The Last Don - Mario Puzo [86]
“Yes,” the lawyer said, as he reported later to the Don.
Everything proceeded according to plan. Virginio Ballazzo broke omertà and testified, sending numerous underlings to jail and even implicating a deputy mayor of New York. But not a word of the Clericuzio. Then the Ballazzos, man and wife, disappeared into the Witness Protection Program.
The newspapers and TV were jubilant, the mighty Mafia had been broken. There were hundreds of photos, live TV action shots of these villains being hauled off to prison. Ballazzo took up the whole centerfold of the Daily News, TOP MAFIA DON FALLS. It showed him with his antique cars, his Kentucky Derby horses, his impressive London wardrobe. It was an orgy.
When the Don gave Pippi the assignment of tracking down the Ballazzo couple and punishing them, he said, “Do it in such a way that it will get the same publicity as they are getting now. We don’t want them to forget our Virginio.” But it was to take the Hammer more than a year to complete this assignment.
Cross remembered Ballazzo and had fond memories of him as a jovial, generous man. He and Pippi had had dinner at the Ballazzo house, for Mrs. Ballazzo had a reputation as a fine Italian cook, particularly for her macaroni and cauliflower with garlic and herbs, a dish Cross still remembered. He had played with the Ballazzo children as a child and had even fallen in love with Ballazzo’s daughter, Ceil, when they were teenagers. She had written him from college after that magical Sunday, but he had never answered. Alone with Pippi now, he said, “I don’t want to do this operation.”
His father looked at him and then smiled sadly. He said, “Cross, it happens sometimes, you have to get used to it. You won’t survive otherwise.”
Cross shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said.
Pippi sighed. “OK,” he said. “I’ll tell them I’m going to use you for planning. I’ll make them give me Dante for the actual operation.”
Pippi set up the probe. The Clericuzio Family, with huge bribes, penetrated the screen of the Witness Protection Program.
The Ballazzos felt secure in their new identities, false birth certificates, new social security numbers, marriage papers, and the plastic surgery that had altered their faces so that they looked ten years younger. However, their body builds, their gestures, their voices, made them more easily identifiable than they realized.
Old habits die hard. On a Saturday night Virginio Ballazzo and his wife drove to the small South Dakota town near their new home to gamble in the small-time joint operating under the local option. On their way home, Pippi De Lena and Dante Clericuzio, with a crew of six other men, intercepted them. Dante, violating the plan, could not resist making himself known to the couple before he pulled the trigger of his shotgun.
No attempt was made to conceal the bodies. No valuables were taken. It was perceived as an act of retaliation, and it sent a message to the world. There was a torrent of rage from the press and television, the authorities promised justice would be done. Indeed, there was enough of a furor to make the whole Clericuzio Empire seem to be in jeopardy.
Pippi was forced to hide in Sicily for two years. Dante became the number one Hammer of the Family. Cross was made the Bruglione of the Western Empire of the Clericuzio. His refusal to take part in the Ballazzo execution had been noted. He did not have the temperament to be a true Hammer.
Before Pippi disappeared into Sicily for two years, he had a final meeting and bon voyage dinner with Don Clericuzio and his son Giorgio.
“I must apologize for my son,” Pippi said. “Cross is young and the young are sentimental. He was very fond of the Ballazzos.”
“We were fond of Virginio,” the Don said. “I never liked a man better.”
“Then why did we kill him?” Giorgio asked. “It’s caused more trouble than it’s worth.”
Don Clericuzio gave him a stern look. “You cannot live a life without order. If you have power, you must use it for strict justice. Ballazzo committed a