Chapter 17 #2
I mixed her another drink and waited for the fallout.
Her hands set somewhere between two and three inches apart. “You kept the department busy for a long time.” She sobered. “Not so much in the past four years until six months ago.”
This time her gaze was clear when she stared at me.
“Johnny Porciello was a nobody until he started dating you.”
“He should have stayed that way,” Kat mumbled.
I reached across the bar and slugged her in the arm.
“Hey!”
“Traitor.”
“I’m just stating facts,” she shot back.
Perkins took a small sip of her second drink.
“Facts. Ha. Johnny’s new friends are, or perhaps I might say, were?
I don’t know. Either way, they’re connected to the D’Antonio family.
But not Johnny.” She fiddled with her straw for a silent moment.
“When he turned up on the radar, a lot of folks were asking questions.” Her scrutiny shifted to me. “And the only link we had was you.”
I gave her my best unemotional bartender stare. “Do I need to cut you off already?”
Perkins shrugged. “If you do, I’ll just walk next door to your competition.”
“And I’ll call them and tell them not to serve you.” She hadn’t said anything that made me want to hug her, even though I sympathized with her jobless situation.
“February twelfth. Adelmo Conti died in an automobile accident.”
My fingers began to tingle. They did that before I fainted.
I gripped the bar so I wouldn’t go down.
There were photos from the accident. I’d seen them.
So much blood. Poor Adelmo was still alive when the airbags went off and saved his life.
But seconds later either Johnny or his lover, Dianora, shot him.
And simply for knowing all of that, I could go down as an accessory.
It would be a difficult fight to clear my name simply because of my family’s connection to organized crime.
My grandfather fucked up by cultivating his nefarious reputation.
Perkins stared at me. “The very next day, your files, Johnny’s files, and the accident’s files were sealed.” She frowned. “Not only sealed, deep-sixed. Why?”
My head was light. The tingling was well past my fingers now. It was in my cheeks. I stared at the heavy polish on the bar surface. It was an ancient piece of wood. It had been harvested from an ancient oak in the late 1800s after the Second Great Chicago Fire.
It was used for the bar at a brothel-slash-bar in the notorious Levee District. In the 1920s the establishment was shut down. The bar was torn out to make room for apartments when the place became a boarding house.
Casey found it in a barn where it had been stored for sixty years.
He sanded the scars, refinished it, and set it here to remind everyone that survival isn’t pretty. I traced a particularly nasty gouge. He claimed it was likely a knife jabbed into the surface.
“I run a bar, Bridget. I wouldn’t know.”
The tingling subsided a bit.
She frowned and turned to Kat. “I’d tell your friend exactly what I think, and not hold back. She has a right to know.”
Kat’s gaze was soft as she studied me. “I’m so glad you dumped that asshole before you married him. He was bad news.”
“And?” If she didn’t like Ringo, I wanted to know why.
“Well, I hope you see the similarities in whoever you date next before it’s too late.”
We seriously needed to talk, alone. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon because the afternoon regulars shuffled in and the pace picked up. I retreated to the back room to hide from everyone.
At seven, Kat put a slice of pizza in front of me.
I’d been reviewing the rents and balance sheets from my two other businesses.
The landscaping firm was between winter and spring seasons.
There was no snow left to plow, and lots of outflows for hiring workers to plant flowers and re-mulch the green spaces encircling the suburbs like so many taxidermied trophies.
“Thanks.”
She took a seat across from me. “Bridget left. I poured her into a cab.”
My foot tapped against the desk leg.
“She’s not that bad of a person.”
Since I wasn’t losing money I couldn’t afford, I lifted my eyes to hers. “I called my lawyer.”
“Which one, the business attorney or the family one?”
“The Family one. He needs to know.”
“What did he say?” she asked.
My shoulder went up. “Not to worry about it.” It was a little stronger than that. His exact words were, “It’s taken care of.”
Kat leaned back in her chair. She picked at a loose thread near the seam. “Did you ask him about Ringo?”
“Why should I?”
Her reaction was to mutter incomprehensibly to herself sarcastically. Finally, she finished with, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because he strikes me as a hood?”
I gave her my full attention and mimicked her nonchalant pose. “Why?”
“Aside from your admission last night, the knife thing. Why does he carry?”
I couldn’t tell her that. “What else do you have?”
“Ellie. Don’t you get the hint? Even Pornstach didn’t carry a knife.”
“How do you know that?” He obviously had a gun. Maybe more than one. My gut twisted.
“Are you saying he did?”
That shot of Jameson had worn off hours ago. I contemplated what I could drink that would be stronger. “I’m saying that he—”
A knock stopped my lie.
“You better be bearing Thin Mints and Vodka, otherwise I’m tossing your ass to the curb!”
Molly peeked her head around the door. “Uh, I don’t have candy, but your boyfriend is out front.”
Kat’s face puckered.
“Is he drinking?” I asked.
Molly stuttered an affirmative. “Is that bad?”
No, I preferred him off guard. And I was done torturing the staff. Molly hadn’t done anything wrong. “Make sure he gets top shelf, and ring it up under my code.”
Kat groaned. “Eco-boost Mustang,” she muttered reminding me of the sports car I bought Johnny.
Molly’s eyes went a little wide. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I motioned for her to get moving and shut the door behind her. Only after I heard the click did I address Kat’s issues. “He’s buying Conti Commercial, Inc. I don’t have a problem tossing a hundred bucks at that.”
“He’s buying it? The whole company?” Kat’s disbelief was palpable.
“The company he works for is. It’s the same one Allie’s husband works for.”
Kat sat back. A little, “oh” squeaked out. “It’s legit?”
She said it as if Allie could do no wrong. Kat needed a good knock on the head. I stared at the room, remembering something my lawyer once said about my grandfather. “While it is legit, monopolies and money sometimes have ways of getting muddy.”
Her jaw gaped. “Ellie!”
“Johnny was a dick. He used me to try to claw his way in. I don’t have to worry about that with Ringo.”
Her eyes grew a little wider.
Her mouth moved but nothing came out.
“So, yeah. That’s why he carries a knife.” I shuffled the pages in front of me. “What do you think about pansies? Personally, I hate them, but the landscaper says they’re cheap.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah. Pansies suck. You see them everywhere.”
“You’re fucking serious?”
I frowned at her and set the page of numbers down. “At first, I was just trying to get over Johnny. Now? I’m screwed, Kat. I shouldn’t have anything to do with him or that family, but Allie is all in.”
“Just because Allie lost her mind doesn’t mean you have to jump after her. Damn. I never thought I’d say that.”
“Which goes to show maybe things aren’t going to turn out as bad as you think.”
What a bunch of bullshit.