Greed

by Roy Glenn

  Greed

  Roy Glenn

  Greed

  Roy Glenn

  Escapism Entertainment

  © Copyright 2020 Roy Glenn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Unfinished Business

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  “Actually, it’s more something I need your help with.”

  “What I just say?”

  “Remember that thing I was telling you about?”

  “That’s the thing; you never actually told me what it was. All you said was you’d tell me about it when things quiet down.”

  “Well it’s time to make that happen.”

  “Cool. Whatever it is, let’s go do it. You can tell me about it on the way. I wanna get home to my little man.”

  “Shy name that baby yet?”

  “Nope.”

  Chapter One

  Alessandro Reviello was recruited into The Curcio Family by capo, Carmine Abandonato, who controlled illegal gambling operations in the Bronx. By the late eighties, Reviello was a major player in Abandonato’s illegal gambling, bookmaking, and policy operations. Reviello was indicted, along with Curcio family members Rocco “Rocky Fists” Fiorentino, Johnathan “Johnny Boy” Bonina, and Anthony “Big Tony” Collette, on bribery charges, in order to protect their gambling operation.

  When he got out, Reviello moved into other rackets that proved to be more lucrative. He began representing The Curcio Family’s interest in Cafaro Concrete, a general contractor, and with Top of The Pile, a company that was one of the main suppliers of trap rock. He held the title of salesman, but he never actually sold anything. The two companies controlled the production of concrete in the city. That’s where he made his money and with money came power and with power and money came position. By that time, Carmine Abandonato was underboss of the family and Reviello was his loyal soldier.

  Reviello was indicted again, along with “Little Sonny” Calabresi and Big Tony, on extortion and bid rigging charges. The charges alleged that the three men had rigged the bidding process for the supplying of concrete to high rise building projects. The case was dismissed when the state’s star witness, an accountant at Cafaro Concrete named Joseph Aloi, disappeared a week before the trial under mysterious circumstances. His remains were believed to be a part of a construction project in Staten Island, but those were just rumors.

  It was just after six in the evening, and Reviello was in the office at Top of The Pile finishing up some business before he went home to his wife. He needed to shower, get cleaned up, and then he had a meeting to go to.

  Now that his business had gone—a nineteen-year-old Salvadoran girl named Gabriela Suárez—Reviello looked into the mirror and adjusted his tie. It was pretty much the only time that he came there these days. He didn’t want to be seen with young Hispanic women, he just liked fucking them.

  He double checked to make sure that there wasn’t any lipstick on his collar this time. You know how they are with that red lipstick. Reviello put on his jacket, turned off the lights, and left his office. He closed the door and looked around the office for his men, but the office was empty and in darkness.

  “Persico!” Reviello shouted and walked toward the light that was coming from the window. “Vittorio!” he shouted again, but he got no answer. He stopped in the middle of the floor and scratched his head. “Where did these two fucks run off to now?” Reviello asked, as he walked toward the door shaking his head. “Probably making Gabriela suck their little cocks again before they let her out—the bastards. Persico! Vittorio! Stop fuckin’ around. I got places to be.”

  When he came into the lobby and turned on the lights, expecting to see his men in his pussy, Reviello was surprised at what he saw.

  “Mikey? Fuck you doin’ here?” Reviello asked, and then saw Persico and Vittorio’s bodies on the floor. He looked up at Black, who had his weapon raised.

  “Angelo Collette sends his regards,” he said, and shot Reviello once in the head. Then Black stood over him and shot him twice more in the chest before he left the offices of Top of The Pile. He got in the car with Angelo. He had already killed Mario Bianchi, Big Tony’s driver.

  “How’d it go?” Angelo asked.

  “How does it always go?” was Black’s reply.

  Chapter Two

  Rocco “Rocky Fists” Fiorentino always wanted to be a gangster, and by the time he was nineteen, he was running his own loan shark and robbery operations. It earned him two years in prison for armed robbery. When he got out, he didn’t stay out for long; Fiorentino was arrested along with two other men, and they were all charged with rape.

  When Fiorentino was released from prison on parole, he became an associate of Crazy Nicky Gaetano, a Curcio family member through his connection with Alessandro Reviello, who he had met in prison. From there, Fiorentino became involved in the illegal gambling and loansharking businesses, and soon he became an influential member of Big Tony’s crew, and a made man in The Curcio Family. By that time, Rocky Fists’ criminal record included several arrests for assault.

  The Curcio Family powerbase was in the Bronx, but Big Tony belonged to the less influential Mount Vernon faction of the family. He ran his crew out of a small bar called the Catania Social Club. The crew was involved in illegal gambling, loansharking, extortion, burglary, narcotics dealing, the occasional murder contracts, union, and construction rackets. Big Tony’s crew was getting noticed.

  Fiorentino controlled a union that represented workers who painted and decorated hotels, bridges, and subway stations. Through the union treasurer, he and Santino “Little Sonny” Calabresi would pick up cash payments from the contractors and charged them a ten to fifteen percent tax on all major commercial painting jobs.

  Little Sonny was born in Brooklyn; his father ran a bakery there and his mother taught school. When he was eighteen, he joined the Army, but was discharged later that year, classified as psychoneurotic with pronounced homicidal tendencies.

  Big Tony saw that both men could make money and were willing to use violence, if needed, and put Rocky Fists and Little Sonny in charge of his bookmaking and debt collecting operations. And of course, there were the occasional murder contracts that needed to be handled.

  It was later that same night when Fiorentino found himself waiting in his Lincoln outside of Calabresi’s house and honked the horn again. He had been parked there for ten minutes, and he was getting impatient. They had places that they needed to be.

  “And this fuckin’ guy is fuckin’ around,” he said, and he leaned on the horn until he saw the door open and Calabresi come out of the house.

  “About time.”

  “Relax,” he glanced at the time on the dash. “We still got plenty of time.”

  Fiorentino was there to pick him up for a meeting later that night with Luciano Trentini. With Big Tony dead and Johnny Boy murdered, everybody expected The Commission to name him as the new boss of The Curcio Family. After she gave Fiorentino the finger, Constance, Little Sonny’s wife, kissed her husband goodbye and he walked to the car.

  “Fuck, Sonny,” Fiorentino said when Calabresi got in the car with him.

  “What?” Calabresi asked as he put on his seatbelt. “Relax, we got plenty of fuckin’ time.”

  “I know,” he said, and drove off. “I wanted to stop by The Platinum before we go.”

  “
What you wanna go to The Platinum for?”

  “I need to see Darcie.”

  “You don’t have time to fuck her, Rock,” Calabresi laughed. “Get your dick sucked maybe.”

  Fiorentino laughed with him. “Nothing like that. I got her working on something for me. I need to hear what she’s got.”

  “Working on what?”

  “I been hearing that Angelo is planning to make a move on Luciano,” Fiorentino said, as he slowed down to stop at a red light.

  “Yeah, I heard that too. But that prick hasn’t got the balls to make a move like that,” Calabresi said, as the car in front of them stopped short and Fiorentino ran into their bumper.

  “This fuckin’ guy!” he shouted, pounded the steering wheel, and reached for the handle.

  “Don’t kill him, Rock,” Calabresi laughed, just as a Dodge Ram with a titanium steel front bumper guard slammed into their rear-end. The impact of the collision had both men shaken, so they didn’t see Black and Angelo get out of the truck, walk up on either side of the Lincoln, and open fire. They tossed their empty weapons in the car, got back in the truck, and drove off leaving Rocco “Rocky Fists” Fiorentino and Santino “Little Sonny” Calabresi dead.

  As they drove away from the scene, Angelo glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

  “See, Mikey. I told you that we had plenty of time.” He laughed. “But yeah, Sonny was cutting it kind of close,” he said, as he pulled in a parking lot.

  “You got everything in place?” Black asked as they got out of the Dodge.

  “If not, I’m fucked,” he said, and reached for the gas can on the back of the truck.

  While Black went to get the car that they had left there, Angelo began dousing the truck with gas. When the gas can was empty, Angelo took out a lighter and tossed it on the back of the truck. As he drove away with Black, the Dodge burst into flames.

  Chapter Three

  Luciano Trentini was born in Naples, Italy, and his parents immigrated to the United States alongside three other siblings. He and his older brother Michael Trentini were close associates of Big Tony. He and his brother would later join The Curcio Family, but not before they were both arrested and sentenced to five years on a conspiracy to sell crystallized methamphetamine. He served his time at the Atlanta federal prison and when he got out, he became a soldier in The Curcio Family shortly after his brother was murdered. Trentini became a high-level earner for his family and began operating several illegal gambling operations and ran a crew that specialized in burglary.

  When Thomas Saracino, the boss of the family, was murdered in prison by members of an unhappy faction within The Curcio Family, Dino Persico was promoted to boss as a peace gesture. The situation changed when he was sentenced to prison in Florida on a gun possession charge. Afraid that Alfredo Marchesi would seize control of the family in Persico’s absence, Carmine Abandonato decided to murder Marchesi.

  He was summoned to a meeting at a dry-cleaning store for what he thought was a sit-down with Armando Lastra and Lucca Pugliesi, two members of the Commission in New York. After Marchesi arrived at the dry cleaners, Big Tony and Trentini transported him to the basement of Trentini’s house, where they murdered him, and the body was buried at an industrial park in Farmingdale.

  The day after the murder, Big Tony and Trentini ransacked Marchesi’s home and office, looking for his loan-sharking records and a half-million dollars in cash that Marchesi was rumored to have stashed somewhere in his house. They found the money and the records hidden in a stove vent. After that, Carmine Abandonato became the new underboss, and he stood as acting boss of The Curcio Family until Dino Persico got out of prison.

  The doors of the Cattaneo Family Italian Restaurant swung open, and in walked Angelo Collette. His overconfident swagger made Trentini sick to his stomach. Angelo was the man who a lot of the younger members and associates of The Curcio Family thought should succeed his uncle as boss. But there were a few things that stood in his way and The Commission agreed with him.

  Now there was only one.

  “How’s everybody doing tonight?” Angelo asked with his arms extended; his booming voice filling the room.

  From his table near the back of the small restaurant, Trentini watched as his bodyguards, Arturo Bergamaschi and Emilio Locatello, searched Angelo for weapons. He was surprised that he came alone, but after all, all this was supposed to be was a friendly conversation among family to sort things out. It was also to give Trentini a sense of where Angelo’s head was after his uncle’s death. Like Fiorentino and Calabresi, he had heard the talk. And he didn’t like what he was hearing.

  “The heir apparent. That’s what they call him, the fuckin’ prick,” he mumbled to himself as he watched Angelo make his way around the restaurant, shaking hands and talking with the few patrons that were at Cattaneo’s that night. The anger and hate he felt welled up inside him. “If that little piss-ant—cocksucker thinks he’s gonna muscle me out, he won’t leave here alive.”

  “Hey, Vinnie!”

  “What’s up, Angelo?”

  “Throw a pie in the oven for me, Vinnie.”

  “Got one just the way you like it coming out in a few.”

  “You’re the fuckin’ prince of pizza, Vinnie. I fuckin’ mean that,” Angelo said as he passed the counter on his way to the table.

  “Trentini,” he said with his hand extended.

  “Angelo. Thank you for coming,” he said, standing up to shake his hand. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and sat down as Seraphina, the waitress, sat a glass of single malt scotch in front of him before quickly disappearing in the kitchen.

  “I wanted to tell you again how sorry I am about your uncle; may he rest in peace.” He crossed himself. “God broke the mold when he made that one; that’s for sure,” Trentini said, and both men raised a glass and drank to the memory of Big Tony.

  “He was larger than life,” Angelo said, and then he laughed. “And I’m not just talking about his gut. The big guy meant everything to me,” he dropped his head and stayed quiet for a second or two before he looked up. “I know this gotta be hard on you too. You and the big guy came up together.”

  Trentini nodded his head solemnly, and then he laughed as he remembered the good times. “We did a few things in our day.”

  “But hey, let’s cut the shit. This ain’t no fuckin’ wake. We’re here to talk about the way forward.”

  “Right.”

  “I just want to assure you that if things go your way, and they should, you have my support and my loyalty. Like I said, you and the big guy, the two of you go back. It’s your time now.”

  “That’s good to hear you say,” Trentini said, sitting back and taking a sip of his drink. “I’ve been hearing a lot of talk to the contrary. The word on the street is that you think it’s your time, and you’re planning to make a move on me.”

  “And I’m here to tell you that all that talk that’s going around is nothing but bullshit. Bunch of deadenders feeling left out of the money and think I’m some type of fuckin’ savior or some shit like that. If you’re a loser now, me coming up ain’t gonna change that.” Angelo pointed in Trentini’s face and he was taken aback. “There’s a lot of dead weight on the ship. I’m hoping that you’re planning on doing something about that. If things go your way, of course.”

  “You know,” said a now relaxed Trentini. He shot his drink and slammed the glass down on the table. “Fuckin’ right, I am. I hate to speak ill of the dead,” he crossed himself, “but your uncle was letting things get a little lax. God rest his soul. I’m talking about changing course and getting the deadweight off the ship. You could be a big help with that.”

  “Whatever you need,” Angelo said, and stood up with his hand extended.

  Trentini stood up and shook his hand. “I’m glad we got that settled.”

  “There was nothing to settle. As long as you’re breathing, you have my support and my loyalty.” He let go of Trentini’s
hand. “I’m gonna take a squirt, get my pie, and I’m outta here,” Angelo said, and headed toward the bathroom.

  He stayed in there long enough to send Black a text.

  Come on in.

  “Got your pie already for you, Angelo,” Vinnie said when he came out of the bathroom. He handed Angelo the box as he passed the counter, and then he went in the back of Cattaneo’s.

  “Thanks, Vinnie,” Angelo said, walking quickly toward the table. Once he got there, he took a nine-millimeter from the box and shot Trentini in the head as the box fell to the floor.

  As Angelo was firing on Trentini, Black came up behind Arturo Bergamaschi and shot him in the back of the head. Then he quickly turned and fired on Vittorio Locatello, hitting him with two shots to the chest.

  Angelo stepped closer to the table and shot Trentini twice more in the chest, before turning around to face the customers at Cattaneo’s Family Italian Restaurant.

  “I’d like to thank you folks for coming out tonight,” Angelo said as he followed Black out. He had arranged it so only people that were loyal to him were at Cattaneo’s that night. “Just see Vinnie or Seraphina before you leave, and they’ll take care of you.”

  Angelo bowed at the waist and left the restaurant. The next day, Angelo Collette was named the new boss of The Curcio Family.

  “Congratulations. It is long overdue,” Black said, and they drank to it.

  Chapter Four

  One Year Later

  In his life, Coleman Patterson had gone from decorated police detective, to DEA cyber analyst, to corrupt DEA field agent. Despite showing signs of deception on a polygraph test and declaring bankruptcy with nearly two hundred thousand dollars of debt, Patterson’s talents were apparent. In his field agent’s position, the DEA allowed him to handle millions of dollars in financial transactions. He was setting up undercover operations using the front companies and shell bank accounts that were setup for undercover stings, and sending money and contraband to Columbian cartels on behalf of suspected drug traffickers.