Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

“The book,” Peaches says.

“What about it?”

“My entry,” Peaches says. “The hundred grand? Calabrese can’t ever know about that. If he does, I’m dead.”

“Why?” Callan asks.

“It’s his money,” Peaches says. “Sheehan laid off a couple hundred from Paulie. I borrowed it from Matt.”

“So you’re ripping off Paul Calabrese,” Callan says.

“We,” Peaches corrects him.

“Jesus God,” says Callan.

Even O-Bop doesn’t look so enthusiastic now. Says, “I dunno, Jimmy.”

“What the fuck?” Peaches says. “You don’t know? I was supposed to whack you guys. Those were my orders, and I didn’t obey them. They could kill me just for that. I saved your fucking lives. Twice. First I didn’t kill you, then I took out Matty Sheehan for you. And you don’t know?”

Callan stares at him. Then he says, “So this meeting. It’s gonna make us rich, or it’s gonna make us dead.”

“That’s pretty much it,” Peaches says.

“What the fuck,” Callan says.

Rich or dead.

There’s worse choices.

The meeting is set for the back room of a restaurant in Bensonhurst.

“Goombah Central,” Callan says.

Very convenient. If Calabrese decides to kill us, all he has to do is walk out and shut the door behind him. He goes out the front, our bodies go out the service entry.

Or exit, or whatever.

He’s thinking this as he’s looking in the mirror trying to knot his tie.

“Haven’t you ever worn a tie before?” O-Bop asks. His voice is high, nervous.

“Sure I have,” says Callan, “at my First Communion.”

“Shit.” O-Bop comes over and starts to tie the tie for him. Then says, “Turn around, I can’t tie it backwards like this.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

“Fuck yes, they’re shaking.”

They got to go to this sitdown naked. No hardware of any kind. No one carries a gun around the boss except the boss’s people. Which is going to make it even easier to take them out.

Not that they intend to go out unaccompanied. They got Bobby Remington and Fat Tim Healey and another kid from the neighborhood, Billy Bohun, going to cruise in a car outside the restaurant.

O-Bop’s instructions are very clear.

“Anyone other than us comes out the front door,” he tells them, “kill them.”

And another precaution: Beth and her girlfriend Moira are going to be having lunch in the public part of the restaurant. Beth and Moira are also going to be having a. 22 and a. 44 in their respective handbags, just in case things go sick and the boys have a chance to get out of the back room.

As O-Bop says, “If I’m going to hell, it’s going to be on a crowded bus.”

They take a subway to Queens because O-Bop says he doesn’t want to come out of a happy, successful meeting and get into his car and have it go boom.

“Italians don’t do bombs,” Peaches tries to tell him. “That’s Irish shit.”

O-Bop reminds him he’s Irish and takes the subway. They get off in Bensonhurst, and him and Callan are walking down the street toward the restaurant and turn the corner and O-Bop says, “Oh, fucking shit.”

“What, oh, fucking shit? What?”

There’s four or five wise guys standing out front of the restaurant. Callan’s like, So what, there are always four or five wise guys standing out front of wise-guy restaurants-it’s what they do.

“That’s Sal Scachi,” O-Bop says.

Big, thick guy, early forties, with Sinatra-blue eyes and silver hair, which is razor-cut short for a goombah. He looks like a wise guy, Callan thinks, but then again he don’t look like a wise guy. And he’s wearing these real square black shoes, which are polished so they shine like black marble.

This is a serious fucking guy, Callan thinks.

“What’s his story?” he asks O-Bop.

“He’s a fucking colonel in the Green Berets,” O-Bop says.

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“I shit you not,” O-Bop says. “Tons of medals from 'Nam, and he’s a made guy. If they decide to take us off the count, it’s Scachi who’ll do the subtraction.”

Now Scachi turns and sees them coming. Steps away from his group, walks up to O-Bop and Callan, smiles and says, “Gentlemen, welcome to the first or last day of the rest of your lives. No offense, but I have to make sure you’re not carrying sidearms.”

Callan nods and lifts his arms. Scachi pats him down with a few smooth moves, all the way to his ankles, then does the same with O-Bop. “Good,” he says. “Now shall we go get some lunch?”

He takes them into the back room of the restaurant. Callan’s seen it before, in about forty-eight freaking mob movies. Murals on the walls depict happy scenes from sunny Sicily. There’s a long table with a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. Wineglasses, espresso cups, little pats of butter sitting on iced plates.

Bottles of red, bottles of white.

Even though they’re exactly on time, there’s guys already there. Peaches nervously introduces them to Johnny Boy Cozzo and Demonte and a couple of others. Then the door opens and two hitters come in, chests like butcher’s blocks, and then Calabrese comes in.

Callan gets a glance in at Johnny Boy, who has a smile on his face that’s dangerously close to a smirk. But they all do that Sicilian hugging and kissing shit and then Calabrese sits down at the head of the table and Peaches makes the necessary introductions.

Callan doesn’t like it that Peaches looks scared.

Peaches gets their names out, then Calabrese holds up a hand and says, “First we eat, then business.”

Even Callan has to admit that the food is out of this world. It’s the best meal Callan’s had in his whole life. It starts with a big antipasto with provolone and prosciutto and sweet red peppers. Thin rolls of ham and tiny little tomatoes that Callan’s never seen before.

Waiters are coming in and out like they’re nuns waiting on the Pope.

They finish the appetizer and the pasta course comes in. Nothing fancy, just small bowls of spaghetti in a red sauce. Then there’s a chicken piccata-thin slices of chicken breast in white wine, lemon and capers and then a baked fish. Then there’s another salad, then dessert-a sweet white cake soaked with anisette.

All this and the wines coming in and out, and by the time the waiters set the espressos down Callan’s about half in the bag. He watches Calabrese take a long sip from an espresso cup. Then the boss says, “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”

One motherfuck of an essay question.

Part of Callan wants to scream, You shouldn’t kill us because Jimmy Piccone stole a hundred grand from you and we can prove it! but he keeps his mouth shut, trying to think of a different answer.

Then he hears Peaches say, “They’re good boys, Paul.”

Calabrese smiles. “But you're not a good boy, Jimmy. If you were a good boy, I’d be having lunch with Matt Sheehan today.”

He turns and looks at O-Bop and Callan.

“I’m still waiting for your answer.”

So is Callan. He’s trying to think whether he’s going to hear one, or whether he should try to bust through the two slabs of meat guarding the door, make it into the dining room to grab the guns from Beth and come back in blasting.

But even if I make it out and make it back, Callan thinks, O-Bop will be dead by then. Yeah, but I can send him out on his crowded bus.

He tries to slide to the edge of his chair without anyone noticing. Inch to the edge of his seat and get his legs under him so he can burst off that chair. Maybe go straight for Calabrese and get a hold around his neck and back out the door…

And go where? he thinks. The freaking moon? Where can we go that the Cimino Family can’t find us?