Aedan
If there’s one thing the bastard son of the leader of the Irish mob shouldn’t do when he’s sent for an interview with the don of the Italian mob, it’s hit on the princess daughter, the famous Livia Russo, draped in jewels and stuck-up in the extreme. But then, I’m a secret bastard, aren’t I, so maybe if there’s a little leeway with that, there’s a little leeway with this. That logic is bad, and I know it. I feel red-faced and pretty damn stupid as I follow Bruno Russo into his office.
It’s way plainer than I expected it to be and the man seems flagrant in comparison. His flashy suit and gold jewelry, his thin hair combed over a balding head, his general appearance of old mafia, looks strange in what amounts to a simple clerk’s office. He waves a beringed hand at the chair opposite his.
I close the door and take the seat.
“So, you and my daughter are fast friends,” he says, with only a slight Italian accent. His eyes are steady, the sort of eyes I know well. They’re the same as Dad’s eyes, only Dad’s are a touch more sadistic. These are the eyes of a capable killer, an unemotional killer, but a killer all the same. They’re eyes I see when I look in the mirror every morning, truth be told.
“I didn’t know it was her,” I say, somewhat sheepishly. “Otherwise I never would have...”
He shrugs, leans back. “Her mother detests the Irish and so she does, too, although I suspect not as greatly. Women’s business...I keep out of it. I think she knew you were coming, but she doesn’t know the reason why.” He laughs, a surprisingly carefree sound. “Did she come at you with real intent?”
I chuckle, shocked at how at ease I feel in what is, really when you get down to it, enemy camp. But Bruno isn’t at all like Dad said he’d be, but then, Patty spends his life seeing daggers in the shadows. “I think so, yeah.” I smile. “I’ve gotta say sorry though, Mr. Russo. I can’t help it, when I see a pretty lady, but I should have.”
There you go again, a voice whispers, perhaps Mom’s voice, dead for three years and miserable right up until the end. Pretending you’re a simpleton, an animal driven by nothing more than women and desire. But we know the truth, don’t we? We know what drives you most is dear old Patty; you’ll live your life with rage and anger and blood and spit trying to get his approval, won’t you? And why? Now, I’m sure it’s Mom’s voice, quiet and timid, as though afraid Dad is going to hit her. Is it because you could never impress me, is that it? Is it because you let me down? Oh, you want dear old Daddy’s love, don’t you?
“Aedan?” Bruno says, using my first name as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Yeah?” I shake my head, focus, dislodging the thoughts.
“Would you like a drink? Whisky?”
“Sure.”
He nods at the bottle which sits on the desk, beside two glasses. I pour myself a glass and then arch an eyebrow at him. He nods and I pour him a glass. For a few moments, we drink in near-silence, the only noises coming from the street outside and the bar, honking and shouting, clattering, the jukebox, the occasional laugh.
“You must understand that this allegiance—this proposed allegiance—is very difficult for the family to swallow. I had a son, once. Luca. Luca Russo. He was next in line; he was going to be the don one day. He was strong...No, that’s a lie. The truth is, I wanted him to be stronger than he was. Anyway, I’m sure you know, or maybe you don’t...” He sighs, takes a sip of whisky. “He was gunned down in a battle over a scrap of concrete by an Irishman. So, you see, the Russos are not exactly predisposed to trust the Irish. It’s doubly bad for Livia. Luca is—was—is her twin.” He winces as he struggles to decide if his son should be past or present tense.
I just nod.
“A man of few words.”
“Not usually,” I mutter. But what am I supposed to say to that?
“Well, let’s get down to business. How much did your boss tell you?”
My boss. Not my dad. My boss. Because as far as the city is concerned, I’m just some guy.
“A little,” I say. “But he didn’t need to say much. The Mexicans have been hitting our stores, just like yours. They’ve been stealing our product, busting into our clubs, hassling our women. I managed to get a few of ’em the other day—”
“You did?” Bruno sounds impressed. “So far, our men have been rather unlucky.”
“I happened to be in the back of one of our department stores—a front, you know—when they hit. Three of the bastards, all tattooed and with skull bandanas over their mouths, you know how they are, like the pricks think they’re in Juarez and this is bandit country.”
“What kind of weapons?” Bruno asks.
I think back. “A couple of sub-machine guns, and a shotgun, sawn-off.”
“And you had?”
“Just my revolver.”
“And you came off the better for it?” Bruno looks at me like he’s just seen me for the first time.
“It wasn’t so hard,” I say. “I just hid in one of the boxes the couches come in off the docks. I climbed in and hid until they’d ‘searched’ the back, and then I just popped up and shot all three of them in the head, pop, pop, pop. Stupid, really. I should’ve winged one and questioned him, but I was just so damn angry that they’d storm in like that.”
“Hmm.” Bruno nods. Both our glasses are empty. I lean forward, meaning to refill them, but Bruno snatches the bottle and does the honors. He slides my glass across the desk to me. “I have to say, Aedan, I am impressed. None of our men would’ve played it like that. Hiding, I mean. Italian pride would’ve forbidden it.”
I laugh tightly. “Maybe Irish pride would have, too, but I’ve never had much use for pride when it comes to killing. The way I see it, it’s the proud men who end up in the ground.”
Bruno nods, a small smile on his lips. “Was he there?” he asks.
Immediately, we both grow more serious. I know the he Bruno’s referring to. Carlos Rio, a Cartel leader, and rumored to be absolutely bat-shit crazy. And maybe rumored is a nice way to put it because, if the mutilated corpses he’s been leaving all over the city are anything to go by, it isn’t a rumor.
“No,” I say. “He wasn’t. Just his goons.”
“You know the reason I agreed to this—and the reason your boss agreed to it, most likely—is Carlos. Neither of us can afford a crazed Mexican charging around, killing with impunity, taking what he likes and doing as he likes.”
“I agree,” I say. “One-hundred percent.” I drain my whisky, hardly feeling it. It seems some clichés are closer to truth than us Irishmen would like to admit. “The man’s like the fuckin’ wind. Every damn time we get close to him, he’s gone, and then the next day we find out he’s hit one of our places on the other side of town.”
“It’s the same with us,” Bruno says. “So, this truce, do you have the authority to broker it?”
He sounds uncertain, but he doesn’t know that Patty is my sweet old papa, doesn’t know I wouldn’t be here if the desire to please at least one parent before they died was a fire in my belly, constantly fueling me, pushing me. He doesn’t know that often I lie awake at night staring at the ceiling thinking about Mom, about the way she died when she was still miserable and there was nothing I could do to help her. He doesn’t know that when she died, I was out working, and I wasn’t there to hear her last words; he doesn’t know that the idea of that happening with Dad just as it happened with Mom scares the piss out of me.
“I have been given authority,” I say, unable to say more. Patty doesn’t need the world at large knowing he has a bastard, after all.
Bruno interlocks his fingers and rests his chin on them, leaning forward. “He gives a hitter so much power?” he says curiously. “That is most interesting. But then, the Irish have always been more flexible than us, haven’t they?”
“You could say that,” I mutter, not wanting to comment on the Italian way of doing things. They can be damn prickly about that.
“Okay, you can tell your boss that a truce will be made for as long as it takes for this Mexican problem to be dealt with—for as long as it takes for this fica to be dealt with. We will not hit your stores; we will split our corners equally; we will share product, as a gesture of goodwill, and our men will stop their squabbling in the street. And if the Mexicans hit, both of us will respond. If an Italian store is attacked, the Irish will help, and if an Irish store is attacked, we will help.”
“Sounds good. Patty will be pleased.”
“This is historic, Aedan,” Bruno says, rising to his feet. I stand up. He offers me his hand. “Historic.”
I grip his hand firmly, matching the strength of his hand, and we shake. “Beware,” he says. “Agreements like this tend not to sit too well with the troops.”
“That’s not a problem,” I say.
“Really?” He tilts his head at me. “Why’s that?”
“The men seem to like me,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable, worried I might be bragging. I hate those assholes who swagger around the city thinking they’re the best thing since a willing woman. “Anyway, we have bullets if our tongues don’t work, eh?”
Bruno openly grins now. “We do,” he agrees. We stare at each other across the desk for a few moments, and then Bruno clicks his fingers. “I have an idea, Aedan, a way for our families to get a little closer, and, also, a way for you to learn the nitty-gritty logistics of my side of the business.”
“Yeah?”
“You like my daughter, Livia, do you not?”
I flinch, feeling the phantom of an Italian hitter behind me.
“I didn’t know it was her,” I say stiffly.
Bruno chuckles. “Don’t worry, Aedan. We have shook hands; you are safe. But you like her, yes?”
“She is...she seems like a nice lady, yeah, sure. Why?”
“Livia is my secretary and she knows everything about the business. Or, at least, most of it.”
“Okay...”
I’m still waiting for the shoe to drop—just hopefully not a shoe filled with cement dropped into the sea, with me glued right into it.
Bruno shakes his head. “I have an idea,” he says. “An idea which will make this whole enterprise run along more smoothly.”