To the boss Messina Denaro, a daughter
The story continues for another generation
Good news for the Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who, frankly, has had the most terrible run of bad luck of late. You may remember that he was arrested by the intrepid Italian police after many years on the run, thirty to be precise. He is supposed by many to be the actual head of the Sicilian Mafia, the boss of all bosses. He was caught because he was in a private hospital in Palermo being treated for cancer, under a false name. Someone must have ratted on him, because how else did they find him? Like all Mafia bosses living under the radar, there were no recent photographs.
Messina Denaro is now in jail in the centre of Italy (big names in the Mafia tend to be imprisoned away from Sicily), and he is still being treated for cancer. However, the good news concerns his personal life. Being on the run all those years does not mean that he had no private life to speak of, as being on the run does not necessarily mean living out of a suitcase. Messina had a daughter, and he had a mistress as well; he was not like the previous generation of Mafia bosses a socially conservative man. He delighted in flashy clothes, designer labels, fast cars, and Ray-Ban sunglasses, and girls, lots of them. According to Italian Wikipedia, which I translate and condense:
‘From his relationship with Franca Alagna, he had a daughter, Lorenza, born in December 1996, who from infancy lived with the boss’s mother, Lorenza Santangelo, and used her mother’s surname, on the grounds that she did not know her father. He also had a relationship with Maria Mesi, which was interrupted when he realised the police were on his tail; Mesi was arrested in 2000 when the police discovered two hideouts use by the boss. They also found love letters between Mesi and the boss. This evidence got Mesi three years in jail. In July 2006 further love letters were found.’
These love letters obviously made interesting reading, and clearly the boss had something about him if La Mesi was willing to take such risks for him and to pay the price of imprisonment. But things are complicated! It seems that Messina Denaro had another lady called Laura Bonafede, ever since 1996, the same year as his only child was born, who was a schoolteacher, and who had a daughter, not his biological daughter, whom the boss regarded as his own. La Bonafede is now also in jail. Is there no end to the women who will risk imprisonment for the love of a Mafia boss?
Now, to comfort the boss in his misfortunes his biological daughter, Lorenza, has stepped forward. She has been visiting him in prison and she and her father are now close. It was not always so. Messina Denaro had previously described Lorenza as ‘degenerate’, and a wet blanket, or to use the superb Italian phrase, a sciacqualattuga, a wet lettuce leaf. These difficulties have clearly been overcome, as Lorenza has renounced her mother’s surname in favour of her father’s. Step forward Lorenza Messina Denaro, the don’s daughter, and his heir. Though whether there is anything to inherit is another question.
Messina Denaro was the son of a Mafia boss, and came from Castelvetrano. His godfather and confirmation sponsor was a member, once upon a time, of the outlaw band of Salvatore Giuliano, who, as attentive readers know, is the inspiration of my efforts in fiction. So, a pattern emerges; the Mafia has always been a family thing, an association that is deeply personal. With the emergence of a new Messina Denaro, the story carries on for another generation.