Kingpin (An Italian Mafia Romance) (23 page)

“So, what’s work gonna be like today?” I inquire. Not because I’m trying to make small-talk, but because I really want to know.

“Well, I’ve done all my paperwork stuff—new girl stuff, as I call it. So, I might be seeing patients today and working the nurse’s station. I’m actually kind of nervous about it.”

“Why? You did this in Alaska, right?”

“Yeah,” she answers, looking out the window at the big city buildings. “But this is my first time seeing patients here, and working with these nurses is a whole new challenge in itself. Not to mention the new doctors—learning how they like things done, and which ones of them are assholes. It’s a whole new adventure.”

“You’re gonna do great,” I reassure her. “All you have to do is be yourself, and you can’t go wrong.”

I feel her eyes on me.

“Thank you,” she says.

I take my eyes off the road for a second just to look over and see her smile. It shakes me to my core, and I love it.

When we get to Mercy, I’m pissed that we got here so fast. I drive under the overhang, put the car in park, and I clinch her hand so she can’t get out.

“I don’t want you to go,” I kid.

“I know, but I have to,” she says, beaming. “I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?”

I sigh as I let her leave.

“Okay.”

She leans over and kisses me softly on the lips, then she gets out and walks into the hospital without looking back.

When the sliding glass doors close behind her, my phone chimes again. I pull it from my pocket and read the message from Charlie.

Charlie:
We followed him to a house. 1212 Douglas Ave . . .

This time, I send a reply message.

Me:
Go inside and say hello. I’m on my way.

It’s a decent-looking house from the outside. Medium-sized with red bricks and a short little driveway with lots of cracks in it. It’s not the driveway or the house I hone in on—it’s the black Lincoln Denali parked out front. The second I pull up to the curb I know it’s the same vehicle from Isle of Capri. This is the house of the motherfucker who tried to shoot me in my own casino. This is the guy who sent bullets buzzing over my head, only inches away from Alannah.

I park across the street from where Tommy’s Maroon Durango is sitting, and I quickly make my way inside. I don’t waste time looking around like you see in the movies, because all that does is guarantee that you look suspicious to everyone who might be watching, plus give them multiple angles to see your face. I keep my head down and speed-walk up the sidewalk. Skinny Joe opens the door for me so I don’t have to knock, and the second I enter the old house, I see my crew standing around a black guy who’s tied to a chair with thick rope in the middle of the living room.

The house looks like it can’t possibly belong to just this one guy, because it’s neat and tidy inside. There’s no clothes or porno magazines on the floor. There’s bookshelves covered with books and crystal ornaments. When I see it all, I start to wonder if we’re going to have company soon. We might have to make this quick, so I turn my attention to Charlie, who’s standing over the black guy, wearing blue coveralls and holding a tiny wooden baseball bat that’s already got blood on it.

“Okay,” I say, glancing at the bald kid with the blood dripping from his mouth onto the stomach of his black t-shirt. “So, tell me Charlie, who the fuck is this guy?”

“This here is Anthony Bennet. He works at Lumiere Place,” Charlie says, pointing the bat at the kid’s face. “I asked around about the car you described, and a few of our people said they recognized it. So, I went to the places they said they saw it. It was too fucking easy to find this guy dropping off his grandma at bible study this morning. We spotted him and followed him back here. Anthony was just telling us about his employer, Abram Baskov. Ain’t that right, Anthony?”

The kid puts his head down like he’s ashamed. Blood drips from his mouth, and I can see his face is already swelling up. The guys didn’t waste any time putting Charlie’s bat to use.

I step in front of the kid and size him up. He’s skinny, maybe a buck fifty-five, maybe five-foot-nine or somewhere close to it. He doesn’t have any hair on his head, and he looks like he can’t be any older than twenty-two. I bend over until my face is directly in front of his. He doesn’t look up at me, and it makes me madder.

“A couple of nights ago, you had all the balls in the world,” I say softly in his ear. “You parked your fucking ride outside the restaurant of my casino, and you confidently shot at me while I was having dinner. You had a lot of fucking balls then. So, why don’t you lift your fucking head like a man? Look at me, you motherfucker!” I scream, and the kid jolts in his seat.

Slowly but surely, he raises his head and makes eye contact.

“There he is,” I say with a smile. “So, Anthony Bennet, do you know who I am?”

He nods his head.

“And what do you know about me, Anthony?”

“Nothing,” he whimpers.

“Nothing? I’m confused. If you don’t know anything about me, why’d you try to kill me?”

“He told me to, but he didn’t tell me nothing about you.”

“Who the fuck is
he
?”

He hesitates like he doesn’t want to be a rat, but we all know he’s going to tell.

“Abram,” he says, then he lets his head slide down until his chin is in his chest.

“What exactly did Abram tell you, Anthony?”

“He told me he had something he wanted me to do. Said he’d pay me five grand. So, I told him I was down, and he showed me a picture of what you look like. Then he said he knew you had reservations at some casino where it’d be easy to get you. So, I went there at the time he said to go, and I did what he told me to do.”

“Oh, no you fucking didn’t, asshole,” Skinny Joe barks from his seat on the plastic-covered couch. “You tried, but you fucking missed. You’re a shitty shooter, Anthony. Not a good trait for a penniless, freelance hitman who lives with his grandmother.”

The four of us who
aren’t
about to die chuckle together, but I don’t let it last long. This business needs tending to.

“Okay, Anthony, I don’t wanna drag this out, so I’m gonna get right down to it,” I say as I take a seat next to Skinny Joe and light up a Cuban. “You don’t know me, and I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression, so it’s important that I’m honest with you. You’re gonna die here in a few minutes, Anthony. However, before you die, I have one more question. Have you spoken to Abram since your failed attempt on my life?”

Anthony tries to answer, but the words get choked up in his throat as tears start streaming from his eyes. He’s scared, which is understandable. He probably should’ve thought about that before he fired those bullets at me and Alannah.

“Look, I know it’s hard to accept impending death,” I say, trying to help the guy out. “But if you don’t answer my question, I’m gonna make sure my friend over there with the bat prolongs the dying process as much as possible, then I’m gonna make sure your grandmother finds your dead body with your fucking face smashed in the middle of her living room. So, do yourself and your grandmother a favor, and answer the fucking question.”

Anthony takes a deep breath and blows the air out.

“I spoke to him on the phone,” he says, his words coming out in a trembling heap.

“I see. What’d you tell him?”

“I called him right after I did it, and I told him it was done. I told him I got you, and he said he’d meet me with the money in a day or two, once things quieted down.”

“Has he paid you yet?”

“No.”

“Why’d you tell him you got me?”

“I thought I did. I didn’t have time to stick around and make sure, though. So, I assumed I did.”

“See, now that’s fucked up,” Skinny Joe starts up again. “Abram hires this
mulignan
to do a hit, then doesn’t even get around to paying the fucking guy before he gets wacked. So, you literally did that shit for nothing, man. That’s gotta fucking suck.”

Joe, Tommy, and Charlie all laugh as another tear slides down Anthony’s face. He’s absolutely terrified and I can see he regrets ever falling for Abram’s shit. Abram should’ve told him who he was dealing with, but he let the kid get fucked instead. I almost feel bad for the guy. Almost.

“Alright,” I say as I stand up. “Well, Anthony, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I was planning on making our little meeting last a lot longer, and for it to be much more painful for you. But I’m in a good mood today. I’m still wearing the same clothes I had on last night, and seeing as how I’m not a bum on the streets, you know that means I had a good night. So, since I’m in such a good mood, I’m gonna let you off the hook.”

Anthony’s head snaps up.

“So, you’re not gonna kill me?”

“No, I’m not gonna kill you, Anthony,” I reply, as I think of Alannah’s face and reach for the door. I latch on to that good feeling that she gives me, then I look at Anthony. “
I’m
not gonna kill you, but my friend, Charlie, is.” I look at Charlie. “Make it quick and get rid of the body. Clean up in here so his grandmother doesn’t know. She can think he ran off or something. After you dump him, find Abram, who apparently thinks I’m dead. That means his guard will be down, which is fucking perfect. I want this thing done and over with.”

Charlie nods and I turn to leave, but Anthony speaks up again.

“Come on, man,” he yells. “Cut me some fucking slack. I was just looking to make some money. I wasn’t trying to get involved in this life. Cut me some slack, please!”

I stop at the door and turn my head to look at Anthony, who’s trying his best to give me sad puppy eyes.

“Cut you some slack?” I snip. “Did you know you killed a guy that night? Some poor, innocent bastard took one of your stray bullets to the back of the head while he was eating his fucking mozzarella sticks with his wife. She’s a fucking widow now, probably crying over her dead husband as we speak. Can you go cut her some slack? Did you plan on cutting me some slack that night?”

Anthony puts his head down as he starts crying again.

“I thought not,” I say, then I nod the go-ahead to Charlie. “Call me when you find Abram.”

I stick my cigar in my mouth and walk out of the house, making sure the door closes behind me. I take the narrow sidewalk back to my car, and before I get halfway, I hear the silencer-suppressed gunshot that ends Anthony’s life.

Good riddance.

A
bram Baskov’s heart pounds in his chest as he watches Dominic Collazo climb out of his BMW and walk up to the house. He can’t fucking believe it—Anthony lied to him. He said he was sure he got Dominic when he fired all those shots through the window. It was over. It was done, and it was all bullshit.

The plan was to stop by Anthony’s house after he dropped his grandmother off at church, so he could give him the five grand he promised, but as Abram drove up the road, he saw someone he recognized. It was the big guy from the sit down at Lumiere Place. He knew it was the same guy Dominic had with him, no mistake about it, and he knew if he was going into Anthony’s house, there was no chance Anthony was ever going to see the light of day again. Abram figured the guy and his two friends were there to get revenge for the hit on Dominic, which is exactly why Abram hired Anthony—a young black kid who Abram doesn’t associate himself with. They weren’t supposed to make the connection to Abram, and for all he knows, maybe they didn’t. But once he saw Dominic show up, he almost started to panic.

Now, it’s been ten minutes since Dominic walked inside, and the door is opening again. Out strolls Dominic like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Abram can’t stand seeing him walk around like everything’s fine, knowing he just did something terrible to poor Anthony, who never saw any of this shit coming. Dominic gets in his car, but the other three guys are still inside, probably cleaning up the mess. Abram knows he has to do something. He has to get rid of this Collazo fucker, or he’ll never have peace. These fucking mob families always think they can just take what they want from people. Well, fuck that. It won’t happen this time, not to Abram.

He needs a plan, but Dominic is already driving away from the house, so he doesn’t have time to sit there when he already knows Anthony’s dead. So, he puts his truck in gear and follows the Italian.