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“Yeah, same. If you’re in town again sometime, hit me up. I’ll get you front row seats to a fight.”
“Thanks. If you’re ever on the west coast, feel free to hit me up too. I’ll, uh … get you front row seats for Sunday Mass.”
“You a priest, or something?”
Good question. “Something.”
He rubs a hand down his face and shakes his head. “Sorry. Wouldn’t have held a gun on you. Or cussed so much.”
“I’m a priest. Not a saint.”
“Right. Well, it was good meeting you, Damon.” The corner of his lips kick up to a half smile. “I’d call you Father, but that’d sound kinda weird.”
“Damon’s fine. Take care.” I pat his arm on the way toward the staircase and make my way down to my father’s office.
The smell of leather and cigars hangs like a cloud of memories, as I step through the door and flick on the light, taking me back over ten years into my past. I remember sneaking into his office to stare at the picture of my mother on his desk. The only place he ever kept her pictures in the house. For hours, I spun in his swivel chair, holding the picture frame to my chest.
It’s also where I first set my eyes on Val, as she sat hunched over his books.
I never met the offspring of my father’s business partners, until her, and I remember how strange it felt to see a young woman weeding through his dirty laundry. Embarrassing, almost.
I cross the room to the file cabinet, where the key to his safe is tucked away.
My father wasn’t stupid enough to have anything but legitimate documents visible. The rest was hidden, locked up in his corrupt little fireproof cabinet.
Weeding through folders, I find the key toward the back of the drawer, in its usual place where I saw Val store it hundreds of times, and I carry it toward the closet across the room. I kneel on the floor and remove the banker’s boxes and golf equipment stored there. Once it’s cleared, I raise the carpeted panel, which looks like nothing more than a closet floor, and find the safe set inside.
Here is where the real secrets lie.
I punch in the code my father made me privy to a number of times, particularly when he went out of town, thinking he might not come back. The key clicks, and I open the safe to a pile of documents inside. All of his financials, as well as some stacks of cash that I don’t bother to take. Blood money. Makes me sick to think how many people probably offered up their lives for this cash.
Beneath the papers and cash is a stack of binders, in which Val used to clip spreadsheets for all his dealings. If the FBI ever found these books, they’d have the names of just about every criminal in New York, which is ultimately what made Val a target.
I drag my finger down a list of names, but only recognize a few, like Val’s father and her older brothers. I stop on McConnell, noting a payment of six grand, which repeats on the next page for the following month. Mac’s mother, I’m guessing.
Dozens of names make up his payroll, not a single one offering a clue into this white goat. He could be any one of the men on this list.
Takes about a half hour for me to search the other binders, which give just as little insight, before I decide these books are useless to me.
With a huff, I replace all of them back into the safe, closing it up beneath the panel, and set the boxes and golf equipment back as I found it. At some point, the state will have to go through all his things, unless Mac decides to take that upon himself. Won’t be me, if I can help it.
On the way to my car, the early winter breeze tickles the back of my neck as old instincts kick in, and I look around the quiet neighborhood.
Feeling eyes watching me, I glance back to the house, but no one stands in my father’s bedroom window. After another sweep of the neighborhood, I slip into my vehicle, heading back toward downtown Manhattan.
20
Damon
Agreen light flicks on when I slip my keycard in the slot to unlock my hotel room, and I pause before taking a step inside. Call it old habits dying hard, but this is the second time I’ve gotten a sense that someone is watching me.
Carefully sliding the knife from its holster tucked beneath my coat, I let the tenebrous room swallow me as I make my way inside, eyes scanning in what little glow slips through the cracked door behind me, before I flick on the light to find a familiar face sitting in the chair opposite the bed.
He tips his bald head, smoke from his cigar climbing toward the ceiling. Val’s oldest brother, Andrea, must be pushing fifty now, his face carrying a little more chin than the last time I saw him.
A click behind me signals the door closing, and at the sight of the second familiar face, I grip the knife tight, muscles taut and ready to attack. The youngest brother, Cristian, hasn’t changed much. Still tall and gangly, but no less intimidating when pissed off.
“Well, look what the fucking wind blew in,” Andrea says, while Cristian stands guard at the door. “I didn’t believe the rumors that you were back in town. But here you are.” His deep brown eyes match his sister’s, eyes that once looked at me as a friend. Instead, they’re filled with the kind of venom that tells me I won’t be leaving this hotel room alive.
