32. Prime
PRIME
Night’s heavy in South Philly. An old woman shuffles past, a little white dog on a leash tugging hard.
Someone in headphones on the opposite side has their face buried in a screen.
The houses here aren’t nice, but they aren’t shit either.
It’s solidly middle class, as far as this part of the city goes.
I got a lot of memories from this neighborhood.
Fights, fucking, laughter, pain. Six blocks south I lived with a decent foster family for a few months, at least until my stealing and running around got to be too much and they kicked my ass to the curb.
I went to school near here, kissed a girl for the first time on these streets, stabbed a kid in a park not that far away for the first time. Blooded myself here, bled too.
Shawn died on a corner to the east.
Too many memories. Most of them shit, but some aren’t bad.
I touch the gun in my lap, thinking whether I’ll use it tonight, or maybe I won’t have to.
There’s so much riding on what I’ll do now and my wife’s face is mixed up with the bad thoughts, the old images fading, replaced by a sense of optimism.
Or at least by a need to see her again in the morning.
Hell, I’m getting fucking dramatic.
I push open the door and step out. The evening’s crisp as I cross to a stoop with a freshly painted black door.
No bars on the windows means whoever lives here is confident nobody would dare fuck with him.
There’s a nice old Mercedes parked out front with a traffic cone at the bumper. I knock and wait.
No answer for a minute. I knock again, and again, until the door unbolts. “Who the fuck is?—“
“Hey Alfonso. Been a long time.”
The man staring at me can’t be the same one from my memory. This one’s old, eyes lined, forehead wrinkled, hair graying and receding. The Alfonso in my head is early thirties, big and strong, hairy and loud and quick to laugh. I looked up to him like he was a god and wanted to be just like him.
The door opens a fraction. “Prime? Is that you?”
“Didn’t think you’d recognize me.”
“My god, I almost didn’t.” He leans against the frame. He’s in a pair of dark sweats and a long gray shirt. “I was headed to bed. Why are you on my stoop?”
“Wanted to talk. Been a while. Thought we might catch up.”
Alfonso looks over my shoulder and down the street. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Come on, old man. Let’s have a chat.”
“My wife’s in bed.”
“We don’t need to wake her.” I lean closer and lower my voice. “Come on, Alfonso. You think three hundred dollars was enough? Let’s talk.”
He must hear the rage I’ve kept buried for all these years.
His shoulders stiffen and there’s still a glimmer of action in him like he’s ready to draw a gun on me and defend himself.
But the moment passes and he sighs, stepping aside, mumbling something about having a drink in the kitchen and keeping quiet.
The place isn’t bad. Pictures hang on the walls.
Family shit, vacations, images of Alfonso and a pretty skinny lady and two dark-haired boys down the beach.
A whole life I never knew about. I wonder what Shawn would say if he saw this now.
Alfonso takes me to the kitchen and sits me at a table before pouring two glasses of cheap wine.
He slides one over and sits across with a heavy sigh.
“Been a long time,” he says, stretching one leg and rubbing the knee. Some old injury bugging him, maybe. Exacerbated by stress.
Is this what’s waiting for me too? An old man in a shitty house? Everyone wears out eventually, I know it, but Alfonso used to burn so bright.
He’s faded now. Softer in the middle. That old muscle gone to fat. I wonder when the last time he stalked around the streets was. Probably been decades.
“You look old.”
He snorts and smiles. “You do too. I’ve heard rumors about you over the years. Prime Spadaro, big shit in the Corsetti Famiglia. You did okay for yourself in the end.”
“Wasn’t easy.”
“Nah, I didn’t think it would be.” He takes a long drink, hand shaking. “I saw it back then, you know. The potential, what you might be if someone managed to straighten you out.”
“I remember. You gave me a chance.”
“Shame, what happened.”
“You mean it’s a shame they tried to kill me and got my friend instead?”
His expression glazes over as his shoulders hunch forward. “That’s the life. You don’t hold old grudges, do you?”
“All I am these days is grudges.” I turn the glass slowly. Thinking how hurting this old man wouldn’t fix a damn thing. “You’re still with him, I guess.”
“Couldn’t get out of it. You know how that goes. Once you’re in, you’re in for life.” His smile is tentative. “Not much for it these days though.” His eyes stray to the kitchen. It’s small, the wallpaper peeling, not exactly dirty and falling apart but not updated in a while.
“I’ve been asking around recently. Hasn’t been easy, finding people willing to talk, but when they do it’s always the same. When gambling got legalized, the last bit of profitable business for your outfit stopped earning. Is that the right story?”
Alfonso grunts, polishes off his glass, and refills it.
“You know why I liked you back in the day, Prime? There were dozens of kids like you willing to do brutal and dangerous shit for a dime. But you were the only one who actually made it happen. You were clever and competent. Not many capable fucking urchins lying around the streets of Philly. I’m glad you haven’t changed. ”
“How bad is Fontana right now, Alfonso?”
“Why the fuck would I tell you that? I should shoot you in the face for coming to my house, asking me these questions?—“
I put my gun on the table. “Don’t make threats.”
He looks at the weapon for a long time. “You always were trouble.”
“How bad? Be honest with me.”
“I hear you’re working for him now. Is that true?”
“Can’t always believe the rumors.”
He grunts and drinks. “Might as well shoot me. I’m worth more dead anyway.”
“What’s that mean?”
Alfonso considers me. He runs a hand through his thinning hair and for a brief moment he’s that young man again.
He wasn’t always a top earner, wasn’t on a fast-track to leadership, but he was solid.
That’s how he got the house, the wife, the kids.
He took care of business. I learned that from him, back in the day.
But it’s gone to seed. I can smell it on him. The old ways hanging around like weights around his ankles.
“You never leave it. That’s how the outfits are. You know the way it has to be, but that doesn’t mean you love it. Sometimes, they treat you like you’ll always be there, no matter how hard shit gets.”
“Fontana’s that bad?”
“Worse. The bastard.” He drinks again, long and deep. “Half the outfit hasn’t been paid in months. The other half is scrounging by. Guess which end I’m on?”
“You know other people getting fucked?”
“Plenty. Some already left. A few skipped town. I’m too fucking old to do that shit. My wife’s got a decent job. I got some work lined up that gets me by. But the young bloods? The future of this family? They’re unhappy.” He laughs to himself. “God, I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
But he is and that means the situation is so much worse than I thought. It’s one thing to be unhappy with your organization.
It’s another to break all the rules and talk about family business with an outsider like this.
“I visited Fontana at his house a few weeks back. I went there with Marco Carbone.”
Alfonso’s nose wrinkles. “You met the fucking Ferret, huh?”
“That’s what you call Carbone?”
“Yeah, since he looks like a god damn rodent. Sneaky mother fucker.”
“You’d be surprised at the car he drives. You’d be pissed if you saw the way Fontana lives.”
“Don’t.” He holds up a hand. “Won’t work.”
“Just pointing out the truth. You know they got a new business going?”
Alfonso’s lips tug down. “That’s where you come in, right?”
“I bet you don’t know a damn thing about it. Have you seen any money?”
“Didn’t realize there was any.”
“Fontana not offering you work?” I shake my head and sip the wine. “There are jobs now. Shit you could be doing for him.”
“Stop.” He doesn’t sound like he means it.
“This is what he fucking does. You’ve seen it happen a dozen times, haven’t you? It’s what he tried to do to me back when I was a kid and got my friend instead. When you outlive your usefulness, you’re nothing to him anymore. There’s no loyalty. There’s no love. Fontana takes and that’s all.”
Alfonso rubs his face hard. “Shawn. I remember him. Good kid. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“I carry that every day.”
“You can’t let the bodies you left behind drag you down with them. They’re in the grave, Prime. Shawn’s dead and it wasn’t your doing. Hell, I’m more to blame.”
“You shouldn’t say that.”
He grunts, drinks more wine, and stretches his back. “There’s no point to this. I am what I am, and that’s too damn old to change a thing. Whatever you have cooking with Fontana, leave me out of it.”
“I might call on you. I might want to talk to some of your unhappy friends.”
“I won’t pick up.”
“We’ll see.” I finish the glass and stand. I slip the gun back into my waistband. “You got a nice life here, Alfonso. You should be proud of it.”
“Sometimes I am.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be. You always were trouble, Prime, even back in the day. I used to think I was your mentor, but we both know you outgrew me faster than either of us wanted to admit.”
I turn my back on him. The dying embers of the old days. “I still owe you. That’s why you’re not dead. I’ll be in touch.”
I leave Alfonso, or whatever’s left of him, and find my way back to my car. I sit behind the wheel in the darkness, replaying the conversation over and over. And I keep coming back to the way his hand shook.
It wasn’t fear. I can see it now. Alfonso’s an old mafia head. He wouldn’t be thrown by a fucking gun.
No, that was rage.
Real anger still bubbling under the old man’s surface.
And if he’s mad, what about those others he mentioned?
Fontana’s worse off than I realized. Much, much worse, like maybe his whole outfit’s on the edge of tearing itself to pieces.
And my pipeline’s payments are the only bulwark between him and losing everything.
I’m propping up my god damn enemy.
But it also means I have leverage.