Ihave to run a few steps to catch up to Nicky, but I try to make it look suave instead of scared shitless. The longer we’re here, the more I worry that someone’s going to ask why we’re nosing around. And now Nick wants to face up to an old Giuliano Boss? As we approach the chess players, the man in question gives Nick a side-on glare from under his bushy eyebrows, while his opponent contemplates the board. “Oh,nowyou got time for old Donnie, huh?” He turns his face to us and I try not to yelp.
Donato Giuliano’s face is scarred and wizened, one eye clearly glass. From what I remember, his brother shot him right in the face at a Family meeting, and they rolled him into the East River. They should’ve checked to make sure he was really dead first.
“I meant no disrespect, Don Giuliano,” Nick says, bowing his head. “I had urgent business with my Uncle, that’s all.”
“Well you can keep moving,” Donnie says, sliding his bishop across the board. He crows triumphantly at his opponent, “Checkmate, asshole!” Around the table, some of the old men cheer, and some groan, handing over cash to the winning bettors with reluctance. Donnie’s opponent shouts a long string of Italian, too fast for me to understand except that it is a non-complimentary comment about Donnie’s mother. Donnie just laughs.
The other men leave, some rejoicing in their good fortune, others grumbling and discontent. Donnie looks between me and Nick. “Well, you chased my friends off, so now you can buy me a drink to make up for it. Who’s this peacock you got with you?”
“This is Carlo Bianchi, a friend of mine,” Nick says, grinning at the peacock comment without defending me from it. Frankly, I don’t think the fact that I take pride in my appearance is particularly funny, but I’m hardly about to tell Donato Giuliano where to get off. He was once a very dangerous man—and he could be still.
“Would you like a coffee?” I asked politely, but Donnie waves a hand.
“Hell, no. Go get me an amaretto and lime. And make it snappy, Fancy Shoes.”
I resign myself to playing waiter as long as we’re here. The bar staff is much faster this time at filling my order, since they know who it’s for. Like me, they have no interest in upsetting the old Don.
When I get back, Nick is asking politely about Donnie’s extended family, about a granddaughter who recently had a baby, and complimenting some other relative on a promotion. “So why are you really here?” Donnie asks after his first sip of amaretto. “You looking for a way back into your old Family, after everything they did to you?”
My ears prick up at that.
“No, sir,” Nick says. “Not while I have breath in my body.”
“Fuck you, Fontana, you disloyal little shit,” Donnie snaps back. My mouth goes dry, but then I catch the twinkle in Donnie’s eye as he looks at me. “You look about ready to piss yourself, Fancy Shoes.”
“Yes, sir,” I agree.
Donnie throws back his head to laugh loudly, and when he looks back at Nicky, he’s still grinning. “You’re right, Fontana. Fuck loyalty. Once a man screws you over, you don’t give ’im a chance to do it again. I learned the hard way from that motherfucker myself.” He catches my expression, and continues, “Yeah, all those years Jimmy used to laugh about my face, and now he’s decorating the walls in a Chicago office. Hope he makes better paint than he did a Boss. What doyouthink, eh? Well, boy?”
“Um,” I say weakly.
Nicky, thank God, starts to talk instead, after a sidewayscalm the fuckdownglance at me. “Sir, there’s a man from the West Coast I need to have a conversation with,” he says. “Discreetly, you understand. I’d rather he didn’t know I was looking for him.”
Donnie Gee scoffs. “I got nothing to do with Family business anymore. What makes you think I know anything?”
“You mind if I show you a photo? Tell you his name?”
“I don’t want nothing to do with it,” Donnie grumbles, but in a way that makes me not believe him. Not the slightest bit. “I tell you what, you beat me in a game of chess, you can ask me anything you like and I’ll answer. You lose, you can fuck back off where you came from. What do you say, Fontana?”
For a moment, Nick says nothing, but then he smiles. “I say it sounds like a deal, but you know I don’t play chess. How about Fancy Shoes here? Can I ask him to play in my place?”
I shoot Nick a dirty look.
“Sure thing,” Donnie laughs, and then coughs. “And when I beat your ass, I’ll take those shoes as payment, too.”
“What in the hell are you gonna do with my shoes?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“I’ll hang ’em up behind the bar as a reminder that all you young wiseguys are as dumb as you look these days. Well? Are you in or out?”
I’m a little competitive, I’ll be the first to admit. And I don’t mind taking down overconfident people. It’s my stock-in-trade, in fact. But I don’t know if I can trust Donnie Gee not to take offense at something I might do or not do during the game. This is a test, and I haven’t studied for it. It’s like one of my recurring nightmares in that sense.
But Nicky gives me a nod and a smile that’s as reassuring as it can be in a place like this. I remind myself that this is a man who’s already killed once to protect me. “Sure,” I tell Donnie Gee. And then, my confidence seeping back, I add, “But if I win, you give meyourshoes—as well as looking at the photo. Deal?”
He cackles at that. “Sure, sure. You can have my shoes if you want them so bad, little peacock.”
* * *
Half an hour later,I’m sitting in Nick’s car with a pair of well-worn shoes in my lap and mental notes on the biography of one Bill Harris. Or rather, Giovanni Dellacroce, once a made man with one of the Vegas Families and, as far as Donnie Gee knew, dead after a deal with one of the Mexican cartels went bad.
