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Dinner With The Mafia
Dinner with the Mafia
Armando Lazzari
Dinner with the Mafia
Translated by
DENA MARZULLO
Title | Dinner with the Mafia
Author | Armando Lazzari
Cover edited by the author
Copyright © (2020) – (Armando Lazzari)
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission of the author and editor
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, locations, incidents, historical facts that existed or that are in existence portrayed in this book are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights for this book are reserved and belong exclusively to the author.
Dedicated to:
my children, Alexander and Nicole
my wife, Alessandra (the Red Farmhouse Detective)
my mom and dad, Marisa and Augusto
my sister, Tatiana
my in-laws, Ines and Sandro
and… to all my friends and relatives who remain in the telephone directory and who will purchase at least one copy. For the rest, you are consigned to a good and fair God who will strike you down with lightening until you burn to a crisp.
“Imagination is a quality that was given to man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humour is provided to console him from what he is.”
Oscar Wilde
Prologue
Toxic white smoke rings slowly surfaced upward, joining the dense cloud of smoke that had already enveloped the room. The pungent odor of cigar filled the study, clinging to every object. The walls of the room were so saturated by the fumes, they seemed to be the very cause of the stale and emanating smell.
The man sitting at the head of the table was the cause of this miasma, mechanically blowing smoke from his mouth while meditating intently on a memory. A fresh memory that hurt deep down and would scar him forever, leaving dark circles under his eyes. His name is Joe Santini, and he had just witnessed the murder of his brother, Angelo, whose death was an image that no man could erase from memory.
Of the other three men in the room, only Carmine D'Abbate sat with him at the table in silence, pouring himself a glass of red wine and staring at Joe with bulging, haggard eyes.
Frank “Drummer” Colombo stood leaning against the windowsill watching the rain pour down, drumming his fingers in rhythm with the chomping and snapping of his chewing gum. Drummer's apparent calm had been proven an illusion many times, given his ability to kill a man with the same understated manner as perusing the morning edition of The New York Times.
The third man, Johnny Greco, chain smoked and paced restlessly back and forth like a pendulum. Only one single, lewd word kept coming out of his mouth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
Carmine spoke in his usual calm and reassuring way, “Here Joe, have another glass. It'll do you good. This is the good stuff, not that crap from the supermarket. This comes from Italy.”
Johnny, high-strung by nature, couldn't stand the apathy and resignation one second longer. “Knock it off with the fuckin' wine, already! You trying to get him drunk? He's still gotta tell us what the fuck happened!”
Carmine was from the old school and didn't like Johnny's foulmouth language. “All you know how to say is 'fuck'. Cut it out. Besides, can't you see he's still in shock? Damn, show a little respect! He just lost his brother, for crying out loud.”
“That's exactly my point. I respect him. And I've always respected Angelo. I've been standing around for two hours doing nothing and I'm sick and tired of wasting time. I want to know right this minute who did it so I can go tear his head off with my bare hands. Fuck!”
Carmine stood up fast, knocking the chair to the floor. Pointing his finger at Johnny, he said, “I swear to you, if you say that word one more time, I'll rip the tongue out of your mouth and feed it to the dogs!”