THE RUNNER/SCREENPLAY, BRIAN R. LUNDIN [best classic books to read .txt] 📗

down three cans of tuna and followed me into the house. Vito is the same way, give him a couple cans of tuna and he’s alright.

VINCENTI
We got to stop that ass-hole Vito just like they should’ve stopped Adolphe we can’t let him get away with anything.

Vincente Ramona had an extensive intelligence network that included waiters, street bookies, street hustlers, cabbies, newsboys and police officer and had instructed his “Button Men,” to keep a lookout for Vito or any stranger in the area. Meanwhile, Vito and his soldiers had moved into a bunker like fortress in Hedgewick, an Italian and eastern European neighborhood on the far southeast side of the city.
VITO
The way to kill a boss is to first kill those close to him, first.


JIMMY
Who’s that?

VITO
Vincente Ramona, Pauli’s consigliore. Give the job to JOHNNY SCALISE, he’s always trying to impress me, let’s see if he has any balls.


Johnny Scalise was an 18-year-old ruthless assassin whom Vito imported from Sicily. Johnny was a member of the Sicilian Mafia and was credited with killing ten men before he was 19-year-old. On his seventeenth birthday he killed his younger sister boyfriend when he caught them having sex in their home and in their mother’s bed. The court convicted him of manslaughter, but with the Mafia’s help he served only six months in a Palermo penitentiary. Johnny Scalise was only five feet, had a baby face, and had a large tattoo of two menacing eyes across his chest under the inscription, “Morte prima di disonore”- death before dishonor. Older Mafia hit men had taught Johnny the tricks of the assassin trade. They told him that after every hit, immediately throw away or destroy the murder weapon, gun or knife and wash his body thoroughly, especially the fingernails with vinegar to destroy any gun powder residue. Scalise learned his lesson well and was one of the highest paid assassins in Sicily.

Vincente was a widower lived alone in a modest high-rise condo in Hyde Park an up-scaled neighborhood that centered on the University of Chicago. Vincente was a respected Outfit veteran who offers advice to Pauli in a variety of matters. He was devoid of ambition and thus based his advice on what is right for the family rather than what is in his or his boss’s best interest. He was not directly involved with the family businesses or a threat to anyone. He had three daughters and eight grand children. Johnny watched Vincente as he left his apartment in Hyde Park, every morning at eight to purchase a newspaper from the newsstand at 55th South Hyde Park Avenue, a business street that was usually crowded with shoppers and tourist. After a brief conversation with the owner of the newsstand, Vincente walked a half block west to Velous Restaurant for breakfast and to read the paper. He usually left the restaurant an hour later and every few feet he would stop and window-shop.

It was a warm, sunny Saturday morning and the shoppers were out early. Tourists, students and shoppers were gathering around a white young man with long hair reading the Tempest, by Gahlil Gibran in Harper Square Court, where many university students gathered to play chess, study or, read poetry. A young woman pushing a baby stroller was talking to another woman as a teenager whizzed by on skates swaying to whatever was pulsing through his radio earphones. Vincente had finished breakfast and joined the twenty or more people listening to the young man. He noticed a short young looking man standing behind him, seemingly interested in the reading, probably a student, Vincente thought. Suddenly, he felt a piecing pain in his back; when he put his hand, there he felt blood, his blood. He felt another sharp pain in the same place. Vincente could hardly breathe as the blood began to drool from his mouth. Johnny delivered one last stab with the ice pick that he had dipped in rat poison and left it inserted in Vincente’s back and calmly walked away from the crowd. Vincente felled against an old lady who at first merely smiled at him, until she saw the blood flowing out of his mouth, bloodstains on his white t-shirt, and shorts she moved away screaming, Vincente fell mortally wounded on the sidewalk.

Pauli was enraged when he heard about the attack on Vincente and immediately went to Michael Reese Hospitals. Vincente three daughters and their children all dressed in black were clustered in chairs in the Emergency Room. When they saw Pauli Gaza entering the room behind two large men they ran to him. The oldest daughter, stout in her black mourning dress hugged Pauli and kissed both cheeks as two of the little children hugged his legs.

STOUT DAUGHTER
Thank you Uncle Pauli for coming.

The stout woman let him go as tears swelled in her eyes. Pauli Gaza brushed aside the thanks.

PAULI
Your father has been my closest friend for over twenty years I owe him this respect.

STOUT DAUGHTER

Go in a see my father, he has been asking for you.

A black doctor and a black nurse came from behind a curtain of one of the Emergency Room cubicles. The doctor was a young man, with a serious face that had seen too much of violent death.

ANOTHER DAUGHTER
Doctor Can we see our father now?

The doctor looked over the group. Most of the patients at the hospital were black; he couldn’t remember ever treating Italians. The doctor knew that their father was dying and in torturous pain.


DOCTOR
Just members of the family and no children!

As the three women entered the cubicle, the oldest of the children ushered the smaller children into chairs. Pauli Gaza gently grabbed the doctor’s arms as he turned away.


PAULI
How he and what is are his chances?

The doctor looked into the dark eyes of the questioner and felt a moment of fear

DOCTOR
Not good on both accounts, he’s delirious with pain and fever, try not to get him excited, the end is near all we can do is make him comfortable until the end comes, I’m sorry.

PAULI
Then there is nothing more you can do, we will stay with him until the end comes and we will close his eyes. We will bury him and cry with his children at his funeral and afterwards we will look after his family.

The doctor looked at this dangerous looking man who had such simple rationale and walked away. Shortly one of the daughters pulled aside the curtain and waived Pauli Gaza in, the two men stood outside the curtain. Vincente Ramona was in a fight with death and now defeated he lay exhausted on the small bed. The dying man raised his eyes gratefully to his boss, his daughters gathered around his bed, kissing his cheeks. Pauli Gaza pressed his old friend’s hand and looked into his fevered eyes.


PAULI
Hurry up and get well, my friend and we will take a trip to the old country and sit beside the mountains and drink homemade wine.

Vincente Ramona smiled then his face became serious. He waived his daughters from the bedside.


VINCENTI
I have words for my friend’s ears only.

The daughters hesitantly moved to a corner of the cubicle. Vincente held tightly to Pauli’s hand as he tried to speak. Pauli put his head down and pulled a stool close to the bed.

Beware of Vito, this is his first move against you, be prepared for anything my old friend, Vito is a beast
.
Pauli nodded his head as he looked into the dying eyes of his friend.

PAUL
I will, old friend.

The women in the room were astonished to see tears running down Pauli’s face as he shook his head. Suddenly, Vincente quivering voice became louder as he slowly lifted his head off the pillow.


VINCENTI
Don’t let me die boss. Pay somebody off, make a deal.

Pauli Gaza helped the man lay back down.

PAULI
Get some rest and I’ll see what I can do.

Vincente Ramona lay back in the bed with a smile on his face, and then he died.

As Pauli left the hospital he thought of Vito who had violated another Outfit rule; kill only for a good reason, never out of caprice. He knew that Vito knew that Vincente was not a player in the family and his death was Vito’s sick way of sending a message, a message that they were at war. Pauli, like Vito had grew up in the mean streets of the Patch and learned the strategies of gang wars from observing the early gang wars between Big AL and Bugs Moran, but there were rules, even in war; blood family members and innocent citizens were off limits, consigliore or other non-combatant like Vincente was not targeted.

In a sense the plot to go to war with his Capo had been unfolding in Vito’s mind for a long time. He resented his crew being short-changed by Pauli, he resented Pauli promoting that pimp Vinnie Acosta over him and most off all he resented Pauli’s restrictions on his move against that Nigra gambler, Jerome McLemore. Now was get-even time and that meant the end of Pauli. After he got rid of Pauli he would worry about the Commission, but for now he needed more muscle.

ALPHONSE PHILANTI was the Capo of Pauli’s north side crew but he hated Pauli Gaza. Two years earlier Pauli Gaza invited Alphonse and his mistress a nineteen-year-old Mexican beauty named MARGARITA to a party on Pauli’s yacht, a fifty-foot, 1.5 million dollar Carver Cabin Cruiser moored in Burnham Harbor. All of the Capos had been invited plus the bosses of the families in Wisconsin and Michigan. Pauli fancied himself a ladies’ man and wanted Margarita. In the early evening, the yacht departed from Burnham Harbor. Italian music serenaded the guests as they watched the magnificent setting of the sun. Pauli hired ten high-price call girls of all races to service his unescorted guest, two of the girls were for him, but he wanted Margarita. Gaza was aware that Alphonse used cocaine and he assumed that his girlfriend did also. As the sunset over the horizon and his guest enjoyed the prostitutes, he invited Alponse and Margarita to his stateroom. A large bowl containing cocaine was on the table. Pauli offered the cocaine to Alphonse and Margarita but Margarita refused, but Alphonse started snorting the drug an hour later Alphonse was stupefied and fell asleep. Pauli approached Margarita for sex when she refused Pauli Gaza slapped and raped her. The following morning when Alphonse awaken he found Margarita shaking and in a state of shock on the foredeck. Margarita told Alphonse what had happened but what could he do, Pauli was his Capo. However, Alphonse never forgave Gaza.

INT. VITO’S OFFICE-AFTERNOON

Vito is behind his desk, Jimmy is stretched out on the couch and Alphonse is sitting across from Vito. VITO
I’m making a move against the boss. I’m tired of him fuckin’ over me and my boys, taking all the money while he strutting around all over the world and hobnobbing with the big shots. He’s bring an unwanted spotlight on our organization, that’s’ why we can’t take a shit without the fuckin’ feds handing you some shit paper. He loves the publicity, being photographed with Hollywood movie actors and them whoring actresses, going to fancy night clubs and restaurants while we do all the dirty work, fuck