CHAPTER 8
I wasn’t sure which hit me with greater force, the heady delights of Madame Chang’s opium haze, or the pungent smack of garlic that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room the second I stepped into Luigi’s Linguini Kitchen .
I had stepped up to the door of the Italian restaurant warily. Two of Bugsy’s oversized cauliflower-eared stooges had positioned themselves on either side of the entrance like they were the king’s guard, and as I approached, one of them held out his giant paw to stop me.
“Name.”
“Baxter. Buck Baxter.”
The pair of them eyed me up and down. “You carrying?” the other oaf asked in a low, guttural tone.
I opened my jacket to show them I wasn’t wearing a shoulder holster. I lifted my trouser legs so they could see there were no weapons strapped to my ankles. “If you wanna search anyplace else, you’re gonna need to buy me a drink first.”
They both gave me a blank, humorless stare before waving me inside.
I stepped through the door, and that’s when the wallop of garlic sent me teetering backward a step or two. It was a moment before I steadied myself, looked around, and realized the restaurant was completely empty but for a lone figure sitting at a table in the far corner.
Correction, he wasn’t sitting at the table, he was slumped at it.
Even from where I stood and his drooping position in the chair, I instantly recognized him. “Bugsy?” When I saw that he wasn’t moving, I hurried across the restaurant toward him, alarm bells ringing in my giddy head. “Bugsy!”
As I neared, I saw his chin resting on his chest, blood oozing from his lips.
I saw the half-finished plate of pasta in front of him.
I saw the blood all over his shirt, bright red seeping from at least six or seven gunshot wounds.
“Oh, fuck!” I whispered in a panic.
Bugsy Brown, the father I never got the chance to know, was dead.
How had someone snuck in here and murdered him without anyone knowing?
What the fuck were the goons at the door doing?
Did they even know their boss—my father—was dead?
A wave of emotion swept over me and I leaned toward him, taking his shoulders in my hands. “Bugsy! Goddammit, Bugsy! Who did this to you?”
Suddenly the corpse gave a cough and a splutter.
It jolted and shuddered.
I jumped back, then watched as Bugsy’s eyes blinked open, realizing he wasn’t a corpse at all.
“Buck? Is that you? Jesus, I must have fallen asleep again while I was eating. God, I hate it when that happens.”
“Bugsy? You’re alive? Fuck, I thought you’d been shot!”
I pointed to his shirt and Bugsy looked down, laughing. “You thought I’d been shot? You thought I was bleeding? Kid, that ain’t blood, that’s spaghetti sauce. ”
I let out a relieved sigh, my legs swaying.
Bugsy gestured to the chair opposite him and told me, “Sit, sit!” then plucked a napkin off the table, mopped up his lips with it, then proceeded to smear the sauce all over his shirt in a hopeless attempt to clean himself up. “Ah, Jesus. Now I’ve gone and made it even worse. I would normally eat with the damn napkin tucked into my shirt, but I didn’t want you to think I was a slob or nothin’ so I left it out. By the way, you don’t mind that I ordered an entrée before the entrée do ya? A man’s gotta eat, right?”
“Indeed, you do, Signor Bugsy,” came a voice from behind me.
I turned to see a short, stout man with a twirly moustache and a chef’s hat teetering atop his head burst through the swinging doors from the kitchen, his apron just as splattered as Bugsy’s shirt and his hands juggling several plates—pasta pomodoro, clams carbonara, ravioli ragu, and a mountain of meatballs.
Bugsy pushed his half-eaten plate away and licked his sauce-stained lips at the sight of the next courses being laid out before him. “Ah, Luigi! Magnifico! You’ve outdone yourself yet again. Come and meet my son, Buck.”
I glanced from the feast Luigi laid on the table to my father. “We’re going public with our relationship? So soon?”
Bugsy shrugged. “What? Are you ashamed of your old man?”
“No. I guess I’m still just processing this whole father-son thing.”
Luigi grinned and patted my head like I was a puppy. “Ah, what a sweet little ragazzo .” The smile turned to a judgmental frown as he poked me in the ribs. “A little skinny, though. Make sure you eat the meatballs,” he demanded. “You want more garlic? I’ll bring more garlic.”
“No! I’m fine. I’ll eat the meatballs, I promise.”
Luigi’s smile returned. “Very good. Is there anything else you need, Signor Bugsy?”
“No. Grazie , Luigi.”
With a flap of the swinging doors that led into the kitchen, Luigi vanished, while I leaned across the table. “Are you sure we should be telling the likes of Luigi that I’m your son?”
“Why not? No good comes from keeping secrets.”
“Bugsy, you’ve spent your whole life deceiving the law. You’ve built an empire trading in black-market weapons and illegal booze. Your entire business model is based on secrets and lies.”
He shrugged again. “Well, maybe it’s time to turn over a new leaf. Now that I’ve finally come clean and fessed up to being your father, maybe I should start acting like one. And don’t call me Bugsy anymore. From now on, I want you to call me… Dad.”
“Dad?” It felt so unnatural coming out of my mouth.
“You don’t like it? Wait… what about Papa?”
“Papa?” That felt even worse.
“No? How about… Big Daddy?”
“Oh, we’re so not doing that.”
“Sorry, I guess I’m kinda nervous.”
“ You’re kinda nervous? You’re not the one who suddenly found out his father happens to be the city’s most notorious gangster.”
“Am I, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m not the only kingpin in Wilde City. Mamma Marlow owns half the illegal trade in this town. Hell, we’ve been warring ever since…”
“Ever since what?”
“Ever since she threw her wedding ring at me and walked out the door.”
It wasn’t exactly headline news that before Bugsy and Mamma formed rival gangs in a bid to own Wilde City, they were once a happily married couple. The bigger mystery was—
“Why didn’t I see this coming?” I muttered to myself, suddenly realizing the possibility that—“Oh my God. Is Mamma Marlow my actual mamma?”
I breathed the words so quietly Bugsy could barely hear them .
“What are you mumblin’ about, kid?” Bugsy asked through a mouthful of meatballs. Before I could answer he waved away any response I was about to give. “Never mind. The reason I invited you here tonight was to ask a favor. Mamma Marlow, she’s an untamed shrew if ever there was one, but try as I might there ain’t no snuffing out the flame she holds in my heart. She can ambush every shipment of booze I got coming into town, she can sabotage every crate of illegal firearms I got and send every last one of my boys to the bottom of the river with rocks in their pockets and a sack over their heads, but I’ll forgive her every time. Why? Because no matter how much she hates my guts, I don’t think I’ll ever stop lovin’ that knife-wieldin’, arms-dealin’, money-launderin’, insurance-racketeerin’, narcotics-traffickin’, gun-totin’ gal of mine.” Bugsy gave a lovelorn sigh. “I guess true love never dies.” He stabbed another meatball with his fork and jabbed it in my direction. “That’s where you come in, kid.”
“I do?”
“I wanna extend a long overdue olive branch to that ballsy broad.”
“You do?”
“I wanna offer Mamma Marlow a truce. I want us to put our differences aside and join forces.”
“Join forces? Against who?”
“Against that pompous ass-hat Howard Hart, who else? I can smell a rat a mile away, even through all of Luigi’s garlic. I tell ya, that arrogant son of a bitch is up to no good. I know it, and Mamma knows it too. Our local arms dealers have been feeling the squeeze from Hart’s friends, the Germans, ever since they popped up all over town. Trust me when I say that train of Hart’s is bad news. It ain’t the future of Wilde City. If you ask me, it’s gonna be the end of it.”
“What exactly do you mean by—”
“Flowers!” Bugsy exclaimed, cutting me off and slurping down a dozen slippery strands of spaghetti that slapped his cheeks before they disappeared. “I need you to take flowers to Mamma. I’ll arrange to have them delivered to your office first thing in the morning. I’ll also have my boys set up a meeting between you and Mamma at her warehouse.” Bugsy put down his fork and leaned forward. “Kid, I need to win that dame back, but not just for me. I wanna do it for the good of this city, but she ain’t gonna let me in the door. You, on the other hand… you’re the best shot I got at fixing things. Promise me you’ll do it. Do it for your Big Daddy.”
“Oh God, please don’t call yourself that again.”
“Fine. Just promise me you’ll do it.”
I drew a deep breath to answer him when Luigi burst through the kitchen doors once more. “Ay, ay, ay, il ragazzo ain’t even picked up his fork yet, let alone tasted my meatballs! Mamma mia! ”
Bugsy grinned my way. “We’ve been busy talkin’. And it ain’t mamma mia we’ve been talkin’ about.” He licked the ragu off his lips. “So, son… what’ll it be?”