Nobody moved. Leer stood looking at his entire team, each one of them, including Max looking as though they were doubting Victor's sanity. "What are you waiting for?" Victor said with his usual forcefulness and then some, snapping the team out of their frozen state. They were still confused but there was no doubt that Victor meant business. Most of them had learned that when Victor raised his voice above his usual clear and undeniably audible level, to a notch just slightly higher, it was best to do what he had instructed. Possibly the most concrete example of this was an incident involving a guy named Ozzie Warburton.
It happened less than a year before the fight with Tommy Levito, the very man responsible for the incident, sort of. Ozzie was an all around hand. He did alright with manual labor, packing and unpacking the Juice, helping to maintain the grounds and the equipment, but he also helped with the books. He was good enough with numbers to be useful when it came time for accounting. He just saw everything as work and as long as he had it and got paid, fine. However, he did seem to have an appreciation for how the numbers worked that went beyond a system of checks and balances. He paid attention to what the various operations around Rat Town were into, how they made their money, who they chose to work with, and who they did not. So, one day , Ozzie was going through some books and he pulled out a newspaper during a short break. In the paper was a story about the Carrullo Brothers Construction Company, who everybody knew was linked to the Levito family. As he read the story he started writing down a few numbers, some from the article, some from his brain and others from Victor's business. He discovered what he thought was a really useful bit of information which illustrated that Tommy was actually improving his control over Rat Town by developing partnerships with these other businesses like the Carrullo's. Ozzie approached Victor one afternoon as they were packing up a shipment,"Mr. Alonso, I beg your pardon, but I have been looking through our books and comparing them to what I know of the Levito operation and I think I have an important suggestion." Ozzie waited but there was no response, Victor kept talking to the men as they prepared the shipment but did not acknowledge Ozzie's presence."Mr. Alonso, I'm afraid you didn't hear me, I said I think..." he paused in mid-sentence as Victor turned, facing him directly,"I think we ought to establish some relationships with other businesses, not associated with JumpJuice." Victor continued to look at Ozzie as he added,"It seems as though the Levito organization nets an additional twenty percent from investments into other business." Ozzie stood in expectant silence as he watched the expression change on Victor's face.
"I don't want to talk about other options, Warburton." Victor said in his usual tone.
"But we might be able to increase our revenue and expand our influence all at once," Ozzie tried again.
"I said, I am not interested in discussing this at the moment, " Victor said, his tone slightly louder indicating that he was, in fact, unwilling to listen to any suggestion no matter how good. Ozzie seemed prepared to go on but his friend Harvey Tweed, who was standing right next to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away from Victor, telling him that Victor didn't like continuing conversation past the point when he has called to end it. Both Ozzie and Harvey got back to packing, leaving Victor to continue with the process of instructing the team and addressing the security of the shipment.
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