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professionals in celebration.

SEVEN
    JOSEPH BONAFACCIO JR. let the scream of the engine level as the needle grazed 4,800 rpm’s. His manicured fingers tightened on the gear shift. In a quick throw to fourth gear, things settled down, and the silver Porsche Speedster loped along at 95 mph, the tach showing 3,200.
    Joseph had avoided the president’s funeral by cramming two briefcases of financial reports into the Porsche and secreting himself in the Adirondack estate his father had built. There would have been too many “friends” from the old days at the funeral. Honoring the promise he had made to his dying father, Joseph now shunned such contacts, though he missed the colorful bonhomie of the “wise guys” and characters who had peppered his youth.
    The barren early winter trees flew by in a gray blur, a stark and fitting backdrop for the assassination’s aftermath.
    Joseph rolled the unlit Romeo y Julieta Churchill to the other side of his mouth, a brooding melancholy preventing
him from lighting it. One thought consumed him: The Don, one of old Joseph Kennedy’s closest friends, would have acted by now. Shit, he named me to honor Their friendship. He would not have let the assassination of his friend’s son go unanswered .
    Emasculated by corporate structures and balance sheets, Joseph Bonafaccio Jr. could only roar through the dreary fall day, finding little satisfaction from the finely tuned capsule of German engineering that hurled him south to Manhattan.
    Eventually, he remembered the cigars and smiled. Wherever in eternity his father was, he had to be laughing at that one. “Those Kennedy kids?” the Don had once smirked. “Under all that polish, just chips off the old man’s crooked block, God love ’em.”
    Yeah, those cigars. When had that gone down? About five months ago? Yeah, just about five months. It had been midsummer and he recalled the heat rising from Manhattan’s sidewalks in waves of shimmering misery.
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    Dominick Romelli had knocked lightly on the door that separated his small office from Joseph’s huge suite.
    â€œJoseph?”
    Joseph had welcomed the interruption. The hydra of holding companies that comprised the Bonafaccio empire spoke to him through reams of paper he had grown to hate. Soon his father’s vision would be fully realized. Millions would have been sanitized into the financial muscles of the world, and the old days would be gone forever. He’d removed the Partagas Lusitania from his mouth.

    â€œYeah, Fingers. What’s up?”
    Whoops , Joseph had thought, not supposed to call him that anymore; don’t even think of him that way. We’re supposed to be out of all of that . Dominick Romelli, whose former nickname stemmed from the talented trigger finger that had eliminated many of the Don’s problems, was twice Joseph’s age, yet half his size. He had protected Joseph since Joseph’s first minute of life and was pledged to keep his vigil until physically incapable.
    Romelli had entered. “Peter Swindt’s on the line. He’s got an unusual request. I’d handle it but thought it would be better coming from you personally.”
    Joseph had nodded, smiling: Dominick Romelli, Caesar Romero look-alike and ex-trigger man, now turned diplomat-statesman to presidents, kings, and captains of finance. Joseph punched the flashing button on his telephone console and greeted the president’s aide.
    â€œCiao, Peter. Have the Russians landed?”
    â€œIf they do, Joseph, you will be one of the first to know, I promise you.” Joseph pictured the portly, sycophant, puffed with self-importance. In fairness, the man did have a busy job, so there was no reason to waste his time.
    â€œWhat’s on your mind, Peter?” There, right to it. Wish people would treat me like this, he’d thought.
    There had been a pause. Surprising. When the White House wants something,