“There was a solicitor there, it’s legit.”
He closed the binder.“This is his way of apologizing to the family, yes?”
Perhaps.“He also wants me to kill Johnny Pornstach.”
“We have men for that.”
“You know I want to.”
He grunted in that way he did when he didn’t precisely agree but was being diplomatic enough not to outright say so.
He finally spoke.“Mario thinks it is prudent to wait.”
“Mario doesn’t run the family.”Yet.Hopefully, that would be at least a dozen years, or maybe even a few decades before he was tapped.Because I hated to lose my best friend to more paperwork and headaches.
“Neither do you.”
Aw, fuck.“Touché.”
Don Manca chuckled.“You are emotionally close to this one.”
Bullshit.
His finger rose into the air, shaking as if I’d said the word out loud.“Don’t lie to me.”
“Even emotionally compromised, I’m still the best you got.And this was a…” dying wish?A vow to a parent I never knew?
Don Manca leaned in and spoke softly.“A set-up.Wrapped in a very expensive package.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way.As Adelmo’s replacement, I’d be the first person on the short list of suspects if his killer turned up dead.
“What do we do?”
He smiled.It wasn’t the one he saved for grandchildren or the nieces who brought him sweets.No, it was the one he got when he was especially pleased with a diabolical plot.“You need to go to Chicago and watch over Mario’s lovely bride’s twin sister.Perhaps begin the transition of the Conti assets to ours, and should ends fall loose, tie them up.Very discreetly, of course.”
He set his thumb on his middle finger between the first and second joint.
Eliminate complications.
I was better at making them, yet I was looking forward to eliminating at least one.
3
Ellie
Casey Kelly fit the physical description for an ex-cop, a limp, a barrel chest, a grayed crew cut that showed slightly more sunburnt skin each season, and a penchant for creative cussing.
He also hated anything regimented, buttoned down, or serene.That’s why the straight from work crowd loved him.Once I shoved my way through the sticky main door, the wall of music, laughter, TVs, and heavily-slurred drunken blather slammed into me.
I took a moment to soak it in.
This familiar ground waswhyI came home.Not to sit in my too-small condo ruminating on how long it had been since I’d been kissed senseless.Two weeks wasn’t that long.Yet, it felt like an eternity.
“El!”A regular dubbed “Tall Bob” spotted me and waved me to the empty stool next to him.Casey looked up and grinned.
“Kat said you’d made it back.How was the honeymoon?”
Crap.All the goodness I’d soaked in slid away leaving me like an empty bucket with too many holes.I plastered on a grin I didn’t feel and lied my ass off.“It took me at least a day to remember how to walk again.”Utter and complete fabrication woven, I graced the roar of laughter with a queenly smile and a wave.Then plunked my ass next to Tall Bob and ordered a cherry bomb.
