Next to me, Junior speaks in whispers, "Jesus. That girl is perfect." A sheen of sweat drips down across his forehead and cheek. His hand flies up to wipe it off quickly.
She turns her back and bends straight down, her lips brushing past her knees, her perfect ass is all we can see. She melts like dripping honey across the stage, sticky, sweet, dirty. Bending and folding, stretching and sliding, as graceful as a ballerina, and as dirty as sin. She raises her hand, and a knife appears out of nowhere. Slipping the blade beneath the thin fishnet material between her breasts she slices through. The black material falls away and her perfect full breasts, shuddering with her breathing, are bared to all of us. Each man in here feels like it’s a special present just for him.
My fists tighten wondering how soft her skin would feel if I touched it. Her stomach quivers with exertion. The lightly inked lines of a tattooed snake coil fluidly across her right hip, its head dipping under the material of her leather and netted bottoms, as if hiding, waiting for just the right time to strike.
She dances and shows no more. Never any more. She doesn't have to. She just dances and slides that sharp blade across her flesh, never breaking skin, and never having to show more of it. Instantly the club reeks of sex.
The back door opens. Tony sticks his head out and smirks. "Gets quiet out here when that one dances. Every time." She's his best dancer, he knows this, there's a special twinkle in his eye even when he watches her. "Corrado, come in. Stop drooling over the girl."
I don’t want to miss the end of her set but I know it won’t do me any good to keep watching.
I walk in behind him and watch him sit behind his monstrous Old World Italian-style desk, the one that used to stand in Giana's father's office, the same one we would play under when we were kids while our fathers discussed family business.
Tony waves for me to sit down. His dark black olive eyes throwing imposing glares at me. "You took care of that situation I told you about, correct?" Tony asks, as he brings a glass of brandy to his lips. Three thin white lines of powder are laid out on the desk in front of him and as soon he sets his brandy down he quickly snorts them all.
"That blow is going kill you one day," I say.
"Ah. I'm invincible," he laughs, wiping his hand across his nose. "God won't ever forgive me and the devil needs me here."
Totally believable, if you ask me.
"What happened today with Patty?" he asks, opening his humidor and walking his fingers over the layers of cigars until he finds the perfect one to smoke.
"We had an enhanced interrogation of sorts," I say, smiling.
Tony has a hard-on for speaking in euphemisms, just in case someone is wired. "Was the situation neutralized?" he asks, cutting his cigar.
"The situation assumed room temperature," I smile. "However, it was quite noisy."
His eyes narrow. His lips curl up into a snarl. "What was said?"
“Your associates are getting worried you're getting into business you have no business getting into.”
He brings his torch up to his cigar and burns the end, deep in thought. “May need to depopulate the area,” he mumbles to himself.
Depopulate the area? He’s going to get us all killed.
“What are the consequences to surround yourself with those…” I try to think of the right words. “Those with severe appearance deficits?” At the rate he's going, the FBI won't get him, one of his associates will.
"What, now some shitty little twenty-something-year old kid is gonna come in here and tell me what to do?”
What the fuck?
"You think extermination is going to solve your growing rodent problem?"
"What the fuck do you want, Corrado? You advising me now? How long ago did your balls drop, a week? Corey, you just got out of state. I promised your mother I'd give you a job and I'd keep you safe. Keep your stupid thoughts to yourself."
"I just want in. Who could you trust like me? Huh? Who?"
"You are such your father's son."
“Tony, come on.”
“There’s plenty of things about the business you are never going to know about. You got enough on your plate. And your Aunt Connie would gut me like a pig if anything were to happen to you.”
* * *
At midnight Tonycloses the bar to the public and brings the girls in the back. We’re ten security guys deep and everyone is ready to party at Tony Fretolli’s very own Carpet Joint. Where every game starts with a $10,000 ante.
