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“And what’s worse, Jack, if you don’t mind me asking?” Gallo said. “My wanting that, or your running a story that made your own brother look like some kind of pusher?”
“As if I had a choice.”
“There are always choices,” Gallo said. “You made a stupid one when you began an affair with your father’s second wife.”
Jack looked at him.
“You know about that?”
“A better question,” Gallo said, “is whatdon’tI know about you.” Gallo shook his head, an almost pitying look on his face. “I don’t care why you started up with her in the first place. But you need to end it.”
“I thought I might be able to use her somehow,” Jack said. “I think she looked at me the same way.”
“The scandals are supposed to be about your sister, not you,” Gallo said. “Don’t give her something she might use against you by acting like a horny adolescent.”
He leaned back.
“I understand,” Jack said. “This is all supposed to be about Jenny. It was never supposed to be about Thomas.”
“Keep it that way,” Gallo said.
The waiter poked his head in at the other end of the room. Gallo shook his head. The door closed.
“Perhaps,” Gallo said, “and I’m only speaking theoretically, of course, Thomas ended up getting in the way of something much bigger than he was. And interfering with business that was not his own.”
Gallo made a helpless gesture with his hands, a slight shrug of his shoulders. Jack didn’t feel as if he were seeing him for the first time as he really was. Jack had always known who, and what, Gallo really was, the way he had always known those same things about himself. And about his father before him.
But the difference between him and his father, Jack knew, was that his father would never have gotten into bed with John Gallo, no matter what the stakes or possible rewards.
So Jack wasn’t seeing Gallo for the first time. Just more in focus than ever before. As if the real alpha wolf was sitting across the table from him.
“Doyou know anything about how Thomas died?”
“You really came here to ask methat?” Gallo said.
“Do you?”
Gallo paused.
“I’m no good and can prove it,” he said. “And I have done many things of which I am not proud. But I am not a murderer.”
Jack started to say something. Gallo put up a hand to stop him.
“I probably should be insulted by your accusation,” he said. “But I am not. Most likely it is your grief about your brother talking. But what I will tell you now is that I want you to leave this room before you insult me further and say something that will only get you into much deeper trouble with me than you already are.”
The waiter appeared with Gallo’s food now, a huge fillet with mashed potatoes and green beans. He set it down in front of Gallo. Gallo cut off a small piece of steak, washed it down with wine, then made a kissing motion with his fingers before the waiter once again left.
He’s not just playing the part of an old boss,Jack thought.Heisan old boss.
Capable of anything.
Including murder.
“What do we do now?” Jack said.
“We proceed as if nothing has changed,” Gallo said, and smiled again.
Jack stood. He knew he had been dismissed without Gallo saying he had.
