by B. B. Hamel
“Yeah? Temporary, huh? Tell me what else you do then.”
She stopped fidgeting and stared right into my eyes.
“I’m a journalist,” she said.
I arched an eyebrow and felt a little thrill of surprise.
“Journalist?” I asked.
“That’s right. I’m just working freelance right now, writing some stuff for the Inquirer and other little local papers out in the ‘burbs. But I’m looking for a big story, you know?”
“The big one,” I said. “The one that’ll break you in.”
“Right.” She laughed and smiled at me, her teeth dazzling and straight. “Sounds stupid, I know.”
“Doesn’t sound stupid at all,” I said. “I was young and hungry. Hell, I still am.”
“What do you do?” she asked.
“Lots of things,” I said. “Real estate, sanitation, that sort of stuff.”
She grinned at me. “Oh, right. So you’re in the mafia.”
I barked a laugh as her face turned bright red.
“Come on now, sweetheart,” I said. “You don’t just blurt it out like that.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was just joking around, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m just being really stupid, I’m so sorry. I’ll go back inside. I’ll just—”
“Wait,” I said. “Stay.”
She leaned toward the door and her eyes locked on mine again. She held that tray between us like it was a shield, and I wanted to tear it from her hand and fling it off into the night. The tile floor beneath our feet echoed as she took a step closer, and the overhead lights built into the ceiling above us made her face look bright and fresh.
Over her shoulder, I saw my father glance in my direction. His face turned dark for a moment, but then another white-haired man in an expensive suit said something, and he turned away with a smile on his face.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t. I don’t want to get in trouble. Or to put my foot further in my mouth.”
I tilted my head. “I doubt you can fit your whole foot in your mouth, but I’d love to see you try.”
She laughed. “Was that a line?”
“It was a bad one.”
“Oh, wow. One of the worst.”
I grinned at her. “Stay for another minute.”
“Fine,” she said. “Just don’t ever use that line again.”
“Promise, I won’t,” I said. I let my eyes drift down and back up along her body again. “My name’s Vince.”
“Nice to meet you, Vince.” She took another couple steps further out onto the balcony. The tray stayed up between us, her little shield against my advances. I couldn’t help but smile about it.
“I’m curious, are you writing a story about this little gathering here?” I asked, gesturing with my glass toward the party going on inside.
To her credit, she didn’t look over her shoulder. “No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“Interesting. Do you know who’s in there?”
She shrugged. “Politicians. Lawyers. I don’t know, generic rich people.”
“Pretty much,” I said and laughed. “Lots of stories in there, if you wanted to go looking.”
She made a face. “And deal with them pinching my ass? No thanks, not worth it.”
“Funny how you assume I’m not going to pinch your ass.”
She laughed and tilted her head. “I’d let you get away with it.”
“Please, you’d let me get away with much more than that.” I sipped my drink. “So you’re a journalist that just so happens to work a catering job for a party like this. Pretty lucky, I have to admit.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Totally lucky.” Her smile was huge and fake, and I knew she was hiding something. “Except like I said. Not really interested in them.”
But I didn’t really care.
Capos in the Leone Crime Family weren’t supposed to talk to journalists for obvious reasons. Journalists were right up there with cops and prosecutors on the list of people made men were supposed to avoid. And yet her innocent little smile, her clumsy attempts at subterfuge, and the fact that I was bored out of my skull made me want to keep her around for a while.
Just to see where this was going.
“Then I take it you’re interested in me,” I said.
“Could be,” she said. “Although you say you’re not in the mafia, so you’re much less interesting.”
I grinned at her and cocked my head.
“Now what would you do if I were?” I asked. “You don’t look like the kind of girl to roll with men like that.”
“I’m a journalist,” she said. “I wouldn’t roll with my subjects.”
“So you want to write about made men, huh?”
She shrugged and the tray in her hand bobbed up and down.
“Maybe,” she said.
“I don’t know. You’re a nice-looking girl, could be trouble for you.”
She glared at me. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
I swirled my whiskey and cocked my head. “Men like that, they’re not above using a girl for her looks and her body,” I said. “You might want to be careful. You might not want to get too close. Might end up with a broken heart.”
She snorted and tossed her hair. “I doubt that,” she said. “I’m not dumb enough to get involved with a gangster.”
“And yet here you are.” I gave her a little smile and raised an eyebrow.
Her expression softened and she took a breath.
“So you’re admitting it?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Never said that.”
She let out an annoyed breath. “You’re just going to play games with me all night, aren’t you?”
“More or less,” I said. “It’s fun to watch you stress.”
“I should get back in,” she said.
“Hold on.” I pushed myself off the railing. For one second, I thought I might lose my balance and go toppling over, my body spinning through the air, hurtling down toward the pavement.
But of course I didn’t.
I stepped closer to her and put one hand in my pocket, the other holding my glass up in front of me. She had her tray, I had my drink.
She glanced over her shoulder and frowned. She shook her head then looked back at me.
“Really, my boss looks annoyed.”
“All right, fine,” I said. “You can go back to serving drinks to these old assholes. But how about I offer you something?”
She chewed on her lip for a second and looked torn. I could only guess what she was thinking, but I felt my heart beating fast.
Something about her approach got me interested. There weren’t many journalists that would come out and say they were trying to talk to gangsters. I haven’t met many people that had the balls to straight-up ask me to my face if I was involved in the mob like that before. And yet there she was, holding her tray and looking annoyed that I didn’t break down and tell her about every man I’ve killed over the years.
I don’t know what it was about her. Maybe the lips, or the breasts pushing against her tight shirt, or maybe just that attitude.
Whatever it was had me curious. And right then, I needed something to be curious about.
“What?” she asked.
“Lunch,” I said. “I’d offer dinner, but I suspect you’d be more comfortable with lunch.”
She hesitated and her eyes narrowed. “I could do lunch,” she said. “If you had something interesting to talk to me about.”
“Darling, I’ve got plenty of interesting things to talk about,” I said. “Come have lunch with me tomorrow and we’ll see if we can’t figure something out.”
She paused and didn’t move. I could tell she was thinking it over, maybe running what I said before through her mind.
I was a gangster. I was a mobster. She knew it as much as I did, and even if I lied and told her that I wasn’t involved in that shit, she could see my face. She could see that I was ly
ing, and I wasn’t even trying to hide it.
I was dangerous. I was the kind of man she should stay far away from.
But something clicked in her expression. Her eyes narrowed and she took a breath then nodded.
“Lunch,” she said. “I can do lunch.”
“Good.” I reached into my jacket pocket and took out a card. It was plain white with just a number on the front. “This is my cell.”
She took it, stared down, then raised an eyebrow.
“Pretty simple.”
“I don’t need much more than that,” I said.
She opened her mouth then shut it again. She slipped the card into her pocket and chewed on her lip again. I guessed that was a nervous habit, and I could only imagine how fast her heart was beating.
I bet she’d never talked to a man like me before in her life. Those wide, innocent, dark eyes looked scared, and as fucked up as it may sound, I liked it.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said.
“Good.” I took a long sip of my drink then put it down on her tray. She grimaced and glared at me. “Looking forward to it.”
I walked past her and she shied away from me. I opened up the door and let the sound of the party spill back out onto the balcony, ruining the silence. Laughter echoed off the building across the street, broke into bits and pieces of repeated phrases, and drifted down toward the pavement below.
Mona gave me a look then slipped inside and drifted through the party.
I watched her go, her tight, round ass swaying. I swore, she wanted me to see those hips move.
But after a moment, I followed her inside, and drifted into the party again.
I had something interesting again, something to look forward to. So I might as well put in a little work and keep my father off my back, at least until I could get back to my crew.
2
Mona
I sat down on the low wooden bench and stretched out my legs. It was a warm summer afternoon and a breeze blew across my back. I pushed stray hairs from my face and took a deep breath as a group of young kids in rollerblades came striding past.
The park smelled like rain and day-old hot dogs. I didn’t know what it was about Clark Park that made it always smell like a hot dog vendor was right around the corner, even though I’d never seen a single food vendor in the area, but it was always heavy in the air. Couples lounged on the grass and old men sat at the chess tables twenty feet to my left, talking and laughing and staring down at the boards. Parents hustled past, chasing after a little boy, and two teenage girls walking a tiny toy poodle and talking on their phones walked the other way.
“Look at you, nice and early.”
I turned my head and smiled. Tommy Townsend stood a few feet away, the Inquirer tucked under one arm, a pair of pens sticking out of his shirt pocket. He had his white and black hair pushed back and a white goatee sprung up around his scowling mouth. His dark eyes stared back at me, and for a long beat, he didn’t move.
“I learned a thing or two from you,” I said.
That broke the ice. He grinned and walked over. He sat down with a sigh. He wore his usual costume, a worn button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows, and a pair of dark jeans and brown boots.
“How ya doing, kid?” he asked, and hit my leg with his newspaper.
“I’m all right, Tommy,” I said.
“You seem good.” He cocked his head. “You show up early just to rub it in my face?”
“Of course,” I said. “Nothing better in the world than beating the mighty Tommy Townsend at his own game.”
He laughed. “Careful,” he said. “I just might come out of retirement to take you on.”
I grinned at the old newspaper man and leaned back against the bench. I met Tommy five years earlier when I was just eighteen years old and a freshman at Temple University. I took his Intro to Journalism class and just sort of hit it off with him. I ended up taking all his courses, including his upper level capstone class, and he was my thesis advisor.
But back before he was a teacher, Tommy was one of those old-school, hard-bitten journalists that seemed to be a part of the story more often than not. He grew up in Philly, just like me, and he seemed to know everyone. I read a few of his bigger pieces, including a profile about Mayor Goode and the MOVE bombing. He had the sort of pedigree and voice that I really admired, and as soon as I began taking his classes, I knew I wanted to be just like him.
“How’s Randy treating you?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said. “Not a lot of work these days.”
He grunted. “That damned internet.”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, I mean, just not much big news. I’m still making ends meet at that coffee shop.”
“Not a bad thing, you know,” he said. “Working hard is good for you.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say,” I said. “You get to show up for a class here or there and you’re golden.”
He snorted and shook his head, smiling and patting the paper.
“I put in my years of service,” he said. “I ever tell you about the time I nearly got shot covering those gangs up in—”
“Yes,” I said, cutting him off. “About twenty times.”
He gave me a look. “You gotta learn to respect your elders, kid.”
“I know. You tell me every time we meet.”
He laughed and stretched. I knew I got under his skin, but I think he liked it a little bit.
Tommy didn’t have any kids, as far as I knew. He had a wife a long time ago, but she passed away, and he’d been single as long as I’d known him. After I graduated, he got me a job writing for the Metro, and then helped me start freelancing for the Inquirer. While I wasn’t technically a staff writer yet, I thought all I needed was one decent story, and they’d give me a real, full-time position.
And then I’d be an actual journalist. Not just some part-time rag writer, filling in stories about bored housewives turned internet streaming entrepreneurs and middle school teachers that built playground replicas from toothpicks. I wanted to get out there in the street, hunt down leads, interview subjects.
I wanted to be as much a part of the story as a witness after the fact.
“All right, kid,” he said. “You called me out here. Said you got something to talk about.”
“Yeah.” I shifted a little on the bench and glanced over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but it felt like the thing to do.
“Spill,” he said. “I’ve got to teach in a half hour.”
“Do you know the name Vincent Leone?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Leone is familiar,” he said. “They’re that Italian mafia family, right?”
“Right,” I said. “Vincent is the only son of their Don.”
“Okay,” he said, giving me a frown. “So how do you know that?”
“Internet,” I said, waving that away. “Reddit mostly, but there are some Tumblrs and Facebook groups about them, and—”
“All right,” he said, holding up a hand. “Old as dirt and don’t know what half those words mean.”
I grinned at him. “You really are a cliché.”
“And you really are wasting my time, so get to the point.”
I sighed and glanced around one more time. “I met him last night,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Did you know?”
I nodded. “Friend of mine works for a catering company, and she told me that they were catering this, like, fancy thing at the top of the Comcast building. She said it was supposed to be really secret and impressive, and that she could bring me along if I wanted to make some extra cash.”
“So you went,” Tommy said.
“Of course,” I said. “I mean, it sounded exciting, and I thought there might be a story in there.”
“What was it like?” he asked.
And in that moment, as he leaned toward me a little bit more, I knew I had him.
I grinned and shrugged like it was no big thing.
&n
bsp; “Oh, you know,” I said. “Bunch of rich old guys talking to each other about how big their bank accounts were. No big deal, really.”
He gave me a hard look. “So you brought me all the way out here for no big deal?” he asked.
“No, I mean, I just—”
“Here’s a tip, kid,” he said. “If you have a story, act like it’s a story. Don’t downplay or be modest, own it.”
I took a breath and nodded. “Right, okay,” I said. “So, well, I was there, and I was doing my thing, you know? Passing out food, collecting empty cups, that sort of thing. And as I’m doing a pass through the crowd, I noticed that Vince had left and—”
He interrupted me. “Vince?”
“Vincent,” I said. “Goes by Vince. You want to hear this or not?”
He gestured. “Go on.”
“So anyway, he went out onto this patio overlooking the city. I followed him out there, we talked a little bit, I turned on the charm, and he wants to meet with me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Meet with you?”
I nodded. “For lunch. All I have to do is call.”
He grunted and shook his head. “Mona—”
“But wait,” I said. “Before you tell me it’s a bad idea, he knows I’m a journalist. I told him straight up, and said I might want to write about him.”
Tommy pursed his lips. “And he still wants to have lunch with you?”
“That’s what he said.”
He shook his head, a frown on his lips. “Mona, you can’t be serious.”
I felt my face flush as I stared at him. I didn’t expect that reaction, not at all. Oh, I figured he’d tell me to be careful, do that whole thing, but I thought he’d be impressed. I went out there and found a subject worth writing about.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Men like that are dangerous,” he said. “I know, the mafia doesn’t kill like they used to, they got a lot smarter these days. But those guys are still dangerous as hell. You don’t want to get attached to one, even if he does know you’re a journalist.”
“You wrote about gangsters back in the day,” I pointed out. “You did it all the time, actually. What made you so different?”
“I wasn’t twenty-three,” he said. “I was older than you. And I was a—”