Page 5 of Dirty Pool

Of sorts …

They kept their business guarded, to a point. He didn’t fault them for that, either. He wasn’t a made man—he couldn’t know all the details, and he really didn’t want to. He did get a firsthand look at some of their dealings, but that was far different from being a friend of theirs and just a friend.

One meant he was in.

One meant he was just okay.

Michel was fine with being just okay.

“And there’s the doc!”

Michel chuckled at Sal’s greeting as he stepped into the entryway of the private dining area of the restaurant. Sal preferred to do all his business and meetings out of the sight of the regular patrons. It wasn’t good for business to scare people away with the mob details, after all.

“Not a doctor yet,” Michel reminded his friend.

“Ah, Dio vaffanculo,” Sal replied, flipping a hand in Michel’s direction as he turned to the guy sitting across the table from him. Another familiar face to Michel here in Detroit. David Barese, a bookie for the Vannozzo family doing a good portion of his business in clubs that Michel liked to frequent throughout the city. “Listen to the shit coming out of his mouth, huh?”

David laughed, and passed Michel a grin. “You’re always gonna be the doc to us, kid.”

Michel bristled at the kid comment. He knew they were just fucking with him, and he enjoyed it, really. That was part of their life, and it meant he was welcomed here. They were treating him as one of them. In a way, they reminded him of his cousins, John and Andino.

“What are you doing today, anyway?” Sal asked, flipping through a deck of cards before laying out a spread on the table. “I thought you had classes?”

“Exams,” Michel corrected, “and I finished my last one today.”

“Yes,” David crowed, “that means the doc is free for the summer. What are we going to do with him, Sal? Put him to work, do you think?”

Michel rolled his eyes as he came further into the room. He didn’t pull out a chair to sit with the two men at the small table because he really didn’t plan on staying for that long. He just wanted to see if David or Sal had any interesting plans for the weekend because he felt like celebrating his final exams. All year, he’d been careful not to indulge too much. Sure, he’d go out, but he wouldn’t really party. No heavy drinking, and certainly nothing that was going to mess with his mind like a bit of smoke or a pill.

Well, school was done.

And these men knew how to party.

Sal passed Michel a look, considering David’s statement for a moment before he asked, “Have you ever considered that, cafone?”

“Calling me a fool doesn’t make me want to work for you because I know that’s what you’re asking without actually asking me.”

The man smirked. “You know how it works. But seriously, have you thought about it? I mean, I talked to your cousin—John. I know you used to deal. Had a bit of a touch for it, according to him.”

Michel ran his tongue along his teeth, and sucked in air to make a hissing sound at the same time. “I did.”

“What else are you going to do for the summer?”

“Study. Find a woman to keep me entertained. Sleep until noon.”

“Study, he says,” David grumbled.

Michel flipped his middle finger up at the man, but David only shrugged and went back to the card game with Sal like nothing had happened in the first place. “But yeah, I considered it.”

Sal nodded, looking at the cards on the table as he said, “I could set that up for you. Just for the summer, if that’s what you wanted to do.”

Do I?

That was the better question.

Michel had a bad habit of missing familiar things. Hustling for money—even if he did have more dollars in the bank than he would ever know what to do with—was one of those things that he found familiar, and easy. Like learning, or his family.

He also hated being bored.