Page 75 of Working for the Mob

Art swore. Loudly.

“I’ve got an idea. But I need you to drive,” I said, and Art crossed his arms.

???

“Can you go over the plan again?” Art asked for the third time.

“You said that the Valuncias’ supply lines are still coming in fine, right? Well, we are going to drive to the Valuncias’ territory in West Lannington. I will buy us enough meat to last us for the lunch rush.”

“But why does it have to beyou?” Art asked.

“I already told you, they won’t recognize me,” I said.

“It’s still not safe,” he said, and moved his jaw back and forth. I can’t tell whether he does that when he thinks, or when he’s upset. But I’ve started to enjoy it when he does. “I should’ve fixed this.”

“Do you have a less conspicuous car?” The poor thing still had no windows and bullet holes littered the seats.

“It’s been two days.”

“It’ll stick out like a sore thumb,” I said. I had asked him whether we could use Lance’s car, but Art murmured something about not talking with him.

“And you sure we’re allowed in West Lannington?” I asked him.

“It’s technically Valuncia territory. Most of the citizens don’t care about who they see on the street. It becomes a problem because we already found out that their shop owners have been instructed not to sell to any suppliers of the Neccis.” He shot me a furtive glance.

“Hopefully, they won’t recognize me,” I said. “I’ve only been here a couple months. And as far as I know, their butcher has never come into the café.”

I swallowed. I needed this to work. I couldn’t run the café into the ground on my first day as manager. I just couldn’t. I needed to prove to Lucy that women were strong enough to run things on their own. I needed to prove to Art that I could run the shop. But most of all, I needed to prove this to myself.

The scenery palpably changing from East Lannington to West Lannington jarred me. The tidy, well-kept cottages gave way to run-down shacks. Boarded up windows, broken doors, and missing shingles decorated the houses lining the street. People sat on their porches, but no swings hung from trees and no children played on the sidewalks.

“Why is everything so … dingy?” I asked, and Art scowled like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

“Because the Valuncias are tyrants who take all the town’s money for themselves,” Art said. He kept his eyes fixated on the road ahead, not daring to glance at the houses too long.”

“Don’t you do that?” I asked and he let out a mirthless laugh.

“No. I pour all the money back into the town,” he said. “My employees. The factory. The café.”

“Both youandyour brother?” I asked, but Art shook his head.

“No. Just me,” Art said, and I stopped asking questions.

If what he said were true, then where did all of his money come from? The money to buy dresses, the car, the espresso machine––how could he afford all of them?

And how could these people afford to upkeep their houses if the Valuncias didn’t offer them any jobs?

“Why can’t you just hire the people from West Lannington to East Lannington?” I asked, as we passed another house with a middle-aged man sitting on his porch. It was barely above freezing and the man wasn’t wearing shoes. “You could make openings at the factory.”

“It’s part of our deal with the Valuncias,” Art said, with a grimace. “We aren’t supposed to employ their side of town, and they don’t employ ours.”

The shops along the main street shared the fatigued curse as the houses. Iron bars covered the dusty store windows, at least the stores that were not abandoned. The latter stores were either boarded up like the houses we passed, or worse, sat like dark holes with desolate insides.

“You’ve got todosomething. This is terrible,” I said.

“Iamdoing something,” Art said, his surly mood continuing.

“Oh! There’s the butcher’s shop,” I said, and pointed to the bleak building with a bloody pork leg in the window.

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