To Granelli’s left sat Thomas Colfax, the Family consigliere. Twenty-five years earlier, Colfax had had a brilliant future as a corporation lawyer, but he had defended a small olive-oil company which turned out to be Mafia-controlled and, step by step, had been lured into handling other cases for the Mafia until finally, through the years, the Granelli Family had become his sole client. It was a very lucrative client and Thomas Colfax became a wealthy man, with extensive real estate holdings and bank accounts all over the world.

To the right of Antonio Granelli sat Michael Moretti, his son-in-law. Michael was ambitious, a trait that made Granelli nervous. Michael did not fit into the pattern of the Family. His father, Giovanni, a distant cousin of Antonio Granelli, had been born not in Sicily but in Florence. That alone made the Moretti family suspect—everybody knew that Florentines were not to be trusted.

Giovanni Moretti had come to America and opened a shop as a shoemaker, running it honestly, without even a back room for gambling or loan-sharking or girls. Which made him stupid.

Giovanni’s son, Michael, was entirely different. He had put himself through Yale and the Wharton School of Business. When Michael had finished school, he had gone to his father with one request: He wanted to meet his distant relative, Antonio Granelli. The old shoemaker had gone to see his cousin and the meeting had been arranged. Granelli was sure that Michael was going to ask for a loan so that he could go into some kind of business, maybe open a shoe shop like his dumb father. But the meeting had been a surprise.

“I know how to make you rich,” Michael Moretti had begun.

Antonio Granelli had looked at the impudent young man and had smiled tolerantly. “I am rich.”

“No. You just think you’re rich.”

The smile had died away. “What the hell you talkin’ about, kid?”

And Michael Moretti had told him.

Antonio Granelli had moved cautiously at first, testing each piece of Michael’s advice. Everything had succeeded brilliantly. Where before, the Granelli Family had been involved in profitable illegal activities, under Michael Moretti’s supervision it branched out. Within five years the Family was into dozens of legitimate businesses, including meat-packing, linen supplies, restaurants, trucking companies and pharmaceuticals. Michael found ailing companies that needed financing and the Family went in as a minor partner and gradually took over, stripping away whatever assets there were. Old companies with impeccable reputations suddenly found themselves bankrupt. The businesses that showed a satisfactory profit, Michael hung on to and he increased the profits tremendously, for the workers in those businesses were controlled by his unions, and the company took their insurance through one of the Family-owned insurance companies, and they bought their automobiles from one of the Family’s automobile dealers. Michael created a symbiotic giant, a series of businesses through which the consumer was constantly being milked—and the milk flowed to the Family.

In spite of his successes, Michael Moretti was aware that he had a problem. Once he had shown Antonio Granelli the rich, ripe horizons of legitimate enterprise, Granelli no longer needed him. He was expensive, because in the beginning he had persuaded Antonio Granelli to give him a percentage of what everyone was sure would be a small pot. But as Michael’s ideas began to bear fruit and the profits poured in, Granelli had second thoughts. By chance, Michael learned that Granelli had held a meeting to discuss what the Family should do with him.

“I don’t like to see all this money goin’ to the kid,” Granelli had said. “We get rid of him.”

Michael had circumvented that scheme by marrying into the Family. Rosa, Antonio Granelli’s only daughter, was nineteen years old. Her mother had died giving birth to her, and Rosa had been brought up in a convent and was allowed to come home only during the holidays. Her father adored her, and he saw to it that she was protected and sheltered. It was on a school holiday, an Easter, that Rosa met Michael Moretti. By the time she returned to the convent, she was madly in love with him. The memory of his dark good looks drove her to do things when she was alone that the nuns told her were sins against God.

Antonio Granelli was under the delusion that his daughter thought he was merely a successful businessman, but over the years, Rosa’s classmates had shown her newspaper and magazine articles about her father and his real business, and whenever the government made an attempt to indict and convict one of the Granelli Family, Rosa was always aware of it. She never discussed it with her father, and so he remained happy in his belief that his daughter was an innocent and that she was spared the shock of knowing the truth.

The truth, if he had know it, would have surprised Granelli for Rosa found her father’s business terribly exciting. She hated the discipline of the nuns at the convent and that, in turn, led her to hate all authority. She daydreamed about her father as a kind of Robin Hood, challenging authority, defying the government. The fact that Michael Moretti was an important man in her father’s organization made him that much more exciting to her.

From the beginning, Michael was very careful how he handled Rosa. When he managed to be alone with her they exchanged ardent kisses and embraces, but Michael never let it go too far. Rosa was a virgin and she was willing—eager—to give herself to the man she loved. It was Michael who held back.

“I respect you too much, Rosa, to go to bed with you before we’re married.”

In reality, it was Antonio Granelli he respected too much. He’d chop my balls off, Michael thought.

And so it happened that at the time Antonio Granelli was discussing the best way to get rid of Michael Moretti, Michael and Rosa came to him and announced that they were in love and intended to get married. The old man screamed and raged and gave a hundred reasons why it would happen only over someone’s dead body. But in the end, true love prevailed and Michael and Rosa were married in an elaborate ceremony.

After the wedding the old man had called Michael aside. “Rosa’s all I got, Michael. You take good care of her, huh?”

“I will, Tony.”

“I’m gonna be watchin’ you. You better make her happy. You know what I mean, Mike?”

“I know what you mean.”

“No whores or chippies. Understand? Rosa likes to cook. You see that you’re home for dinner every night. You’re gonna be a son-in-law to be proud of.”

“I’m going to try very hard, Tony.”

Antonio Granelli had said casually, “Oh, by the way, Mike, now that you’re a member of the Family, that royalty deal I gave you—maybe we oughta change it.”

Michael had clapped him on the arm. “Thanks, Papa, but it’s enough for us. I’ll be able to buy Rosa everything she wants.”

And he had walked away, leaving the old man staring after him.

That had been seven years earlier, and the years that followed had been wonderful for Michael. Rosa was pleasant and easy to live with and she adored him, but Michael knew that if she died or went away, he would get along without her. He would simply find someone else to do the things she did for him. He was not in love with Rosa. Michael did not think he was capable of loving another human being; it was as though something was missing in him.

He had no feelings for people, only for animals. Michael had been given a collie puppy for his tenth birthday. The two of them were inseparable. Six weeks later the dog had been killed in a hit-and-run accident, and when Michael’s father offered to buy him another dog, Michael had refused. He had never owned another dog after that.