ACT OF CONTRITION

ACT OF CONTRITION

Although never charged with any of the crimes he’s committed, Mafia assassin Pasquale, “Doc” Santangelo blithely walks into a local police precinct and confesses he’s carried out scores of murders for his capo, Mario Brandesi. Unhappy with the responses of the police detective to whom he is speaking, Pasquale demands an ADA be summoned and when that is done he offers to provide the ADA with a full account of all the murders he’s carried out for the mafia, but only if he’s placed in a secure cell and given complete privacy to write out his confession.
Realizing such a confession would close a number of open cases , the ADA hastily agrees to Pasquale’s demands. Alone in his cell, Pasquale diligently composes his repugnant autobiography. In it he describes the gruesome murders he’s personally committed. Since there is no evidence other than his own testimony, such unsolicited confessions of those crimes appears enigmatic, but as his account unfolds the reasons Pasquale Santangelo became Mario Brandesi’s vindictore emerge, and by the conclusion of his grotesque tale, both the purpose for Pasquale’s confession and the act of contrition which he intends it to achieve make grisly sense.