Page 11 of Mafia Star

“Yeah.”

Luigi lifts his chin, his hand still in his pocket.

“I thought you were like besties with the don’s nephew or something.”

“No one outside the don’s family is besties with anyone in it.”

Hunter shifts. He must be doing something with his hands, but I can’t tell what. Maybe into his coat pockets. But I doubt that since the others don’t react. Hands on hips?

“What do the feds want with you?”

“What do they ever want? They want to know some shit about my boss.”

“What the hell are they offering you that’s good enough to believe Don Mancinelli can’t get you?”

Luigi stares at Hunter, who turns toward Tommy.

“Fine. Whatever. Don’t tell me. Tommy, what’re they giving him immunity for? Where’d they say they’d set him up?”

Luigi takes a step forward, placing his hand on Hunter’s chest. He shoves, and Hunter takes a step back. But he doesn’t stay there. He gets into Luigi’s face. Fuck us if this goes wrong. If they fuck him up, they’ll find the wire and the camera. Luigi knows where to look.

“You ask too many fucking questions we aren’t answering. I’ll give you ten grand right now to fuck off.”

Hunter isn’t leaving there alive unless we go in and grab Luigi. Oh, well.

“You’re giving me ten large, anyway. Like I said, you ain’t touching me. But you are going to pay me. Since you can’t do shit to me, you may as well answer my questions. Fifteen for my silence. I might even forget what you say for twenty.”

Hunter holds out his hand and flaps his fingers. No one moves. He eventually lets his hand fall.

“I’ve got a long memory regardless of what you do or don’t say. Maybe I’ll be the one to feed the feds some info.”

Luigi barks a laugh.

“You really do have a death wish.”

“If the feds weren’t offering you something good, then you wouldn’t be so nervous about me going to them. They’re offering you immunity and relocation. Why?”

“I saw some shit.”

It’s Hunter’s turn to laugh with no humor.

“You’ve probably seen some shit since you were like five. Narrow it down. What shit?”

“Shit that happened recently.”

“In the city? We all see shit every day. We just ain’t say nundin.”

Hunter’s fucking Bronx accent gets thick sometimes.

“Nah. On a trip I went on recently.”

Tommy turns everyone’s attention to him when he speaks.

“We already know you went to Kansas and Chicago. The Rizzos and Grassos are running coke and meth between them. You told us some bullshit about your cousin being a Rizzo, but that doesn’t check out. Why were you in Chicago, Luigi? We know you traveled with Enzo. Why was he out there?”

“Cubs versus the White Sox game. He’s been a White Sox fan since he was a kid. Still collects baseball cards and wanted to get one signed. Puts them in glass cases once he does. The guy’s got at least a million dollars in signed cards.”

My brother couldn’t give two shits about baseball and hasn’t since we all played little league. Why’s Luigi covering for him?

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