Meeting the Crew

They drove to Lower Manhattan, where Vito took the money he was going to give to Joe and one of the bottles of gin for afterwards.

Frank stayed in the car while Vito walked towards Masseria's backyard, where he was eating.

Before even getting close to Joe though, he had to let the guys standing at the door search him for weapons.

It was standard procedure, before talking to Joe Masseria everyone had to leave their weapons at the door. Well, everyone except Masseria himself.

The guys temporarily took his gun and motioned him to go in.

Vito put a smile on his face as he walked in, "Boss! How are you, good?"

Joe raised his head and motioned him to sit down, "Aaay, Vito. Come, sit down."

"Nah, I don't wanna disturb your meal boss. I just came over to tell you that I finished collecting the money.

"That cunt Tom didn't want to pay at first, but I managed to convince him." Vito took the envelope of money out of his jacket and handed it to Joe.

"I knew you could handle it, Vito. What's got you here so early anyways, April just began." Joe felt the money inside and nodded in satisfaction.

Vito put the bottle of gin on the table, "Me and a friend of mine got our hands on a truck carrying some gin and I thought to come here first and see if you were interested.

"This is the good stuff boss, not that shit they give you in the bars nowadays."

"Hah, looks like you know me well Vito. Come, pour me a glass." Joe motioned Vito towards the empty glass on the table.

Vito poured him a full glass, "There were only a couple of bottles of it under some toys."

Joe took a swig and put it down, "Aaah~. It's strong, I'll give you that. I know a friend of mine who wants to buy some good booze.

"How much do you have?"

This was music to Vito's ears, since Joe took an interest the gin was basically sold. Now the only thing left was to get a good price for it.

"The truck was practically empty, we only found a couple of bottles hidden under some toys. There were 21 in total, including this one."

Joe thought for a moment after hearing this, "I'll take all 20 of them. This is some strong shit right here, how does 4.50 per bottle sound?"

Vito smiled, "Sounds good boss. They're back in my car, I'll go unload them."

The bastard took 1 of them as a gift, but the price was more or less what he expected.

Joe took 90 dollars out of his pocket and gave it to Vito, "Here. If you get any more, make sure to tell me first."

"Okay boss." Vito took the money and walked out.

He took his gun back from the bodyguards on the way out and went to his car.

After opening Frank's door he said, "It's done, 4.50 per bottle."

"A bit more than I thought, good job." Frank was happy he got an extra 5 bucks.

Vito was calm and motioned him to get out, "Come help me send these to his house. We'll leave them with the guys at the front door."

They each carried a box of 10 bottles and left them on the table. The guards looked at Frank a couple of times but seeing that he was with Vito, they did nothing.

They got back in the car and drove off.

"I still got nothing. You?" Frank hadn't thought of what to do yet.

Vito turned to answer Frank but kept his eyes on the road, "Nah, not yet. I'll introduce you to my friends, they probably have something cooked up."

A 15 minute drive later, they arrived at an apartment building.

While climbing the stairs Vito said, "Between extortion, gambling, theft and robbery, we'll find something to do."

They stopped on the 4th floor and Vito knocked on one of the doors, "Luciano, It's me, Vito. Open up."

The door was unlocked and Luciano greeted Vito, "Come in Vito, I found a place for tonight."

"Slow down, let me introduce you first. This is my friend, Frank. Frank, this is Luciano."

"Hi Frank, nice to meet you." Luciano smiled at Frank like a wolf looking at a sheep.

He probably thought Vito was scamming the guy.

"He's a friend, not a target. He's the guy responsible for those dead guys in the alleyway.

"Bastards jumped me and he gunned them down. We robbed a truck after too, got some easy money. He's a good guy, you can trust him."

Luciano dropped the facade and his face went back to being neutral, "If you say so, then okay Vito.

"Costello's in here too. Come in, let's talk."

After they walked in, Vito closed the door behind them and called Costello, "Costello! Come here, let me introduce you to a friend of mine."

Frank Costello was a bit more trusting of a guy. He took his word for it and after Vito introduced him to Frank he started talking about business.

Costello continued from where he and Luciano left off, "Alright so, one of the waiters from a restaurant 30 minutes away is a friend of mine.

"He says that something happened and that last month's money is still in the restaurant.

"He says that's all he knows, but that if we were interested in robbing it, he could find out more. Where the money is, the security, all we'd need to know.

"In exchange, he'd want 15 dollars up front."

Frank and Vito thought about it, and Vito asked, "Sounds like an easy smash and grab to me. Do you trust him?"

"He knows not to fuck with me, he's good for it."

"Let's do it then. We give him the 15 bucks tonight and get what we need out of him."

Costello wasn't so sure though, "Yeah, he won't 'need time' to find out after we meet face to face, but from what I know, they got 6 guys protecting the place.

If we're going, we're going heavy. Shoot first and get rid of them before we have a problem.

"The 4 of us here would be enough, but we'll need to prepare."