Hundred thousand was a lot of money for Marco, who earned minimum wage as a mason and moonlighted as a gambler. The income from both endeavours was not enough to put a roof over his head, pay bills, feed two people and pay Aurelio.
Life has been a struggle for Marco since his wife, Cinzia, started a fifteen-year sentence in Alighieri prison. Cinzia was guilty of attempted murder, robbery and assault on a police officer. Of the three alleged crimes, Cinzia committed none, at least to Marco.
To Marco, Cinzia was a victim of a failed justice system. A system that could not look beyond its veil of corruption and profound incompetence to see the truth that laid bare to many. The truth was a select few wielding incredulous power threatened freedom and equality to which the justice system was a custodian. Those who deserved a fair hearing did not get one because the system only served the needs of a select few.
Cinzia did not receive a fair hearing. Her trumped up charges, orchestrated and concocted by Aurelio was presided by a judge who was on Sam Lucci’s payroll and by a jury handpicked to deliver a guilty verdict.
Cinzia did not stand a chance. Even her condition at the time of the trial, which Marco hoped might help sway the verdict for a lesser sentence, did not draw upon the reservoir of good conscience he hoped from the jury.
At the time of her trial, Cinzia was seven months pregnant and two months away from being a mother. With the spoils of motherhood in sight, Cinzia kept faith for an acquittal.
Though she knew that the charges against her had no merit in court because it was a fabrication, nonetheless, it was too serious a crime that an acquittal was likely.
When the verdict was handed down, Cinzia was inconsolable. Marco, on the other hand, was not surprised. Cinzia was up against a force she could not defeat.
It was true that the charges levelled against Cinzia was a fabrication because the victim of the alleged attempted murder was Aurelio and the officer who claimed assault was a friend of the mob boss Sam Lucci.
The truth was Cinzia no longer wanted to continue to advance Aurelio’s indecent interests as a call girl. Knowing this Aurelio tried her publicly to discredit her and to establish she must because he owned her.
The only crime Cinzia felt she committed was colluding with Marco to fleece the casino where she worked hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
But this was no act of robbery as the casino had claimed. In addition, collusion was not a crime.
Cinzia and Marco were hustlers who found a way to make a clean break from a casino that paid no attention to card counting gamblers.
This was Marco’s gift. Indeed, Marco was every casino’s nightmare whose innate gift made him unwelcome at any gambling circle. Because no matter how many times a croupier shuffled the deck of cards, Marco envisioned with perfect accuracy the cards dealt to each gambler.
Marco, of course, did not always operate alone. He often worked with Cinzia, who was a clever croupier and a card-counting machine herself.
“Ma, I know what you’re thinking,” Marco said breaking the silence, “but I can fix this.”
“How?” Cecilia wanted to know.
“Niccolo has offered to help me raise the money I need to pay off Aurelio. I start tonight at his table at the Plaza Casino.”
Cecilia said not a word.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Marco added. “Niccolo is as good as Cinzia, if not better. I used to work with him before I met Cinzia. You remember Niccolo Albano don’t you?”
Cecilia nodded. “I do. I still remember him as a little boy that likes to play in the sand with you.” Cecilia smiled. Her memory still serves her well. “Niccolo is a good kid with a good head on his shoulder.”
“I know,” Marco said and kissed his mother. “I will see you in the morning.”

#TheHoundOfChristopher