7. — pills and priorities.
––––––––
Union, New Jersey
Salvatore, Big Mike’s Deli
––––––––
Salvatore pinched the bridge of his nose and eyed the restaurant windows. He dry-swallowed the acetaminophen with codeine tablet that had been melting on his tongue for a minute.
Holding it there allowed the bitterness to do the real work of tricking his brain. His headache lessened immediately but that was the mind game of addiction. Pain management toed a fine line for him. Since he agreed to an IV painkiller after the accident, the demon chased him.
“Where the hell are you?” hissed Carina through the phone.
Grumbling, he replied, “Not there, obviously.”
“What?”
Panic edged her voice.
He tried to reign in the anger. It wasn’t at her, and she had no hand in the fact that he was in an entirely different state than his daughter’s final soccer game of her high school career.
The game. The location and time of the finals didn’t matter to the boss of the Russo mafia when he demanded a meeting with Salvatore and a certain capo.
A demand to make face with the boss wasn’t a request, and he pressed his luck with Giorgio enough recently. Best not to push it.
“I’m fifteen minutes away,” Salvatore lied.
“What does that even mean?” Carina shrieked.
The phone crackled. He pulled it away from his ear, squinting. “Could you not, Carina? Please, just don’t be you for five fucking seconds,” he said when he thought it safe to put the phone back against his ear.
It wasn’t.
“What does that fucking mean?”
“I have something to deal with in a few minutes, so if we could make clear between us whatever you called for, that would be great, darling.”
The darling did it for her every time, and he knew it. Her tone softened to sweet in an instant.
“I told you when you picked up the call. Where are you? We’re here, the game is starting shortly. She hasn’t exactly asked where you are, but everyone can see it.”
A smile trickled out of Sal. “Everyone?”
“Sissy grabbed a ride with Larkin. A couple of his guys showed up, too. Why do they have so many freaking kids, anyway? I never see them at the estate.”
“Because the guys are working, maybe?”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Nico pulled up in his Mustang with ten minutes to start-time. It’s only you left, Sal.”
“Who drove Frankie?”
“She took the Supra. Something about a party tonight. Sissy knows.”
Why didn’t he know about it?
“Okay, I am going to have a stroke here, Sal, I swear to God.”
Time ticked away, and he watched it go with the diamond-tipped bezel of his favorite Rolex. He didn’t have much left before he had no choice but to exit the SUV he’d asked to drive him today. This plan should have saved time. Right now, it wasn’t.
“Carina—”
“No, seriously. I thought with you here I could breathe through it. If she takes a ball to the face and that new scar starts bleeding, I swear. The stitches have barely dissolved!”
“You’ve got to look at your priorities here because they are not the same as Frankie’s. It’s hard for you to remember that sometimes because you’re used to being the literal center of the universe every time you walk into a room.”
“That’s not true,” she tried to deny with a dangerously rising tone. “Jesus, I totally saw those signs with us wrong, didn’t I? It’s always the same with you and me. That’s the meanest you’ve been in a while. Fuck y—”
Salvatore pulled the last card he had to deal with Carina, and he ate the bullet, knowing exactly where it would lead them.
“Babe,” he murmured softly, “it is true. In your mind, there isn’t a moment of your day when you don’t wonder what the people around you or who know you are thinking about you.
In one way or another, consider it, and tell me I’m wrong. ”
She didn’t.
Salvatore nodded to himself. “It’s how you survived. Frankie just...isn’t like that. She had other things to worry about it. Her own kind of survival.”
Carina remained silent.
Sal continued, “I know you want her to have pictures that she will love but forget about it. She’s going to love that when she looks at them, she remembers the day and who was there. You might see a scar, but she sees a win. Respect. Us. Are you even hearing me?”
Her breathing had practically stopped.
Carina cleared her throat without warning. “Can’t believe I fucking called you today. And over this.”
Salvatore couldn’t check to be certain, but he’d safely bet his wealth on the fact that his wife hadn’t found a reason to dial his number in over a year. They talked around one another, using others as messengers while the two of them were warships passing in the night.
It was...easier.
“I’m gonna be there,” he promised.
“And if you aren’t? She’ll be—”
“She will be fine because today isn’t about me in the end. But it doesn’t matter, that’s irrelevant. I will be there.”
“Okay,” Carina whispered.
The call immediately ended. Salvatore dropped the device on the back passenger seat and glanced at the man behind the wheel.
“Keep the engine running.”
“Not a second wasted, boss man.”
That in mind, Salvatore exited the vehicle.
Less than thirty seconds later, he’d bypassed a waitress who knew his face and not to ask and headed straight down a short hallway where Matty waited.
The enforcer had the door open for the oncoming consigliere, and Salvatore didn’t apologize for walking straight past the guy without even a nod hello.
He didn’t have time.
Giorgio made Salvatore twitchier in the next moment by saying, “You waited quite a while after your man pulled up before coming in. We’re not interrupting something more important, are we?”
“Not at all,” Salvatore deadpanned.
A smirk formed on Giorgio’s smug face. “Are you going to sit?”
“I’m not sure I’m needed here to begin with. I assume this is about Nico’s dues to the Jersey Crew? Let’s not run through all the pleasantries in the meantime.”
Giorgio ran his tongue over his teeth, sucking. “I ordered for you.”
“Coffee only, I hope.”
The boss didn’t reply.
Big Mike, on the other hand, gave Salvatore a pointed look while his beefy arms stayed folded over his large chest. The golden tan on the man’s hairy arms had deepened significantly.
His signature gold horn necklace hung around his throat at the end of a diamond-encrusted chain.
The three of them, all in black, tailored suits, stuck out like sore thumbs in the middle of Big Mike’s Deli.
The private room with mirrored glass overlooking the front parking lot helped with said problem, and Mike spent most of his days in the same chair where he currently sat.
Business could be done wherever they liked.
“How did the wife find Siena this year?” Salvatore asked the man.
“Well, she’s pregnant again, so,” Big Mike returned, grinning.
“Congratulations. That’s the fourth?”
Mike nodded. “She wants half a baseball team, man. How do you say no?”
Easily, Salvatore thought.
Giorgio, however, had clearly taken enough. “Salvatore, sit.”
“I don’t need to,” he told the boss, hoping this time the sentiment would land. “How much did Nico pay?”
“Three hundred thousand,” Big Mike said.
“Do you know how much a bag with that kinda cash weighs? The kid walked into the club last weekend with it tossed over his shoulder. Obviously, the only reason he got past anybody and dropped it on my bar was because we all recognized his face. I had some questions.”
“And?” Salvatore pressed.
Big Mike rolled his big shoulders, indifferent.
“He answered every one of them. Point blank, straight to it. I gotta say, boss,” he added then, turning to Giorgio.
“He’s kinda easy to talk to when you get him on a roll.
He had half the bar joining in, didn’t forget a name the first time he heard it, and he never stepped out of line the moment I walked on the scene. ”
There you go, Nico, Salvatore thought.
“I’m surprised,” Giorgio responded dryly, “seeing as how the last club I knew him to go to, he burned the DJ’s booth down after a disagreement. I heard he got banned from quite a few more down in Miami.”
Salvatore tampered the urge to roll his eyes. “For what, popping off at the mouth or giving somebody a punch when they probably deserved it? That’s shit we do daily across Jersey and New York, and nobody even takes a second look. Had he done that here, you wouldn’t know about those clubs, either.”
“Yeah, well it’s a bit about learning to control one’s fucking urges, isn’t it?” Giorgio snapped.
“Respect meets respect with Nico every time,” Salvatore replied, refusing to give him an inch. “He’s not proved me differently once in the time I’ve had my eye on him. You said it to me, Giorgio. He needs to understand the expectations immediately. And he does.”
Big Mike’s gaze darted between the two men locked in a staring contest, clearly picking up on something. “And see, this is why I called the boss.”
“Could you use him or not?” Salvatore outright asked the capo, still staring Giorgio down.
“I don’t need a problem.”
“He isn’t one.”
“History does suggest the opposite, Sal.”
“Mike, I’m serious here,” he replied.
Big Mike grinned. “Can he do more than hustle drugs?”
“He wasn’t just hustling. He had a whole set up.”
“I did hear something about that when I made some calls,” Mike noted, his attention darting to Giorgio. “Were the dues thirty percent of what he made?”
“He cleared just short of a million as per the statements of the account where he deposited the money after he washed it. In less than a year, he took that cut. The three hundred was thirty percent.”
“Then, yeah, I could use him.”
Giorgio finally dropped Sal’s stare.
“Okay, where’s the problem? Giorgio?”
The boss scowled. “I’m not saying there is a problem. I worry more about it becoming one.”
“And why would that be?” Salvatore asked right back, not missing a beat.
Silence followed.
Giorgio wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Salvatore wouldn’t play this game. “Where’s Marco, boss?”
Once more, Big Mike seemed to pick up on something if the way his brow furrowed meant anything. He also remained quiet.