3: 1984-1986
By 1984, Michael restored all of the Family’s businesses. The Family was completely legitimate, and while owning Immobiliare, Michael became one of the richest men in the world. The operational leader of the Family, his nephew Vincent Mancini, took over completely, when Mike decided to retire.
He moved to Corleone, to be followed by his sister Connie a year later. His son Anthony, who would have a series of succesfull opera’s in Palermo and other Italian places, would join his aunt and father on the Tommasino compound. His mother Kay never returned to Sicily, and to have contact with her, he went to New Hampshire a couple of times a year. She and her husband Douglas Michelson lived there quite anonymously. Michelson was a big shot attourney for 30 years now, and Kay lived a quiet, jobless life.
Michael turned over leadership of his Immobiliare-share to BJ Harrison, his old legal advisor. Harrison stayed on as Don Vincent’s legal advisor. Vincent ran the Family business from New York, where he bought a house, not far from the old Family compound on Long Beach. He sent old Al Neri to Nevada, to restore the old Family business in Las Vegas. Dominic Abbandando, Michael’s previous PR advisor, became Vincent’s contact in Rome to run the Family business in Italy, also in charge of the contact between New York and Sicily.

As soon as Michael left, a letter arrived at Vincent’s compound. He lived there with two maidens, a couple of bodyguards and a few pets. He had no consiglieri or an underboss. He’d met with BJ only once a week, and saw his operating capo’s a couple of times at a social club owned by one of his old friends, somewhere in Brooklyn.
The letter was anonymous. It said: “I know who you are. I believe I know what you can do. I know what I can, and I think we can help each other out. A friend”
Soon after, Vincent found out who was the sender of this mysterious message. At first he did not want anything to do with the person, a hispanic called Alex Rodrigo Cuesta, also know as “The Arc of Brooklyn”. He was said to be Puerto Rican or Cuban, nobody really knew. Others claimed he was Mexican or Colombian. Cuesta was very mysterious, and did not gave away much details. He wanted Vincent to join him. Cuesta was interested in some new, major, drug trafficking via the New York docks. He bribed some boat lines between Panama, Colombia and Venezuela and the US, and he needed a place the dope could safely enter the US border. The docks were in control of the Tattaglia Family, nowadays runned by Paul DiCanio, a tall, 70 year old guy with a big face and large glasses. Some of his capo’s were the leaders of the docks, controling the unions, the companies and the transport business from and to the harbor. DiCanio had his own interests in drug dealing, and it did not concerned the South American drug cartels. He was very clear about it: who ever tried to infiltrate from that area, into his dock businesses was to be taken out. Cuesta knew this, and was very careful. He tried talking with DiCanio, but the old man was VASTBERADEN and wanted to keep his narcotics business within his own activities, which were dealing-routes between New York and Europe, mainly Sicily, Libya and Morocco. DiCanio thought that when he let Columbians or other Pan-American gangs enter his territory, they would be to big of a threat. At first it would go well, but in a while all those hispanics would get over enthousiastic, and the way DiCanio saw it was that, either they would mess things up for him by being caught, or they would want more and more power within the operations that smooth cooperation would get impossible, also resulting in a catch. Because DiCanio knew that if it got out he was dealing in narcotics, both the federal institutions as The Commission would turn against him. He was already out of line with his European drug routes, but as long as he kept it small and did no harm to the other Families, he’d be okay.
Cuesta left DiCanio with a doubled feeling. He didn’t get killed, DiCanio wasn’t mad at him. He was reasonable as a businessman and turned down his proposal. But on the other hand, Cuesta had a lot of supplyers to satisfy. After traveling back and forward from NY to Cali, before going to Vincent Mancini in secret.

Vincent was kept out of The Commission since he became the head of the Corleone Family. Some of the Don’s disagreed with Vincents actions in Sicily in 1980, when he killed Don Lucchesi, amongst others. At first he thought of Cuesta’s idea as bad. But Vincent also had some negative feelings of DiCanio and a few other Dons. For being held out of the Commission, for being cut out of the big unions, the judges, the docks and the real estate, and mostly for being unrespected ever since he became the Don. He was a young Don, that’s true. But his uncle Mike proved this would be no reason not to be a powerfull Don.
Also, he hated that the other Families would mock him for being a sissy-Don, only because he let his uncle legalize all the companies owned by the Family. By the time Cuesta came to Vincent with his offer, Corleone was completely legitimate.

BJ found out about the letter, and asked Vinnie what’s going on. Altough Vincent says he wants nothing to do with it, BJ strongly advises him several times not to step into the narcotics business. BJ was a smart man, he knew what a vague letter like Cuesta’s ment. But even so, Vincent decided to have some talks with Cuesta and his men.

On one night he got a mysterious phone call. It was from a police officer from Tampa, Florida. He was recruited by an old police chief in the Tampa Police Department, who was an old friend of Al Neri. He and Neri used to work together on night shifts when Neri was still a New York police officer. He owed Neri a little favour, and Neri, feeling a bit responsible for all affairs Michael left behind, ordered the Chief to keep an eye on Santino Corleone JR, Sonny’s youngest son. He moved from Miami, where Sandra past away a few years before, to Tampa and got involved in some gambling and prostitution businesses, runned by the local mafia. The local Don was a friend of Cavanio, the new Cuneo boss. Responding to Neri’s request very well, the Tampa Chief of Police was afraid Santino JR would get killed by the Tampa Don, called Rogerio Malona, and he had a junior cop inform Vincent about it in New York. Vincent sent Neri to Florida right away to take care of things.
Al Neri personally went to Tampa to visit Santino JR and to thank the Police Chief. Meanwhile, he was ordered by Vincent to keep an eye open for what goes on in the streets of Tampa. Cavanio was a dangerous man, a friend of DiCanio, and with a outerstate sidekick like Malona, the collaboration could get very threatening to Vincent and his regime.

Neri brought Santino JR to Vincent, and he explained how he got messed up with Malona’s activities. Vincent advised Santino to stay with him, and also asked Neri to stay in New York for a while. He responded with asking Vincent if he couldn’t get some time of. It was no secret Al Neri wanted to quit working, especially for the Corleone Family. And the job he got from Vincent in Vegas was a full-time job, very hard. Neri, single for a long period now, was very depressed and neede some serious time of. Vincent always said he couldn’t afford Neri to leave. If he would find a proper successor to his Vegas jobs, he would need Neri close by rightaway, as he always was near Michael. Things between Neri and Vincent weren’t getting better. Vincent admired him, for what he’s done for the Family, but Neri never felt comfortable working for the young, tempered and unexperienced Don. He proposed Santino could run things for Vincent in Vegas. Vincent disagreed, for Santino JR would have to little experience and knowledge. And he would need either him or Santino by his side when he took Cuesta’s offer. Which he did a few weeks later. Vincent convinced BJ into going alone as well, and with the four of them, and a couple of bodyguards, they met with Cuesta and his men in Miami. They made a nice deal. For every dollar Cuesta would make with the new narcotics trade, the Corleone’s would get 30 cents. If something should happen to the Corleone’s, the Cuesta Family would immediately be responsible and would cover for all harm done financially. Both knew this also ment physically.
Basically, the deal was Vincent arranging the shipments in the New York and New Jersey harbors would go directley to some delivery trucks from companies owned by the Corleone’s. Vincent also persuaded another Family to join, the Parisi family. Alfredo Parisi took over Victor Stracci’s Family when he was killed on Michael Corleone’s order in 1955. Parisi originally was a Barzini capo, but left the Family Salvatore Rossi took over. Rossi was an old fashioned guy, while Parisi was his time far ahead. Parisi saw of himself as a modern gangster, similar to Michael Corleone. Rossi wanted things to be restored, and strongly condemned Mike’s assasination of the other heads of the New York Families. The Barzini capo became the Don, and his old colleague Parisi got the Stracci Family. In the 60’s, Rossi (without permission of The Commission) tried to assasinate Michael on one of his charity festivals. It failed, and the other heads convicted Rossi dead. A young Corleone capo by the name of Joey Zasa took the job, a massive Family collaboration in which Parisi was the peacekeeper. Zasa killed Rossi, his consigilieri and his underboss, as well as two capo’s. Only one Parisian capo was killed. Eugenio Romano took over from Rossi in the Family once lead by Barzini.
Zasa got promoted to Underboss of the Corleone Family, which he took over in 1974, with the blessings of Alfredo Parisi. In 1979, Zasa was the one who arranged a gian massacre in Atlantic City, a hit mainly on Michael Corleone’s life. Among the men killed there were Parisi and Romano, as well as Donald Volpe, grandson to the old Pennsylvanian Don from the 1920’s, and Leo Cuneo, son to Carmine Cuneo.

Parisi’s successor, Carlo Pochettino, now teamed up with Vincent to disturb all of Cavanio and DiCanio’s activities in the harbors. For a few months a bloody mini-gangwar was held, but in those days, the Corleone men were practically unhurt. The Corleone’s arranged the transport from the docks to the dealers, Cuesta’s men in the suburbs of New York. Pochettino got men together to unload the shipmens from the boats, with all the bloody shootings with Cavanio and DiCanio’s men. On board the ships was the dope, protected by so called “travellers”. Those were Columbians only working on the boats. They would make sure all of Cuesta’s shipments would arrive safe and sound in New York.
Regarding his capacities as an overview leader, Vincent put Al Neri in charge of the transport operations between the boats and the dealers, most of them Cuban, Costa Rican, Puerto Rican and Columbian, all living near Harlem and The Bronx.
Santino JR turned out to be as tempered as Vincent, but Vincent learned to control himself now he was done. Santino obviously didn’t, and besides fighting, there wasn’t much Santino could do very well. Vincent made him his personal assistant. This basically ment the 39-year old had to be awear of any danger, and had to physically be responsible for all harm done by Vincent Corleone to others. On a night when Vincent was a sleep, Neri told Santino JR some stories. First he started to talk about Rocco Lampone. Neri admired Lampone, who got killed after he succesfully assasinated Hyman Roth. Santino JR loved the story. As Neri went back in time, he also talked about Santino’s father Sonny, whom he had never met in real life, but heared a lot about. He also knew both Sandra and Lucy Mancini, and conversations about these two ladies often led to outrageously funny moments between Santino JR and Vincent, mocking each other with their mothers. To Vincent, Santino JR wasn’t a capo or a soldier, but a relative, he was equal. So was Al Neri, who he loved. Neri continued telling Santino JR stories, and the further back in time the stories took place, the more Neri loved to tell them. For him these stories before his entrance into The Family were just as legendary. He heard a lot about Luca Brasi. He heard that once, Luca had to kill some of Vito Corleone’s enemies. He was torturing the man so hard, that altough it was in a basement, the entire neighbourhood could hear the man screaming. Some people think this was because Luca never actually killed him, but left him on the edge of dying, strapped and tied up, slowly bleeding away, losing his breath, his ability to think, control over his eyes, control over his blatter and finally collapsing to death, after being painfully tortured for days. The reason Luca was linked with this tortured man was not only because it was one of Corleone’s enemies, but also because there were found some cigar-holders from a very rare brand of Mesican cigars, Brasi was known to smoke. It was to be his only error when leaving a body behind, and the story therefore become so legendary.
It was one of many stories Santino heard from Neri. Altough he liked the story of Luca Brasi going Johnny Fontane’s bandleader with Vito, and was thrilled when he heared how Michael met Filomena in Sicily, telling him the story of Luca killing his own just born baby, the torture story was his favorite. But it was the most vague Brasi-story ever, no one ever confirmed any of it.
Neri obviously got older over the years. He got a bit weak, a bit tired, he certainly seemed restless but had no interests in active work anymore. He wanted to get out, but were to go? Neri wasn’t rich. He had no contact with Michael anymore. He had not done a single legal job in over 30 years, was getting weak, basically, he would never get a job. Not a legal one. And the illegal ones he didn’t want. Working for another Family was no option, he only hoped to be supported by Vincent, financially, when retiring. Deep inside he wanted to be a modern consiglieri, he wanted to share his experience with Vincent without being too active. Vincent agreed on this, wanting his experience, but never the less sent Neri out to keep an eye to all transport activities.

For two years, the drug trafficking route was a success. A lot of people were killed, yes, but most of them were either enemies (from DiCanio mostly) or Pochettino men. Sometimes a “traveller” become corrupt, hiding the cargo claiming it to be stolen by ‘boatbandits’ or ‘pirates’, only to keep it for himself. Vincent had no worries about these men. Cuesta had ‘em removed by his own crew.
Cuesta was known as a tough guy in Cali. He wasn’t involved in any political war, and that kept his troops large and strengthened. Also, afraid for being assasinated in the political wars, some of the soldiers from junta groups joined the Cuesta crew to focus only on the drug traffic. Outside of Colombia though, Cuesta had never got enough help to be a big shot. He knew some Russians succesfully infiltrated in the Chicago gangs, and that there were excellent relations between Californian gangs, mostly black gangs, and Mexican cartels. He admired all of those who got on international ground without losing strength. He was never interested in Europe, there were too many Cali drug lords shipping to Europe, mainly to England, The Netherlands and Italy.
Cuesta was well respected in Columbia. He had control over a very large Peruvian supplyer, but was willing to share his ‘goldmine’ with the other drug lords, for very low prices. For this, he got eternal respect and was seen as the most centralized person in the Cali drug cartel. Only one other drug mafia boss did not like him, threatening him. Due to Cuesta’s arrangement with the Corleone and Parisi Families, they got the other drug lord killed, and Cuesta got all of his men, as well as his income. The Cuesta-Corleone collaboration was a succesfull one, a friendly one, and one of respect. They helped each other out, and it worked very well.

In the summer of 1986, Paul DiCanio was expecting a big liquor shipment. On the same day one of Cuesta’s ships arrived. DiCanio had extra soldiers sent to make sure everything went well. The DiCanio men still messed up and confused Cuesta’s cargo with their original one. As soon as Pochettino’s guys, who were supposed to have an easy day getting the drugs, noticed this they contacted Parisi who called Vincent. The two Dons decided this was a big chance of getting DiCanio. They called same of their friends at the Police Department, and at the end of the day, over 30 DiCanio crew members were arrested with loads of cocaine. Vincent and Pochettino thought at least one of them would mention the name of DiCanio. Meanwhile, the ‘left’ liquor cargo was taken in by Pochettino’s men and Vincent said they should throw theselves a big party!

DiCanio was pissed off. He decleared war to Vincent, but his grip on The Commission was slipping. They thought it was his own fault, and wouldn’t support a hit on Vincent Mancini. DiCanio did give the go ahead though to attack some of the trucks used by the Corleonesi to transport the narcotics, having 5 Corleone soldiers killed in 2 months in autumn. Vincent was outraged, and asked The Commission permission to murder DiCanio. He went to one of the four non-New York members, Alphonse Damanerio, the 70 year old successor to Fransesco Molinari, who was Don of San Francisco from the early 1940’s til the late 1960’s. Molinari was personally responsible for the protection of Vincent’s uncle Fredo from 1947 til the Corleone move to Nevada, in 1956. Damanerio was a respected old Don. Vincent knew DiCanio didn’t like Damanerio. In fact, DiCanio only liked Cavanio and no other Don. Vincent expected Damanerio to O-K the hit on DiCanio, but he didn’t. The old Alphonse expected a major gangwar, and with the current FBI attention on organized crime, the Families couldn’t afford that. Vincent told Damanerio he was making a big mistake.
Vincent and his partners, Neri and Santino JR never forgot about the truck shootings by DiCanio. Others affected by this were, off course, Pochettino and Cuesta. Pochettino sided with Damanerio, claiming it was a bad idea to take out the major boss, but Cuesta was furious. He wanted to liquidate the person responsible for the loss of some of ‘his’ men as he saw the Corleone truck drivers, himself, in person!

Cuesta came to New York and met with Santino JR. After a few weeks of planning, they decided to go ahead. They were about the organize a hit on Paul DiCanio. On a cold December evening, when DiCanio and his underboss were driving downtown to one of the Tattaglia social clubs, a couple of big black cars followed them around. One car had Santino JR and Cuesta in it, with two of Santino’s muscled ‘friends’ on the backseat. The other had two of Cuesta’s Cuban friends who lived in Harlem. They parked a few miles away from the Tattaglia-club. The third car had Al Neri driving it and Vincent Mancini sitting next to him. They were off to a street three blocks away from the club. Before a traffic light, to which Neri stopped, Vincent noticed in the car next to them were DiCanio and his underboss, Pete Lario. “Quick, drive on” Vincent yelled, and the car took off towards their position. The car with Santino stopped 50 metres from the Tattaglia nightclub. Suddenly, the car driven by Lario entered the street. It was driving very slowly, definetly going to stop. A parking space in front of the club was kept open for them especially. Lario drove the car into the parking space, when the car with Santino stopped right behind it. The moment Lario sees this and tries to yell at DiCanio not to step out, the old Don already does, to find Alex Rodrigo Cuesta and two hitmen and the sidewalk. The hitmen shot him three times each in his chest and stomach. Cuesta hit him very accurately in the head twice. Before shooting a third bullet, he got distracted, and shocked a little bit, and theferor shot the Don in his leg once too. Santino JR took care of Pete Lario, who was trying to escape on the streetside of the car. After Santino hit the underboss twice in the back, on of the hitmen aimed his gun just over the car’s rooftop and hit Vario right in the back of his head. He was dead instantly after this impact. Quickly, the two hitmen dissapeared in the large crowd of Christmas shoppers. Santino and Cuesta ran off the other way. They kept on running until a car stopped to let them in. It was Vincent and driver Neri, who while picking up Cuesta and Santino drove through the street where the assasination took place, and Vincent could see and aprove for himself the brilliant job he organized. The four of them drove a couple of blocks, until they reached the third car with the two Cuban friends. It was a big car, and the six persons fitted in easily. The car Neri left behind was set on fire immediately.