Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (motivational novels .txt) 📕

summoned in the middle of his first cappuccino of the morning.

“Boss, I got that lady cop here,” squawks the speaker on his desk phone.

“Jesus H. Jehosephat, not this puta again,” the old man grumbles, dabbing the foam from his trim little silver ‘stache with a monogrammed cloth napkin. He sits at a side table in a cardinal-red, monogrammed silk robe over his monogrammed silk pajamas. He pokes the intercom button. “Jimmy, whattya mean she’s here?”

Through the speaker: “She’s out in the dining room.”

“What the fuck, Jimmy, I’m not even dressed.”

“Says it’s urgent, says it won’t wait, says you gotta hear something.”

The old man grunts and stabs the button. “This better not be about that goddamn half-breed fat-boy again.”

A long pause on the other end. “Boss, you want I should get rid of her?”

“Ah, fuck it, Jimmy, the morning’s already ruined... go ahead and send her in.”

The old man rises on creaking joints, closing his robe over his sunken gray chest, tying off the silk sash. He goes around the desk and sinks into his plush, creamy, worn-leather swivel chair.

“Sorry about the hour,” Lieutenant Anna Marie Rigby says as she enters the don’s office in her scarf and Scotchgarded raincoat, a skinny black gentleman in a velveteen warm-up suit in tow behind her.

Dalessandro, the mountainous goombah, follows on their heels. He wears another one of his rat-pack get-ups today—a goldenrod Ban-Lon golf shirt buttoned up tight against his massive neck.

The old man pushes himself away from his desk and stands up. “What the hell is all this? What is this moolie doing in my office?”

The black man steps forward. “Name is Morrison, sir, I been on your payroll for—”

“Please, Morrison, if you don’t mind.” Lieutenant Rigby cuts off the Candy Man’s words with a plump raised hand. “Anthony, this is Arthur Ezekial Morrison, aka the Candy Man—aka somebody you need to know right now.”

Ferri slumps back down in his huge leather swivel, making the chair squeak. “Why do I get the feeling this is about that frigging Indian again?”

“And you would be right about that, Anthony, but you need to hear the whole story.” Rigby glances over her shoulder at Dalessandro. “In private—if you don’t mind.”

Ferri cocks his head at her. “Why? What’s the big deal? What do I care about more shenanigans from this half-breed mook?”

Rigby levels her gaze at him. “Because he’s saving people now.”

A long beat as Ferri absorbs this. “He’s what?”

“He’s saving people.”

“What people?”

“Your marks now, looks like.”

The old man purses his lips. “And how do we know this, Lieutenant?”

“We know this because there’s an asshole name of Elgart still walking around this morning, making calls to his bookie, trying to weasel outta paying his vig.”

Ferri slumps as Rigby proceeds to tell the old mobster about the fracas at the Riverside Casino last night, the fact that the mark—Elgart—was snatched from certain death by a crazed, overweight Indian in a Baby-on-Board T-shirt. And the shooter, Wachowski, is AWOL as well. The last thing Rigby explains is where the Indian got information on the Elgart hit.

After hearing the facts, the old man rests the side of his head on his liver-spotted hand with an exasperated sigh. The anger makes his eyes water. “Jimmy, go get the plastic.”

“The what?” Rigby takes off her scarf and shakes the rain off it.

Ferri dismissively waves an arthritic hand. “Just a little inside joke.” He nods at his capo. “Go ahead, Jimmy, go get the plastic.”

The goombah turns and vanishes.

Anna Marie Rigby folds her scarf and stuffs it neatly in her pocket, then takes a seat in one of the leather armchairs in front of the desk. “Sit down, Morrison, you’re making me nervous.”

The Candy Man sheepishly takes a seat on a matching armchair adjacent to the desk.

“Start talking,” the old man says to her with a humorless glint in his yellow eyes.

“Correct me if wrong, Anthony, but you brought this Indian fellow into the business—when was it?—back in the mid-nineties?”

The old man shrugs. “With any large organization, employees come and go.”

Rigby gives the don a look. “Yeah, you folks have one heck of a retirement program.”

Ferri frowns at her. “What does of any of this have to do with my business?”

“Tell him, Morrison.” The cop gives the pimp a nod. “Tell him what you told me this morning.”

The Candy Man takes a deep breath. “Okay, here’s what it is: y’all are familiar with the fact that this fat slob’s been doing odd jobs for me?”

Anthony Ferri’s expression does not change, other than a tiny twitch at the corner of his pursed lips. “We’re all familiar with your relationship with the half-breed, Morrison. You want to get to the point?”

“Get to the point, Candy.” Rigby is staring impatiently into her lap.

“Okay, so, anyhow, here’s the thing.” The Candy Man’s mouth is dry with nervous tension. “Past couple of years, fat boy done some jobs for me. Nothing special. Small shit. Nothing to do with the Outfit. But the dude is gettin’ more and more sloppy—”

“Is there a point in here somewhere?” The old man behind the desk is glowering now.

“Yessir, yes, ya see, the point is, I tried to help him, but the dude is nuts. Dude is a problem drinker. Very sad. I tried to help, tried to get the dude into a program, but you know how it is with—”

A noise in the doorway: The goombah, Dalessandro, is back. He has a four-foot roll of clear plastic tarp under one arm, a cigarette dangling off his lip, and a businesslike expression on his craggy Dean-Martin-on-ludes face.

The Candy Man tries to concentrate on his speech, which appears to have been rehearsed. “So, anyhow, what I was forced to do is—whattya callit?—cut my losses? So what I do is, I decide to take the motherfucker out, but it don’t work out so good, and what happens next is, this red-skin motherfucker ambushes me and—”

The pimp pauses, glancing over his shoulder at the goombah, who is kneeling down by the door, unrolling the clear