Chapter 3

Don De Luca took Vincent over to a corner of the small meeting room. "Vincent, this is an outrage! You know how hard I've worked for the Marreetti Family. Conjoin the two families now, the De Lucas and the Marrettis. Not just the alliance."

"Attillio, you know I can't know, I've promised the job to Tony. Talk to him. He's the new Don." Vincent replied.

"Not yet he isn't! I will be damned if I watch the strongest two families in the country go to the hands of a punk kid."

"Don De Luca, he has just as much right as you to be here if not more. You gave your allegence to Vincenzo, now to Tony. Tony! Come here son!" Vincent called Tony to his side, and Tony answered his Godfather's call. "Tony, this is your father's ring. He gave it to me as soon as I graduated high school, the same one you're at." As he said this he slipped the prized ring from his finger. It was a signal of authority. "I beleive in your cause Tony, and I will help you find the truth."

"Thank you, Godfather. I will find the man that killed him."

"Tone, you look terrible. Maybe you should get some sleep or something tonight buddy." Joey said. He dropped his lunch on the table of the AVI room. Tony had used his connections on the inside of the school to get the room to review some tapes.

"I'm working on it Joe." Tony said rubbing his eyes. "I was up all night looking at surveilence videos of my father's office. This is what I have so far: number one, is was a mafia hit. Number two, it wasn't inside or from the Romano family for more power. It had to be something from De Luca, but I can't make the connection."

"Tone, you're taking this way to hard. Check everything in your father's office. The trash can especially. A dead man's trash can hold many secrets." Joey said, trying to help the tired Tony along a little.

"Fine Joe. Maybe you're right. Maybe there's something I missed. The thing that I noticed when I got therewas that it smelled like smoke. Not just gun smoke. Like he was burning something before the shooting."

"Maybe he was smoking?"

"No the tapes would have showed it."

"Wait, the tapes showed everything? Then why don't you know?"

"Look here, at the time, 8:50, then straight to 9:00. Look, there's some smoke in the air."

"Where's the shooters?" Joey asked tentativly.

"They don't show up untill 9:05. I don't get there untill 9:20. He dosen't officially die untill 9:15."

"Then someone messed with the tapes?"

"Bingo Joey." Tony said, his voive reaching a tired deep. "Let's go check the trash cans."