“M-medical bills?” There is no color left to his face.
“I think he’s saying you make him fucking sick,” I growl.
I try, I really do try to control my anger, but before I know it, I’ve got him shoved him against the wall, my hand around his throat, squeezing so hard his eyes bulge in the sockets. “Where is the money? Where is my fucking money?”
The wife and the kid are crying, but they don’t move from their spot. It’s like they think we’re going to hurt them. Which we’d never do, of course. And that just pisses me off more.
“I … I …”
I loosen my grip a notch. “Yes?”
He’s sobbing now. “I have—it’s under the mattress.”
“Of course it is,” I sigh. “Levi, grab it.”
He moves into the bedroom as I turn Derrick and look at his wife, at the tears sliding down her cheeks. My anger is starting to fade. That’s how my temper works: like a volcano, erupting, and then just as quickly it’s gone. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, ma’am. We won’t be here much longer.”
I growl in Derrick’s ear, “If I get word about you coming up short on your payments again, I will be back here, and it will be worse.” Then I call to the back, “Levi, we good?”
“Yeah. There’s a few grand back here.”
“Just take the two. Let’s hope this idiot knows better than to spend it so carelessly next time.”
Levi reemerges from the back bedroom. I drop Derrick from where I had him pinned against the wall. He slides to the floor in a whimpering puddle. When Levi gives me the nod, we turn to leave.
I have one foot across the threshold when a twinge of guilt strikes me. I stop and look back. Derrick’s wife and child have not moved. Just go, says the pragmatic voice in my head. Leave them behind. They hitched their wagon to the wrong horse.
But I can’t. I growl wordlessly, frustrated with myself and with Derrick for making me do this.
“Levi,” I bark. Derrick, still slumped on the floor where I left him, twitches but doesn’t look up.”
“Yes, Angelo?” Levi answers, confused. “Let’s go, man. Giuseppe will be waiting.”
I hold out a hand. “Let me see the money.”
Levi’s face is twisted with bewilderment, but he reaches into his pocket and retrieves the cash he took from under Derrick’s mattress. I count it out, then divide it into two equal piles. I tuck one into my pocket and hand the rest to Levi.
Fixing him with a stare, I say, “I want you to explain to the woman, quietly, that she can keep this for herself. Tell her to hide it from this scumbag. Tell her, if she’s smart, she’ll use it to get a motel for the night and never come back here again. Okay?”
I turn and walk down the hall before Levi has the chance to reply. I don’t want to hear anything that anyone has to say. I can barely stomach my own softness. Since when do I show mercy to the downtrodden wives of leeches like Derrick Salsworthy?
Pathetic.
We leave the apartment and head down to the car. It’s difficult to know what to feel about everything that just happened.
So I choose instead to feel nothing.
Giuseppe is waiting for us in the car when we come out. Levi and I climb into the back seat, and we pull away into the night.
“Everything go okay?” I ask Giuseppe.
I can see him nod in the rearview mirror. “That old lady is two hundred dollars richer and won’t say a damn word to nobody, boss,” he replies.
“Good.”
That is done with, then. Time for errand #2.
When we reach our destination, we pull up outside the docks and climb out. Giuseppe flashes his high beams twice. On cue, the Albanian car pulls out of the darkness. The door opens. Levi and I exchange a look before we get out of our car and climb inside theirs.
This is the real business of the night. The driver takes us to the very dock edge where the shipment is being unloaded: raw materials to be used in our cook houses all throughout the city. It’s easier and cheaper than importing drugs wholesale.
Dujar Gjoka is waiting for us at the water’s edge. Levi sometimes calls him the Eggman, on account of how his body looks like a series of eggs stacked on top of each other: bulbous legs, bulbous arms, a round body with no neck, and a chunky head. He has a bad comb-over and must be at least sixty. His disdainful beady eyes tell me just what he thinks of dealing with a twenty-seven-year-old man like me. If he wasn’t the leader of the Albanian Mafia, I would drown him in these waters without thinking twice about it.
We shake hands.
“Angelo, it’s a pleasure. I do hope your father is keeping well.”
Of course the first thing he’d mention is my father: just to really drive the point home that he wishes he was dealing with him instead. “Yes, thank you. And your family is still in Albania, right?”
He nods. “I do miss them, but it’s better that way. Getting my wife to leave our estate—ah! It’s like trying to tempt a pig from shit. But don’t tell her I said that, eh? I fear she won’t like the comparison.”
“No, probably not,” I say, hating this bullshit small talk. But I can hear my father’s voice in my head: strike first with diplomacy, son. The olive branch is stronger than the sword. So I stick with the niceties—for now.
“Now, shall we get down to business?”
I gesture at the trucks being unloaded. “Unless anything’s changed, I’ll have my men load the crates and we’ll be on our way.”
“But that is just it, Angelo. Something has changed.”
I resist the urge to clench my fists and somehow keep myself completely still. The way he says it—something has changed—it’s like he’s almost pleased. Like he relishes playing games with me.
“Tell me more, Dujar. I’m all ears.”
“There has been a problem,” he says. Suddenly, I’m aware of the Albanians surrounding us. There are at least ten of them, all with Kalashnikovs, all wearing leather, all looking ready to kill. “We lost a portion of the shipment to the ocean. Ah, the mercies of fate. And our cost for supply has gone up.”
“Dujar,” I say, “it sounds like you’re about to tell me that you need us to pay more for less.”
I feel Levi looking at me. Careful, man, his expression says. My temples are already pulsing.
Dujar tuts. “Such a callous way to frame it,” he says. “I am asking you to have some understanding in your heart in this one instance, so that our business may continue uninterrupted for many years to come.”
I glance at the crates and count them. Twenty. There were supposed to be twenty-five.
“And the price of this continued loyalty?”
“Ten percent.”
I almost throttle him right there. I feel Levi all but screaming at me to rein myself in. But surely he understands how unacceptable this is. Surely he knows that a man can’t just turn up to a business deal with less product and demand more pay.
“Ten percent,” I repeat angrily, “when your goods are twenty percent underweight.”
“What is a man to do? The cost of supply went up before the ocean decided to sabotage us. The two are unrelated. It is an unfortunate coincidence.”