m threatening you,” Ace snarled. “One of Val’s guys – one of my friends – is under arrest. As far as I’ve heard – and I’ve had all my sources on the street for the past twenty-four hours looking into this fucking thing – neither Pagliuca or the Commission is doing one damned thing, and I want to know what the fuck is going on right the fuck now.”
Astra pressed her lips together sharply. “You are so lucky I don’t shoot you right now.”
Ace leaned over the table toward her. “You and I both know that if this was any normal hit and if Nicky really thought Joey had done it Pagliuca and the Commission would be jumping so far down Constantine’s throat they’d come out Val’s ass. Well, they’re not, and I want to know what the fuck is going on. And you’re going to tell me, Astra Pagliuca, or the Pagliuca Family will wake up to find both of their children missing.”
“I don’t believe this,” Astra said. “You – you, the street boss of a don who isn’t even from one of the Five Families, is barely considered Sicilian – is trying to tell me, the daughter of the capo di tutti capi, what to do. I thought you wanted to talk, Ace.”
“No,” Ace snarled. “What I want is to get Joey out of the hands of the NYPD, and to know what the fuck is going on. Someone is trying to involve Constantine in something that’s Family business, and –”
“If that’s what you think,” Astra interrupted coolly, “then you’re dumber than you look.” She stormed away, heels clicking on the linoleum floor.
Ace watched her back with anger and frustration twisting his features. “Coffee,” he said to the waiter who’d appeared by his side. “Lots of it. Black. None of that pansy milk and sugar.”
*
Val rested his head in his hands as Blackie Agugliaro left the room. One of his bodyguards, a soldier nicknamed the Drill for his interesting taste in torture devices, remained by the door, watching Val and Carmine with an unpleasant expression on his face. Agugliaro didn’t like Constantine; Constantine was only returning the favor.
Carmine leaned back in his chair, his expression mild. “You think the room is bugged?” he asked in a low voice.
“I’d put money of it,” Val said. He rubbed his knuckles over his eyes, then straightened up, turning to face Carmine. “How much do you know about what’s going on with Joey?” he asked in Greek, still speaking quietly.
Carmine shrugged, and replied in the same language, “Not one damned thing. Haven’t exactly had the time to get the news from anyone, have I?”
Val gnawed on his lower lip a moment. “It’s pretty bad, from what I’ve gathered. Haven’t had much time myself to figure out what’s going on.”
“You sure this is the best time to talk about it?”
“No, but we’re in conference for at least another couple hours. Joey might not have that long.”
Carmine felt his eyes widen. “What do you mean by that?”
Val’s eyes cut towards the Drill, then back towards Carmine. He leaned forward, speaking lower than ever and still in fluid, Bronx-accented Greek, “Three days ago Darin Pagliuca went missing. The body Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera found had all of his ID, and visible identification was impossible because the corpse was beaten to shit. A couple witnesses ID’d Joey as the one that killed Pagliuca. I’ve got guys trying to track ‘em down right now.”
Carmine let out a low whistle. “Darin Pagliuca,” he said. “Darin fucking Pagliuca. Shit. The Commission climbing down our throats yet?”
“That’s the problem. They’re not.” Val regarded Agugliaro’s ornate clock a moment. “Another couple of hours, you think?”
Carmine followed his gaze, met the Drill’s angry eyes, and said, “You should just let Ace whack ‘em all, would save us the trouble. Benny’s memory isn’t worth this, Val, the Agugliaros are nothing but trouble. I have contacts –” He paused, eyes flickering toward the Drill again. “Darin Pagliuca missing or dead, one of our guys blamed for the hit, and Pagliuca hasn’t even blinked in our direction yet? The Commission hasn’t looked at us? There’s something seriously fucked up going on, and I don’t like being dragged into Family business.”
“Danny’s not very happy with me at the moment,” Val said.
“The apology,” Carmine said, “that was a good thing, but maybe you should have waited more than a couple hours before asking him to pull strings.”
“You think?”
“Occasionally. ‘s’what you pay me for, right?”
Val laughed. “Well,” he said, “not all I pay you for.”
“Oh. There’s the bodyguard thing too, huh?”
“I pay you to be my underboss.”
“There’s that too, I guess,” Carmine grinned. Then he sobered. “The Agugliaros?”
“Aren’t getting a damned cent out of me. How am I supposed to trust a family that’s had capos in every one of the Five Families, the Constantines, the Dellamonacas, the Rossi-Pretes, and the Dell’ferrares? I think they’ve been trying to make records. Nine families, all in less than three generations.” Val shook his head. “I don’t know what the Families say about me in their cornerstore gentlemen’s clubs, but I’m not stupid.”
Carmine shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re not stupid.” What do they say about me? he wondered briefly. The d’Alessandro family’s loyalty ws traditionally to the Dellacroces, another one of the Five Families, and both Giovanni d’Alessandro and Orlando d’Alessandro – Carmine’s father and brother – had given their loyalty to the Dellacroces. Carmine hadn’t, never had, but knew that most of the Mafiosi in the Five Families looked on him as a traitor and a turncoat. Politics, like wars, hold nothing but blood and regret. Joey’s father had been a wise man. Fuck you, Louie Madonia, he thought, remembering cool metal beneath his palms and Joey unconscious at his feet. You tried to wipe out the bloodline, and all you did was wake Constantine’s anger. Constantine’s – not Sforza’s. Val had been barely old enough to drink, but he’d taken the gun from Carmine’s hand and fired it into the back of the hitman’s head without a moment of hesitation. Carmine had thought he’d grown out of doing rash things like that, but evidently a quarter of a century didn’t make much of an impression on him.
He coughed. “What, exactly, did you think calling Danny would accomplish? He’s NYPD, Val, not Constantine.”
Val glanced over at the Drill again. “My father’s getting out of prison sometime in the next couple years,” he said.
Carmine bit his lip. He put a hit out on his own son, he remembered. The Wren’s a fucking liar, he reminded himself, but the memory of the words lingered like acid in his brain. A hit out on his own son… “The Old Man’s almost eighty,” he said, trying to hold back the nausea in his throat. Luciano Constantine had never liked the d’Alessandros, and particularly not the quiet teenager Carmine had been at thirteen and fourteen and fifteen. The words Lucky had thrown at him and at Val still came back to haunt him sometimes. Hell of a thing to say to young, impressionable Mafioso. “You think he’ll try and take power?”
Val passed a hand over his face, looking tired. “I haven’t seen my father more than once a month for the past thirty years, Carmine. I haven’t known him – really known him – for at least that time.” Probably not before, either, hung unspoken in the air. Lucky had gone to prison when Val was fifteen. Carmine would be surprised if he remembered Lucky as anything more than a general impression of slender Greek-Italian Mafioso, dark haired and sharp-voiced with a Colt revolver at his hip. Always a Colt. Stickler for tradition, Lucky had been. Was probably disappointed with the fact his son had taken control of the family at fifteen, since the title of boss rarely went to anyone under the age of sixty. And he hadn’t liked Carmine, or Ace either, but he’d approved of Ace more than Carmine. Maybe it came from not being born Mafiosi, just another Italian-American kid from Bensonhurst who ran with the Patrisos’ new starter gang, the Tanglewood Boys. New then, that was, old and blooded by the time Danny joined up.
“The Wren – there’s a rumor out on the street about your father,” Carmine said jerkily.
Val looked at him with narrowed, curious eyes. Carmine didn’t do awkward, never had. “Yeah?”
He stared away a moment. “He –” The Wren, as slippery as oil and as unreliable. Val didn’t need to hear this. Didn’t know why he’d started to blurt out the words. The Old Man didn’t deserve a son like Val or a daughter like Angela had been. Didn’t deserve a grandson like Danny Messer, or any of his three brothers either. Didn’t need to know his son had married and divorced and married and divorced again in the short span of two years. Carmine’s hands clenched on the fabric of his slacks. God damn you, Agugliaro, get the fuck back in here RIGHT NOW.
“Carmine?”
The door swung open. “I’m sorry for not sending refreshments,” Blackie Agugliaro announced, swooping in with his brother Ralphie on his heels. He didn’t sound particularly sorry. “I should have thought of your comfort, Don Valentine.”
Val gave him a tight-lipped smile that said the lack had been noted and weighed, and was still coming to a conclusion. “Mr. Agugliaro,” he said in English. “Why don’t you have a seat, and maybe we can come to a conclusion that suits us both.” He wasn’t happy. Neither was Carmine, but for an entirely different reason.
Constantine shouldn’t have to be dragged into Family politics.
Before we get down to the long-awaited (ha) Chapter Eight,
I've played fast and loose with the form and function of the American Mafia. Less so with the Five Families than with Constantine, but I hope to explain this away by the fact that the Constantine Family is not traditional Mafia. While I've said before that they are "old school", this refers more to things like honor, loyalty, and omerta than to their form. The Constantine Family is more family- and blood-based than most of the Mafia, which is the reason Val Constantine managed to take control at age sixteen, rather than one of his father's capos.
Now, the rest of the New York Mob, at least, is a little more family-based than it apparently is in real life. Both the Families and Constantine are more - feudal, I guess, than the research I've done proves them to be. Most of this is because whenever I write something that involves "families," I tend to make it major families and lesser families sworn to the major families. It's seeming to work in the context of Omerta; I'm not aware if the actual Mafia is built this way.
Just as a side note, most of the Snafu-verse Five Families aren't based specifically on the real Five Families. Rocchegiani, while not featuring heavily in Omerta, is mentioned briefly. The former Rocchegiani boss (John Valachi) is obviously based off of John Gotti, and the Rocchegiani Family can compare more or less to the Gambino Family. The Rocchegiani War, mentioned briefly in Chapter Six, is lightly based off of the Castellamarese War, which I know nothing about, but hey, I might end up having to use it.
The Snafu-Verse Five Families are:
Pagliuca
Dellacroce
Patriso
Lancione
Rocchegiani
As compared to the real life Five Families:
Gambino
Colombo
Bonnano
Genovese
Lucchese
Other Families
Dellamonaca (New Jersey, based off the DeCavalcante Family)
Rossi-Prete (Philadelphia, based off the Bruno-Scarfo Family)
Dell'ferrare (Boston)
*cough* In other news, Omerta Eight is all Mafia, all the time! We learn backstory. Also, Carmine and Val speak Greek. This should endear them to Stella.
When he was nineteen, Ace Aciello had done three years in prison for manslaughter.
If it had gone down twenty years later, he maybe wouldn’t’ve minded so much. Would’ve welcomed the chance to step back from the wear and tear of everyday Mafia life, a chance to relax, cultivate friendships, rivals, informants. If he’d gone to prison twenty years later, it probably would’ve been for a hit he did, or at least in payment for another one he’d done. Maybe not the one he’d been convicted for, but he would’ve deserved it.
The thing was, though, that at nineteen he’d never actually killed anybody, and certainly not the Pelham Boy whose death he’d been sent to prison for. The worst part of it hadn’t been that the Pelham Boy in question had been the youngest son of the Lancione underboss, it had been that one of Ace’s fellow Tanglewood Boys had sworn up and down to the police that Ace had done it. Ace had never ratted him out. Tanglewood business was Mafia business, and Mafia business wasn’t cop business.
Which left him wondering what Val thought he was doing. Darin Pagliuca’s death, or kidnapping, or whatever had happened to him was the Pagliuca Family and the Mafia Commission’s business. Joey hadn’t killed him, that was for sure, and while Ace was no virgin to the idiocies of the law, he didn’t think it was likely Joey would go to prison. Not with Danny’s team handling his case. Ace had heard a lot of things concerning the Crime Scene Unit, but none of them had said that that particular division of the NYPD didn’t know what it was doing. The Constantine Family was old school, and Val almost as much as any of his predecessors.
And yet, he was still screwing around in the business of the Families. The Five Families, who didn’t and never had given a rat’s ass for Constantine. Ace would have preferred it if Val had just left Pagliuca’s fate to his Family and the Commission, and trusted in Danny’s boss to know what he was doing. It wasn’t that Ace didn’t trust Val – he trusted Val with his life, and moreover, his trust – but he really wished Val would let the rest of them know what was going on. Blind loyalty would only get him so far, and not all of Constantine’s people were as sure in Val as Ace or Carmine. It would make him happier to know that Val was locked under guard inside his Bronx apartment or his Yonkers house, not out trying to negotiate with a bunch of maniacs like the Agugliaros. Benito Agugliaro may have been Luciano Constantine’s capo, and later Val’s, but Benito was dead now, and the rest of the Agugliaros were fucking insane. Ace wanted them as far away from Val has possible. Preferably on another planet, but he’d settle for the other side of the city.
On top of that, he was late for his meeting with Astra Pagliuca, and fuck New York traffic anyway. Astra was not the patient type, something that probably came from the fact that she was purebred American Mafia, daughter of the capo di tutti capi and the old Rocchegiani don's only daughter. Not John Valachi; the one he’d murdered, Carlo Rocchegiani. Unless, of course, you listened to certain rumors, ones that said Astra wasn’t who the Pagliuca Family said she was, but Ace would rather believe the rumors were just that. Rumors. Rumors, and by their very nature unreliable and untrue.
Of course, seeing as most of his job depended on rumors, there was something in that belief that was going to come back and bite him in the ass.
*
Astra raised her coffee cup in acknowledgment as his cab pulled into he parking lot of the café she’d chosen for their meeting place this time. Ace waved at her, pulling out several bills from his pocket and thrusting them at the cabby.
“You seemed pretty pissed off over the phone,” were the first words out of her mouth as Ace neared her. The second ones were, predictably, a finger stabbed into his chest and, “You are so buying me breakfast. It’s six in the morning.”
Ace rolled his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the past twenty-four hours,” he snapped. “What, is it too much trouble to answer your phone anymore? Or is that getting too good for you?”
Astra jabbed another finger into his chest. “I do have a life outside of this little spy business, you know. An important one.”
“What, waiting to get married off to some underboss or capo?”
She cocked her head to one side. “Way past my expiration date there, pal. I’m over thirty and unwed. Likely to remain so for the forseeable future, too. Why? You got a problem with that?”
“Would the fact you weren’t answering your phone have something to do with the fact your brother’s missing?” To the waiter, “Table for two, please. In the back. By the wall. In a corner, if it’s possible.”
The waiter didn’t bat an eye. “This way, sir.”
Astra’s mouth was half-open in disbelief. She grabbed onto his elbow and held him in place. “How did you know that?” she hissed. “How did you –”
Ace shoved her forward and into the high-backed seat behind the cracked table. “If you haven’t heard, Pagliuca, Joey Sforza was arrested for his murder. His murder, not his disappearance, and if Pagliuca wants to stay friends with Constantine then they damn well better –”
Astra had regained some of the color in her face. “If you think you’re threatening me, Anthony Aciello, then you –”
“Fuck yes I’m threatening you,” Ace snarled. “One of Val’s guys – one of my friends – is under arrest. As far as I’ve heard – and I’ve had all my sources on the street for the past twenty-four hours looking into this fucking thing – neither Pagliuca or the Commission is doing one damned thing, and I want to know what the fuck is going on right the fuck now.”
Astra pressed her lips together sharply. “You are so lucky I don’t shoot you right now.”
Ace leaned over the table toward her. “You and I both know that if this was any normal hit and if Nicky really thought Joey had done it Pagliuca and the Commission would be jumping so far down Constantine’s throat they’d come out Val’s ass. Well, they’re not, and I want to know what the fuck is going on. And you’re going to tell me, Astra Pagliuca, or the Pagliuca Family will wake up to find both of their children missing.”
“I don’t believe this,” Astra said. “You – you, the street boss of a don who isn’t even from one of the Five Families, is barely considered Sicilian – is trying to tell me, the daughter of the capo di tutti capi, what to do. I thought you wanted to talk, Ace.”
“No,” Ace snarled. “What I want is to get Joey out of the hands of the NYPD, and to know what the fuck is going on. Someone is trying to involve Constantine in something that’s Family business, and –”
“If that’s what you think,” Astra interrupted coolly, “then you’re dumber than you look.” She stormed away, heels clicking on the linoleum floor.
Ace watched her back with anger and frustration twisting his features. “Coffee,” he said to the waiter who’d appeared by his side. “Lots of it. Black. None of that pansy milk and sugar.”
*
Val rested his head in his hands as Blackie Agugliaro left the room. One of his bodyguards, a soldier nicknamed the Drill for his interesting taste in torture devices, remained by the door, watching Val and Carmine with an unpleasant expression on his face. Agugliaro didn’t like Constantine; Constantine was only returning the favor.
Carmine leaned back in his chair, his expression mild. “You think the room is bugged?” he asked in a low voice.
“I’d put money of it,” Val said. He rubbed his knuckles over his eyes, then straightened up, turning to face Carmine. “How much do you know about what’s going on with Joey?” he asked in Greek, still speaking quietly.
Carmine shrugged, and replied in the same language, “Not one damned thing. Haven’t exactly had the time to get the news from anyone, have I?”
Val gnawed on his lower lip a moment. “It’s pretty bad, from what I’ve gathered. Haven’t had much time myself to figure out what’s going on.”
“You sure this is the best time to talk about it?”
“No, but we’re in conference for at least another couple hours. Joey might not have that long.”
Carmine felt his eyes widen. “What do you mean by that?”
Val’s eyes cut towards the Drill, then back towards Carmine. He leaned forward, speaking lower than ever and still in fluid, Bronx-accented Greek, “Three days ago Darin Pagliuca went missing. The body Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera found had all of his ID, and visible identification was impossible because the corpse was beaten to shit. A couple witnesses ID’d Joey as the one that killed Pagliuca. I’ve got guys trying to track ‘em down right now.”
Carmine let out a low whistle. “Darin Pagliuca,” he said. “Darin fucking Pagliuca. Shit. The Commission climbing down our throats yet?”
“That’s the problem. They’re not.” Val regarded Agugliaro’s ornate clock a moment. “Another couple of hours, you think?”
Carmine followed his gaze, met the Drill’s angry eyes, and said, “You should just let Ace whack ‘em all, would save us the trouble. Benny’s memory isn’t worth this, Val, the Agugliaros are nothing but trouble. I have contacts –” He paused, eyes flickering toward the Drill again. “Darin Pagliuca missing or dead, one of our guys blamed for the hit, and Pagliuca hasn’t even blinked in our direction yet? The Commission hasn’t looked at us? There’s something seriously fucked up going on, and I don’t like being dragged into Family business.”
“Danny’s not very happy with me at the moment,” Val said.
“The apology,” Carmine said, “that was a good thing, but maybe you should have waited more than a couple hours before asking him to pull strings.”
“You think?”
“Occasionally. ‘s’what you pay me for, right?”
Val laughed. “Well,” he said, “not all I pay you for.”
“Oh. There’s the bodyguard thing too, huh?”
“I pay you to be my underboss.”
“There’s that too, I guess,” Carmine grinned. Then he sobered. “The Agugliaros?”
“Aren’t getting a damned cent out of me. How am I supposed to trust a family that’s had capos in every one of the Five Families, the Constantines, the Dellamonacas, the Rossi-Pretes, and the Dell’ferrares? I think they’ve been trying to make records. Nine families, all in less than three generations.” Val shook his head. “I don’t know what the Families say about me in their cornerstore gentlemen’s clubs, but I’m not stupid.”
Carmine shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re not stupid.” What do they say about me? he wondered briefly. The d’Alessandro family’s loyalty ws traditionally to the Dellacroces, another one of the Five Families, and both Giovanni d’Alessandro and Orlando d’Alessandro – Carmine’s father and brother – had given their loyalty to the Dellacroces. Carmine hadn’t, never had, but knew that most of the Mafiosi in the Five Families looked on him as a traitor and a turncoat. Politics, like wars, hold nothing but blood and regret. Joey’s father had been a wise man. Fuck you, Louie Madonia, he thought, remembering cool metal beneath his palms and Joey unconscious at his feet. You tried to wipe out the bloodline, and all you did was wake Constantine’s anger. Constantine’s – not Sforza’s. Val had been barely old enough to drink, but he’d taken the gun from Carmine’s hand and fired it into the back of the hitman’s head without a moment of hesitation. Carmine had thought he’d grown out of doing rash things like that, but evidently a quarter of a century didn’t make much of an impression on him.
He coughed. “What, exactly, did you think calling Danny would accomplish? He’s NYPD, Val, not Constantine.”
Val glanced over at the Drill again. “My father’s getting out of prison sometime in the next couple years,” he said.
Carmine bit his lip. He put a hit out on his own son, he remembered. The Wren’s a fucking liar, he reminded himself, but the memory of the words lingered like acid in his brain. A hit out on his own son… “The Old Man’s almost eighty,” he said, trying to hold back the nausea in his throat. Luciano Constantine had never liked the d’Alessandros, and particularly not the quiet teenager Carmine had been at thirteen and fourteen and fifteen. The words Lucky had thrown at him and at Val still came back to haunt him sometimes. Hell of a thing to say to young, impressionable Mafioso. “You think he’ll try and take power?”
Val passed a hand over his face, looking tired. “I haven’t seen my father more than once a month for the past thirty years, Carmine. I haven’t known him – really known him – for at least that time.” Probably not before, either, hung unspoken in the air. Lucky had gone to prison when Val was fifteen. Carmine would be surprised if he remembered Lucky as anything more than a general impression of slender Greek-Italian Mafioso, dark haired and sharp-voiced with a Colt revolver at his hip. Always a Colt. Stickler for tradition, Lucky had been. Was probably disappointed with the fact his son had taken control of the family at fifteen, since the title of boss rarely went to anyone under the age of sixty. And he hadn’t liked Carmine, or Ace either, but he’d approved of Ace more than Carmine. Maybe it came from not being born Mafiosi, just another Italian-American kid from Bensonhurst who ran with the Patrisos’ new starter gang, the Tanglewood Boys. New then, that was, old and blooded by the time Danny joined up.
“The Wren – there’s a rumor out on the street about your father,” Carmine said jerkily.
Val looked at him with narrowed, curious eyes. Carmine didn’t do awkward, never had. “Yeah?”
He stared away a moment. “He –” The Wren, as slippery as oil and as unreliable. Val didn’t need to hear this. Didn’t know why he’d started to blurt out the words. The Old Man didn’t deserve a son like Val or a daughter like Angela had been. Didn’t deserve a grandson like Danny Messer, or any of his three brothers either. Didn’t need to know his son had married and divorced and married and divorced again in the short span of two years. Carmine’s hands clenched on the fabric of his slacks. God damn you, Agugliaro, get the fuck back in here RIGHT NOW.
“Carmine?”
The door swung open. “I’m sorry for not sending refreshments,” Blackie Agugliaro announced, swooping in with his brother Ralphie on his heels. He didn’t sound particularly sorry. “I should have thought of your comfort, Don Valentine.”
Val gave him a tight-lipped smile that said the lack had been noted and weighed, and was still coming to a conclusion. “Mr. Agugliaro,” he said in English. “Why don’t you have a seat, and maybe we can come to a conclusion that suits us both.” He wasn’t happy. Neither was Carmine, but for an entirely different reason.
Constantine shouldn’t have to be dragged into Family politics.