Omerta - Mario Puzo [9]
There was the legend of the beginning of his rule as Family chief. The Don controlled a construction company run by a subordinate, Tommy Liotti, whom the Don had made rich at an early age with city building contracts. The man was handsome, witty, a thorough charmer, and the Don always enjoyed his company. He had only one fault: He drank to excess.
Tommy married the Don’s wife’s best friend, Liza, an old-fashioned handsome woman with a sharp tongue, who felt it her duty to curb her husband’s obvious pleasure with himself. This led to some unfortunate incidents. He accepted her barbs well enough when he was sober, but when drunk he would slap her face hard enough to make her bite her tongue.
It was also unfortunate that the husband had a massive strength, due to working hard and long on construction sites during his youth. Indeed, he always wore short-sleeved shirts to display his magnificent forearms and his great biceps.
Sadly, the incidents escalated over a period of two years. One night Tommy broke Liza’s nose and knocked out a few teeth, which required expensive surgical repair. The woman did not dare ask Don Aprile’s wife for protection, since such a request would probably make her a widow, and she still loved her husband.
It was not Don Aprile’s desire to interfere in the domestic squabbles of his underlings. Such things could never be solved. If the husband had killed the wife, he would not have been concerned. But the beatings posed a danger to his business relationship. An enraged wife could make certain testimonies, give damaging information. For the husband kept large quantities of cash in his house for those incidental bribes so necessary to the fulfillment of city contracts.
So Don Aprile summoned the husband. With the utmost courtesy, he made it plain he interfered in the man’s personal life only because it affected business. He advised the man to kill his wife outright or divorce her or never to ill-treat her further. The husband assured him it would never happen again. But the Don was mistrustful. He had noticed that certain gleam in the man’s eyes, the gleam of free will. He considered this one of the great mysteries of life, that a man will do what he feels like doing with no regard to the cost. Great men have allied themselves with the angels at a terrible price to themselves. Evil men indulge their slightest whim for small satisfactions while accepting the fate of burning in Hell.
And so it turned out with Tommy Liotti. It took nearly a year, and Liza’s tongue grew sharper with her husband’s indulgence. Despite the warning from the Don, despite his love for his children and his wife, Tommy beat her in the most violent fashion. She ended up in the hospital with broken ribs and a punctured lung.
With his wealth and political connections, Tommy bought one of the Don’s corrupt judges with an enormous bribe. Then he talked his wife into coming back to him.
Don Aprile observed this with some anger and regretfully took charge of the affair. First, he attended to the practical aspects of the matter. He obtained a copy of the husband’s will and learned that like a good family man, he had left all his worldly goods to his wife and children. She would be a rich widow. Then he sent out a special team with specific instructions. Within the week the judge received a long box wrapped in ribbons, and in it, like a pair of expensive long silk gloves, were the two massive forearms of the husband, one wearing on its wrist the expensive Rolex watch the Don had given him years before as a token of his esteem. The next day the rest of the body was found floating in the water around the Verrazano Bridge.
Another legend was chilling because of its ambiguity, like some childish ghost story. While the Don’s three children were attending boarding school, an enterprising and talented journalist noted for his witty exposure of the frailties