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The Mafia in Higher Education

Ron Iannone

    I am a small thin guy with a hooked nose and long black hair. I teach theatre classes at a community college outside of Boston. It’s called Franklin and is located in a small hamlet called Smithtown, which is in a state of decay because of the lost textile mills years ago.
    In the summers I am the producer of a summer stock theatre called Smithtown Public. In a nutshell, and because of the economic stress of 2008 and 2009, the theatre was facing $400,000 deficit. I needed cash quickly.
    Over the years, my wife and I had mortgaged our home three times to attain a line of credit. The banks have refused any more loans for us.
    A couple of months ago I met a man by the name of Mark Willis, who was a multi-millionaire. He made his money franchising lumber companies throughout the United States. It provided house designs and lumber for small time contractors. The Board of the theatre felt he may want to help. Recently, the Board had a change in leadership: A woman, by the name of Jenny Patrick, was voted in as President. Anyway, I read everything I could online about Mark Willis. I read he was working in attaining economic development monies to redevelop the downtown area. The article that I read said he was also interested in renovating the old Capitol Theatre which has been closed for several years. It was an old vaudeville house that brought in such stars as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and others. It was turned into a movie theatre for a few years then closed. We presented our musical shows at the college’s theatre, but the thought of doing Broadway musicals in a newly renovated Capitol Theatre was exciting.
    I made an appointment to meet him the next day at his corporate headquarters. As I drove through the security gates, I noticed that the building was all glass and steel. It reminded me of the new September 11th Memorial, especially how the glass reflected the powdered blue sky and the beautiful landscape surrounding the building. Inside the lobby it was softly lit with maroon wallpaper and alcoves where big Picasso, Monet, Warhol, and Dali paintings were hung. A prim forty year old secretary brought me up a spiral staircase decorated out of the Gone With the Wind movie. She led me into a huge conference room whose large windows overlooked the rolling hills of Smithtown. At one end of the table sat Mark Willis and two other men. Mark was dressed in a white shirt and dark blue tie that hung over his barrel-chested frame. He introduced me to Peter Delsanto, who was thin and sharply dressed with gray slacks, blue blazer, and an opened white shirt. The other man was Jack Cook, who had on a camel-haired sport coat and looked like a weasel with a long, pointed face.
    Mark began: “Andy, what can I do for you?”
    “Our theatre is hurting. If I don’t get some money quickly, I’ll have to close it. “
    He said, “You know the theatre is good for Smithtown and my employees. And you know, buddy, I always respected that you were willing to put your own money in it.”
    “Thanks,” I said gratefully. The two other men smiled with shitty grins on their faces in agreement with Mark.
    “Look, Andy, I think we can help if you get involved with us.”
    “How?” I asked.
    Mark said, “I believe we can get funds from the state to renovate the old Capitol Theatre. It can be beautiful and you won’t have to deal with those assholes at the college.”
    He went on, “Hell, if you still want to use the college’s theatre, we can work that out too. The new president, Bob Otto, is a friend of ours. Right, Pete?”
    Pete smiled.
    “Look, he owes us and he’s a nice guy. Hell, with the state funds, Andy, we are planning a new 5 star hotel downtown with an event center. You also can do shows there. You’ll have three places instead of one to do your stuff. What do you think, Andy?”
    “Sounds good,” I said, unbelievably.
    “We can become partners, Andy,” Mark said. “Okay? I know the Board of Governors likes you because of you mortgaging your home. You know how to talk and you may have to make a major presentation when we make our pitch with State.”
    “Sure. I’ll do whatever.” It sounded too good to be true. No more money problems and no more mortgaging our home.
    Now Jack, the weasel-faced man, spoke in a high pitched voice. “Hey, Mark, let’s just get the event center done. We can make more money at the hotel and we’ll give the downtown theatre to the community. The people will love us.”
    “Yeah,” Mark agreed. I thought he looked like a boring kind of guy.
    Small talk followed, and we agreed to get together soon. I remembered someone telling me that Mark Willis had connections with the Ohio Mafia. So what? I thought. I’m going to have a new theater. Most rumors are untrue, I thought.
    I brought Mark Willis’ ideas to my Board of Trustees. They loved them and gave me the go-ahead. My new Board President, Jenny Patrick, especially liked the idea. She was in her mid-forties, pretty face, with big brown eyes along with hair like a huge fuzzy cloud with streaks of brown, terribly sexy. She had been a real estate agent for ten years.
    The next day the local newspaper reported that a number of the Franklin faculty questioned how the new President, Bob Otto, was appointed. They said there was collision between the Board of Governors and Mark Willis. Of course, the Board and Mark Willis denied it. Later that day, I got a call from Holly Springer, a reporter from the newspaper, and she wanted to know my involvement in getting the President appointed. I told her, “absolutely nothing.” I told her I was hoping for a new theatre as the old Capitol Theatre was being renovated and also maybe at the new event center being built in the new hotel. Finally she asked if I was concerned that Bob Otto was appointed President with no higher education experience. She said that, basically, Otto was a lobbyist for Mark Willis and his partners.
    “Honestly,” I said, “I didn’t know any of that.”
    Late that night, I received a call from Willis and he said he, Pete, and Jack wanted to meet me for lunch at Pete’s restaurant Vino’s. He also said that the college’s Chief of Staff and attorney would be there. I began to worry. I called Jenny and told her. She said even though it was late we needed to get together to prepare for the lunch meeting. We decided to meet at Vino’s. I wanted to see where it was. If Pete was there, I thought, so what? I wanted him to know our Board was concerned. But he wasn’t there when we met. Vino’s looked like Pete wanted to bring a little bit of Italy to Smithtown. The photos and artwork complemented the Old World stone walls, lit up in some areas by bright sconces. It was a nice comfortable atmosphere in which to meet.
    I found out Jenny was married with two children and had a husband who was a lawyer for one of the top firms in Boston. She and I immediately hit it off. Except for a couple of casual affairs, I was faithful to my wife of 30 years. My wife Carrie was a talented painter who taught art classes at the college. She was still cute and perky with short blond hair and eyes like a deep blue lake. She kept herself in shape by running three miles a day. Everyone loved her. Jenny told me her husband was six four, tall, very handsome, and would screw anything that walked by him. He was now screwing a sixteen year old. He loved to screw his women on his father’s grave because his father likewise screwed younger women while he was alive.
    We decided she was going to check on Willis and his partners’ backgrounds. She had a good friend who was an ex-state trooper and was now a private investigator.
    As I walked her to her car, she invited me to sit in the back seat with her.
    “Sure,” I said.
    She said, “You know, Andy, your lips are so sexy, along with your haunting dark eyes.”
    The next thing I knew, we were having mind-blowing sex by finger fucking and kiss fucking. It was the most intimate sex I had ever had. Afterwards, as I walked to my car, I knew I was in deep shit. As was my habit, I tried to empty my thoughts of her, but it didn’t work.
    That night, I couldn’t sleep because of Jenny’s wildness in the back seat. Finally, I forgot about her and thought about what the papers were going to say about Willis.
    The next morning, the local newspaper said that there were rumors that he was hooked up with a shopping mall kingpin who had just recently been cleared of dumping two bodies of restaurant owners in the Ohio River. Anyway, something just didn’t seem right as the three of us met at Vino’s again. Today, the excitement and the sex-charged atmosphere was gone and replaced with smells of overcooked tomato sauce and spoiled fish.
    Everyone was there: Willis, Delsanto, Cook, and the two people from the college. Willis sipped on a water glass full of Crown Royal. Jack Cook began quickly and turned to the college’s Chief of Staff whose name was Larry Meyers.
    “Okay, Larry, you think you can work an agreement where Andy’s theatre becomes a partner with the college. We want to make sure if he’s having financial trouble again that the college takes care of it. Hell, you guys at the college are set for life because of Mark’s generosity.”
    Larry answered, “Yeah. I think we can work something out. It will be complicated, don’t you think, Brian?” Brian Stewart was the legal adviser for the college.
    He responded, “It will be complicated, but we will get it done.” With his conservative suit and blonde hair, he reminded me of someone out of the fifties. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days.
    “Of course,” he went on. “The faculty is worked up because of the appointment. But you know we got a new sheriff in town. The faculty really has no power.”
    Everyone at the table laughed, except for me. Now Willis turned to me. “Well, Andy, what do you think?”
    “Sounds good,” I said. “I just worry about the faculty.”
    Willis responded, “Look, buddy, let Larry and Brian handle it. And you with your golden voice sell the public and the State why this redevelopment is good for Smithtown. You understand?”
    “Okay,” I said with uncertainty.
    A few days later I made the presentation to the Massachusetts Economic Development Committee. I could tell the Committee was impressed with my presentation, and so were Willis and his partners. Soon after, Willis got word one of his LLDs, called Essex, was getting 25 million for the redevelopment in Smithtown, including the new hotel, theatre, and other infrastructural work.
    Later that night, I met Jenny at Vino’s. I wanted to celebrate the good news; however, she had bad news for me.
    “Did you hear the news today?”
    “No, I was hiding out at the library all day working on an article so I can get promoted this year. Publish or perish, you know that fucking saying.”
    “Yeah, I know, but the faculty voted this afternoon to investigate how Otto got appointed. It’s even gotten national news. Tonight President Otto resigned, along with the Chair of the Committee that selected him. Everyone knows Willis was involved. The Board of Higher Education also appointed an interim president, some old guy near eighty.”
    “What the fuck!”
    Just then my cell phone rang. I could see on the screen that it was Willis calling.
    “I need to see you now, Andy. I got some problems,” he said. “Meet me at my office.”
    “Be careful,” Jenny said, as I got up. She now pulled me to her and whispered, “Stop over to my home. My husband is gone and the kids are with the grandparents. You like oral sex?”
    “Yes,” I said, thinking I was dealing with some major problems here and she was talking about oral sex. Oral sex is not a high priority right now.
    The security guard at Willis Industries led me through a smoky glass security door which was sandblasted with “Willis Industries.” He was leading me to a different place than where we met before. Everything seemed to be retro, but the place screamed of money as I now saw him and his partners sitting on two different sofas made of soft bluish material. The ex-President of the college was also there. He looked like a young Santa Claus with a puffy red face and long gray hair without the beard. He rose and shook my hand.
    “Hi, Andy.”
    “Hi,” I repeated as I sat next to him on one of the sofas across from Willis and his guys.
    Willis spoke. “Look, Andy,” I need your help. You know what happened to Bobby?”
    “I just heard.”
    “Well, I also just got word from my contacts at the state level that they are cutting some of the funds. We are only getting 15 million instead of 25 million. That still isn’t bad.”
    “I guess.”
    “In order to get the money for the theatre, you’re going to have to raise four million. Maybe I could loan it to you. Also, you’re going to have to pay rent.”
    “How much?”
    “We think about $100,000 a year will help our cause.”
    “But you said it was going to be free.”
    “Things have changed,” he said seriously. “The state has given us some tough guidelines.”
    “They have,” Pete said in chorus with Jack.
    “Jesus,” I said.
    “Help me out here, Andy. Don’t you want a first class theatre?”
    “Yes, but I don’t know. Do I have a choice?’
    Willis quickly responded, “No. You need to keep quiet about all of this. You understand?” His blurry read eyes scared the shit out of me.
    “Yes,” I said, softly and beaten. I realized that I had been used so these fuckers could get money for their hotel and other projects. We got shafted.
    “Don’t worry,” Otto said. “Look at me and what happened. I trust Mark.”
    Willis now said, “Yeah, you meet with the construction company tomorrow and they’ll tell you what has to be cut from the theatre because we need it for the hotel.”
    In shock, and almost completely numb, we all shook hands and I thought I just lost millions that the theatre was supposed to get and now it ended up in these fucking crooks’ hands.
    That night, Jenny tried to help me out of my depressing mood as she gave me oral sex and many more fun things I couldn’t believe. Still, quickly afterwards a flood of thoughts filled my mind. Higher education is supposedly where truth is discussed and its community of scholars discuss such things as truth, beauty, and the metaphysical and allegorical meanings of things. It’s all bullshit. I was devastated. I thought about calling a lawyer friend Stan Puloski who was the theatre’s lawyer, but I just heard recently that he and Pete Delsanto had begun a new restaurant chain that centered on stone crabs and other seafood.
    The next day I picked up Jenny as a steady rain fell. I drove out to the country and said nothing for several minutes. I stopped the car, put it in park. I gripped the steering wheel with anger, breathing hard. The rain continued to come down hard. She touched my face with her fingers. I now knew what I had to do. Even though I was confused about Jenny and felt guilty because of my wife, most importantly I had to make the call. Jenny also might have to accept that I couldn’t live with the guilt of cheating on Carrie.
    I turned to her and said, “Whatever happens, know that I will always appreciate your love.” I kissed her hard and then broke away and pulled my cell phone out.
    “I would like the number for the FBI in Boston. Thank you.”

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