vito's question answered

finally... a real question.
vito asks:

Dear Zenstar,
Vittoro Castalani here, my friends call me Vito. I'm an all round great guy and snappy dresser, but that doesn't seem to help me one little bit. I think the members of my party are hiding things from me. I don;t know what to do, how do I get them to trust me? I've been perfectly open and honest so far, what more can I do?
thanks
Vittoro

firstly i must say that i can see your dm is a brilliant, fantastic, wonderful guy and is running the best game in the universe for you *cough*i rock*cough*.
now on to answering your question:

well vito. obviously you are a fine upstanding member of your community. a sensible sicilian and a "family" man (if you know what i mean).
you should remember the old family sayings: "a man in a good tracksuit can do no wrong." and "let the gold shine through... let the chains hang out."
if you suspect that the other party members are hiding things from you then you're going to have to find out what it is. i mean no-one, but no-one hides things from the family.
you have to listen to your inner don and let him dictate your course of action.
ask yourself: "what would the don order me to do in this situation?"
you may need a chainsaw.

you have a few options at this point.
you can hang around watching them from the shadows and try figure out what they're doing.
you can find out if they have any debts that you can buy. holding someone's marks and leaning on them has similar effects to holding them by the short and curlies and pulling: they'll do what you want pretty damn quickly.
you can find a stool pigeon and pay them off to spill the beans.
you can grab someone and beat them with an iron bar until they talk.
wait until they fall asleep and leave a horse's head in their bed. (i don't know why this would work, but gangsters love this sort of thing and it does get some results... just not always the results you want)
if they're hiding something its probably illegal or valuable. either way it falls under your domain and you need to deal with it.

maybe you can get them to trust you more if you treat them to a nice plate of cabonara and meatballs, with a nice wine on the side... preferably somewhere intimate... somwhere where if you click your fingers a bunch of muscle arrives to make sure dinner is fine.
be completely honest with them. tell them that you think that they don't trust you. tell them you think they are hiding things from you. tell them that this hurts you. tell them that when you're hurt other people get hurt (if you know what i mean).
make sure you have your best tracksuit on at the time. people love a large guy in a tracksuit. put on the special gold chains.

if the situation doesn't allow this or if you would rather take an alternate route: find the guy who's most likely to be compliant and bribe him. if its good enough for the police its good enough for other party members.

thats about all the help i can give you, other than to remember the old saying:
"vinny, vito, vick." often pronounced: "vini, vidi, vici."
vinny's the driver, vito's the lookout, vick is the muscle.

good luck my friend
uncle zenstar

ps: i'll get the rest of the money to you by friday... i promise... tell the don i'm sorry for the late payment but i got a sure thing going on the bulls to win.

mail me more questions people.... or i'm just gonna have to make them up.