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“He’s principled,” I said, trying to find the right words for it.
“A gangster with principles?”
“More or less.”
“How do you know him?”
“That’s a complicated story.”
She made a face. “I have time.”
“I don’t. Come on, let’s get back to the hotel room. You have a lot of talking to do.”
She let a breath out through her nose and nodded. “Fine. But you can’t keep dodging that question forever.”
“You’d be surprised.” I grinned at her as we reached my car. I opened the passenger side and she climbed in.
I got in behind the wheel and pulled out into traffic.
My new partner sat down low in the seat beside me staring out at the city as it flashed past her window.8Robin“Let’s start with something easy.” Leo grinned at me from the driver’s side and gestured out at the city. “How about you take me somewhere important?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Somewhere we wouldn’t know about.”
I took a breath and chewed on my lip. We’d spent the night before in the hotel room eating room service and watching movies. I didn’t want to talk about the mafia and he didn’t push me into it.
But in the morning, he told me to get dressed, and dragged me out to the car.
“I think I know a spot,” I said. “But it’s not really my family’s place.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s an Italian place. What’s that other family?”
“The Leone family.”
“Yeah, them.” I ran my fingers down the window leaving smudged prints. “They have this bakery. Lots of their guys hang around there.”
“We’re not interested in the Leones.”
“My uncle goes there sometimes to meet with their Don. And some of his brigadiers go there to meet with the Don’s capos.”
“Well, that’s actually interesting then.” He stroked his chin. “All right. Let’s start with this bakery then. I guess it can’t hurt.”
He put the car in gear and pulled out. I sat down low and watched the city flash past. I gave him directions and we snaked our way deeper and deeper into South Philly.
This was the heart of the Italian family’s control. My family, or I guess my former family, controlled more territory up north and in Center City. The south and the west parts of the city were dominated by the Italians, and although my family was always talking about trying to push into them, nothing ever happened.
I knew they had some kind of truce, but nobody ever talked to me about it.
“I’m looking out for a bakery, but I’m not seeing one.”
“It’s just ahead.” I pointed toward the next block. “Right in the middle. With the glass doors.”
He squinted, rolled down the block slow, and stared. “Looks like some hipster coffee place.”
“I think it is. I mean, it’s like a real business.”
“Not like the sort of shit you worked in?”
I gave him a look. “Not like that.”
“What did you do there, anyway?”
“I was a manager,” I said. “Set shift schedules. Yelled at the girls when they didn’t show up. Pretty thankless.”
He grunted. “Had a few jobs like that.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
He reached the end of the block, turned right, and started around again. “I worked for this shipping company. They imported kitchen supplies from overseas. Everything from knives to stoves. I lifted shit all day long, fucked up my back for a while because of it. Didn’t matter how hard I worked, how fast I worked, or whatever, I always got yelled at by my dick boss.”
I laughed. “At my job, I was the dick boss.”
“I doubt that.”
“Really. The girls were awful though.”
“Yeah? How?”
“My uncle was a fan of hiring…” I frowned, trying to find the right words. “Cute Russian girls.”
“Ah,” he said.
“I think they were mostly former prostitutes. Girls that either couldn’t or wouldn’t work the street anymore. Some of them actually wanted to earn a paycheck, but most of them were pretty burned out and angry at the world.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
“I don’t know. I met some nice people. The ones that weren’t nice, I just didn’t give them shifts.”
He smiled. “Smart.”
“I have my moments.” I pointed up ahead. “There’s a spot opening up.”
He nodded, let the car pull out, then parallel parked in the vacant space. We were half a block from the coffee shop and had a decent view of the front.
He cracked the windows then killed the engine.
“I’ve had more jobs than I can count. Stock boy, bike messenger, pool cleaner, painter. Shit, I spent a summer doing roofing. You ever put a roof on a house in hundred-degree weather? That was the most horrible thing I ever did.”
“Sounds horrible,” I said. “If you had so many jobs…” I trailed off, not sure how to say it.
“You’re wondering how I ended up a murderous criminal.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I didn’t finish high school. Dropped out young, back when I was invincible and too smart for that shit. I tried to make it straight for a while, but there’s not much opportunity for a high school dropout. I met Hedeon when I was twenty, and angry, and a little desperate, and he gave me some purpose. That was almost ten years ago now.”
