Dirty Money

Chapter 23 - John

            “Yeah, he rose through the ranks over there on his own…you got Al as boss, Alonzo as underboss, Carlos as captain…you just about have to be born a Giuseppe to progress, but Benny got it off merit,” Chuck mused.

            Brendan cleared his throat, “Everything is sorted with Detective Salks and Rai…we’re good to go.”

            Chuck looked at Brendan impressed, “Good, and the other thing…the meeting?”

            “I’ll be there,” Brendan said.

            Chuck let out a laugh, “How the hell did you pull that off?”

            Michael patted Brendan on the back excited Brendan nodded trying not to get a big head, “Rai’s head of security.”

            “Fuck we got an inside man,” Chuck poured three drinks, “To business well done,” he toasted; the two lieutenants did copied.

            “Want me to start moving some of my guys to the warehouse?” Michael asked.

            Chuck put his glass down on the desk, “No. This is how it is going to work; Brendan and Charlie will be running all importing operations and storage. Charlie’s too much of a fucking psycho to run the streets, I love him he’s a good leader, but we need to be careful in this business. Michael I want you to take full control of all street operations and protection.”

Brendan and Michael were both flattered by the compliments of a man who rarely compliments. Chuck viewed the security footage as he did too often to check for any visitors — everything was normal as usual the two front door security guards looked bored and the gangsters dressed as office workers typed away on their assigned computers.

“Don’t fucking drop that,” Charlie said, warningly as two of his minions carried his brand new flat screen television set toward the cabinet.

Charlie stood proud in his new house; choosing where all of his new furniture was to go. It was an excuse to celebrate his new promotion and the lieutenant was setting up the house so his wife, Angela, would have to want for nothing; as he was going to be bunkering down at the Warehouse for a while. The house was in a good location behind a set of shops and stood two stories high. It was everything the ad in the property guide advertised it to be; spacious, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living areas, a study, double lock up garage and a small backyard.

The lieutenant already had plans for his new role as Warehouse Boss and that was saving every cent and expanding his own crew. Charlie frowned at his two soldiers as they went to walk away from the newly placed down television set. “Aren’t you going to set it up?” He was sure they both rolled their eyes as he turned around. 

He could not wait to start making more money, Charlie wanted a new car and he had long resented Chuck being the flash one of the organization; Charlie was doing all the work, all the boss had to do was sit behind his comfortable fucking desk and receive money. There were times when he though about building up a big enough crew to take the boss out and pull the other lieutenants into line and under his command; they would not have the balls to go against him – he was the craziest man in the company now Philip was out, but then he would witness the stress Chuck often faced and would decide it was better to be a worker with less headaches then the boss under the spotlight.

Charlie flicked on his new kettle and let it boil as he fought a battle of loyalties in his mind. Chuck always won…even if he had turned into a bit of a prick; they had always been friends even before Chuck was apart of the Giuseppe family. The lieutenant had always tagged along with Chuck whatever the situation was and when he decided to break away from the Giuseppe’s, Charlie followed.