it was a period when substantial portions of civilian society began to establish links and ties with the clan the so called respectable people some out of necessity others to improve their social condition and still others because everyone else was doing it so why shouldn’t I do it too the way it starts is by trading votes that is by supporting the candidates that at each election the clan wants to promote in town and it winds up with helping out in various ways the clan needs fronts for business deals of all sorts and in certain cases it is a form of violence that these people are forced to undergo in other cases it’s a kind of tacit agreement if not an explicit request on their part the money flows freely more and more people are enjoying the benefits without having to dirty their hands with the profits of the clan this is the beginning of a general period of enrichment for my town and so the Bardellinos and their partners begin to establish a reputation as people who help our town and another thing there are no more car thefts no more burglaries the town becomes safe and trouble free it’s the clan who insists on this because it wants to prevent the presence of the carabinieri it wants to have a favorable atmosphere it wants the people to feel friendship and trust for the clan

once Bardellino’s brother becomes mayor the clan enters into politics and the local politicians begin to notice them even politicians of a certain importance and influence politicians who are in the Italian parliament all the Christian Democrats the point of contact between clan and politicians is an architect Gianni’s father the one who was also mayor for a certain period of time as a replacement for Ernesto Bardellino a man who was a typical politico of those years capable of changing party every other day in fact over time he was progressively a Socialist a Christian Democrat a Liberal a Social Democrat he was a member of all the parties that you could possibly name or imagine except of course for any of the opposition parties and now he had become the clan’s consigliere the person who runs the clan’s political connections and other business of all and any sort this lawyer played a very important role in the clan but he always managed to scrape through every investigation without problems

he is a very important figure because he is personally acquainted with all the politicians on the local level and on the national level since his own father was a politician who had held an important office under Fascism and who was then elected to parliament as a Christian Democrat and this lawyer thus became the point of contact between the clan and politics he became the one who advises the clan how to move in that world because the bosses are clever they are intelligent but they don’t know much about certain things they don’t understand certain fields they can’t quite reconcile them with their own way of life and so they need a personage like him who by the way will later rip them off so to speak for instance he would pilfer a contract for computers worth three hundred million lire three hundred thousand dollars and so the clan was considering having him killed but then they decided to forget about it and this personage commuted continuously between our town and Aversa and he often went to Rome too where he had many highly placed contacts