She gives me a look of disgust.
“Get in the fucking car,” I growl, opening the car door for her.
She climbs in hesitantly, anger pouring off her like rain. I don’t care. I want her away from here.Who knows what Junior would do if he woke up and realized one of the dancers knocked him out cold?
There’s silence in the car the whole ride.
“Are you okay?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the road, or the rear view mirror.
“Yeah, wonderful. I got rainbows spurting out my ears and sunshine pouring out of my ass.”
“You beat the shit out of him. He could have hurt you.” I’m trying to be as calm as I can, but I want to scream at her—warn her about who we are.
“No, he couldn't have,” she laughs.
“You think you’re special? You think Tony isn’t going to punish you for hurting one of his guys? Humiliating Junior—days after his father gets gunned down?”
“Nope. I’m not special. At all.” That’s all she answers with—she’s not saying she’s worried about what Tony or Junior are going to do to her in the light of day. And she’s so aloof about the situation she flips down the sun visor and looks at herself in the mirror. Then she lathers some of that glossy watermelon-smelling crap all over her lips.
“That's it? That's all you’re going to tell me? All you’re going to say?” I reach over and slam the visor back up, punching it into place.
“Yep.”
How many times am I going to warn her? I pull up in front of her place and scan the yard and house. It’s a nice place to live, good neighborhood. Supposedly she has the top floor to herself. She probably doesn’t even need to dance, does she? “You don't even like dancing there, do you? You don't move like the other girls, you don’t even talk like them, you talk like you went to Harvard.”
“Yeah, well maybe I did.”
“Nah, you wouldn't be in this shit hole, letting men get off on your moves.” I know it’s a low blow, but I’m calling a spade a spade. Tony calls his girls whores, and she’s one of them.
“You know what, Corrado? You don't like working there either.”
She had me there. "Tony doesn't give people a choice."
"Bullshit, it's something else," she says, turning her body to face me.
"Yeah, you think so?"
"Yeah," she says, leaning back on the window.
She’s jerking me around. She knows who Tony Fretolli is. And that means she knows who I am too. But I’ll play this game with her. “Okay. Okay, do you know who I am? My old man was Luciano Fretolli? Tony’s brother.” I look at her, waiting for some sort of a response.
She doesn’t even blink.
How the hell does she not even blink?
“So Tony Fretolli? He’s my uncle. Anthony and Luciano and their best friend Angelo were the top guys in the Acerbi crime family. Angelo being the boss. Igrew up in that family.”
“Good for you,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Good for me? Does she not know? Could there be someone in this city that didn’t hear about the massacre? Doesn’t she watch the news? Read the newspaper? “Ten years ago somebody put a hit out on my entire family. We lost a lot of people. Do you even realize who you’re stripping for? Goddammit, Felony—or whatever your real name is—He's Tony Fretolli. He's the God damn boss of the Acerbi crime family!”
“Yeah,” she says, covering her hand over a yawn. “I remember that in the news. I was a kid, though, but I remember it. You guys ever find out who did it?”
“No,” I growl at her crass, rude, uncaring attitude. “No one took responsibility for it. No one authorized it. But I have my theories.”
We stare at each other through the darkness of car, the only light around us coming from the soft glow of the street lamps that line the sidewalk.
She leans forward, a curious expression falling over her face. “Their families, the kids, they were killed too, right?”
