“Don’t ‘but Dad’ me. You’ll get the both of us put in a fuckin’ lime pit. Where’d you get the balls to do that?” my father said, his face turning red from outrage. “There’s guys been in this town twice as long as you’ve been alive and never seen a dime off the casinos.”
“That’s not my fault.”
My father gnawed on one of his knuckles. “You still owe Teddy sixty. You know, sometimes I wonder why I took you in after your real father died. I could’ve just left you in a state home, you know.”
The pain pulsed through my body again, and for a moment this idea flashed through my mind that maybe both Vin and Teddy had something to do with what happened to Mike. But it was more than I could contend with. I loved Vin. In the back of my mind, I’d been thinking I could use some of my fight revenues to help him retire down to Florida. The thought that he was in a way responsible for Mike’s disappearance would’ve melted the glue that held my brain together. So I just forgot about it. For a while.
“Look, Dad,” I said. “We’ve talked about these casinos a long time, haven’t we? It’s the modern era. We both know Teddy’s way of doing things is over. You just don’t walk up to somebody and put a gun in their face to get their money.”
“But those were the days,” Vin said wistfully.
“Well, that time is gone. Now you have corporate heads instead of
“We’re a Cosa Nostra.” My father leaned on his golf club like it was a cane. “If you’d follow along and do the right thing by your padrone, you might get somewhere, and not just be another
“So that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to take a step up in the world. I mean we’ve been stuck outside the doors of these casinos since they opened up in ’78. And now that I got a foot in there, you wanna break it off. I don’t understand it, Dad. You work for this man your whole life and what’ve you got to show for it? You might as well have been working for General Motors all the gratitude it got you.”
Vin was still giving me that dubious look. “You should’ve come to me. We could’ve worked it out.”
“We still could. How’s Teddy going to know unless somebody tells him? What I’m doing with the fight at the casino is my business. Nobody else from the Family is involved. Why do I owe him anything?”
He stared off into space a moment, like he was trying to figure out a magic trick. The golf club had moved a couple of inches away from my leg.
I looked at him and tried to bend my leg. What I was feeling was all tangled and jumbled-up. On the one hand, Vin had just given me a pretty good beating. On the other hand, I couldn’t accept that he was a threat to me. My life just didn’t make sense that way. Vin was my protector. I had a blind spot about his flaws. So I worked it around in my mind this way: everything bad he’d done was because of Teddy. Teddy was the reason he’d gone to jail for killing the guy over the parking space. Teddy was the one who’d controlled him all the years since then. And Teddy was the reason he’d just hit me with the golf club. Teddy was the one we both needed to get away from.
“Listen,” I said, “don’t worry about any of that. The less you know, the less chance there is of Teddy hearing about it.”
He started to argue again, but I put my hand up. “Right here and now, I’m making you a guarantee that you’re gonna see at least a hundred thousand dollars in the next few weeks. That’s a hundred thousand you won’t have to share with Teddy. Come on. Live a little for once in your life. Be independent.”
“I don’t wanna be independent, I wanna be loyal to my
“Then let me be independent,” I said. “I never pledged myself to Teddy. Don’t I deserve a chance to live?”
My father rumbled like an old garbage truck, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Hey, listen,” I tried to cheer him. “I’ll make sure you have the best seats at the fight.”
Vin was still looking down at the golf club, like he was trying to decide if he wanted to use it again. Some kind of emotion passed across his face. A more complicated expression than I was used to seeing on him. But it was gone before I could read it.
“One other thing,” he said, putting the golf club down. “I want you to stay away from that girl you been running around with.”
“Who?”
“What do you mean ‘who?’ I know who. The blonde down at the club people been seeing you with. Teddy finds out you’ve been stepping out on his niece, he’ll cut your dick off and stuff it in your mouth.”
I dropped my eyes, feeling abashed. “I think she’s kind of done with me anyway.”
“Good,” said my father. “You shouldn’t have people talking about you like that. This is a decent family.”
41
THE OLD MAN’S HAIR was a joke, Rosemary found herself thinking the next night. It stood straight up, like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. But his face was a warning to take him seriously. Clenched jaw, missing teeth, a nose that had been broken at least a half dozen times. His eyes looked like they’d seen hellacious things. His hands looked like they’d done worse.
“I hear you been seeing my boy,” he said, leaning on her dressing table.
They were standing in her dressing room a few minutes before show time. When he’d first walked in and introduced himself, she was suspicious about how little he looked like Anthony. But then she remembered this wasn’t his real father.
“So what business is this of yours?” she asked.
“His business is my business. That’s the way it is in our family.”
He began picking up mascara and lipstick cases off her table, and looking at each of them. He seemed like the kind of person who thrived on knocking things down and putting them in his pocket.
“We had an arrangement.” Rosemary hitched up the strap of her orange bikini top. “I don’t see why that should concern anyone else.”
“He’s married, that’s why.” The old man dropped one of her lipsticks into a garbage can. “He’s married with two kids and another on the way. That’s why it’s my concern.”
“I understand that. But we still had an arrangement.”
“Your arrangement is off. Pack your bags. You’re outa here.”
With one sweep of his arm, he knocked the rest of herlipsticks and mascaras to the concrete floor. And then he looked up with eyes the color of hot coffee, almost daring her to make something of it.
Rosemary stared at him. She’d once read a newspaper story about a woman chopped up and left in an oil drum, and wondered what kind of man would do such a thing. Now she knew. What surprised her was that she wasn’t more scared. But then again, maybe somewhere between losing a child and getting into the back of Honda Preludes with strange men, she’d lost her fear of the worst that could happen.
“Does Anthony know you’re talking to me about this?”
“Anthony’s like his mother,” the old man said in a voice as dead as stone. “He flies off the handle sometimes and he needs someone to bring him back.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
He showed her a half-smile and a few more broken teeth. “What’re you, tough? You like to talk back?” He took a step toward her and raised his arm, like he was getting ready to backhand her across the room.
“I just want what we agreed to.” She pulled out some of the bikini that was sneaking up her butt again. She wished she had something more substantial back there for protection. “A deal’s a deal.”
“Pack your fucking bags and don’t ever let me see your face again,” he said. “You can pick up your last paycheck in the parking lot.”
She raised her chin, like she was giving him a free shot at it. “It better have every dime I’m owed, or I’ll make a stink about that too.”
