“That’s it?”
“Rabbi,” Bennie said, “they found you at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Performing Arts Center, but your blood and hair was on every fucking step. So yeah. You fell. Whether you were pushed or tripped, end of the story is the end of the story.”
“Security saw what happened,” Sal said.
“Oh, yeah,” Bennie said. “Add that to the fucking bill.”
“I had those guys sign nondisclosure agreements,” Sal said. “They’ll stay quiet.” Rabbi David Cohen hired a security force made up of off-duty Las Vegas Metro cops to guard Temple Beth Israel and all the other synagogues in town months before, in case terrorists decided to start killing the Jews of Las Vegas, what with all the threats they’d been receiving, many of which David called in himself. “You didn’t need to pay them.”
“You wanna try enforcing an NDA on cops, you go ahead. Me, personally? I believe in money, so everyone got a fucking bonus, even the fuckers who didn’t see anything. But I gotta tell you, Rabbi, hiring cops, putting them under contract, to provide you with armed protection twenty-four hours a day, now that’s another level of the game that I frankly had not ever considered.”
“The Torah tells us to not stand idle when our brother’s blood is at stake,” Sal said.
“That’s the kinda sixth-century thinking I appreciate, Rabbi.”
Sal lowered his voice. “What are we gonna do about my face?” Sal said.
“People see what they want to see,” Bennie said. “The ladies of Temple Beth Israel will continue to love you even with this new ugly mug.”
“This ugly mug was on the Today show,” Sal said. “Al Roker and Matt Lauer had a fucking conversation about me. I’m not worried about the people who know me. They’ll just think I got a bad face-lift. I’m worried about the people looking for me.”
“No one is looking for you,” Bennie said. “You think anyone remembers anything before the Twin Towers went down? Please. This thing of ours doesn’t mean shit to anyone anymore. No one thinks the fucking Rain Man is gonna show up at their office and kill a couple thousand of their friends. You don’t matter. Grow a beard, put on some glasses, gain twenty pounds, you’ll be fine. Best thing that ever happened to us was this terror bullshit. Metro doesn’t even show up to 911 calls from Wildhorse anymore. They just send law enforcement volunteers over to de-escalate problems. Old men in Boy Scout uniforms. They can’t even write a ticket.”
“It’s not just the government I’m concerned about,” Sal said. “What about this Peaches guy?”
“I’m trying to get a handle on that,” Bennie said. “Why would Ronnie let someone else creep into his business? I mean, even before he stroked out.”
He hadn’t actually stroked out, as Sal had learned from Agent Drew. He’d been beaten, almost to death. Agent Drew called it an act of God, since he certainly meant to kill him.
Still, Sal gave that some thought. “Needed the muscle, that’s my guess. Cartels coming up through the farmlands out there. You think you’re hiring some guys to pick your crop, but you’ve actually got twenty-five Sinaloa hard knocks walking your property.”
“Native Mob don’t have the manpower to fight those guys,” Bennie said.
“Maybe not,” Sal said, “but I tell you what: a bunch a fifty-year-old Italians in suits don’t want that smoke, either.”
“This Peaches guy,” Bennie said, “what’s his beef with you?”
“I think he understands,” Sal said, “that I’m the rightful heir to The Family.”
“The rightful heir?” Bennie burst out laughing. “You actually put those words in your mouth.” Bennie nodded toward his guy Avi. “See him? Not a drop of Italian in him. It’s about making money, not preserving the culture. This ain’t the movies. Take that antiquated shit and put it out of your mind. No one cares about blood anymore. That’s some Coppola shit. No one is putting on tuxedos and fucking my daughters against walls, I’m telling you that now.”
“It’s all I can figure,” Sal said. “Unless he wants the money the government put on my head.”
“Maybe I should claim it,” Bennie said. “Get my fucking money back.”
Bennie picked up another french fry, blew the salt off of it, popped it in his mouth. “Chicago is unstable; that makes the whole middle of the country unstable,” he said. “I got word they’re moving on the casinos and bingo halls in the desert. This Peaches motherfucker.”
“How’s that your problem?”
“Maybe it’s not,” Bennie said. “Not like they’re gonna show up here and take on the MGM. But we’ve got a pile of Mexicans waiting for your funeral blessing. We’ve got too much business. And your little friend at LifeCore doesn’t have any demand for track-marked Mexican corpses missing their fucking eyes and fingers, so our profit isn’t as good.” Bennie looked around the cafeteria again, something clicking in his head. “I wonder if they’d tell me who designed this space. Get something like this in our assisted living facility, put a little less fucking salt in everything, and we’d be able to keep people alive long enough to really bleed them out.”
A cop walked into the cafeteria, grabbed a booth, dropped all his shit—notepads, pens, file folders—and headed over to the buffet, never once looking at Sal or Bennie but pausing long enough to mad-dog the goon, shaking his head as he passed. Probably because you could see the Kevlar through Avi’s sweat suit. Which wasn’t legal, strictly speaking.
“Where’d you find that guy?” Sal asked after a while.
“He’s ex-military,” Bennie said. “Israeli. Rachel’s second cousin. He used to come visit in the summers, then got a little too militant for Rachel’s taste. That got him into some trouble back home, so we’re giving him a second chance.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He’s not a big fan of Palestinians. Tended to play a little rough.”
“So you think bringing him to Las Vegas as your body man is the route to moral prosperity?”
“I think,” Bennie said, “we don’t hold someone’s worst day against them forever. Which is coincidentally how you’re currently having this conversation aboveground.”
“He call you Poppa?”
“He calls me Mr. Savone,” Bennie said. “Real respectful. You could learn from him. Fifty confirmed kills.”
“Of what, women and children?”
“I didn’t get biographies.”
The cop walked past with a tray of food and this time he saw Bennie, nodded at him, and Bennie nodded back, the Summerlin Hospital cafeteria apparently Switzerland. He took his seat, hunched over his meal, like he was in the pen. “You know that guy?” Sal asked.
“Never seen him before,” Bennie said.
“But he nods at you and you nod back?”
