Brian Thomsen & Martin H. Greenberg (ed), page 20
Danetti was still swimming in confusion.
“It’s just a dream.” He repeated his mantra. He might have been saying it out loud or under his breath. He no longer knew. He might have been screaming. “It’s just a dream!”
How long had he felt around blindly for the weapon he was sure he had dropped, mistaking it—somehow—for a shoe? A minute? An hour? Two weeks? He had no idea.
Another sound brought him up to his knees, and he saw that light was once again seeping through the louvers. He put his face up close and squinted. Through one eye only he could see a figure moving.
Danetti moved even closer to the louver, and it hit him over the eyebrow.
“Damn,” he whispered.
The moving figure turned at the sound and was suddenly haloed in a kind of green light, like the light of an aquarium.
Danetti froze. The face was Ivan’s.
Another sound, this time from behind Ivan. It was something like a rushing river and something like a snore. Ivan turned and raised his arm. Once, twice he struck something; then, whistling a bit of a song that Danetti recognized vaguely, Ivan turned and walked through a door.
Not out. Through.
Danetti opened the closet door, and found himself on the banks of a stream. In the middle of the water, which was a wash of red, lay a casket.
He peeked in.
Sam Castanetta lay grinning up at him out of two red mouths. One was in its proper place, the other was five inches beneath.
Danetti held his breath, closed his eyes, and turned.
Behind him was a door. It was shut.
Remembering what Ivan had done, and expecting any moment to be knocked silly, he walked straight into the door.
And through.
Ivan was washing his hands in a magnificent bathroom off the bedroom when Danetti came into view.
“Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him,” Ivan remarked to the mirror.
Danetti looked puzzled. “Castanetta wasn’t all that old.”
“It is Shakespeare, you yobbo,” Ivan growled, turning.
“Yobbo?” Danetti was puzzled. The whole deal was puzzling. Like a dream. It had to be a dream.
But before he could figure out what kind of dream, Ivan had lifted something from the sink. It hadn’t been his hands he was washing after all, but a knife. A big, bloody knife.
Ivan flung himself, knife first, at Danetti.
Danetti reached for his gun, remembered it was a shoe on a closet floor somewhere, and stepped aside.
“My dream,” he cried, “not yours! So I can’t die!” He put his foot out and tripped Ivan.
Ivan fell forward, the knife flipped over, and he landed onto the blade, which filleted him as if he had been a prize salmon. His eyes opened wide and his mouth, fishlike, opened and shut. Not a sound came out, not even a whistle.
Danetti sat down hard on the floor next to the dying man. For a moment he could scarcely breath himself. His heart was pounding much too quickly. He willed himself to calm down. “After all,” he whispered, “it’s only a dream.”
He heard a sound beside him and looked. It was some kind of hospital equipment. The sound was that of the image going flatline. He closed his eyes, sighing.
When he opened them again, he was lying on his own bed. Something hard was digging into his armpit. He sat up and felt it. It was his pistol in its holster. The noisy thing by his ear was not a hospital machine at all but the telephone.
He picked up the receiver. “Hello?” He was amazed at how calm his voice sounded.
The captain bellowed in his ear. “You are never in your wildest dreams gonna believe who showed up dead this morning.”
Danetti sighed. “Don’t count on it,” he said. “You have no idea how wild my dreams can get.” He pulled up his pants and reached into his jacket pocket for a stick of gum.
A tasseled loafer fell to the floor.
* * *
Dons & The Damned
“One owes one’s Don a certain
amount of tribute.”
Some overly optimistic friends of mine say that there is a little bit of magic in everything we do. I can’t help but look at this as both a blessing and a curse, as do the other writers in this section of contemporary tales of mob magic. Jody Lynn Nye examines the complex web of power upon which a family’s influence is based, while Randall G. Thomas examines the role an enchanted charm plays in a mobster’s quest for power. The section is then rounded out by two very different fish stories, with Roland Green sending his gangsters to a watery grave, while I prefer to have my contract executed in a slightly tastier manner.
Bon appetit!
* * *
POWER CORRUPTS
by Jody Lynn Nye
“Carboni?”
Michael sprang to his feet and shook down his pants legs. The stone-faced man in the thousand-dollar navy wool suit beckoned him to follow and strode off down the hall. He stepped aside to let Michael pass into the mahogany-paneled office and pulled the door behind him. Michael felt the wards close tight, too. The wizened little man in the ten-thousand-dollar suit behind the black marble desk came around and ceremoniously kissed Michael on each cheek.
“Michaelangelo,” he said. “How’s my good little soldier?”
“Don Amici,” Michael replied, bending over to kiss the ring on the small man’s right pinkie. The big diamond had grown significantly in size in the two years since he first came to ask a favor, a sign that the Don had added to his dominion. Michael had been important in that growth, but still, a part of him shook with nerves. How dare he come to demand a reward for what was no more, after all, than loyal service?
“So what do you want, boy?” the don asked, settling back in his russet leather easy chair. It tilted back, and the don flicked a finger. The springs froze silently in place. Michael envied him his absolute ease with magic and swallowed nervously. He straightened his tie.
“With respect, Don, I’ve been thinking—I’ve got my territory out east under control. We’re channeling covert immigration, the gambling houses, the person favors, all at a nice profit to the Family. I think I can handle more.”
“You want what, then?” the little man asked, impatiently.
Michael stiffened his back. “I’d like to move up. I’m ready. I want a bigger piece of the action, Don Amici. I can do more for the Family if I get it. I work hard—I think it would be a good thing.” The old man lowered his eyebrows, still black although the rest of his hair was iron gray.
“What are you, Martha Stewart? I decide who gets upped. I told you, boy. I told you two years ago, when you first came to me, you couldn’t resist asking for more, and here you are.” He chuckled. “I shoulda made a bet on it. Don’t be too greedy, sonny. If you make the angels jealous, they’ll bring you down.”
Michael was ashamed, but the old man was right. He had told Michael so. The power was intoxicating. It was that which drove him, far more than the thought of doing good for the Family or obedience to the lieutenants and captains above him. He’d had a taste, and he wanted more. He had to have more.
He’d come to the Don on Fat Tuesday two years before. At the time, he’d believed it was an auspicious date, but it turned out to be the last good time before he felt as though he were living in a perpetual state of Lent.
To become a member of the Family web meant getting power, real power, magic like he’d heard about in fairy tales as a baby. He’d always seen guys on the street using it, according to their place in the Family hierarchy. The lower-downs used little spells, such as making a flatfoot look the other way when some deal was going on, or fixing a hole in a tire. The upper-ups had a lot more. They could sweep a showgirl right out of the chorus line and into their hotel rooms. They could empty any unwarded bank vault or shop window with a mere flick of the finger. They could change computer files or wipe them clean. Weak-minded politicians were nothing but meat to them. Michael craved that kind of power. To get magic in the first place meant taking an oath of allegience to his lieutenant, his Uncle Fabio, in front of the Don, as their senior capo, the highest power on this continent. The moment that vow was spoken, Michael felt—no, he knew he had done something irrevocable. But the rewards that had come with his vow were undeniable, and addictive.
Like every new soldier, his magic was the lower-down, hole-and-corner stuff. He could change the print on a letter, unlock doors without keys, and, in one moment that he would never forget as long as he lived, vanish the bullet out of the chamber of a gun that a rival gang member was aiming at him just a split second before the guy pulled the trigger. The weird thing was how good it felt to use the power. He found excuses to cast little spells, wallowing in the tingle that went through him as the magic rushed out of his fingertips. The big guys told him he had an aptitude for it, and he was proud.
The Family, too, benefited from having another soldier on the line. Every new guy, even one on a low rung, added to the linked power of the magic web. Every addition caused all the guys above to become even more powerful. All new magic was shared out up the line in proportion to rank. In a way, it wasn’t a fair deal. Nobody’s whole strength belonged to him. Only the person at the center of the web had all his own marbles, and a piece of everyone else’s into the bargain. The capo, Don Amici, occupied that place and had all that power at his fingertips. Michael wanted it, but it was out of his reach. The moment he’d taken that vow, he was stuck in the hierarchy where it placed him. He had to find a way to climb the ladder and take control. If he couldn’t do it with permission, he had to do it without. And he had an idea how to make it work.
Respectfully, he took his leave of the don. “I’m sorry if I wasted your time, capo.”
“Never wasted,” Don Amici said, rising from his chair to pat Michael’s cheek. “I like to see ambition like yours. One day, it’ll take you places.”
“I hope so.” Michael bit his tongue to keep from saying more. He would never leave the room alive if the magic monitors that guarded the don from invasion could read his thoughts.
“Don’t be such a stranger,” Don Amici called, as the blank-faced sentry walked Michael down the hall.
“What did he say?”
“He said no, what do you think?” Michael said peevishly, brushing aside the round-cheeked man with tight-curled red-gold hair, then turned to catch his arm. “I apologize, Samel.”
“No problem, boss.” Samel Borovets was a good guy. So was Joey Biggs. Both of them had come from the bowling team of a friend of a friend. Untraceable and trustworthy.
“So we go ahead with the plan?” Joey asked, grinning with his big teeth in his narrow face. He didn’t have it all upstairs, but he was loyal.
“Yeah, we go ahead. But don’t tell me anything, you understand?” Michael said, pointing a finger at each of their chests. “Nothing.”
Samel grinned, his wide eyes guileless. “It’d be like we never met, boss. We’re not doing anything, personally, right?”
“You can’t,” Michael said automatically. It was the oath talking.
“Of course not. I can’t. I won’t. I promise you.”
“Me, neither,” said Joey, his sincere, silly face nodding.
“Good enough,” Michael said, climbing into the back of the big, black Lincoln. “Drive me somewhere. I have to think.”
The power worked like a one-way valve. You could “use” someone below you, take their magic and bend it to your own will, but you couldn’t use anyone above you without their permission. That meant the upper-ups had plenty more power than lower downs. If you recruited more soldiers, your power was increased, but so was that of the people above you, in proportion to their position on the totem pole. You had to share the benefits of your work with so many people that any single increase felt minimal. Michael wanted his voltage upped. Not just one soldier at a time but a big increase. The power gave him a high, almost sexual— almost better than sex because there was no guilt afterward. He wanted desperately to know how it felt in the highest ranks. But, no, he couldn’t move up, because he couldn’t get past anyone above him. Without permission, they were inviolate, and nobody would give consent to a pass. This wasn’t golf. He had to keep recruiting people to increase his share, and it hurt when he found someone good and they had already been sworn by another lieutenant. He became compulsive about looking for more. The Family web was the perfect pyramid scheme, entirely self-perpetuating and unbreakable. No one ever quit, not that they could. The magic was too good to leave behind. For five hundred years the chain had continued unbroken.
The person at the center of the web controlled it all, had the world at his fingertips. Michael had thought deep and hard about his dilemma. The only way to be at the center would be if you started the mob in the first place. Day one. If he built himself a little empire now, it would still belong to the people above him. And even with a thousand soldiers, he couldn’t do a thing about the upper-ups. It was like slavery. Once they were sworn in, that was it.
The American web was independent because all the capos over Don Amici in the old country had died. Michael could be there in that center office. The position of absolute power was just sitting there waiting for him, and he couldn’t have it until he moved up four more ranks. Which was taking far too long. He had to make room.
The way he saw it, his problem lay in a straight line. Not everyone of a higher rank was directly connected with his chain of command. The other upper-ups working for Don Amici were captains who had grown big empires not connected to Michael’s captain, a man named Dan Moko, who was right underneath the capo. Moko’s lieutenant was a guy called Peter Mon-tmorency, who had sworn Michael’s Uncle Fabio, who had sworn him. Four steps to the top of the heap. They might as well be chasms because of that oneway valve.
At first, Michael thought of going to outside forces to bust the levels above him, but he dismissed the idea without hesitation. There was no way he’d involve law enforcement. The cops rousted Family members every time there was an unexplained death or a mysterious robbery. They tried to act as though they had so much on him. Penny ante. He’d do time for nothing, for squat. They couldn’t get him behind bars or even in front of a grand jury. Even with his minor-league spells he could wipe out their files on him. But they pushed at him, fishing for information about the web. They knew about it. They’d tried to break it up more than once. There were task forces out studying it, trying to find the weak places. They were curious about it. It was seductive. The Feds had a little magic, stuff cobbled together from hereditary witches and computer wizards, but nothing as big or as organized, or as powerful, as the Family. They wanted data, and they figured he’d blab what he knew about how it worked in exchange for their help. Michael turned them down every time. If they started interfering with the web, there’d be nothing left for him when he finally got where he was going.
The cops and the Feds had tried to infiltrate the Family before. They’d sent undercover agents, but the instant the moles took the oath to the Family, they blew their own covers. Michael called it the pentathol spill. The second the power hit them, new inductees always blabbed about everything they’d ever done against the Family. The dons were always careful to have recording devices in place when a guy took the oath, or they’d miss all the good stuff. The Family would never have known where Greg Berber had been moved if it wasn’t for the Fed who tried to infiltrate Carl Fredrickson’s branch. Berber had once been a captain, a position of trust below Dan Moko, a place of real power, until he got into debt with someone who turned out to be an agent. Once the agent was a part of the Family, he ratted out all his accomplices, er, fellow agents, and put the Family on the trail to California, where Greg and his bimbo had moved. Greg still couldn’t act against them, but he’d told, and that was bad. Michael’s last promotion had been when Greg was removed permanently from the picture by the guys above him. The Feds knew, and they couldn’t do a thing. Their little bitty magic couldn’t hold a candle to the Family web.
Then Michael had his really brilliant idea. He started to enlist men, good men, without making them take the oath. It took a lot of self control to keep from grabbing their hands to bring them in, since he was a touchy-feely kind of guy, but it worked. He made them swear a different kind of allegience, pledging their honor and blood. Without the vow, the new soldiers were free of the strictures of the Family. No promise, no problem—but no magic, either. They wanted it, once they started getting around, what with the magic peep shows, the lap dances that never failed to get a rise out of the patrons, guaranteed; the endless streams of lucky dice rolls, liquor, women, and cash that seemed to fall into the hands of the Family. In return for their abstinence, Michael swore to his men that once he made the center of the ring, they’d have it all. They’d be his captains, and they’d have the best, the most magic, the hottest spells. The whole damned country would be theirs. Everyone but him would be under their jurisdiction. All it would take was a few well-placed accidents. It wasn’t like Michael had to wipe out everyone above him, just the ones in a straight line to that mahogany-paneled office. The don was old. He might die soon, and if Michael was just underneath him in the organizational chart, having shown a real aptitude for business, ruthlessness and that ambition the don had praised, he ought to get the top spot.
In the meantime, he had to keep guys in check without resorting to pulling strings in the web. An unfamiliar exercise, it took real creativity. A few of the new guys wanted to cut loose, and would have gone to a brother lieutenant to swear the oath and get the magic … if they’d lived. Those examples were good for maintaining loyalty, too. Michael was amazed at how easy it was to keep the other lieutenants from knowing what he was up to. All he had to do was pretend his secret force were sworn soldiers. You couldn’t tell if a man was a part of the chain just by looking at him. It was what was inside that made the difference. The Family was used to magic. They’d grown lazy. They had no defense against this newfangled organization. But the unsworn men witnessed everything, saw how the Family worked, and saw the magic that they couldn’t do.
