TEN

“Thanks.” Paolo smiled when the punk fairy dropped a few coins in his box.

He hadn’t expected his disguise to be so profitable. If Mr. Rizzoli found out he’d lost his phone and “chased” him, cutting his ties to the mob, he would have to turn to alternate sources of income and begging held serious appeal. He’d been outside Vice, an underground bar in downtown Vegas, for the last two hours, keeping watch for Mr. Rizzoli, and he’d already made twenty bucks.

Not that he wanted to be chased. Paolo liked everything about the Mafia.

He liked the respect the wiseguys got from people in the know. He liked that they had connections so that they got the best tables in restaurants, and the best seats for shows. He liked that they drove classy cars, and wore nice clothes. They could get things done that normal people couldn’t do. Someone fucked with a made man, his woman, or his family, that disrespect was paid back in a way that meant no one ever fucked with you again. Once you were made, you and your family became untouchable. No one dared mess with a made man.

More than the money or power or respect, Paolo wanted that protection. He wanted to walk down the street and know that no one could touch him. That his family, if he ever had one, would be safe. He had never felt safe at home with his abusive, bullying father. Even after he’d learned to defend himself, that sense of safety had eluded him.

Mr. Rizzoli could give him the safety he craved. He protected his family, his crew, and his girl. Look what happened after the incident at Gabrielle’s house. Mr. Rizzoli had gone crazy. He’d called an emergency meeting of his top soldiers at six o’clock the next morning and ordered everyone to get their associates on the streets hunting for the shooters. With his vast network of contacts, Mr. Rizzoli quickly identified them as Albanian hit men, and within three days he had tracked down the bar where they offered themselves for hire. Paolo’s job was to call the boss if they showed up at the bar tonight.

Except he didn’t have a phone and no money to buy a replacement.

The door to Vice opened and closed again. Two men with green dread hawks walked by him without even acknowledging his presence. Men never seemed to notice him in this disguise, but women always did. He hoped it was because they saw something attractive beneath the grubby clothes he’d picked up from a thrift shop.

He pulled his hat lower on his forehead. Did Michele Benni think he was good looking? Despite her father’s rules, she’d agreed to go on a date with him, and this time it wasn’t going to be a walk home with her father waiting behind the door. He was going to take her to The Look Out at the top of Lake Mead Boulevard. They could sit in his car listening to music, and hopefully she’d let him feel under her clothes.

Paolo shook his head, trying to focus. He needed to prove himself worthy so Mr. Rizzoli would invite him to join the crew. His lock-picking skills were a big bonus, but his tendency to make stupid mistakes and his issues with violence and blood were a major problem. Paolo didn’t know how to toughen up. Every time he saw someone being beaten, he had visions of his mother lying on the kitchen floor. Every drop of blood became her blood, and he was seized with the same abject terror he’d felt that terrible night when he thought she was dead.

He heard a laugh, and dropped his head just as two men passed by, conversing in a foreign language. Both stocky, with short-cropped blond hair and thick, Slavic accents, they matched the description Mike had given him of the Albanian shooters. One of them tossed a handful of change in Paolo’s hat and he gave a mumbled thanks as they pushed open the door to Vice.

As soon as the door closed, Paolo grabbed the change and ran to find a payphone. If he screwed this up, he wouldn’t be “chased,” he’d be dead.

*   *   *

“Is that them?”

Mike shouted at Paolo over the riot of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” and pointed out the two Albanians Paolo had seen on the street less than an hour ago. They were sitting at Vice’s sticker-clad bar talking with a woman who had half her head shaved and the other half done up in a spiky blue Mohawk. Not that the dudes cared about her hair. One had his hand under her skirt, and the other had a hand on her breast. Man, Paolo couldn’t wait to be twenty-one for real. The bouncer hadn’t bought his fake ID, but Mike had handed him a few bills and murmured a few words, and Paolo had his first taste of heaven.

“Yes, sir.” He desperately wished he knew what Mike had said to the bouncer, or how much money had changed hands to smooth his way in. He needed to learn these things if he was going to join the crew, although he doubted he would ever be able to intimidate anyone with a look the way Mike did.

“I want you to go to the back door,” Mike said. “You’re gonna hold it open when Little Ricky and I come through with the Albanians, and then you’re gonna make sure no one comes into the alley. Sally G was supposed to be here, but he got held up. You think you can do the job?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, kid.” Mike patted him on the shoulder. “Now go.”

Paolo pushed his way through the crowd, drinking in the ambiance of the dark, seedy bar where anything seemed to go from drugs, to smokes, to a woman riding a dude’s hips in the back hallway as he fucked her against the wall. He was hard by the time he made it to the door, his teenage hormones going crazy at the X-rated scenes happening everywhere he looked. It was too fucking much.

“Look out! This guy’s gonna be sick,” Mike shouted down the hallway, pushing one of the Albanians in front of him, one hand over the guy’s mouth.

Paolo spotted a gun pressed against the Albanian’s back as Mike shoved him past Paolo and out into the alley. Little Ricky followed with the second Albanian, and Paolo closed the door behind them once they were outside. He stood in the alley, one hand on the doorknob in case anyone tried to come out, his heart pounding at the scene unfolding in front of him.

Mr. Rizzoli leaned against a brick wall, arms folded, as the two Albanians were shoved to their knees in front of him. A few of his soldiers and trusted associates stood nearby. Paolo spotted two more guys at one end of the alley, and a white van parked on the street blocking the opposite entrance. The van told him everything he needed to know, and his stomach tightened. Although he’d been hanging around the mob for years, he’d never seen a man get whacked, and he prayed Mr. Rizzoli planned to do the hit off-site.

“Names,” Mike demanded.

The taller of the two swallowed hard. “I’m Fatos. My friend is Besnik.”

“Albanian?” Mike asked.

Both men nodded.

“I hear you’re for hire,” Mr. Rizzoli said to Fatos. “Is that right?”

Hope flickered in the dude’s eyes. Did he seriously think the mob would ever hire out their work? The Mafia did everything in-house, working quietly and discretely unless there was a message they wanted to send, and then they did it with style.

“Maybe. Depends on the work.” Fatos shrugged. “How do we know you’re not cops?”

Mike slammed the butt of his gun into Besnik’s head, knocking him sideways. Blood welled up on his temple, and he fell to all fours with a moan.

“Would cops do that?”

Fatos paled, his skin turning almost translucent in the poorly lit alley. “Who are you?”

“We’re the guys who have questions you’re gonna answer,” Mr. Rizzoli said. “Monday night, did you shoot up a house in North Las Vegas with a couple of AKs?”

“What the fuck? Are you looking to hire us, or not?”

“Answer the fucking question,” Mike said to Fatos. “Or I’ll kick your friend until he coughs up a fucking rib.”

“Yeah, we did.”

Mr. Rizzoli grabbed the dude by the hair and yanked his head back. “Who hired you?”

“Don’t know his name.” Fatos’s voice was strained. “We were in the bar, made it known we were looking for work, he came up to us, needed a rush job, offered to pay above asking, so we took it on.”

“What did he look like?”

The dude shrugged. “Dark hair, dark eyes, big guy, kinda stocky. He looked Mexican if you ask me. Or maybe he was Italian.”

“You can’t tell the fucking difference between a Mexican and an Italian?” Mike’s tone rumbled with warning, but Fatos clearly had had enough, or maybe he was just tired of living.

“What the fuck is this? If you’re not looking to hire us, then stop playing fucking games.”

“Games?” Mr. Rizzoli smashed his fist into the dude’s jaw. “You want to play games? Here’s one for you. Did you know who was in the house before you shot it up?”

“No.” Besnik pushed to his knees. “It was a warning job. Wait until the lights were off in the back, then shoot up the front.”

“No?” Mr. Rizzoli let loose on Fatos as he continued to talk. “A woman was in that house.” Punch. “My woman.” Kick. “And do you know who I am?” Punch. Punch. Punch. “Take a fucking look around.”

The two Albanians looked around. Mr. Rizzoli was wearing an impeccably tailored suit, as usual. Mike was dressed casually in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. One of the soldiers had a thick gold chain around his thick neck, a white T-shirt, and a worn pair of jeans. Little Ricky wore a tracksuit like he was on his way to the gym. There was nothing and everything about them that screamed Mafia, and Fatos looked confused.

“I don’t—”

“Cosa Nostra.” Besnik cursed in what Paolo assumed was Albanian. “They’re in the mob. You took a fucking contract for a hit on the mob.”

“Yeah? Well fuck them.” Fatos spat, his saliva landing on the tip of one of Mr. Rizzoli’s fancy shoes. “You don’t fucking scare us. We’re the ones who do the work the mob is afraid to do. Shakedowns, executions, warnings … you pussies think you’re too good to get your hands dirty. You need us, so enough with this fucking game and let us go.”

“Mike?” Mr. Rizzoli studied the saliva on his shoe.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Did he just spit on my shoe?”

“Yeah, he did boss.”

“Did he just call us … pussies?”

Little Ricky kicked Fatos hard in the ribs and Paolo’s stomach churned. Oh man. This was going to be bad.

“Yes, sir,” Mike said. “He called us pussies.”

Mr. Rizzoli removed his jacket, folded it neatly and handed it to one of his soldiers. “Better check his balls, Little Ricky. Anyone who would call us pussies must have balls of steel.”

Little Ricky kicked Fatos between the legs and Fatos doubled over, howling.

“His balls seem kinda soft to me, boss. You wanna check it out?”

“I would but my shoe needs to be cleaned.” Mr. Rizzoli undid his tie and handed it to the soldier, while Little Ricky forced Fatos’s head down to the ground.

“You heard him,” Little Ricky said. “Clean his shoe. Use your tongue or I’ll blow your fucking head off right here.”

Paolo’s heart thumped so hard he thought it might break a rib. He mentally begged Fatos to stop acting like a dick and lick Mr. Rizzoli’s shoe. Maybe if he was cooperative, Mr. Rizzoli might let him off with a beating.

Fatos licked the shoe.

Mr. Rizzoli carefully rolled up his sleeves. He gestured to Little Ricky to pull Fatos up and then he studied the glowering Albanian.

“You disrespected my girl. And when you disrespect her, you disrespect me. And when you disrespect me, you disrespect my family. No one disrespects my family.” Mr. Rizzoli slammed his fist into Fatos’s nose, and then he let loose showering Fatos with kicks and punches as if he’d been holding back all this time. “You didn’t check who was in the fucking house? You don’t know the guy who hired you? What kind of morons are you? Who the fuck shoots at a woman? And who the fuck do you think you are calling us pussies?”

“What do you want to know?” Besnik moaned. “We’ll tell you. Whatever you want.”

“We want to know how loud we can make you scream,” Mr. Rizzoli said.

And then the beating really began.

Paolo understood the way the mob worked. He knew Cosa Nostra protected its own, and meted out justice for every crime to ensure they were never challenged. But tonight, he realized that Mr. Rizzoli had sheltered him from what it truly meant to belong to the mob. When someone crossed the line, the message that was sent had to be understood by everyone in the know.

Besnik screamed, but the noise was drowned out by the pounding of the music inside the bar, the laughter of happy people inside, and the constant hum of traffic on the street. Blood spattered across Paolo’s shoes. Bile rose in his throat. Before he could stop himself, he doubled over and relieved the contents of his stomach on the ground. With one hand on the brick wall beside the door, Paolo retched and disgraced himself over and over again.

Little Ricky looked over, and his face curdled with disgust. “Jesus Christ. What the fuck? What kind of man are you?”

A fuck-up. A loser. Weak. Just like his father had said every time he beat up Paolo’s mom to make Paolo pay for his mistakes.

Maybe Paolo would have been able to suffer through Little Ricky’s insults, or the disappointment on Mr. Rizzoli’s face, or the fact he wasn’t as strong as Mr. Rizzoli’s other associates. But he would never be able to make good the events that happened next.

Overcome by his weakness, he failed to carry out his duty of guarding the door. Too late, he heard the creak of hinges.

“Shit.” Little Ricky raised his gun, moved to intercept.

“This is your fault.” Papa kicked at Mama’s lifeless body on the blood-splattered floor, his gaze on a Paolo, cowering in the corner. “She was covering for you. She paid for your mistake. You’ll live with this for the rest of your life.”

Assailed by visions of his mother’s crumpled body, Paolo bolted, his feet thudding down the alley, strings of vomit hanging from his chin. It was one thing to have to witness the brutal beating of two hired hit men who had done a great wrong to the Toscani family. But he couldn’t watch someone die because he had fucked-up again.

*   *   *

Paolo slowed to a walk outside the projects at the corner of East Searles and Northeastern, and dropped to sit on the concrete steps. He’d been in a daze most of the way back to the shithole he called home. It was over. His dream was dead. He would never be in the mob.

Elbows on his knees, he dropped his head and heaved in a breath, choking on the fetid scent of rotten garbage. This late at night there weren’t many people out on the street and he could sit in the darkness and watch the few unbroken streetlights flicker overhead. He’d let Mr. Rizzoli down in a big way. He’d humiliated himself, and he’d forgotten to watch the damn door. If the unexpected visitor was a civilian, Little Ricky would have had no choice but to shoot him. Paolo’s mother was in a care home because he’d screwed up. But this time, an innocent man might have died.

He didn’t have the courage to call someone and find out what happened. And even if he did, he had no phone because he was a fuck-up, just like his old man said.

“Hey, ‘bro. You looking for something special?”

Paolo recognized Crazy T, a member of the 22nd Street Boyz, and a local drug dealer. Before Paolo started working for Mr. Rizzoli’s crew, he’d done a lot of dope and Crazy T had been his main supplier. Paolo liked how the drug made him feel—self-confident, good-looking, like he was at the top of his game.

After Mr. Rizzoli’s warning the one time he caught Paolo using, Paolo had deleted Crazy T’s name from his phone and stayed away from the parties and friends who were part of that scene, fearful of jeopardizing his future in the mob. The Toscanis had kept him busy enough over the last few years that he didn’t miss the high, but he’d never been as low as he was now. He was done. Humiliated. Embarrassed. And, as soon as the mob caught up with him, he was dead. Why not go out feeling good one last time? Why not numb the pain?

“Yeah. What you got?”

Crazy T checked the street and came up to the steps. “I’ve got two bags on me. Just give me forty. Is that cool?”

“I’ve only got twenty so I’ll take one.” He handed over the money and Crazy T passed him a clear, plastic bag. It was about the size of a baseball card. Inside were two folded wax paper bags stamped in bold pink: “Pink Label.” Even cocaine had a brand name.

“Gave you a bonus ’cause it’s been a while and this is good shit,” Crazy T said in answer to Paolo’s unspoken question. “It’s new stuff from Mexico.”

“Thanks.” He stuffed the bag in his pocket.

“I’m still around, yeah. Just find me if you need more.”

“It’s just one time,” Paolo said. “Had a bad day.”

“Sure bro’. Whatever you say. But everyone who’s tried this shit has come back for more.”

Paolo sighed. “I’m out of work.”

“Yeah?” Crazy T cocked his head to the side. “You looking to make a few bucks?”

“I might be. What are we talking about?”

Crazy T shoved his hands into his overly large jeans, tugging them down until Paolo could see the waistband of his Calvin Kleins. “This new stuff is so fucking good I can’t keep up. I could introduce you to my supplier and we can divide up the territory. I’d take a percentage of what you earn as a finder’s fee and you get all the dope you want for free.”

“For free?” His eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?”

“No, man.” Crazy T shrugged. “There’s rivers of the stuff coming in to the city, and the head guy is cool with us taking what we need as long as we’re getting the product out there. He’s been getting pissed with me ’cause I can’t keep up with demand, so it would be good to have you on board.”

Paolo had never dealt dope before, but how hard could it be? He wasn’t a good salesman—hell, he wasn’t a good anything—but when he was high, he had all the confidence in the world. And he knew a lot of guys outside the mob. He could spread that shit around and make way more money than he had with the Toscanis. He would be able to afford to put Ma in the kind of care home where rich people went, and he could buy a nice car so he could take the ladies out in style. He wouldn’t have the respect the mobsters got, or the sense of family, and he wouldn’t have one hundred guys chomping at the bit to avenge him if someone gave him shit. But that dream was gone, and if Mr. Rizzoli spared his life, he would have to find a way to survive. Maybe he’d turn out to be good at it. Maybe even better than Crazy T.

“If I’m around tomorrow, then I’m interested.”

“Gimme a buzz.” Crazy T waggled his phone. “It’ll take about a week to arrange a meet.”

“I lost my phone. You know someone who can hook me up?”

“Sure bro’. I know a guy. He buys stolen phones, packages ’em up and ships them overseas. You tell him what you want and he’ll deliver. I’m heading that way.”

Paolo glanced down the street. Maybe sitting on the steps waiting to be whacked wasn’t the best way to spend what could be his last few hours on earth. A smart man was always prepared, Mr. Rizzoli said. Paolo wasn’t smart. And he wasn’t a man—not yet. But he could be prepared for the crushing blow to come. At best, he’d be able to get in touch with Crazy T and set himself up as a dealer. At worst, he’d be able to call his mother and say good-bye.