182
I hear my phone ringing as I get back from my morning run—It’s my dad.
He says to come to the house in fifteen minutes for a family meeting.
I shower, shave, dress and I’m there in thirteen. Charles tells me that everyone is waiting in the office. When I get there, the door is open and I find Chelsea behind my father’s desk with her feet up and a cigar in her hand.
Antonio, Christian and my father are there too.
I say, “What the hell,” before I know the words have even left my mouth.
Chelsea laughs, “I just wanted to know what the appeal was. I don’t think it suits me.” She sits up and hands the cigar to my father.
He smiles and takes his chair.
“So, we were just telling Vincent and Antonio how Christian and I shoved a big, donkey-sized dildo up de Soto’s ass last night with his drug shipment.”
Antonio takes over, “With his suppliers scared and his logistics compromised, he’s going to be shitting himself right now.”
“But he can’t,” Christian laughs, “because of the dildo of course.”
“That’s why,” Chelsea taps away at her MacBook and a map shows up on the big LED display she’s had installed, “we’re going to turn up the heat.”
She walks over to the screen and pulls out a small laser pointer from her pocket, testing it on the display.
“Right then,” Chelsea says, “this is a map of our territory as it was under your father’s leadership.” She turns to Antonio, “Would you mind?”
He nods and goes over to the computer to hit the space bar.
The image changes, “This is our territory now.”
Six sections of the map are overlaid in red.
“With your father’s help, we’ve identified thirty businesses that used to pay us protection in the old days. More have probably sprung up in these sections, but since none of you have been there in some time, today we’re going to split into three teams and do some meeting and greeting.”
I ask, “What are we going to tell them?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Christian says, “We’re going to tell them we’re taking over and the money comes to us now.”
“Won’t they have a problem with that?”
“No,” Chelsea says, “according to your father, there was some hesitation at first, sixteen years ago, but when they called to confirm and your father gave them the okay, things went smoothly.”
“But Don Cassaduchi didn’t agree to your terms.”
“That’s why we’re doing this now,” Chelsea raises an eyebrow, “his drugs are gone, when we start picking up his envelopes, he’s going to think his whole world is coming to an end and then he’s going to react.”
“But we don’t even know whose territory that is, we don’t know whose money that is.”
My father speaks up, “Joshua de Soto was a young hothead and brought the drug trade to Don Cassaduchi, his reward for bringing in that much money was those territories. Every red section you see on the map will have collections for no other captain. All of it goes to de Soto.”
“Everybody happy?” Chelsea smiles.
We all nod.
“Great, you’ll be driving me Daniel, it sounds like you haven’t wrapped your brain around this just yet.”
We’ve gone to a butcher, a grocer, an adult toy store, a sporting goods warehouse and now we pull up to a little neighborhood bar.
Everything’s going smoothly so far…sort of. Chelsea has been introducing herself. The butcher and the grocer were both being run by the sons of people Chelsea’s father had dealt with.
They were happy to meet her and had no problem giving her their envelopes instead of giving them to Joshua’s people.
The adult toy store was new. He’d heard of us but had been paying Josh from the time he opened up. But he was quickly taken care of.
Chelsea hit him in the face with a pocket pussy when he said—No—kicked him in the nuts and threatened to burn his house down…after that, he gladly agreed to give us his money.
The guy at the sporting goods warehouse called his boss. Chelsea spoke to him on the phone and he agreed to her terms when she pointed a gun at his employee and asked him very nicely.
I have to say, she’s more ruthless than any of us would’ve ever imagined.
I like it.
I love it, actually. It turns me on.
After I park at the curb, we both get out. On the way to the door of the bar, Chelsea squeezes my butt and winks at me.I think it’ll be my turn tonight.Last night she was with Christina.
I push through the doors of the little tavern and find a scattering of small tables, all in dark wood, with a dark wood floor, even a dark wood bar counter.
I can’t tell if it’s from age or by design. The place is dusty, and cold. There’s a bartender with only one patron at the counter.
Thatman, is dressed in a fine Italian suit and seemingly engaged in an energetic conversation…from the way he’s gesturing with his hands.
The bartender, an elderly, paunchy man with gray hair and weather-beaten skin locks eyes with us. The man in the suit turns around, looks us over, then goes back to his drink and the story he’s telling.
We walk up to the counter and Chelsea flashes one of her beaming smiles, “Mr. Buscemi, it’s been quite a day so far. We’ll have two of whatever you have on tap please.”
“Do I know you,” he asks innocently enough.
“I’m Donna Lombardo,” Chelsea holds her hand out to him.
He takes her hand and they shake.
“The Bernardo family is under new management and Joshua de Soto’s territory is now mine. You’ll be givingmeyour envelopes from now on.”
“Uh…maybe you ought to tellhimthat,” Buscemi nods to the guy in the suit.
I turn to look at him, it seems he’s been watching us the whole time. The brute in the suit says, “That’ll happen over my dead body, little girl. I didn’t know what you looked like, but now that I do…”
He’s bald, bearded and has the kind of mug that looks like he used to be a boxer who retired after one too many blows to the head.
“Don Bernardo might have lost his balls, but Mr. de Soto hasn’t and this is his neighborhood. You’re no boss. You want this envelope,” he taps his coat, “you’re going to have to take it from me.”
Chelsea looks to me and smiles, but I’m not exactly sure what to do. This dude could probably turn me into chunky salsa. The only thing I can do is shoot him.But should I? That might be taking things too far.
He goes on, “I heard what you did this morning. That’s why I’ve been waiting here for you. This is my route and these are my stops. You’ve got four envelopes that belong to me. You can put them down right here and I’ll let you walk out of this place.”
Chelsea rolls her eyes and says to me, “I guess that means Joshy isn’t going to fuck off and die like he’s supposed to.”
She calmly strolls over to the other side of the guy so that I’m on his right and she’s on his left. He’s not going to be able to watch both of us.
He’s big but he’s not clairvoyant. He turns to listen to her.I could take him out right now.
“You’re threatening a boss and you have my money,” Chelsea raises her brow at him, frowning playfully. “Why don’t you get Josh on the phone so we can clear this up without any violence?”
I watch the guy take a sip of his drink like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “You’ve been watching too many movies kid. Joshua says you ain’t nobody. You’re playing gangster but you ain’t got no idea the trouble you’re about to get yourself into. Now, put my money on the table and—”
The instant he looks away, Chelsea throws a kick worthy of a ninja to the base of his spine with her steel tipped boot. It’s thekind of the thing that could keep someone from walking for the rest of their life!
He’s still reeling from the shock of the attack when she follows up by grabbing his collar and pulling him backward. He comes down—stool and all—and lands hard.
Chelsea goes to work immediately and plants kicks to his gut and his ribs…even a few to his face. These are not the kicks of a little girl. Chelsea has muscle, speed and ferocity.
He wasn’t expecting a fight. I stand there with my gun pointed at him—just in case—and let her do her thing.
Buscemi’s got his hands up like we’re going to do something to him too, so I tell him, “Relax, we’re just teaching him a lesson, you’re all good.”
The thug is now missing his two front teeth, he’s bleeding from his head and mouth.
Chelsea picks up the stool and smashes it on him, beating him with it again and again till all that’s left is kindling.
Now he looks like he’s been in a car wreck…and that’s when he uses what’s left of his breath to whimper, “Stop…stop…please.”
The next step would’ve been to stab him in the heart with one of the wooden legs that resemble a stake.
Chelsea reaches into his coat and pulls out the Manila envelope and a flip phone. From the envelope, she pulls out a hundred dollars and puts in on the counter with a smile, “For the stool. Sorry about that.”
“Thanks, yeah,” Buscemi says with more confusion than fear.
She hands the envelope to me and opens the phone. “This must be Josh,” she says, “most incoming calls.”
She puts the phone to her ear and waits.
“No, Lonnie’s on the floor,” she says, “let’s get something clear, these are now my routes, my stops, my money. This time Lonnie is going to leave in an ambulance. The next guy you sendto take what’s mine? You can pick him up in the morgue. This is your final warning.”
She turns to Buscemi with another gorgeous smile. “I’m terribly sorry about all this, it’s just a huge misunderstanding. You’ll call the ambulance, won’t you?”
“Sure,” he nods vigorously.
“And you’ll tell them?” She raises her brow.
“I was in the back, I came out here and found him like this, I didn’t see nothing.”
“Excellent, thank you, Mr. Buscemi. We’ll see you next week.”
“Yeah,” he nods again.
Chelsea jerks her head at me—Let’s go.
The rest of our five stops go pretty much like the first four, there was no one to stop us, all we had to do was explain that that the lines had moved and their businesses were underourprotection now.
We didn’t have to renegotiate any terms or amounts because word spreads fast withour thing.
There’s a new boss and she commands respect.
Buscemi seemed like a good guy, but I guarantee the minute we left his bar, he was on the phone to another wise-guy and telling him what happened.
They’re going to steer clear of our stops.
They’re going to wait to see what de Soto’s reaction is.
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