“I am a man of many talents and connections,” was all he said. Frankie used his chopsticks to take a large bite of his egg roll, pushing the container of them closer and letting me pick one. How did he stay so calm? If this happened to my cousin, he wouldn’t be eating Chinese food with his kidnapping victim while she worked on a paper for class. He’d be in a meeting with his generals planning all-out revenge.
Frankie didn’t seem to have a care in the world. It annoyed me, and as I snatched up an egg roll from the container, I blurted out a simple question. “Are you really going to buy Vonnie a new car?”
Not only did he have the street picked up and his house fixed, but Vonnie’s car was nowhere to be found. Frankie chuckled, actually chuckled, as if he found Vonnie’s demand funny. Something else my cousin would not do. If you demanded anything from the Grandmaster, you should be prepared that the only thing you’d get was a bullet between the eyes. He didn’t take well to demands.
“Yes, but not a Camaro. She finds enough trouble on her own. A fast car could spell more of it.”
I nodded, pretending I expected his answer, and returned to my container of Chinese. A relaxed silence fell between us as we both ate.
My fork twirled in the Chinese noodles, and it gave me a moment to contemplate the afternoon. I felt safe beside Frankie, and that was pretty damn scary. While he’d been in the back room of the bakery meeting with the football team and one non-diligent detective, the bakery women split on whether they considered Frankie Zanetti a decent guy.
I kept my lips sealed because I’d already told them enough, but more than once I wanted to jump in and defend the smooth-talking man against the few women who had complaints. The biggest problem anyone had with Frankie was his chosen fashion, which not all of them admitted they could improve.
One thing about people who lived normal lives was their unbelievable ability to pretend crime didn’t happen all around them. Some people drove over the speed limit, others did illegal drugs, even more downloaded content from the internet, and then some people kept the other criminals in tow. People like Frankie and my cousin. Something no one admitted was the fact you needed a kingpin. They kept the crime under the radar and off the city streets—mostly—which allowed people at the bakery to go about with their lives. Without the ringleaders, they’d set the circus loose upon the town.
We all had our vices, but some of us pretended ours were better than others—me included.
That afternoon, as I’d been about to throw in my morality debate, one I enjoyed having with Westley, an older woman walked in to the bakery and stopped our conversation. She looked as if she’d been dropped out of right out of 1968 or she got lost on the way to Woodstock. She joined the conversation effortlessly as she took a place in the corner chair, and Vonnie brought her a cup of tea immediately.
It wasn’t her particular hippie dress or the way the women in the bakery knew exactly what she’d order, but her words that caused me to freeze.
“Just like most men in this town, Frankie would do anything to protect his family. Anyone who marries him must be prepared to hand over their firstborn to the family life.”
She didn’t clarify her meaning, but it was all too understood in the bakery. By everyone.
The mob.
How did I grow up with Westley, who became the largest crime head in Chicago, but I didn’t find myself mixed up with the mob until I made it to Pelican Bay? And what did the mob all the way out in Maine want with the Grandmaster’s cousin?
I hadn’t told Frankie who I really was to my cousin, and he didn’t volunteer the information either. It created more questions. Did he really think I was only a cousin, or had he figured out why the group of men were after me? Was Frankie really clueless, or were we both playing dumb?
Frankie had finished the second egg roll when I put down my fork and stared at him until our gazes met. “Will your first-born child be forced to live in New York?”
His head tilted to the side, and he stared at me, stabbing his chopsticks into his container. “No, any children I bring into the family will continue to lead operations here.”
My gaze dropped back to my container, which was now missing half of its contents. Delicious chicken and vegetables and I barely remembered eating. “Oh.”
So it wasn’t that Frankie’s next child had to become the new don of the family, but he’d be expected to continue the operation and increase the family stronghold, blah blah. I’d heard similar things from Westley. Only, his protégé didn’t have to be a family by blood. He said nepotism neutered the mob.
I broke our gaze, but Frankie never stopped staring at me. “What makes you ask?”
I shook my head, not wanting to answer but realizing he’d force it out of me eventually. “The bakery ladies,” I said, making it sound nonchalant as I waved one hand in the air. “They have a lot of opinions about you.”
Frankie leaned back in his chair, getting comfortable again. “Say no more. How is the paper coming?” he asked, jerking his chin toward the computer he’d purchased for me.
For the first time in over an hour, I turned back to the screen. “It’s okay. I need more.” I wanted to include a list and one more example before I got to the conclusion and tied all my theories together.
Frankie gathered his chopsticks from a Chinese container and dropped them into the trash next to his desk, folding the top over the white container to close it. “Look up No Nose from New York. He had some of the worst management skills. The man was practically a legend when it came to punishments. Even my father hated to do business with him.”
I took his suggestion and opened a new web browser on my computer typing in a few search terms until Frankie snorted in his seat across the desk.
“What’s so funny?” I asked as he scanned his phone screen. Was he making a deal? Fraternizing with my cousin over my ransom amount? Planning his next step in domination of Maine? Buying another rocket launcher?
He slipped his phone over to show me the screen and my mouth fell open as a large black cat jetted away from a cucumber someone placed behind it. “These cucumber videos are why I’m a dog person,” Frankie said, barely containing his laughter.
CHAPTER 13
Time stretched on and my fingers slowed as the copious amounts of MSG and the day’s events wore on my energy.
