Chapter 5
So, I’m waiting in the bright and airy entrance foyer. All marble and pale wood, accented with a few pooling splatters of blood. The heavy wood front to the house door bursts open. Enter contestant number two, the Crespi son and heir.
I’ll leave the big double doors to the lounge half open behind me. Just for long enough that he’ll get a teasing glimpse of the scene inside.
Paulo Crespi, the older son, growls and struggles uselessly as Gino shoves him in from behind. Loose beige leisurewear is not a good look on him, even with the scarlet piping. Pumped and red in the face, his thinning black curls have a wet sheen.
As soon as he sees me, he leaps straight for me. His bracelets shake and the oversized polished stones shine in the heavy rings on his thick fingers as his hands stretch out. From behind his back, Gino just grips him tighter.
Paulo tries to shake him off, but Gino is much bigger and he’s very strong. Impotent and helpless, Paulo hisses. He spits a long, filthy trail of gob on the marble tiled floor in front of me.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Benedetti mignotta?” Then his eyes fix on the doorway behind me. Before he can spew out a longer list of Sicilian and Italian words for ‘whore,’ his face drains white.
He falls quiet as his eyes flick back and forth between my face and the doorway.
More clumps and thumps from the doorway as Minky shoves Paulo’s little brother Armando into the hall. He kicks the door shut behind him.
There’s a leer in Minky’s voice. “Your other guest for the show-and-tell, ma’am.”
Minky doesn’t use my name. A real pro. In case there’s a camera or a recording device. A phone or a gadget they might miss later on in the cleanup.
Armando must have been out somewhere smart. He’s wearing a black tailored suit, close fitted with narrow pants, a white shirt that still looks crisp with a thin black tie. Archetypal ’50s Hollywood mobster style.
He kicks like a raging schoolboy against Minky’s unbreakable grip. Struggling all the way. Didn’t Crespi teach his little punks any self-control? Reaching back, I pull the double doors shut behind me. They’ve seen enough of the mess. They shouldn’t need another reminder.
Now I want their attention. I need them to focus on something else. Me.
“Let me go!” Paulo rages. “You come here, break into my father’s house and murder him, butcher him like?—”
I slap his face hard with the back of my hand. “Your father was born into the Life, just like you were.” He glowers back at me. “So, don’t waste my time with the shocked good-citizen act. Save it for the cops, if they ever come.”
They won’t. Not before it’s all over.
His face reddens as he fumes. I tell both of them, “My daddy gave him plenty of chances. Maybe too many. He wouldn’t listen. He knew what was coming. So. Now. Are you two going to be stupid like him, or will you take the warning and learn?”
“He’s dead.” Armando shouts the obvious, “You fucking killed him.” Yelling, now, “Haven’t you? Figa! You piece of dirt, you Benedettivacca.”
As he shakes in Minky’s solid grasp, I feel like Armando wants to put up a show for his older brother, but his heart’s not really in it.
I tell them both, “We’ll do the clean up in the other room. We know how. You two need to think about your future. Your father made some bad choices. Are you going to get your family business in line, or will we need to clean up both of you, too?”
Paulo busts out of Gino’s hold and jumps at me. I just about have time to get the concealed carry Walther up and on him. He sees it, but he doesn’t have the sense to stop. He’s still raging wild, coming at me as I squeeze. The little pistol kicks in my hand.
My wrist jolts hard as the black hole punches in Paulo’s forehead. He drops like a bag of wet sand.
I turn to Armando. He’s white and he’s shaking.
“Big day for you, little man.” His face is a storm of grief and rage. “Looks like you’ve just become the sole heir and head of the family. Sorry for your loss.”
The transitions will be big and rough for him. What is he, eighteen? He won’t be rational or receptive for a while yet. Tough breaks.
But I don’t have time to waste.
I’m only a few years older, but since the first moment I heard someone laugh and say that I could never be the head of the family, I’ve been working and preparing myself to prove them wrong.
This poor kid? He just landed in the driving seat of a runaway truck packed with explosives. Credit where it’s due, though. He’s shown more presence of mind than his brother.
Crespi was way out of line. Daddy says he’s been shafting us on the take. What he’s kicking up is not the whole taste. He’s lying to us and he’s eating off our lunch.
Plus, how he runs his clubs risks bringing hell down on all of us. Running clubs and bars is one thing. We know they all have rooms out back or upstairs. It’s day-to-day, run of the mill stuff. I might get queasy over some of the details of how they operate, but in the end it’s Crespi’s business.
At worst, it’s a local police matter, and we have ways to keep them tame and docile.
None of us should be doing the kind of business that goes on in his places in Wood Street. He started bringing juvenile protection and trafficking issues into the mix, and that can have the state cops and even the feds rushing in. A whole wildfire gets started before you even know it.
He’s had plenty of warnings. Daddy told me to make him take it seriously. Well, job done on that one. I didn’t get to show the photograph to Gianni. I’ve still got it in my pocket. There’s not much point showing it to Armando now, though if he survives the night we will need to have words about the way things are run.
“So.” With the Walther still in my hand, I look straight in Armando’s eyes. “Do you want to see what happens if you live a little longer, or are you going to be stupid like your father and your big brother?”
Then the dog starts to bark.
Gino moves to go and deal with it. I stop him.
“I’ll take care of the dog.”
So Gino shrugs, then he grins, shaking his head. I know what he thinks I meant when I said that that. No matter.
I turn my attention back to Armando. Pain twists his face. I need him to get a grip. If I end up wasting him too, we’ll have to take over their whole operation and it’s a mess we don’t need right now.
I put the photograph face up on the hallway table. He’ll know the location of the house, and it’s not hard to see what’s going on.
“Armando,” I slap at his face. Hard. “Look at me.” He does. I slap him again. I need him concentrating. “Maybe you know, maybe you don’t. Makes no difference. You know now.” I let him take that in. Then, “Our piece of your family’s take has been light for weeks. You owe us. Get it straight.”
He glowers.
“And,” I hold the photograph up to his face. Give him another moment to absorb it. Is it a surprise or does he know that’s going on? I don’t care.
I give him a beat to review his situation then I tell him. “Make. This. Stop.”
The kid thinks he’s got trouble.
After this, I have to go back to face Daddy.