Page 20 of Shakedown in Savannah

Tony escorted Costanza and Lorenzo out of the restaurant and locked the door behind them. He returned to where his mother and sister stood. The look on his face said it all. “This ain’t good.”

“It’s awful.” Carlita’s hand trembled as she studied the paper. “He wants five hundred thousand PLUS taxes paid, which is another hundred, if this is accurate. What are we gonna do? I can’t get a legitimate loan in this short of an amount of time.”

“We still have a little cash from the gems,” Mercedes said. “We also have the money from our share of the Marshland Isles Diamond.”

“We could pay up. It would take everything we have, but I can get it all together and pay them off.”

While Carlita talked, Tony wandered to the window, staring out.

“What is it, Son?”

“I’m almost a hundred percent certain if we come up with the cash, Lombardo is gonna change his mind and not accept it.”

“But his henchmen said he wanted his money. Adding taxes, principal and interest, I figure six hundred thousand and they’re gone.”

“Unfortunately, this isn’t how these kinds of people work. I guess I could be wrong. Lombardo has kept quiet and held onto this property for a reason.”

“To accumulate a ridiculous amount of interest,” Carlita said.

“I dunno, Ma. I say we work on getting the money, but my gut is telling me this isn’t the end, especially when they kept mentioning personal protection.”

“I’m still waiting on a call from Vinnie.” Carlita told them she would run down to the bank and start working on getting the cash.

“Most banks don’t have substantial sums of money on hand. I’m almost certain you’ll have to wait,” Tony said. “It’s also gonna trigger a notification to the IRS and other federal regulatory commissions.”

“Seriously?” Carlita grimaced. “Great. All I need is to put our businesses on the IRS’s radar.”

“Which could be the least of our worries,” Mercedes said. “We need to check this place out. What’s the address?”

Carlita rattled it off.

“I gotta get over to the pawn shop. Here’s the plan. Ma, you get the ball rolling to get the now six hundred thousand dollars. I’ll find someone to cover for me and then this afternoon we can go check out the place.”

“For all we know, it could be an empty field, although they did say something about it being in rough condition.” Carlita’s cell phone chimed. It was a text from Vinnie.

I’m still working on figuring out who Danny Lombardo is. How did the meeting go?

Not good. Lombardo now wants six hundred thousand in twenty-four hours. Carlita finished tapping out a reply text, telling him about the alternative to making payments.

Moments later, her phone rang. It was Vinnie.

“This sounds like a straight up racket. I’m still workin’ on it on my end. All I can say is they must be new to the area.”

“New to the mafia business?” she asked.

“Nope. New to the States. Could be another outfit all together. Are you sure these two are legit?”

“Not yet. We need to find out.”

Vinnie promised he would have something soon and hung up.

Carlita waved her phone in the air. “Vinnie should have something soon. I’m heading to the bank.”

“Before we pay them a red cent, we need to do some serious digging around,” Tony said. “We’re gonna be sure Pops entered into this and owes before we do anything.”

“Still, to err on the side of assuming, once again, your father left us in a mess, I’ll put the wheels in motion to come up with the money.”

With a plan in place, the trio split up. Mercedes, who needed to cover her early lunch shift, and Tony to rearrange his schedule. Meanwhile, Carlita ran back home to go over her bank accounts and make sure she had the cash available.

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