10. — everyone pays. #2
Christiano nodded. “Every day.”
“What offer?” the boss demanded.
“Enough money in the right hands would see this all pass,” Salvatore said. “If he were to, say, be arrested again on some random charge and thrown into jail for a week. Then, maybe he’s thrown in solitary. A fire breaks out. The body is destroyed. It’s happened before.”
Giorgio’s gaze skipped over the dark wood on the table as he contemplated such a thing. “That would make business a bit difficult, wouldn’t it? He can’t be a dead man who everyone sees. He won’t stay dead for long.”
“No, he’d have to stay dead,” Salvatore agreed, watching the blond, blue-eyed capo for any reaction. He didn’t give one. “Christiano, thoughts?”
“I—”
“Wouldn’t you ask for my thoughts first?” Giorgio snapped. “He’s my capo, who by the way, makes a great deal of fucking money, Sal.”
Salvatore used the motion of rubbing his temples to hide the roll of his eyes.
After, he turned his gaze upon Giorgio with the patience one needed to deal with small, unruly children.
“Giorgio, the business can be transferred. The assets, the profit, the men. It can all be moved over to someone else’s control.
Pick someone. It’s that easy. The narcos will take some handling, but even they can be fucking bought for the right price.
What do you want, the trial and the papers for the next year or two, or nothing? ”
“He’s not wrong,” Christiano put in.
Giorgio huffed, glaring at nothing in particular. “I made you.”
Christiano remained steadfast. “And look what I did, huh? Look what I did with it. Isn’t that what we’re all thinking?”
Silence covered the room like a thick smog coming down on city streets. The elephant in the room grew ten times its size, but Giorgio refused to pay it any mind, apparently.
“We’ll come back to this,” he told Christiano, “another time.”
“Sure, boss.”
Salvatore added nothing.
His seed was planted.
It took but a look at Giorgio after Christiano’s departure, and the way he sucked on the cigar dangling between his thick lips alongside the heavy lines written into his forehead, to know the boss was pissed.
“Now, what’s this about a conversation?” Giorgio barked.
Anthony Carcoli jumped in to speak first. “I don’t know, boss. Big Mike hasn’t called me for anything, and we haven’t had issues on the streets.”
“Nico,” Big Mike stated, quieting the room.
Three things happened, then.
Giorgio’s scowl deepened.
Anthony stared harder at Big Mike.
And Sal wondered if he should start praying again...
“Nico?” two people asked at the same time.
The boss and Carcoli glanced quickly at one another.
“Your son, yes,” Big Mike continued. “See, I’ve had coffee with him every Saturday morning for the last three weeks. I shouldn’t have needed to see his face in at least a month, yet he showed up, needing to chat.”
“I don’t understand,” Giorgio started to say, turning on Salvatore. “I thought you had him handled.”
“He is,” Salvatore replied, even if he didn’t know the reason for Nico’s name coming up at tribute. “Mike hasn’t told me differently. Nico is where he should be when he’s supposed to be there. I don’t even think he’s gotten a speeding ticket since being back.”
That one might be a stretch, though.
“Week one,” Big Mike said, tipping his head sideways as he stared down Carcoli across the table, “Nico took a random thing I said, and ran with it. Apparently, he found it very important to understand exactly what kind of agreement Anthony and I had about his clubs and my dealers. He came to me to confirm the deal, so he understood it properly.”
“Nico Russo is working on your crew?” Anthony asked. “Since when?”
Giorgio cleared his throat. “We all know the deal. I approved it. Carcoli has clubs in your neighborhoods, and he doesn’t pay to run the gambling in the back on your territory. You deal out of any club he owns, and he doesn’t take a cut.”
“Week two,” Big Mike continued, his gaze turning on the boss as he said it, “Nico comes back to me again, but he thinks he’s got a problem.”
“What pro—”
“Or rather, he thinks I do,” Big Mike interrupted Anthony.
“Are we getting to the point anytime soon?” Giorgio demanded.
“Week three, he confirms what he suspected to me. Carcoli has been taking a cut from every sale my dealers make in his clubs and likely has been since the inception of the agreement we made five years ago when he took over after his father died.”
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Anthony hissed. “We don’t take a damn cent, Mike.”
“You’re lying. Nico made a sale. A cut was taken. I sent out five more guys. Cuts were taken. So not only do I have a fellow capo stealing from me, he’s turned associates on both sides into thieves as well.”
“You-you...You’re wrong,” Anthony stammered.
Big Mike shook his head. “No, I don’t think I am.”
“Anthony,” Giorgio began, “this is serious. It’s one thing if your crew is skimming off the top and you don’t know about it, but it’s another thing altogether if you’re aware they’re doing it and you’ve done nothing.”
Anthony remained quiet.
At this point, his only option left.
Giorgio arched an eyebrow, never looking away from the younger of the two capos. “How much would it be, Mike?”
“If I went all the way back?” The older, bigger capo folded his arms over his chest. “Nico ran the numbers with Vauhn. Easily a million a year.”
“A million.”
“A year,” Salvatore echoed the boss’s disbelief.
Anthony’s shoulders lifted and fell with his heavy breaths. “What, did you have that little shit Nico sniffing through my fucking streets?”
“Apparently, there was something to smell,” Big Mike replied blithely. “I can’t help it if the kid has a knack for finding money. Five million made in three weeks isn’t too fucking bad, is it?”
“One week,” Giorgio said suddenly.
Everyone looked his way.
“One week,” he repeated. “That’s all you have to correct this mistake, Anthony, and make an appropriate apology that Big Mike must feel is sufficient to repair his damages.
On top of that, you will pay him for his use of territory, he will continue to sell in your clubs without issue, and your dues are up ten percent from today. ”
Anthony’s mouth fell open. “You can’t do that!”
Giorgio didn’t blink. “Didn’t I just do exactly that? Be grateful your mother won’t wake up tomorrow with your hands on her doorstep in a white box. It is only Marco’s friendship with you that saved you today. Thank him on your way out and get the fuck out of my face.”
Salvatore openly scoffed as the man stormed from the dining room, leaving his pile of cash as tribute behind. The boss didn’t miss it.
“What?” he snapped at Sal. “What is it now?”
Salvatore gestured with a finger at the empty seats, and the one filled by Big Mike who remained quiet during the exchange. “Not one other man at this table would get away with that, Giorgio. Not one of them, but Marco’s best friend...oh, that’s a different story.”
“You know, I’ve had about enough of you lately.”
“You know,” Salvatore returned in kind, standing from the chair, “same, boss. Nice seeing you, Mike. I’m glad Nico’s working out.”
“Working out?” Big Mike laughed. “Sal, he’s moving up.”
···
There were too many goddamn boxes in his foyer. It didn’t matter how big the foyer was, it became much smaller when filled with crap. Salvatore did his best not to glare at the delivery man taking his sweet time using a dolly to bring in a load of something in long rectangular boxes.
“Silk,” the man said, “for the tapestries.”
Fuck.
Salvatore went on the hunt for his wife.
Or Sissy.
Someone.
“Carina! Sissy! Hello, is there not a better place to put that fucking mess?” he shouted out.
“Oh, here we go,” came a mutter from the kitchen area.
Salvatore headed that way fast. “Carina, I know I said you had full control over the graduation stuff, but we have a fucking garage for a reason. We have a foyer for an entirely different reason.”
He found his wife sitting at the large kitchen island, flipping through a magazine. Sissy stood at the other side, drumming her fingernails on the marble top and ignoring his presence altogether.
“The decorator is coming tomorrow with her team to get a start on the bigger rooms, Sal,” Carina said, never looking up from the glossy pages.
“Anyway, I think you should say yes, Sissy. Larkin doesn’t have a life.
You don’t have a life. You can not have a life together, that’s all I’m saying. What’s it going to hurt?”
Sissy finally glanced Salvatore’s way. Just the look on his face had her saying, “Yeah, I’m going to go...let the dog out.”
“Wise choice.” Salvatore walked closer to Carina who continued flipping pages. “Did you get my text earlier?”
“About talking to your daughter?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah. Birth control. Get her on it.”
“They’re not having sex,” Sissy said over her shoulder.
Salvatore scoffed low. “Please, they’re eighteen and nineteen. If they’re practically spending the night together, and they’re not having sex, I’ll eat my fucking shoes. They’re having sex.”
“They’re not,” Sissy called back.
Then, she left the kitchen entirely.
“Carina, I am serious about the mess in the foyer.”
Throwing her head back slightly, his wife groaned. “Fine, Sal. Whatever, tomorrow, they’ll be gone. Or at least, in the area they need to be. The rest will go to the garage so we can walk them a damn mile to get them where they need to go.”
“And the birth control conversation?”
At that, she turned on the stool to stare at him. “Why don’t you talk to her about that?”
He spluttered, trying to come up with an acceptable response. The longer he struggled, the more sardonic her smile turned.
“What’s the old saying? If you’re not old enough to talk about sex, you shouldn’t be having it?”
“I don’t think this is the same,” he deadpanned. “She’s my daughter.”