Page 32 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

Sal sat in a chair in front of them, and Robby stood behind him.

“You got ten minutes,” Sal said to them.

“What kind of way is that to greet your old friends, Salvatore Luciano?” Palo Bracchi asked. “This is supposed to be the Unity Coalition. You put it together when we were desperate for help. And it worked out for all of us. We’re family. And all you can give us is ten minutes?”

“That’s all I got,” said an exhausted Sal. “Now what is it?”

Palo looked at the other two bosses. It was Boomer Cirillo that spoke up. “We got a situation. A very bad situation. A situation we got to team up and handle.”

“What is it?” asked Sal. “And if it’s so bad, where’s the other families?”

“We’re all that’s left,” said Milo Terranova. “We’re all that’s still here of the original nine families that formed that coalition with you.”

Sal was shocked. “What are you talking all that’s left? Where’s everybody else?”

“They’re riding with the new team,” said Boomer.

“What new team?” asked Sal.

“We don’t know who they are. They don’t reveal themselves. But we all know what they can do.”

“What have they done?” asked Robby.

“They scared the shit out of all those other families, that’s what they did. We don’t know what with, but it was enough to make them suit up with them publicly.”

“What publicly?” asked Sal. “I didn’t hear nothing about that shit. And why didn’t they come for you guys if they’re so tough?”

“They figure we were too big for them to try that shit on,” said Palo. “We three are the biggest of the nine families.”

“And they knew we had you in our corner,” said Boomer. “But they’re a force to be reckoned with. Nobody snatches up six syndicates just like that without being a force.”

“We got to join together and fight this threat,” said Palo. “Or we all could go down. We got to fight, Sal.”

“Fight?” Sal frowned. “What are you talking fight? I’m not going to war with some fucking ghost, are you out of your mind? I need to know who the fuck it is first. You tell me he’s so tough he can command six big syndicates all at one time and you expect me to go in blind?”

Sal stood up, which caused the rest of them to stand up too.

“We gotta do something, Sal Luca,” said Milo. “We gotta do something.”

“But do something to whom? Who are we going after? Who are these people? You get me that intel, we’ll see. You tell me who these fuckers are, we’ll talk. Now if you wanna go in blind, help yourselves. But not with me,” Sal made clear. Which, they all knew, meant they weren’t going in at all. And Sal walked on out.

The bosses looked at Robby for help, but Robby was totally devoted to Sal. What could he do?

“We’re getting clobbered, Robby. Six families gone and he wants to get more intel? We need to make a statement. We need to bust some heads and see what shakes out.”

“That ain’t happening,” said Robby. “Boss don’t work that way. He ain’t beating up innocent people on a whim. When you get more intel on whoever’s involved, then bring it to him. Otherwise, leave him alone. He’s got his own problems. You gotta figure somethings out yourselves.” And then Robby hurried out behind the boss.

The families looked at each other and Palo shook his head. “I told you we were wasting our time,” he said.

“We went to him like he told us. What more he want? We told him how Sal Luca was. What more he want?”

“He ain’t gonna wanna hear we got nothing,” said Boomer.

“But that’s exactly what we have. A big fat zero.” Then Milo exhaled. “We’re in trouble, guys. No sugarcoating this shit. And Sal won’t bite? We are in trouble.”

Then he got up and left too.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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