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bedlamsbardStupid - idiot - computer. Stop shutting my Internet down, dammit!
One or two chapters left, now. *is happy* I'm amused by the fact I seem to be reusing the themes from this - as well as some of the originals, like our friend Val and the rest of the Mafia - in my original.
Val stared at Carmine for maybe half a heartbeat, and finally said, “Can you delay the Commission?”
“Are you kidding me?” Carmine demanded. “Even if I could get ahold of my father – and knowing the old bastard, he’s likely to hang up on me if he thinks I want to fiddle with the Commission – he’s not going to agree to do anything Constantine wants.”
Val rubbed at his forehead, pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “This is a disaster,” he said, “and nothing’s even happened yet. Is the Commission going to meet today?”
“That woulda been the first question to ask,” Carmine said dryly. “Look, Val, it’s plastered across the news. Mafia bigwigs massacred in a public place in front of dozens of civilians? Something like that –” He shrugged. “Blue Eyes obviously’s got somethin’ on his mind.”
“Find out if Nicky’s calling the Commission,” Val said. He gave Carmine a meaningful look, something sparking behind his chocolate brown eyes. “By any means possible.”
Carmine shrugged, dropped into an armchair in the corner of the room. “You got it, boss,” he said. He pulled Val’s laptop toward him from where it was half open on the edge of the nearest glass-topped coffee table. His fingers flew over the keys as the screen filled with meaningless numbers and letters, green on black, then clearing to something easier to understand.
“Val,” Ace said, shoving the door open with one shoulder. He held up one hand, the glow of the light above caught on his cell phone. “You’re going to wanna see this.” He tossed it to Val as the boss turned his attention toward him.
Val glanced at it. “It’s a text message, Ace. Is that really –”
“It’s from Astra Pagliuca,” he said. “Read it. I swear, I’m not fucking with you.” He caught sight of Mac and Stella at Val’s desk, blinked brief confusion from his one eye before saying, “You want me to show the cops out?”
Stella bristled, but Val cut her off before she could speak. “No,” he said. “We might need them.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
“Val, our problems just got bigger,” Carmine said, lifting his head away from the laptop screen.
“What?”
“You know the tap you had me put on my dad’s phone the last time I went home?”
“Yeah?”
“Nicky Pagliuca called the Commission,” he said flatly.
Val closed his and let out a heavy sigh. “Just now?”
“Worse. An hour ago. He knew Freddy was gonna die. That hit didn’t go down fifteen minutes ago, the cops are goin’ fuckin’ crazy.”
“Jesus,” Val said, sweeping the back of one hand across his eyes. “You know what I said about this being a disaster. This isn’t a disaster. This is a nightmare.” He leaned across the desk to hand the cell phone to Mac. “Detective, what do you make of this?”
Ace started to murmur a protest; Carmine reached out with one foot and kicked him hard in the calf.
Mac regarded it with vague, almost clinical interest. “ ‘BE going to ice M Comm,’” he read. “ ‘Icemen at CCB, after hawk boss. 5F dead. Help, please.’ What –”
“Blue Eyes is going to kill the Mafia Commission,” Val said. “He has shooters at the Cap. Merda. The second the Commission declares him acting boss of the Patriso, he’s going to kill them. That’s all the bosses, all the underbosses, Jesus.” He swore again. “We need to delay the Commission. All the bosses can’t be there yet.”
Carmine glanced at the computer screen again, set it aside and reached for his cell phone. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“What are you doing?” Val demanded.
“I’m calling my dad, and hoping he answers the phone when he realizes it’s me.”
“Can you trace this?” Val asked Mac. “I don’t know how Astra knows this, but if it’s the truth – and it has to be, she wouldn’t resort to asking help of Constantine if it was just an assumption – we are deeply, deeply fucked. Blue Eyes won’t just hit the Commission and leave Constantine alone; we’re too much of a threat.”
“I’d tell you to stop flattering yourself, Val,” Ace said, “but unfortunately, I think you’re right. And I’m not going to leave Astra in a bad situation.” At the sudden looks they all gave him, he added belatedly, “I need the information too bad.”
“Yeah, sure,” Carmine snorted. “I’m afraid I gotta agree, though – Constantine can’t stay outta this. Dad? It’s Carmine. How ya doing?” His accent thickened as he spoke, then he fell into careless, easy Italian.
“What’s ‘CCB?’” Mac asked, glancing back down at the cell phone in his hand.
“Christopher Caponigro Building,” Val said distractedly. “Headquarters of the Mafia Commission, downtown in Little Italy. Named after the first Lancione boss, back before there was a Lancione Family, or a Five Families, back during the Castellammarese War.”
Stella leaned back in her chair, played with the strap on her gun holster. “Why should we care if a bunch of Mafioso get whacked?”
Val sighed. “The heads of the Families get whacked, they’ll tear themselves apart fighting for control. You think the only people getting killed will be mobsters? I’m sure you’ve saw what happened when John Valachi and Manny Caprio went to prison, or going back earlier, when Dante Dellacroce died. Even though he left an heir, Luca Senior still had to put down rebels that thought they could lead the family better than he could. Valachi and Caprio both named acting bosses; di Bonaventura’s still holding his position, and it looks like he’ll keep doing so. Valachi made a mistake; he left Carlo Gambione’s stepson Vito alive. Vito and Tommy tore the family apart fighting; Patriso made a mistake too and sided with Tommy Valachi. Lost a lot of face, lost a lot of money, lost a lot of men. When my father went to prison –” He stopped.
Joey, standing unnoticed in the doorway, said quietly, “Constantine fought too, the same as any other family. Blood means more here, though.”
“Stella,” Mac said, and put his hand on her elbow. She turned toward with her brown curls spinning over her shoulders, and he leaned forward to whisper in her ear.
“Grazie, Dad,” Carmine said, switching back to English. “Hold a sec, would ya? I wanna run something past Val. Yeah, I know you don’t like him. Nothing else is new news.” He cupped the mouthpiece of his phone in the palm of one hand. “Di Bonaventura hasn’t shown yet, but that’s no surprise; the guy was in fucking Jersey dealing with the damn Philly mob. Punks think they can muscle in on Commission ground.” He snorted a Commission Family’s disdain for the disassembled non-New Yorkers, then realized what he was doing and shot Val a sudden abashed look. Coughed. “Dellamonaca’s a wreck, anyway, they can’t do nothing but hope the Commission does them a couple favors and keep the Rossi-Prete on their own territory.”
“Whatever it is ya wanna do, Val, I’m in,” Joey said.
“Same here,” Ace said.
“Carmine?” Val asked, looking toward his underboss.
He sighed. “My dad don’t get hurt, Val,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck what you wanna do with the other families, but you leave the d’Alessandro alone, y’hear?”
Val stepped around his desk to touch Carmine lightly on the shoulder, and the smaller man turned his head up at him, a smile lingering around the edges of his mouth. “Always do, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” Carmine murmured. More decisively – “Yeah, you do that. Why ya need to ask if I’m in, anyway? I’m your underboss, ain’t I?”
Val ran his fingers over the thick gash of scar tissue surrounded by buzzcut red hair. “My mistake,” he said. Emerald green eyes met chocolate brown and held for a moment, infinitely tender, then the phone in Carmine’s hand squawked and he pulled away from Val. “Mi scusi, dad. Hold another sec, will ya?”
“What is it you want to do, Mr. Constantine?” Mac asked, as Stella pulled away with an unhappy look on her fine features. “I assume there’s a reason you’re keeping us here, and I’m trusting on Danny’s word it’s not ransom.”
“It’s not,” Val said flatly. “Not that there’s many people that would pay anything like I charge for a pair of NYPD detectives.”
Stella muttered something that sounded a lot like, “oh, you might be surprised,” but when Carmine glanced at her she was looking determinedly at Mac, her mouth a thin line of distaste.
Val set his jaw, an older, grimmer expression that Danny shared. “Blue Eyes Patriso,” he said, “has a house in Staten Island. Danny told me when I talked to him earlier today. I’ve had all of his known residences, all the places he hangs out, under surveillance, but I haven’t been able to find Darin Pagliuca. Darin has to be there, somewhere, and the only place I haven’t looked is the Staten Island house, which I didn’t know about until a few hours ago. The reason why is because up until recently, it wasn’t in Blue Eyes’ name and he doesn’t go there. The house used to belong to Vincent Patriso; it didn’t revert to Blue Eyes until his son passed away. Darin has to be there. I’m guessing Astra’s there too; I had a guy tailing her and he lost her this morning. Blue Eyes must have grabbed her then.” He shot Mac and Stella a sudden, unexpected smile. “Kidnapping is a crime, is it not?”
“It is,” Mac admitted. “But we –”
“My original plan didn’t involve you two,” Val said. “On the other hand, it didn’t involve Blue Eyes deciding he wanted to play Murder, Inc., either. I need to delay the Commission; you need to get the Pagliuca kids out.”
“ ‘Need?’” Stella repeated disbelievingly, but there was something distant and emerging on her face, as though a certain realization was dawning on her.
“Blue Eyes is going to be there,” Val said. “He has to be. He can’t show at the Commission; that’s a little too presumptive for them to appreciate. If anyone shows for Patriso it’ll be Carmine Gallo or Ralph Pastelli, Freddy’s consigliere and streetboss. Not Blue Eyes, not any of his capos. If he’s there and Darin and Astra Pagliuca are too, you can arrest him for kidnapping, yeah?”
“Yes,” Mac said reluctantly. “But we –”
Stella interrupted him. “What are you going to be doing?” she asked archly.
Val glanced at Carmine. “The first thing the Commission will discuss when opening ceremonies – which there aren’t much of – are concluded is who’s going to take control of the Patriso Family. They have to declare an acting boss; chances are they’ll meet again once the war’s worn itself out. By that time the acting boss will have consolidated his position; if he hasn’t, he’ll be dead. Gallo’s in Blue Eyes’ pocket, Pastelli’s one’a Freddy’s guys – but if Freddy didn’t leave behind an heir the Commission declares a boss. And if Gallo and Pastelli both deny the position – and Blue Eyes’ got Nicky’s kids – the capo di tutti capi’s going to declare Blue Eyes. The Commission has no reason to deny him that, if they don’t think he whacked his father. And most bosses and underbosses aren’t going to argue with the capo di tutti capi; John Valachi made a habit of taking heads of people who pissed him off. Couldn’t prove it, not in a court of law, but –” He shook his head. “The second Blue Eyes is declared boss his shooters will open fire, killing the Commission. That’ll leave the Families easy pickings for whatever carrion want to descend on the city. The Rossi-Prete would have a fucking field day.” He snorted. “Damned if I’m going to give them that. And the only way to delay the announcement,” he dug his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, raised his chin with a faintly martyred look on his handsome face, “is to give the Commission something even bigger than the Patriso hit to whaffle about.”
“What the hell you doin’, Val?” Joey said.
“Carmine, your dad still on the phone?”
Carmine glanced down at the phone in his hand. “Surprisingly, yeah.”
“Tell him Constantine’s paying the Mafia Commission a visit, and they’d be wise to delay all business until they hear what we got to say.”
One or two chapters left, now. *is happy* I'm amused by the fact I seem to be reusing the themes from this - as well as some of the originals, like our friend Val and the rest of the Mafia - in my original.
Val stared at Carmine for maybe half a heartbeat, and finally said, “Can you delay the Commission?”
“Are you kidding me?” Carmine demanded. “Even if I could get ahold of my father – and knowing the old bastard, he’s likely to hang up on me if he thinks I want to fiddle with the Commission – he’s not going to agree to do anything Constantine wants.”
Val rubbed at his forehead, pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “This is a disaster,” he said, “and nothing’s even happened yet. Is the Commission going to meet today?”
“That woulda been the first question to ask,” Carmine said dryly. “Look, Val, it’s plastered across the news. Mafia bigwigs massacred in a public place in front of dozens of civilians? Something like that –” He shrugged. “Blue Eyes obviously’s got somethin’ on his mind.”
“Find out if Nicky’s calling the Commission,” Val said. He gave Carmine a meaningful look, something sparking behind his chocolate brown eyes. “By any means possible.”
Carmine shrugged, dropped into an armchair in the corner of the room. “You got it, boss,” he said. He pulled Val’s laptop toward him from where it was half open on the edge of the nearest glass-topped coffee table. His fingers flew over the keys as the screen filled with meaningless numbers and letters, green on black, then clearing to something easier to understand.
“Val,” Ace said, shoving the door open with one shoulder. He held up one hand, the glow of the light above caught on his cell phone. “You’re going to wanna see this.” He tossed it to Val as the boss turned his attention toward him.
Val glanced at it. “It’s a text message, Ace. Is that really –”
“It’s from Astra Pagliuca,” he said. “Read it. I swear, I’m not fucking with you.” He caught sight of Mac and Stella at Val’s desk, blinked brief confusion from his one eye before saying, “You want me to show the cops out?”
Stella bristled, but Val cut her off before she could speak. “No,” he said. “We might need them.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
“Val, our problems just got bigger,” Carmine said, lifting his head away from the laptop screen.
“What?”
“You know the tap you had me put on my dad’s phone the last time I went home?”
“Yeah?”
“Nicky Pagliuca called the Commission,” he said flatly.
Val closed his and let out a heavy sigh. “Just now?”
“Worse. An hour ago. He knew Freddy was gonna die. That hit didn’t go down fifteen minutes ago, the cops are goin’ fuckin’ crazy.”
“Jesus,” Val said, sweeping the back of one hand across his eyes. “You know what I said about this being a disaster. This isn’t a disaster. This is a nightmare.” He leaned across the desk to hand the cell phone to Mac. “Detective, what do you make of this?”
Ace started to murmur a protest; Carmine reached out with one foot and kicked him hard in the calf.
Mac regarded it with vague, almost clinical interest. “ ‘BE going to ice M Comm,’” he read. “ ‘Icemen at CCB, after hawk boss. 5F dead. Help, please.’ What –”
“Blue Eyes is going to kill the Mafia Commission,” Val said. “He has shooters at the Cap. Merda. The second the Commission declares him acting boss of the Patriso, he’s going to kill them. That’s all the bosses, all the underbosses, Jesus.” He swore again. “We need to delay the Commission. All the bosses can’t be there yet.”
Carmine glanced at the computer screen again, set it aside and reached for his cell phone. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“What are you doing?” Val demanded.
“I’m calling my dad, and hoping he answers the phone when he realizes it’s me.”
“Can you trace this?” Val asked Mac. “I don’t know how Astra knows this, but if it’s the truth – and it has to be, she wouldn’t resort to asking help of Constantine if it was just an assumption – we are deeply, deeply fucked. Blue Eyes won’t just hit the Commission and leave Constantine alone; we’re too much of a threat.”
“I’d tell you to stop flattering yourself, Val,” Ace said, “but unfortunately, I think you’re right. And I’m not going to leave Astra in a bad situation.” At the sudden looks they all gave him, he added belatedly, “I need the information too bad.”
“Yeah, sure,” Carmine snorted. “I’m afraid I gotta agree, though – Constantine can’t stay outta this. Dad? It’s Carmine. How ya doing?” His accent thickened as he spoke, then he fell into careless, easy Italian.
“What’s ‘CCB?’” Mac asked, glancing back down at the cell phone in his hand.
“Christopher Caponigro Building,” Val said distractedly. “Headquarters of the Mafia Commission, downtown in Little Italy. Named after the first Lancione boss, back before there was a Lancione Family, or a Five Families, back during the Castellammarese War.”
Stella leaned back in her chair, played with the strap on her gun holster. “Why should we care if a bunch of Mafioso get whacked?”
Val sighed. “The heads of the Families get whacked, they’ll tear themselves apart fighting for control. You think the only people getting killed will be mobsters? I’m sure you’ve saw what happened when John Valachi and Manny Caprio went to prison, or going back earlier, when Dante Dellacroce died. Even though he left an heir, Luca Senior still had to put down rebels that thought they could lead the family better than he could. Valachi and Caprio both named acting bosses; di Bonaventura’s still holding his position, and it looks like he’ll keep doing so. Valachi made a mistake; he left Carlo Gambione’s stepson Vito alive. Vito and Tommy tore the family apart fighting; Patriso made a mistake too and sided with Tommy Valachi. Lost a lot of face, lost a lot of money, lost a lot of men. When my father went to prison –” He stopped.
Joey, standing unnoticed in the doorway, said quietly, “Constantine fought too, the same as any other family. Blood means more here, though.”
“Stella,” Mac said, and put his hand on her elbow. She turned toward with her brown curls spinning over her shoulders, and he leaned forward to whisper in her ear.
“Grazie, Dad,” Carmine said, switching back to English. “Hold a sec, would ya? I wanna run something past Val. Yeah, I know you don’t like him. Nothing else is new news.” He cupped the mouthpiece of his phone in the palm of one hand. “Di Bonaventura hasn’t shown yet, but that’s no surprise; the guy was in fucking Jersey dealing with the damn Philly mob. Punks think they can muscle in on Commission ground.” He snorted a Commission Family’s disdain for the disassembled non-New Yorkers, then realized what he was doing and shot Val a sudden abashed look. Coughed. “Dellamonaca’s a wreck, anyway, they can’t do nothing but hope the Commission does them a couple favors and keep the Rossi-Prete on their own territory.”
“Whatever it is ya wanna do, Val, I’m in,” Joey said.
“Same here,” Ace said.
“Carmine?” Val asked, looking toward his underboss.
He sighed. “My dad don’t get hurt, Val,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck what you wanna do with the other families, but you leave the d’Alessandro alone, y’hear?”
Val stepped around his desk to touch Carmine lightly on the shoulder, and the smaller man turned his head up at him, a smile lingering around the edges of his mouth. “Always do, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” Carmine murmured. More decisively – “Yeah, you do that. Why ya need to ask if I’m in, anyway? I’m your underboss, ain’t I?”
Val ran his fingers over the thick gash of scar tissue surrounded by buzzcut red hair. “My mistake,” he said. Emerald green eyes met chocolate brown and held for a moment, infinitely tender, then the phone in Carmine’s hand squawked and he pulled away from Val. “Mi scusi, dad. Hold another sec, will ya?”
“What is it you want to do, Mr. Constantine?” Mac asked, as Stella pulled away with an unhappy look on her fine features. “I assume there’s a reason you’re keeping us here, and I’m trusting on Danny’s word it’s not ransom.”
“It’s not,” Val said flatly. “Not that there’s many people that would pay anything like I charge for a pair of NYPD detectives.”
Stella muttered something that sounded a lot like, “oh, you might be surprised,” but when Carmine glanced at her she was looking determinedly at Mac, her mouth a thin line of distaste.
Val set his jaw, an older, grimmer expression that Danny shared. “Blue Eyes Patriso,” he said, “has a house in Staten Island. Danny told me when I talked to him earlier today. I’ve had all of his known residences, all the places he hangs out, under surveillance, but I haven’t been able to find Darin Pagliuca. Darin has to be there, somewhere, and the only place I haven’t looked is the Staten Island house, which I didn’t know about until a few hours ago. The reason why is because up until recently, it wasn’t in Blue Eyes’ name and he doesn’t go there. The house used to belong to Vincent Patriso; it didn’t revert to Blue Eyes until his son passed away. Darin has to be there. I’m guessing Astra’s there too; I had a guy tailing her and he lost her this morning. Blue Eyes must have grabbed her then.” He shot Mac and Stella a sudden, unexpected smile. “Kidnapping is a crime, is it not?”
“It is,” Mac admitted. “But we –”
“My original plan didn’t involve you two,” Val said. “On the other hand, it didn’t involve Blue Eyes deciding he wanted to play Murder, Inc., either. I need to delay the Commission; you need to get the Pagliuca kids out.”
“ ‘Need?’” Stella repeated disbelievingly, but there was something distant and emerging on her face, as though a certain realization was dawning on her.
“Blue Eyes is going to be there,” Val said. “He has to be. He can’t show at the Commission; that’s a little too presumptive for them to appreciate. If anyone shows for Patriso it’ll be Carmine Gallo or Ralph Pastelli, Freddy’s consigliere and streetboss. Not Blue Eyes, not any of his capos. If he’s there and Darin and Astra Pagliuca are too, you can arrest him for kidnapping, yeah?”
“Yes,” Mac said reluctantly. “But we –”
Stella interrupted him. “What are you going to be doing?” she asked archly.
Val glanced at Carmine. “The first thing the Commission will discuss when opening ceremonies – which there aren’t much of – are concluded is who’s going to take control of the Patriso Family. They have to declare an acting boss; chances are they’ll meet again once the war’s worn itself out. By that time the acting boss will have consolidated his position; if he hasn’t, he’ll be dead. Gallo’s in Blue Eyes’ pocket, Pastelli’s one’a Freddy’s guys – but if Freddy didn’t leave behind an heir the Commission declares a boss. And if Gallo and Pastelli both deny the position – and Blue Eyes’ got Nicky’s kids – the capo di tutti capi’s going to declare Blue Eyes. The Commission has no reason to deny him that, if they don’t think he whacked his father. And most bosses and underbosses aren’t going to argue with the capo di tutti capi; John Valachi made a habit of taking heads of people who pissed him off. Couldn’t prove it, not in a court of law, but –” He shook his head. “The second Blue Eyes is declared boss his shooters will open fire, killing the Commission. That’ll leave the Families easy pickings for whatever carrion want to descend on the city. The Rossi-Prete would have a fucking field day.” He snorted. “Damned if I’m going to give them that. And the only way to delay the announcement,” he dug his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, raised his chin with a faintly martyred look on his handsome face, “is to give the Commission something even bigger than the Patriso hit to whaffle about.”
“What the hell you doin’, Val?” Joey said.
“Carmine, your dad still on the phone?”
Carmine glanced down at the phone in his hand. “Surprisingly, yeah.”
“Tell him Constantine’s paying the Mafia Commission a visit, and they’d be wise to delay all business until they hear what we got to say.”