35. Where is my wife?
CORRADO
35
The tension at the back of my neck is killing me, and the pain is spreading down my shoulders. It feels like someone’s holding a bucket of molten lead above my head and pouring it over me. I’m having to endure it because lead solidifies into armor and makes me stronger for having outlasted the pain.
Ever since I landed in Mexico, I’ve had to carry this proverbial lead armor around my body and mind so that the pair of cartel bosses I’m meeting with can’t see what I’m thinking after they told me about the dealings of the Benvenuti family as of late. Domenico endangered himself and the Order. In order to uncover his dealings, I’ve had to fly deep into cartel territory.
The bosses would come to New York, but one of them is on house arrest and can’t meet me anywhere besides at his sprawling mansion on the beautiful Mexican coast. But even with the gentle summer breeze, the dry heat, and the booze, as well as the lovely notes of the Spanish language spoken around me, I can’t relax.
Turns out the reason the Benvenutis’ profits of thirty percent more year over year for the past three years has been because they’ve been working with the US agencies against the cartels.
Once the cartels ship their products, the Benvenutis make a move. Sometimes, they work with the DEA to seize parts of the shipments, and other times, they pay local enforcement to turn a blind eye so they can keep the drugs for themselves. In either case, the cartel doesn’t get paid.
When the bosses don’t get paid, heads roll and people die.
The cartels have their own laundering system, and mainly they’ve formed their own secret society similar to ours, which recruits mostly in Mexico and South America. For the sake of world peace, we stay out of each other’s way.
Jose and his brother, Pascal, sit across from me, each smoking a cigarette with such enjoyment, it makes me want to snatch one and stub it out on their cheeks. Briefly, I wonder if that would make me not want to kill Dom, who approached me about his father’s trafficking business to distract me from finding out about his involvement with the agencies.
I wonder if other members of the Order helped him. I wonder if he used agency members in the Order to facilitate stealing from the cartel. I stew on the fact that the Benvenutis have been compromising the Order for years, making us wash the cartel’s money. What’s worse, this is a relatively new cartel and one I’m unfamiliar with.
“You see how this is a problem for us, Mr. Mancini?” Jose asks as he stubs out his cigarette.
I rub my neck and twist it a little, hoping it’ll crack. It does, and I’m relieved. If briefly.
“You have pain in the neck?” Pascal asks.
For a moment, I consider lying, but decide against it. “Yes.”
“I have something for pain.” He raises his hand and calls over a pretty, dark-haired woman.
Maria wears a white bathing suit on the bottom, nothing on the top. He tells her something, and when she approaches me, I glare at the man. “We’re in the middle of a meeting, and I don’t appreciate distractions.”
Pascal’s expression hardens. I’m sure he’s unaccustomed to being spoken to in the way I addressed him, but he needs to understand I can’t be swayed, bought, or distracted. He’s not worried about my neck pain, that’s for sure.
Pascal lights up another cigarette and leans back in his seat. “No problem. After the meeting, you will sample our hospitality.”
This sounds like an order, and I almost laugh. Instead, I take a sip of my beer, eyeing Jose until he flicks his wrist at the woman, who leaves.
“Where were we?” I ask, knowing exactly where we left off. “The figure you’re seeking as retribution, you’re not going to get.”
Pascal snarls and starts cursing at me in Spanish.
Jose barks at him, and I shift my attention to Jose, since he’s the one in charge. The brothers might share power in the cartel, but I can tell Jose is the mastermind and Pascal is aggressive muscle, more like an enforcer than a deal breaker.
I continue, “You won’t get it because you were either cocky, desperate, or dumb when choosing the ports of entry into the US market. I think it’s desperate. You used the ports the Benvenuti family has controlled since before each of us was born. You didn’t pay tax, so they took it.”
Outside the Order, I defend my members. Inside, I deal with them. “I can’t reward your incompetence.” Can’t, not won’t. It makes me think of my wife. Briefly, only briefly, I allow an intrusive image of her angelic face into my head.
Pascal and Jose argue, with Pasal’s voice rising. He stands up and starts fidgeting with his belt buckle, which gives me the impression he wants to reach for his gun. Maybe I pushed him too far.
I could’ve chosen my words better. I could’ve delivered the bad news with more honey or some sugar, as my wife would say, but it’s late, and this is my seventh meeting today. I’m tired, my neck hurts, and I want nothing more than to lie down next to my wife after I eat her lasagna and her pussy. With something to look forward to after this, I say, “Settle down. I have a solution.”
“Mr. Mancini,” Pascal spits out, hands on his hips. “The only solution is your money.”
“Excellent. That is how I prefer to solve problems.”
Pascal pauses, then laughs and sits down. “We’re listening.”
“You can seize all of the Benvenutis’ legal assets, which bring in about fifteen and a half million a year right now. Within a few years, if you’re smart, you will figure out how to launder your cash through the assets. This is worth more than the cash-back option.” It’s the severance package the Order would’ve taken if we’d decided to sever ties with them.
The Benvenuti family stays in the Order. For now. It’s just that it requires a change in the leadership and retribution for making my family an unknowing launderer of cash we never vetted.
The brothers talk it over, and when they settle, I stand, stretch my back, and crack my neck again. I use my hands to twist, and whoa, it cracks at the spot I need it.
“We have a deal,” Jose says.
The men shake my hand, and finally, my shitty day is over.
“Stay for dinner, my friend.” Pascal rounds the table and pats my shoulder.
“I promised my wife I’d be home tonight.”
“Ahh, wife. Is this why you will not sample our sweet Maria?”
I don’t dignify that with an answer, mainly because he’s right. If I wanted to remain single and sample pussies around the world, I would have.
Needless to say, I part ways with my cartel associates on a good note. They send me off with a bottle of premium tequila and a souvenir for my wife. It’s a silk scarf from a local designer, a beautiful flower-and-skull design I think Michela will like.
On the flight back, I answer several messages and phone calls that I ought not to be taking this late at night. It’s almost eight when I land in New York and nearly nine when I’m taking the steps from the garage up to ground floor two at a time so I can get to the elevator faster and make it upstairs before my wife goes to bed.
Thinking about her lasagna makes my mouth water and my hungry belly growl.
The moment I enter the apartment, I know something’s not right. After Michela cooks, the subtle smell of food lingers in the air. I smell nothing. On top of that, everything is exactly as I left it this morning, and her shoes aren’t randomly discarded anywhere my eyes can see.
I check the stove for the lasagna and even the dishwasher in case she ate, then dumped the leftovers to make a point. It’s possible.
I’m not exactly an ideal husband. I’m the asshole who comes home, eats her food, and wants her to give me a neck rub. I’m also the asshole who interfered with her job today. A job she really enjoys.
She wouldn’t leave, would she?
I set the box with the scarf on the counter before strolling to her bedroom. The empty bed greets me.
“Michela?”
The bathroom door’s ajar, and I don’t think she’s there, but I check anyway.
Empty. Her makeup bag is gone, but she left her toothbrush.
Back in her bedroom, I open a drawer. A black bra and a few pairs of panties. If she left, she would have taken the underpants and the toothbrush. I check the other drawers and the closet, where I find her clothes and the military duffel I assume belonged to her brother.
She hasn’t left me. Yet.
She also didn’t make dinner, and it’s nearing her bedtime on a usual Wednesday night. Where is my wife?
I dial her number and hear the phone ringing in the living room. I find it on the couch and stare at the screen. Not only did she leave her phone at home, on purpose or by accident, but instead of the “Husband” I programmed into it, the incoming caller’s name reads My Dear A-hole.
If I weren’t so pissed that she left without a way for me to reach her, I’d be amused. I slip the phone into my pocket, then dial a different number.
The head of her security detail picks up on the first ring. The substantial interference in the background makes his voice difficult to hear.
“Good evening, Pacho,” I say.
“Good evening, sir.”
The code word for my wife is the angel. “My angel seems to have left her phone at home.”
“Don’t know anything about that, sir.”
“Where are you?”
“Club Keystone.”
“Where is that?” He tells me the location. “Hmm. That sounds familiar.”
“It’s the old Club Five Stars.”
“Remind me who owns that place.”
“Domenico Benvenuti.”
Dread churns in my belly. “Is my angel with you?”
“We’re just outside the VIP room, sir. Dom Jr. doesn’t allow weapons inside the VIP, and we wouldn’t hand ours over. While we argued with him, she slipped inside the room. Our option was to gun down Dom Jr. or stay outside. I chose to remain where we can see her.”
“Thank you.”
I hang up with her security and dial Dom. He doesn’t pick up. I dial again and again. On the fourth ring, he answers.
“Corrado,” he says into the phone, and the song I heard when I spoke with Pacho fills my ears. My pulse picks up, my temper rising, but I leash the beast so as not to show my irritation with his power play. Picking up my phone call on the fourth try is a power play. He holds Michela.
“Dom, my wife seems to have taken you up on the offer of the VIP room.”
“Yes, and I’m enjoying her friend’s company.”
“Which friend is that?” Better not be Evans.
“Daisy.”
If I remember correctly from Pacho’s reports, that’s the girl who works in HR. “Her security team tells me you left them outside the room.”
“All they had to do was surrender their weapons.”
“They’re armed so they can protect my wife.”
“Your wife is not in danger here, unless you’ve done something you shouldn’t have.”
“Meaning what exactly?” I hear a woman’s voice and Dom chuckling at something she said. Then I hear Michela’s laughter. Through gritted teeth, I say, “You will escort my wife to her security detail immediately.”
“I will. Right after you call off the hit on my club tonight. I know you went to Sinaloa and met with the Brothers.”
“Careful, Dom. I might start thinking you’re holding my wife hostage.”
“Oh, come on, Corrado, we won’t call it that or take it that far. She walked in here on her own. I had nothing to do with that, and I’m simply using the opportunity as it presented itself.”
“You understand that if you don’t send her home safe and in the same condition she walked in there, I’ll come to collect her. I promise you that if I have to fetch her, you will regret it.”
“You betrayed my family,” he hisses into the phone.
“I’m preserving your family. The legal assets I gave the cartel will save your family’s legacy and preserve it within the Order. The moment the cartel moves in, you can simply gather your men and leave. They won’t come after you, only your assets.”
“I’m not handing them my operations without a fight.”
“You must stand down,” I order, and go to stand at the window. I can’t push him harder for fear he’ll take it out on Michela. “Your father is trafficking people. We don’t allow that. You’ve been comprising cartel operations and making us launder their profits as our own. In order to save you and yours from certain death, I told them you will be reasonable and make amends.”
“You gave them all our businesses?”
“All of them, yes.”
“We’ll have to start over.”
“Starting over is perfect seeing as how you would have had to start over after you eliminated your dad. The timing is perfect. All you must do now is escort my wife to her security detail outside.”
Screaming and gunshots prevent Dom from answering. He curses and hangs up.
The cartel’s in the club.