Marcellino Romano, a once lone wolf and two bit tough guy, living in a dingy one bedroom apartment above a fruit shop in downtown LA. Originally from the east coast, he relocated west after doing a bid in the concrete hotel, all expenses paid by the state of NY. There was more to the move than a simple change of scenery though, but we’ll get into that another time.

This story begins a few days after Marco landed in LA. After a few days of settling in to his new life westbound, it was time to get to work. One Tuesday morning, he hit Saint Pedro Avenue to eye up any score that could come his way. A few hours of scouting businesses, back alleys, panhandlers and hustlers left him with a handful of options in terms of potential ventures.

He sparked up a cigarette when the perfect idea struck, he knew exactly what to do to get his foot in the door in this grimy cesspool of a town. He pulled his coat up over his face, hiding his identity and approached a lone panhandler on the brink of Skid Row. He pushed the bum to the ground, taking his basket full of hard scammed change and darted around the corner. After counting up the change and a few sticky singles, he had just over ten bucks. After ditching the basket and pocketing the cash, he headed back to the street, looking for phase two in his plan when he saw the perfect fit. A looney was on the corner, shooting dice by himself, talking to what seemed like people he could only see. Marco approached him.

“Hey, buddy.”

The lunatic looked up, somewhat confused but eerily pleased to see him at the same time.

“I got a tenner with your name on it if you can do a little job for me.”

The looney nods

“See that butcher shop over there? Go in there and give the store owner a hard time and when it’s all over you can go buy a beer or something.”

The looney skips off, heading to the shop. Marco watched him enter from a distance and gave it a few minutes before coming in himself. He waltzed on in to the store like he knew nothing about nothing to see the looney holding the store owner by the scruff of his shirt over the top of the counter. Marco walks up to the looney, head butting him, more than likely breaking his nose as when he hit the floor, his nose was all over the front of his face.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE PUNK! IF I CATCH YOU IN HERE AGAIN YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO WALK YOUR WAY OUT!”

Marco tossed the looney out of the shop and before he came back inside, he took his ten bucks back. That was his hard earned whiskey money. He reentered the store, the owner still shaken up by the encounter was sitting down on a chair behind the counter, visibly shaking.

“Th-thank you sir. If you hadn’t of came in and stopped that man, god knows what would’ve happened! Please, if there’s anything I can do for you, don’t be afraid to ask-“

“Afraid?” Marco responded. “Buddy, I’m pretty sure I see a piss trail down the leg of your pants. YOU’RE afraid my friend, not me. But since you wanna be so generous, there is something you’re gonna do for me. You’re gonna pay me $250 now for my security service, and every Friday, I’ll be back for $500 a week to make sure him, or his buddies don’t give you any trouble. But if you think you don’t have to pay or you don’t wanna, then I’ll be making an appearance and between you and me pal, I think it’d be pretty tricky to be a butcher with no hands. Capisce?”

The butcher, now realising he was being extorted for protection money, hesitantly reaches into the pouch on his belt, pulling out the $250 Marco demanded, handing it to him, shaking even more.

“Pleasure doin business with you asshole.” Marco snarls

Marco rinse and repeated the same tactic with a few other stores on the block, bars, diners, but particularly small business owners and sole venders as they were the most vulnerable and took the least amount of convincing to pay for his security services.

A few weeks pass and all is good, Marco has money coming in, he’s building a name for himself in the neighbourhood, he’s even got a couple of street punks working under him. From where he’s standing, he’s on top of the world. But little did he know he was about to be given a choice that’ll make or break is future in the LA underworld.

Marco and a few of his goons were sitting outside the Butcher’s shop playing cards when Ralph, one of Marco’s scouts in the neighbourhood comes running up to them, puffing and panting.

“Boss, shit could be about to go down-“ Ralph exclaimed before being cut off by Marco

“What do you mean shit could be about to go down? What have you done?!”

“I didn’t do nothing boss! Word on the street is there’s a black Cadillac driving around asking people where to find you!”

“Forget about I’ll take care of them-“

“THAT’S THE THING! YOU CAN’T!”

“I’m sorry, WHY?!”

“They’re made guys boss, deep in this thing. You’ve been operating on Lucky’s turf!”

“SHIT!-”

Before he could go any further, the earlier mentioned black Cadillac came to a screeching halt outside the Butcher’s shop, Marco’s goons quickly scattered. Out hopped two goons, much better dressed and twice as mean looking as the street rats that Marco had been employing. The guys didn’t say boo, just opened the back door and pointed, signalling for Marco to get in the car. At this point, his choices were to run and catch a bullet before he reached the street corner or to get in the car and test his luck. He reluctantly went with the long term smarter option.

After getting in the limousine, he was shocked when none other than godfather luciano_lucky was sitting in front of him. In all honest truth, Marco was inches away from shitting himself, this had to be the end for him. Before he got the chance to way up his options or even snap back to reality, Lucky spoke.

“You and I need to talk Marco, finally get acquainted. It seems you’re making quite the pretty penny on this block. We’re gonna take a drive, talk about where you and I stand and hopefully we can find some common ground.”

Marco just nods, finally picking the only option in front of him.

The car drove off and for the next hour or so, they cruised around the LA CBD, not so much discussing, but Lucky talking and Marco listening. In the end, an agreement of sorts was made. The exact details of their agreement are unknown as the conversation was never repeated outside of the back seat of the limo, and neither Lucky or Marco were willing to have that conversation again, so don’t ask.

But what we do know is that Marco got to keep his turf and his guys, but he kicks up to Lucky and works under him now. If you ask me, that’s a more dangerous move than putting a bullet through the guy. Someone like Marco Romano working for Lucky Luciano is only the start of power, money and respect in this thing of ours. Only the future will tell whaat comes next.

Marcellino Romano, a once lone wolf and two bit tough guy, living in a dingy one bedroom apartment above a fruit shop in downtown LA. Now, a three bit tough guy working for one of the most powerful bosses on the west coast……….