The gentleness and ease he’d shown her was even more compelling, now that she had a peek into what he overcame to let his guard down.
And he loved the mother who’d let him be abused, who knew his pain and abided it. He didn’t blame her, which suggested she hadn’t had the power to change the situation, or, at least, that Tony didn’t think she had.
Billy took another deep breath, inhaling the memory of their shower, then folded Tony’s towel and hung it on the rack. Oh, she wanted to see him again. She had no way of reaching him except the number she had to call the Paganos in case of trouble in the club. It wasn’t direct to him, and she wasn’t sure who answered. Reluctant to use that number for a personal reason, she would, for now, simply hope Tony called her.
~oOo~
After her shower, Billy sat at her desk for nearly an hour, trying to compose an email to Carly. She’d decided on an email for a couple of reasons. First, if she called while she was still mad, they’d end up shouting at each other within thirty seconds. Second, she had a lot to say, and she needed to get it all down and sort through it before it would be ready for an audience. She had to figure out how to apologize for some of the exceedingly bitchy things she’d said, things designed to hurt, and to tell Carly that she and her father were maybe trying to works things out—all without inviting a performance of Carly’s ‘I Told You So’ aria. And she also wanted to impress upon her meddling friend that, even if things went well with Cain, it didn’t excuse Carly for telling him something Billy explicitly hadn’t wanted him to know.
It was a tall order. Too explosive for a phone or video call, too involved for a text. So email was the way. Or maybe an actual, old-fashioned letter. In fact—yeah. Carly would dig that.
She had been composing on the computer, typing and deleting, and typing some more, struggling to get the wording and arrangement just right, when her phone rang. Not the nightclub landline, but her cell. She went to the nightstand and picked it up, expecting it to be her mom, who was due home today from her California adventure with l’amant du jour.
But it wasn’t Allie. She didn’t recognize the number, but it was local to Quiet Cove. Curious, with a little twist of hope, she answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me.” Tony. That twist of hope in Billy’s chest fluttered happily.
“Hi. How’d you get my number?”
“Really?”
Of course. “Right. Paganos Brothers know all.” For all she knew, there was a file somewhere with every piece of information there was to know about her.
Actually, that thought was disquieting. So Billy pushed it aside. To ask why he was calling seemed colder than she wanted to be, especially after the way he’d left, so she settled on, “Are you okay?” and then winced once the words were in the phone.
“Sure.” When she didn’t pipe right up with a reply, he added, “I ... I don’t like how I left this morning.”
“I didn’t like it, either. I’m sorry about it.”
“Yeah.” A pause stretched until it went thin and broke. “I guess that’s why I called.”
“I’m glad you did. I ... enjoyed last night. And this morning.” Enjoyed seemed a ridiculous word, and totally insufficient, but she couldn’t think of a better one.
“Me too.”
This call was painfully awkward. A mountain of words and feelings sat unexpressed between them, and Billy could feel the pressure pushing him away, so she took a breath and jumped in. “I don’t open the club on Mondays. I’m free tomorrow, the whole day and night, until Tuesday afternoon. You want to—”
“I can’t,” he cut her off. “I’ve got work tomorrow.”
She pushed aside the next disquieting thought about what he meant by ‘work,’ and the disappointment of his abrupt rejection. “Okay.”
Should she suggest another day? Invite him to come over after the club closed again tonight? Or wait for him to make a suggestion? Usually this stuff was easier for her, but usually, she had a better read of the person she was interested in, and their interest in her, and what she wanted from the connection. And never before had she had any cause for fear or wariness. Tony was the first killer she’d ever fucked, as far as she knew.
Was he a killer? She didn’t know for sure. But it felt smarter to assume he was. If she was going to get involved with him, it was important not to Vaseline the lens she saw him with. No soft edges. See him as he was.
After another long roll of silence, he said, “So, I’ll ... see you.”
“Okay. I’d like that.” She rolled her eyes at herself. This was the mother of uncomfortable phone calls.
He didn’t answer, because he was already gone.
~ 13 ~
Tony slid the knot of his tie up, got it straight, and smoothed his collar over it. Before he put his suit jacket on, he checked the line of his shirt, made sure it was neatly tucked.
Until he’d joined the Pagano Brothers, he’d rarely thought much about dressing nicely. He’d cared what he looked like, but nice suits, silk ties, and shined shoes had not been the look he’d wanted. He’d worn a suit probably three times in his life before he bought his first with his own money. He’d gone to Mass every Sunday with his mother and sisters, but Ma had only insisted he wear khakis and a nice shirt.
When he’d started up with the Paganos, down on the bottom rung with the other associates, he’d dressed in jeans, for the most part. He was running errands or cleaning up messes, and he’d thought nobody cared how he dressed. Other guys of his station dressed like him, or at least similarly casual. But eventually he realized that, to achieve his dream, to be made and to rise, Tony needed to dress like the man he wanted to be. Not some scrub associate digging graves, but the capo who ordered them to do it.
He’d bought his first suit then, and started wearing it every day he was on the job. It had been just an off-the-rack thing from Macy’s, nothing special, but he’d felt more powerful in it right away. Even in the days he’d worked in the Pagano Brothers Shipping warehouse, he kept his suit with him, ready when it was needed, like a superhero costume.
Since middle school, Tony had revered Nick Pagano. He wanted to be like him, to hold so much power so calmly, with the supreme confidence of a man who knew he couldn’t be beaten and the deep wisdom to understand how to remain that way. Not since then, so young he hadn’t even had his first wet dream, had Tony ever wanted to be anything other than a Pagano man.
He’d run his first job for the family when he was sixteen. He’d started dressing like a professional at nineteen. He’d killed for the first time at twenty-one. Made at twenty-four. Then Angie had taken him under his wing and made him an enforcer. Over the years, he’d developed a reputation.
Now he was thirty. And he’d been summoned to the don’s office for the first time.
Tony slid his arms into his Armani suit coat and closed one button. He studied his reflection, head to toe, in the mirror on his closet door.
He looked like a Pagano man.
~oOo~
“Tony.”
Tony looked up. He’d been sitting in the PBS reception area, trying to appear chill, waiting to be called into Nick Pagano’s office. Now Angie stood in the doorway to the executive suite, holding the door open.
When Tony met his eyes, Angie tipped his head toward the corridor behind him. “Let’s go, kid.”
He stood, buttoned his jacket, and straightened his cuffs in his jacket sleeves.
His heart throbbed more heavily with each step toward Nick’s office. He’d been a made man for years, a true Pagano man, and he’d been in the same room with the don many times. Several times, anyway.
He’d been there last fall, when Nick had stared down at the small body of Artem Honcharenko. The boy Tony had killed. He’d been standing not ten feet from the don, watching those terrifying green eyes blaze, seeing the knotty flex of his jaw.
Angie had taken the fall for Tony that night, calling the death of the child his fault. As far as Tony knew, Nick had no ide
a that it had been his mistake, not Angie’s, that had put the death of a child on Nick’s shoulders. That mistake had blown a nuisance squabble with a no-account Ukrainian bratva into all-out war.
Today, this afternoon, the Paganos and the Bondaruks would sit down. Donnie Goretti, Pagano underboss, and Bogdan Bondaruk, Yuri Bondaruk’s eldest son and heir, face to face. Second meeting second. In name, it was supposed to be a negotiation.
But Nick would not deign to negotiate with them. He meant to exterminate them, and Angie had laid out the plan to do so in his living room the other day. Today, it would happen.
And Tony was the centerpiece of it all.
As they neared the heavy double doors to Nick’s office, Angie grabbed Tony’s arm and stopped. “This is how you and me, we clean our plates. We do this right, we give Nick what he wants, and the world sits right. I know you still feel that little boy hard, and you should. But don’t you do something stupid now and go in there and apologize. The don is not your fucking confessor. You don’t ease your conscience in that room. You hear what he has to say, you tell him what he wants you to tell him, and you keep your guilt and drama on this side of those doors. Capisci?”
Staring at the doors, Tony nodded. “Sì.”
Angie knocked and leaned into the office. Tony swallowed his heart back where it belonged.
“I got Tony here.”
“Good. Come,” came the don’s voice. Angie stepped in, and Tony followed.
The office was vast and handsomely styled. Tony tried to take it all in with a glance, and not gape like a kid in Wonderland. The carpet was thick, the wood dark, the fabrics plush. But it wasn’t stodgy. It had a more modern feel, which Tony supposed he hadn’t expected. Clean lines, not much clutter. But at least a dozen framed photos on the huge desk, and more on the shelves along the far wall. The don’s family. Lots of photos of his wife and children, both posed portraits and casual snapshots. And older photos as well, of, Tony assumed, his parents and other family members. A large photo, framed and hung on the wall, that was quite obviously a young Nick with Old Ben Pagano, the first don.
A far corner of the room was arranged as a sitting area, with a leather sofa, a matched set of leather armchairs, and a heavy, low table between. Nick and Donnie Goretti sat in the armchairs, facing each other. Neither stood when Angie and Tony came in.
Nick was in his sixties somewhere, maybe heading toward seventy, but he didn’t look it. His dark hair had a lot of grey, he was definitely not a young man, but he didn’t have that ‘grandpa’ look men his age usually got. Trim and healthy, dressed in a custom suit that must have cost close to ten grand, Nick was what the word ‘distinguished’ looked like.
Donnie Goretti, too. He was younger than Nick, maybe young enough to be his son, about the same age as Angie, but still old enough to be noticeably grey. But like Nick, he was put together like a wealthy, powerful man. If not for the burn scars, he’d have been ‘distinguished,’ too. In fact, the burn scars didn’t much matter.
Tony was still trying to stop thinking about Donnie as ‘The Face.’ All the younger guys called him that, but Donnie hated it, and everybody knew not to say that name where the boss could hear. As Tony had begun to feel the ground sloping upward beneath his feet, taking the first steps toward the top, he’d made an effort to erase the moniker from his brain. But it was hard going. Down at the bottom, men like Donnie and Angie, so close to the don, and the ones handing down the merits and demerits, were looked on with a mixture of resentment and admiration. Muttering offensive nicknames had been a way of feeling like something more substantial than a slug.
He wasn’t surprised to see that Donnie was there. Nick wanted to talk to Tony about this afternoon, and Nick himself would not be present at the meet. It was Donnie who’d face Yuri’s son, and Angie who’d lead the plan that Tony, Mel, Ricky, and Keith would execute.
Tony’s job was crucial. If he fucked up, the whole thing would fall like dominoes. If he fucked up, it would probably mean the death of Donnie and Angie both, and maybe the rest of the Paganos at the meet, too. His heart tried to climb up to his mouth again.
“Have a seat, Tony.” Nick indicated the sofa, and Tony crossed the room and sat. He didn’t know if he should say something to the don, but since Nick hadn’t greeted him, he decided it was better to simply shut up and speak when required.
He’d forgotten to unbutton his jacket before he sat, and the lapels bunched awkwardly. As discreetly as he could, he unbuttoned it now and smoothed everything out. Then he waited to see why he was here.
Or should he take some initiative? Maybe he seemed meek and weak, sitting here squirming on the don’s sofa.
Before he could decide which was better, silence or speech, Nick solved the dilemma and addressed him. “Angie tells me you’ve got quite a setup at your gym. Ballistic something.”
“Coastal Ballistics and Self-Defense.” Had Nick called him here about CBSD? Did he want to invest? That would be both excellent and terrible news. Excellent because their financial problems would be solved, terrible because it would no longer be anyone’s business but Nick’s. He always took controlling interest in any investment and rendered any other partner silent.
“Tell me about this basement you’ve put together.”
Though he wasn’t sure where this was all going, Tony found himself calming down. He liked to talk about the basement. He was proud of his idea and its design. “The idea is, a shooting range only gives you training in how to shoot in ideal circumstances—at your own pace, aimed steady, a known distance, a fixed target. Even if the setup allows the targets to move, it’s predictable. None of that translates to the real world. If you have to shoot in the real world, you shoot when you need to shoot and follow the target wherever it goes. People who have weapons for protection should have better training than a shooting range.”
Nick nodded. “And you accomplish that how?”
“It’s a military model. We set up a scenario, and the trainee runs through it. It’s timed. All the components can be moved around for different kinds of scenes. We can do frontal attack and stealth objectives, so both range and hand-to-hand engagements. We have ballistic-gel bad guys on rigs with light and motion sensors, so they can react to what the trainee is doing. They fire back, too—with paintballs. We can make scenarios with collaterals too—bystanders and such. If you hit a collateral, it’s an automatic failure.”
Nick turned to Angie, who hadn’t sat among them. He was half-sitting, half leaning on a credenza near the door, his arms crossed over his chest.
Angie gave Tony a look of squinty displeasure. He’d rattled on too much. Talking about the collaterals was too close to a wound that still throbbed among them all.
He cleared his throat and shut up.
Donnie said, “And this theme park you’ve made, you think it’s training enough for what we need you to do in the very real world?”
“No,” Tony answered honestly. He ignored the ‘theme park’ dig. He was the least powerful man in this room by a degree of magnitude; getting his back up with the underboss of the family would get him nowhere. Plus, Donnie knew that Tony had killed the boy. He’d been there, too. “The scenarios are better training than a shooting range, but the bad guys are shooting paintballs, and them and the collaterals are made out of what’s basically Jell-O. The stakes aren’t real. Nothing can really prepare anybody for the real world except the real world. What the CBSD basement does, though, is keep reflexes sharp. I run a scenario three or four times a week, but it’s what I’ve done on the job that makes me ready for today.”
He hoped.
His answer must have been decent; Donnie smiled slightly with the half of his face that wasn’t a horror show of burn scars. Angie smiled, too, more broadly. Nick studied him, his expression bland but his eyes busy.
“Today’s stakes are very real. You understand what they are?”
“Yes, sir. This could end a war before it starts.”
“No.” Nick
shook his head.
Tony’s stomach flipped over. Fuck.
“The war started some time ago, in a New Jersey video store. And it won’t end today, no matter how the day goes. Today is a battle. But the result of that battle could dictate how the whole war plays out. Certainly, it will determine our allies. Today, no matter what happens, even if no blood is shed, we make a very clear statement—a show—of what we can do, and what we will do, to win. This message will carry far. It will help us. Or it will hurt us. Likewise, it will help you, or it will hurt you. Capisci?”
Tony kept his body still and his eyes steady with Nick’s. “Capisco, don. I won’t let you down.”
“See that you don’t.”
~oOo~
The meet was arranged in Manhattan, in a nondescript, vacant office building near the Hudson River in Hell’s Kitchen. It had been deemed sufficiently neutral territory for all involved—the Italians ruled New England, but the boroughs of New York had many kings. Nobody had clear control of Manhattan. And in the current economy, ‘vacant office building in Hell’s Kitchen’ was practically redundant, so it was a good neighborhood for dark business.
If either side was at a disadvantage, it was the Paganos. They were more than a hundred miles off their home turf, and not especially familiar with the city. The Bondaraks’ allies, the Zelenkos, based in Brooklyn, had named this site. But after Angie scouted it, Nick had agreed. Tony figured he liked to leave his enemy thinking they had an advantage. He’d made one stipulation: no electronics in the meeting room. No contact with anyone outside the room. Bondaruk had agreed.
And now it was up to Tony to show him what a bad mistake it was to underestimate Nick Pagano—something the Bondaruks had done now several times. They kept upping the ante, and Nick called them every time, then showed them a hand they couldn’t beat.
“What do you see? Was Nick right?” Angie hunkered down beside Tony, on the floor behind a purple desk in the office space of some kind of online business that had gone belly-up. They’d abandoned most of their crap, and it looked like a McDonalds Play Place and an Apple store had fucked rough and passed out. What kind of grownups needed so many toys and smiley faces?
Accidental Evils Page 15