“Not from drugs,” I said, “or at least, the autopsy’s not done yet, so you never know.” He cringed. “Nate, you know drugs are dangerous, right?”
“My stuff is clean,” he said indignantly.
It wasn’t the quality of his wares that I’d been warning him about, but the inevitable company that came along with that business. The Bernardi Family controlled dock imports from Asia, while the cartels ran the show across the border. Still, it was interesting to hear that Anaïs Beaumont had been bartering her possessions for drugs. Maybe her money situation had been more dire than she’d let on.
“Thanks for looking after Miller’s car,” I said. “I’ll make sure he gets in touch when he can. Just…give him some time. I’ll see you around, Nate.”
Driving Miller’s car was a treat, partly because it was a nice damn car, and partly because it made me feel a little closer to him while we were apart. I even contemplated putting the top down—but I’d lose my hat, I just knew it.
With a sigh, I headed toward Redwood Manor.
* * *
It felt good showing up at Don Castellani’s in a bright blue BMW convertible compared to my old Pinto, although it raised some eyebrows among the guards.
“This the start of your midlife crisis, Jack?” one of the gate guards asked me, grinning cheekily. “You got a barely-legal sucking your dick, too?”
I took off my sunglasses. “How about I get out of this car and you say that again?”
“Jeeze, youusedto have a sense of humor,” he muttered, opening the gate for me and waving me through.
“Next time I’ll finish you off with a punchline,” I said as I drove by.
He was right, though. Normally I wasn’t so touchy. Normally I would’ve made some stupid quip about his mother—or his father. But his joke had struck a little too close to home. And anyway, nothing on earth would make me feel good about what I had to do at Redwood Manor: check in with the Boss to admit yet another failure.
I drove up and parked close to the entrance, enjoying the way heads turned to take in the car.
“Morning, boys,” I said as I got out.
One of the house guards turned me around and pushed me into position against the car. “No appointment,” he groused as he patted me down.
“Guess my secretary forgot to call through. But I’m pretty sure the Boss’ll see me.”
There was no way Ciro Castellani didn’t know Anaïs Beaumont was dead. It was all over the news. I should’ve come crawling to him yesterday as soon as I’d heard myself, but I’d had more important things to worry about.
I’d hadMillerto worry about.
I waited in the foyer again while Jeeves trotted off with news of my unexpected arrival, to “see if Mr. Castellani is at home,” as he put it. I could hear piano music coming from the salon, and I knew whatthatmeant, so I tried to stay quiet and look like part of the walls. It was futile. The piano music trickled off and I heard footsteps approaching. And then I was interrupted by the one person I’d hopednotto see at Redwood Manor, even more than I didn’t want to see the Boss.
“Nice car,” Julian Castellani said, wandering into the foyer from the salon. “You must’ve killed someonereallyfancy for that one.” He gave me a broad smile.
“Julian.” I greeted him with a clipped nod.
He looked me over. “You’ve been here alotlately, Jack. Is Ciro finally lining you up for a promotion? Orisit technically a promotion when you’ve already been up at that level before? Hmm.” He tapped his mouth, his cold blue eyes sweeping over me.
I shrugged. “Maybe he just likes my face.”
“Itisa nice face,” Julian agreed. He’d told me that himself more than once, when we’d been almost-friends. Julian had always just been Sandro’s annoying younger brother, but I’d suddenly seen him in a whole new light one night when he’d asked if he could suck my dick.
I’d said no. I didn’t think Sandro would be cool with it. Either he’d be offended because Julian was, technically, his little brother, or he’d get mad about it because he hated Julian. Neither reaction seemed like it’d end with me in the best of health, and so I’d turned an eager twenty-one-year-old Julian down, but I’d tried to do it politely.
He’d just stared at me for a while, that strange stare he got sometimes like he was filtering something through an internal CPU, and then he’d smiled. “Fine,” he’d said. “Fine, fine, fine. That’s just fine.”
After that, he’d remained friendly—as far as he ever was—but he’d never offered again. These days, now that I knew him a little better, I thanked my lucky stars that loyalty to his older brother had kept my dick in my pants. Who fucking knew what Julian might have done to it if he’d gotten his mouth around it?
“You should come and see the grand salon,” Julian said now, gesturing behind himself. He was wearing only silk pajama pants, and his golden-tanned chest was bare.
I was just happy he had pants on.
