"Laura Resnick - The Vatican Outfit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

capi_, and you have doubts about his ability to run a big outfit like the
Church; but, in the end, you take the material you're given to work with, and
you do the best you can. Am I right? Okay, so he was a strange choice for the
job, and who the hell knows what those boys in the conclave were thinking of
when they made him boss, but I've seen crazier things. Just take a good look
at the boss we got in the White House right now.
Anyhow, the real problem with Papa Luciani, you see, was that the guy
didn't know how to keep his opinions to himself. I mean he just could not keep
his trap shut. It was like he thought that being Pope made him untouchable, or
like he believed that a few Swiss pansies in silly suits could really protect




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him from the hit he was just begging for. I gotta tell you, by late September,
we was pretty worried. The poor _schlemiel_ (that's a Jewish word I learned
from Meyer Lansky, may he rest in peace) was going after _everybody_: Licio
Gelli, Michele Sindona, Roberto Calvi, cardinals, bishops, P2, the Vatican
Bank... Well, it was starting to look like Paul VI, may he rest in peace, was
the only Vatican guy who wasn't gonna be excommunicated by the time the smoke
cleared.
My esteemed employer Mr. Corvino -- who, I'm pleased to say, beat that
white slavery rap and isn't gonna be deported after all -- has always had a
keen eye for business opportunities. After a couple of stressful years of
doing business with certain Colombian families, Mr. Corvino felt a strong
desire to return to his roots (figuratively speaking, of course, since no
person in his right mind would want to move back to Corleone) and do business
only with Italians. If the Pope wanted to sever certain business connections,
it only made sense that he'd also be interested in establishing new ones. And,
since some business connections are a little more difficult to sever than
others, Mr. Corvino figured that Papa Luciani could probably use the help of
an experienced businessman like myself.
That's how I wound up in Vatican City on September 28, 1978.
Mr. Corvino pulled a few strings, and of course, we had help on the
inside. My sister's youngest son, Angelo Costello, was working for Papa
Luciani's outfit. Yeah, right there in the Vatican. The kid got his button
about five years before Luciani became Pope. No, no, not _that_ kind of
button. Angelo was -- whaddya call it -- _ordained_, right here in New York
City. I can't say I was completely in favor of it at the time, because I had a
real good job lined up for the kid. But he wasn't interested in my perfectly
legitimate business concerns, and so he became a priest. What are you gonna do
with the younger generation?
Anyhow, maybe Angie made the right choice. I was worried at first,
because the Church isn't family; hell, they ain't even all Italians. But, I
could see after a while that they wasn't so different from us after all, and
that made me feel better. Angie was working his way up through the ranks
almost as fast as he would have if he'd stayed in the Corvino family. He was a
real stand-up guy, and his bosses could see that. So, when the opportunity
came, they sent him off to Rome. I guess his people wanted someone on the