Page 47 of Kingpin
Dominic
“Did I, or did I not, specifically ask you if there was shit going on that I needed to know about? If my fucking memory serves me correctly, I asked all of you if there was beef in the streets that I needed to know about, and every one of you said to me that everything was good to go. You even saidBellisimo, or some corny shit like that. But today I learn that one of my captains has a contract on his head, put on by some wannabe Russian mafia cock sucker. So, you better start explaining what the fuck you’ve got going on, and why the fuck you didn’t speak up when I asked about it.”
Frankie is genuinely pissed off. I guess I earned it by not telling him about Abram, but then again, I didn’t expect Abram to try to blow my fucking head off. I thought he’d rollover. I was wrong, almost dead wrong.
“I’m sorry, Frankie,” I begin as he sits down behind the desk in his home office. He fastens the string on his robe and glares at me as I try to explain. “I was trying to wrap up this deal to buy the Lumiere casino from this Russian prick, and he didn’t wanna cooperate, so I sent Two Nines to send him a message a few days back. I guess Abram decided to get his fucking manicured hands dirty and retaliate. It’s my fault, but I’m gonna take care of it, Frankie.”
I go to sit down in the brown leather chair next to me, but Frankie isn’t having it.
“Don’t fucking sit down,” he snips in a low, angry whisper. His wife and two kids are asleep upstairs, so he’s trying to keep it down, but he’s struggling behind his anger. “I can’t believe you’re bringing this shit to my house in the middle of the fucking night. I expect better out of you, Dominic, you know that. You’ve been a part of Our Thing a long time, and you know how we do business, so I’m really fucking disappointed in how you went about this. What if that fucker would’ve got you? Have you thought about that? We wouldn’t have known shit, then how would we have hit back? This is unacceptable.”
I think to tell him I was trying to acquire Lumiere Place so we could go into business together, but it wouldn’t do me any good right now. He’s too pissed, so I keep it to myself and let him chastise me.
“Alright, now that everything’s finally on the table,” he continues, rubbing the length of the scar on his face. “Let’s talk about how we fix this. This guy put a hit out on you and tried to carry it out in fucking public. He had the balls to try to have you clipped in a restaurant in your own casino. You know how that makes us look?”
“I know, Frankie, we can’t let this shit slide, and I don’t plan to. Not to mention he almost got Alannah.”
Frankie’s forehead immediately grows tons of wrinkles.
“He almost got who?” he inquires.
“I was out with Alannah when they tried to make the hit. If I didn’t drag her to the floor with me, they would’ve hit her.”
“Alannah? Who the fuck is Alannah?”
“Alannah’s a girl I grew up with. We were at dinner.”
“The same Alannah you were always yapping to your dad about when you were a kid? The one who moved to Alaska or some shit?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s back now?”
“Yeah. She just got back a few days ago.”
“Ah, now I get it,” Frankie says, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head with disappointment. “You’ve never been one to be caught with your pants down, and now that your little girlfriend is back, you lose focus and almost get your fucking head blown off.”
Now it’s me who’s frowning.
“Wait, that ain’t how it is, Frankie,” I reassure him. “This didn’t have nothing to do with Alannah. I just didn’t expect Abram to put a fucking contract on my head. It’s not about Alannah being back.”
“Well, it better fucking not be, Dominic,” he snaps. “You’re my best earner, and I don’t wanna see something happen to you because you’re too busy thinking about some high school crush. You’re a made guy and the son of my best friend, God bless his soul, and I expect you to be boss of this family after my old ass is gone. So, you need to keep your fucking head on straight, and do what you’ve always done. Keep your mind on your money, and set this little thing with the Russian right. And you know what I mean when I say that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.
“Good. This is a big mess you’ve made, now it’s on you to clean it up, because it’s not just about you now. This Russian tried to clip a made guy—when New York finds out about this, they’re gonna expectimmediateconsequences. So, you need to clean this up quickly, and brutally. An example needs to be made. You understand?”
I nod, thinking about how those bullets were only inches away from me.
Inches away from Alannah.
“I got it, Frankie,” I reply as I turn to leave. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
“What the fuck? Why are we just now hearing about this?” Charlie snaps as he takes his seat at the table in the conference room of River City. “You should’ve called us when it happened, and we would’ve hit back that same night. We don’t fucking lay down for shit like this.”
“I know we don’t, Charlie,” I try to explain. Charlie’s fired up though. They all are. “We’re not laying down. I just needed a minute to think, and I had to tell Frankie.”
“How’d that go?” Skinny Joe asks, with a grin that says he already knows.
