The Associate (Family Business)

Chapter One

“Okay, who’s next?” Gio asked.

Vic Croce flipped over the top page of his spiral-bound steno notepad and tapped his ballpoint pen on the second to last name not yet crossed out. “Ying’s.” He flicked his gaze ahead of them, to where a distant traffic light blinked yellow. “Where are we now, Huston Street? Easiest way to get there from here is to hang a right at the light and drive two blocks,” he said. “It’ll be on the corner.”

Scratch-scratch went the pen, grating on Gio’s nerves. “You know about these newfangled contraptions called cell phones, right? You can tap out notes right on the screen”— quietly —“so you don’t have to tear through sheets and sheets of paper and kill all the trees.”

Vic stabbed the pen’s tip on the notepad again, for emphasis. The move left a thick blue smudge next to Ying’s name. “Hey, I don’t need every search engine and tweety site listening to me through those so-called apps ,” he said. “Pen and paper keep your secrets.”

Gio snorted. “Until somebody finds a carelessly discarded note.”

“What?” Vic flashed the small pad. “It’s a list of local restaurants. People’ll think I’m a food critic. Fuckin’ drive already, G.”

Joseph “Gio” Spatafora huffed out a mirthless laugh and gripped the wheel of his black sedan. He checked the rearview mirror for approaching traffic. Amber-colored eyes, tired yet intense, set underneath a pair of bushy black brows urged him on to the next stop. He almost spoke up on seeing them, to warn Vic he wasn’t looking like himself lately. Who was this bum in the reflection, staring back with such exhaustion?

Gio was twenty-eight years old and an associate for the San Gaetanos, whose boss controlled the sprawling west side of the city from downtown to the river. Having worked for the family since elementary school, he hoped to soon move on to more substantial work beyond these tedious bagman runs. Preferably in the daytime, leaving his nights free. Nothing against Vic, his partner for this route—he liked the man’s company—but he was capable of working alone.

“Gio?” Vic slapped the notepad on the dash, snapping Gio out of his reverie.

“Right,” Gio said, and pulled away from the curb. It was close to six, and Ying’s delivered until midnight. That he and Vic would have the bag packed before suppertime spoke of their efficiency, considering their growing ‘client list.’ Between the restaurants, bodegas, services and miscellaneous retail shops, Gio figured he’d collected from just over a hundred entrepreneurs over the past few days…with added muscle from Vic, of course.

He didn’t bother with his seatbelt on the short drive, and lucked out on a free stretch of curb outside the storefront. Checking under the flap of his green and white varsity jacket for his gun, tucked into his belt, he joined Vic on the sidewalk.

“You want to pick up something to go while we’re here?” Vic asked.

“No. Get what you want if you’re not hanging around.” Friday at their capo’s house meant saltimbocca , and the capo’s wife cooked not only well but in volume. Every dinner was like Christmas Eve and Gio, who survived on canned ravioli and single-serving noodle cups, was always glad of a home-cooked meal. Vic, who still lived with his mother, clearly took that benefit for granted if he craved over-salted Chinese food.

The setup of Ying’s discouraged lingering diners. Blinding lights from exposed fluorescent tubes, two drinks coolers taking up space on the other side of the counter, and only two four-top tables with three chairs apiece. Two children occupied the one farthest from the door, textbooks and binders spread over the surface among opened soda cans. Gio spoke curtly to the older one in halting Mandarin.

“Get your father. Now.”

The boy grabbed his sister and pulled her through the red embroidered curtains separating the service counter from the busy kitchen. Gio watched the movement through the slit, of bodies hunched over grills and stock pots. A face, eyes wide with worry, glanced in his direction briefly before disappearing to one side.

When the old man emerged, he held two white paper pint containers with reedy metal handles. He nodded silently and showed them to Gio before placing them in a brown paper bag. Mr. Ying addressed Gio by his last name, his accent thick. “One moo goo gai pan, one pork lo mein,” he announced loudly, and shoved a fistful of sauce packets and napkins on top.

Vic stepped forward, irritated. “Excuse me, old man?” he barked, and reached for the lower flap of his windbreaker. “You out of your fu—”

Gio slapping his hand on Vic’s shoulder cut short the tirade. He countered Vic’s venomous glare with a crook of his head behind them. A young couple had walked in, the man with his wallet out, presumably to pick up their order. Vic got the message quickly and stood down.

As muscle, Vic served well, but he had much to learn before the San Gaetanos allowed him to make these rounds on his own. With potential witnesses in their airspace, Gio wasn’t keen on hanging around for additional orders. He took the bag from Ying and gave a sharp bow.

“ Xièxiè ,” he said. “See you next time.”

Ying returned the gesture, silent.

Back in the car, Gio chastised his partner. “You had to have known the old man was speaking in code.”

“No, because everybody else handed us envelopes, not ‘takeout.’” Vic turned in his seat to face Gio head-on. “Where’d you learn to speak fucking Chinese?”

“I read books. You should try it,” Gio said. “I pick up enough to show these people some common courtesy. These transactions occur more smoothly when you relate to them.” To that effect, Gio also spoke enough Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian to deal with their marks, in addition to his fluency in Italian. It worked, too. He got the sense shopkeepers felt less threatened by a collector who greeted them in their native tongues.

“For the record,” Gio added, “I was speaking Mandarin, a dialect of the Chinese language.”

“A dia-who?” Vic shook his head. “You sure go through a lot of trouble for a pickup job.”

“Yes, and you saw how easily Ying paid up. No arguments, in Mandarin or English.” Gio grunted and dropped the bag in Vic’s lap. “Count it. Make sure it’s all there.”

Vic opened one of the pint boxes to a thick roll of cash. Gio watched the block for signs of police activity and curious window peepers. The latter could be discouraged with a dirty look, Gio surmised, but cops were tricky. Don San Gaetano kept a few officers in his pocket, but they all looked alike to Gio. Big risk to bribe the wrong one if he came up to the car tapping on the windshield.

“It’s all here. Mostly ones and fives, but he’s not short,” Vic said. He stacked the bills from both containers together and put them with the rest of the day’s take. With a sad expression, he glanced at one empty pint box. “Sure wish this was filled with lo mein. Ying didn’t even give us any fortune cookies.”

“You wanna go back in there?” As Gio said this, two more people entered the takeout space. “Tell him we’ve upped the cost of protection to include a half-dozen cookies?”

When Vic flashed him a sheepish smile, Gio laughed and turned over the engine.

“To be honest, I’d rather have fish and chips. It is Friday, after all,” he said. Tap-tap-tap with the ballpoint pen on the pad. “Last up is Lonnegan’s. It’s a block from the capo’s.” Tap-tap-tap with the ballpoint pen on his right temple. “You see how I arranged the pickup route? We ain’t wasting time driving all over creation.”

“Nice going, Vic. You ought to give tours.” Gio side-eyed his acquaintance, unable to see if the man had a blue ink blotch near his forehead. The coast clear, he pulled away and turned at the next light, heading toward their capo’s place.

Three miles later, made all the longer by uncooperative traffic lights, they came to the street on which the pub resided. On the westside’s dwindling Irish neighborhood, encroached upon over the decades by other ethnicities, the establishment maintained an authentic fa?ade with its dark exterior paneling and gilded Celtic font on the signage. That the pub was sandwiched between a Catholic church and its rectory inspired Gio’s quiet laughter. He imagined a stream of parishioners on a Sunday morning emptying one place and filling the other.

What unsettled him, though, was the lack of activity. Not even an Irish flag hanging by the door. On a Friday night, the place ought to be packed with people named McDude and O’Something ready to kick off the weekend. Gio killed the car’s engine near the curb and ignored the meter when he got out to look.

He tried the door. Locked. He cupped his hands over the nearest window and peered inside, finding upturned barstools, the glowing distant exit signs providing the only illumination. Lonnegan’s wasn’t his type of hangout, but he drove down this street often and swore the place had been open earlier in the week.

Vic ambled up beside him. “Sign says they should have opened at three.”

“Brilliant detective work,” Gio said, his voice rough. He reached into his pocket. “See this?” He waved his phone. “This will provide more info than an unreliable sign.”

“If I had a phone now, I’d find nothing but ads for Chinese food, the way we were talking about lo mein.” Vic kicked at an uneven patch of sidewalk near the café seating area. “So, what sayeth the mighty cellphone?”

As much as the sign, Gio determined from the pub’s stale social accounts. The most recent post was timestamped shortly after Easter, and they were well into June now. Gio looked for comments from patrons and came up empty. “Well, fuck.”

Vic shrugged. “Hey, if they’re closed, they’re closed. It means we don’t collect from them, right?”

“Not today,” Gio said. He normally worked different parts of the westside, but their capo kept full records on steady accounts and delinquents. He hated going to Aldo Bertinelli with a light bag, and more than likely the man had a few home addresses for them to check. So much for spending his evening in more pleasurable pursuits.

He nudged Vic. “Get the bag. We’ll leave the car here and walk. There’s a plate of saltimbocca with my name on it.”

* * * *

“Mam, why do you keep looking out the window? Who are you expecting this late?”

Conor Malloy perched on the edge of his parents’ Queen Anne sofa, a relic from their youth in Limerick, while his mother sat closer to the window overlooking the street. Glancing around the darkened living room of the elder Malloys’ brownstone, Conor marveled at how little the place had changed since he left for college in Dublin ten years ago, and in his few subsequent trips back. Returning ‘home’ to see his ailing father more resembled a step through a portal. Same threadbare rugs, same faded wallpaper, same furniture. Only the photographs arranged on the upright piano against the wall, highlighting recent graduations and gray hairs, clued Conor in to any passage of time.

To this point, Conor thought the pub had done well, enough to allow his parents to upgrade their surroundings. They were late in life parents, though, and therefore of a generation where one hung onto items so long as they functioned well. It didn’t explain his mother’s hyperfocus on the street.

“Mam.” He raised his voice to break the spell. The worry creasing Mona Malloy’s brow and lips bothered him. Yes, her husband was sick in the next room, close to dying, but Conor suspected something unrelated to this grief ate at the woman. She radiated more fear than tears, it seemed.

“I’m sorry,” Mona said, her voice soft and barely audible. She blinked and faced him. “It’s been a long week, and this was so unexpected.” A grand understatement, to be certain. One day everything is fine, and the next your husband keels over from a massive cardiac event while behind his bar. Conor’s heart panged for his mother.

Turning in her chair, she shifted until she no longer blocked the window, then raised her hand toward Conor. “Please, come over here.”

Conor obliged, happy to offer whatever comfort helped his mam. He was exhausted and aching from his lengthy flight, having been forced into an economy space far too narrow for his six-foot-one frame. Following the last-minute trip over the ocean, he’d white-knuckled the rideshare from the airport to the Malloys’ home, hostage to a driver who loudly shared his political views—none of which aligned with Conor’s. His jaw remained sore from gritting his teeth while he’d listened to the withered, aspiring racer rant about the latest appointments to the country’s government, using the f-word in multiple forms.

The fa -word at that, not so much the fu . If the driver had only known a bona fide fa -word sat next to him…

Despite his desire to stomp upstairs to his old room and collapse, Conor stood by his mam and held her hand. He thought it odd when she tugged him away from the window, as though she kept a secret on the other side. Conor glanced toward the street, seeing only bare asphalt and empty sidewalks.

“I have something important to tell you,” she said.

“Fine. Let’s have it.”

Mona shook her head, shifting her gaze to the first-floor guest room. “Not until they’re gone.” She referred to the crew sent over from the hospice, come to set up what might be his da’s final above-ground resting place.

“Mam, they’re probably too occupied with Da to care what we’re talking about,” he said, now worried. “Is it to do with the pub?” When she nodded, he relaxed a bit. “Anything relevant to the business, I’ll handle it. Rather, I’ll deal with Patrick.”

“No!” Mona’s eyes widened and she squeezed Conor’s hand. “I promised your da to keep him out of this.”

“He’s your lawyer.” Also family . “Why wouldn’t I involve him?”

“It’s just…” Mona shook her head. “Your father will want to explain it, if he has the strength.”

Conor sighed. He hated coming home to mystery. He knew his father intended to leave Lonnegan’s to him, though he had no intention of managing it himself. It sounded petty in his head, but this was looking more and more like an excuse to lure Conor back to the States to live. I won’t come back for good , he thought. He had a good job in Dublin, and friends. No romantic prospects of late, but he wasn’t actively looking.

If anything, he hoped Mona might want to return to Ireland with him if his father passed. Without her husband, what else remained here for her? Hugh Mallory employed one waitress and one co-bartender, both of whom had started long before Conor’s birth. He entertained the idea of leaving them to carry on as usual, and perhaps sell it to them outright if they wished.

Mona’s grip trembled, and she pulled him closer to whisper in his ear. “Con,” she said when he mentioned the idea, “they won’t do it.”

“You don’t think so?” Conor asked. Deb and Brian were getting up there in years. Perhaps they’d made a pact to retire once Hugh called it a day, but Mona indicated otherwise. “Well, if it’s a matter of whether they can afford to buy the place, I can—”

“That’s not it.” Mona gasped at the loud snick of the guest-room door. Two young women in baby pink scrubs and slip-on shoes crept into the living room, their smiles benign and expressing sympathy. They informed Mona and Conor that Hugh was settled and resting comfortably. Neither volunteered an answer when Conor asked how long they should expect him to last in the home hospice environment, but encouraged them to go inside.

“He seems to want to get something off his chest,” is all the taller of the duo said.

Once a beefy man standing mere centimeters over six feet, crowned with thick flame-colored hair, Hugh Molloy now resembled a washed-out portrait. To Conor, it looked as though the heart attack had sapped his father of not only all health but also color. It pained him to see the speed with which his father had declined.

Scratch that—Hugh’s bright blue eyes, ringed darker gray on the outer rims of his irises, shone strong. Conor focused there as they talked, searching for remains of the assertive and outspoken man who’d raised him.

“You know why I named the pub Lonnegan’s, do you?” Hugh asked, his voice a deep wheeze.

Conor knew the story, a favorite of his father’s. Why spoil the moment for him, though? “Remind me,” he said.

Hugh swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple prominent in his thinning neck. “Conor Lonnegan was my best friend in Limerick. We grew up with the dream of owning a pub together, one like his granda’s.” The blue in his eyes faded a bit as he spoke. “Our families came here in the early sixties, and no sooner than we became citizens were we both drafted. The Army wouldn’t take me, though, but poor Connie…”

His voice cracked, and Hugh finished the sentence with a long, melancholy exhale. Conor squeezed his father’s hand to show that he knew how the tale finished. Conor Lonnegan had been shipped with his unit to Vietnam and never returned. Hugh, saved by a medical exemption, had married and opened the pub named for his lost mate. Just when the Malloys believed they’d be childless, a pregnancy in Mona’s early forties blessed them. Conor sat there as another tribute to Hugh’s friend.

Conor leaned forward and kissed his father’s cool forehead. Hugh gave a soft smile and fluttered his eyelids shut. Time to rest. Conor eyed his mother, sitting on the other side of the adjustable hospice bed, and rose.

“I need some air,” he said, adding at Mona’s panicked expression, “I won’t go far, maybe just down the block or two. I’ll be fine.” The neighborhood hadn’t declined since he last visited, not to his perception, anyway. Repeating his assurances, he left his parents to a moment alone. What important news they saved for him could wait.

The Malloys had been fortunate to buy into this neighborhood long before real estate booms and gentrification efforts. Conor knew his father had chosen the home for its proximity to the pub, which stood on the next block. Before his birth, the couple had lived in the tiny apartment on the second floor. Unwilling to become landlords, Hugh and Mona now used it for storage and office space.

The Malloys owned both buildings, home and business. He was aware, too, his parents had long ago put together an end of life plan. That relieved Conor of one task, but he’d have to make quick decisions about the pub and the house. Check for outstanding vendor bills, make sure Deb and Brian were paid for the hours they’d worked before Hugh collapsed.

Conor stood before the darkened storefront, hands in his jeans pockets as he stared through the windows. A multitude of memories, happy and tense, played out in reflections on the glass. Lonnegan’s had been his second home. While classmates had attended camps and traveled during the summers, he’d bussed tables for spending money. As a teenager, he’d built the pub’s first website—a bare bones one-pager on a free platform. Over time, he’d helped improve the online presence, and showed Deb how to update their social media.

He'd experienced his first kiss here, with the girl he took to junior prom. He considered it a defining moment in his life, for it was in the same booth a year later he’d told his father he was gay. Conor had chosen Lonnegan’s in hopes of avoiding a meltdown at home, and to his surprise Hugh had patted his hand and said, “Okay.” Then he’d got up to serve two incoming couples taking the booth overlooking the sidewalk. To an outsider, it might have played out as a subtle father-son moment, but Conor appreciated that his father hadn’t ordered him to pack his things and leave.

A week later, his da had affixed a rainbow flag adhesive to the door, next to the credit card symbols. They’d rarely talked of Conor’s sexual identity after their chat in the booth, but the sticker stood as a sign of Hugh’s and Mona’s acceptance.

As Conor moved closer, he noticed an updated Progress Pride flag covered the older one. Everyone Is Welcome Here , read the caption on the top. Conor traced the vertical stripes, from red down to violet, and tried not to break down sobbing right there.

His father was ill, maybe dying, and his mother was distraught. He was three thousand miles from home on extended personal leave, and facing one of his top fears. Hugh and Mona were vibrant, active people who loved their business and clientele, and Conor had expected them to live well into their nineties. Fate, alas, had tossed them a curve and Conor worried his mother might follow her beloved sooner than anticipated, felled by grief.

This made the decision to sell the commercial property in the coming weeks all the more crucial. Even if his father, by some miracle, recovered, he had to retire. They’d served the community well, so let somebody else pull the taps.

Still, letting go of Lonnegan’s equated to a different kind of death. Hugh Malloy named this place for a lost friend, and with its sale a piece of Conor would disappear as well.

Even in its darkened, empty state, the place still looked inviting. Conor panned his gaze down the walls at all the framed photographs. Most displayed decades-long regulars, but one found the occasional celebrity posing with Hugh and his staff. A few pictures, Conor knew, showed him behind the bar with his da.

Conor regretted leaving the keys at the house. He wanted a drink. He wanted to sit at the bar and let the ghosts of endless memories, mingled with stale aromas of draft stout and assorted liquors, wrap around him like a comforting hug.

After that, he wanted to get laid. A selfish thought, perhaps, but he was close to celebrating the anniversary of a continuing romantic dry spell. He felt closed up everywhere, and longed for a warm and strong body to remind him of how it all worked. His pickup apps, while full of horny Irish men, offered more dead leads than scores these days. Maybe he’d have better luck in this country.

First, though, this.

He leaned against the doorjamb, sighing fog onto the door’s window. “Don’t worry, Da,” he whispered. “You still have me for as long as you’re here.”