1. Cale
1
CALE
M y uncle makes it a point to keep people waiting. I’m no different.
For twenty minutes I’ve been kicking back in this stiff leather armchair. The room is filled with hand carved dark wood furniture made by some hundred-year-old guy guy in a Sicilian village.
All this shit could come from IKEA for all I care but Uncle Richie likes to point out his good taste on a regular basis. He tends to think of himself as a renaissance man, channeling the dapper mafia dons who were figments of Hollywood’s imagination.
What a fucking laugh. There’s nothing moral or wise about my uncle. I would know. After all, I’m the one who carries out a lot of his dirty work.
The chime of a grandfather clock echoes from somewhere on the other side of the house. I might feel impatient if six p.m. on Christmas Eve meant something to me but it doesn’t. I quit going through the motions years ago. The only person who might change my mind is my kid brother but he’s spending the holidays down in Miami with friends.
Anyway, I’ve grown used to not making plans. They tend to get cancelled whenever my uncle snaps his fingers. Comes with the territory when you’re the most trusted henchman of Richie Amato.
Heavy footsteps shuffle closer and my eyes stay trained on the closed door. It’s pure reflex when my hand goes to the holstered weapon on my belt even though I know there’s no threat. My uncle would never risk dirtying his designer office with the contents of my skull. Besides, he’s convinced of my unwavering loyalty.
The door cracks open. My uncle’s sweaty head, newly accessorized with spotty hair plugs, peers inside. He nods to me, waves off whichever of his goons stands in the hall, and drags the door closed behind him.
I rise from the chair. That kind of respect is required when the boss enters the room.
“Merry Christmas, nipotino .” Uncle Richie folds me into a warm embrace and thumps my back.
Nipotino . I think it means nephew. Recently my uncle has begun speckling his language with Italian words. Funny, because he doesn’t even speak the language and nobody around here was born in Italy.
“Merry Christmas to you too,” I answer even though I’ve seen far too much to be fooled by the many moods of Richie Amato.
Richie makes his way to the other side of the desk and takes his chair with a grunt. He’s slowed down lately. Only those of us in his most trusted inner circle know the reason is a minor heart attack two years ago.
The chair squeaks as my uncle shifts his weight. With a wave of his hand he motions that I ought to be seated. A glint of light catches the gold of his thick pinky ring.
He folds his hands over his broad gut and gives me a shrewd appraisal before his gravelly voice fills the room. “That business in Atlantic City all squared away?”
The ‘business in Atlantic City’ involved a double-crossing casino owner who was begging for investors a decade ago. He got greedy, started cooking the books to avoid paying my uncle. When given a chance to change course, he threatened to inform to the feds. I almost felt sorry for him for being such a raging dumbass. If he hadn’t made the informant threat I might have argued on his behalf but I have no patience for traitors.
“His partner is taking over,” I say. “He intends to be more cooperative.”
There’s a lot of unspoken meaning stuffed into that sentence. After all, watching your business associate get his throat slit and then bleed out while tied to a metal folding chair tends to shift the goalposts.
Richie mulls this over with a grunt. “Hope it’s clear to him that I don’t like repeating myself.”
“He knows. He’ll be adding another five percent to compensate us for all the trouble.”
An ugly grin splits Richie’s face. “Your idea?”
“Of course.”
“Good work.” He tilts his head and looks me over more carefully. “I thought Luca would visit for the holidays.”
My wariness rises, as it always does when Richie mentions my younger brother. But no one watching would ever guess what goes on inside my head. The biggest reason why I’m sitting in this chair and why I’ll nod along with whatever orders come next is to keep the focus off my brother.
I keep my tone light to stay in character. “Can you blame him for choosing the Florida beaches over the New York deep freeze? Forecast says there will be twelve inches of the white stuff coming this weekend.”
My uncle chuckles. “Good point. The kid should live it up right now. There will be plenty of time for work later.”
I don’t like the sound of that. Luca only has one more semester of law school left and my uncle already has big ideas for how he’s going to use a lawyer in the family.
I’m already neck deep in this bullshit. No helping that at this point. But my little brother isn’t and I’m going to keep it that way.
Resisting the urge to glare, I allow a beat of silence to pass and then change the subject. “I can smell Aunt Donna’s lasagna from here.”
“Best in the tri-state area. Don’t worry. Your aunt will save you a plate.”
“I’m not allowed to eat at the table?”
“I’ve got a mission for you first.” My uncle pulls open a desk drawer and withdraws an envelope. “I’m gonna need you to put in an appearance next door.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Next door?”
“Asher Wingate’s annual Christmas Eve party.”
“You serious?”
“Figured you wouldn’t mind spending some time with old friends.” He drops the envelope on the desk. “And you can deliver this in person.”
“What is it?” Not that the answer matters. There could be a severed finger inside and I’ll still deliver it.
“A show of support for young Baylor’s upcoming Congressional campaign. Made it official last week. Didn’t you hear?”
“No,” I lie, because it’s the shortest answer and I don’t want to talk about my former best friend.
No one would call Baylor Wingate a self-made man. Not many people are in line to inherit a professional hockey team. For three generations the Wingate family has owned the New York Dukes and Baylor has always been expected to take over the franchise once his father steps aside or dies. Maybe he got bored with hovering in the old man’s shadow or maybe Wingate Senior is aiming for the kind of political clout he can’t buy. It’s no secret that he’s been scheming for years to get the city to cough up a brand new arena at taxpayer expense.
Can’t say I give a crap about Baylor’s career aspirations. The years we spent as best buddies feel like another lifetime. Once he trotted off to the Ivy League to be prepped for his executive future our friendship cooled off, then disappeared. The fact that I plunged right into my uncle’s high stakes world of crime and vengeance might have something to do with that.
Anyway, it makes no difference. We have nothing in common now.
My uncle pushes the envelope my way with a fat finger. “The check is from Eastern Trucking. A very generous contribution.”
Eastern Trucking is a legit business on paper. The strands connecting it to the Amato family interests are tough to unravel. Baylor Wingate won’t have a reason to turn it down. And he won’t, not if he wants friends instead of enemies.
With no hesitation I smoothly pluck the envelope from the table and drop it inside the inner pocket of my blazer. “I’ll get the message across.”
Richie lifts a bushy eyebrow. “Wish him well. Let him know that we’ll be watching when he wins.”
“Understood.”
This isn’t personal. Just another business move.
Collecting political allies always comes in handy sooner or later. Sometimes a phone call from the right person can make a federal investigation disappear. For this reason I’ll shake Baylor Wingate’s hand tonight and hand him a big check. I have no doubt he’ll take it, even knowing the strings attached. Once he’s in office the day will come when my former best friend needs a favor. Perhaps there will be a reporter who needs to be discouraged from exposing a scandal. Or a professional rival who deserves to be nudged out of the way.
It's likely that I’ll be the one tapped for whatever job needs to be done. And I’ll pull it off with no complaint. Like always.
Laughter echoes from a distant sector of the house. The smell of good old fashioned Italian food combined with the date on the calendar summons a twinge in a deep, painful place that I don’t often acknowledge.
Luca was too young to remember those long ago holidays when our parents were alive. In a way that might be a good thing. Can’t miss what you never knew you had.
I’m the only one left who remembers how my mother would hum softly with a candy cane striped apron around her waist as she stirred the giant stock pot of simmering sauce on the stove. Whenever she was in the kitchen she would keep her dark hair pulled back with a claw clip. She called the sauce ‘gravy’ and when I got impatient she would spoon some onto thick slices of crusty bread and grate some cheese on top.
Her family didn’t approve of her marriage to a rowdy Irish fireman. My father was a big guy with the kind of laugh that startled people. He could intimidate a roomful of men just by standing in the doorway. But he also worshipped his wife, adored his kids and volunteered at a charity for injured animals whenever he had some free time.
Now and then when I walk past a wall of glass I do a double take. For a split second I’ll see my father in the reflection. Then I remember he’s been dead for over twenty years and I keep walking.
I miss him. Miss them both. I wonder where I’d be tonight if they’d lived. Not here, waiting to fulfill orders like a deputy from the pits of hell.
By now I might be a lost cause. Luca, however, is not.
My uncle, always calculating, might have seen a hint of my thoughts in my face. His chair creaks as he leans back and he rearranges his expression into something more benign.
“This is the time of year when I miss Angie the most,” he says. “There was never a better sister than your mother.”
When Luca and I were sent to live with Richie and Aunt Donna, Luca was only four. This house is really all he knew of his childhood.
Richie tilts his head to the side and observes me. The chair creaks again under his weight. “I’m sure it’s the same for you and your brother, Carmine.”
A double reminder of our blood connection. First he invokes my mother, then he calls me by the name that was given to me because it belonged to my grandfather. My uncle is the only one who still uses it regularly. I’ve answered to ‘Cale’ since grade school.
Richie wets his lips and moves on to his real point. “Barone reached out today.”
Albie Barone. Sometimes referred to as the Baron of Brooklyn, a nickname he gave to himself. I can guess what’s coming next and my shoulders tense in anticipation.
“His three daughters are in the Riviera for the holidays,” my uncle says with a shrug. “Making too much of a spectacle of themselves.”
“Didn’t know that,” I say, which is true. Also true that I could not care less.
“Their father isn’t pleased. No wonder. I sleep better at night knowing that my daughters are settled down. He wants the same thing.”
My cousins are both married to loyal family associates. There are big dreams swirling around in my uncle’s head. He intends to resurrect the heyday of the Five Families, when the mafia kept New York in a chokehold.
The next words out of his mouth are unsurprising. He’s been hinting in this direction for months.
“Barone is sure that any one of his daughters would say yes to a proposal. You can have your pick.”
He’s confident that’s all it will take. Drop some brainless mafia princess in my lap and I’ll dutifully slide on a ring, accept a life sentence and hand over my balls to prove my devotion.
To be fair, no matter what kind of ring I’m wearing I’ll still get to use my balls whenever I feel like it. Fidelity isn’t exactly a marriage requirement for men like my uncle. After putting in time with the family tonight, Richie will no doubt invent an excuse to have his driver take him to Brooklyn for a roll in the sheets with the ballerina he keeps stashed in a brownstone. No one would stop me from making the same arrangement.
I’ve met the Barone daughters. Checked out their social media profiles. A set of bland spoiled replicas, none of them more interesting than your average pillowcase. Marrying one of them would be a nightmare and it’s not like I could just duck out whenever I felt like it without creating more problems. I’d be permanently locked into the Amato world and all that comes with it.
Yet it wouldn’t be smart to openly refuse a command from Richie Amato without a backup plan. He’s clear about what he expects from me. Absolutely loyalty and a future leadership role in the family.
If only he knew how much I despise everything about him. It’s not that I’m worried about taking a hole to the head, although I guess that’s always a possibility if Richie gets pissed off enough.
There’s also my brother to think about.
Without no sons to pass the torch to and being a big believer in blood bonds, Richie Amato has high hopes for the two nephews he helped raise after the death of his beloved only sister. I was still a teenager when he suggested that Luca and I ought to take his last name. He said it was to honor our mother. As if our father and his name didn’t count at all.
Never happening. Now matter how I play along, I’m still a Connelly to the bone. So is my brother.
I make a show of checking my watch. “Hate to cut this short but I should leave you to your lasagna and show my face at the party.”
My uncle watches me rise from the chair. He waits until I’ve started toward the door before saying, “Luca’s one hell of a smart kid. Your folks would be so proud. You must be proud too.”
An icy finger crawls up my spine.
Luca will have more options than this shit. If I need to crack some more kneecaps to make sure he doesn’t ever know the weight of a gun in his hand then so be it.
“Of course I’m proud of him,” I say and put my hand on the doorknob. “Merry Christmas.”
“Same to you, Carmine.”
I exit his office without another word. The voices of my cousins and their husbands and my Aunt Donna echo from the direction of the dining room but I’m not in the mood to say hello.
A blast of glacial air slaps me in the face when I open the front door. Two men bundled into black overcoats pause in the middle of passing a joint. Ordinary foot soldiers keeping watch, they lower their heads and make way.
My footsteps crunch over the layer of fresh ice covering the wide flagstone driveway. Though the grounds of my uncle’s estate are crawling with loyal Amato guards I’m always in the habit of staying alert, ready to grab the holstered gun beneath my blazer at the first sign of trouble.
There’s nothing but the howl of the frigid wind and drifting snowflakes. Looking east, I can’t see a thing through the dense hedgerows bordering my uncle’s property but the faint notes of Christmas music would indicate the Wingates’ annual party is in full swing.
Behind the wheel of my Porsche I flip on the heat and take a minute to stew over my uncle’s latest scheme.
Marriage.
No fucking way.
Marriage isn’t on my mind, never has been. Next year will be my thirty-fifth birthday and by now I know how to find some entertainment when the mood strikes. I can’t guess what kind of woman would turn my head enough to lock it all down but if I haven’t found her yet I’m probably not going to, which suits me just fine.
My uncle’s motivations are clear. An alliance for sure, but also a way to keep me close. If I cooperate then I’ll be one step closer to becoming the successor to his blood-soaked throne.
He’d never suspect that I’d much rather clean truck stop toilets on the Jersey Turnpike than take anything from him.
With the car still in park mode, my foot slowly sinks down on the gas pedal. The engine pitches a satisfying roar that’s sure to be heard within the house. Richie is probably frowning in his seat at the head of the dining room table as he stuffs his chubby cheeks full of Aunt Donna’s lasagna.
I shift to drive and ease into motion slowly. The wheels slip over the thick layer of ice. It would be nice to get out of town for a few days, go somewhere warm and think about my next move.
Refusing my uncle flat out is sure to rouse suspicion. There’s a solution to this problem. I just have to find it.
But as I coast the short distance to the gaudy mansion next door, I’ve made up my mind.
If I’m going to be required to stand up and repeat some vows it will be on my fucking terms and no one else’s.