FAMILY TIES: A Mafia Love Story (Erotic Mafia Romance) (4 page)

CHAPTER SIX: SAMMIE
 

             
I walked into Tony “Fat boy” Fattore’s dining room and found myself amongst Mafioso royalty. There were representatives from three different Borgata’s…or families in the city. There should be four, one was conspicuously absent.

“There he is,” Tony said, pushing his failing body up out of his chair. I would have told him to stay there, but it wouldn’t have done any good. He came to me and kissed both sides of my face and then embraced me. Then with a pat of his hand on my cheek, he said, “Ahh…Sammie boy.”

“Tony, it’s so good to see you, as always.”

Another man came towards me then,

“Sammie,” he said, kissing and embracing me the way that Tony had, but without the emotion behind it.

“Salvatore, it’s good to see you,” I lied.

Tony was the Underboss of the family, my father’s right hand man for almost forty years. Every decision that affected any kind of change in the family had gone through first my father and then Tony for four decades. Salvatore “Savage” Salvaticci was the Consigliere which meant he was to be consulted on every decision the boss and his underboss made. Normally it was a position equal to or even more important than the Underboss. Things changed after the men came to America.

Back in Sicily when the three men were young they made all of their decisions together. My Papa and Tony had grown up in the same tenement and were best friends since they were in diapers. Salvatore came into their life later on, he married my Aunt Theresa. Family was everything to Guido Romo and Theresa was Papa’s favorite sister. His position as her husband cemented him a place in the hierarchy for life.

The three men and their new families came to the States together and they worked hard together to achieve their positions in this family. They came over in the sixties when the mafia was still in its “Golden Ages.” The family had a hand in everything in the city and it was an organization built on trust and respect. The seventies began to change all that. The street gangs came into play and wars began to erupt. The government started passing the RICO laws that made the arrest and prosecution of members of the mafia easier. It also made breaking the code of silence more appealing and the family saw an era of more members of the family turning State’s evidence than ever before. The U.S. Marshall’s were working overtime trying to keep the “rats” safe, but not many of them made it to their new homes and identities. They ended up in a cheap urn on the wall of the county morgue. Not even their blood relations would have dared to pick them up. The government had evolved with new ways to get information like anonymous tips on the internet and new ways to track and monitor people and even exacting revenge on a rat had become next to impossible. Only the best soldiers would be enlisted for a job like that.

Unfortunately for my Uncle Sal, he didn’t roll well with change. He wanted decisions to be made the way they used to be and Papa and Tony were smart enough to know that would never work. Salvatore fought them at every turn, but my father was a strong leader and Sal eventually faded into the background and became no more than a figure head. His spot was cemented until he died, but it was nothing more than a title.

Sal tolerated it because he had to. His only choice would have been to leave and be shunned, or worse. I think he also thought that someday he’d be made underboss to Tony’s boss and from there, when Tony died he would eventually be King. He was the youngest of the three men and with over ten years on them, I think he was sure he’d outlive them both. When Papa died and Tony announced that I was being groomed to succeed him Sal was shocked and angry. Since being angry with Tony might be dangerous for him and being angry with Papa now that he was dead was pointless, he’d turned his anger towards me.

The representatives there from the other two families were both Capo’s like me. Donatello “Donny” Martello ran a crew on the east side and Nico Gallo, ran a crew on the West. They both said hello and Donny told me how sorry he was for my loss. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about my father or Lucio but I accepted his condolences.

“So you’ve heard the grave news?” Tony asked me.

“Yes, poor Lucio. He wasn’t just part of my crew, he was a friend. He was a good friend.”

“I agree,” Tony told me. “Did Marco tell you where he was shot?”

“No, he said it was a message job though.”

“They shot him in both eyes,” Sal said.

I raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t respond. Sal seemed happy to be the one to tell me. He was a passive-aggressive son of a bitch.

Shooting someone in the eyes meant,
“I’m watching you,”
in our world. I honestly had no idea who it could be that wanted to send me a message so desperately that they would kill my best friend to do it.

“Sit down, Sammie.” Tony told me. I took a seat at the table with the others and Tony said,

“Does anyone know of any beefs against us?”

Everyone looked around the table and when no one said anything I asked, “Why are the Gambino’s absent?”

“Carmine is still put off by the fact I won’t consider that fat fuck Christopher for boss. He sent word that he couldn’t make it, made up some stupid fucking excuse so I couldn’t accuse him of disrespect, but we all know why he’s not here,” Tony said. Tony’s voice was getting raspier and he seemed like he had a lot harder time breathing every time I saw him. He was dying of throat cancer….but only he and I knew that.

The Christopher he spoke so disdainfully of was the son of Carmine Gambino. Carmine had been a Capo as long as my Pop had been the boss. He had also come over from Sicily the same year as the three reigning leaders of the family. Because of his father’s status, Christopher was made young, like me. He was like a machine as a soldier. He had no emotion and no regrets about anything he did. He spent a few years in prison because he had taken the rap for something that went down in the family. In Carmine’s defense here, Christopher had saved a lot of people in the family from going down at that time. He was what we referred to as a “stand-up guy.” That was someone who risked personal harm or misfortune rather than rat on the family. It was a big deal, and if it had been anyone but Christopher he probably would have been considered for the promotion ahead of me. The problem was that aside from doing whatever he was told to do and being willing to do time, Christopher was basically a moron. He ran a lot of drugs when he was a kid and he sampled a lot of product. That led to burnt brain cells and impulse control issues. None of that was conducive to being the boss.

“So do you think Carmine is angry enough to have taken it as far as killing Lucio?”

“No, Carmine is hot-headed but he’s not an idiot,” Tony said.

“What about Christopher?” I asked. “He is an idiot.”

Tony let out a raspy laugh and then had a coughing fit. I think I almost saw Sal lick his lips like the cat that waited for the canary to die. When he finished coughing he said,

“True, but Christopher only does what he’s told. He’s not smart enough to do otherwise. If Carmine didn’t tell him to do it, he wouldn’t have.”

“I will have to talk to my crew. We have a meet tomorrow. As far as I know there haven’t been any problems. I doubt they would have kept it from me if there were.” My crew worked the north side. We did all the collections, ran three legitimate businesses, and made sure that no one was trying to muscle in on our territory. Unless one of my guys was holding out on me…and I doubted it, things had been running smoothly. “What about the cops? What are they saying?”

“The Zebra’s figured out who Lucio was and turned it over to the First Bunch of Idiots. I doubt we’ll get much feedback from them.” Tony spat out his derogatory terms for uniformed officers and the FBI. The only thing he hated more than a cop was a rat. I loved Tony, almost as much as I had loved my papa, but I did hope he reached the end of his life before I did what I had to do. He was the one person left alive that I truly cared what he thought.

We talked some more about family business and who was going to be made soon and who would probably only stay an associate for life. Some guys just didn’t have what it took to be soldiers, but they were useful for other reasons. We batted around a few ideas about who might be pissed enough at me to send a warning, but nothing concrete came out of it. As we wrapped up the meeting Tony said,

“I’ll reach out to Paulie.” He still got that sad look in his eyes when he said Paulie’s name. Paulie was Tony’s son, Paul. Paul’s first sin against his father had been dropping Tony’s last name and taking his mother’s maiden name: Labruzzo. He’d done that so that he could pursue his second sin without being recognized by his name. He wanted to be a police officer. He’d graduated the academy twelve years earlier and worked a beat in Queens for eleven. He’d just made detective this past year and was now working vice in the Bronx. The only reason Tony would even consider reaching out to him was because right after he got his gold shield, Paulie had come to his father and warned him about a sting operation that would have ended with Tony and several other higher ups, probably my Papa as well, in a private cell out on Riker’s Island. Paulie swore to his father that would be the one and only time he helped him…or us in any way. He wanted out of the family and he looked at the NYPD as his way out. As Tony was about to prove by “reaching out” to him, that was much easier said than done.

“You’ll let me know what he says?” I asked.

Tony stood up and came over to me. He took my hands and said,

“Of course,” then he kissed my cheeks again and whispered, “I wish you were my son.”

I smiled at him, but I was imagining that if he knew what I intended to do…or that I was even thinking about it, he’d appreciate his son the cop.

******

              When I left Tony’s I had Jon drive me to Camilla’s apartment. I was dreading this, although I believed that Lucio wasn’t breaking his wedding vows by sleeping with her, I suspected they were very much in love.

              As we drove up, I saw two of my soldier’s posted across the street. I’d had them watching her since I found out about Lucio. I would hate for sweet Camilla to get caught in the middle of my war. It was the wars like this one, when you didn’t know who you were fighting and the lives of innocents were at stake that I hated so badly.

I told Jon I would call him when I was ready. I didn’t know if she’d be okay to leave alone tonight. Once in front of her door I took a deep breath and knocked. She pulled open the door with a smile. The smile faltered when she saw it was me, but was replaced almost as quickly.

“Sammie! It’s so good to see you, please come in.” I followed her in and looked around. She had taken the crummy little apartment and in the short time she’d lived there, she had turned it into a home. Her decorations swung towards the flower-child era. Camilla always told Lucio and me that she was born too late. She should have been born during the era of “free love.” She wore her blonde hair straight and long. It hung to the tops of her thighs in back and was parted down the middle. I’d never seen her in anything except jeans and t-shirts with political sayings on them. It was just who she was, and her ability to remain true to herself even with all the adversity she’d faced in her life was one of the things I admired most about her.

I took the seat she offered me, but declined the tea. I did my best to steady my voice as I said,

“Camilla, I’m so sorry to tell you this…” Her face registered sheer terror and for a second I thought she knew what I was going to tell her. Then she said,

“Is it Michael? Did he find me?”

Michael was her ex-husband. She could stand naked in Times Square and they could broadcast it nationwide. Michael would never be able to get to her again. I didn’t tell her that though. Instead I said,

“No, Camilla. It’s not about Michael. It’s about Lucio, he’s been killed.”

“What? Oh my God! No!” she screamed and jumped to her feet. Then looking as if she didn’t know what to do with herself she dropped back down into the chair. Then she stood up again. “Who, Sammie? Who would want to hurt Lucio? He was the sweetest man who ever lived. Was it her? His wife?”

“No, his wife is family,” I told her. By “family,” Camilla knew what I meant. She would know better than to have someone in my crew killed, even if he was her husband. I think it was someone with a beef against me, Camilla. I’m sorry.” Tears were streaming silently down her face. She was pale and for a second I feared she would pass out. She sat down again and then she let her body glide down to the floor as she dissolved into a puddle of tears. I sat down next to her and ran my hand down her hair and pat her back. I didn’t say anything. I knew there was nothing I could say to soften the blow I’d just given her. I let her cry and when she was able to speak again she said,

“What will I do without him, Sammie? I loved him so much!”

I knew she didn’t expect me to have an answer for that. I assured her that I would do whatever she needed to help her get through this. For the next hour she alternated between sadness and anger. She finally cried herself to sleep. I stayed with her, falling asleep on the couch just before the sun came up. When I woke up, Camilla had coffee made and she looked like she was in a little better place anyways.

“Make sure that you don’t go anywhere alone,” I told her. “Don’t let anyone other than myself in unless I’ve called to let you know someone was coming over, okay?” She looked frightened and I hated that was because of me. She’d grown up in this life though; her father was one of my father’s soldier’s until he too was found dead. She understood what was at stake. She nodded and I hugged her again.