Page 124 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

It was lined with shelves. There were very few books, though. Mostly it was displays of old hunting rifles, knives, and binoculars.

Don Vicari was sitting behind a large wooden desk, which took up half the width of the room.

As soon as he saw me, he got a sour look on his face.

“Sit,” he said, pointing to a wooden chair across from the desk.

I sat down and braced myself to get ripped a new asshole.

It didn’t go quite the way I expected, though.

“You got balls, kid,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll give you that much. Going up againstmyson, in front of all his men, in a town you don’t run? You got a bleeding heart and shit for brains, but you got balls.”

“Uh… thank you… I think.”

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Rocco was hassling an old man with a sick wife,” I said. “I didn’t want to see an old man get beat up, so I offered to pay for him.”

Vicari rubbed his chin thoughtfully, not saying anything.

Then he finally asked, “Are your brothers pussies?”

I immediately got angry.“Excuseme?”

“Anybody who owes them money and doesn’t have it – do they just let them walk away? ‘Cause only a fuckin’ pussy does that.”

“My family doesn’t steal from old men,” I snarled.

“So you look down your nose at me. Is that it?” Vicari asked coldly.

I wanted to say,Well, YEAH –

But I knew I was swimming in dangerous waters and needed to be careful.

“We do our fair share of illegal shit,” I said darkly. “We pay off politicians so they give contracts to the people we tell them to. We pay off judges to throw out cases or give verdicts we want. We pay the police to make sure investigations go nowhere or evidence gets ‘lost.’

“And people pay us a lot of money for those government contracts, and those court cases, and those botched police investigations. Businessmen. Other politicians. Rich people whose kids get in trouble.”

“You control the docks on the west coast, from what I hear,” Vicari said.

“Yeah, and wedohave a protection racket so shit doesn’t get stolen or ‘misplaced’ – but we’re dealing with businessmen. Politicians. Rich people. What wedon’tdo is go around beating up old men who don’t have any money because their wives are sick.”

Vicari looked at me for a long time.

I just waited.

Niccolo said that in a negotiation, after you’ve laid out your offer, the first person to speak is the one who loses.

Again, I pretty much hated my brother right now –

But he was a smart motherfucker.

And in this case, he was right.

Vicari grumbled. “Sometimes Rocco uses a heavier hand than he should with civilians. When it’s pimps and drug dealers, it’s fine to break a few arms and legs – maybe even kill ‘em. Make an example so nobody else steps out of line.

“But I told him to use a lighter touch with the shopkeepers. Most of ‘em are scared shitless and pay on time. If they want to pay but can’t, I told Rocco to just run up the debt and tack on interest. Keep them on the hook.

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