There was only did or didn’t. Yes or no. Anytime there was a “but” attached, it was a fucking excuse.
“Is that the kid?” Adriano narrowed his eyes, stuck a hand over his eyebrows, and then blew out a hot breath.
I followed the line of his sight. “Yeah, that’s him. He said he’d be wearing a black turtleneck.”
“In this fucking heat?” He scrunched his face up, narrowing his eyes even more. “He looks like a mini version of Roy Orbison. Even down to the glasses and the fucking hair.”
“You going to run out of breath if you keep talking and walking,” I said.
“I’m easily susceptible to things,” he said. “That’s why I have to take steroids sometimes.”
“More of a reason to take care of yourself then,” I said.
“I still can’t get over this guy,” he said, staring at the kid again. “He’s Roy Orbison the remake. CRYING!” he started to sing. “I’m CRYING.”
This fucking guy. I shook my head.
“I bet Bugsy would love to meet ’im.” Adriano wiped sweat from his forehead.
I grinned because Adriano was right. Bugsy would. The fucking kid didn’t even need a costume for Halloween. He channeled Roy Orbison from wherever he had gone.
“You think Alcina is going to wonder why we’re going to meet this kid?”
We were close to meeting up with him. Calcedonio had set it up with his old man, and he was waiting in the exact spot in the park we had agreed on. It was far enough from my wife and family that they wouldn’t come looking for me or overhear anything.
“No,” I said. But after I’d gotten up, so had she, holding Eleonora as she watched me walk away until she couldn’t anymore.
“Dum dum dum,” Adriano sang as we got even closer. “Only the lonely…”
I shot him a look. He made a motion against his lips, like he was turning a key, and as we passed a trash can, he threw it away.
The kid held his hand out when we got close enough. “Gene Champollion, at your service.”
I held my hand up. “We’re good.” I could tell his hand was clammy from wearing a fucking sweater in the heat.
He looked at Adriano and just nodded. Adriano nodded back. “You look just like Roy Orbison,” he said. “I had to tell you that.”
Gene nodded. “I get that a lot.”
“’Cause it’s the fucking truth,” Adriano said.
“Give me what you have,” I said, stopping any further conversation. There was no telling what the fuck Adriano was taking, and it was making him chatty. Usually my men took care of things like this. But this wasn’t business. This was personal.
Gene stood up straighter. “To tell you the truth, sir, nothing.”
“Your old man said you’re the best,” I said. “His exact words to my man were, ‘there’s nothing he can’t find.’”
“In my entire fifteen years, there’s nothing I haven’t found when I looked. Even the government wants me. This is a first.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and he visibly started sweating even more. He wasn’t hot. He was scared shitless.
“The thing is,” he said, sighing, “I’m pretty sure someone was fucking with me the entire time. I found a few things—a picture, easy shit like that—but when I’d go back, they’d be gone.Poof.Like they never existed in the first place.”
“You couldn’t find one thing on Vittorio Scarpone.”
“Two.” He lifted two fingers. “He was the son of Arturo Scarpone, and his father allegedly had him killed. The second article was about the slayings of the Scarpone family at a restaurant named Dolce. There were actually a bunch of those, but only one or two actually mentioned Vittorio.”
“No pictures,” I said.
