VINCENZO
When a man is in my line of work, planning a relaxing night at home in advance is nearly impossible. My younger brother called earlier in the evening and bugged me about checking out a competitor’s new nightclub. However, I told him I’d rather microwave my own testicles while they’re still attached to me than sit in a dark, crowded place blasting shitty music surrounded by the most superficial and desperate of humanity. “Well, aren’t you the jolliest boy in the room,” he snarked before hanging up. I might be getting curmudgeonly in my ripe old age of thirty-four.
The truth is, I haven’t been in a sociable mood in the last couple of months. That tends to happen when a man finds his fiancée making out with his head of security in the restroom in the middle of his birthday celebration. It’s a challenge to find good, loyal staff these days who won’t have sex with one’s nymphomaniac former fiancée. I should have seen the signs. He didn’t return my calls right away; he’d show up to our meetings rumpled and a little out of sorts, looking like he’d just lost a fight with a rabid hyena; and he reeked like cheap French perfume.
I’m going to miss Sammy. He was a good employee until he started messing with what’s mine. Now he’s just fertilizer for future California redwoods. Well, at least he’ll still be useful for something.
For the first time in months, I thought I’d be able to have a quiet night to myself and catch up on my reading. There’s a new book out about El Chapo, a former Mexican drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate. He got busted a couple of years ago and is currently serving life at the Colorado Supermax. In the eighties, my father clashed with the Sinaloa Cartel, and we didn’t fare very well. I’m hoping to learn from Chapo’s mistakes, so my fine Sicilian ass doesn’t end up in a Supermax. Twenty-three hours a day in solitary confinement? No thanks.
I was just thinking about how I would have evaded capture had I been in Chapo’s place when all the lights in my penthouse go out. The red emergency lights above my head flick on, which tell me I’m the only one in the building affected by this phenomenon. I sigh with disappointment over my ruined evening and reach for the Ruger Mark IV attached under my La-Z-Boy with Velcro. Most people would scoff at using a .22, but this sucker fires at peak performance and high precision. Best of all, it makes the sound of a hot knife cutting through butter.
Within moments I have bloody amateurs trying to pick the lock on my doors. I sit in the dark, waiting for them so I can cap their asses and continue with the rest of my night. Five minutes later, they’re still at it, and I get bored enough to head over to my room– thinking I could brush my teeth and prepare for bed while these morons try to open my front door. Good luck. They’re not getting through unless they have a hydraulic battering ram.
I spit into the sink and look up just as I hear a loud crash in my foyer. Goddamn it, I had that door especially shipped from Palermo; it was the front door of my grandmother’s old house. I wipe my mouth and get ready for battle. I blend in with the shadows as the goons clamber up the hallway leading to the master bedroom.
I know what they’re looking at: a lump on the bed under covers that looks suspiciously like a person. The trigger-happy bastards unload on my pillows and mattress, scattering down feathers in the air. While they’re confused about this wrinkle in their plans, I step out from behind the drapes and take them down one by one with a headshot. Within seconds, all the intruders, except one who is having a seizure by my wardrobe, are dead.
Because I like to make sure that my kills remain dead, I check on each of them, kicking them in the head. When I get to the last one, I see his eyes, and he seems to be trying to speak. I’d missed; the bullet merely grazed his temple. Damn it. I point the Ruger at his stomach and fire. “Who sent you, asshole?”
Blood explodes out of his mouth, spraying my face. “Papi says hi.”
It’s the little things, really. One must cherish and enjoy these precious moments in life. I shake my head, unable to stop myself from smiling. “Give the devil my best regards.” I shoot him in the face.
I go back to the living room to find my cell phone and make a call. As soon as the gruff voice answers, I say, “I need a cleaner. Send me the Wolf. It's a massive job. Oh, and please make a delivery for me. To Salvador Ordonez of the Seventeenth Street Gang. Send him the Youngstown tune-up.”
I hang up and make another call, this time to my secretary.
“Hullo?” she says, sounding sleepy like her mouth’s full of cotton.
I change my accent to the posh Oxonian one that she’s familiar with. “Terribly sorry for the lateness of the hour, Ms. Lee, but I’m afraid I have an emergency and won’t make it to the eight-thirty meeting with the investors in the morning. Please reschedule. I should be in the office before noon.”
“Great,” she grumbles, which sounds an awful lot like "Fuck off!"
“You’re a darling, Ms. Lee, and a life-saver. Ta!”
Ms. Lee is efficient, organized, and intelligent, but she seems to hate me. Probably because I occasionally call her at midnight on a Wednesday.
Another reason I've kept Ms. Lee is her disdain of me. In the past, female assistants I've had saw a tall, handsome man in a smart Armani suit and lost their damn minds. I don't dip my wick in the company inkwell.
I've been fending off women since I was fourteen years old, and that was back when I was enrolled in an all-male boarding school in England.
Since my quiet evening to myself is ruined courtesy of the five dead idiots in my bedroom, I decide to leave my flat, so I call my brother. He already sounds three sheets to the wind.
I shower and put on a black Tom Ford three-piece suit. I've never been able to decide if I prefer British or Italian tailoring. Papa would have a stroke if he knew. Well, then, he shouldn't have sent me to England for twenty years of schooling.
I don't really like to be around when the cleaners do their work, especially those in charge of body disposal. Those guys love their job a little too much.
I call my new head of security, Frederick an ex-Secret Service agent with a proven track record of twenty years and two purple hearts. When I asked him why he would want to work for me during his interview, he said the government doesn't pay enough for him to send three kids to college.
"Lee," is how he answers his phone. No, hi, hello, how are ya?
"I'm going out to see what kind of trouble my brother's gotten himself into."
"I'll be out in five. How many?"
"Three. You, Gomez, and Stevens."
"Got it. Already messaging them, Capo. We'll come and get you at your place."