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Sophia sat with her new ‘boss,’ Benny, at an
outside table at a café not too far away from her father’s butcher shop. He
drank a short black, while she sipped on a Coke—the first sign of the river
between their mentalities. Benny sat with his shoulders hunched and his eyes
flitting about, as if he were expecting a punch to come from somewhere at any
moment. She was mesmerized by his gaudy tie and found it hard to tear her gaze
from it, even when he spoke to her. Either that, or it was his eyes. He was a
very distracting man, but she had to pay attention. She’d begged for this
chance, and she wasn’t going to blow it, bad tie or no.
At the moment he was just ranting though, trying to
get his nerves out. She tuned in and tuned out, waiting for the real
conversation to begin.
“I remember when you were six, and we were at your
parents house having dinner, and you came in with this thing on your head, I
don’t know what it was, what was it …”
And on and on it went for nearly an hour, until at
last he saw the impatient look on her face. He flagged down the nearest waiter,
ordered another short black, looked at Sophia and cleared his throat.
“While this, you coming in, is not a regular thing,
I’m going to treat it like it is. Or are you expecting special treatment,
because, er …”
“No, I’m not. I don’t want to be treated any
differently because I’m a woman, or because I’m Palmero’s daughter.
That’s half the point.”
“Okay. Tell me you are not …” Benny stopped
talking while the waiter placed his coffee on the table, waited until he was out
of sight, then began again, “tell me you are not doing this whole thing just
to make a point.”
“No, I’m not. But if there is a point to be made,
I’ll make it in the meantime. Women are good at multi-tasking like that.”
“Good. ‘Cause I want to let you know that we
don’t have time for that sort of thing. This is a business, it ain’t a place
to try and change the world and all that other new age stuff.”
Sophia nodded, but in her mind she was laughing.
She’d already taken that one step to change how it worked, and they hadn’t
even credited her with it yet.
“Okay, so you’ll be working under me, with Paul
and Frank. You know those guys pretty well, right?”
“We’re cousins.”
“Yeah, good. Now, they know you’re coming on
board, and they’re cool with it. As cool as they can be anyway. But if there
are any problems, you come straight to me, remember? Don’t argue with them,
don’t go over me and straight to Palmero. You come straight to me.
Understand?”
Sophia nodded again.
“Okay, first thing we do is put you up in something
that looks like a normal job, unassuming. Can you answer phones?”
“Answer phones?”
“Yeah, like a secretary or something?”
“I’m going to be a secretary?”
“Don’t panic, it’s just pretend like. You sit,
type, then the only calls you get will probably be from me. I give you something
to do, you do it. That’s how it goes. Don’t look at me like that, everyone
starts out like this, and it’s not like you’re going to be a real
secretary.”
“Benny, I just finished an economics degree. Who the
hell is going to believe the only job I could score was someone’s
assistant?”
“Hey kid, it ain’t my fault you went and got a
fancy degree, then asked your old man for a job. If it helps any, the business
we’re putting you in is one of the best analyst companies in the city.
They’re in our, er, union. You can tell people you’re just doing this until
you score a top dollar job. Anyhow, you don’t need to tell anyone what you do,
that’s not the point. You have a legitimate place of work, you go there, you
go out during the day to do your work for us, make it look like errands for
them, no-one knows any better.”
“Sure, right.”
“Got any questions?”
“What am I going to be doing, exactly? For you?”
“We’ll break you in slow—picking up small
payments, low risk surveillance, that sort of thing.”
“Anything else?”
“What, you want to shoot somebody? That doesn’t
happen all that often, kid, and even then, we get the made guys to do it.
There’s more involved to making someone disappear than just shooting them in
the street.”
“Right.”
“Forget about that, okay? Back to it. After you’ve
had your … probation period, as it were, you can then attend meetings when
need be, negotiations, that sort of thing. We’ll talk it over with Palmero what he wants you to be involved with on a permanent schedule.”
Sophia smiled.
“Now, don’t get too excited. None of us know how
this is going to work out. You may find that … well, this isn’t the job for
you, if you know what I mean.”
“It’s a family business; I have to give it my best
shot.”
Benny looked at her for a long moment. He wasn’t
sure whether to take her seriously or not. But he had been told to, and that’s
all that mattered. He wasn’t sure if he liked having to take her on as one of
his own soldiers, but that’s how it was to be. Didn’t mean he had to be
happy about it.
“Look, kid,” Benny leaned forward and stared her
in the eyes, “I love you like I was your uncle, you know that.” Sophia
nodded. “Then I’m going to give it to you straight. You don’t have to do
this. By rights, you’re not allowed to do this. You know you can get killed
doing this kind of work?” Sophia nodded again. “Do you want to get
killed?”
“Benny, you can get killed doing anything, it
doesn’t matter what kind of job you have, or if you have one at all.”
“Yeah but, kid,” Benny sighed, “you’ve just
increased your odds, you know.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Look. I know there are rules, and so do you if you
were just listening. But, and I’m not supposed to do this, for you I’ll make
an exception. Any time you want to get out, you just let me know.”
“I don’t want you to make an exception for me,
Benny. I told you that before.”
“There is a difference, believe me, whether you like
it or not. While I can’t say how people are going to react, I can tell you
now, there will be reactions. Like,
if someone wants to get back at our Family, they may well consider you a prime
target.”
“Because I’m a woman I’m considered weak, is
that it?”
“Hey, that’s not my personal opinion, that’s
just how it goes.”
“That’s why I’m here, Benny. To change the way
it goes. Today is just day one.”
© Cynthia M. Piromalli
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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