Chapter Three
Venezio
The warehouse loomed like any other—steel bones, concrete skin, windows smudged with years of grime.
It looked more like a place where cars were stripped for parts. I double-checked my address for a second time, sure this couldn’t be the location of some do-gooder charity.
But even as I looked down to do so, I caught sight of the small sign attached to the door.
Berry Merry Giftmas.
Fucking ridiculous name.
“You coming in or what?” a voice asked as it moved past me, feet crunching in the snow that had accumulated over the shoveled parking lot.
The older man’s arms were full of unwrapped toys as he made his way to the door, pausing to shoot a frustrated look over his shoulder at me until I ambled forward and pulled it open for him.
I moved in after him, expecting a blast of warm air, but it was almost as cold inside as it was out.
The door closed, and a shower of icicles crashed down outside.
The inside of the building was as bleak as the outside—exposed brick walls, dirty windows, and paint-and-oil-splattered floors from whatever this place had been before the charity took it over.
Wind whistled in from a busted window, and a woman stood just below it, trying to wrap a present with gloved hands, making the tape keep getting stuck to the material until she was leaning her head back and sighing at the ceiling.
The place wasn’t as packed as I thought it might be, considering it was right in the heat of the holiday season.
The economy was in a sticky spot. I guess people were tighter with their donations than usual.
Across from the gift-wrapping station was another long table.
This one was lined with folding chairs. All but one was occupied by volunteers still in their jackets, hats, and gloves.
In front of each of them were stacks of notebooks and steaming cups of coffee.
Each of them had a phone pressed to their ears, begging strangers for cash.
I don’t know what I was expecting.
But it was kind of bleak.
How the hell would the truck be full enough to hide our merchandise?
I was about to turn around, haul my ass back to Lorenzo’s place, and tell him that we were just gonna have to figure out another way of getting our shit into the city, when an internal door burst open.
And there she was.
In a hideous fucking oversized red, green, and white chunky sweater with elbow pads. It was clearly meant for a man, and it swam on her tall, thin frame. She had it paired with a pair of green corduroy wide-leg pants that she had cinched tight with a black belt.
It wasn’t her weird-ass fashion choices that made me decide to hang around a little longer. Nah, that was all about her face.
She was gorgeous, almost pixie-like, with wind-blown black hair that fell just below her sharp jaw. Her high cheekbones were flushed from the cold, and there was a cute-as-fuck smattering of freckles over her nose.
From a distance, it was hard to be sure of the exact color, but she seemed to have dark eyes framed in thick lashes.
It didn’t look like she had a speck of makeup on, but she was still pretty enough to be a kick to the gut.
“How’s it going?” she asked the people at the table as she hugged a clipboard to her chest.
Damn, that voice.
It had a husky edge to it that gave me all sorts of ideas about what it would sound like in my ear with her body under mine, with her arms and legs wrapped…
Christ.
No.
“I got five grand out of that doctor,” one of the women said. “But only because I laid on the guilt thick.”
“Hey, whatever works,” the woman said, reaching for her clipboard to jot something down. “That’s two hundred more kids with a Christmas present. Good job.”
She checked in with the other people on the phone and stopped to compliment the wrappers before her gaze finally landed on me.
“Oh, hey,” she said, putting on a customer service smile as she walked closer. “Are you here to donate toys?”
“Nah. To, uh, volunteer.”
“Oh! Great. We can always use another set of hands. What is your specialty? Gift wrapping?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t exactly getting ‘master of the tape dispenser’ vibes from you. Well, I’m about to hit the street to try to drum up some donations, if you want to come. I’m Steph, by the way.”
“Steph,” I repeated.
“Stephanie Bovalino,” she said, tucking her clipboard to thrust a hand out toward me.
Something told me that touching this woman was not a great idea. But I took it anyway.
“Venezio.”
“Venezio. That’s a unique name. Well, Venezio, welcome to the team.”
“Are you in charge around here?” I asked, not seeing anyone else around who seemed to have any sort of power.
“That’s me. The new director.” She reached up, running a hand through her hair, making it fall messily around her face. A nervous tic. Like maybe she wasn’t comfortable in the role yet. She seemed young for it. Probably inexperienced. And worried about what everyone thought of her because of it.
“Yeah, wasn’t it some old guy before?”
“Irving, yeah. He passed away around Thanksgiving, unfortunately. This place was seconds away from closing down without him.”
“Until you stepped in.”
“That makes it sound a lot more heroic than it is.”
“Dunno. Giving gifts to kids who wouldn’t have any otherwise, seems like the kinda shit a hero does.”
“Maybe. The problem being that Irving was the one with all the connections in the community. And me, well, the only connections I have are at a law firm and a hospital.”
“You a lawyer or a nurse?”
“Neither. My best friend’s girlfriend is a nurse. And my mom was in and out of the hospital a lot before she passed. But, yeah, the nurses and aides aren’t exactly rolling in it. I shook down all the doctors I could, though. And literally every twenty bucks really adds up.”
She gave me this whole story as we walked across the warehouse.
Getting to the coat rack, she put the clipboard between her legs so her hands were free to shrug into a white puffer coat that was so long it hung just below her knees.
“So where are we going?” I asked. I told myself it was because my job was to get close to her, to get to know her, to see if she was someone we could grease the palms of. But, honestly, I just wanted to tag along. Fuck knows for what reason.
“Upper West Side,” she said, yanking a Santa hat down on her head from a reusable grocery bag full of them. “We go hang out outside of the fancy grocery stores, jewelry places, gyms, and spas, and basically beg the rich people to give a damn about shelter kids.”
It was a big ask in a city where people literally walked past homeless people on the street every day without giving them a second thought.
But people tended to care about kids at Christmas.
“You have to play the part too,” Steph said, going back into the bag to grab another Santa hat, then reaching up to shove it down over my head. “There. Much better.”
Somehow I doubted that.
But I didn’t pull it off, either.
“Ready?”
“Sure,” I agreed, falling into step with her as she grabbed an oversized purse, then wrenched open the door and moved outside. “So, where do you put the money?” I asked as we walked.
“I mean, a lot of people write a check. Who even carries cash anymore?” Me. I carried cash. Always.
“But if they do give cash?”
“I just put it in a manila envelope in my bag,” she said, shrugging it off.
I couldn’t tell if she was naive. Or plain stupid.
I mean, no, this wasn’t the same city it was twenty or thirty years ago.
And, sure, the Upper West Side was a relatively safe, affluent area.
Muggings weren’t as pervasive as they’d once been.
But it was the holiday season. Every kind of crime was on the rise as people got desperate to get gifts for their loved ones.
I felt the familiar weight of my ankle holster—and the gun in it. She wouldn’t be getting robbed on my watch.
“So this is your first year with Giftmas?” she asked as we made our way down to the subway platform.
“Yeah.”
“Not much of a talker, huh?” Steph asked.
“No.”
“Well, I can talk enough for the two of us,” she said. “Did you just hear of the charity?”
“Yeah, just yesterday.”
“And you decided to come right over?” she asked, pressing a hand to her heart.
“Yeah.” But I felt guilty for the look of awe in her eyes. I didn’t earn that shit, that was for sure.
“We could use more people like you,” she said as we made our way on the train.
Steph went right for one of the bars.
“Get up,” I said, stepping in front of a little shit-starting kid like I’d been once upon a time. I could spot fuckers like younger me a mile away.
“Fuck off,” he shot back.
“Get up,” I demanded again, reaching down to grab him by the front of his hoodie and yank him off his seat. “Babe,” I invited, waving Steph toward the now-abandoned seat.
I noticed her deer-in-the-headlights eyes but she slid into the seat.
“Who the fuck you think you are?” the kid, embarrassed, snarled at me as I led him a few feet away before releasing him.
“Shut up.”
“Who do you—” he started, charging at me.
“Keep it up, kid. Who you working for? ‘Round here… Matty? Derick? Miguel? Miguel,” I repeated when his eyes flickered. “Keep it up and me and Miguel will have some words.”
His chest stayed puffed, but his face looked a little less sure. “Miguel ain’t scared of nobody,” he insisted, chin jerking up.
“No? Tell him Venezio says hi. See who he ain’t scared of then. You give your seat to women and old people, you little shit,” I told him before turning and making my way back toward Steph.
Her eyes were glued to me as I approached.
“You really didn’t need to do that.”
“Yeah, I did. Who else is gonna teach these kids manners and shit?”
I didn’t have a family to do it for me either. I’d been a smart-ass kid taking up a valuable seat when I was a teen. And got my ass dragged up out of it by some six-six tank of a man whose old lady and baby needed a place to sit.
“Well, thanks, I guess. This is the first time I’ve sat down since five this morning. My feet have a pulse,” she admitted, flexing her feet up and down.
“What were you doing at five?”
“Meeting a truck. It came in earlier than we expected. Especially with the snow. Someone needed to be there to unload it.”
“Where’d the truck come from?” I asked, figuring this was the kind of shit Lorenzo wanted to know.
“A wholesale toy place. I have been really trying to find the best deals possible. There are so many kids who need gifts.”
Maybe we didn’t need to grease her palms.
Maybe I could just get her to trust me enough to let me be the one to unload the trucks.
It was an idea to float, at least.
“We don’t have a bell or bucket?” I asked as we stood outside a grocery store.
“We have two bells and buckets. Other volunteers are out with those. Upper East and Midtown. So we just have to hustle a little hard—Hi! Would you like to donate to make sure all shelter children get a present this year?” she asked as someone walked out the front door.
“Oh, uh, sure,” the man said, reaching into his wallet to produce a fifty.
And, yeah, for a normal person, that was generous. But unfortunately for this guy, being with the Costas meant I knew my watches.
“Fifty?” I asked as Steph put the cash in her purse. I ignored her wide eyes. “That watch is worth, what, eighteen grand, and fifty is all you can do for homeless kids?”
“Venezio,” Steph whisper-yelled at me.
But the guy was already going back into his wallet, handing over another bunch of fifties and a hundred.
“Better. Happy Holidays and all that shit,” I said, taking the cash.
“Venezio, that was too much.”
“Yeah?” I asked, fanning the cash before passing it to her. “But now that’s sixteen kids getting presents instead of two.”
She looked torn at that.
“Can’t argue with results,” I added.
“Okay. But maybe just… a little gentler.”
“Not really good at kissing ass.”
“Alright. I’ll let you take the lead.”
And stand behind her and silently intimidate people until they emptied their wallets or wrote a check.