cease.”
“What?s RICO stand for?” Lewis asked, seriously.
“Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations—gangland fronts,” I said.
“ICC simply means the kiwash they make from dope, gambling, prostitution, extortion, pornography..
. all the LCN?s favourite tricks. The LCN has to wash that money, and it isn?t easy. So they invest in
legitimate businesses—even banks—to clean it up. RICO gives us the power to bust them if we can
prove that any business depends for its support on ICC. If we can prove that, we can confiscate their
money, their businesses, their equipment, their yachts and Rolls-Royces and all the rest of their toys.
And we can also make cases against the racketeers and everybody connected with them. That goes for
legitimate businessmen, politicians, or anybody else that gets in bed with them.”
Zapata piped up: “Do we get credit for this course?”
“Yeah,” Salvatore chimed in. “When?s the final?”
More laughter.
“Give him a chance,” Dutch snapped.
“Okay,” I said, “let?s forget the bureaucratic bullshit. Here?s what you?re dealing with. In the Freeze
we spend most of our time working with the locals, tying known LCN racketeers to ICC, and the ICC
to legitimate sources that have been corrupted. That?s what I?m after—I want to know how they got
their hooks into Dunetown and who they had to buy to do it. I?m not interested in making individual
cases for prostitution or gambling or even homicide. Anything I get that can help you in those areas is
yours.”
“We?ve heard that song before, old man,” Charlie One Ear said caustically.
“Enough of this true-and-false crap,” Dutch said. “Let?s get to the meat and potatoes.”
I gave them a brief history of the „Triad, very brief so they wouldn?t fall asleep.
“Franco Tagliani was very cautious,” I said. “Before we nailed Skeet, Franco had made quite a name
For himself. He was a big shot in Cincy. He contributed to the, ballet, symphony, local sports teams,
everything including the humane society. He loved animals. Everybody?s lovable old Uncle Franco,
right? When we dumped Skeet, we figured Franco would have to come out of the closet, so we started
a matrix on him. What we call a link analysis. We charted every scrap of information that came our
way that related to the Triad, even the most insignificant stuff. Bits of bullshit from snitches,
restaurants they frequented, social gatherings, weddings, pals, acquaintances, habits, police records,
vacation trips. Hell, we even had Interpol checking on them when they left the country. It all went on
the matrix, and we kept refining it, and finally we ended up with this.”
