Page 17 of Kingpin

“Hey, we don’t have time for this shit,” Frankie interrupts. “We made the score, now it’s time to go. Wrap it up.”

Right on cue, everybody starts moving. Frankie shuts the door in the back, Stephano climbs into the driver seat of the truck, and the rest of us run towards the cars that are hidden in the darkness up the road. My father hits the driver in the back of the head with the gun, knocking him out, and we leave him there in the darkness.

Once we’re back in the car and driving away, my father can no longer hold in his excitement about how things just went down.

“Holy shit, this is huge!” he exclaims. “Did you see how much shit was in the back of that truck?”

“Fucking beautiful,” Frankie agrees. “You know what else was beautiful? Fucking Boy Wonder back there. Did you see him kick the shit out of that guy?”

“Oh my fucking god, I know! What did I tell you?” Dad yells.

“He’s a fucking natural, Donnie,” Frankie says, turning back in his seat to look at me. I smile, because I don’t know what else to do.

“You did real good back there, Dominic,” my father says, looking at me in the rearview mirror as he drives. “Real fucking good. I’m proud of you. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” I answer, still smiling. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Fucking Boy Wonder,” Frankie says again, still looking at me and shaking his head like he can’t believe it. “Congratulations on your first score, kid.”