Before the Bar
Notice:
This is a Copyrighted Fictional Story; any resemblance, to any person, alive or deceased, whether implied or imagined, is both accidental and unintended. The story is about an ongoing incestual relationship between a brother, his sister and their cousins occurring in New Jersey in the 1940's. This story will eventually have 6 chapters. If you are looking for a masturbatory experience, this is not it. If adult fiction of this nature disturbs you, you are strongly encouraged to leave these pages now.
Ch ~ 1: Tragedy Creates Strange Bedfellows
Who We Are~
My name is Silvio Mercanti, Esq., J.D. (MB: DE, NJ, NY, and PA), I'd been twenty-six since March and it was a 'good to be alive' spring day, at 2:30 Post Meridian, on Monday, the 6
th
of May 1946 when my war buddies Edward J. Cantu, Esq. (MB: NJ, NY, and PA), and Antonia Silvero de Esperanza, Esq., (Translator, Legal, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and German (MB: NJ, NY, and PA)) filed our Legally Licensed Corporation papers in Mount Holly, the County of Burlington, in the State of New Jersey.
We were two Majors in the USAAF's 15
th
Air Force's Legal Office in the Foggia Air Force Offices on the Adriatic Coast of Italy, 300 miles south of Venice. Antonia was a Captain in the USWAAF/WASP, an aid to M.G. Jacqueline Cochran. When we left Italy in September of 1945, where we'd been acquaintances, we were thrown together and in spite of our Military Occupational Skills, put in charge of a Troop Transport full of 'Operation Homeward Bound' soldiers, sailors, WAAF's, WAC's, and WASP's bound for Philadelphia. The kindest descriptions would have called it 'Unruly' and being lawyers helped, because we could tell the various miscreants, of both genders, exactly how high their respective Services Branches would hang them if they were charged with their crimes, and that served as an affective inhibitor to noxious behavior. The Merchant Mariners only had to lock one miscreant in the brig.
Arriving in the Port of Philadelphia they put into the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines docks in Camden, New Jersey. After an all too brief 'Kiss and Cry' on the Docks with relatives and friends we were loaded onto a train for the hour long ride to the huge USA/USAAF Camp Dix. Over the following three weeks we were all poked, prodded, passed and demobilized with our final 'stabilization pay,' and given train tickets home.
Over the eight weeks in transit we three 'commander' became the best, and fastest of friends, and plans were made that led to our filing that May Day.
Just two months later on Thursday, the 4
th
of July 1946 we held a small barbeque and party at the new Fort Dix to celebrate the opening of our new Mount Holly Offices on the previous Monday, and for the Fireworks.
My mother, attended with her new husband, Don Vito Scarfo the Consigliore to Don Nicodemo Scarfo and my sister Claire who had just turned twenty-one, was there too, she was down from Brown College in Providence Rhode Island.
As an attorney I knew well of Vito's ties to the Mob, of his toughness, and of the dangers attendant with those associations, but I disregarded them because Vito was a genuinely nice guy and he made Mom happy.
A Shooting in Little Italy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania~
The phone was dancing all over the desk when I came in from a late run, anyone who knows autumn in Southwest Jersey, knows why I was out running when the clock was wending toward midnight. Tomorrow, Monday was Columbus Day, a court holiday in Burlington County and I had planned to read a bit, having just acquired Warren's "All the King's Men." I answered the phone, eyeing my watch, it was just 11:21 PM.
Because I am an attorney, becoming known for some criminal and pro-bono work I keep good contacts with law enforcement people, and it's good that I do, I get all sorts of information from them.
It was James O'Conner, one of J. Edgar's minions from their Philadelphia Office,
"You need to get down to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Philly." before I could ask why he continued, "A rival gang, the NY Genovese Mob blew up Nina's Trattoria on 9
th
Street. Vito and Claire Scarfo were among the injured, and I can't tell you any more, cause Hoover would have me counting KKK peach pits in Georgia if he found out. Just get here, their hurt bad."
I couldn't call Edward, he was in DC on a case, so I called Antonia, asking her,
"Vito and Claire have been shot, can you meet the Broadway at Philly for me? I'm going to have Claire come down cause the FBI said it's serious."
"Yes," she answered, "They're at the Naval Hospital?"
"Unh huh." I answered, "I've got to make reservations for her, and then get down there."
"I'll make the reservations and call her, you just go to the hospital. I'll handle the calendar till you're back."
"Thank you." I started to say. Then Antonia interrupted,
"That what friendship is all about, now get you're ass in gear!" She said, hanging up.
U.S. Naval Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania~
Because there was no supporting network of roads to allow going to Philadelphia from Trenton on the Lower Trenton-Morrisville Bridge, I elected to drive down U.S. Highway 130 to Camden to cross the Benjamin Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia, taking Broad Street south to the Pattison Avenue entrance to the hospital, it had, in spite of the hour, taken almost three hours An FBI Agent met me, escorting me through a cordon of reporters, though thankfully no Court Coverage Journalists who might have recognized me.
Vito was almost gone, but still lucid, he was stitched by what looked, from the pattern of bandages, like a Thompson Sub-gun, or maybe a German MP-5. He whispered,
"Come closer," I bent to comply, he continued, "Little Nicky will give you an envelope," he eyed O'Connor, who stood listening, "The Fed can be there, at my wake, it's all legal, its for the girls, see to it!" Then he closed his eyes as his last breath rattled in his throat.
A doctor tried to push through, I said,
"Leave him be, he's dead! I'm his attorney and his step-son. You can't do anything except look important unless your Jesus Christ."
"How do you know?" Dr. Rothschild challenged.
"I'm eight months out of the Italian Theater, and I've seen more death and dying then you'll ever see, and I wasn't on the lines."
"Then you need to come up to the Women's Ward Rooms. Your mother is dying, we're medicating for pain, but there's nothing we can do. She wakes on and off, she's lucid sometimes."
Just before he led me into her room, he cautioned,
"Don't say anything about Mr. Scarfo, she asks for him whenever she wakes. Try to encourage her, we'll try to make the end peaceful as possible. Then he added, they've had last rights and a blessing, Don Nicodemo's own confessor came down. He left a telegram for you."
Some people say Mafia justice is swift, the Telegram was proof of that, as I stood in the hall and read it,
Addressed to Don Nicodemo Scarfo, it said, "Nicky, this was not, repeat not, approved at any level. 8 Shooters and the Bitch," who was Vito's Sister, who rolled over on him, "are sleeping with the fishes. We killed every body but her first, then we chummed the channel and added her alive." It was simply signed, "Lucky." Vengeance was not only swift, it was vengeance of the most brutal kind.
Then we heard momma moan, she called my name,
"Silvio, where is Silvio?"
I held her hand, kissing it, whispering,
"I'm here ma, but hold on! Claire's coming, I sent for her."
Then she whispered,