The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  When I get to the deli the next morning, Tommy is sweeping up glass. The place is trashed. The tables and chairs have been turned over. Meat and bread are strewn all over the floor. The cooler where Tommy keeps bottled drinks has been knocked over and busted.

  I begin to pick up chairs and set them upright. “What happened?”

  “It was like this when I got here,” says Tommy. He sweeps chunks of glass into a dustpan and deposits it in the trash can.

  I right a table. “Local kids you think? Did they steal anything?” I hope it’s nothing more serious than some teenage hoodlums. If not, if this is a strike from another family, then we’ve got big troubles. There hasn’t been a serious jettatori war in my lifetime, but I’ve heard stories about the last one, when my grandfather was head of the family. Magic can’t fight magic. It just cancels itself out. So wars between the families don’t utilize magic much, but they’re bloody affairs. No one wants something like that to happen.

  “Not local kids,” says Tommy. “Whoever did it knew the combination to the safe. They cleaned out all the money.”

  “An inside job?” I’m quiet for a second as I pick up another chair. Then I realize what it means. “Vincent.”

  Tommy nods. The glass jangles as he sweeps more of it into a pile.

  I sit down heavily on the chair I just set up. “His father just died.”

  “Not an excuse, Olivia, and you know it.” Tommy uses the broom to get the last of the glass. “I’ve already changed the combination to the safe. I sent guys over to his apartment this morning to get his keys back and to try to find the money. It’s your call, of course, but I think the only choice you have is to kick him out.”

  “Oh, that’s already done,” I say. “He showed up at my house last night, drunk, with a gun. He threatened me and my grandmother.”

  Tommy pauses over the dustpan. “He came to your house with a gun?”

  “He smashed one of our windows too. He seems to like smashing things.”

  Tommy dumps the dustpan in the trash again. “That’s not acceptable, Olivia. He’s beaten you up before, publically threatened you, stolen money from the family, and then physically come to kill you.”

  Put like that, it really does sound like Vincent’s gone completely off the edge. I get up. “I’ll help you mop up the food and stuff. Is there a mop in the closet?”

  Tommy intercepts me. He puts his hands on my shoulders. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  I deliberately duck the question. “It means that I’ll help you mop.”

  “Olivia.”

  I sigh. “We kicked him out. We’re getting back his keys. It’s enough.”

  “He’s a threat to the entire organization and especially to you. It’s not enough.” Tommy takes a step away from me. “He’s got to be taken care of.”

  I go to the closet and get the mop and bucket. I fill up the bucket in the sink. While the water’s running, I say, “You mean he’s got to be killed, don’t you?”

  Tommy doesn’t seem uncomfortable with my telling it like it is. “Yes.”

  I turn off the water. “We can’t do that to his mother. She just lost her husband. Now we’re going to take away her oldest son too?”

  Tommy shrugs. “No way to be proud of a son like that. This way, we tell her he died a hero. We save her lots of heartbreak down the road.”

  Which is the sort of justification I don’t particularly care for. “There’s got to be some other way.” I wheel the mop and bucket away from the sink.

  Tommy takes the mop from me. “You want to wait until he kills you? Until he kills your grandmother?”

  I’m quiet.

  Tommy starts to mop. I watch as he slides pieces of lunch meat across the floor. “I’ll do it. You give me the word, and I’ll take care of it. That’s what I’m here for, Olivia.”

  I’m about to order my first hit. I’m about to tell Tommy to kill my cousin. I feel like the world’s stretching too tight. I don’t think I can be responsible for the death of another person. It was one thing to kill Joey after what he did to Tressa. But Vincent... Well, Vincent has done a lot of pretty awful things. But he’s family. Family is sacred. How can I...? Of course, if Vincent really felt like family was sacred, then he wouldn’t have behaved the way he’s been behaving lately, would he? I guess Vincent turned his back on the family a long time ago. Tommy’s right. He’s a threat, and I can’t be looking over my shoulder forever. Vincent wants to kill me. He won’t always show up at my house too drunk to be able to aim or stand up. I won’t always wake up before he tries something. I do have to do this. I suck in breath slowly. “All right. He dies.”

  “You want me to do it tonight?”

  It would be easier if I sent Tommy to do it. Tommy’s killed before. He’s used to it. And I’d never have to worry about Vincent again. I’d know he was taken care of. It’s the simplest way to solve the problem. But Vincent’s family. He was supposed to be my second-in-command. He may have made a mess of a lot of things, but he still deserves some respect, especially since this is the final gesture of respect that I can give him. “I’ll do it. Tonight. But if you’d like to come along, I’d appreciate it.”

  Tommy leans on the mop and looks at me. “I kind of had a feeling you’d say that, Olivia. You got balls. No one can deny that.”