Mario Laraza was a man of wealth and taste. Sitting in the study of his Staten Island estate on the evening of August 18, clad in silk pajamas and slippers, he looked more like a turn of the century gentleman than a mob boss. He was tall and thin with stern blue eyes and leathery skin, the hair on the sides of his head the color of steel and the bald spot on top smooth and polished. He was esconded in his favorite armchair, a book open in his lap and a fire crackling in the hearth. Yeah, it was summer, but he was cold, though at his age, he was always cold; He was seventy-three last Spring, and while he didn't look it, he sure as hell felt it. Somedays, he felt older.

Staring absently into the fire, Laraza let his mind wander as he often did these days, allowing it to roam back over the many people, places, and things that populated his past. He was getting nostalgic. He looked back on the eighties as the good old days, the way the old hats of the eighties looked back on the fifties. When he was young he laughed at them, living in the past, set in their ways, closed to new ways of doing business and making money. Now he understood them. See, the world has a way of moving on, whether you're ready for it to or not. When he took over the Laraza Family from his father in 1981, he never thought he'd live to see the day when the mob was nearly broken, and most of its business was conducted behind a glorified typewriter with a goddamn TV screen the width of a piece of paper, yet here he was, a relic of a bygone era living in the strange and alien world of 2017. Hardly anything made sense anymore. Things were so different.

But...but there was one thing that remained the same.

Revenge.

Laraza took a drink from his brandy and sighed. He checked the time on his Rolex (the light of the fire catching his sapphire pinky ring with a glint) and drummed his fingers on the pages of the open book. It was nearly 9. They should have phoned him an hour ago with three simple words: We're coming home.

Why didn't they call when they were supposed to? Did something go wrong? Were they pinched? A thousand terrible thoughts ran through his mind, and he started to get angry, because he didn't like hitches in his plans. Hitches were bad. Hitches got you pinched, or worse, dead.

Those bastards better not have fucked this up. If they did, he swore to God he'd have them all whacked. Dump their bodies in the landfill in Queens. Let the fucking gulls have them.

The phone rang, and Mario Laraza jumped.

About fucking time.

He picked the handset up and pressed it to his ear. "Yeah?"

"It's Condor."

Condor was Anthony "Tony Terror" DeSimone, one of Laraza's top lieutenants. He was in charge of Operation d-Con. Laraza insisted on code names for this job; his phone was safe, and so was Tony's, but with the FBI constantly nipping at their heels, you couldn't be too careful, especially when murder was involved. Laraza liked birds, so there was that. It was called Operation d-Con because d-Con is what you use to kill rats.

"Yeah? Is it done?"

A pregnant pause filled the line, and Laraza had his answer. His lips tightened into a slash and his eyes set.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Jerry was...alerted."

Jerry was the codename for that rat bastard "Grant" because of the cartoon. "How was he alerted?"

"His hole was disturbed."

That meant some fucking body went into Grant's place, made a fucking mess, then left it for him to find.

"We lost him," Tony said.

Laraza drew a deep breath. "How in the hell do you lose a 280 pound man?"

"It was Sparrow and Blue jay."

Sparrow was Tommy DeNunzio, Tony's nephew, and Bluejay was Frankie Carlone. Both were young and hungry to make their mark in the underworld. They jumped at the chance to go after Grant, since a job this big would ensure them being made...inducted as full members of the Family.

Laraza pinched the bridge of his nose.

"There was also...an incident."

His eyes, hitherto closed, flew open. "What kind of incident?"

"Well, it was a – uh – hailstorm..."

"Cut the shit and tell me what fucking happened."

"They shot up a gas station full of people."

"They what?"

Tony didn't respond.

Laraza was starting to fume. He took a deep breath, held it for ten seconds, then exhaled. "What is one of the most important rules about this thing of ours?"

"I know..." Tony started, but Laraza cut him off.

"What is it?"

"Don't bring heat."

"Yeah, and what's shooting up a gas station full of fucking people doing?"

"Bringing heat." He sounded like a scolded child.

"Do you remember what happened to Dutch Shultz?"

"Yeah."

Dutch Shultz was a wiseguy in the thirties who went to the bosses and asked permission to kill the New York City district attorney. They refused, since killing someone so high profile would bring swift and merciless retribution. Shultz tried anyway, and wound up getting whacked for his troubles.

"No more fuck ups," Laraza said, "or bad things are gonna happen."

"Yes, sir."

"And find this guy pronto. I want him taken out tonight."

"Yes, sir."

"Now go fucking do it, and keep those two retards in line, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

Laraza hung the phone up and sat back, an unhappy scowl playing across his wrinkled face. He called up a picture of his son as he'd last seen him, lying in a casket after being shanked by a nigger in prison, and hot hatred coursed through him. If it hadn't been for that asshole "Philip Grant", Bobby would still be alive.

He thought of what Tony had told him, those two dumb fucks shooting up a gas station full of people. He thought of all he would lose if the cops pinched them and they ratted him out. He'd spent so long fighting to stay on top that his first reaction to this turn of events was anger, but you know what? As long as Grant died, Mario Laraza didn't really care if he went down.

He took a drink of brandy and gazed into the fire. As long as he paid Grant back for Bobby, he would die happy...

Tony DeSimone, a tall man with a big nose, crinkled flesh, and graying hair with black at the temples, snapped the burner phone closed and threw it onto the dashboard. Behind the wheel, Jimmy Vario (street name Little because what else would you call a 6'2, 250 pound man?) lit a cigarette and exhaled a plume of blue smoke that hung like haze in the car, some of it drifting out the window into the still August night. "He threaten to whack us?" Jimmy asked casually.

"Kinda," Tony said.

Jimmy nodded. Mr. Laraza wasn't a bloodthirsty kinda guy. Never had been, even back when business was good and you could still get away with whacking guys left and right. Given the special circumstances surrounding the mission, however, Jimmy wasn't surprised the old man was talking about whacking them. This Grant asshole caused Bobby Laraza to go to prison, where some moolie ripped his guts out with a sharpened toothbrush over a craps game. This wasn't business, this was personal.

"You think we should take a walk?" Jimmy asked, nodding toward the house across the street. It was a big two story deal with a covered porch and dormers. Toys, sports equipment, and other junk dotted the front lawn.

Tony and Jimmy had been watching the house for over a week: It was the only place other than his apartment that Chunk spent any amount of time at. Their first day watching him, they trailed him here, staying two car lengths behind to avoid being seen.

Neither of them could figure out what he was up to, then a couple days in they saw him loading shit into the back of a van...looked like speakers and guitar cases. "Guess he works for 'em," Tony had said.

"Looks like it," Jimmy replied.

"What are they, some kinda fuckin family Brady Bunch band or something?"

"That's The Partridge Family," Jimmy pointed out.

"Nah, The Brady Bunch had a band too. I think."

"Who fucking knows? I never watched that shit. Buncha assholes dancing around in tights. Pretty fucking gay if you ask me."

Over the course of the week, they counted thirteen people coming and going from the house, not counting the Mexican boy, the Mexican girl, and the black boy who stopped by every now and then.

"Look at this shit," Tony nodded out the window on Saturday. Kids ran through the front yard, seven, eight, nine. All of them were girls except for the little Albino boy. "Place an orphanage or something?"

"I dunno, maybe."

Tony had a little notepad in his lap and a pen in his hand. He took down the description, age, and gender of every family member, just in case.

Presently, Tony licked his lips and thought about it. "If we go in there, we're gonna have to whack 'em all. I don't know if he's gonna like that."

"That asshole's on the move, though," Jimmy said, "this is the only place he has to go. Except the police, and I guarantee he's too fucking smart to go to the cops."

The sheriff in Royal Woods was a man named David Kenner. Kenner, like many other officials in the Detroit metro area, took his marching orders from the Chicago Syndicate, who had moved into Detroit in the 1960s after the dissolution of the Ruzzi Family. As a favor to Mr. Laraza, the Syndicate ordered Kenner to turn over Philip Grant if he showed up at the police station. Say what you want about Chunk, but he wasn't stupid. He most likely knew he was a dead man if he went to the cops. Where else could he go?

"Yeah," Tony said, staring at the front of the house. Lights blazed in the front windows. He figured if they had to whack 'em all, Kenner would cover for them. Say it was some iterant darkie or something. Jimmy was right about Chunk not being stupid, and he was right that this is the only place he had to go. It was worth it if it meant nabbing that bastard, because if they went back empty-handed...

"Alright," Tony nodded, "let's go."

"You fuckin let him go!" Tommy DeNunzio raged, gesturing with his right hand, his left hand gripping the wheel. They were creeping along Coleman Street and scanning the brush on either side. Frankie Carlone shined a spotlight out the window, sweeping the night.

"Me? You're such a good fucking shot, why didn't you peg him?"

Tommy was a braggart. His dick was the biggest, his aim the best, his money the greenest. Frankie had been friends with him since elementary school, and he'd always been like that. If he had No. 2 pencil and you had a No. 2 pencil, his was better. "Look at this pencil! It's a thing of beauty. Yours is junk." It got really fucking old sometimes.

"You gotta make your bones sometime, Frankie."

Make your bones. Kill someone. As far as Frankie knew, Tommy had never killed anyone either, but to hear him tell it, he killed a guy every morning for breakfast.

"Yeah, I fucked up," Frankie said just so Tommy would shut his trap. Something stirred in the tall grass along the roadside, and Frankie shined the light on it. Gopher. Or something. He didn't fucking know.

"Well, we gotta find him," Tommy said, glancing out his open window, "Uncle Tony's not happy."

"Tony's never happy," Frankie said.

"Yeah, well, he's extra not happy."

"I told you shooting that place up wasn't a good idea." Even now they could hear sirens in the distance. Frankie figured it'd make the 11'o'clock news, be front page on the papers tomorrow. Tommy was a hot-head, though, and when he made up his mind about something, that's how it went, fuck you.

"Oh fucking well. You and I gotta be the ones to take him out. You know what that'll do for us? Mr. Laraza will probably suck our dicks right there in front of everyone."

Taking Grant out would elevate them, but Frankie wasn't entirely sure it was worth breaking rules and pissing people off. Pissing people off is how you wind up getting an icepick in your ear.

Tommy's phone rang in his lap, and he glanced at it. "It's Uncle Tony." He picked it up, pushed a button, and raised it to his ear. "Yeah, what's up?"

Frankie continued sweeping the side of the road. This section of Colman was heavily wooded. He saw bags of trash, a busted TV, an overturned armchair, an engine block...everything but Phil Grant.

"We're going in," Tony said simply. "You and Frankie keep doing what you're doing. If you see him, whack him."

"Alright," Tommy said, feeling a little betrayed. Not ten minutes ago Uncle Tony chewed him a new asshole for shooting up a gas station, now he was going into that house with all those people, and Tommy was damn sure none of them were going to make it out. How's that for a fucking hypocrite?

"If you get him, call."

"Alright."

Tony hung up.

"What?" Frankie asked.

"Nothing," Tommy said. "They're just gonna go in."

Frankie's eyes widened. "All those kids?"

"Fuck 'em," Tommy said.

Frankie shook his head. He'd done a lot of things he wasn't proud of in his life, but whacking women and kids? That was waaaay too much. Once upon a time, you left women and kids alone, and if you didn't, you'd wind up in a vacant lot somewhere with a bullet in your head. These days, no one cared. It was the end of the world (or the mob at least), and everyone kinda felt it, and all the old traditions were out the window.

It was enough to make you sick to your stomach, and right now, Frankie Carlone was suddenly sick to his.