Sammy is my favorite uncle. He is also my godfather Vince’s underboss, which means a lot in The Hammer. I love them both. I hate their business. You don’t get to choose your family, as I am fond of reminding my fiancé, Pete.
I do, however, get to choose my business, which is appraising and selling gemstones. As a rule, I stay way far away from the shady side. Well, I try. In this family, it’s tough.
The chicken coop is less than ten miles away, so it never takes long to get there. Of course, this time Nico was driving.
“I don’t understand why you drive so slow.” Damn, I was irritable. Getting mugged by a skinny punk will do that to a girl.
Nico gripped the wheel in his customary fashion. Like it was a lifeline, and he had just been thrown from the Titanic. “Not everyone is as reckless as you are, Gina.”
“I’m not reckless,” I said, getting miffed. “Why does everyone say that? I don’t take unnecessary risks.”
Nico laughed out loud. “I’m making a list.”
“Don’t even go there,” I warned. Last thing I needed was to be reminded of everything I had done in the past that had gone wrong. We might never make it out of the car.
Finally, we pulled onto the gravel lane leading to the cottage. Yes, it’s a small two-room cottage, not a chicken coop. Years ago some relative kept chickens there. That and a small bribe will get you a low tax bill.
The lane wasn’t empty. Sammy’s Mercedes was parked close to the cottage. Nico pulled up right behind it.
I opened the car door and stepped out.
“Look at all these deep ruts in the driveway,” I said, trying not to turn an ankle. “What’s been going on here?”
“Heavy trucks,” said Nico. “I heard something about a big delivery.”
Yet another thing I didn’t want to know about.
We both made our way around the side. The sun was still bright, but the lake looked cold. No turquoise color here. The water was deep and dark.
I reached the screen door and pulled it open.
“Over here, Gina,” said a voice.
The room was dim, lit by one light-bulb hanging on a wire from the rafters. Coming in from brilliant sunshine made the blindness worse. I walked in a few steps and stopped to let my eyes adjust.
“Hi, Uncle Sammy,” said Nico, behind me.
Sammy grunted. I could see him now, sitting at the wooden table to the side. In this poor lighting, he was a ringer for Woody Allen.
A little machine the size of a toaster perched on the table in front of him. There were several identical machines on the floor next to him.
“What’s that?” I said, peering at it.
“It’s a counterfeit currency finder,” he said. “See? You put a bill under this light, and it will tell you if it’s counterfeit or not.”
I watched him demonstrate with a twenty-dollar bill.
“That one’s good. See?”
I could see that it was good, but I didn’t get the point. “Why do you have all these machines here?”
“It’s good business, Gina,” said Nico. “Banks pay a lot for these machines. So do small businesses like convenience stores. That way, they don’t get stuck with a lot of fake bills.”
I still didn’t get it. Last I knew (and much to my regret) we were in the business of printing counterfeit money. Not selling machines to detect it.
Or were we?
“Are you still importing that counterfeit Canadian money from Canton?” I said. “I thought we were out of that business, because the quality sucked so bad.”
“We are out of that business,” said Sammy. “Besides. We aren’t importing coffins anymore either.”
The counterfeit money had been hidden in the false bottoms of several imported coffins.
“Why aren’t we importing coffins—or wait. Do I really want to know?” I was pretty sure I didn’t.
“The Fly By Night Funeral is currently on hold,” Sammy said. “Larry, the retired embalmer at the nursing home, was apparently demented.”
“No shit,” said Nico, shaking his head sadly.
Sammy continued. “He was becoming a problem for the ladies, if you get my drift.”
“Randy,” said Nico. “Kept hiding in bedrooms and popping out to surprise them.”
“Minus pajamas,” Sammy added.
I groaned.
“So they cut him off Viagra. And then he tried to permanently stiffen his own weenie with—”
“Enough!” I put both hands over my ears. “Too much information.”
Sammy gave a satisfied cluck. He usually knows how to make me stop asking questions.
I did a quick scan of the cabin. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dimness, I could see something blocking the far wall. “What are those cases over there?” I asked.
“That’s your wedding champagne,” said Sammy. “The reception hall includes wine for the night. But Vince wanted real French champagne for everyone to toast the bride.”
“Veuve Clicquot,” I said, taking a closer look at the labels. “Wow. That’s expensive. I’m impressed.”
“He made a special deal with this importer…actually, you probably don’t want to know this part,” Sammy said.
He got that right.
I turned back to find Nico testing a twenty at one of the counterfeit catchers. I was still bothered by those little machines. Why the heck would my family be in the counterfeit-detection business? I mean, how much was the markup on those little machines? Surely not enough to interest the syndicate.
Thing is, I was trained to “follow the money.” There had to be money in this somehow. Real money.
Wait a minute. A light came on. Ping! A big humongous floodlight of a light.
“Holy shit. You’re selling machines that have been fixed so they won’t detect our counterfeit bills,” I said.
Sammy grinned. It was a little creepy. “You always were a clever thing, doll.”
“Genius, isn’t it?” Nico said proudly. “I helped come up with the idea.”
It was damned clever, I had to admit. Substitute your machine for the one in the bank. All your counterfeit bills pass the test. But the other counterfeit bills don’t, so no one suspects anything.
Diabolical. And really, it wouldn’t hurt anyone if they didn’t know about it.
Let me make this perfectly clear. I don’t go in for illegal activities myself. My goal is to keep a very clean nose. So clean it’s squeaky.
But as far as our family businesses go, forgery doesn’t bother me overmuch. On the scale of crime, it’s sort of a soft offense. Take art, for instance. If your Picasso is not by Picasso, it’s still as pretty, right? (Or as ugly. I never quite got the fuss about Picasso.)
However, I realize not everyone feels that way. Banks don’t, for instance. Which made me think about the next question.
“How are you getting these into—no!” I hit my hand to my forehead. “Ignore what I just said. I don’t want to know.”
“Are you sure, Gina? ’Cause it’s really rather clever,” said Nico, all excited. “We—”
“Stop! Don’t tell me.” I cut him off before he could spill it.
“As you wish, sweetheart.” Sammy reached behind him. “Here’s why I called. Thought you might be missing this.”
He placed something familiar on the table.
“My bag!” I cried. There was my shopping bag, recently stolen. How the heck did it get here?
“Found this sitting outside the door when I came in half an hour ago,” said Sammy.
I rushed over. “Is my purse inside?” Yes! There it was. I gave a sigh of relief.
“That’s weird,” said Nico. “Is the money gone? Credit cards?”
I retrieved the wallet and looked inside. “Credit cards are all here. The cash is missing. But I only had about thirty bucks.”
“Weird that he didn’t take the credit cards. Or the presents,” said Nico.
“Sure is strange, dropping off everything here. Why would he do that after going through the trouble of stealing it?” I rifled through the bag to make sure all the gifts were still there. Particularly my gift for Pete. Phew. All there.
“Maybe he realized who you were when he checked the wallet? And didn’t want to get into trouble with the family?”
“Yeah, that has to be it. But odd that he knew to deliver it here.” I was really puzzled. Sammy gave a long and telling sigh. “Here’s the envelope that was left on top of it. It was addressed to you, so I haven’t looked at it. But I have a suspicion.”
I snatched the envelope from his hand and opened it. The note read:
Sorry, Gina. He didn’t know it was you. Mario.
“SHIT!” I yelled. “That moron Mario!”
“What’s it say?” Nico took the note from my hand with two fingers.
“Thought as much,” said Sammy, shaking his head.
“You put Mario in charge of training the new street snatchers?” Nico started to laugh. “Oh, Sammy.”
“It’s not funny!” I snatched the note back from him. “Mario is a total screwup. Remember what happened with the credit-card scam?”
Mario is another cousin. Nico likes to say Mario had snuck out for a smoke when God was handing out brains. The last venture under Mario’s supervision was a total disaster. You don’t get very far in this business if you keep stealing credit-card numbers from your own relatives.
Sammy shrugged. “Figured he was safer doing something manual, you know? Not with numbers and names. Not so hard to screw up.”
Nico grinned. “Oh, Mario will find a way. That’s the one thing he’s good at.”
“Can you believe it? The son of a bitch had the nerve to take my cash,” I said, double-checking the wallet.
“Probably wasn’t Mario, Gina. Most likely it was the kid who did the snatch.”
“Well, Mario should have better control of him,” I shot back. “What’s this family coming to, when you can’t even trust your own muggers.”
“You two can argue about that on your own time,” said Sammy. “Nico, I need to talk to you about the other business.”
That was my signal to vamoose.
“Probably I should leave the room now,” I said, edging my way toward the door.
“You do that, sugar. Go look at the lake or something.”
I nodded. Before I could pick up my bag and purse, he said, “Oh. I’m supposed to tell you Zia Sophia saw a crow.”
“Enough about the crow already!”
“She already knows about that,” said Nico.
I let the cottage door slam behind me. I walked to the bench facing the lake and sat down, putting the bag beside me. The sun was dancing off the water now. You might even be forgiven for thinking this was a lovely September day, instead of crisp December. I wound my red coat about me a little tighter and adjusted the tie belt.
Forget about crows, I told myself. Think about the good things in your life. Like Pete. He is a great guy. You are darned lucky to be marrying him.
Pete is a sports reporter for the Steeltown Star, our local newspaper. He used to be a quarterback in the majors, before a leg injury took him out. He definitely looks like a football player. Over six feet tall, he has broad shoulders and dark blond hair. You hardly notice the slight limp, because the rest of him is so fit. He works out regularly in my cousin Luca’s boxing gym.
Luckily, he has a good sense of humor. You need one if you are going to survive this family.
Now that I was getting married, maybe I could actually leave the family business behind for good. Hey! I could change my last name. Did people still do that?
It was a start. Gina Malone. That sounded pretty good. It didn’t sound like a mob goddaughter at all.
Nico came around the bench. His red- and-silver ski jacket gleamed in the sun. Nico doesn’t ski. He just likes the colorful jackets that come with the sport.
He sat down beside me, looking worried.
“Gina, I might need your help,” he said. I groaned. So much for leaving the family business behind.