Flashback two days. Here’s the situation. I’m standing in the middle of Butler’s quarter-billion dollar mansion, and the first thing I notice is the heat. Just thinking about it now puts me back in his living room, feeling each drop of sweat come down my ears. My legs. My back. My forehead.
“You guys cooking omelets in here or what?” I ask the two bodyguards—these big Slavic types with fingers wrapped in gold and necks like bulls. They don’t look at me. One of them pokes the other in the side and points to me and says a whole string of words that sounds like there’s not a vowel in the mix.
I roll up both sleeves to hide the sweat stains, take my seat on the ivory staircase, palm two Tic Tacs, and crunch slowly. They’re orange-colored and taste like nothing, not even mint, but I chew them all the same just to have something to do. I’ve been wandering around this room for an hour, at least, and Theo Butler still hasn’t called me in.
Usually, I don’t stand for shit like this, and I’ve been thinking plenty about just walking out and telling the old guy to screw himself, but it’s more wishful thinking than anything. No one tells Theo Butler to go screw himself. Maybe his guards—these asshole Slavs with their flat faces and gorilla-like upper bodies. But as far as I know, Theo Butler’s never told anything less than ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir,’ even from his enemies.
My shirt’s a dishrag that I’ve left tucked in for some reason and consider untucking, but then do nothing with it. My tie’s also hanging on the balustrade like a noose. Some blue and black-checkered thing I bought for a wedding I didn’t end up going to. It’s the first time I’ve brought it anywhere that wasn’t home from the store.
One of the Slavs—I get the name Andrei from his nametag and ignore just how fucking hilarious it is these guys gotta wear nametags—takes out a tiny black pouch you’d think he’s got heroin stored in and proceeds to pack, roll, and light a cigarette all with two fingers. It’s like watching a magic trick.
I pop my last Tic Tac and crunch again. Must’ve been louder than I thought because Andrei stares at me. His partner Ikov—the same in every way minus the mop of black he’s got on his head—clears his thick Russian throat.
I stare back, and we continue on like this for a minute or two like total idiots. Then Theo’s door opens; a sickly, hunched-over kid totters out like he’s just gotten out of the hospital, and a green and blue streak of feathers goes flying overhead, squawking ‘pussy, pussy.’
I get a snapshot of the interior. Black and white tiled floors, big oaken desk, a couple of what look like Corinthian pillars behind it, some strains from an opera, a squeal—
The door slams shut. It’s just us again, plus the kid and this parrot. He’s easily the biggest and the most beautiful parrot I’ve ever seen - red like blood, green like spring, grass, blue like water, and yellow like the sun. I sound like a goddam poet just describing the thing. Part of me wants to know how much the old boss paid for the creature, while the other part says don’t bother: even if you worked for the Brothers full-time there ain’t a chance you’d see anywhere near that money in your lifetime.
The Brothers. Sometimes it’s the Family. If you wanna get fancy, it’s the Fratelli, but if you’re like the rest of us you just call it the mob. That’s Theo’s crew. Old Sicilian mob types. They came here about two hundred years ago right around the time of the Irish, and the two fought like devils in New York. Then they came a little bit more north and became friends, though by “friends” I mean in the sense when the other person isn’t constantly trying to put a jagged hunk of steel in your belly, or strap a bomb to the underside of your Mercedes.
All things considered, it’s still pretty crazy to think of the changes these guys have made recently. Take that guy who just walked out of Theo’s office - wormy, thin, and pale with so many freckles on his cheeks they look like a swarm of fire ants. Irish through and through.
Fifty years ago, if he’d been spotted a mile from this place, you could bet these Russians would have been there in seconds pounding his ass into the daisies. Now here he is trying to bum a cigarette.
“J—just one, man,” the kid stutters. Jesus. He looks like he’s about to cry. What the hell did Theo do to him?
The guy belches and turns towards me with the Russian’s tobacco pouch, and I see the bags under his eyes and start to think that it’s probably not a coke addiction—he hasn’t touched his nose once—so he’s probably just drunk.
Sure enough, he stumbles across the tiles and plants his elbow right in the nick of time on the balustrade, knocking off my tie. “Sorry, b—brother.”
He extracts a sheet of rolling paper, dumps on a pinch of tobacco, rolls most of it off the paper and onto the tiles, licks the end of the paper and sticks the shabbiest excuse for a cigarette I’ve ever seen in the tiny crevice in the corner of his mouth. “You g-got,” he stumbles over the word, once, twice like he’s playing jump rope with it. “G-g-otta light?”
“Pussy!”
The kid glares up at the bird as he tries to light the end of his paper with my Zippo. The parrot responds by dropping a long, wet shit on the tiles. The Russians both give identical dry chuckles. One says something into the gadget coming out of his ear, and a second later, an old Mexican woman with a mop and bucket appears from somewhere in the back of the mansion and scrubs the tiles back to glittering. The kid was still trying to light his cigarette.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been in a situation as strange as this. But it’s been awhile since anyone has made me an offer as good as what Theo Butler offered on the phone.
Tailgating—his word. Just to make sure his daughter doesn’t run into trouble.
Trouble. Now that’s a difficult word. There’s my definition of trouble, which is when you got rival Crewmembers with two-by-fours out for your blood. Then there’s a mob boss’s trouble, which if I’ve understood the Godfather right, could mean fifty shots from a submachine gun while waiting for your car to fill. Which one did you have in mind? I had asked him.
I swear I could hear the old man’s cheekbones pulling up into a smile at the question. We’re not expecting anything quite that exciting, he said. She’s a respectable young woman. Come on down to the mansion, and we’ll discuss all the fine points to your heart’s content.
I wipe more sweat from my hairline and take my Zippo back from the kid. I still like keeping it in my pocket even if I gave up cigs a long time ago. He tries to say thank you but the words come out as something much different, and I ignore it. Then he stumbles over to the big wooden door on the far side of the room, which the butler opens, and he disappears into the light of the day, trailed by another cry from the parrot. The Russians laugh again.
I’ve got a feeling it’s about my time, so I straighten up and make my fingers into a comb and loop my already-tied tie around my neck. My buddy who was gonna get married is the one who tied it for me—four of five years ago, I’ve forgotten now. Never learned how to do the thing myself.
“Scoose me.” It’s a girl’s voice—a Barbie’s voice, and she actually says it like that, so it sounds like the word ‘loose.’ I get up and push myself back against the banister.
Five feet of fluff and fur and a crown of Shirley-temple curls come bounding down the stairs, past the Russians, and into Theo’s office. Then, a second later, someone calls, “Quinn Tolliver,” and I take the last few seconds to re-comb my hair before entering the lair.
Respectable young woman, my ass. That’s not a woman. That’s a stick of bubblegum, a rugrat.
A problem.
That’s when the door slams shut behind me.