Chapter One––Ciao, Anthony

“Today, I killed someone.”

He wrote that in his journal later that evening after dinner. The victim’s name was Anthony Cribaldi. He wouldn’t be missed.

The man knew in this line of work, sometimes hard choices had to be made and Anthony understood this better than anyone, though the man highly doubted Anthony would see it so coldly and analytically once he became the target. He had done it himself, many, many times. Anthony Cribaldi was a cold-blooded mob boss from Chicago….who had served as a solid supporting character in three fictional novels. But the plot had stalled and something drastic was needed. The man doing the writing wasn’t a serial killer or a hit man. He wrote crime and suspense novels and his plot needed a jump-start. Just another Tuesday in the world of crime fiction.

When a character becomes too powerful or too complacent or too comfortable or simply takes up space in the story, there’s always the last option: kill ‘em off. The blank page hadn’t cooperated lately for the writer and so he decided to give his Mafia Don the heave-ho.

Anthony Cribaldi was a well-constructed and charismatic son-of-fiction who ran Chicago from on high with a typical storied, generational mob family history. The writer needed a mob figure in the first novel who wasn’t a cliché, but was both vicious and relatable and that’s where the food hook came in. Anthony was an amazing cook. His death was business, not personal.

Sometimes all a story needs is a fresh enemy, so the writer basted Cribaldi in a rich broth of cancerous cells and set him to flames. Instead of “two in the head,” he gave Anthony Stage 4, small-cell carcinoma of the lungs. Particularly cruel, the writer thought, chuckling as he typed, because Anthony was a lifelong non-smoker.

The last meaningful conversation took place in his doctor’s office in Chicago with Anthony rearranging the doctor’s appointments the following morning so the PET scan better suited Anthony’s very important schedule of extortion and racketeering.

“I think we can do that, Mr. Cribaldi,” his doctor said, meekly. “Tomorrow morning, that is.”

“Fuckin’ right you can,” the Don croaked. “Sorry, Doc. Old habit,” he said, his eyes misty. He then reached inside his coat and slid a thick envelope across the desk and said, as his voice caught, “Do your best, huh? Thanks, Doc.”

Anthony died in his own bed six short weeks later. The writer couldn’t type fast enough, it was like honey dripping from his fingers to the keyboard.

Cribaldi’s memorial service was pure poetry, in a Mafia-sentimentality way. Cribaldi’s longtime consigliere and childhood best friend, Silvio Arradondo, and all the captains and button men held a Mafia version of a state funeral for the departed Don at his special club. Arradondo had been made the new Don in a ceremony two weeks before, christened by Anthony himself, who was clearly on his last legs.

But life in Mafia Town was not alright, because Silvio turned out to have more than a few skeletons lurking in a closet he had yet to come out of. Sal Benucci knew about these skeletons: Arradondo liked men. In Mafia circles, that’s a big, fat hanging offense.

Killing off Anthony worked perfectly. It boosted the writer’s storyline as needed and the man relished writing it, though probably not as much as Anthony had enjoyed cooking fresh pasta or ordering the death of a competitor Mafioso or extorting a politician or getting fellated in the back of his bulletproof Maybach by some busty blonde 30 years his junior, even if it was all just fiction.

Buon fortuna, Don Cribaldi.