Baladrar
by
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Her features mellowed while he slowly returned to the letter. “Can I improve it?” she asked when he had finished reading it. “Maybe,” he murmured. Marty reread it before making a couple of suggestions. Kate considered them, adding only those she felt did not weaken her allegations. After rewriting it, she called the Embassy in Madrid and asked for a meeting with the American Ambassador. Although not prone to meeting privately with most Americans in Spain, the name ‘Villario’ caught his attention and a Wednesday appointment was set up. By the time she and Marty arrived via a short flight from Alicante, the Ambassador had received detailed reports from the FBI concerning Marty and Kate’s January resettlement to the Costa Blanca and the deadly race near Calpe. Although irritated at having been kept ignorant of such momentous events occurring in the country where he represented American interests, especially the car bomb that had purportedly blasted the two Americans out of existence just three months earlier, he certified Kate’s signature. He then directed his secretary to fax Kate’s letter to the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, to the attention of John Weber, the agent in charge of the Villario case. Kate’s letter was addressed to James Villario, acting Don of the Villario Family. “Dear Mr. Villario: “It is with regret and shame that I write at this time, in this way. I regret having been born a Villario, and I am ashamed of all adult members of my family except my mother, Maria, and my brother, Paul. “My purpose in writing to you via the FBI is this: “1) I have been legally divorced from my birth family since last December when I received a new name and a completely new identity, courtesy of the United States Government. Hence, I have not addressed you as ‘uncle’. You are no longer my uncle any more than your brother, Luca, is my father. He is simply Luca Villario, a ruthless member of the Mafia who, after his trial and sentencing, will rightfully spend the remainder of his life in prison. But then, so are you a ruthless member of the Mafia, James Villario, hopefully one with enough sense to recognize that business is business, and poor business decisions are not part of what you learned at Harvard. Certainly not in the cause of vengeance, and certainly not when such a futile continuance would only reduce the Villario Family to the severely weakened status of so many other American Mafia Families. Outside of my beloved mother, Maria, and my equally beloved brother, Paul, who are always welcome to visit us here in Baladrar, the rest of you are just Mafiosos with no claim to my respect, my love, or any future attachment. “2) Michael Scollozzio, who was sent to Baladrar to murder my husband, once Gary Conway but no longer so-named, and to force me to return to the United States in the interest of accepting a husband acceptable to Luca Villario, is dead, killed in an auto race where Gary honorably gave Scollozzio a chance to fulfill his contract. So that there is no doubt in your mind, enclosed is a copy of Scollozzio’s death certificate, certified by the head of the Costa Blanca Guardia Civil and by the American consul in Alicante. Hence, you have lost two of your top henchmen, Mario Fillari and Michael Scollozzio, within a two month period. This is a very high cost in attempting something that can never be accomplished because of item three. “3) Should anything aside from a natural death ever happen to my husband, the former Gary Conway, I will immediately and without remorse commit suicide. This means, if you and Luca remember your catechisms, that I will have committed a mortal sin, will not be allowed a Christian burial, and will be at risk of hell by the theology you two ‘profess’. So, if you and Luca really do possess any love for me, you will call off your thugs so that Gary and I may live out our lives in peace, wherever we choose. “By now, even you must realize that I am not being held captive by anything or anyone except an intense love for my husband, the former Gary Conway. I was born into a Mafia Family when the Mafia was strong, but I have never been part of the activities of that Family except when my brother Joseph despicably used me last summer to transfer, unknowingly, ten million dollars out of the country for deposit in a numbered account in Zurich, Switzerland. By so doing, he violated the most fundamental rule of the Villario Family: never use its women in its sewers. Needless to say, I consider Joseph no longer my brother except by the accident of birth over which neither of us had any control. “At my insistence, the FBI will send a copy of this letter to Luca Villario and to his lawyer, Morrie Nardi. A copy is already in the hands of the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, another has been sent to the Spanish Ambassador to the U.S., another to Chancellor Wood of Dearborn University, and others to the proper authorities at Harvard and Yale universities so that these esteemed institutions will know who their alumni – Luca, James, and Joseph Villario – really are. “The FBI has my permission to release this letter to the prosecutors of Luca, and to use it as a sworn affidavit for any future prosecution of you, your brother Gino Villario, and my blood brother, Joseph. When these prosecutions happen the Villario Family will be out of business, and soon after, the Mafia will be no more than an aberration in American history. “In the presence of the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, I now sign this letter with his official seal to authenticate my signature. It will be the last time I shall ever use my birth name. Angela M. Villario” * * * * * * *
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About the Book
When the cell phone market soars late in the Twentieth Century, incredible profits are assured for investors in any cell phone corporations. Two Mafia families, Villario from America and Ficuzza from Sicily, seize the opportunity and invest heavily in Svenska, the largest producer of cell phones. The families then join forces to balloon their profits by instigating a horrific sequence of actions that transfers Svenska's major source of microchips from a Maltese company to one in California. Malta's economy is shaken to the core, and the shock waves reverberate across the Mediterranean to Baladrar on Spain's Costa Blanca where Kate and Marty Boyd have resettled to escape the wrath of Luca Villario, Kate's father. The two Americans and their Anglo-Saxon friends are abruptly caught in the eye-of-the-storm with the FBI and Spain's Guardia Civil on one side and the Mafia families on the other.
About the Author
Dale Soderberg, author of seven novels and one book of short stories, majored in English at Gettysburg College where his professors encouraged him to begin creative writing. While teaching classes on the Expatriate writers, he decided that working with Ernest Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises' required personal experience with the 'Feria de San Fermin' in Pamplona, Spain, famous for its running with the bulls. Although he has never run, he has become acquainted with several of the most committed runners and watched the running during seven fiestas over three decades. He has also become a frequent visitor on the Costa Blanca where he thoroughly enjoys the ambience of Baladrar. He and his wife, Marjorie, live in Hamilton, New York where they have close ties with Colgate University.