Page 2 of Catch Me If You Can (The Mancini Way)

“You flew the coop again didn’t you Hanky?”

I wish she’d stop calling me that shit; she’s the only one who does and no matter how much I threatened her with termination and all manner of bodily harm she refused to relent. I chose to ignore her disrespect and focused instead on her cryptic question, the girl’s nuts so who knew what the hell she was talking about.

“What’re you talking about now?”

She rolled her eyes at me and huffed, which seemed to be her trademark move when dealing with yours truly.

“Your latest cuckoo puff, she’s been making the rounds because Sabra and Annette already called to complain about her behavior; now me, I just told the nut that I’m not your damn answering service and that was the end of that but the others aren’t nearly as brave as I am so they’ve been suffering through her bullshit.”

“I guess we’re talking about Mara here?”

“Yep, so what did you do this time, the bracelet, the watch, the necklace what?”

“None of the above; I’ve just been really busy lately, now what’s going on with my business?”

“You’re cold dude, straight up icicle, anyway then on to more important things. Apparently; let’s see, sales are good, business is booming in spite of the recession. Mostly bored debutantes with daddy’s platinum card burning a hole in their pockets sipping on thirty-dollar martinis and nibbling on twenty-dollar veggie wraps. That about sums it up, oh and I need a raise.” She grinned at me.

” I just gave your ass an undeserved raise two months ago and your disdain is showing again.” For someone who was once a debutante herself she sure didn’t feel any love for her fellow ilk, she positively abhorred women of a certain class including her own mother on occasion. According to her, they were all bubble headed nymphets; that could be due to her mother divorcing her father when she was thirteen years old to marry up.

“Meehh! Whatever! Anyway, you need to deal with the beer distributors; people are complaining about the beer on tap, they say it’s a bit watered-down. We checked the pressure and everything’s fine there so the only thing we can deduce is that it’s a problem originating from the company. I’ve been hearing whispers from other places in the city that seems to be having the same issue so I’m thinking you might want to jump on that right quick.” She fiddled with the stuff on my desk until I rapped her knuckles with my Mont Blanc.

I hope for their sakes they weren’t trying to screw me over, I pay top dollar for premium beer because that’s what the people who come into my places expect, if I find that my distributor was playing me that would mean finding another reputable one, this fucking recession was turning everyone into fucking criminals, I hate shoddy business dealings, fuck; but it’s part of the world sadly, see, that’s why I can’t stand people, fucking dishonest assholes.

“Sure anything else?”

“Nope that’s about it the numbers are on the spreadsheet; I don’t know if you want to deal with orders since you’re here otherwise I’ve got it covered.”

“You do that; what about the floor any problems in house?”

“Nah, we’re cruising along just fine we don’t ever really have any problems there except for when one of the newbies get a look at you and fall for your piercing eyes and your handsome self, then it takes a few months for them to get over the heartbreak when they realize you don’t shit where you eat and never will.”

“Go to work Star I don’t know how my brother puts up with that mouth of yours.”

“He loves it.” She grinned at me again, always full of piss and vinegar this one.

“Spare me please; one of you better call mama, she’s on the warpath again, something about not seeing her grand kids lately and you know the deal.”

“Must be Jaxx and Sabra, Adrien and I were just over there like two nights ago before he left town.”

“Well you know how she is, she needs daily if not hourly contact the woman is relentless, I’d appreciate it if the rest of you could keep her off my ass with this grand kids shit, you’d think after the fifty or so you and Adrien and Sabra and Jaxx gave her she’d be satisfied but no.”

“Uh huh, Mara not the motherly type?”

“Out!” She laughed her ass off as she left; I checked my watch, I still had a few hours left before my first meet. I got the books in order. I’ll be able to pay the mortgage for the next little while at least. That was a running joke between me and the boys whenever we made another couple hundred grand or so. Shit, the way things were going; we might not be too far off the mark. Man has totally fucked shit up; we were headed for a collision course with imminent disaster and still people didn’t learn, didn’t stop in their tracks and say ‘hey what can I do to make this shit better’?

Glancing over at the security monitor I caught sight of my brother Jaxxon entering the place; we didn’t have any plans for today as far as I knew so something must be up.

He came in and eyed me like I’d done something wrong, which wasn’t anything new, my brothers were always giving me the gimlet eye, they claimed my line of work made their lives unnecessarily difficult, they wanted me to take it easy on their peers but I refused to, I was having way too much fun keeping them on their toes.

“You gonna say something or just stand there and give me the stink eye?”

Jaxx ran his hand through his shaggy dark brown hair which he wore to his shoulders these days, that’ll last until mama got after him about his grooming habits as she calls it and to please her he’ll lop most of it off.

“Well little brother, don’t’ you have criminals to catch? FBI having an off day or some shit?”

Chapter 2

“Nice to see you too brother.”

---