Chapter 16 Charlie
Charlie was summoned by his mentors, the real Mafia Godfather, who had illegitimately fathered this imbecile during one indiscreet act twenty five years ago. One weekend when someone witnessed the affair and had connections in Mafia circles and was blackmailing Luigi to place Charlie second in command of the organization.
The Mafioso were inclined to bury the mother in concrete holding up an aqueduct, but because of her connections with some influential members of the British Government, so she informed them, their activities in Britain would be looked into more closely.
Charlie was reprimanded for his trivial pursuit of Roland James, because Roland had dared to kiss his girlfriend Joanna, when in fact, it was the other way round Joanna had kissed Roland, and the Godfather informed him of this fact and it would be best to liquidate the girlfriend, rather than chase an innocent person who had made fools of them and ridiculed the whole organisation. The fact that Charlie had secured the services of two Special Branch Officers was of no consequence to the Mafia bosses, who said that they couldn’t be trusted as far as they could see them.
It was time for Charlie to grow up and be in tune with his first consignment of contraband cigarettes, a consignment of 500,000 of different brands and if he made a good job of this, who knows, he might be given something he really could get his teeth into, perhaps something a lot more lucrative.
I suppose it was the downfall of Charlie, who could not get rid of the idea of killing off Roland James and Joanna Stefan. To think they had made a fool of him in one way or another was too much to bear. So he totally ignored the Mafia Godfather’s advice, although the transaction of the cigarette caper was successful, it had brought about some unnecessary casualties. Charlie had to go, but he had to go quietly, because of his “Mother.” It was to be a job lot, two for the price of one.
An assassin was hired to do the job, it was to be a long timed contract for Charlie’s gang had to be got rid of in a series of events that would lead up eventually Charlie’s own disappearing act with his mother. Charles Lorenso Stefan as he was christened was soon to become one of Mafia’s most powerful men and yet he had not visualized this. He wanted to go his own way and dropped the posh sound of Charlie and wanted everybody to call him Charlie. He wanted to be one of the boys, a cockney type, which was peculiar to listen to as his dialect had a twang and lilting sound as he was brought up in the Italian way. He hadn’t realized that his voice sounded ridiculous and almost squeaked very high when he got excited about something. No one dared to tell him as his temper had a short fuse and he was liable to react violently and shoot first and ask questions afterwards.
Charlie couldn’t understand why his men began to dwindle in numbers. Every time he went out on a well planned job with every detail covered, one of his men was killed. It became so regular that Charlie asked for protection from his Special Branch team. The assassin had to cease his activities because Charlie was becoming suspicious and although he wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, two and two still made four when he went to school and as he informed the Mafia Godfather of every plan of action he was undertaking, it would seem that that was where the leakage was coming from. It began as a small light in Charlie’s brain that retribution might be the order of the day and that he should set a trap, although what sort of trap he had yet to devise.
Chapter 17 The Trap
How could Charlie set a trap of such fiendish proportions against the Mafia? When growing up he had learnt their ways of dealing with problems and although it was illegal to shoot someone or bury them alive, no one had ever objected or considered taking any action against them. Charlie was not going to be elaborate with his idea of a trap, not because he thought it would be clever of himself to think of something that good, but because he couldn’t think at all. He could kick himself for not paying enough attention to his immediate mentors.
Perhaps an idea did spring to his mind and the more he thought about it, the more he liked it and the more he thought of it might convince the Godfather that perhaps that all was not lost with Charlie, although plans had already been made to get rid of his mother and should Charlie do a double cross, then he would be next to wear a concrete jacket. Charlie’s idea was simple and could be said to be effective. He would toe-the-line, forget about his feelings regarding Joanna and this chap, Roland. He was locked in his room for two weeks as a minor punishment on bread and water for the first week and then back to the normal diet the second week. His punishment had a double edged sword, his men were disbanded and those that remained were allowed to walk away alive. His two Special Branch Police Officers were supporting a bridge somewhere in Wales.
Charlie’s mother did a runner when the assassin had her squarely in his sights, but missed her when she suddenly bent down as he squeezed the trigger. She did not get up and the assassin thought he had hit her, only to find that he had to forfeit his own life for failure to comply to the contract and instead of collecting £25,000, he was shot and buried. After fourteen days, Charlie was given nearly all the news of events that had happened and he seemed overjoyed with the outcome of it all, because he thought his idea had worked, not knowing about the hired assassin who was left out of the conversation because should there need to be another time to hire someone else if Charlie misbehaved he would feel the full force of his formidable foe who never seemed to miss a trick, although Charlie’s mother was still lurking in the background and knew of the danger that her son was in and would undoubtedly rear her head again when the time came. It was one of the worrying things that the Godfather was concerned about, but he never let on because he had to stay strong and steadfast if he was to keep a tight rein on Charlie’s activities.