Page 30 of Blacklist

“You know how I take it,” Luca says.

Jack frowns but pours a dash of Irish whiskey into Luca’s mug. He joins us at the table in the corner.

“It’s like old times,” I say, taking my cup from him. “The three of us sitting in the dark drinking coffee.”

“The coffee is better here,” Jack says.

“The weather, too,” Luca adds.

For all we bash the Middle East, I suspect none of us mean it. We might not miss the heat. But the people? The experiences? Our time there affects us still. I see it every time I get together with my best friends. We can’t stay still. We can’t fall into normal life. We’re always waiting for ground fire or marching orders. At least, Luca and I are. Jack is another story.

“How’s the label?” I blow on my coffee, waiting for it to be cool enough.

Jack, who has always had an inhuman tolerance for heat, takes a sip of his without waiting. “Fine.”

“That means it’s shit,” Luca guesses.

“The record label is fine,” Jack repeats.

Luca continues to ignore his coffee, concentrating on Jack instead. “If you need help—”

“I have everything covered,” Jack assures us quickly.

We all know where the foundation of our current success was laid, but Jack is determined to change direction, even if it means losing every dime on dreams of building his own record label. He’s been cautious, starting small with buying the Barrelhouse from its elderly owner last year and turning the hole in the wall landmark into a place to see and be seen. From there, he spun off a small, upstart label: Archer Records. “If I take money, then what happens when someone’s niece needs a record deal? Suddenly I’m stuck producing the next pop princess?” He shakes his head as if the thought is too painful to bear. “There are a lot of talented artists out there who deserve to have records.”

“It’s like you’re fucking allergic to money,” Luca says with disgust. Even with the addition of Irish whiskey, he seems uninterested in his coffee.

“I have everything I need.” Jack shrugs. He’s never chosen to be flashy with our self-made fortune, and I’ve never asked him what he did with it. There’s no way the Barrelhouse or Archer Records cost him all of his take from the old days. He’s just never seemed to need more than to follow his passion. Still, he knows better than to debate this with Luca.

Trusting Luca DeAngelo is like sticking your hand into a black box. He might reward you. He might bite. After all these years, it’s still impossible to know which to expect, even as his friend.

When Jack doesn’t take his bait, he turns on me, “So, are you still going through with this?”

He should know better the question my resolve when it comes to the MacLaine family. “I just bought a place on Twelfth Avenue.”

“The Twelve South Towers?” Jack whistles in appreciation. Unlike Luca, Nashville is in his blood. “Those are pricey.”

“Come back to work with me,” Luca suggests to him, “and you can move out of that shithole you call home upstairs.”

“I like that shithole,” Jack says.

Luca isn’t buying it. “Bullshit.”

This is how it always is with them. Physically, they’re about as far apart as possible. Jack’s golden brown skin and black eyes are the extreme opposite of Luca’s hazel eyes and olive-hued skin. But from the way they go at it, they sound like brothers. I’m the one stuck mediating their constant bickering. We may have come from different mothers, but for all intents and purposes, that’s what we are: brothers.

“What’s the plan, Sterling?” Jack asks, getting back to the point of this meeting. He’d been happy when I called him until I’d told him whose funeral I was coming to town for. It didn’t matter if he had known it was coming. Now that it’s here, he seems to be rethinking the situation.

“Getting cold feet?” I ask.

“No,” he says and he sounds sincere. He studies me for a second. “Are you?”

Neither of them questioned me when I asked them to buy equal interests in the suddenly available personal holdings of Angus MacLaine a few months ago. The old man had leveraged his family’s personal stock against his failing media empire in a desperate attempt to buy his freedom from the DeAngelo family, among others. He’d bought short-term relief, but lost the gamble he’d be around long enough to buy back what he had sold. I’d been investing quietly in MacLaine media for years under a shell company, careful not to draw too much attention to myself. Now, between the three of us, we’re in possession of nearly half of MacLaine Media.

“I still don’t understand why you need us?” Luca says. His particular brilliance isn’t in the financial but rather the mental aspects of the game. Basically, he knows how to fuck with people until they crack.

“Isn’t it more fun this way?” I ask. I could explain, but that’s what he really cares about.

“Malcolm MacLaine has no idea who holds the interest in his company,” Jack explains. “When he starts to look, he needs to think there are three major players, not just Sterling.”