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“Anyways, Boss. Alessandro De Luca is ready for you downstairs. Unless you want to eat first?”
I shake my head and take off my jacket. We step into the old wrought iron elevator, and we go down, down, down. The smell down here is a putrid mixture of bleach and the remnants of bodily fluids. Blood. Shit. Piss. Vomit. As Frank Sinatra used to say,“That's life.”
This life, anyway.
There's a spotlight on De Luca, showcasing the various liquids he's released. Most wouldn't think seeing a grown man shit himself is a lovely sight, but to me… oh, tomeit means we're closer to answers than anything else.
Footsteps coming from the right corner draw my attention from the table where one of De Luca's fingers was placed in a surgical steel bowl.
I nod at Vincenzo Rossi, capo of the Bronx chapter. He smiles broadly, and even though he's a decade older, he's still a good-looking man. Easy to see how he was able to get his daughter’s friend to fall for him. “Maksim, always a pleasure, even under these circumstances.”
“Glad you could make it. My guys found him last night, in Eden no less, gambling away what he stole from you.”
“I didn't steal! I swear!”
“They all say that, don't they?” I ask Rossi.
“Easiest fucking lie to tell, Capo. Deny, deny…deny.”
I hum in agreement, don some surgical gloves and pick up bone cutting pliers from the surgical tray on the table to my left. “You know, I think my favorite is‘I lost it.'”
It makes Rossi chuckle. “Yeah, maybe their dog ate it, too.”
This makes me laugh. “Must be a Clifford sized dog to eat a thousand pounds of artillery.”
“Can you imagine the size of the shit that dog would take?”
I frown then jerk my head toward the asshole that's restrained. “De Luca size. Probably.” I turn to face the man tied in the chair. “What's crazy to me is how a thousand fucking pounds just disappears,” I make avoilamotion with my gloved hand “and he has the fucking balls to spend money atmycasino. You think he'd remember if I cut them off, Rossi?”
Alessandro squirms and wheezes, the wet stain on the front of his pants grows bigger, and I scrunch up my nose in disgust. “Sasha, the dog’s gonna need a bath.”
“On it, Boss.”
I step out of the way in time for Sasha to start spraying Alessandro with twenty-five-degree water from a hose close enough to be a fireman's, and I relish in the screams and whimpers coming from the fuck. I wave a hand, and Sasha twists the top, making it just a trickle. I squat down in front of the piece of shit in front of me, still waving the pliers in my hand.
“A thousand pounds of weapons goes missing… and you show up in my casino with new threads, new shoes, gambling… how much was it?” I ask aloud to nobody in particular.
“Seventy grand,” Niko answers.
“See, I like to think of myself as… an understanding man. Niko, you'd say I'm understanding?”
He nods as if contemplating it then shrugs casually. “Yeah, I'd say so.”
The man before me blubbers, shivers, lips tremble some more, eyes shut tight.Repulsive. Pathetic.
“So I'm trying tounderstandhow a nobody like you, doing grunt work, detail, right? Is there on the night of a shipment, am I understanding so far? Yeah? Okay. Andone whole thousand poundsof not just guns but ammo, too, fucking vanishes.Poof. I'm trying to add up andunderstandhow the cameras cut out while on your shift for a whole twenty-four fucking minutes. A few pounds from one crate. A few pounds from another… no one would notice. Huh? You thought you were safe. The cameras glitch. It's technology. Of course they do. Am Iunderstandingso far?”
Another nod.
I slap him a little when his eyes flutter. “Who’d you sell the guns to, De Luca, huh?”
“Nobody, I swear,” he chokes out, spit connected from one lip to another as more drool slips out.
I tilt my head back. “No?” I rise to my full height. “Alright then. You know, I was trying to have a good day today. I was gonna go home, have dinner with my wife, eat her pretty pussy for dessert, and then fuck her till I'm raw. I just got married, you know? I was gonna kill you. Simple as that. But you know what happens when you kill a man as a message? Nothing really. Especially someone so fucking low no one will miss. But if you send a man back alive with no balls and no fingers and no tongue… well… actions speak louder than words, De Luca. Last chance. Who did you sell the guns to?”
“I don't know! I don't know, okay? Some guy named Brodsky came to pick up with a pack of his guys and they each took something, loaded it up and left!”
I lift a brow and look at Niko. He knows exactly what I'm thinking.Brodsky. Russian.