Chapter 3 - The Cold War in the Streets
By noon, the cracks in the Calder syndicate widened into ravines.
Vincent drove himself through the rain to the West Side, refusing to take his security detail. He needed to show strength. He needed to look Frank D’Amato in the eye and remind the veteran street boss who signed the checks.
Frank’s headquarters was an unassuming auto body shop behind an abandoned steel yard. The smell of motor oil and burnt rubber always hung in the damp air. Usually, when Vincent arrived, two guards would hurry out with umbrellas, clearing a path through the garage bays with deferential nods.
Today, the front bay door was half-closed. A young mechanic with grease on his forearms barely glanced up from a dismantled transmission.
“Where’s Frank?” Vincent demanded, his coat damp from the drizzle.
“In the office. He’s busy.”
Vincent pushed past the kid, shoving the flimsy aluminum office door open without knocking.
Frank D’Amato was sitting behind a metal desk covered in invoices, smoking an unfiltered cigarette. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw stubbled with gray whiskers. He looked up, his expression neither surprised nor welcoming.
“You didn't answer my calls last night, Frank,” Vincent said, closing the door firmly behind him. “You didn't show up at Calder Tower this morning. We have three distribution contracts expiring at the end of the week. What the hell is going on?”
Frank took a long drag, exhaled a thick cloud of blue smoke, and tapped his ash into an empty soda can. “I was busy, Vincent.”
“Too busy for me? I made you, Frank. I took you off the corner in Bridgeport when you were facing twenty years for armed robbery. I paid your legal bills. I put you in charge of the entire West Side corridor!”
Frank laughed. It was a dry, ugly sound.
“You paid my legal bills with money I earned for you,” Frank said, his voice flat. “And you didn't keep me out of prison. Elena did. Elena found the witness who had an axe to grind against my family, sat down with her mother in a church basement, and figured out how to make her recant without a single threat. You just signed the voucher Anthony handed you.”
Vincent leaned over the desk, planting both hands on the metal surface. “I am your boss, Frank. You answer to me, not my wife.”
“Then act like a boss instead of a teenage boy who traded a diamond for a piece of cheap plastic,” Frank shot back, rising to his feet until his chest nearly touched Vincent’s. “Do you know what today is, Vincent?”
Vincent hesitated.
“It’s my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” Frank said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet register. “Every year for twenty-two years, Elena Calder sent my Maria white lilies. She sent a handwritten note telling Maria that the organization was strong because Maria held our home together while I was doing your dirty work. Maria kept every single one of those letters in a cedar chest. She cried over them. Whenever I wanted to put a bullet in your arrogant head because you humiliated me in front of the crew, Maria would put her hand on my chest and say, ‘Vincent is hot-headed, but Elena values us. For Elena’s sake, stay loyal.’”
Frank pointed a grease-stained finger directly at Vincent’s chest.
“Last night, Maria saw you parading that gold-digger around the charity gala. She saw you let that girl laugh while your wife stood there alone. Maria looked at me and said, ‘If Vincent Calder has no respect for the woman who built him, he has no respect for anyone who bleeds for him.’ And she was right.”
“Frank, this is business—”
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“No, this is life,” Frank cut him off. “The truckers aren't rolling today. The drivers are sitting on their hands. If customs wants to confiscate Dean’s containers, let them. If the docks back up, let them. You told your wife she wasn't important. Now you run the family. Let's see how much freight moves when the heart is dead.”
Vincent walked out into the cold rain without another word. His suit was ruined. His chest felt hollow, like an engine running completely out of oil.
