Son of the Mob (10 page)

Even during the heavy heat that came after the Calabrese murder, with the cops and CNN dug into the lawn, I remember her serving pot roast and saying things like “Vincent, what did you learn in school today?”

When any of us are in transit, you can tell Mom is off her game. The traffic report is blasting on the radio, and trust me, she doesn't care what roads are moving well. She's listening for accidents so she can stew over whether any of her loved ones are spread out all over the highway, bleeding.

“Mom, that pileup is in Jersey. What are you so worried about? Was Dad going to Jersey today?”

“How should I know where he's going?” she says in a wounded tone. “Your father doesn't provide me with an itinerary.”

Actually, it's Agent Bite-Me he doesn't provide with an itinerary. Mom just happens to live in the same house as the FBI's microphones.

After producing food in mass quantities, worrying is her primary occupation. It's annoying, but I have to consider that her irrational fears are a cover-up for much more rational ones. Let's face it, how many guys in my father's position die at home in bed? Being his wife can't be easy.

When I finally get my hands on the computer, Tommy hangs around to watch me work on my Web site. Work may not be the word I'm looking for. It's more like sitting there in mute wonder. I now have over five hundred hits, and 187 ads in Meow Marketplace.

For sale: My cat Excelsior, age 3, knows how to quack. A real show-off. $500—T.S.

“How can a cat
quack
?” I yell at the screen.

“Must be a trained cat,” puts in Tommy. “That's why he costs five hundred bucks.”

“There is something very messed up going on here,” I insist. “There are, like, twenty people who call their cat a prime minister! Or a movie star!”

“They live with
cats
,” he explains reasonably. “They're freaks.”

My head is spinning. “I mean, sure they think their cats are great! Cute! Furry! Not prime minister!”

“Maybe it's cat lingo,” my brother reasons. “Every crowd has its own words for stuff. Like you Web site guys talk about getting hits, but in my business, a hit is something completely different.”

The front door slams, and I listen for Mom to unload on Dad about being late. But she's sweet as pie, which usually means he has someone with him.

Tommy and I head for the atriumlike entranceway where Dad and Uncle No-Nose are taking off their jackets.

“Dad, I need to talk to you,” I say. “Downstairs.”

He raises his eyebrows but starts for the basement.

Uncle No-Nose shrugs back into his coat. “I should get going. I've got a few errands in the city.”

“No!”
I blurt out. Then, a little more composed, “I think you should hear this too, Uncle.”

Now I've got his attention. My noninvolvement in the business is legendary among the uncles. It's the one rule that everybody follows—everybody except Dad and Tommy.

Downstairs, homemade rocking chairs await us. They were regular chairs in blueprints, but Anthony Luca's carpentry tends to have the same effect as a fun-house mirror. Dad sits in the best of the four, daring us to comment.

I hand over the nine hundred fifty dollars. “From Ed Mishkin,” I explain.

Uncle No-Nose is confused. “Why'd he give it to
you
?”

“Vince is a big player now,” Tommy says in disgust.

“I am not,” I say heatedly. “I'm just helping the guy out because he's ready to pull the plug on his aunt's ventilator, and I don't think anyone should be that desperate.”

“That guy's only desperate because he's a skirt chaser,” snaps Tommy. “And that's an expensive hobby.”

“I'll straighten this out,” Uncle No-Nose promises.

“You've got your money,” I interject. “What difference how it comes to you?”

Tommy looks at me. “These guys you love so much—you know they're dirtbags, right?”

Uncle No-Nose turns to my father, trying to gauge the boss's opinion on all this. Smarter people than No-Nose have tried and failed to read Anthony Luca. And I include myself and a whole lot of U.S. attorneys on that list.

Finally, my father speaks. “You know I'm interested in this, Vince. You're a man now, and the choices you make show the world who you are. So tell me, is this the real you? Are you dedicating your brains to baby-sitting a couple of lowlifes?”

“You've got to let me do this,” I insist. “It's important to me.”

“They're playing you like a piano!” Tommy roars.

“Then it's my decision who I get played by,” I say stubbornly.

Dad speaks to Uncle No-Nose first. “Nose, you get a pass on Ed Mishkin for a while. However bad my son screws it up, it's no reflection on you. And your points stay the same.”

Uncle No-Nose looks surprised. “You got it, Tony. But it doesn't make any sense.”

“No kidding,” Dad sighs. To me he says, “Go find yourself. And don't take too long doing it.”

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

O
F ALL
K
ENDRA'S GOOD
qualities, this has to be number one: she never holds it against Alex that he can't stand her. Think about it. He hates her for no other reason than the fact that she's my girlfriend. Which means there's nothing she can do short of breaking up with me that will make him like her any better. It's a classic no-win situation. Yet while she finds plenty to complain about where I'm concerned, she never utters a single word against Alex.

In fact, she tries really hard not to leave him out of things. She invites him along to movies and to hang out with us at the mall. And he always accepts, which is pretty weird, because every minute he spends with us, he's totally miserable. I know it, and he knows I know it.

“If you're not having fun,
stay home
!”

He glares at me. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“No!” I insist. “We invited you. We want you to come. But if you hate it—”

“There's nothing to do at home,” he grumbles.

Next Christmas, I should buy him a satellite dish.

Kendra bends over backward to be nice to the guy. She even lets him listen to her K-Bytes karaoke tapes, which he professes to love. I know for a fact that he made a copy for himself and dubbed in thirty minutes of strategically placed burps and raspberries. I saw the cassette cover. In between
K
and
Bytes
, he scribbled the word
really.

This is my best friend in the world. What am I supposed to do? He's not going to change, and I'm not going to dump Kendra. Stalemate.

So we're in the multiplex on Saturday. Kendra and I are watching the movie while Alex spits Gummi Bears at the screen because he hates Gwyneth Paltrow almost as much as he hates Kendra.

The mall always seems extra bright after two hours in the dark. We're standing there, squinting in the light, when a voice from above calls, “Hi, honey.”

Kendra turns and looks up at the mezzanine. “Hi, Daddy.”

My bones turn to Jell-O. A man is heading toward the elevator on the upper level where the offices are. Her father. Agent Bite-Me.

My voice, when I can finally access it, sounds like a two-year-old with a stomachache. “He's coming
here
?”

Kendra nods. “He had a dentist appointment, so I thought we might run into each other.”

“No!” I croak. I catch a glimpse of Alex, who's smiling for the first time in days.

Kendra gapes at me. “Vince, what's the problem? You got something against a free cup of coffee?”

The elevator is on its way down. “We talked about this!” I rasp.

Storm clouds are gathering on her brow. “This isn't the same thing,” she says sharply. “This is ‘How's it going?' and maybe ten minutes over coffee. It won't kill you.”

The elevator stops at the mall level. “I can't meet him.”

“What, is there another girl somewhere?” she demands.

“You've got it all wrong—”

“You're
never
going to admit we're together!”

“No—”

But my feeble protests are no match for the Wrath of Kendra. “You must have a screw loose!” she exclaims. “If you can't do this, you and I are through as of this second! Give me one good reason why you can't shake hands and introduce yourself to my dad!”

Agent Bite-Me is off the elevator now, threading his way through the shoppers toward us. I'm out of options. Considering that I always knew this moment would come eventually, I'm shocked, bewildered, and panicked. It's the proverbial rock and a hard place. I'm dead.

And then it just comes pouring out: “My father is Anthony Luca. He's a suspected Mob boss, and your dad has been trying to put him in jail for the past five years!”

If I whacked her upside the head with a dead fish, she couldn't look more thunderstruck. As we stand there, staring at each other, I realize that I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next. Over the past month and a half, I've come to know practically everything about this girl. But I don't have a clue what she's going to do now.

Suddenly, she wheels away from me, pulling Alex with her, and calls, “Over here, Dad. I want you to meet someone.”

If that's not a cue, I don't know what is. I melt into the crowd and hide behind the shirt rack in Banana Republic.

I hang around, sidling and spying, so much that mall security is eyeing me. I figure if those dummies notice me, I shouldn't take my chances with an FBI agent. I wander around the far side of the mall.

I'm freaking out. There are so many things that could go wrong here that I can't even count them all. Kendra could hate me now. She could be confessing everything to her father this very minute. Or worse, Alex could spill the beans accidentally on purpose, just because he can't stand it that I've got a girlfriend and he doesn't.

I struggle to kill time. There's a pet shop just off the food court, and I'm fascinated by a kitten in the window. The card reads: 6-
WK-OLD
calico, all shots. Not a word about a political career or a future in the entertainment industry. How come there aren't any cats like this on my Web site?

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Alex storming through the mall.

“Hey, wait!”

A burst of speed, and I'm in his path. “What happened? How did it go?”

“Oh, it was a barrel of laughs!” he spits back at me. “I've got the total green light to date his daughter. What's wrong with that picture?”

“How's Kendra?”

“How should I know?” he says bitterly. “I was too busy convincing her father what a fine upstanding young man I am. Story of my life. The parents all love me. It's their daughters who hate my guts!”

“Al-ex!”

“She's in the bathroom. The coast is clear. Her dad's gone home. I'm going to do the same, not that anybody cares.”

I start down the corridor to the washrooms. “I owe you,” I toss over my shoulder.

“You and the rest of the world,” I hear him retort.

I make up my mind that if she won't come out, I'm going into the ladies' room to get her. That should give mall security something to think about. But she does come out and stops dead in the doorway, gawking at me with an intensity that's almost scary. I stare back, trying to decode her expression. Is it over?

And then she hurls herself at me and grabs me, kissing me so hard that we stagger into the pay phone on the opposite wall. I recover and get with the program, but this is more than just a kiss and make up. This is frantic, passionate. Our teeth grind together, but we don't care. Our one purpose is to get close, really close. And there's an urgency to it that transcends all other priorities.

We spin off the cinder-block wall and knock into a stack of W
ET
F
LOOR
signs that go down like dominoes to the terrazzo.

“I don't care who your father is!” she breathes into my mouth.

“I don't care who
your
father is!” I breathe back.

Unbelievable. Turns out Kendra thinks we're some kind of cops-and-robbers Romeo and Juliet—star-crossed lovers from families that are mortal enemies. And I'm not much for locker-room talk, but I've got to say that it ratchets up the intensity level of our relationship about five hundred percent. Hey, if I knew this was going to happen, I would have told her about Anthony Luca on day one.

We finally talk it out in a secluded parking spot on Bryce Beach, the very scene of my debacle with Angela O'Bannon. It's freezing at the shore, but we're generating our own heat, and the windows are too steamed up for us to bother with the view.

She says, “I don't even think I know what a Mob boss does.” Her head is on my shoulder, and she twists to look up at me. “How pathetic is that for an agent's daughter to be so naïve?”

“Not pathetic, lucky,” I tell her. “I'd give anything to go back to the days when my father was the best dad in the world, with no asterisks.”

“I'm sick of being Little Miss Innocent,” she says suddenly. “Give me the job description. What is it that's so important that my father has to put in fourteen-hour days and run himself into the ground?”

I shake my head. “I'm the low man on the totem pole at our house. There's only one thing I have control over: I have nothing to do with Dad's business. That's the way I stay me in our family.”

All at once, so many things can make sense between us: my phony jobs; the real reason I quit the football team; why I don't park near her door; why I call her on a cell phone. She seems amazed that the FBI is allowed to bug our house.

“The point is, you can't ever come over,” I explain. “Even if I can bluff you past my folks, your dad would recognize your voice on the surveillance tapes.”

“What if we give you a fake name?” Kendra suggests thoughtfully. “Then I could ‘break up' with Alex and introduce you as Bernie or somebody.”

“No good,” I sigh. “Your father knows my face. The FBI watches the place, too. They even took pictures at my sister's wedding. Dad asked them to make up a special album, but it didn't go over very well.”

She looks determined. “We can't judge them, Vince. Your side or mine. We're going to have to keep out of it and let them do what they do. We just have to stay focused on us.”

I agree with her. But my mind is already wandering to the rumors of an inside man in the Luca organization. If that man exists, and Agent Bite-Me is about to bring an indictment against my father, how will I feel about Kendra then?