“Or what? You’re gonna shoot me in Melvyn’s?”
“No,” Lonzo said. “I’ll stab you in the liver.”
That got him to shut the fuck up.
“I bring up Mr. Speck,” Peaches continued, “because he was not all that nice. In fact, when I met him, he was a fucking asshole. Happy to tell you about how he’d gutted those nurses and just laugh about it.”
“Not a lot of nice guys in prison,” Lori said.
“No, no,” Peaches said. “Is your husband a nice guy?”
“No,” Lori said. “Not in the conventional sense. Just like you’re not.”
“Prison fucks you up,” Peaches said. “Speck got estrogen smuggled into the prison. By the time I met him, he had breasts like a woman and was selling his asshole for cocaine. Here was the worst serial killer of his time, a monster, and all he did every day was suck dicks and get fucked for the joy of snorting the shit Mexican Mafia and Gambino fucks like your friend here get rich smuggling into the prisons. How many years does your husband have left on his bid?”
“With good behavior, seven.”
“Bet he’s been getting into some shit, though. More lately.”
“He’s had some troubles, yes.”
“Corcoran, that’s like a Mexican Mafia gated community. They even clique up with the Aryan Nation on the inside. It’s a power-share HOA to keep the other races at bay. Which I suspect makes it real hard to live a peaceful, good-behavior life, especially if back on the streets, you’re still calling shots that end up with a bunch of dead Mexicans in a Fuddruckers.”
“He got jumped a few weeks ago,” Lori said. “Broke his jaw. Tried to carve out one of his eyes.”
“That’s terrible,” Peaches said. “What’s the Gambino family doing to help?”
Aquafreddo said, “It’s a process. We’re getting some money on some guards. We got nobody with any sway on the inside. Everyone has aged out.”
“He’s alone in there right now,” she said. “They have him segregated.”
“So I understand,” Peaches said, “here in the real world, your husband and this fat fuck have a business agreement to erase the Mexican Mafia’s entire business plan in this city, keep them out of all the casinos you’re planning to build, and in return, your husband is rotting in a Mexican Mafia–run prison with no backup? Does that make sense to you?”
“When you put it like that,” Lori said, “no.”
“Twenty-four hours, I can have your husband completely protected. Forty-eight hours, I can have him eating a steak dinner in his cell. Seventy-two hours, maybe I get him a year of good behavior restored.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Partnership,” Peaches said.
“Fifty percent?”
“Less,” Peaches said.
“Why not 50 percent?”
“This is your land,” Peaches said. “This is your business. For Mr. Cupertine, this is just a business investment. And then, in a bit of time, I may need a favor from you, from your husband, from his interests in the Native Mob for another can’t-miss opportunity. Simple as that.” Peaches poured himself a flute of champagne from Lori’s bottle, sipped it. “As for you,” he said, looking at Aquafreddo, “you get nothing. If you walk out the door now, I will let you live. If you stay in this desert for even one more day, I will blow up your house. I will kill your wife, your children, your dog, your cat, and I will find all your living relatives and kill each of them, too.”
Lester Aquafreddo, who’d been in the game since Kennedy was president, who Peaches figured was probably a pretty adept killer back in the day, enough so that he didn’t mind riding shotgun while Peaches’s nephew popped Mexican Mafia so that he could eventually get the Native Mob shot caller in the region put to sleep in prison, so he could squeeze the Native Mob out of their actual fucking birthright? Who was an adroit enough businessman to get hooked up with the Native Mob years ago, back when the tribes were just getting their gaming rights? Who had waited it all out for this day, when casinos would rise in this desert and he could sit back and make his money? That fat fuck sitting not three feet from Peaches?
He burst into laughter. Motioned over a waiter. “Box up the rest of my salad,” he said; then he stood up. Five other guys stood up at the same time. Huh. Peaches hadn’t seen them. Or maybe he had. They just didn’t look like much. Old men in polyester eating fucking salads never did put much of a scare into Peaches Pocotillo. “This is an open city,” Aquafreddo said. “You can’t fucking touch me. And you can’t cut me out of my own deal so Chicago can slide in. That’s not how it works.”
“If you don’t like it,” Peaches said, “you’re welcome to go to the FBI.”
Aquafreddo said, “I make one call, you’re dead as soon you get back to Chicago.”
Peaches finished off his champagne. He didn’t really care for the stuff, if he was being honest. It gave him a headache. But today was for celebrating. “I am Chicago. I’m the whole fucking tri-state area. And you’re a dinosaur staring up at the sky, wondering what the bright light is. You’re already dead.”
Lester Aquafreddo and his five friends made their way out of the restaurant, a mass of Lipitor making for the door, lugging their doggy bags of salads, mad-dogging Peaches and Lonzo the whole way. It must have been something to see when their eyes weren’t so milky with cataracts.
“Uncle,” Mike said, “what did you do?”
“Solved your problems,” Peaches said.
“These guys are for real, Uncle,” Mike said.
“And I am not?”
Mike stood up. “Let me see if I can cool them down,” he said, and he made for the door, too, leaving Peaches, Lori, and Lonzo at the table, every eye in the restaurant on them.
“Some Fredo shit,” Lonzo said. “You were right.”
Peaches shook his head. “He’s never even seen the movie; it’s just his nature. He wants more and more, wants to work less and less.”
Lori said, “I’m going to need to buy another round.”
Lonzo said, “Bossman, we need to get our shit out of that hotel.”
