by Gina LaManna
Not only was it with my family, but it was with my Family, the one with a capital F.
And, thanks to my cousin’s happiness, I was forced to find a date.
“Plus one?” I muttered under my breath. “Damn.”
I let my hand fall to my lap, holding the rumpled piece of cardstock.
Plus ones, like all mathematics, had never been my strong suit. Which is probably why I’d never felt the urge to finish college—particularly when I had a role model as awesome as my mother, the best stripper in all of the Twin Cities. When she passed away three years ago, I tried to follow in her glittery, high-heeled footsteps. I didn’t have nearly as much grace.
I got a concussion during my first dance and inhaled enough sequins that my intestines probably shimmered in my X-rays. When stripping didn’t work out, I needed another career opportunity. Since my talents weren’t obvious, I was forced to do some investigating to find the family my mother had kept hidden from me my entire life.
I hadn’t anticipated that my family would be the largest organized crime Family in all of the Midwest, or that my grandfather would run the operation from his hidden castle in suburban St. Paul. And I especially didn’t imagine I’d take a job with him.
I’m not exactly Mafia material. For starters, I don’t like the sight of blood. I get woozy just thinking about losing a tooth or a severe paper cut. Secondly, I have absolutely zero fighting talents. It took a plunger, a 911 call, and a bottle of wine to handle my latest confrontation, and that was with a spider.
My Italian is subpar, peppered mostly with swear words and the occasional food names, thanks to the Sopranos. I dislike bitter espresso, and I prefer my coffee to be sweet and white as hell, just like me. I’m polite, I use please and thank you. My mobster rating is a big, fat goose egg.
However, two years ago, my growling stomach had been speaking much, much louder than my rapidly deteriorating conscience. With no legitimate career opportunities in sight, I’d agreed to join the Family business.
Which is how I ended up having a staring contest with a sparkly pink invitation currently shedding glitter all over my newest sweatpants.
“Damn it.” I sucked in a bunch of air and blew a hearty breath in the direction of my sparkled crotch. About fifty percent of the sprinkles vanished from my pants and found a new home all over the interior of my Chevy Lumina, a car so impossible to steer that I needed to do a three-point turn in order to merge onto the freeway.
I considered running over to the nearby gas station, which was owned by some relation of mine, to vacuum both my lap and the car, but decided against it for multiple reasons. The first was that I was late to work; the second—and most important—was that car services required effort and money, two things I was lacking this morning.
Most people wouldn’t be allowed to wear sweatpants to work unless they were gym teachers or yoga instructors, and as I was neither the recipient of a college diploma nor particularly bendable, I didn’t fall into either of those categories.
I was headed towards the Luzzi Family Laundromat. While in some cases one might be considered admirable and even borderline heroic for offering to help with their grandparents’ small business, in my case it was downright illegal. The laundromat was a front for the St. Paul mob, and my grandfather, Carlos Luzzi, was the Godfather of the Twin Cities branch. He’d moved up from the larger Chicago Mafia a while ago, for reasons unknown (but easy to suspect), and had set up shop here. Now I helped him track down any stolen “good stuff” and find out why certain bodies were no longer alive.
I steered the Lumina carefully into the parking lot that the laundromat shared with 7-11, cranking the steering wheel hard enough to give my palms blisters. I was twenty minutes late for my shift at the front desk, which was the unique position of “coin changer” for the legitimate patrons and “lookout” for the Family members who may be using the back room for reasons I purposely ignored.
Running later by the second, I silenced my ringing phone and popped into the 7-11 to get a steaming cup of sugar and a dash of coffee. After filling the cup mostly with little marshmallows and fake frothed milk, I threw in a few packets of sweetener. In order to save calories where I could, I decided to use only two measly squirts of the non-fat creamer.
“Hello, Maria,” I greeted the sullen cashier. “How’s it going?”
“Do we have to do this?” She nodded at the donut rack. “Get them now, please. I’m only ringing you up once.”
I maybe blushed, but I grabbed three of the mini donuts. It was such a steal at only a dollar. I tossed some change on the counter and Maria handed me back a few pennies, tacking on an eye roll for good measure.
“Bye!” I rushed out the door and dropped the pennies into a homeless man’s cup. Maria ignored me as usual.
I arrived at the door of the laundromat and realized my dilemma—I had both hands full, one with donuts and one with a gigantic coffee, and the door was a pull only. I squirmed and bent in half, feeling exceptionally incapable of living. Finally, after a long struggle with the handle, I’d hooked my pinky under the door and managed to pull it open an inch. A rush of air nearly knocked the coffee from my hands as two Tasmanian devils flew from the laundromat, pushing the door open and slamming me straight in the noggin with the glass window.
Lacey: 0. Door: 1.
Blood spurted from my nose, but I couldn’t bring myself to set either of the treasures in my hands down. I’d need my energy now more than ever—the wooziness from blood loss would set in momentarily, I was sure. Fried dough and sugar was a great cure.
I lifted my forearm to my nose to try and stop the bleeding, but succeeded only in covering myself in blood. On the positive side, I managed to wedge my foot in the door and squeeze inside.
The laundromat was full, as it always is mid-morning on a Saturday. All of the patrons froze the second I walked through the door: moms in yoga pants watched in horror, shielding their whites from my gushing nostrils, men surveyed me with morbid curiosity, and one toddler burst into a wailing cry so loud it caused the room to leap into action after a temporary standstill.
Clay, my friend and cousin, lumbered up from his perch on the stool behind the marble change counter and ushered me to the side. He was a rather large, oversized child, with a face that could be handsome behind the pale sheen of a computer genius. He flipped his shaggy dark hair, and said, “Don’t bleed on the floor.”
“Tell da evil twids to watch where dey’re sprinting.” I nodded, while also clamping my nostrils shut with my fingers, at the two girls watching from outside the window with wide eyes and angelic expressions. I swear the devil was trapped inside their innocent little bodies.
They were my Uncle Nicky’s kids; one of them had blonde ringlets framing her chubby cheeks and the other had a sheet of black hair falling halfway down her back. They were both five years old, but they were not actually twins. In fact, they came from completely different moms. Besides women, Nicky’s vices included gambling, drinking, and fantasy football. Sometimes in that order.
Clay grunted. He fished a towel from behind the desk and handed it to me.
“Alwight. I tan tade ober dow,” I said, gesturing for him to move from the seat. As the Family hacker and computer fiend, Clay could move money in and out of the most secure banks in the world with his eyes closed. He could set up a booby trap in his sleep.
In fact, he’d been “fired” from the business awhile back. The next day, a huge sum of Family funds magically disappeared (at the hands of an extremely competent, anonymous hacker). When Carlos started signing Clay’s paychecks once more, the money reappeared. Now Clay luxuriously worked one shift a week at the laundromat and pocketed a higher paycheck than anyone else.
I was often envious of Clay’s trek down easy street, but I also benefited from his cyber-expertise. As roommates in a sketchy area of St. Paul, our rent split was rarely fifty-fifty. Clay had a bigger income, and I was good enough at math to convince him that I was broke and he w
as not, so I often squeaked by paying forty while he paid sixty. In return, I let him deck out our living room in blinking monitors and buzzing devices and barely ever complained when he left the toilet seat up or dishes in the sink.
Clay shook his head, already engrossed in a series of images on his screen. Like all of my relatives, Clay had a healthy gambling habit, which was often where most of his paycheck went. The only reason he stayed afloat was that he could often “coax” the computers into letting him win with a few tweaks to the behind-the-scenes program.
He barely glanced up as he clicked furiously. “They wanna see you in the back.”
“The back room?” I’d never been invited past the coin changing station before.
“Yep.” Clay bit his lip and muttered an inappropriate word. He clicked his mouse as if trying to kill it.
“Alwight den, I’ll just go on back.” I took a few steps and looked backwards, double-checking that he wasn’t pulling my leg.
Clay wasn’t looking in my direction, though. He was distracted by a gangly redhead lurking outside the building. The kid looked to be about fifteen, his hair so bright it was painful to stare at, kind of like the sun. The freckles on his face were so distinct and plentiful that it was impossible to tell whether he was pale with dark freckles, or dark-skinned with light freckles. He had monstrous square glasses, which blocked half of his face with their unbreakable-looking rims and lenses as thick as my pinky finger.
He noticed Clay and me staring and began to wave with vigorous pumps of his skinny little arms. Clay turned back to me, his movement as slow as a pig roasting over a fire, and his mouth open just as wide. I did a little shrug. Marissa and Clarissa, the evil twins, were also staring at the boy. They looked as if they considered him to be a particularly unusual and potentially deadly creature. The girls backed away as the redhead turned and spoke animatedly to them.
I turned and continued on my journey towards the back room, hoping that the kid was especially annoying and maybe even a little bit dangerous. If he kidnapped the twins, I’d try my best to fake some tears. It might be possible, especially with the pain from my still-bleeding nose.
I was kidding. I forced my thoughts to be a little less evil as I trekked down the dimly lit, rather intimidating hallway. The back room was not a place people stumbled upon accidentally. And if they tried to, the culprit usually ended up with a rearranged face. Which would be easy in my case, as I was already halfway there the way my morning was going. I was a little afraid of becoming Mrs. Potato Head by stepping foot in this direction.
Miss Potato Head, I thought rather painfully.
“Doll.” A dry, deep voice drew my attention upwards.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as an onslaught of blood rushed out. I took a tiny stumble as a wave of dizziness hit me and righted myself by grabbing onto Anthony’s arm.
He was the current head of security for our Family. I’d met him last month after being tricked into thinking he was my randomly-assigned gym trainer. Much later, I found out he’d been hired by Carlos to be my bodyguard for the duration of my first assignment.
“What happened to your face?” Anthony glanced down at me, and though I could never detect any emotion from him whatsoever, I thought I caught a hint of either exasperation or worry. Or it could have been amusement. He was tough to read.
“Devil children.” One of my arms was still grasping his bicep for balance, which was probably a quarter as large as the trunk of a redwood tree and at least half as thick. I wondered if his other body parts followed suit...
When I shook the dirty thoughts from my head a moment later, I looked up and, this time, definitely saw the corner of his mouth twitch.
“Doll, you’ll have to let me go.”
I retracted my vise-like grip on his arm, though my fingers had made as much of an indent as if I’d been gripping cement. I cleared my throat and nodded at the door. “So, do you know what they want?”
He shook his head, his black hair lightly gelled into place. The thick waves looked delectable in the dim hallway light. Maybe it was the lightheadedness from blood loss, but I was suddenly overcome with a desire to stand close to him, press my hips against his, and stare deeply into his eyes...
“What are you doing? Are you feeling okay?” Anthony stared down at me. “You’re swaying back and forth more than a swing set.”
“I’m all good.” My words might have slurred a bit. “Nice outfit.”
I pushed by him and into the room, as he glanced down at his typical spandex shirt and black track pants, a small tattoo on his neck peeking over the raised edge of the tight material.
“Lacey? What’s happened to you?” Uncle Nicky, father of the two devils, lounged back on a plush leather couch with a cigar dangling from his fingertips, the room foggy with smoke.
I took a moment to respond, soaking in the details of the coveted Back Room. The lighting was dimmed, the carpet thick and deep red, the vibe much like that of a hidden speakeasy deep in old Los Angeles. Black leather couches and chairs lined the walls, and a full-length mahogany table sat in the middle of the room, complete with place settings and tall-backed chairs. The Italians did all their business deals over meals.
Wine racks lined the walls not already covered by couches, the cozy, dusty smell rivaling the scent of a musty library crossed with a priceless wine cellar. Cuban cigars and other illegal devices, used to smoke things I wasn’t familiar with, were contained in a special unit—I could see the expensive linings of the glass cabinet and the little thermometer keeping the case at the perfect temperature from across the room.
I forgot the question by the time I got around to responding. “Whad? Oh, dis.”
I let the towel drop from my nose, but immediately pushed it back as the flow started up again. “Your evil children.”
“Yeah. They’re tough nuts to crack,” Nicky agreed. He chuckled. “But obviously your nose isn’t.”
Carlos sat in the corner of the room, observing the situation from afar.
“Hewwo, sir,” I nodded, and instantly regretted that decision.
“Don’t bleed on my carpet.” Carlos blinked once and then turned back to Nicky and continued a discussion I must have interrupted with my entrance.
Trying to be subtle, I reached for the closest chair. I wanted to drag it from the carpet over to the patch of linoleum in a small corner that qualified as a kitchen. There was a small stainless steel sink, marble countertops, and an oven. Saucepans decorated the ceiling, and wine glasses hung precariously from contraptions on the walls.
I winced as the chair tipped over and clattered onto the linoleum. “Sowwy.”
I yanked the chair upright and set its legs firmly on the itty bitty linoleum patch. I crossed one leg over the other and quietly changed out my blood-soaked towel for a darker hand towel draped over the sink. I did my best to look dignified. I was positive I’d failed miserably.
Carlos and Nicky wrapped up their conversation amidst clouds of blue smoke, and Carlos turned his steely black eyes in my direction. “Thank you for coming, Lacey. I have your assignment ready.”
I nodded. He’d called a few days ago telling me to be prepared for another gig. For what? I had no idea.
“Nicky?” Carlos looked at his son.
“Yes, we do.” Nicky lounged back in his chair, missing the obvious clue to “get out of here.”
“There’s a boy out front chatting up Marissa and Clarissa. He’s got about ten years on ‘em.” I nodded my head towards the front of the laundromat.
“What the fuckety fuck?” Nick stood, his chair tipping precariously backward, but righting itself just before it tipped all the way over.
“Exactly my thoughts,” I nodded solemnly. “I think you need to put a stop to that sort of behavior. You wouldn’t want your girls to grow up and turn out...promiscuous,” I whispered. However, if they were anything like their father, Carlos could be expecting great-grandchildren in the semi-near future.
“I
’m going to destroy his face. I’m going to—” Nicky huffed out of the room, punching his fist into his hand.
“Good.” Carlos blew out smoke in approval. “You’re getting more creative with your lies.”
I didn’t say anything, since it wasn’t technically a lie. But hey, I’d take credit if Carlos thought I’d come up with it on the spot.
“It wasn’t a lie, was it?” Carlos sucked on his cigar, and I hung my head.
“A half-lie.” I tested my nose bleed and was pleased to see it had slowed to a trickle. “So what’s the gig?”
Carlos sunk into the chair so comfortably that it became an extension of him. “I’m told there’s a body. Leonardo Campani.”
“Leo?” I parroted. He wasn’t related, but he was one of the Family’s associates. He was on the streets selling substances of the sketchy sort. It wasn’t a well-paying gig, but it was a start. Nobody got into the Family (who wasn’t blood related), without making their bones on the street first. “He played poker with Nicky, right?”
Carlos gave a nod, his expression halfway between disgust and passiveness. “Not a huge loss to society. He had two kids, but I doubt he knew their names. He was a mean drunk and a cheat at the tables. He got kicked out of the Family Games last year.”
The Family Games, a low-key poker tournament with high stakes, was by invitation only. Once a kid became a made man, he was invited to a few trial games. If he held his own and played fair, he was allowed to stay.
“Who did it?” It was odd that Carlos was giving special attention to a street soldier.
I’d been under the impression that anyone outside the administration (aka his inner circle) was dispensable. Tough, but true. Being the Godfather, Carlos wasn’t especially bothered by death or dead bodies unless it posed a direct threat to the honor of the Luzzi Family name. What I was missing was the link between Leo’s lifeless body and Carlos’s attention.
“That’s what I need you to find out. Leo, he was a goomba.” Carlos pinched his thumb and middle finger together and shook his arm like he was loosely rolling a pair of dice. His bottom lip turned outward in a pout as he reverted to his native language.