to Elmhurst, Queens, on Tuesdays and Thursdays to play penny ante with their boss, Louie Barbera.
Several years previously Louie had been ordered by the don of the Vaccarro crime family to take Paulie Cerino’s place in Queens while Paulie was in the slammer. Previously Louie had been head of the New Jersey operation, but the Queens branch was considerably bigger and much more important. Initially, the higher-ups thought Paulie would be paroled in five years or so, but the years had dragged on. Every time Paulie had come up before the parole board, he’d been turned down.
“Should we bring up about last evening and what went down with those crazy Yakuza guys right away or put it off until after lunch?” Brennan asked as he got out of the car. “I know Louie’s going to be fucking fit to be tied.”
“That’s a good question,” Carlo said. He slammed the Denali’s door and started toward the Venetian’s entrance. “I think we should tell him right off. I don’t want him taking it out on us in any way or form, which he might do if we delay it.”
“Yeah, but it’s going to ruin his game, and he hates to have his game ruined.”
“True. So in a way we’re caught between a rock and a hard place. What do you say we flip for it?”
“Good idea.”
The two men stopped in the middle of the parking area while both searched their pockets for a coin. Brennan was the first to come up with a quarter. “Heads, we tell him right away; tails, we wait until after lunch and after the game.”
“Right on!” Carlo said.
Brennan used his thumb to flip the coin up over his head before snatching it out of the air on its way toward the ground. With a quick motion he slapped the coin onto the back of his left wrist. The two men leaned forward. It was heads.
“It’s decided,” Brennan said.
A car horn beeped, making the two men jump out of the way. When they glared at the offending vehicle, they saw the driver was Arthur MacEwan, one of their colleagues, who was laughing at having startled Brennan and Carlo. As he drove past, Brennan gave him the finger. Behind Arthur was a black Chevrolet Malibu driven by another colleague, Ted Polowski. Both cars found slots in the angled parking lot, and their drivers joined the others.
“What are you two losers doing out here in the middle of the parking lot?” Arthur asked, still chuckling about how much he’d scared Carlo and Brennan. He had a high-pitched voice that drove everyone nuts.
“Screw you,” Carlo said.
“We were deciding when to tell Louie what happened last night,” Brennan said, immune to Arthur’s antics.
“What happened?” Arthur questioned.
“You’ll know soon enough,” Carlo said.
Together the group walked toward the restaurant, the facade of which was sheathed in fake stone. Beyond the door, they pushed through a heavy dark green curtain whose job it was to seal out the cold on frigid nights. Inside, the walls were full of paintings of Venice on black velvet. Most of the classic scenes were represented, such as the Ponte dei Sospiri, Saint Mark’s Basilica, the Ponte di Rialto, and the Doge’s Palace.
To the left was a small bar with a half-dozen barstools. Running along the right wall was a row of tufted red velvet-upholstered booths with white tablecloths, which were considered the coveted tables from dinner to the wee hours of the morning. The establishment was open for lunch only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then only for the owner, Louie Barbera, and his soldiers: Carlo, Brennan, Arthur, and Ted. The other tables in the room featured a newly added Chianti bottle nestled within a straw basket and covered with layers of candle drippings. In keeping with the rest of the decor, the tablecloths and napkins were red-and-white checkered fabric. The room was dimly lit from several hanging fixtures over the bar and over each booth.
“You guys are late,” Louie snapped. He folded his newspaper and pushed it aside as he glanced at his watch. “When I say noon, I mean noon. You got it?” Louie was an overweight man in his mid-forties with dull features indistinctly indented into a full face the color and texture of dough. He was dressed accordingly in stretched-out corduroy with worn patches over the knees and elbows. The only thing exceptional about his appearance was his eyes. They were sharp and piercing between flaccid lids, reminding one of a sluggish, fat reptile.
The men didn’t respond, knowing that no matter what was said, Louie would pounce on whoever had the nerve to speak. The one thing everyone learned over the years was that when Louie was in a bad mood, which seemed to be the case that day, it was better to say as little as possible. As they slid into the booth from both sides, since Louie was sitting in the very back, they were all silent.
Louie looked from one to the next to find a victim to appease his irritation, but no one was willing to lock eyes with him.
“Benito!” Louie finally called out, loud enough to be heard from the kitchen, making everyone at the table jump. Then he added, “You guys are pathetic,” recognizing that no one was willing to stand up for the group.
Benito burst out of the double swinging doors and sprinted to the booth. He was a slight man with a pencil mustache and was dressed in a tired tuxedo. “Yes, Mr. Barbera?” he questioned with an Italian accent seemingly from central casting.
“What’s for lunch?”
Louie’s eyes brightened. “Terrific! Let’s also have some Barolo and San Pellegrino and arugula salad.” He then glanced around at the group. “Everybody happy with that?”
Everyone nodded in turn. “That’s it, then,” Louie said to Benito with a wave of his hand. He then yelled after him, “And tell John Franco it’s gotta be al dente or it’s all coming back.”
Louie turned his attention to his guests, looking directly at Carlo. “Well, did you bring the cards or not?”
Carlo pulled out a new box, broke the seal, and placed the deck in front of Louie, all the while continuing the debate with himself whether to bring up the issue of the two crazy Yakuza guys and what had gone down the previous evening then or later, despite the results of the coin toss. As Brennan had reminded him, Carlo was certain Louie was going to go through the roof, because he’d been making it a strict point over the last several years to tone down violence, meaning murder, with all of the local gangs, be they Asian, Hispanic, Russian, or American. His leadership in this regard had been paying off dramatically, and everybody was thriving, even in the depressed economic environment. His point was that by eschewing killings the police were leaving everybody alone, allowing the gambling and drug businesses to prosper, particularly on the drug end. Without police interference, Louie had actually spearheaded an association with the Japanese Yakuza group Aizukotetsu-kai, run by Hideki Shimoda, who called himself a
As Louie dealt out the first hand, Carlo found himself focusing on a compelling reason to break the bad news right away. If he did, he was reasonably confident Louie could not blame him, as Louie had ordered Carlo to help the Yakuza guys. On the other hand, if Carlo waited, as he was tempted to do for convenience’ sake, there was a good chance he would be blamed, at least to some degree, for the killings, making a bad situation even worse. Carlo understood that Louie was not fun to be around when he was angry, but it was also much worse when he was specifically angry at him.
“Yesterday afternoon when you sent us to help the Aizukotetsu-kai guys, things went ...” Carlo paused, trying to think of the most soothing way to bring up the issue, but no words came to mind until he thought of the word
Louie stopped organizing his cards, and after slowly lowering them, he stared at Carlo. “ ‘Awry’?” he questioned with true confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Sorta unexpected,” Carlo explained.
