My longtime attorney and close friend, E. Hobart Calhoun, and I rode in silence in the ancient elevator, crowded against the wall by the sheet-covered hulk on the gurney. Following E.’s instructions, I avoided eye contact with Don Trumpleone and his bare-chested consigliere, Vladimir Putini, former head of the Brighton Beach family, now Don T.’s closest confidant.

The elevator groaned and lurched to a halt. Putini pulled back the metal grating and pushed the gurney into the examining room, where Trent “T-Lo” Lottisi waited, somber in his red and white striped vest, straw boater, and sleeve garter.

“Where is the rest of your quartet?” Don T. asked.

“I am all that’s left, Don T.,” T-Lo said bowing, a slight tremor in his velvet baritone. “I am prepared to do what you ask.”

“I want you to use all your powers, and all your skills. I don’t want its sponsors to see it this way.”

T-Lo nodded reverently as Don T. pulled the sheet off the gurney, revealing a mass of torn, crumpled paper, red lines and black Sharpie marks scarring each page.

“Look how they massacred my healthcare plan,” Don T. said, his eyes welling.

Don T. walked slowly toward the elevator. E. and I followed at a discreet distance, joining Don T. and Putini.

“I have called a meeting of all the families,” Don T. said. “This war ends now.”

I glanced at Putini, scratching his bare breast as he whispered to Don T., who nodded in agreement.

“Mention it,” Don T. said to Putini. “Don’t insist.”

Don T. climbed into his armor-plated black Escalade, disappearing behind the heavily tinted bullet-proof windows. His armada of a half-dozen identical black Escalades pulled away from the curb.

“Don T. suggests you attend the meeting,” Putini said to E. and me, his eyes as black and cold as a shark’s. We nodded vigorously as he gave us the directions to the meeting of the five families at a trattoria in the West Wing.

E. and I arrived at the White House shortly after dark. We walked past the guard gate to the fence on the west side.

“Shouldn’t we go through the secured entrance?” I asked.

“Nah,” E. said, “this is quicker.”

We hopped over the fence and walked to the White House, peering through windows on the ground floor until we found the trattoria. E. tapped on the window, and we were ushered in a side door.

The West Wing trattoria was quaint, the perfect atmosphere to make a deal. E. and I stood against the wall, observing the heads of the five families. E. knew all the players.

“The guy with funny hair plugs, always looking down when he talks—that’s Chuck “Corn Rows” Schumer, head of the New York familia. He took over Meyer Lansky’s operations in the outer boroughs.”

“Oy vey,” I whispered. “Look at the size of that forehead.”

“The squaw with the eagle feather headdress,” E. said, “that’s Elizabeth ‘Dances With Wolf Blitzer’ Warren, head of the Massachusetts Native American familia.”

“She doesn’t look like an Indian.”

“Don’t let those rimless glasses fool you. She’s a stone cold killer. She controls the numbers and extortion rackets for consumers on the East Coast.”

“Who’s the young guy with all the bandages?” I asked E.

“Congressman Paul Ryan, head capo for all the Black Irish familias in the Midwest. He’s the one who took the beating carrying the healthcare plan.”

“Looks like he has a cast on his leg.”

“Yeah,” E. whispered. “Corn Rows and Dances With Wolf Blitzer claim he broke it pushing some old lady in a wheelchair off a cliff. But I think it happened when the New York and Massachusetts familias and their allies destroyed his healthcare plan.”

“But I read it was his own people that murdered the plan,” I said.

“The Dead Rabbit familia,” E. said. “There’s their leader, Utah Senator Mike “The Spike” Luigi, and his consiglieri, Kentucky Senator Rand Pauloli. Tough customers, both of them.”

“What’s wrong with Pauloli’s hair?” I asked.

“He believes hair should be left alone to do what it wants, without government interference,” E. said.

“The ladies on the end?” I asked, gesturing toward the two sneering women at the end of the table, a slender African-American and an elderly white woman with a surprised look on her face.

“The most dangerous of all,” E. said. “The godmothers of the West Coast Mob. They took over Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel’s territories. LA Congresswoman Maxine ‘Muddy’ Waters is the black lady. She’s buried a lot of her enemies in Korea, or Crimea, she can never remember which.”

“Why’s the white lady in the black cape so wide-eyed?”

“That’s former Speaker of the House, Nancy Lugosi. She inherited that cape from her deceased younger brother, Bela. The eyes that don’t blink are the result of multiple facial surgeries, I think.”

“I hear these two Californian godmothers will do anything to damage Don Trumpleone, and are leading California’s move to break away from Don T. and the other familias to start their own organization.”

“Don T.’s not going to allow that,” E. said, then shushed me as Don T. rose to address the heads of the familias. “Don T. is about to speak.”

Stay tuned for the next episode: “Cosa Nostradamus, Part II.”