Page 15 of The Associate

Stepping under the warm, eye-opening spray, Gio soaped up his chest and abs and considered the possibilities. He’d performed guard duty in the past for his capo and other higher-ups. Why anybody needed him on a Saturday baffled him, however. He then remembered the ten bucks he’d passed on to young Aggie last night. Maybe Gloria and the girls planned a shopping trip and Aldo insisted on an escort.How about Gio?

Gio took his time in toweling off and selecting fresh clothes. All the while, he pondered the third possibility. Since joining the family, Gio had knocked around the occasional deadbeat loanee but his kill tally stayed at zero. The mall chauffeur scenario seemed most likely, but what if Aldo wanted to meet with him about a sanctioned hit?

He dressed nice to suit any task given him today—cream-colored polo, dark-gray trousers and matching blazer. It was important to make up for last night’s too-casual appearance before the don. For this trip, he used his shoulder holster, which the suit coat hid well.

“You mind if I hang here for a while?” Vic asked as he hunted for his keys. Sometime during his shower, Vic had raided Gio’s kitchen. His friend pulled long on a beer bottle, and wedged a bag of chips between his thighs. “I got nowhere to be, and if I go home Ma will find something for me to fix or force me to run errands or some bullshit. I need a break.”

Whatever. Plenty of places for Vic to go to escape responsibility, but Gio wasn’t in the mood to argue. “Lock it up when you go, and leave no trace.” Gio pointed to the chips and left. His luck if Vic didn’t empty his pantry altogether today.

Gio lucked out with a spot in front of the Bertinellis’ house. Aldo ushered him straight into the den, unsmiling and uninterested in small talk. “Gloria took the kids bowling,” he said, gruff. Gio nodded, understanding the context. Aldo got the family out of the house to talk some serious business. The air surrounding them grew heavy along with the holstered gun pressed to Gio’s side. The idea that he might use it today sent his pulse racing.

“The Malloys’ lawyer reached out to us earlier this morning. Their son intends to manage the pub on his own.” Aldo twined his fingers. “He turned down the don’s generous offer. Not a wise move but, as I understand it, he’s not from around here.”

Gio stayed quiet. Better to listen than blurt out the obvious and earn a withering glance. The son—Malloy, Junior or whatever he called himself—was either holding out for a better price or intended to pay back his father’s debts. Once Salvatore San Gaetano decided upon a course of action to benefit the family, nobody underneath him—much less an outsider—questioned the choices.

“What’s my job here?” Gio asked.

Aldo tilted his head and shrugged. “Pay the man a visit. Convince him that it’s in his best interest to sell to the family.” He nodded at the slight warping of Gio’s blazer which clued him into the gun’s presence. “If you have to get rough with him, fine, especially if he strikes first. Don’t kill him.”

Gio gave his silent assurance of that. Inwardly, he relaxed. This was a test, of course. The higher-ups wanted proof of Gio’s negotiation skills and sparing his trigger finger. An effective member of the family asserted authority through persuasive tactics. Some resorted to physical harm and worse when necessary, but killing for the sake of killing attracted attention. Cooperation with law enforcement on the take only went so far.

“Patrick Keagan, that’s the Malloys’ nephew, says the kid’s opening Lonnegan’s today.” He huffed out a mirthless laugh. “More power to him. I heard Malloy’s people ain’t coming back to work after the old man dropped.”

“They knew the score,” Gio said. Shame, though. For his lack of experience in running a bar, he would have welcomed an established staff. “Maybe that’ll work in our favor. Junior gets so overwhelmed that he takes the deal.”

He stood and Aldo followed. They shook hands and the older man smiled. “I’ll leave it to you to tip the scale in our favor,” he said, then turned serious. Gio saw the implications in Aldo’s eyes—if he accomplished this task, he earned his sponsorship.

Made within the month. Sweet.

* * * *

Conor first reached out to Deb, Da’s waitress, through the pub’s landline. Previous calls from his mobile rang to a dead end, and Conor soon realized the woman was screening incoming IDs. He guessed she saw the long string of numbers and assumed some cold caller hoped to scam her out of her bank routing number.

When she didn’t answer from the pub phone, same as Brian when Conor tried him, Conor’s suspicions steered toward darker thoughts. He wanted to believe the waitress and the bartender had left town for separate vacations, visiting distant relatives or fulfilling bucket list trips before returning to either new management or Hugh Malloy’s funeral. Hefearedthe same mobsters who’d spent decades fleecing Lonnegan’s out of hard-earned profits had bumped off those dear people as a warning to Conor’s parents. Pay up, play ball, or else. When it occurred to check their social profiles, Conor was relieved to see both had posted public messages in the last twenty-four hours. He left comments on their feeds to contact him at their earliest convenience.

“All in vain, Con,” he murmured to himself. Perhaps it was best that Deb and Brian stayed away. Their absence equated to their safety. Besides, if they came for their usual shifts Conor would have to pay them, and he needed every cent of profit to pay off what his da owed the mob.

Owed. Heh. Extortion, that was the correct word in this case. Whether the bad guys barreled through the front door of Lonnegan’s in ski masks or strode in wearing sharkskin suits and toting briefcases, they gave off the same stench. Glorified thugs, and they had no right coming for two elderly people whose only dream was to share their Irish heritage and hospitality with their adopted community.

Conor performed the opening procedures by memory. He expected to forget a few minor details, but he was grateful his father hadn’t upgraded his trusty cash register to some online-driven point of sale system that required passwords to access. If the pub filled to maximum capacity today—fingers crossed—he’d ask people to come up to the bar to order.

He checked the liquor inventory, flipped down the chairs, and unlocked the door before noon.

Sitting at a table abutting one of the front windows, he scrolled his phone and waited for the first customers to arrive for a liquid lunch. After a minute, he questioned the wisdom of this choice.Brilliant, Conor Jacob. Why not wear a target on your back so the mob will know where to shoot through the glass?Yet when he half-rose to move he sighed and thumped back into the chair. No. The mob pushed his parents because they were older and vulnerable and more interested in keeping the peace regardless of the cost. Let this gesture send a message that he couldn’t be intimidated.

If some goon shot him…fuck. His death helped nobody. Leave it to the mob to send his parents a warning in the form of his dead body sprawled over broken glass in their pub. They’d sign whatever paperwork Patrick handed them, if the shock of his death didn’t finish them first.

Conor set his phone face down on the table and buried his face in his hands. Disbelief and grief had led him to this half-baked idea. What possessed him to think he was capable of saving his family and their beloved pub from the fuckingMafia? People with guns and brute strength and no morals whatsoever…

Two loudsthumpssounded near his head, and Conor reared back in his chair with a strangled cry. “Jaysusfuck!” he cried, and pressed his hand on his breast to calm the wild beating. Turning toward the glass, he gaped his mouth open at the sight of Joe Spatafora waving to him. The breeze ruffled his dark hair, settling it over his large ears so they didn’t appear to stick out as much.

Praise heaven, a friendly face. Beautiful one, too. Conor smiled back and gestured for him to come inside. “We just opened!” he called out, and stood when Joe entered the pub. Happy as he was to see his fling from last night, he was nonetheless puzzled by the wary expression on the man’s face.

“How…” Joe began, and paused with a look at the door as though searching for scratch marks. “How did you get in here? If you were that hard up for a drink you could have gone back to JT’s. Somebody’s bound to buy you shots.”

Conor spread his arms. “I told you I’d come here on business, and this is it,” he said. “Welcome to Lonnegan’s.”

Joe nodded, not with enthusiasm. “Is this part of your location scouting? You’re gonna use the bar as a movie set?”

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