The Mark of Cosa Nostra

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For me it started in a small resort just outside the town of Flagstaff, Arizona. AXE has one of its training schools there. There wasn’t much activity around the resort itself because this was spring and the action in the surrounding mountains didn’t really begin until the first snow. It was an area for skiing, for snow bunnies and warm rum, fireplaces in wood lodges with snowflakes floating against windows, and the smell of toasting marshmallows.

But this was spring, and the snow people had not yet begun their trek to the mountain town of Flagstaff. The AXE resort was almost a mile high and looked far down to the town.

I was told to disguise myself as soon as I arrived, according to a photo handed me. I studied the picture in my room while waiting for the man from make-up. The name of the face was Thomas Acasano and I would get to know it well during the next week.

It was an interesting face. The eyes were set well back in the head. The eyebrows were bushy and like the thick mustache and equally thick head of hair, they were the color of salt and pepper. The nose was Roman, the lips sensuous and full. It was the face of a man who seemed to know the ways of the world and took life on no terms but his own. This was not a face you would find working behind a desk. Nor would you find it smiling at a playful child. You would expect to see it looking down at a freshly killed corpse. It was a cold face that belonged behind the sights of a weapon. I was going to wear that face.

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