The Family Business

by Pete, Eric

  I stepped back, a little puzzled, but followed my future father-in-law’s orders. He led me up a flight of steps, stopping in front of one of several apartments above the restaurant. He knocked on the door, then turned to me.

  “You’re gonna need more money than you make to support my daughter. And I need a good lawyer, someone who’s smart, hungry, and most of all, loyal. So, Harris, my man, I’m offering you a job. Do you want to be my exclusive lawyer?”

  Even if I had known what to think or what to say, he didn’t give me time. He pounded on the door again, until it finally opened a crack. I saw half a man’s face eyeballing us. Before I knew it, LC raised his foot and kicked open the door, busting the man upside the head.

  “LC, please, man, I just need a little more time!” The man held out his hand as if it might keep LC at bay. With his other hand, he covered the side of his face, now bloody from the door strike.

  I hadn’t a clue what the hell was going on. It was all going down so fast.

  I heard three loud pops. One, two, and then a third hole appeared in the man’s chest and stomach. As blood began to seep out of the wounds, I looked over at LC, who was tucking a silenced pistol into his coat pocket.

  “He wasn’t hungry like you, Harris. He was a slacker—didn’t take care of his business—and he talked too much. Namely, about me and my business. But you ...”

  I felt LC’s hand on my shoulder, only I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the man who was taking his last breath on the floor.

  “You are still hungry, aren’t you? And as my lawyer, you’re honor bound to keep your mouth shut, right, Harris?”

  I nodded, feeling numb.

  “Good. Then here’s the first order of business, counselor.” LC reached into his jacket, and my heart started pounding. Was he reaching for that gun again? I had no idea if I would be joining the man down on the floor. “Here, take this.”

  I looked down to see LC handing me a piece of paper. Once it was in my shaking hand, I realized it was a check. I read the figure, and my knees were so weak, I almost fell to the floor next to the dead man. “This is a check for a million dollars.”

  “That’s your retainer. You’re now my lawyer, and you work exclusively for me and Duncan Motors. I want you to give Brask and Williams your walking papers in the morning.... Unless you have a problem working for me?”

  “Mr. Duncan ... I ... I can’t-”

  “Sure you can,” he stated without a hint of doubt. “Let me help you out here, son.” He put his arm around my shoulder and led me away from the pool of blood that was forming near our feet. “You have three choices. You can work for me, you can pretend this never happened and go about your business, or you can go to the cops and talk to them. Your first choice is going to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. The second choice will probably mean you’ll be alive, but would also make you an accessory to murder—something to think about just in case you ever consider changing your mind. And the third, well, if you decide to go to the cops, you might as well lie down with the guy down there, because you’re as dead as he is. If I don’t kill you, then I promise you that my sons will.”

  I stood there silently, taking in LC’s words and trying to breathe. A sudden wave of nausea hit me, and I didn’t know if I was going to throw up or pass out. One thing I did know was that of the three choices LC had given me, only one guaranteed that I would live.

  “So, Harris, future son-in-law, are you my lawyer or not?”

  I couldn’t speak. My words were somewhere frozen between my throat and the tip of my tongue, so I relayed my answer the best way I could. I folded the check and tucked it into my pocket.

  LC patted me on the back. “Welcome to the family. Now, let’s go get something to eat, because I’m famished. Killing a man really helps you build up an appetite, you know?”

  So, for the past ten years, I’d been learning and mastering both the public and private side of the family business. Unlike him or his children, though, I was not willing to get my hands dirty, especially when it came to the violent side of the business. Don’t get me wrong. I was far from innocent, and I understood the need for the heavy-handed approach, but I preferred to stay in the shadows, walking that thin line between attorney and crook.

  Still, what I’d just witnessed LC doing to Miguel was just plain stupid and a little scary. Aside from that first murder I saw him commit, LC usually had other people handle that type of thing. He claimed to be proud that he stayed above the fray, but as we drove back to the dealership and I looked in his face, I was starting to think that he enjoyed it—which was probably why I was scared to death by my wife’s threat to tell him about our physical confrontation that morning.

  “Orlando, I wanna know who’s got that damn truck and my dope, and I wanna know now. We don’t have much time before Alejandro realizes that Miguel wasn’t on his plane and starts asking questions about him,” LC barked at his son, who was sitting in the front passenger seat while Lou drove. “I want you to put it out on the street that I got a hundred grand cash to anyone who tells me where to find that truck. No questions asked. We only have a short window before that shit hits the streets—if it was even in the car.”

  “Already on it, Pop,” Orlando replied, pulling the phone from his ear. “With that kinda money, we should have every crackhead in the five boroughs turning over every rock to find it.”

  “What about Alejandro? When he finds out we have Miguel, he’s gonna go through the roof. You want me to—”

  LC cut me off. “Don’t worry about Alejandro. I’ll take care of him when the time comes. What I want you to do is call our friend at One Police Plaza and see if he can offer any assistance. Have him check the stoplight cameras and all the toll cameras. If that truck left the five boroughs, I wanna know it.”

  I reached for my phone to make the call, but my finger froze over the SEND button when Orlando turned around and said, “Pop, Pablo’s dead.”

  “What did you say?” LC asked, even though he sat only a foot or two away.

  Pablo was one of LC’s best friends and a trusted lieutenant. He ran most of the drug trade in Spanish Harlem and the Bronx. By taking him out, someone was sending us a message. From the expression on LC’s face, it was a message delivered loud and clear.

  Orlando elaborated. “His brother Carlos said some people busted into his brownstone and shot him in the head in front of his wife and kids.”

  “Shit! Does Carlos know who they were? Did anyone recognize them?” LC asked, surprisingly calm in the face of this gruesome news about his friend.

  “No, but he said they spoke Spanish fluently.”

  “Some of his Bronx beef coming back to bite him. I told him to let the Puerto Ricans have that block,” Lou complained. “He was just too stubborn.”

  “No, Uncle Lou, I don’t think so. Carlos said they weren’t Puerto Rican or Dominican,” Orlando retorted. “Pablo’s wife thought they sounded Mexican from their dialect.”

  Everybody quieted, probably thinking the same thing as me: Alejandro. This wasn’t common knowledge, but Alejandro was the middleman for most of the Mexican drug cartels.

  “Son of a bitch!” LC shouted out, breaking our silence.

  “You want me to turn the car around so we can go back and talk to that motherfucker Miguel again?” Lou asked, looking at LC in the rearview mirror.

  “No. Let him sit on ice while we figure this all out. I don’t know what it is, but I think we’re missing something.”

  “Well, I hope you figure it out fast, or we’re going to be in the biggest damn fight of our lives,” I warned.

  London

  26

  I took a deep, nervous breath before I stepped out of the cab when it finally pulled up in front of the Long Island Marriott. I’d had the cabdriver circle the block five times before I built up the courage to ask him to stop. I still couldn’t believe I was sneaking around behind Harris’s back to have drinks with Tony. Less than a month ago, you couldn’t hav
e paid me to talk to another man, let alone meet him for a drink, but Harris and his bitch had really pushed my buttons this morning. Granted, I had no intentions of doing anything other than having a drink. I mean, yes, I was meeting him at hotel, but the hotel was nothing more than a convenient meeting place, because it wasn’t likely I’d run into anybody I knew on this side of town at a hotel. After all, who would be hanging out at a bar at the Marriott in the middle of the week other than someone from out of town ... or someone having an affair? We weren’t having an affair, but if I was being honest with myself, it sure as hell would look like it, wouldn’t it?

  What the hell am I doing? I asked myself as I paid the driver and headed toward the lobby. I wanted to believe I was only getting a little payback for the smack I got this morning. So why the hell was I feeling so guilty? I didn’t know which emotion was more overwhelming at the moment as I made my way through the hotel entrance: guilt or fear. I was feeling guilty about sharing my time with another man, but also fearful about what could happen if someone saw me.

  “Can you point me to the bar, please?” I asked the bellman, wondering if I looked like someone who might be getting ready to cheat.

  “Right that way, ma’am.” He pointed over his shoulder, barely even acknowledging my presence.

  It’s just a drink. It’s just a drink, I kept telling myself as I headed toward the bar. There was nothing to feel guilty about. The man saved me and my daughter, for Christ’s sake. Couldn’t this friendly little meeting be considered just a form of thanks? That was all it was—a drink and conversation. Lord knows I could use a little adult conversation these days. Harris always acted like he was too damn busy to give me the time of day, so I was left to converse with no one but my four-year-old daughter. Hell, if no one else could be bothered with me, I was going to talk to Tony.

  It sure wasn’t hard to spot Tony in the small bar. All I had to do was follow the stares of the women in the bar, every one of whom seemed to be ogling him. Maybe it was the light in the bar, or maybe it was just all the attention he was getting, but I suddenly realized just how attractive he was.

  “And the lady has arrived,” Tony stated, looking down at his watch and then back at me.

  “Fashionably late.” I slid into the seat next to him.

  “No worries. I was expecting as much,” he replied with a wink.

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, if you’re like most women, you’re always running late. That way, when you make your grand entrance, all eyes are on you.”

  “Humph!” I grunted, not sure if I should be offended. After all, there was some truth to what he was saying. “Anyway, I’d say all eyes in this place are on someone else tonight, wouldn’t you?” I teased, looking around the bar at the women who were still staring in our direction.

  He ignored my comment and also ignored all those other women as he looked me up and down. “Well, Ms. London,” he said as he raised his glass in a toast, “I must say, you were definitely worth the wait.”

  As much as I didn’t want to be, I was flattered by his obvious flirting. He stared at me with those golden brown eyes, which I hadn’t really noticed the first time we met. Here in this bar, surrounded by other women who wished they were sitting in my place, I was starting to think they were the most beautiful shade of brown I’d ever seen. The uneasiness I’d felt evaporated from my body. He was making me feel very at ease, maybe even too much at ease. As a matter of fact, every emotion I might have been feeling before walking into that bar was no more. Now the only thing I felt was—and I’m ashamed to say this—wet.

  He gestured to the empty space in front of me on the bar. “So, what can I get you?”

  “How about an apple martini?” I’d never had one of those in my life, but I’d just seen a rerun of Sex and the City on cable and one of the ladies had ordered one. What woman didn’t live vicariously through Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha?

  Tony ordered my drink, and while we waited, I started in on the small talk. “What about you? What are you drinking?”

  He picked up his glass and took a sip. “Hennessy.” Another sip. “But I usually drink rum.” He shrugged, looked at the drink in his hand, and then looked at me. “For some reason I felt like trying something different today.” He swallowed the last of his Hennessy.

  “So, how was it?” I wasn’t intentionally trying to flirt with him, but I think it came across that way. I’d have to work on that. Be more careful. I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. I was just here to talk; that was it. And to get back at Harris for the smack and that bitch he was seeing behind my back.

  “It was good, but then I expected it to be. Dark liquor never lets me down. It’s the only thing I drink. I have this thing for dark ... stuff.” While I was worrying about sending the wrong message, Tony was sending his message loud and clear. And it scared the hell out of me that I was becoming aroused by it.

  The bartender set my drink in front of me and took away Tony’s empty glass to get him another. I picked up the martini and took a sip, then another, and then a gulp.

  “Thirsty?” Tony asked with a chuckle.

  I looked down at my glass. On Sex and the City, the woman had sipped it, not drunk it down like Gatorade after a soccer game. “Oh, uh, yeah, I guess I really needed that drink.”

  “Nervous?” Tony inquired.

  “A little. But more stressed than anything,” I replied, taking another gulp.

  “Listen, I don’t mean to be stressing you out.”

  “It’s not you. I wouldn’t be here if it was you,” I assured him. “It’s my life that’s stressing me out.”

  “Maybe we need to change that?”

  “Maybe you could start with my husband....” I allowed my words to trail off. Did I really just almost make the mistake of telling another man about my issues with my husband? I wasn’t a cheat, never had been, but even I knew that the rules of Adultery 101 included not feeding the other person information about your spouse.

  “You’re married. I figured as much,” Tony said as the bartender placed another Hennessy in front of him. “I mean, you have a daughter. I can’t imagine her father ever letting someone like you get away. He’d be a fool.” He picked up his drink. “Besides, that rock is a dead giveaway.” He winked and took a sip.

  “So, it doesn’t bother you to have a drink in a hotel bar with a married woman?”

  “Should it bother me? I mean, you did call me. If it doesn’t bother you, why should it bother me? We’re just two adults sitting at a bar, having a drink, talking.” He shrugged, then pierced me with those beautiful eyes. “Why? Does it bother you, London?”

  He said my name like he knew me, like he knew things about me I’d yet to tell him. “Yes ... no ... Hell, who am I fooling? Sure it bothers me. I’m a married woman. Tony, I love my husband, and we have a good marriage. It’s just that every once in a while I need someone to talk to and he isn’t there.”

  “I believe you, London, and I understand. Everyone should have someone to talk to. So, I guess the only real question is, why me?”

  All I could do on that one was call out to the bartender for another drink, because I didn’t have a clue how to answer him. In one of those saved-by-the-bell moments, my cell phone rang, only this was a call I didn’t want to have to take. Adultery 101 again: put that shit on vibrate. I contemplated letting it go to voice mail, but why? I was there only to have a drink and talk. Ignoring my husband’s call would make it look like I was doing something wrong. I hit the TALK button.

  Harris’s voice shot through the phone. “Where are you?”

  “I’m out having a drink with a friend. Why?” Unlike his angry tone, I kept mine calm and even.

  “Get home right now, London!”

  I felt my stomach tighten up with fear. My heart was pounding as I searched the bar area for a familiar face. Was someone reporting back to him?

  “Did you hear me? Get your ass home now.”


  I flashed back to that morning, when he dared to raise his hand to me, and I felt some fire return to my attitude. He was not going to bully me, dammit. Besides, I didn’t see anyone in the bar that I recognized, so there was still a possibility he didn’t know anything. Maybe I wasn’t busted; maybe he was just in one of his macho moods, the ones that seemed to be becoming more frequent the deeper he got into the family business.

  Well, I could give as good as I got. I answered him with, “You’re not my daddy. I’ll come home when I damn well please.”

  “I don’t have time to argue with you. Now, get home right now.”

  If he knew I was in a bar with another man, he would have said so by now. It was safe to say that this particular ego trip was for some other reason. Just Harris trying to force me to do what he wanted. Except this time, I decided, I was done playing by his rules.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I finish my drink. Not after the way you put your hands on me this morning. If my father—” I was about to scare him with another threat to tell my father but realized it was best not to get into all of that with Tony next to me, listening to every word. “You know what? Never mind. Just go to hell, Harris. I’m not coming home until I damn well please!” I hung up the phone, pissed that he had fucked up my buzz.

  “Wow, sounds like trouble in paradise,” Tony said.

  “Who said anything about my marriage being paradise?” Shit! I did it again. I gave him information about the home front.

  The bartender had brought me another drink during my phone call. I finished it off quickly and ordered another. “Look, let’s talk about something else. Something nice,” I said to Tony and then proceeded to sit there and say nothing. I was too busy fuming about Harris’s macho ass.

  Tony reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, it’s fine. We don’t have to talk at all if you need a minute.”

  I gave him a nod to let him know that was exactly what I needed. From guilty and nervous to turned on and then angry, my emotions had been all over the place in the last hour or so, and I needed a moment to sort myself out.