Casino Moon

45

I WOKE UP AT about ten one morning the week beforethe fight to the sound of my kids playing on the jungle gym I’d built them in the backyard. It was the nicest thing I’d heard in months.

I went out onto the back porch to have a look at them. Carla was lying in a deck chair beside the jungle gym, with her belly swollen and a wet towel over her face, not wanting to deal with the world. And I was sorry all over again that I’d abandoned them in the name of getting ahead. All I ever should have wanted was an ordinary life.

But before I could get the screen door open to go out and play with my kids, a voice from the kitchen stopped me.

“Where do you think you’re going, you little cocksucker?”

I turned and saw Teddy sitting at my kitchen table. I must have walked right by him in my daze. He looked terrible, like he’d dropped about twenty pounds in two weeks. His skin had a pale cast and for some reason, his eyes reminded me of an old lady’s. But the most unusual thing about him that morning was that he wasn’t with my father.

“Siddown a minute, will you?”

I sat. “How’s it going, Ted? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“All right, enough of that bullshit,” he said, cutting through the social amenities. “I want to have a serious talk with you. Because of the great affection between your father and me, I sometimes feel I can’t speak my mind in front of him. Particularly when it comes to you.”

“Speak your mind.”

I was wearing just a pair of white boxer shorts and I suddenly sensed he was staring at my legs. I crossed them and moved my chair away from the table a little.

“As you must know, our borgata has been under a lot of pressure lately because of these fuckin’ homicides and federal investigations. Especially on account of this fuckin’ Nicky gettin’ whacked.”

“I know what you mean.” Ever since I’d killed Nicky, I’d felt as if there was a cage around my heart.

“Anyway.” He coughed and frowned. “When they put pressure on an organization like ours, people sometimes don’t do the right thing, and they turn on each other. So I have three things I want to tell you.”

“Shoot,” I said. And immediately realized that was exactly the wrong word to use.

“Number one,” he said, raising an index finger that was as fat as a thumb. “If I ever find out you or anybody else is talking to the feds or the local bulls, I will sever your motherfucking head. Is that clear to you?”

“Yes sir.”

“Number two.” I’d never seen Teddy go so long without eating. “If I ever find out you’ve been running around on my beloved niece with another woman, I will sever your fucking head.”

“Okay. That’s fine.”

“And number three.” He stopped talking for a second and his lips quivered. I wondered how sick he was. “Number three is this,” he said. “I heard a rumor that you were managing a fighter and getting a big casino contract. But at the hospital the other day, your father told me that wasn’t true.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not true,” I lied with a poker face.

“Well, I just wanted to come over here and emphasize it for myself. That if I ever learn you been making money off another business, like a trucking concern or boxing promotion, and not paying back the money you owe me, I will sever your motherfucking head. Now what do you think of that?”

“It sounds like you’re kind of anxious to sever my head, Teddy.”

He didn’t crack a smile. “You know, your real father,Mike, he liked to make a joke outa everything too. And look what happened to him.”

His words put a chill inside my heart, and I knew for the first time with absolute certainty that Teddy was the one who’d killed my real father. I just stared at him for a long time, wondering if I could kill him without destroying all the legitimate things I’d tried to do in my life.

“Remember,” he said, starting to stand up. “You got ninety more days to pay me the money you owe me. Or else you come work for me full-time.”

“I remember.”

“Give my love to Carla and the kids. I never get to see enough of them these days.”