Sonny grinned. “Already on it.”
~oOo~
That afternoon, after a full day at Pagano Brothers Shipping, doing his mundane day job as scheduler, Tony pulled into the driveway of his parents’ house.
For a few minutes, he sat behind the wheel, his sunglasses on, and considered the split-level, mid-Seventies subdivision home that he’d grown up in.
His father was an independent contractor, the kind of guy people called when they wanted to build an addition or update a bathroom. Any time he’d tried to expand in some way—the fix-and-flip fiasco, or just taking on bigger projects—he’d crashed hard. He was a small-time guy, and in Quiet Cove, where the Paganos controlled construction as much as they controlled everything else, there wasn’t room to be anything else. Still, overall, he’d made a steady enough living to raise a family of five on.
On paper, his family looked pretty good, probably. Decent house in a decent neighborhood, parents married almost forty years, three kids who were all doing well, one of them even a college graduate. The house was always neatly kept, the yard mown and the flower beds tidy. Always done up nicely for the holidays. A couple late-model vehicles in the driveway. A little sailboat at the marina.
On paper, not bad. And for the past six years, not terrible in real life, either. But there was a lot of rot holding up what looked pretty good.
Thinking about the call he’d gotten from his little sister that now had him parked in this driveway, Tony sighed, put his sunglasses away, and got out of his car.
His sister must have been watching at the door; she stepped onto the little slab porch as he came up the walk. She had her arms crossed around her waist like she was cold, but it was ninety degrees.
“Hey, Kiki.”
“Hey, Tony. Thank you.”
“Ma okay?”
“She is. He stopped before he got that far. But he scared her.”
Tony nodded and followed his little sister into the house.
As it was a split level, they had to climb a set of stairs before they reached any real part of the house. Tony’s first impression, then, was sound—the place was silent, and that hardly ever happened. His mother kept the television on all day long, starting with the morning shows and ending with The Tonight Show. She said she liked ‘the company.’
But he didn’t hear any crying, so that was a mark to the good, at least.
At the top of the stairs, he saw why the television was quiet. It was on the living room floor, the screen shattered. A bunch of Ma’s knickknacks were upended, too, several broken. Ma had a thing for flowers and animals, and there were glass and ceramic figures and dried floral arrangements all over the house. Even hanging on the walls in things she called ‘sprays.’
There were bits of dried leaves and petals scattered over the area rug.
“He did this?” Dumb thing to ask, since there was only one answer, and he knew it.
Kiki nodded. “We were makin’ dinner when he got home, and he came in for a beer. But Ma forgot to bring up a new pack from the garage. I quick said I’d run down and get ‘em, but it didn’t matter. His fuse was lit. He stared the way he does, and I thought he was gonna hit her, but then he went to the living room and Hulk Smashed.”
“Chiara shouldn’t’ve called you, Antony,” their mother said, and Tony turned on his heel.
“Ma.” He went and kissed her cheek. “You should’ve called.”
She shook her head. “It’s just things. He didn’t touch us. It’s just things. I don’t want you hurting him over a television set.”
Tony nodded and walked to the stairs. He knew where he’d find his father.
“Antony, please!” his mother called, but he ignored her and went down.
That was what had begun to change ten years ago: Tony had gotten strong enough, and brave enough, to fight back. For his mother, his sisters, and himself, he’d fought back. He’d been twenty, living out of the house for two years by then, planning to kill his old man and never finding the balls to do it.
He was twisted up enough inside to still love his father, there were just enough good memories and feelings to keep a single coal of love smoldering, and he couldn’t find the will to do the deed.
And then he’d figured out he didn’t need to kill him. In fact, it was better if he didn’t. He could best him. He could defeat him. Turn all that fear around and give him a double dose of his own medicine. He could make his father kneel.
He’d had to beat him down four different times before things really changed in his parents’ home. By then, Tony was working with the Paganos. That fourth time, he’d just killed his first man on Pagano orders, still had blood on his hands, when Kiki had called and asked for help.
Tony had tortured his father that night.
There was a story that got told among the Paganos Brothers. In their world, it was almost like one of the Roman and Greek myths everybody got taught in sixth grade. Every Pagano man heard the story when they first joined up, the first time they asked about the don, like it was the one thing you had to know about Nick Pagano to really know who he was.
The story was that he had tortured his own father when he was fifteen years old. On the orders of Don Ben Pagano, his uncle, he’d strung up his father, Ben’s underboss, and tortured him for hours. Because his father had nearly killed his mother.
When Tony faced his own father on that night, he’d done it not as little Antony who’d been getting knocked around his whole life, so much he twitched whenever his father came too close. That night, he’d been Tony Cioccolanti, a Pagano man.
His father was his father, and the fear he’d gained that night hadn’t really changed who he was. But it changed how he acted. Every now and then, like tonight, he needed a reminder, and Tony was happy to give it to him. But he hadn’t touched his mother again in anger since that night several years ago, when he’d blacked her eye and bloodied her nose, and Tony had broken all the fingers of the hand that had done so. One by one. Over the course of an hour, while his father was tied to his desk chair, his mouth stuffed with a sock taken straight off his foot.
Tonight, Tony found his father where he thought he would: in his little office on the bottom floor. The door was closed, and locked, but Tony didn’t hesitate any longer than it took to try the knob before he kicked it in. He didn’t bother to knock.
The room exploded with noise and light, and Tony felt a spray of wood chips hit his face—his father had fucking shot at him.
Tony took one short beat to see that his father still held the revolver and was trying to steady his aim to shoot again, then he flung his arm out, grabbed the first thing from the shelf by the door he got his hands on, and threw it.
It was the shotput-size marble globe Kiki had given their father for Christmas last year. Tony’s aim was better than his father’s, and the heavy ball hit him in the cheek. It sent him backward out of his desk chair, and another shot went off, into the ceiling.
Shit! Kiki and Ma were up there!
Tony leapt up, flew over the desk, and landed on his old man. An arm of the desk chair hit him across the ribs as he landed, and knocked the wind from him, but he got hold of the revolver and shoved it across the room.
Then he got down to the business of turning his father inside out.
“Antony! Rico! Stop! STOP!” His mother was in the room, screaming.
“Tony! Pop! Tony, stop! You’re gonna kill him! STOP!” Kiki was in the room, screaming. She was scrabbling at his dress shirt—he’d taken his jacket off before he’d gotten into the car after work—trying to pull him back. “Tony! TONY!”
His father hadn’t uttered a word. The only sounds to leave his mouth were the grunts forced out with each of Tony’s punches.
“Antony, fermati! Per favore, fermati!” his mother shrieked.
His father had stopped grunting, he was just lying there, rocking with the blows, so Tony backed off. He let his sister yank him backward, and his mother ran around the desk and dropped to her knees. She lifted he
r husband’s head onto her lap.
“Rico, honey. Honey, wake up. Oh, Antony, what’d you do?”
Kiki was wiping at Tony’s cheek, but whatever she was doing stung, so he brushed her away. “Ma. He shot at me. I’m here because he lost his shit at you, and he shot at me.”
“He didn’t hurt me. And he missed you. I’m okay. You’re okay. He’s not.”
“Jesus Christ, Ma.”
“Chiara, help me. I need the first aid kit.”
Kiki gave Tony an apologetic look and got up to do their mother’s bidding.
Tony sat against the wall for another minute or two and watched the scene before him: his father coming to, accepting his mother’s fawning care, his sister bringing over bandages and ice.
Da Vinci never painted this fucking scene.
He got to his feet and walked away.
~ 4 ~
Billy finished her makeup in her barely-a-bathroom and smoothed her hair back before she went out and slipped her stiletto booties from their cubby in her shoe organizer. Once they were on and zipped, she checked herself in the antique cheval mirror that had once been her grandmother’s. Satisfied that her look worked, she crossed the bare warehouse she called home and headed down to the club. On Fridays, they opened at five, an hour earlier than usual, and did a happy-hour spread. Half an hour before that open, her kitchen shift had been on the clock an hour already.
She’d known while she was still in college that she wanted to open a nightclub one day. Not the strobing, bubble-machine, dayglo monstrosities that were so popular with her friends, but something that offered the same energy and enthusiasm without such a violent assault to the senses. Good music, good dancing, good partying, good face time—all the things a nightclub required to be a success, but also comfortable seating, good food, and quiet places to sit and talk, with old friends or new encounters.
She’d spent a lot of time in bars and nightclubs, and rarely had she visited one that got that balance right. They were either frenetic or relaxed. You had to be in one mood or the other to really enjoy the night. She wanted a place for every mood.
Her degree in French Studies at Smith hadn’t exactly prepared her to run a nightclub, but it had sort of given her a leg-up on realizing her vision, at least. She wanted a Lost Generation vibe, Paris in the 1920s. Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Picasso—those guys partied hard and also sat around on velvet divans talking Big Ideas, usually all in one night. That was what she wanted.
After college, with no interest in grad school—about the only thing a BA in French Studies prepared one for was more school—she’d started waitressing, and spent a few years getting on-the-job training, looking for her chance to do the thing she wanted.
The thought she’d inherit the money to do it had never occurred to her. She’d spent her whole childhood watching her mother get jerked around by all that money, had seen the way it was dangled and snatched away, dribbled out to keep her hoping to be cared for and incapable of fending for herself. Billy had assumed she herself would inherit very little other than, she’d hoped, the books, and that had freed her to stand up to her family in ways her mother never had.
And also to live like there wasn’t a safety net under her trapeze. That was her mother’s biggest problem—she lived like the rich girl she’d been, though the money wasn’t reliably there, and never came without strings that twisted around her and caught her up.
A rebel without a clue. That was Alexandra Bradford-Jones.
Billy had been shocked to learn she’d been named in her grandfather’s will. All the cousins had been, and still, she’d been shocked. Her inheritance was, she’d thought at the time, more than enough to realize her dream. Turned out it was just about enough to realize the dream, and probably not enough to sustain it.
West Egg—named for the location of Jay Gatsby’s marvelous mansion, a reference too few people got—was the dream, and despite her growing concerns about keeping it afloat, when Billy came down the stairs each night right before opening, when it was clean and gleaming and waiting, she felt a rush of pure delight. This was her place. It looked almost exactly as her mind’s eye had built it, as if Hemingway and Stein might sit down any minute and argue over the meaning of art.
The music was a bit different from what Ernest and Gertrude had listened to, but Billy liked to think they’d have enjoyed hip hop, R&B, blues, and the kind of rock that honored it—all directly descended from or otherwise closely related to jazz. It was the music she loved best.
What didn’t happen at West Egg: house music. Gross. In her college days, and for a few years after, when she was high, rolling, or tripping just about every night, she’d been into it like everyone else. Then she’d straightened out and heard what it actually sounded like. It had no heart, no soul, no presence. So no. No house music at West Egg.
On her way to the kitchen for a final check, Billy did her usual turn through the main room, brushing her hands over the polished wood tables, the lush velveteen—commercial grade, treated to repel stains—seats. The house lights were up now, but soon, she’d turn them down, so only brass sconces on the walls and electric candles on the tables would light the space.
The band had already set up; the stage was ready, but all the instruments and gear stood unattended. Nobody was behind the bar, either.
Billy crossed the dance floor, her heels clicking loudly on the parquet tiles, and headed for the kitchen.
She pushed one of the old-fashioned, dark red, button-tufted swinging doors open and grinned at the hubbub. This was something she’d learned, or at least intuited, in her few years working at restaurants and clubs: make the kitchen big enough that the staff could hang out back here but not be in the way. Let it become a community.
This was her favorite place in the club. Gleaming silver and white, everything new and perfect. Loud as hell, full of clanging utensils, foods sizzling and being chopped, and people talking.
It was also her personal kitchen, considering her living situation, and she enjoyed being in here alone as well, but now, when everybody was on the clock and they were all together, laughing and giving each other shit, working or preparing to work, this was when she knew she’d realized her dream, even if it didn’t last.
The kitchen was the beating heart of West Egg.
Amir, her chef, was front and center, whipping up something frothy and pale yellow. Layla and Malachi, his assistants, bustled about as well. They didn’t offer an expansive menu, but that list of snacks and small plates was done fresh, and done right. Gourmet style. And they always had a special, something Amir whipped up to keep his creative juices flowing.
Careful not to be in the way, Billy leaned over Amir’s arm. “What is that?”
“It will be lemon-tarragon crab puffs. This is the puff.”
“Yum.”
“Yes. Make sure the girls push the special tonight extra hard, especially first thing. These will be divine. A shame to waste them on drunks.” He winked. “Should sell at a premium, too.”
“You know I like the sound of that. I’ll let the servers know. They always push your specials, though, because they’re always divine.”
He gave her a smug little smile, and Billy got out of the way of her cooks.
The band was in here, too, at the table on the far side of the room, snacking on leftovers from the night before. They sat with Derek, her head of security, and two of tonight’s servers, Nicole and Eden, who were prepping silverware and snacking as well.
Big kitchen. Plenty of room for the people who worked together to be together. This kind of work was grueling and often thankless. Customers were often assholes. Drunks were often belligerent and sometimes aggressive. Even on a good night without problems, once things got going they didn’t stop until the lights came up. Billy wanted her staff to have this—a place that was safe and friendly, where they could start their shift and end it.
The Ladyslippers were booked for the third time in the six weeks West Egg had been open—
networking the music scene was one of Billy’s ‘opportunities for growth’—but the band had just gone through an ugly reorganization and was looking to rebuild their once-hearty regional following, so they were flexible in helping Billy get her talent-booking shit together. Carly Davos, their keyboardist and lead singer, was Billy’s first college roommate, and still a good friend, and that had helped with the flexibility, too.
Carly was also an ex. Billy had lived the cliché of sexual experimentation in college—pretty easy to do at a women’s college like Smith—and had briefly wondered if she might be lesbian. Carly had had the dubious honor of guiding Billy through her sexual discovery and then getting left behind when Billy had realized that, while she enjoyed the company of women and was often attracted to and aroused by them, she felt that real pull, the one that could become love, only with men.
But Carly was older, and wiser, and in general a better human being, so she’d understood, and they’d stayed close.
Carly saw Billy come into the kitchen and stood up, grinning broadly and opening her arms. “Hey, baby.”
“Hey you.” They hugged, and, as usual, the very touchy-feely Carly held on a bit longer than Billy would have. When she finally eased back, she planted a kiss on Billy’s mouth.
“You look good.” She plucked at Billy’s white silk blouse, which she’d left unbuttoned enough to show her black bra. “This slutty Annie Hall thing you’re doing, it works.”
Billy laughed. “I’m going for Katharine Hepburn.”
She’d never been a girly-girl. In her younger days, high school and college, that meant jeans and plain shirts and leather jackets, mostly. That was still the bulk of her casual wardrobe. Now that she was a professional woman, however, she’d upped the style on her menswear aesthetic. Tonight, she wore a black raw-silk suit—ankle-length trousers cut skinny, one-button jacket cut long—and the white silk blouse. Her hair was slicked back, and her silver jewelry minimal—just the simple chain she always wore and a pair of plain hoop earrings, not especially large.
Accidental Evils Page 4