Page 3 of Beautiful & Dirty

Alfonso’s words are so tame considering what the walls of this room have seen, but they’re enough to make Umberto begin shaking so hard the flop sweat is practically pouring down his face and splashing onto his cheap suit now.

This doesn’t mean much. If I were in his shoes, I’d be sweating and shaking, too. But if I’d done what I think he has, I’d be more than shaking. If I’d betrayed someone in my position, I’d never have let myself get taken; I’d be in another country right now. But if Umberto were like me, he’d have my job, and that’s a tall order. A lot of people think they can do what I do until it’s time to make the hard decisions, and then they demur, give the difficult choices to their lieutenants, or push them off for another day until someone with the balls to do the work comes in and slits their throats. Someone like me.

This isn’t a hard decision, though, and there’s no need to demur or delegate. “Just one,” I tell Alfonso. I’m feeling magnanimous.

“Salvo, wait,” Umberto cries in a shaky voice. It’s pathetic, but I can’t blame him. Fingers matter, especially in his line of work, but he can make suits with nine fingers.

He tries to struggle, but Giulio holds him by the shoulders as Alfonso grabs his right hand and smoothly pulls Umberto’s index finger back so far, the sharp crack of bone rends the air and reverberates off the stone walls. There’s something about the acoustics here that makes the sound sharper, sicker. But then it’s drowned out by Umberto’s howling wail. I don’t mind the former, but the latter will give me a headache if I have to listen to it for too long. There’s something about hearing a grown man cry like a baby that just begs a migraine to bloom. I imagine that there’s a clock in the room counting down how long I can suffer through this. But this is just a hazard of the job, and my brain is calm, and if it were only about the mind, I could draw this out for hours — migraine or not. I’ve done it before.

But three months ago, someone tried to kill me, and my patience has worn thin.

I remember everything about that day. I’d just left mass. I’m not religious, but it’s important to keep up appearances, so the clergy and police leave me alone, and I enjoy the restfulness of being inside the cathedral, the incense, the chanting, the ritual. I didn’t pay attention to any of it, not with my full mind, and I’d long ago stopped taking communion, but there was something about the chanting and the prayer that always lulled me under, and I let my mind relax like I had thousands of times before.

When mass was over, I filed out into the street with my wife at my side and my security working to cut a path through the milling crowd. Again, we’d done this before, and in hindsight, that was my mistake. It’s stupid for a man like me with a job like mine to have a routine, but it was hard to imagine myself in danger while surrounded by little old ladies hobbling toward the exit or whispering to one another about who I am and what I do, afraid to say it loud enough for me to hear just in case the rumors are true. The worst part of mass was avoiding the priests’ silently judging eyes as I pass, but if that’s the most dangerous part of a day, I can survive that with ease.

But glaring priests gave way to something much more dangerous.

I knew the minute I saw Carmine Facciolo’s face what he was about, and it was as if I watched it all in slow motion. He raised his hand, and the gun glinted ominously in the sunlight. I pushed my wife out of the way just as Alfonso threw himself at Carmine’s body. He was too late to get the gun out of his hand, but in just enough time that the barrel shifted, and the bullet hit me in the right shoulder instead of square in my chest.

It was a through and through, and the bullet lodged in the church’s façade; something else Father Rizzo blames me for. I bled all over my favorite suit, but it was barely above a scratch, and I’m practically back to my old self a few months later. But the gunshot wound still itches first thing in the morning and stings in the cold. When I sit for too long in the same position, my shoulder locks, and my entire body is stiff and achy for hours, sometimes days. But it could have been much worse, so who am I to complain?

And I didn’t cry, I think to myself with a sneer at Umberto, holding his injured hand to his chest and blubbering like a baby.

There’s something about the gunshot wound that’s shortened my patience and my temper. I don’t want to wait hours for Umberto to come around. I don’t want to waste my entire day listening to his pathetic simpering while my shoulder and head throb, and my anger grows to something dangerous I haven’t had to let loose in years. And Umberto doesn’t want that either, even if he doesn’t know that the longer I wait, the worse it’ll be for him.

I give myself five more minutes of this interrogation before the countdown clock in my head goes off, and I unleash. I waste forty-five seconds waiting for Umberto to stop crying.

“Where’s my money, Umberto?” I ask when his sobbing has subsided to whimpering cries.

He shakes his head, clutching his hand even closer to his chest. “I don’t know,” he mumbles.

I roll my eyes with a sigh. “Another,” I tell Alfonso.

Other men in my position might have given Umberto more time. They might have shown Umberto some grace, offered him a shot of something strong to take away the pain. But I’ve killed the other men in my position, clearing the path for my rise to power, and you want to know how I did that? I made that second of hesitation a costly mistake for my rivals. It’s a weakness, as far as I’m concerned, and I won’t fall prey to it, especially not with this fucking headache rippling through my head like a slow-moving tsunami. I subtract a minute from my mental clock.

There’s another sharp crack, followed by Umberto’s screams and cries.

This time, I don’t give him time to quiet down. “The money.”

“Salvo,” Umberto wails.

“Another.” I can’t tell if these are new wails or just one long cry. Does it matter? “Or should we take the finger instead of breaking it? The hand? The arm?” I ask simply. I’m feeling much less magnanimous now.

“It’s at my mistress’s apartment,” Umberto splutters. “In a safe, in my office.” His face is covered in sweat, tears, and snot. Pathetic. Easy.

And I’m done, with just over a minute to spare.

I uncross my legs and stand. I straighten my slacks and look down at Umberto, even though I’m speaking to Alfonso and Giulio. “Take him to his whore’s apartment. Retrieve my money. If he gives you any trouble, take the whole fucking hand,” I say and then turn and walk from the room.

“Salvo!” Umberto calls after me. I don’t stop.

I open the door into the restaurant and shut the door to my office behind me, cutting off the sound of Umberto’s pleas. I mentally check that off today’s to-do list.

On the way to the kitchen, I stop in my fake office. I take off my cashmere cardigan and hang it on the hook behind the door, exchanging it for the pristine apron I keep there for pretense.

I tie it tight around my waist, and before I leave, I check my mobile phone.

I roll my eyes, and that headache I’d been rushing to avoid comes roaring to life — no warning, no countdown clock — as soon as I see the benign text message from my wife, Flavia, telling me that she’ll be having dinner with her sister tonight.

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