19. Damiano
Salvo looks up from his phone. “Why are you late?”
I shoot him a don’t-ask look. He doesn’t need to know that dealing with Paige cost me thirty-five immensely enjoyable minutes.
Plus, the guy I’m carrying in a firefighter hold is heavy as shit, and my shoulder is still fucked up. I drop him onto a chair bolted to the floor, then zip-cuff his wrists to the post behind the chair. I walk over to the mirror on the wall to make sure I didn’t reopen any stitches, but they look fine.
“You’re never late. Something go wrong?”
I shoot Salvo another look, which he’d notice if he ever looked up from his phone. “Can I get started here or do you need some foreplay first?”
“Let’s do this.” Salvo’s ready to throw down whenever fists start flying, but he barely tolerates the interrogation portion of my job. I don’t care if he joins me in my workshop or not, but Rob tells him to be here in case I need backup.
I turn to the two guys tied to chairs. One’s been stewing in his own piss since I dragged him here earlier this afternoon, before going home to have dinner with Paige. The one I just carried in is starting to regain consciousness. Good.
I pull up a three-legged wooden stool and sit facing them. “Gentlemen, Gallianos don’t usually have beef with Falcos. But seems like we do now. I don’t want that. Salvo doesn’t want that. I promise you, you don’t want that. So, one-time deal in the spirit of keeping the peace. You have sixty seconds to tell me why Paulie shot me. Who put him up to it and why? You do that, and we can go back to having no beef. You first.” I look at the guy who’s been here all day.
“I—”
I hold up a finger to cut him off. “Hold on a second.” I walk over to a table and pick up the plastic chicken-shaped egg timer Rob’s little sister let me take from her kitchen. When the time runs down, it clucks and squawks and rattles back and forth like it’s laying an egg. I set it for one minute, its ticks echoing against the tile walls.
I sit back down and nod to him to continue.
“I already told Salvo, I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing here. I don’t know anything about anything. I promise, man. I swear.”
I look over at Salvo, concern all over my face. “Oh, shit. Fuck, man. Did we grab the wrong guy?”
He looks relieved. “Yes. Yes. You did.”
“Shit, I’m sorry about that.”
“Yeah, it’s all good. Just let me go now.”
“Here’s the problem though. Help me sort this part out first, then maybe we can get you out of here. One of the shitheads that came at me last week”—came at me with Paige only fifteen meters away—“ you were the last person he called. So right when he was walking toward me in the alley, right when he was thinking he was going to take me out, he called you.”
The guy’s face drops. I’d say it went pale, but it’s been pale as fuck since I threw him in the back of Salvo’s van.
“No, man. It’s not what you think.”
“It’s never what I think. You have any idea how often the person sitting in your chair tells me I’ve got it wrong?” I wait for him to answer. I look over my shoulder. “You’ve got ten seconds left on that timer. Why did Paulie try to kill me?”
He swallows hard. Closes his eyes.
Cluck-cluck-cluck-ba-gok. Cluck-cluck-cluck-ba-GOK. BA-GOKKKKK!
He jumps in his chair, squeezes his eyes shut.
“Nothing?”
“Damiano, man, I don’t know anything. I swear.”
“Okay.” I get up and walk over to the shelf. I pick up three pairs of noise-cancelling headsets. I put a pair on and toss a pair to Salvo. I offer a pair to the guy in chair number two. He says something, but I can’t make it out with my headphones already on. “ What ?”
He says something again. I pull one earmuff loose so I can hear him.
“My hands are fucking tied, man.”
I smile. “Oh shit, yeah. Allow me.” I put the headphones over his ears for him.
I pull my Glock from my holster. No point in dragging this out. I aim between Guest #1’s eyes and pull the trigger, firing straight into his T-box. Brains paint the wall behind him.
I remove my headset. Guest #2 is screaming his head off, trying to pull out of his chair. He’s yelling loud enough that I’m tempted to put the headset back on.
“What the fuck, man?” Salvo jumps up from his lounger. I can barely hear him over the guy’s screaming. “You got fucking brain juice on my Jordans.” He points at his high-tops. “These are limited edition, you fucker.”
I remove Guest #2’s headphones so he can hear me. “Think you can stop screaming?”
He nods.
I turn to Salvo. “Why would you wear anything nice in my workshop?”
“I didn’t know I was coming here. You grabbed me from the Cat, remember?”
I’m not going to argue with him over this. I went to the Cat to grab the keys to his van and he decided to join me. His choice, not mine.
“Top drawer.” I motion with my head to the cabinet to his right. He’ll find the little cloth booties I stock for him and Rob and their poorly planned wardrobes. “Put those on.” Then I mutter under my breath, “pussy.” There’s a reason I wear black here. Things get messy as fuck.
I return to my seat and to Guest #2. “Sorry you had to see that, man. But in all fairness, I did give him a full minute to come clean. He chose the path of deceit. That,” I point to what’s left of his head and is still dripping in slow, thick globs, “was his choice.”
What my newly-deceased guest didn’t know was that, in addition to the phone call log, I read the shit ton of texts between the two of them about looking for me ‘ and my bitch ’ and then the guy stumbling across my Rover at the pet shop, then about bringing me in kicking and screaming or tits up and the headless horseman over here suggesting that tits up would leave less chance I’d break free en route.
He was right about that. He’d at least need to knock me out. GOI trained us on a dozen ways to get ourselves untied, including dislocating my own shoulder if need be, which is pretty much the only realistic way to get out of handcuffs or zip-cuffs.
But the texts didn’t say ‘en route’ to where. Or to who. Were they just going for the money Joey Bags put on my head after the night at the park, or is their boss, Riccardo Falco, involved with Paulie somehow and responsible for the night at the park?
Hopefully, my remaining guest can clear this up so I can go home to my pissed off angel. See what make-up sex is all about. “Now you, my friend, get the same offer. Sixty seconds to tell me—”
“Lily. Talk to Lily. She knows everything.” He’s talking so fast, spittle is flying everywhere. “I don’t know any details. I really fucking don’t, man. I swear on my dick and balls. But Lily can tell you every fucking thing.”
My kind of interrogation. Quick and to the point.
“Lily who?”
“No clue. And ‘Lily’ probably isn’t even her real name. She dances at the Tropicana. She was dating Paulie. Gave two weeks’ notice to quit, but then flipped her fucking lid when she found out he was dead. She begged Riccardo for her job back.”
“He take her back?”
He nods. “But he’s making her pay the price for giving notice. He’s working her three times harder than the other girls, making her give freebies to all the made guys.”
“You know where she lives?”
He shakes his head. “I’d tell you if I knew. I swear.”
“Okay.”
The guy looks around. Looks at Salvo. “Okay? What the fuck does ‘okay’ mean? You said ‘okay’ to Ray, then blew his face off. I told you everything I know.”
“‘Okay’ means, ‘okay, you can leave.’” I move around behind him to cut the zip-cuffs.
“What? No .” He pulls away from me.
“What do you mean, ‘no’? I told you if you told me what I needed to know, you could leave. You did, so you can.”
“No. Fuck that. Don’t untie me, man. You said if I told you what I knew, you wouldn’t kill me. So don’t kill me. But you can’t just let me go. A dozen guys saw you grab me. I walk out of here, and they’ll know I told you shit.”
“You did tell me shit.”
“You gotta fuck me up, Dom. At least a little. Come on. That’s only fair.”
“Fine.” I haul back and punch him, whipping his head back.
The kid groans out in pain.
“We good here?” I don’t want to be out all night.
“No, man. You gotta, like, hurt me, hurt me. Like, all that squailibrato, demente, il pazzo shit you’re known for.” Deranged, demented, lunatic . “Per favore, Damiano. Te ne sarò debitore.” Please, Damiano. I’ll owe you one.
“Fine.”