Don't Shoot the Messenger

10 - A time for truth

 ////////////////////////////

Chapter 10 

 3063 words 

   * edited

///////////////////////////

Claire's POV

The early dinner is filling. After missing lunch I over eat and though the desert looks lovely I can't take a bite. Alissandru suggests coming back to it later, and offers me a tour of the house. We hear the kids playing and don't open the door. Better if they think he is still out of the house. He points out 'my' room, and shrugs off my look; I hadn't agreed to that yet. "It is your room whenever you want to stay there." He says. He leads me back to the living room.

"I read some of your Father's work... What did your Father think of the Mafia?"    "A simple question with a complicated answer." I sit down... "A certain level of corruption still allows people to live their lives and get things done. Order allows people to predict the actions of others. That helps avoid unnecessary conflict. Everyone is working around one another pursuing their individual goals. My Dad was into history, especially the prohibition era. Organised crime was big then and when the government succeeded in pushing the Mob back, well... a vacuum gets filled. Suddenly any rules that held criminals somewhat in check were not there anymore."

"Basically, he told me that any society will always have some people who will not follow any mere law or rule. They will only submit to force, to brutality and intimidation. No government can end all crime. Many totalitarian regimes have tried to end crime. In trying they have stripped freedom from everyone.  The worst criminals will only submit to order imposed ruthlessly. The best governments cannot become that ruthless, or they no longer offer justice. Thus, only an extra-legal force can impose any order or restraint on the underworld of a free society. The Mafia does that." He nods looking thoughtful.

"May I ask you a few questions? You don't have to answer if you do not wish to."  "Yes, ask anything you wish. If I answer at all it will be with the truth, so be careful what you ask for. I do not want lies between us because... I do not yet know what we will be to one another, but I am almost certain that we will be something. If nothing else, you may become one of the rare friends who truly know me. I have had too few of them, and most are dead now."  As I will be, I thought.

"You said that the Mob boss you were fighting had broken some rules. What rules did he break, and who enforces such rules?" Alissandru thinks about how to answer. "There are rules that are enforced by nature, if you will, by reality. Loyalty is important in the Mob, but something else is important as well- the rules. People need to know that rules will be enforced and punishment will be given. They also need to know what the rules are."

"A change in the rules is not cause to kill someone for violating a rule that did not exist until they angered the boss. It is true that it can happen, but such events must be rare, if they happen at all. Your people need to know that you will be fair; the lines that cannot be crossed without bloodshed are known. The boy's Grandfather was careless. He undermined the loyalty of his own people by his failure to discipline himself. "

"Most such wars between Mob families last far longer and cost many more lives on both sides. My swift victory shocked everyone in both the Mafia and law enforcement. It made them cautious of me that I was able to do what I did. I arranged many attacks at the same time using people on the inside. I captured or killed the Don and all his children who had not already married into other families. I captured his grandchildren as well."