Carla
Carla returned to the back room and sat down.
“There you are!” Gio exclaimed. “I was starting to think you drowned in there.”
“Sorry about that,” Carla replied, looking around. “Thanks for your patience. Where are the menus?”
“No need,” Gio said. “I already ordered for both of us.” His posture was loose and relaxed, but Carla didn't like the way he was looking at her—like a hungry predator in the wild, eyeing a herd of prey to determine the slowest and weakest among them.
“I generally prefer to order for myself, actually.” Carla tried to hide her annoyance. She hated it when men ordered for her on dates as though she didn't have a mind of her own, and she was even more peeved by Gio's presumption.
They'd known each other for about two minutes in a professional capacity, and he was already acting like he knew what was best for her? Who the hell did he think he was?
“Nah, you're gonna love this,” Gio insisted. “Tuna sashimi with seaweed salad, plus a couple of Sapporos. What's not to like?”
“Well first of all, I don't really enjoy tuna...”
“Wait 'til you see how fresh this stuff is, though,” Gio interrupted. “It'll melt in your mouth.”
“...and seaweed tends to get stuck in my teeth,” Carla continued. “Plus I prefer not to drink during business meetings, so I can stay focused.”
“Hey, why don't you just relax, okay?” Gio said. His enticing smile was still in place, but Carla saw a brief spark of anger flicker behind his eyes. Clearly, he didn't like being contradicted, especially by women. “There's no reason this has to be formal. We'll have a meal and some drinks and get to know each other a little better. It'll make it easier for us to work together, right?”
“I find it's usually best to maintain a wide border between personal and professional interactions with clients,” Carla answered. “It keeps things from getting confusing.”
“Now that you're working for us, you're gonna have to get used to a more laid back way of doing things,” said Gio. “Families like ours, we got a long tradition of breaking bread with our associates. It establishes trust and shows respect. We Italians don't want to work with people who are all business all the time. We want to work with people who'll dance at our weddings.”
“Well, I suppose having a meal together won't hurt,” Carla admitted. “But I don't dance.”
“I'll bet I could teach you a few moves you'd remember,” Gio said, winking lasciviously.
Carla wasn't sure what to do next. Should she let the wink go without comment? If she did, he'd probably see it as encouragement. Should she express her disapproval? If she did that, he might decide she was a frigid scold and decide to find a different lawyer.
She took a deep breath and decided to let it go.
“As your father was saying,” she began, “our first step is to find a way to make it look like you purchased this restaurant for yourself legally. So for starters, as far as we're concerned, your father has never been here and he isn't even here right now.”
“That oughtta be easy,” Gio muttered. “Pretending my father ain't around is something I do a lot.”
Carla forced a smile, uncertain of how to respond. Was he trying to sound tough now that his father was out of the room? Was he hoping for sympathy? On some subconscious level, perhaps both were true.
“Today is the first time you've been to The Laughing Fish. You're thinking about purchasing it, and you retained me as a legal consultant to help you. Mr. Shimizu was kind enough to let us look around and order a meal, despite the fact that the place is closed. Are you with me so far?”
“Yeah, I get it. I ain't stupid. But what you're saying is already basically true, right?” Gio shrugged.
“'Basically true' is still partly a lie,” Carla pointed out, “and it's extremely important that we get our stories straight before the FBI and IRS start crawling all over the paperwork. They'll be looking for any discrepancies to nail you with, no matter how small or trivial they may seem. Remember, they got Al Capone for tax evasion.”
“Yeah, they sure did,” Gio nodded. “Did you ever see the movie about that, with Robert DeNiro?”
“I don't believe I've seen that, no,” Carla replied. She felt herself growing irritated with his tangent, and she reminded herself to stay calm and take her time. Good undercover work took time and patience, like fishing.
“We should watch it together sometime,” Gio said. “I must've seen it, like, twenty times, at least. Man, the scene with DeNiro and the baseball bat gets me every time.”
Shimizu entered with their food and drinks, setting them down on the table. As he left, Gio picked up his chopsticks and started eating the red slivers of tuna piece by piece. “Mmm! I'm in paradise, this is so good. Have some.”
Carla cleared her throat. “As I said earlier, I don't really like tuna—”
Gio raised his eyebrows, his smile fading slightly. “And I told you that you'll love it,” he said, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. He speared another piece of tuna with his chopsticks and held it out to her across the table. “Look, lady, in case you ain't figured it out yet, here's the headline: You're young, you're clearly just starting out in this business, and this is your first big break. Maybe the only one you'll ever get without going back to leeching off your daddy's name and reputation. So if you want to make millions working for our family, you're gonna have to learn to do as you're told. Now I'm not gonna discuss another fucking thing with you until you eat this tuna, so go on, take it.”
Carla sighed. “Fine.” She reached out to take the chopsticks from him, but he pulled them away, grinning.
“Ah-ah,” he teased. “No hands.”
She rolled her eyes and leaned forward, taking the tuna with her mouth and chewing it. “Okay,” she said briskly. “It's good. Thank you. Now can we get back to discussing the restaurant?”
“Fine,” he agreed, taking several long gulps from his Sapporo bottle.
“With regard to purchasing it, do you have any personal assets you can claim to have used to pay for it?”
“Sure,” he said. “I got about twenty grand from a truckload of electronics I hijacked with some guys a couple months ago, and I get a weekly slice of Little Tony Parisi's take from selling pot on the North Side, which should be good for another—”
“Legal assets, Gio,” Carla interrupted him wearily. “Things you can justify to the IRS.”
Gio bristled visibly. “I was getting to that stuff before you fucking cut me off,” he snapped. “Don't do that, okay? I hate it when people can't wait for their goddamn turn to talk.”
Carla remembered how he'd cut her off just a few minutes earlier, and kept quiet.
“So anyway, I got my '78 Corvette, and I got my house. My dad bought me both of those with the profits from his legit businesses, so they should be fine. Hey, you should come by and see my place sometime,” he sneered. “I got some nice stuff there, I bet you'd get a real kick out of it.”
“What are the house and car worth?” she asked.
“Well, last time I checked, the 'Vette was worth about twenty-five thou,” Gio said, “and the house is probably worth about a quarter mil.”
“Okay, so you've got plenty of above-board collateral to take out a business loan from a bank,” Carla said. “Good. That should make this relatively simple. You won't have to worry much about interest, either—with the cash that'll be coming through this place, I'm betting you'll be able to pay the loan back very quickly. And how do you intend to use this establishment to launder your illegal profits?”
“You know, the usual way, I guess,” he said. “The money goes into the restaurant dirty, it comes out clean, boom. Like that.”
A long, uncomfortable silence passed between them.
“You don't actually know how money laundering works, do you?” Carla guessed. She suddenly realized why he'd been trying so hard to distract her and keep the conversation away from the business. He didn't know anything about it, and he was too embarrassed to reveal his ignorance to her.
For the first time, she felt a small stab of pity for him. It surprised her, and she quickly suppressed it.
“Hey, I already told you, I'm not stupid,” Gio said through clenched teeth. “I don't know if my father said something to you or what, but I don't need to be talked down to like some kind of fucking kid. So you can knock that shit off right now.”
“Fine,” Carla agreed. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean any disrespect. I'm here to help you in any way I can. If that means you need me to walk you through the process of funneling your profits through this place, I'm happy to do that.”
Gio leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and favoring her with a winning smile. “Nah, I don't need no walk-through,” he said, “but why don't you go ahead and tell me anyway? You've got a sexy voice, and I like listening to it.”
Jesus, this guy just won't let up, Carla thought. If it were anyone else, she might have even found it charming. In this situation, though, it only put her nerves on edge even more than they already were.
“Okay,” she began, “hypothetically, let's say that this week, you get five thousand dollars from...who was it on the North Side? Little Timmy?”
“Little Tony,” Gio corrected her. “And that ain't too likely. That asshole rarely kicks up more than a couple grand, tops. Lazy motherfucker's probably too busy smoking that shit himself.”
“Right,” she nodded, “so you get two thousand from Little Tony. You write up a handful of receipts for imaginary customers, and you've got a perfectly legal explanation for where the money came from. Maybe the restaurant had a particularly busy night, or some big group reserved this back room for a private party. Restaurants are some of the only businesses left that still take in lots of cash instead of relying on credit cards, so when you bring a big bushel of small bills to the bank for a deposit, who's to say it came from selling marijuana instead of miso soup?”
“Okay, that makes sense,” Gio mused. “But my father told me no one ever comes into this place. Ain't the Feds gonna see how empty it always is and know that something ain't legit?”
It was a good question, and Carla was surprised by it. Maybe he's not stupid after all, she thought. He may not have paid attention when this stuff was explained to him before, but now that he is, he seems to be catching on very quickly.
“That's very true,” she agreed, “which is why an important early part of this plan will be to actually try to get more customers to eat here. With enough people coming in and out, the FBI won't have any way of knowing who's buying what, and whether they're using credit cards or paying cash. You can do that by offering special discounts, running promotional campaigns, maybe booking some live music...”
“Yeah, and I can also put that all-you-can-eat place out of business,” Gio said, nodding to himself. “Maybe arrange for them to fail a few health inspections or even burn the place down and have the arson inspector say it was bad wiring or something.”
“Let's stick to legal methods of expanding our clientele for now,” Carla said quickly, hoping Gio's mind wouldn't continue down that path. If the advice she gave him led to innocent people being hurt or intimidated, she doubted she'd be able to forgive herself.
“You can also invite your associates to come in on a regular basis,” she continued, “and to bring their families too. You won't charge them—which will incentivize them to keep coming in—and it'll look like you have plenty of customers to anyone who's watching the place. The main thing, though, is to make sure no one does or discusses anything illegal while they're here. If the FBI or the local cops have any reason at all to suspect the Mancinis are doing their deals and sit-downs here, they'll have no trouble getting warrants to have the place bugged.”
“Uh-huh,” Gio said. “That sounds like a real good plan. Okay, you're hired. So what do we do first?”
“I'll make an appointment with a bank for tomorrow to present our proposal and request a loan,” Carla said, getting up from the table. “I'll give you a call when I've set it up to let you know where and when to meet me so we can do that. Remember to wear a nice suit and a tie. Also, I'll need you to gather the documents that provide proof of your ownership of the house and Corvette.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, where are you going?” Gio asked. “We should celebrate! Besides, you ain't even touched your food.”
Carla favored him with what she hoped was a motherly smile of indulgence, though she suspected it was probably more in the realm of a shit-eating grin. “I'm really not hungry,” she said. “Plus I have a lot of work to do before the meeting, and I'm sure you'll find plenty of ways to celebrate enough for both of us. Just remember to show up at the bank on time.”
“Fine,” Gio retorted, “but once the deal is done, you gotta let me take you out to a real dinner somewhere. A little wine, a little music...”
“As long as I can order for myself, you're on,” she said, patting him on the shoulder on her way to the door. “See you tomorrow, Gio.”
Behind her, Gio said, “I can't wait.”
As she left, she was sure she could feel his eyes locked on her hips and ass.