“Meet me on the mountain in twenty minutes.”
“You said tomorrow.”
“And you said your schedule was busy. You want to see me, get up to the Mandarin on Upper James. Wait outside the doors with your phone on. I'll call you when I get there.”
Paolo started to reply, but it was no use. I closed the phone and powered it down. I looked out the grey windows at the Mandarin restaurant twenty-five metres across the parking lot. It was a Chinese buffet juggernaut that filled up nightly and probably managed to have a chokehold on Yousif's business. The old owner probably took his lumps from the buffet place and sold the failing business to a naïve person who thought there were many people out there who would choose straight Mediterranean cuisine over a buffet that covered each continent. Yousif was wrong, and he probably had many nights alone in his money pit to mull over his mistake. From where I sat in the empty dining room, I could watch Paolo arrive and decide whether or not I actually wanted to meet him. I ordered a lentil soup and another water, and watched the crowds of hungry families pass me by on their way to the Mandarin.
It took longer than twenty minutes for Paolo to show up; it was more like thirty. He walked briskly up to the entrance and stood there scanning the parking lot and the inside of the restaurant through the glass. He wore black leather loafers — the kind that had tassels instead of laces. His pleated grey slacks hung at the appropriate length over the shoes, and his black golf shirt was tucked into his pants. From my vantage point I couldn't see a little Polo emblem, but I bet it was there. He wore no hat, allowing me to see that it was him from any part of the parking lot. His hair was a little bit thinner and a bit more grey. The only real difference was his posture; his shoulders were up as though tension had wound them tight. As he turned to scan the crowds of people entering and waiting inside, his whole body moved rather than just his head. Something was wrong with the old man. Something was pulling every muscle and tendon tight from the inside out.
I powered up the phone as I finished my last mouthful of soup. I ordered a plate of gyros for Paolo, sending Yousif out of the dining room to the kitchen. The phone chirped its ring in my ear, and I watched Paolo grope at his pockets through the shaded window.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Walk down along the side of the Mandarin. Turn the corner and open the gate. Inside there's a dumpster. Walk in and close the door behind you.”
“You want me to meet you in a dumpster?”
“Not in, Paolo, beside. Leave the phone on while you walk.”
“You're pushing it, figlio. I have my limits, and you are on the edge.”
“Keep walking,” I said as I watched Paolo walk away from the restaurant. I listened to him grumble on the phone as his body disappeared. Soon I heard the creak of a wooden door behind Paolo's complaining. I waited.
“You motherfucker. Where are you, you shit? You think this is funny? You —”
“Shut up and stand there. I'm watching you right now. I want to know who else is too.”
“I came alone. Don't you get it? I'm alone. I just want to talk to you.”
“Johnny didn't just want to talk,” I said between sips from the glass of water on the table. That gave Paolo pause. “I told that kid exactly what I wanted him to do. I had no idea he would be so . . . overzealous.”
“You send shit help and look where it gets you.”
“I told you —”
“Shut up and wait there. If someone like Johnny couldn't follow your instructions there are probably others who won't too.”
“That is the last time you talk to me with that disrespect. I will walk out of here and make it so you beg to see me. I'll carve an invitation into the ass of that bartender's wife. You got that? Now where the fuck are you?”
I had pushed it with Paolo, and it had shown me nothing. He didn't give up any more information. All I did was piss him off. “Give me a minute. Once I'm sure you're clean I'll pick you up.”
“Once you know I'm clean?”
“It's dumpster humour, Paolo.”
“You motherfucker —”
I put the phone down and watched the lot while Paolo swore. He had been out of sight for two minutes, and no one had followed after him. No one would give him that much rope if they were tailing him. They would want to know what Paolo Donati was doing beside a dumpster.
I picked the phone up again. Paolo was no longer yelling. I could only hear his heavy seething breaths. “Walk back out front and go into the Mediterranean restaurant on your right.”
“You said you were picking me up. I'm not jumping through any more hoops. If you're not there, I will find a place I know you'll run to.”
I didn't answer him because through the window I saw him walk back into view still yelling into his phone. I closed Johnny's phone and watched Paolo's eyes open wider in disbelief. He stopped walking and stared at the phone then at the restaurant. I waved to him from behind the glass. He glowered at me — the type of glare that had gotten other people killed. Paolo marched through the doors and sat down in front of me with his back to the glass.
“You got some nerve making me stand next to —” He was interrupted by a plate of gyros being placed in front of him. “What the fuck is this?” he asked in a tone that seemed to force a tremor through Yousif's body.
“G-g-gyros sir. Your dining companion ordered them for you, sir.”
“It's cool, Yousif. He just gets grumpy when he's hungry. Don't ya, Dad?”
Paolo grumbled a response and forced a smile at our waiter. Yousif winked at me, his optimism returned. “You won't be hungry for long, sir. Enjoy.”
We both watched him walk to the kitchen. It was the brisk walk of a busy man. I turned back to Paolo, who was busy himself staring at his plate.
“Try it, it's good.”
Paolo sniffed the steamy food and pushed the plate away. He stared at me, and I stared back. Neither of our eyes moved, but under the table my right hand tightened around Johnny's gun in my waistband. Paolo spoke before I decided to shoot him.
“You look like shit. You know that? You smell too.”
I felt my face; my beard was long and my hair was scraggly. When I pulled my hand away I saw the dirt caked under the fingernails of my tanned hand. I didn't look like I belonged in the city, but just a day ago I had fit right in on the island. I didn't say a word — I just stared into Paolo's dark, mirthless eyes.
“You know why you never went anywhere with me?”
“I'm not a people person.”
“You're not family, Wilson. Family is what's important. What we do is with family, for family. You, you were good, better than most, but you weren't family, so where could it lead?”
“Did it ever occur to you that it led me where I wanted it too? It lead me to a paycheque.”
“Bullshit, figlio. You like to fancy yourself the invisible man, and it's true you were hard to find, but you always turned up. You worked for me because you needed something, something concrete. You needed a family and we . . . we wouldn't let you in. So what did you do? You sold us out for a bartender.”
I hated sitting across from a man who was trying to read me as though I were an animal on display. “That was always your problem, Paolo. You thought you were so fucking high and mighty that everyone wanted in with you. But you're half right, I did work for you because you were exactly what I needed. You and your organization had plenty of money, work, and paranoia. I worked for you for so long because I could never get close. Your whole set-up was perfect because I was an outsider to everyone and everything. I survived longer than most of your men and I made a hell of a lot more money because I played it my way, not yours or your family's. I never sold you out for the bartender because there was nothing to sell. I was never with you.”
Paolo laughed at me then looked away. “Maybe I'm wrong, figlio. Maybe I can't see people like I thought, but that doesn't change what's important.”
“And that's family,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, still looking away. “Family.”
“What do you want, Paolo?”
He sighed and then he told me.