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As Mikey drives me away, I talk the whole meeting through with him
I’m still reeling from the encounter. I grew up surrounded by captains, footsoldiers, bosses, and attorneys. They were in the house, they were around me all the time. Them and other men like them. I never had a problem dealing with them… I always get on with them and I felt like I could understand them.
Nobody intimidated me, ever. Not until I came up against the three princes. My men, my princes in the Fortuna family were a challenge from the start.
When I first met Carlo, Bruno and Alessio, I was terrified, but I knew the scale of the challenge. They were born into the privileges of a major mafia family.
The Fortunas were only one step above my family, the Benedettis, in theory, but it was one very high, steep step. They all had the elite private school background and all the manners and the trappings of a privileged upbringing to go with it.
They grew up in a huge, sprawling house with servants. Not help, or even staff. Actual servants. Mostly uniformed.
To survive and to make my way in that environment, I had to be ready for some knocks, to hold on to myself, to stay focussed. And to be determined. Every minute of every day, I felt like I was walking a tightrope, and there was no net below me. Only a very long drop. It was hard, but it was also do-or-die. It was my only way to survive. So, I steeled myself and I got through it. I overcame all of that.
Don Pucci, though. He’s in another league altogether.
I wonder aloud, “What was the point of that meeting? Did Don Pucci engineer it so he could start an alliance with me? He and I, putting a squeeze on Don Romano? He could have wanted to tell me that he knew about the casino deal I’m working on with the boys, but I doubt it. Why would he bother to tip me off? And, anyway, he could have easily done that on the phone.”
Mikey’s eye flick between the road and the mirror.
Something bothers me, like an itch in a place I can’t quite reach. I wonder how much of the background to the deal Don Pucci knows. The twelve tribes council approached me, because of a long-standing partnership our families have with several first nations tribes.
One of the most up-market gentlemen’s clubs in the region. Probably the most exclusive.
The Royalton Yacht Club is the outside signage and public front for an almost completely unknown club, the Sun-a-do. The club has gyms and saunas, as well as plush, hushed dining rooms.
Concealed from public view, it also hides discrete gaming salons and adult entertainments of an uncommonly exotic nature. the Sun-a-do has traditions that go back generations. Before the gold rush, early pioneers in logging and fisheries established the place in partnership with a number of the local first nations chiefs. To this day, the Sun-a-do remains in joint ownership.
Unmarked on the outside, the club is almost entirely unknown to the general public, even to members of the Royalton Yacht club that provides the outside wrapper. Guests have to be vouched for by two established members. New members require two established members in good standing to propose them, and four more to support the proposal. Membership turnover is extremely low.
The club has a rule that dates back to the earliest days of my own family, the Benedettis, as well as the Fortunas. If you vouch for someone, you are responsible for them. If they break the rules, your punishment will be twice as harsh as theirs. Our families may even have taken the rule from their Duwamish, Skokomish, or Quinault partners.
The long-established success of this venture is what brought the twelve nations council to approach me about the new casino project. None of that should be public knowledge, but I wonder how much of it Don Pucci knows.
I’m still musing. “He knew about the house, but that should be no surprise. You can’t get a carport built in this city without everyone in the Life knowing how much cement you used. Does he have some other purpose that hasn’t occurred to me yet?”
I sit back.
“My nose, my instinct tells me, his main objective was for he and I to meet. So why would that matter to him?” My brain spins like it’s on auto-pilot. “He sees something coming. Something is heading over the horizon, coming this way.”
I watch the white-capped Olympic mountain range as we glide by.
“Maybe he was just making mischief but is the timing a coincidence? I wonder. He could have done this any time. Why now?”
Alessio calls.
As soon as I hear how thick and slow his voice is, I want to tell him, Get coffee. Sort yourself out. But he hates hearing me talk to him like that. Some ways, I can talk to the men like they talk to each other. And to me. Other ways, I know it’s best to hold back.
He sounds scratchy and half asleep, like he’s still in bed. “Look, I’m sorry about last night.”
I’m thinking, Which part? The part where you kept me hanging on and then didn’t show up, or the part where you wouldn’t phone cam with me?
Or maybe the part after that. The last part, where you didn’t miraculously show up in the middle of the night to surprise me and make up for it all? Where instead you just dropped back to sleep.
I’m still wondering, what the fuck was he doing last night? Him and Uncle Jerry.
I feel empty inside as we hang up. Inside my head, there’s a showreel of all the great times we’ve had. Diving in the pool. Hiding out in caves by the ocean. Dancing in the moonlight when we’re all of the music.
Twenty minutes later, he texts me.
