The doughnut shop was getting crowded by the time Jimmy Bozo showed up at Pepper’s apartment. Not all of them were tourists, either. Jojo hoped nobody recognized him. The last thing he needed was someone witnessing him so close to the scene of his nephew’s murder.
A call came in on Jojo’s phone.
Before he could say hello, Jean Dupont said, “Where is he? It’s been half an hour and there’s no sign of him. Are you messing with us?”
“He’s on his way up now, ya French moron. Get off the phone!”
Jojo realized he was speaking too loud. All the other people in the doughnut shop looked at him.
When he hung up, Jojo watched his nephew enter the building. He went to bite into a jelly doughnut and bit his own finger instead.
“Damn it,” he yelled, as blood oozed out of the bite wound.
His phone rang again.
“Yeah, what the fuck do you want?” Jojo asked.
“That’s how you answer your phone?”
It was Don Bozo, his brother.
“Tommy?”
Jojo couldn’t believe his brother called. At that minute, no less. Now, Jojo wasn’t the kind of clown to shake in his boots, but there wasn’t a customer in that doughnut shop who couldn’t see him visibly shaking.
“What’s wrong with you?” his brother asked. “You sound like somebody’s got a piece pointed at your head.”
Jojo’s eyes focused on Jimmy down below as he listened to his brother. Something snapped inside him. He couldn’t even talk.
“No, no…,” Jojo choked out.
The guilt of hearing his brother’s voice as he sent his nephew to certain death hit him hard. He’d never felt such a thing in his life. He had to rip open his shirt and wind up his heart, right in front of everyone in that doughnut shop.
“Look, I wanted to talk to you,” Don Bozo said. “It’s about the gumball factory.”
Jojo could see Jimmy through the stairwell windows, rushing up the stairs, clearly worried about the condition of his old friend.
“Yeah?” Jojo asked.
Through Pepper’s window, he could see six armed guys break through her front door, the two Juggler Brothers riding their unicycles inside, juggling shotguns. They threw Pepper to the floor and aimed their weapons at the front door.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Don Bozo said. “I feel bad about shutting down your operation without talking to you first. I know it’s a lot of money you’re losing out on.”
The Juggler Brothers rode circles around Pepper, waiting for the Bozo to step through the door.
“Yeah…,” Jojo said, unable to blink as his nephew arrived on Pepper’s floor. “It’s a lot of money.”
“So I’ve decided to make it your call,” Don Bozo said. “If you want to reopen the gumball factory, I’ll be okay with it. You’re the one who’d take the fall for it if Manny Malone raids the place, anyway. I want to caution you against it, but if you think it’s worth the risk who am I to stand in your way?”
Jimmy approached Pepper’s front door.
“Uh-huh…”
“So what do you say? Do you want me to put the green light on it?”
“Yeah…” Jojo couldn’t take his eyes off Jimmy through the hall window. Tears wet his cheek. “Sure…”
“I know you don’t always agree with my decisions, Joe. But I want you to know I’m always just trying to do what’s in your best interest. You’re my brother. I care about you.”
Jojo couldn’t believe what he’d just done. He wished he could take it back. He wished he could jump in that room right there and save his nephew, but it was too late to go back. Jojo couldn’t take his eyes off the window as Jimmy entered Pepper’s apartment.
“Thanks, Tommy,” Jojo said, as the sound of machine-gun fire echoed through the streets. “I care about you, too.”
“See you at the wedding tomorrow,” his brother said.
Jojo’s voice went soft and hardly audible. “You too…”
When his brother hung up, he dropped his phone into his plate of jelly doughnuts. He still couldn’t take his eyes off Pepper’s apartment. The windows were shattered from the gunfire, so he couldn’t see inside. He was happy for that. He couldn’t bear to see Jimmy’s body. The image of what he’d done to his nephew would’ve haunted him for the rest of his life.
Before he got up to pay the bill, Uncle Jojo saw two people rushing out of the apartment below. But it wasn’t the guys who’d done the shooting. It was Pepper and Jimmy Bozo. They were both alive, didn’t have a scratch on them. Jimmy pulled Pepper by the wrist to his car and sped away.
Jojo stood up from his seat and yelled at the top of his lungs, “How the hell did you get out of that one, you little shit?”
Everyone in the doughnut shop went quiet.
Then the shattered windows of Pepper’s apartment crumbled, revealing six dead bodies lying in the room. Somehow Jimmy had managed to kill them all single-handedly, including the two Juggler Brothers. Uncle Jojo had no idea how the hell that little bastard pulled it off.