That evening, Vito received a call in his hotel room.
"Vito, it's Leo. I have a car waiting for you downstairs. It's going to take you to the Mona Lisa. Meet me there."
He grabbed a coat, and rode the elevator down to the lobby.
"Mr. Scaletta," a man waiting in the lobby called when he noticed Vito. "The car is waiting at the curb. Follow me."
Vito got into the back seat of the dark blue Lassiter limousine, and was driven down to the Mona Lisa Restaurant. He couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive about walking into the Vinci hangout. The last time he was there, he was held at gunpoint by a Vinci caporegime, knocked out, and interrogated by some of the family's men.
The men in the restaurant, mostly Vinci men, undoubtedly remembered that Vito and Joe had beaten that capo to death, and taken out a dozen Vinci soldiers during their escape.
Conversation in the restaurant got a lot quieter when Vito walked in. The bartender nodded curtly to him, and pointed toward the back of the room. Vito looked in that direction, and saw Leo sitting in a corner booth with another man.
"Vito, back here," Leo said. "Have a seat," he said, gesturing to the empty seat next to a man Vito had never met.
"Vito Scaletta," Leo said, "meet Nicky Damone. Nicky, this is Vito."
Nicodemo "Nicky" Damone looked to be in his early 30's, and a few inches shorter than Vito. He had the same black hair and olive skin as Vito. Rather than a fancy three piece suit, he wore a simple black business suit. He looked more like a CEO than a Mafioso.
"So, Vito," Nicky asked, "you interested in doing some work for us out in Vincennes?"
"Yeah. I've never been out there. I'm looking forward to it."
Nicky smirked. "Well, this won't be a vacation. "In fact, I've already got a job lined up for you. Mr. Vinci's business partner out there is a guy named Levi Reisen. He convinced Mr. Vinci to invest in his casino, the Sand Dunes. The casino's been losing money, and Mr. Vinci's convinced that the only way the family will make money off of the investment is to take over the casino ourselves."
"To do that," Leo said, "we've got to get rid of Reisen."
"Let me guess," Vito replied, "I'm the one who's got to get rid of him."
"This is your chance to prove yourself to us," Leo said. "Get rid of this guy, do it quietly, and Mr. Vinci will be willing to accept you as part of the family. You and Nicky will have that little desert town to yourselves"
Vito lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and then nodded. "Ok, I'll do it."
Nicky slid a train ticket across the table to him. "Good. You leave in three hours. I'll be heading out there tomorrow morning, so I won't be too far behind you. Good luck, Vito."
Levi Reisen had been born in Empire Bay in 1910. His family was one of the few Jewish families that lived on the West Side. As a result, most of Levi's friends growing up were Italian. He spent his adolescence hanging around the Mona Lisa Restaurant. Some of his friends had fathers, uncles, or older brothers who spent time there and worked for the Vincis. Soon, Levi was running small errands for the Vinci Family.
When Levi was 13, his family moved away from the West Side, and into a bigger apartment in a nicer neighborhood. Levi didn't spend much time at the Mona Lisa anymore. He did take what he learned there, though, and start his own street gang. The mostly Jewish gang made serious money with petty theft and gambling, and Levi realized that he had a knack for bookmaking. By the age of 16, he had stopped going to school, and was earning more money than his father.
That was about the time his father called him a "no good, dirty gangster," and kicked him out of the house. It didn't worry Levi. He had enough money to rent an apartment of his own. He was 16, and he had an apartment and a car of his own!
Levi killed for the first time when he was 17. He and a couple of guys in his gang had broken into a truck depot to steal a shipment of the newest wireless radios. A night watchman caught them. Levi had offered to give him a cut of the profits if he kept quite. The man refused, and Levi stabbed him four times in the gut.
Things changed for Levi and his crew when a Clemente caporegime pressured Levi into kicking up 60% of the gangs profits to the Clemente Family. Levi shot the man, and dumped the body in a back alley. The Clementes came after him. In one week, three of his gang's top earners (and three of his best friends) had been found dead. Levi knew that he couldn't survive much longer.
He and the surviving members of his crew left for Lost Heaven. There was a power vacuum out there. The Morello Family had been all but wiped out by the Salieris. Thanks to some rat who was talking to the FBI, half of the Salieri Family was under indictment, and the other half was in hiding.
He set up a bookmaking operation in the new city. For the first 6 months, Levi watched his back. He was afraid some Clemente button man would sneak up on him one day and put a bullet in the back of his head. The day never came, though. Things went well in Lost Heaven. He made contacts with the fledgling Salieri Family, and expanded his gambling operation. He bought a house in the hills, and spent his evenings hanging out in bars and restaurants with famous movie stars.
During the war, Levi heard the stories about a gambling resort that was opening in Las Vincennes to accommodate GI's. He thought it would be a great time to expand his operation. He planned a resort casino that would be the envy of all others. He would have a hotel and casino all in one. The casino would have thousands of square feet worth of slot machines, black jack tables, and roulette wheels. The hotel would have a swimming pool, restaurants, and lavish suites for high rollers. The hotel would even have a golf course. A golf course, right in the middle of the desert!
To make it happen, he would need lots of money. He was doing well in Lost Heaven, but he would need more money than his bookmaking operation brought in. He couldn't go to his friends in the Salleri Family. They were only taking in a fraction of the cash they were bringing in during their glory days. Instead, he went back to Empire Bay to speak to Frank Vinci.
Levi convinced Mr. Vinci to invest in his idea by promising him a percentage of the profits. Vinci agreed, and gave Levi the money he needed. Construction began soon after the war. It didn't matter that there wouldn't be as many GI's around as before. Gambling in Vincennes was there to stay.
The Sand Dunes Hotel and Casino had its grand opening on Memorial Day weekend in 1949. Half of the rooms were still unfinished. The sprinkler system on the golf course regularly malfunctioned, and caused the grass to turn dry, and brown. Even Levi's celebrity friends couldn't make it into town due to rain in Lost Heaven that grounded airplanes.
The casino lost money that first year. A big, frightening man showed up at Levi's office one night. He said that Mr. Vinci was getting impatient, and wanted a return on his investment. Levi closed the casino down in February of 1950, and went into debt to renovate the casino. It reopened 6 months later. Finally, the golf course looked like a real golf course. Finally, people started showing up to gamble. The casino started to turn a profit, but not enough to satisfy Frank Vinci.
Vinci wanted to send his own men to take over the casino and "run things the right way." He couldn't expand out west, though, until he had the blessing of The Commission. During a meeting in early 1951, The Commission voted to make Las Vincennes an open city. That meant that any and all crime families in the United States could set up shop in the there.
Soon after the meeting, Vinci gave the order to kill Levi Reisen so that his own men could take over the casino. "I've always liked the kid," Vinci told his consigliere Leo Galante. "It's nothing personal. Just business."
With a train ticket in hand, and the order given, Vito Scaletta left for Las Vincennes to kill Levi.
The morning after Vito left town, a fisherman pulled a human torso out of the Culver River. The torso had no head, no arms or legs, and no genitalia. Medical examiners could determine that the torso belonged to a male, but that was it. Police were baffled. They had no idea that the body belonged to a man that had recently disappeared: A young hood from Little Italy named Joe Barbaro.