Barely Legal

72

Someone was going to get fired. That was all there was to it. A head was going to roll. Jules Kenworth was at the mayor’s luncheon, but he wasn’t at the mayor’s table. That was completely unacceptable. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was the type of thing that should not happen, could not happen. And there was nothing he could do about it. He could get up and walk out, but that would only underline the situation. Or he could sit there and pray that damn photographer from the Daily News wouldn’t catch him in the background in a shot of the mayor’s table.

Yes, heads were going to roll. Either his own secretary, or the mayor’s damn booking agent, who put him there just to be mean. He could imagine her doing it, too, the vindictive bitch. Just because he’d once groped her in the elevator. The elevator was crowded, and his hand may have been on her leg, but where the hell was he supposed to put it?

His cell phone rang, a welcome interruption that would allow him to gracefully exit. He could take an important call, ignoring the lesser lights at his table. He could see the headline: JULES KENWORTH MOVES MILLIONS AT MAYOR’S LUNCHEON.

He took out the phone and looked at caller ID. Tommy Taperelli. Under normal circumstances, a call from a mob boss was something Jules Kenworth would flaunt. Today it had bad connotations.

He clicked on the phone. “Give me good news.”

“They adjourned for the day.”

Kenworth stood up so fast his chair tipped over. Everyone at his table looked at him. People at the mayor’s table looked at him. The mayor looked at him.

Kenworth made the most of the moment. He covered the phone, smiled to the room in general, and announced, “I’m sorry. I just lost a hundred million dollars. No big deal. Just an annoyance. I’ll take it outside.”

Kenworth pushed out the swinging door into the hallway. “What the hell is going on? Did you talk to the councilman?”

“I did.”

“And he defied you?”

“No, he didn’t.”

Taperelli told Kenworth what had transpired in court.

Kenworth wasn’t impressed. “How the hell did you let this get away from you? I thought you had clout. You can’t even keep your own men in line.”

“The detective panicked. He wasn’t expecting the question.”

“Do I care? I’m not asking you for excuses. I’m asking you for results. If you can’t deliver, I will get someone else. I thought you were the best.”

“I am the best.”

“Then I’d hate to see the worst.”

Kenworth realized he’d gone too far. Taperelli was not just any mob boss. He was special. At least, he thought he was. He’d only take so much abuse before throwing in the towel and walking away.

“Look. I created a scene at my table. Then I apologized, saying I’d just lost a hundred million dollars, and laughed it off as if it were nothing. Well, it isn’t nothing. And when I said it, I didn’t know it was true. If this doesn’t come off, a hundred million is going to look like chickenfeed. I am going to lose a hell of a lot more than that. So tell me, how are we going to fix this?”

“You’ve got the girl. The councilman’s going to vote the way you want. Why the hurry to convict the kid?”

“If the kid isn’t convicted, you gotta hold the girl until the vote. The longer you hold her, the bigger the risk. You hold on to the girl, you’re vulnerable. You put the kid in jail, he’s vulnerable. I want him vulnerable. Put him in jail, release the girl, no one can touch us.”

Kenworth clicked the phone off and went back to lunch, thinking of what bullshit story he should tell them. The bottom line was his cunning and brilliance had averted a hundred-million-dollar loss and turned it into a profit. The details didn’t matter. They wouldn’t understand them anyway. Kenworth was grinning as he pushed his way through the door.