Luzo: Reign of a Mafia Don (7 page)

“The Segrete Protezioni I have heard papa speak of?” Luzo asked.

“Sí, but they have dwindled in size. Many have aged, some have died and we need to recruit once you have re-emerged in society. I will inform the families of the Giacanti’s return.”

“No. It is too soon. Carlo and I will assimilate and earn respeta. We come as Luzo Palazzo and Carlo Dichenzo…we return not as Giacanti ragazzi but uomini.”

Ernesto nodded. “Then we begin at the beginning. You understand the rules, now we must put you on the board with the other players. Introductions through business are where we will start.”

There was a knock on the door and Ernesto gave permission for the person to enter.

A nervous Alberti stepped inside. “Papa, I tried to stop Zia Sophie, but she was very upset. She has taken off in your car.”

“Cosa?” Ernesto bellowed.

Luzo smirked. Sophie still used her fists to beat at men. She had yet to learn, feminine subtlety is a donnas greatest weapon and less threatening to the opposite sex.

CHAPTER
SIX

Sophie had taken her brother’s car to collect her passport and luggage from the ho
me she shared with her aging mama. Her brothers were married, many years her senior and none understood a woman’s mind. Her mama lived by the old ways and there were moments Sophie wished her real mama had not died. She could no longer stay under the roof of the overbearing woman or her brothers, although she loved them very much.

Ernesto humiliate
d her.

H
ow dare he forbid her to do anything or call her a street urchin or make reference to her biological mama as if she were sewage?

She looked around the outdated bedroom with floral wallpaper and bare floors best suited for a
monastery than a vibrant donna.

On the drive to the airport, she became sad. Memories of a childhood surfaced. A happy girl she had been, wanting the fun of boys in coveralls who played out by the olive fields, but found she was not permitted.

“No Sophie, you cannot join us you are a girl and too young.” They would chant or her mama would come and pull her away to the kitchen to bake.

She enjoyed baking; she also liked the freedom of running and laughing during games. Salvatore was the most handsome of the group. His brother was attractive, but
mean. She liked Salvatore’s eyes; they were the color of the sky. She pictured flying in the clouds whenever she stared in them. He did not like her the way she wanted; she could tell and soon began to beat on him as punishment. She struck Anthony many times as well until he chased her and she tumbled face forward in a muddy pond and all the boys laughed.

A tear fell.

They were alive.

Aye, the blue eyes of the boy she liked were brilliant now and
cold. He had suffered. So had a girl. She had cried for weeks each time she looked upon the fields of silence. The wars of families and nations had made many children cry. Orphanages were in abundance all across Europe; fractured were the souls of innocent children. The girl who simply wanted to play had become a woman. She could not go back; a lot had happened in the Giacanti’s absence.

The violence had stolen what she could never recapture
; the delusion of goodness.

She saw the church looming in ancient splendor. The old cathedral survived the bullets; Sophie needed its protection.

She pulled the car over.

The tears streamed on her pretty dress that the decadent Don Casentini admired. Men admire pretty things. Sometimes she wished she were ugly in order for them to see beyond the decorations into the
bosom of the hearth.

The wetness of sorrow held in abeyance for too long broke loose in a torrent. Sophie fled the car,
burst through the doors of the cathedral. Clad in high heels and an improper length dress she rushed to the altar. Her legs were weak; she could no longer stand and fell in bereft genuflection. Watery eyes lifted to the bronze statue of a tortured martyr wearing a barbed wire wreath cutting in to his skull. The downcast eyes depicted a woeful death which bled upon her soul. Cruelty and human suffering was the symbolism of the ethereal icon nailed to the cross.

When iron rods are banged in flesh, blood pours until there is no more. Buzzards circle to poke out eyes which are not found in commissioned depictions of torture
due to the weak constitution of worshippers. Chant scriptures, smile demurely and then return to the world as blind as when they entered are how many followers departed. Practice what is preached; do not sing of peace and kindness when evil is all around but wickedness prevails and cowardice does not speak out.

Clasped hands, pleading and desperate were raised to the figure. She refused to be silenced. She had seen war and affliction; walked beside
ravished Jewish girls who lost everything, even hope. She had found welcome with a foreign girl in France from America with an infectious laugh and beautiful brown skin. Miriam wanted to be a gourmet chef in her country. She said she had helped her mother clean rich folk’s homes to save for a plane ticket to attend the culinary school she saw in a cooking magazine. They accepted coloreds and she wanted to go and so she did. Unfortunately, she had to perform janitorial services to pay for the tuition.

When
Sophie heard Miriam’s story she covered her expenses. Sophie had many blessings and for another free-spirited donna she would gladly share. They became friends. After graduation, Sophie did not tell her mama she was going to America for a week before flying home.

Macon, Georgia was Miriam’s home town, and what an awakening Sophie received. Education is not only learned in school, but life as well. Sitting in a park, laughing and discussing politics, laws and
other issues of women, she experienced bigotry first-hand.

Segregation and prejudice
should be a crime.

Clouds appear when someone is happy. A dark tempest
emerged from a callous interloper dressed in a pencil dress with a Peter Pan collar.

“
Nigger
lover
!” Shouted from a civilly clothed female student strolling in the company of a friend to happy young women minding their business is what occurred on a lovely afternoon.

What lunacy was this, Sophie had wondered? Who speaks of niggardly to a stranger but an ignorant person, besides colored skin is lovely.
Sophie’s complexion was not white like paper; it was tinged and warmly baked by the sun. There were many dark Sicilians back home, some behaved niggardly, yet no one dared say such a thing.

“You are niggardly stronzo!” she had yelled at the dumb American student.

“What did you call me?” The American had asked.

“Idiota, stronzo, niggardly, trash!” Sophie bellowed in an unladylike tone.

A gasp, followed by an indignant hand to the breast occurred. An offense that a lady with fair skin would call a southern belle niggardly was absurd.

Threats should never be made to a mafia’s daughter. The girl was uninformed
and cried, “I’ll have you arrested and deported you white slut!”

Sophie understood English. Arrest? Mafia people were often incarcerated. But, they were suspected of crimes; Sophie had committed none. That is until she decided she would gladly sit in a cell after she pummeled the flour colored girl. She was on her feet, and ran straight at the bigoted girl and beat her in the mouth for the affront.

Scream at blind ignorance, vent at cruelty’s disease, pound the blank clone-like face being taught to hate instead of learning respeta. She beat the girl so hard, the formerly bold mouth swelled shut. Sophie learned from boys to punch until there is silence.

She wanted to punish all
silly girls who found pleasure in hurting others and called their counterparts sluts, yet unable to converse about politics or matters of importance and only craved male meat to wrap around their tongues. Give them a husband and they are happy, even if he beats them or forbids her to talk, but not Sophie. She preferred death over becoming of part of their lot.

An arrest and deportation
had occurred. Now the punishment was warranted.

Home
thereafter had become a jail.

Her brother would not stop her from
going to America to join the whisper growing louder, demanding civil rights for the oppressed.

She shook her fists at the vapid waste of humanity who refused to learn anything from Hitler’s reign or history’s atrocities.

Sophie’s beseeching prayer was more of a cry of desolation. “No one will silence me. I will not sit like a silly woman among others and nod to ignorance or feed men’s egos with niceties because they cannot endure the mirror turned upon their faces. I will not be an invisible lady…pretty and shallow huddled comparing dresses and nonsense…only when I die will my voice hush!”

C
ries of indignation had masked her wailing heart. In the quiet chamber, a little girl sought love from the sky. A woman’s flight distanced her from family and the man who returned.

The boy w
ho possessed the bluest eye.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“Pizzo?” Luzo asked with
a severe cock of the brow. Did a Mafiosi actually enter his office building, speak with his manager and threaten to sabotage his company if he did not pay for protection?

The
Manager was a local. He shook in fear while recanting the words he was told to relay to the owner. Luzo had listened without emotion, calmed the frightened employee who was around his age, but had failed to display any facial hair beyond the thinning strands on his head. Premature balding are often hereditary, but Luzo’s genes were without this medical affliction.

Carlo had gone to his offices a short distance away to meet with a local Don to discuss a contract for trash removal in his territory. A courtesy designed to avoid ruffling feathers. Get a foot in the door, establish a presence and then consume what the Giacanti’s already owned is an approach to gain respect.

The brazen emergence of the Mafioso only a month into the start of Luzo’s negotiations with the Minister of Finance for access to government contracts did not bode well with Luzo.

“Did the visitor leave a calling card?” Luzo asked as he circled his desk before sitting down.

“Casentini’s Capo said his boss extends an invitation to meet with him this evening at seven at La Dignano’s to discuss the fees.”

Luzo was amused. “Grazie.” He leaned in his seat. “I have an appointment in an hour with Signore Cigliari. Please show him directly in when he arrives.”

The employee nodded. “Sí, of course.”

The smile broadened on Luzo’s face when the man departed. His thoughts were on the fun he would have today with the arrogant Don Casentini.

Pizzo, who demands pizzo from a Don?

He was in the midst of a telephone call with Carlo when Signore Cigliari arrived.

“Buongiorno Signore Palazzo,” the elder gent beamed.

“We will speak later,” Luzo told his brother and then hung up. He sh
ook the hand extended over his desk as his security waited near the office door, but he did not stand. Reverence is the acknowledgment Signore Cigliari had not earned. “Buongiorno Signore.”

Signore Cigliari was offered a seat. He removed his felt fedora and held it in his hand as he settled in the comfort of Italian leather. He
did not smile, aware of the subtle affront by one he considered a youth. The arrogance was not lost on the wiser and more experienced. “You have great taste in furnishings. Did you choose these pieces yourself?”

The small talk is also a formality before men get down to business. Civilized people practice etiquette
, on this Luzo partook. “Sí, each one has a story, some are just whimsical delights.”

“Everything has a story Signore Palazzo, I am interested in yours.”

“There is not much to tell. I, like you am a son of Sicily. My family is originally from the south. My father died during the war and I was taken to France when my mother remarried.”

“Your biological father, what was his name?”

Luzo did not falter. The records would confirm all he said. “Jon Palazzo.”

“He was not of the families?”

“No, he was a mill worker.”

“An honest and hard living, no?”

“There is respeta for his profession.”

Signore Cigliari’s
mouth descended. “You have done admirably for the son of a mill worker.”

“It is the hope of all fathers that their children will work hard and find prosperity
as the reward.”

Signore Cigliari ran a finger around the brim of his hat. In a contemplative
tone he asked, “And have you returned to share this prosperity with other hard-working Sicilians?”