Teddy drove a company car, which meant an untraceable car, beneath the bridge in Philly.  He drove just past another car that was already there.  Then he waited.  If they thought he was getting out first, they were fools.  He stared at his rearview mirror and waited.  Teddy had the patience of a saint when he needed to.

And it worked.  The doors of the second car eventually opened, two bodyguards stepped out: one was behind the wheel, and the other one was on the front passenger seat.  They looked at Teddy’s car, and then one of them opened the backdoor.  When Boss Bovenconti got out, Teddy then got out too.

Boss Bovenconti was a highly regarded mob boss, but was small potatoes compared to the Sinatra Crime Family.  Teddy knew many other mob families of their caliber wouldn’t give Bovenconti the time of day.  What was his small ass going to do to their behemoth organizations?  But Teddy knew small guys were the hungriest.  They could cause major trouble if they didn’t get fed.

Teddy walked to the back of his car, and he lifted the trunk.

Bovenconti stared at him momentarily, and then walked up to the trunk.  When he saw Khaki’s body inside, he exhaled.  “He’s the one?”

Since there would be absolutely no other reason to be showing him a dead body in his trunk, Teddy remained silent.

“Fucking shame,” Bovenconti said, still looking at the body.

Teddy looked at him.  “How’s your son?”

“In bad shape.  Real bad shape.”  Teddy could see the pain all over Bovenconti’s fat face.  “He’ll live.  By the grace of God, he’ll pull through.  But barely.”

“As you can see,” Teddy said, “the guy responsible has been dealt with.”

“And I appreciate that.  You’re a stand-up guy, Teddy, you always have been.  But why isn’t Mick here?  That’s what I wanna know.  Where’s your old man?  This is downright disrespectful.  I’m a boss.  He’s a boss.  I didn’t send no fucking underboss.  I came.  My son is in ICU, fighting for his life because of something one of Mick’s men did.  But I came.”

Teddy attempted to be polite about it.  “I run this sector of my father’s business,” he said.

“But he could have come, Teddy!  He could have showed up here like I showed up here and said, ‘I’m sorry, B.B.,’ he could have said.  I’m sorry for what happened at that club.  It was wrong.  It was unfortunate.  How do I make this right?’  That’s what he could have done.  That’s what I would have done if it had been one of my men fucking up.”

Teddy didn’t want to put salt in the guy’s wounds.  “This is what I do,” he said.  “This isn’t something my father can be bothered with.”

Bovenconti was offended.  “What the fuck that’s supposed to mean?  My son’s life can’t concern your father?  I’m the head of a family, Teddy!  What the fuck are you trying to say?”

“Who the fuck are you yelling at, first of all,” Teddy responded with bass in his voice.

Bovenconti backed down and changed his tone.  “I’m just saying it’s not right.  That’s all I’m saying.  I’m the head of a family.  And the head of a family should get more respect.”

“Okay, let’s get this shit straight.”  He didn’t want to go there, but this asshole took him there.  “You’re the head of a family, but your ass ain’t on my father’s level.  You aren’t even on my level, okay?  Let’s take it there, motherfucker.  My father is in another world compared to you, and your ass knows it!  I’m sorry about your son.  What happened to him shouldn’t have happened to him.  And, yes, it was disrespectful for Khaki to come at a boss’s kid like that.  It’s not done, and he knew it was out of bounds.  But don’t pull my father into this.  My father doesn’t give a damn about shit like this.  It doesn’t even reach his plate.  Let’s get this shit straight.”

Bovenconti felt disrespected unlike he’d ever felt.  In his world, he was king and he wasn’t accustomed to this kind of blatant disregard.  And to have an underboss, he didn’t care whose, talking to him like that?  Not to mention what that fucker in that trunk did to his son!

But he was nobody’s fool.  He knew, with the Sinatras, umbrage was the only commodity he had at his disposal.

“You want the body or not?” Teddy asked him.

“What do you think?” Bovenconti responded.  “You think I came out here for my health?”  He nodded toward his men.  They walked over to the trunk and removed the body. They took it to the back of their car, and then placed it in their trunk.

Bovenconti then looked at Teddy.  “Tell Mick I said thanks for his concern.”  It was a parting shot, Teddy knew.  And if it wasn’t for the fact that Bovenconti’s son was fighting for his life because of shit one of his own men pulled, Teddy wouldn’t let that asshole get away with it.  But he let it slide.  Better to be the bigger man than create more drama.

“Will do,” Teddy said with a smile of his own, to Bovenconti’s dissatisfaction.  And Bovenconti walked back to his car, got in, his men got in too, and they drove away.

Teddy stood there momentarily.  Taking in the early morning chill.  Nearly five in the fucking morning and he was fixing problems that were not of his making.  Again.  Sometimes it felt as if that was all he did.  Fix somebody else’s bullshit.  Day in and day out.  He wasn’t living a life.  Just problem solving!

He got into his car, too.  But he remained where he sat.

He found himself thinking about Nikki again.  Why was he always thinking about her?  But that was what he was doing at that time of morning.  What was she doing, he wondered?  Was she asleep, awake, working, not working, fucking?  Teddy squeezed the steering wheel at the thought of some guy touching that fine black body.

But it wasn’t as if he had any claim on her.  A relative, Tommy Gabrini, told him to go for it.  You find a good woman, you go for it.  And Teddy almost did.  He called her for months on end.  It was like they were having a relationship by phone alone.  It was so good that he would have wondered if he was being catfished had he not seen her in person some months earlier.

But he enjoyed talking with Nikki.  She was honest and direct and didn’t try to impress him with being something she wasn’t.  For a while it became the highlight of his night to go home and talk on the phone with Nikki.  He kept promising, the first chance he got, he was going back to Cali to see her and spend time with her.

But then more shit happened in his father’s organization that required his attention.  The kind of shit that couldn’t wait, and that couldn’t be handled by anybody else.  And he gave up the pipedream.  He realized what he’d known all his adult life: his life was fucked up enough.  Why would he want to put a relationship on the table too?

Besides, he thought, as he cranked up and drove away, a woman like Nikki, who was a sassy, full-of-life, take-no-prisoners cyclone of a classy lady, could do better than a gun-toting, edge-dwelling, dangerous joker like him.

Way better.