“Because I’m busy.”With your sister.
“You said you were working on a girl or something?”
I turned to him. “Huh?”
“At the dinner at the house,” he said as he drove with one hand, eyes on the road. “I asked if you had a girl, and you said you were working on it.”
And I was still working on it. “Oh yeah, didn’t go anywhere.” I thought it was best to say I didn’t have anyone because then he’d ask a bunch of questions about that, and I wasn’t prepared to do that dance.
“Then you should definitely go out with us.”
“Can’t you pick up women on your own?”
“Wow, okay,” Leo said. “Forget it.”
I suddenly remembered this was my woman’s brother, so I should probably maintain a good relationship with him. Maybe even try to be his friend? I wasn’t sure how friendship worked because I’d never really had a friend. Cosa Nostra had been my entire family, and they’d betrayed me without a second thought. Santino and I still talked, but was he a friend or a work acquaintance? I wasn’t sure. I was clearly not good at this sort of thing. “Come on. I was fucking with you. I’m down—but first round is on you.”
He perked up right away. “Deal.”
We arrived in Catania, drove down a couple streets to the restaurant. The truck pulled over, and we saw Don Mancini get out of the vehicle up ahead and head to therestaurant. Leo and I got out, while the others stayed with the truck, packing under their jackets and in their jeans.
We both trailed far behind Don Mancini, trying to be subtle since we were in public, with people on the sidewalks.
They arrived at the restaurant and checked in with the host before they were escorted to the table. We were given a different table a couple feet away, out of earshot but close enough to blow brains to bits if necessary.
We did the dance, ordering wine and entrees like we were out to dine.
“The two guys in the corner are with Hector,” I said. “You can’t see them because they’re directly behind you.”
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
Leo took a peek at his father over his shoulder, the four men sitting at the table over candlelight handling business. Everyone else in the restaurant didn’t have a clue about the deal going down and the truckload of guns parked on the street. “Seems to be going well.”
“Yeah.”
We drank our wine and tried to blend in, but neither of us spoke to the other because we strained our ears to pick up on the quiet conversation at the boss’s table. They ordered appetizers like they intended to be there for a while.
Our entrees came out, and we started to eat.
I noticed a table of women across the room that kept looking over at us. We didn’t need the attention during a deal, but there was nothing I could do about it. I hoped they didn’t come over and make my life difficult.
“Hope no one thinks we’re on a date or something,” Leo said as he spun his fork in the pasta.
“We have bigger things to worry about right now, Leo.”
The conversation at the table turned a bit heated. The bodyguards in the corner pivoted their positions a little differently, like they wanted to make it easy to reach in and grab their guns from inside their jackets.
Leo abandoned his food and focused on the conversation.
Don Mancini said something about them being cheap, and they fired back and called him greedy. It went back and forth for a while, and it seemed like there would be no end in sight. Hector was decades older thanVincenzo, just like Luigi had been. Vincenzo was unusually young to be a don.
I left my chair and walked over.
“Wolfe,” Leo said in a hushed voice.
The bodyguards reached for their guns in their jackets but didn’t pull them out.
