Dirty Money

Prologue - The Families

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Copyright © 2011 ThomasBerryman

 The lights to Dae-Ho's Korean restaurant were off, on the front door of the small building a sign was hanging by a silver chain that read ‘Closed’. Outside a line of cars were parked along the footpath, visible by over hanging streetlights. Leaning up against nearly every car there was a different man, none of them talked but they all had a few things in common. Number one they were drivers, number two they dressed almost identical each in their tracksuits, gold, and sneakers. Thirdly they were downing cigarettes, as they had been for the last half an hour, there was not much else you could do when the bosses were locked in a meeting of the minds. 

  Only one didn’t smoke, Big Mike, and he didn’t dress like the others, his boss always insisted on dressing nice, but not too nice. You never want to attract any unwanted attention, especially when your occupation for tax purposes is car detailer, and you drive a Chrysler. Mike looked at his watch before taking a bite of his third donut, it wasn’t hard to tell where he got the name Big Mike he was well over a hundred kilograms and around six foot two. Mike always came equipped with donuts and a thermos, meetings like these could go on for hours; often they would conclude with absolutely no results they were necessary however.

  Three Families were fighting to run the central part of Contro City, Kim headed the Korean faction, Albert Giuseppe headed more of a multicultural family, one that was home to Italians, Irish, and anyone else loyal to his business dealings. But of course to be an official ranking member you must have Italian heritage. These guys still had to answer to the old men back home, whether it was the year two thousand and eleven or not.

Chuck Thesio was once upon a time, Albert’s up and comer; Albert schooled him as best he could, but eventually the apprentice turned to drugs.

He was given a second chance at life by Albert who would normally kill an addict, due to the heavy liability they became to the family, and in turn a valuable asset to the federal government. Chuck finished the twelve-step program, decided to go around to every drug dealer in the city, even the ones whom use to feed his addiction. With the help of a couple of friends he killed them all, and took over every single one’s business creating his very own monopoly surpassing his former bosses wealth with ease. Now it was war on the streets the old school was fading away, some of them were even joining the young guns. 

Inside the Korean restaurant the tables had been moved together to form one singular long table. Inside only their top men accompanied the bosses, Albert brought along his generals, Carlos, Frank, Mario, and Benny. He knew one of them was screwing him over with Chuck, he just couldn’t figure out which one yet, this meeting would determine who. Since Albert’s brother, and underboss, Alonzo was incarcerated, the family was beginning to falter.

Tonight was a meeting of families, to try and solve their problems, Albert knew nothing would come of it. They had been holding these meetings all year with no results, Albert decided to set up another one, to weed out the disloyal general.

Albert’s crew was on one side of the table, Chuck’s on the other, their host Kim was at the end accompanied  only by his son Ray, who knew never to speak in meetings, only to listen, he would sit in his heavy leather jacket, chain smoking, taking in every word, throwing in the occasional nod. Kim only trusted blood; he would only issue orders through his son, who would in turn pass them down to the six lieutenants. The Koreans were slowly taking over every legitimate business they could, especially the nightclub scene. They had already forced the local bike gangs out, gunning them all down, allowing a few survivors to flee town. It wasn’t the most difficult task since Chuck had already wiped out their drug connections.

Chuck on the other hand brought anyone, and everyone to meetings. He would have an entourage of twenty men, most of the cars at the front were his boys. This only lost him respect amongst Albert and Kim who would only bring those of their closest circle. 

After a long night, Mike was relieved as Albert approached in good spirits. The boss looked younger than fifty-two, he still had handsome features and a full head of hair that had not fully yet turned grey. Unlike Mike, Albert attempted some form of aerobic exercise; his biggest fear was surviving so long only to be finished off with a heart attack. Mike opened the passenger side and waited until Albert was inside before closing the door fitted with bulletproof windows.

“How’d it go Al?” Mike started the car, nodding at Mario and his driver Sin as they crossed the road with Frank Brenalli and his right hand man Roy. 

“Frank Brenalli.”