An Offer You Can't Refuse

From a New York Subway station. Through the hustle and bustle of the city to Little Italy on Manhattan Island. There are highrises dominating the skyline and pedestrians mingle with bipedal delivery robots and trucks and trolleys that defy gravity itself. Yet conventional-looking vehicles, the pride of Detroit Michigan in the nineteen seventies still dominate the streets, in this vast metropolis. To an old brownstone and a hole-in-the-wall, family-run Italian restaurant, at basement level down a flight of stairs. *Gambino’s: A Taste of Sicily.* Is intricately painted upon the windows. The air is thick with cigarette smoke and conversation, of the smells of rich food of garlic and fresh herbs. Though a busy crowd of lunchtime diners and into the half-light of the back kitchen. The weighted self-closing kitchen door moves with a creak.

“Vittorio my boy, come sit, sit. Have you eaten? A bowl of Pasta e fagioli for Vittorio, Luigi”

The large man in the immaculately tailored double-breasted suit leapt from the table in the centre of the restaurant kitchen, as a younger leaner man entered. Just the three of them there as the lunch rush had just ended. The newcomer walked with a certain reverence. The boss of bosses rarely called one of his underlings to sit down and break bread with him unless things were going very well or very poorly. Vito Di Centa was a top earner. He balanced running the traditional rackets and the unions by making sure no associate went down. He was something of a rarity, an educated made man, not just a graduate of the schools of hard knocks but of NYU law. He had been to school on the GI bill, after serving in Korea where he had learned about military intelligence and how the CIA operated.

“It would be an honour to dine at your table Padrino”

Vito slipped off his heavy leather coat and unbuttoned his own well-fitting suit, having already hung his hat by the door. There was a telltale bulge under his jacket of a sidearm.

“Try the olive bread my boy, baked it myself.”

The Don pushed the breadboard towards Vito and poured him a large glass of wine.

“You’re doing well for yourself out in Queens, how's that wife of yours? Big Sal Germanotta‘s Girl? What a firecracker!”

Vito nodded his hair shiny with product, not a single strand out of place.

“Angelina is well sir, she just got back from the business in Boston.”

The Don smiled knowingly

“A very well organised piece of *business* it was too. You’re a credit to this organisation recruiting a talent like like your good lady wife”

The Don sipped his wine, there was a time for tradition, and this was not a time to follow traditions blindly. Not with the RICO act and the influx of narcotics on the streets. Everyone wanted a piece of that lucrative action. It would take creative thinking and expansion into new rackets to maintain their way of life. Luigi the Don’s Consigliere, Chef and most trusted advisor since boyhood bought over a fresh bowl of pasta.

“Tell him about the DARPA report Luigi”

The Don looked eager, the way he only got when there was the possibility to crush an enemy and make a lot of money in the process.

“Si Padrino, We have access to a leaked DARPA report.”

Luigi took enlargements of photos of certain top secret documents out of a fine leather folio. Placing them around the various urtensisls accoutrements and dishes on the large table.

“The government have selected a site to build something the boffins call a high density particle accelerator. In a little nowheresville town upstate. Prescott. Now thanks to our mutual friend we have access to this information before the competition.”

Vito knew that these particle accelerators were a real money pit for world governments. Had something to do with discovering a God particle or some such. A way to learn the secrets of the universe.

Luigi stood to open a second bottle of Italian red wine. The sort of stuff that still has dust on it from the cellar it’s so old. As he talked. The Don and Vitto ate, taking in the plans the government had and the sheer scale of construction materials that would need to be hauled out there.

“Luigi and I were wondering if that little trucking company you have a partnership in …. *Di Fontaine Trucking and Carting*… if you might like to start a new branch up in Prescott”

This was an amazing opportunity the cogs in Vitos brain began to turn. As he plotted a strategy, a plan of attack. That podunk little town was about to become a goldmine for anyone in Construction, Sanitation, Trucking, Pest Control or even Adult Entertainment, and Gambling for all the workers. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, particularly for a man such as himself who already had extensive connections with the labor unions.

“You take whatever trusted people you need from Queens, and if you come up against any local opposition you and Angelina can do whatever you feel necessary. All I really want is my usual cut of the action. Plus an offer to partner with you on any legitimate larger projects that might require an investor, a silent partner”

The Boss explained.

“Will I still be getting my usual income from all my New York interests?”

Vito knew that starting any new venture was going to be a costly endeavour. Trying to corner the market for government contracts could take a lot of time and money.

“Certainly my boy if you appoint a worthy successor. That cousin of yours Antonio seems capable of working without supervision, reminds me of someone.”

He chuckled at his own joke.

“I’ll get out there as soon as I can and get everything locked down. See what businesses I can buy up now while they’re cheap. What land I can acquire before uncle sam comes to town waving it around putting in compulsory purchase orders.”

The Don nodded

“Sounds expensive my boy. I’ll have four hundred thousand dollars transferred to your Swiss account. My investment in our new lucrative enterprise.”

Vito raised his glass and the other two men followed suit

“A toast to lucrative new business ventures.”

Vito said as they toasted their new deal.

Angelia had been talking about moving somewhere bigger than their modest row house in Queens. A place with a yard and a garage. She’d been saving money from her Human Resources consultancy work. Vito figured she was probably thinking about Staten Island or Jersey, not way, way upstate. Vito wasn’t in this line of business to just get by. He’d made more money since he left the services than any other guy he’d served with put together. There just wasn’t a point in living like a boss until you were one. Too many made-men made that mistake to their detriment. Then they’d get ideas above their station, try and run before they could walk and get rubbed out, by their own family or a rival outfit. There was a right way to do things and Vito had spent his formative years doing favours for the wiseguys of Queens to study the correct way. Now was finally his time to be rewarded for his and his wife’s unwavering loyalty to the family, and turn a tidy profit while doing so.