Romeo of the Streets (14 page)

The thin, warped-looking hallway at the other side of the door stood in stark contrast to the svelte and stylish red and black décor of the club below. The walls were a faded, grubby yellow and there was no carpeting at all on the gritty wooden floorboards between them. He could hear a radio playing, as well as muffled voices coming through a door at the other end of the hallway. He walked down to it and knocked.

“Yeah?!”

“It’s Lou.”

“No shit! Come in!”

He opened the door and was surprised at how loud the music was on the other side—the men must have been shouting to talk over it—and he realized that the room had some kind of special soundproofing on the walls, nonetheless inadequate at keeping the noise in.

“Lou! Good to see you kid,” Sal called, “sit down.”

Sal was sitting behind a desk, his hair slicked back and his face marked with a thin film of sweat. He was wearing a black suit jacket and silky white shirt, several of the top buttons of which were open, unveiling a thick gold chain against his waxed and muscular chest. Behind him, further down the long, narrow room opposite a broad range of CCTV monitors, two older guys were dividing mounds of white powder into parcels and packing them up on a fold-out table. With their bulging necks, bald heads and grizzled faces, they looked to Lou like a cross between convicts and bouncers. Hell, at this place they probably
were
the bouncers. And if they weren’t convicts now, they probably had been at some point in their lives.

Trying his best not to show his discomfort, Lou sat down on the chair in front of Sal’s desk and grinned. Bizarrely, the music on the crackly old radio seemed to be some kind of upbeat old-timey salsa song and the temperature of the room was far hotter than anybody would find comfortable.

“Hey Sal,” he said, “how you doing?”

Sal picked up a half-smoked cigar from an ashtray and lit it. “Well,” he said, “I’m doing good Lou. I’m doing very good.” He pulled in a puff of blue smoke and then let it float from his lips into the atmosphere around him. Through the smoke, he considered his guest. “You want a cigar Lou?”

“Uh… sure.”

“These were a gift from Tony Bones up in Harlow,” Sal said as he produced a silver cigar case from one of the desk’s many drawers, “Cubans of the very finest variety. You know Tony?”

“Yeah,” Lou nodded, and then: “well no. I mean I never met him but I know who he is and all.”

“Relax,” Sal said, “you’ll meet him.” He held the case open for Lou and then lit a match, holding it out between thumb and forefinger for the younger man to light his cigar.

Lou took a drag, swirled it around in his mouth, as he was aware was the correct procedure, and then blew the smoke back out again. “Wow,” he said, “that’s a good cigar.”

“Yes it is,” Sal said. “Lou… Ferret and Eyeball, those little bastards, they tell me that your university operation is going very well for you fellas up there.”

“It is,” Lou nodded, “it’s going very well boss, that’s right.” For a second his eyes met with one of the two big behemoths packing powder at the other end of the room and he quickly looked away.

“What about these Wild Cat
fenooks
?” Sal asked, “These football players. Strangest crew I ever heard of.”

“Yeah, the Wild Cats,” Lou nodded, “we taught em a lesson. Now they work for us and not only that, they’re happy to as well. Eyeball schooled em, taught them how to make
real
bank. After he’d showed them all the tricks of the trade they thought we were gods.”

Sal smiled. “Drug-slinging 101 with Professor Eyeball and Assistant Ferret, something like that?”

Lou laughed, “Yeah, exactly. Good one Sal.”

The smile disappeared. “Yeah well even gods got to answer to someone. On the ground gods answer to priests. Or popes or some shit, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you remember who
you
answer to. You answer to me,
a’capice
?”

“Sure,” Lou nodded, “of course.”

“Those other two jackals might be your connect but you make sure you remember who’s really in charge of this operation…”

“Yeah,” Lou said, “you’re the boss Sal, I know.”

“Good boy. Good boy. You know, I don’t think any of us ever thought there could be that much hustle in this thing—we’ll all get rich on this, long may it last—and I want to tell you Lou, if things keep up we might even make a whole new crew someday especially for the campus area up there. And kid, if you play your cards right I could see myself handing that crew over to you, how does that sound?”

Holy shit, was Sal actually offering him his own crew? Lou wasn’t even a made guy yet and already this? Incredible.

“Well yeah, that sounds amazing Sal,” he said, “obviously—but what about Ferret and Eyeball?”

“Forget Ferret and Eyeball. They work for me, in
my
crew. I need them at my side, but you, well this operation has been your thing from the start, right? You and the Mancini kid. All I’m saying is keep it up and we’ll see where it takes us. I’ll have to be bumped up myself to have that kind of sway so we’re talking a couple of years down the line here at least. You just keep the money rolling in until then and we’ll see what happens,
a’capice
?”

“Sure Sal, of course,” Lou nodded.

“But listen, don’t let the vote of confidence go to your head, ok Lou? You ever think of skimming or downplaying the numbers, you just remember—somebody’s always watching over your shoulder.”

At that moment the door opened and Sal looked up sharply. “Candy! What the fuck? You don’t knock?”

Lou turned on his chair to see a decidedly sheepish looking blonde bombshell in a shiny pink bikini and gold stilettos standing in the door. In her hands she held a tray with his drink on it.

“Sal, baby,” she whined, her face contorted in horror, “I’m sorry, but Junie asked me to bring up your friend’s drink. It was too busy downstairs for her to get away.”

“Then Lou can get his own drink!” Sal shouted, a fleck of spit shooting from his mouth, “you don’t ever, EVER, come in to my office without asking first, you hear me?”

“But last night…”

“Fuggedabout last night!”

“I’m sorry Sal,” the stripper moaned.

“Fuggedabout it! Just give Lou his drink and get out of here! You ain’t seen nothing,
a’capice
?”

“Sure baby, a’capishe, like you say.”

“I ain’t your baby, I’m your boss, now get the hell out before I shove my boot up your ass.”

Candy hurried over to Lou and gave him his drink and he couldn’t help but check out her rack as she leaned over him to place the glass on the table. “Sorry Lou,” she said.

“Uh, no problem Candy. It’s cool.”

“Lou,” Sal grunted, “no, it’s not
cool
. Candy, get the hell out of here. You’re on your last warning.”

This time the stripper didn’t protest, rushing back to the door and whispering a solitary “sorry” as she stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her.

“That fucking broad,” Sal sighed, throwing up his hands, “oof! Nearly banged her last night would you believe, till we got distracted by a phone call.”

“Hey,” Lou shrugged, “who could blame you. She might not be so smart, but
Marone
! What a body…”

“Yeah,” Sal nodded, “yeah that’s right, what a body. Listen Lou, there’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about. You and your sister are close with that old Morelli bastard right? The one who owns the café?”

“Gino?” Lou said, “sure, what about him?”

“Well that guy owes us some money—a
lot
of money. In fact that’s why we roughed him up like that in the first place…”

Lou smiled, slightly confused. “What? What are you talking about Sal? Gino fell down the stairs, he doesn’t owe you any money. He would have mentioned something like that…”

“You telling me my own business kid?”

Sal stubbed out his cigar and crossed his fingers together in an arch, leaning forward. “Sure,” he said, “I didn’t mean for it to be so bad—Ferret and Eyeball, those fucking kids, you know how they get—but still the rules is rules and if you don’t pay, well you still have to
pay
.”

Lou felt like he’d been sucker-punched in the gut, all the air had escaped from his lungs. Between his fingers, the untapped build-up of ash on the end of his cigar dropped to the floor. Just what was Sal saying here?

“Hey watch it, you mook!” Sal barked, eyeing the fallen ash before peering back at Lou, a little closer this time. “Listen,” he said, “I know you was close to the guy, right? Him and your father, they used to go way back, correct? But you know the rules. The old man had gambling debts and so he had to pay.”

“Sure,” Lou nodded, still trying to make sense of what he was hearing, “but what do you want me to do about it?”

“Well look,” Sal said, “I hear the guy’s getting out of the hospital soon, ok, and since you’ve done so well with our operations up there at CCU I’m going to do you this little favor, as a mark of respect.”

“What is it Sal?”

“First things first: the guy has to pay. That’s just the way it is, you know I’m in the right here.”

“Uh yeah,” Lou nodded, “sure Sal, sure.” He felt sick now, dizzy, like he might faint at any moment, just buckle right over and collapse on the filthy floor of Sal’s dingy little office.

“But I’m going to allow
you
to be the one who collects the payment,” Sal continued. “And you can go about that whatever way you want, just as long as you make sure the old man knows that if he don’t pay up then we’re coming back for him and this time those legs will never heal again,
a’capice
?”

“Yeah,” Lou said, “of course… and thanks Sal, this means a lot to me. I just can’t believe Gino was stupid enough to get himself in the red like that in the first place.”

“That’s for him and you to talk about,” Sal said. “I’m wiping my hands clean of the matter. Oh yeah, and Lou? Tell him it’s another five grand on the vig, since we had to wait so long.”

After that Sal sent him away again, the untouched ginger ale going stale in its glass on the desk and the cigar only half smoked, stubbed out in the ashtray. One of the hoods in the back had informed Sal that they were done with their business, talking about how the city would be hit with a fresh snow storm that night and how winter wasn’t over yet or some kind of shit like that, and then the Capo had told Lou to get the hell out of there, which was fine by Lou. He just couldn’t get his head around the news about Gino. How had he ever gotten mixed up with those guys?

Now Lou was going to have to figure out some way to keep Sal and his crew from messing the old man up for good. Gino wouldn’t survive if he had to go through an ordeal like that again. No chance.

Stepping back onto the street outside (it was colder now and the sky was beginning to darken), Lou opened his phone and went to dial Romeo’s number. He hadn’t seen the guy for days and was beginning to wonder just what the hell he’d been up to.

That night at the café had been like a fairytale; magical, enchanting, incredible—and totally at odds with the harsh realities of the real world. Sure, alone at the candlelit table, just me, him and a bottle of wine, it had seemed like everything was exactly how it should be and nothing could ever come between us, but the next day—in the bright rationality of morning—it was clear that nothing in our circumstances had changed and neither, for that matter, had Romeo Mancini. Yes, I knew a deeper side to him now, but it was still only one half of the entire complicated package and the other half was dangerous. The other side to Romeo (which was also, I had to admit to myself, the
dominant
side) was lawless and destructive and it had already set the man on a path that could only lead to heartbreak for anybody who cared about him. What did those guys say, that it only ends two ways: prison or a bullet? I didn’t think I had in me to withstand such a tragedy and I certainly wasn’t going to stick around knowing that it was inevitably out there in front of him somewhere, immutable on the horizons of his life. I’d had enough heartbreak in my own lifetime for that. No, I had to admit to myself that this particular fairytale just wasn’t meant to be.

Gino’s rose for mom was resting on the window, bobbing gently in an old glass jar that I’d filled with water, reminding me to take it up to her that day. I was supposed to be in class but it had been a while since I’d last visited her so, coupled with the late night I’d had, I reasoned that it would be ok to break the rules just this once and ditch my studies to go see her. (And speaking of the late night, in case you’re wondering… nothing happened. Just that one kiss, which was magical enough in itself, thank you very much).

I took a bus out to the edge of the city where the nursing home was, this time wrapping the stem of the rose in a napkin and placing it in my inside jacket pocket, no longer feeling much like drawing the attention of any curious onlookers wondering what romantic hijinks I might have been up to the night before. It wouldn’t be easy, but my better judgment dictated that this time the romance would have to be avoided. Probably indefinitely, as far as Romeo was concerned.