Vito’s first days of freedom were spent with a small group of men whom he genuinely trusted. One of his valued York Region contacts lived in a mansion behind a walled compound in King City, with a fish-eye security lens on the front gate allowing a wide view of the street. Vito had been welcome there in the past and there was no indication that they had turned against him. He knew many mobsters, businessmen and politicians, but there was just a short list who had earned his absolute faith. Vito had remained solid in prison, and now he needed to be around equally solid men as he sorted through eight years of intelligence. Vito had well-placed sources within policing as well as on the streets, so there was plenty of information. There was also much to consider. Men who valued the motivations of business over those of blood would be quick to betray him, if they hadn’t already.
Vito felt he could also still count on his father’s old lieutenant, Rocco Sollecito, who was due to walk out of Leclerc Institution on October 16. In Vito’s absence, Sollecito had been number four in the Rizzuto group, but the murders of Nicolò and Agostino Cuntrera and the kidnapping and disappearance of Paolo Renda pushed him up the ranks. Sollecito had been responsible for construction and bookmaking as well as managing the Consenza Social Club; Vito would need him to do even more now. He was a tough, experienced man who was good with numbers and had contacts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. He was finally getting freed on statutory release, meaning he wouldn’t be subject to any parole conditions, which made him all the more useful to his boss.
As Vito settled into his new life, the general public was strangely engaged with his private war and personal odyssey. There was strong Internet debate about where he would live. One rumour had him setting up camp in a property north of Toronto believed to have once belonged to pop superstar Elton John. There was no substance to the speculation, but it filled the need for cyber-chatter, until the next gangland slaying.
While Vito had finally returned, the country he had returned to was irreparably changed. So was Vito. What man could be diplomatic after the murder of his father and son? There was also his mother to consider. What would please his mother most: revenge for fallen family members or a long, quiet life for her only son?
Some things remained clear. There was no possibility of any common ground with relatives of Paolo Violi. Vito had never really liked members of the Commisso–’Ndrangheta family. How things stood with Carmelo Bruzzese wasn’t so clear. They had once been friendly, but Bruzzese’s son-in-law was Antonio Coluccio, and the Coluccios seemed central to the ’Ndrangheta’s attempt to push into Montreal. Bruzzese had problems of his own, as the federal government was pushing to deport him to Italy.
Another important man in the shadows was Peter Scarcella, once considered a Vito ally. Scarcella was free on statutory release after his nine-year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and possession of a prohibited weapon. That prison time stemmed from his contribution to the failed group effort to have Modica murdered, which resulted in the crippling of innocent mother Louise Russo. Like Vito, Scarcella was now a marked man in some quarters. Scarcella’s parole release form warned that he shouldn’t get too comfortable: “On April 5, 2012, based on new information indicating a threat to your life, the Board altered an existing condition and imposed additional conditions including a condition that you reside at a Community Correctional Centre, or Community Residential Facility (such as Private Home Placement) approved by the Correctional Service of Canada, until the warrant expiry date.”
There was nothing novel about criminals concluding it was a good idea to murder Scarcella. Back in the early 1980s, he was a target of the Commisso crime family. In 2007, while in custody, Scarcella was stabbed by another inmate. That year, he began psychological testing and violence prevention counselling. His parole file concluded that “you do not meet the criteria for the designation of psychopathy,” but also added, “clinical impressions suggest that you represent a higher likelihood for indirect involvement in criminal activity for which you would not be prone to detection or apprehension. Clinical impressions also suggest a higher likelihood of involvement in indirect, instrumental violence should you feel the need for it.”
In short, blue-eyed Peter was a mobster but not a lunatic. The report continued: “Indications are that you have held entrenched criminal values, and professionals assessing you believe there is a significant likelihood of you returning to your criminal lifestyle.” Scarcella’s parole conditions included the usual prohibition against associating with criminals. So while Scarcella was free, he was also a carefully watched man, both by the parole board and by underworld enemies. Meeting with him would be difficult and dangerous.
Some of the other men Vito had trusted also weren’t much good to him now, even if they had remained loyal. Compare Frank Arcadi was serving a fifteen-year sentence as a result of the Colisée crackdown. Even with Canada’s often-generous parole system, Arcadi was out of the milieu for the foreseeable future, and Vito needed help now. Francesco Del Balso and Skunk Giordano were both key lieutenants for Arcadi and their loyalty wasn’t in question. However, they were both also in custody because of Colisée.
Vito’s old biker contacts in the Quebec Hells Angels were mostly in prison. Mom Boucher would likely be a very old man before he was free again, after his first-degree murder convictions for ordering hits on two jail guards. Some of the London, Ontario, Hells Angels were working now with the York Region ’Ndrangheta, but they might still be useful. Also, there was Gregory Wooley. He had run the now-defunct Rockers, a Quebec Hells Angels support club, and was considered the originator of the Syndicate, a teetering alliance of Red and Blue street gangs with clout in Montreal’s downtown.
Obviously, Vito could no longer call upon Raynald Desjardins. Quite the opposite. If the rift had begun when Desjardins got fifteen years for a drug scheme while Vito walked free, that rift became a chasm after Vito’s men murdered Desjardins’s friend Giovanni (Johnny) Bertolo. Another name now embedded in the enemy camp was that of Domenico Arcuri Sr. He had helped the Rizzutos take out the Violis thirty years before, but after making introductions for Salvatore Montagna when the New Yorker first arrived in Montreal in 2009, he had opened the floodgates for the man who had turned Vito’s life into hell.
Giuseppe (Ponytail) De Vito was never a true insider in Vito’s group; he’d pulled away after the murder of his boss and friend Paolo Gervasi. Ponytail had dangerous friends, but after four years on the run he was a convict now, starting a fifteen-year sentence for narcotics conspiracy. Ponytail was in isolation in Donnacona, but protesting that he wanted to be returned to the general population. Since the deaths of his daughters, he was apparently a man without fear and perhaps also without the will to live. According to a prison report explaining the isolation, De Vito was now a threat to the safety of the Rizzuto clan, even behind bars.
Joe Di Maulo had backed his brother-in-law Desjardins in early stages of the attempt at a consortium with Montagna, Mirarchi and Arcuri, and his loyalty to Desjardins was unquestioned. Still, Smiling Joe was something of a man of peace in the milieu, his three old murder charges notwithstanding.
Vito would also have to get used to new cityscapes in Montreal and Toronto. The old hangout of the Consenza Social Club was now just a memory, converted into a clothing store. Also gone was the Laennec coffee bar in Laval, where the second tier of the crime family once held court. Laval was now home to more than three dozen significant players in Vito’s world, as the core of power shifted from Mafia Row to luxury Laval neighbourhoods such as Val des Brises and Sainte-Dorothée. The homes on Antoine-Berthelet had once been a statement of wealth and separation from the cramped houses of downtown Little Italy; now Vito couldn’t rid himself of his old home and its memories of defeat and death.
For the time being, Vito had left the safe confines of the walled compound in King City and was holed up in a downtown Montreal pied-à-terre condominium with Giovanna. When he stepped out, it was into a $100,000 armour-plated car he had special ordered from the States. Only his tiny inner circle knew his address.
Clearly, there were informers in Vito’s midst. Someone in his world had betrayed Agostino Cuntrera and Paolo Renda, and maybe also Nick Jr. Perhaps the traitors even smiled at them just before sending them to their graves. A few words in a quick text or phone call and there might be a funeral for Vito too. As he regrouped in his new apartment, there was no way to judge if Vito felt afraid, or if he was so prepared for imminent death that he had already gone cold inside.