Chapter 8
8
BENNY
B usiness as usual.
I sit in the conference room of my dad’s office, occupying the seat on his right. I listen and take notes and look convincingly avid, as if I’m being mentored by my old man. Groomed to take over. The optics of this are important both for him and for the organization.
If it were obvious that my dad could no longer handle the operations of the family business and that I was running things, then we’d have chaos. To keep the organization unified under a single leader is crucial to our survival. Splintering factions will scuffle over territory and posture for dominance. That means a body count, and unwanted attention from police which would cost us a fortune in bribes. All of this wasted time and energy would be better off spent on the profitable side of the business without internal strife.
“There’s been enough of this bullshit about corruption in the precincts that some of our oldest associates are making noise for a raise,” my dad says. “It’s extortion, pure and simple. They can’t stand a little heat from the media—newspapers and local news talking about maybe some cops are on the take—” he chuckles, “I didn’t know there’s any that aren’t on the take! But they think they can get more money out of us. It’s bullshit,” he slaps the table for emphasis, startling everyone at the table.
“What do you propose we do about the demands?” Willa asked. Willa’s a cousin and high up on the chain here.
“We do this old school. We make an example of the first one with his hand out. That’ll shut them up,” he laughs.
The grim faces around the table match how I feel about that suggestion. I want to bang my head on the table in frustration. Instead, I wait for responses, including my father’s possible follow up. It’s too much to hope that he might have been making a tasteless joke and didn’t mean that homicide should be our first solution. I bide my time to take a temperature of the room.
“That’s your answer?” Willa says. “Kill someone you said yourself is one of our oldest associates on the force? This organization is built on loyalty. Without that, we’d descend into chaos. And you want to start up some friendly fire,” she says.
“Oh, I’m serious all right. You were still in diapers when I took this business over, so don’t act like you know it all,” he says.
I need to shut this down before it’s a free-for-all.
“If I can break in here for a moment,” I say, “maybe you can walk me through this, Dad? Is it Rick Morris?”
“Yeah, he was a good contact back in the day. About fifteen years ago he makes detective, I had a dinner for him and his wife to celebrate.”
“I think I remember. Was it at Nick’s?” I prompt.
“Yeah, the private room, did it up right. We had the veal piccata, got a big old tiramisu for dessert.”
“I remember that,” I say with an easy grin. “They have the best. Mom got onto me for taking too much.”
“You didn’t have manners when you were a kid,” my dad chuckles. “Those were good old days, Benny boy.”
I wait for it to dawn on him, for him to remember that his idea doesn’t match our history with a friend of the family. It takes too long to put it together. He shoots me a glance like he’s at sea, and maybe he’d like some help.
“I remember seeing him at ball games. Did he come to your birthday in November?”
“He couldn’t. His daughter was having a baby or a surgery or something.” He shakes his head like he can’t recall. “I need to give him a call. What time is it, Benny? This fuckin’ watch—” he taps his smartwatch with irritation. “If he gets off at five, we could play eighteen holes at the club.”
“After golf, you wanna go ahead with exterminating Rick or do we shelve that as plan b?” I say wryly. I know it’ll piss him off but that’ll cover the fact it flusters him to forget things.
“You watch your mouth, boy,” he says, his voice as chilling as when I was a kid, but now he needs me to protect him. I wait again, shuffle my notes a little to look uncomfortable and to draw eyes away from him. “Nobody’s gonna lay a finger on my old friend Ricky Morris. I guess we can talk about a raise for the guys on the force, the ones that have been with us a long time.”
I want to take about five aspirin and wash it down with a bottle of tequila. I love my dad, and I want to safeguard his legacy. That means running the show and letting him take credit, trying to cover for him for just a bit longer.
If that stubborn son of a bitch is the death of me, I won' t be surprised. I listen to reports on outgoing shipments and training for recruits. My gears are turning over how to make my father see the writing on the wall. His time as leader is ending and he’s embarrassing himself, leaving the organization vulnerable with his refusal to accept reality.
When the meeting is over, I trail after Dad into his office. “What?” he says, exasperated, “I let you sit on the meeting. I’m not gonna babysit you all day. I got shit to do around here.”
I remind myself he’s afraid of what’s happening to him to remind myself that I can’t square up and give him a piece of my mind.
“Dad,” I say, taking a seat, “you made the right decision, not popping Ricky Morris to make an example.”
“I know that. Did I ask for your opinion?”
“I did what I could to cover, but you know it’s a matter of time. We need to talk about this. Get a transition plan in place.”
“Transition my ass, you’re a vulture circling before my body’s cold. I’m not gonna go retire to Florida just to make way for you.”
“You can retire to Florida or the Jersey Shore, whatever you want. But you sure as hell can’t run an organization like this when you’re not at full capacity.”
“Have you done what I asked? Look into it see who’s poisoning me?”
“Nobody’s poisoning you. It’s a degenerative neurological condition. It’s not your fault, but there’s nobody else we can blame either.”
“My father never had this. It don’t run in the family.”
“Your father got shot when he was fifty-one. He didn’t live to see if this ran in the family,” I point out.
“Get out of here, you’re pissing me off, kid,” he says gruffly.
“Your brother and your granddad died young, too.”
“I should’ve never made it after that shooting a couple years ago.”
“Six years ago,” I correct automatically.
Six. Something rings a bell with me. That happened right before Daisy left town. My dad was shot, a couple of the enforcers didn’t make it out alive, and I took a bullet in the upper arm that passed clean through but left a scar. I wonder if that had anything to do with Daisy taking off when she did.
“I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit if you’d let me die a soldier’s death like my dad and my brother.”
“You gonna bitch that I didn’t let you die in a pool of your own blood and piss in an alley?” I counter.
“I did not piss myself,” he says.
“You woulda if I’d left you there.”
“You been pissed off ever since. Anybody would think you were mad I didn’t die,” he says.
“That doesn’t even make sense. I saved your life.”
“You’ve still been an asshole since. Maybe it was that little piece you were seeing. She up and left you and you acted like a dumbass ever since. Liked the money but couldn’t stomach the life, that’s what I always figured. She didn’t seem like family material anyway.”
“Did you say something to her? Did you pay her to leave town?” I demand.
“You kiddin’ me? I was in the hospital. Your mother wasn’t too happy with me either.”
“Dad, Mom wasn’t there,” I say. “She was already dead.”
He looks at me a minute and goes back to his story, “She got mad as a wet hen when I got shot. Always said she’d do me a favor and plug me in my own home if I had a death wish,” he says. He tries to laugh, but he looks so forlorn I want to leave the room and go for a run to put distance between this place and me, between the decline of my father and me.
“You gotta get a hold of this. Things aren’t getting better, and you wanna go out when you can still choose how, don’t you?”
“Is that what your fancy shrink told you to say?” he asks.
I walk out, get in my car, drive without even knowing where I’m going. Daisy’s car isn’t at the salon. I go past her mom’s house. Her car isn’t there either. I drive home, put in an extra workout, and do some work from my laptop.
There are a couple big decisions coming up and they’re the executive kind. Nothing we can crowd source in a meeting to bolster my dad. I call Willa and ask her what she’s thinking.
“Old bastard needs to go,” she replies.
“Any ideas?”
“That don’t involve a bloody coup? No.”
“That’s not helping,” I say. “Neither is reasoning with him.”
Willa snorts, and I can’t blame her, “When did logic ever work on the biggest drama queen in the state of New Jersey? Even when things were kosher, he was a prick to deal with.”
“You have a point.”
“You don’t need me to tell you this,” she says, snapping her gum for emphasis.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Listen, I know it’s a hard thing, but if you’re gonna be boss after your dad, you’re gonna have to sack up, kiddo.” “Thanks, cousin.”
“Any time. Let me know how I can help.”
After we hang up, I sit in contemplation for a bit. I need a clean way to get my father to step down before things get ugly. I just have no idea what that is.