“Is that what your dad, my brother, said?” O’Leary flicks a glance to an older guy perched on a stool.
The kid nods. His jaw pulses.
“Here’s the thing, Brendan. Your weeklies keep coming up short. Not Vince’s, not Sam’s, not Toby’s, only yours.”
“I didn’t skim, Uncle Shane, I promise I—”
O’Leary raises a hand to quiet him. “I talked to the boys, to your dad, and everyone says the same thing. ‘Not Brendan, he’s a stand-up guy. Gotta be a mistake.’” He says this in a mocking tone.
The kid nods.
“You’re family, so I give you the benefit of the doubt. But your aunt, when your cousin was little, she read all these parenting books, and you know what she always said?”
Brendan shakes his head.
“Trust, but verify.”
Brendan doesn’t respond.
“So, on your last pickups, we marked the bills.” O’Leary puts down his fork and knife and pulls out a small penlight from his pocket. Click-click, click-click. A blue light goes on and off. “I’ll make you a deal, Brendan. You get out your money clip, and if none of the bills glow under this light, I’ll know you had nothing to do with my missing twenty Gs, and I’ll give you an apology.”
Brendan’s face is bloodless now. His father shifts on his stool.
“Or-r-r…” O’Leary draws out the word, takes a long pause, letting Brendan squirm. “Or, we agree you owe me forty Gs and you put your hand flat on the table here.”
Brendan’s father is off the stool now. “Shane, we get it, enough.”
O’Leary turns to his brother. “Shut the fuck up. If he wasn’t your son, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.”
Brendan’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down. His father lowers back to the stool.
O’Leary takes a bite of his food, his eyes not leaving Brendan’s.
Brendan walks to the table, lays his hand flat on it. Nico thinks he might wet himself.
Without warning, O’Leary grips the steak knife and stabs it hard through the top of Brendan’s hand so it pins it to the table. Brendan screams in agony but doesn’t pull away, doesn’t do anything but writhe in pain.
O’Leary rises, walks around the table, and presses his forehead aggressively to Brendan’s, looks him in the eyes. “Forty Gs. And if you’re ever one dollar short again, I’m gonna take off both your hands, feed ’em to my dogs, and then bury you alive at the farm.”
O’Leary wraps his hand around the handle of the steak knife. Instead of pulling it straight out, he yanks it to the side so it cuts through Brendan’s hand. The young man collapses to the floor, Brendan’s father and the other toughs coming over, lifting him by the arms, carrying him out, leaving behind a blood trail and tablecloth soaked in red.
Sitting back at the table, O’Leary dabs at his mouth with a napkin. “Ni-i-ic-c-co,” he says with terrifying enthusiasm. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Boys, there’s a hero in our midst,” O’Leary tells the room.
The others look at one another, like they’re not sure what O’Leary is talking about.
“Don’t any of you mutts watch the news? This guy”—he walks over, grips Nico by the shoulder that’s not in the sling—“just escaped a frickin’ coal mine collapse.”
The crew nods, impressed.
Before Nico can explain why he’s there—making sure it wasn’t O’Leary who put him at the bottom of that mine—O’Leary directs Nico to follow him. They head out of the back room and to the bar. The bartender is still going on about woke politics but shushes when he sees the boss.
“Give us two Jamesons. But pack ’em for the road, will ya?”
For the road. Again, before Nico can ask, O’Leary says, “I’ve got an afternoon appointment. If you got the time to join me, we can catch up.”
Nico feels a cold finger run down his spine. It’s not an offer he can refuse.
The bartender hands them paper coffee cups with lids, and O’Leary leads Nico outside. There’s a black sedan parked illegally right out front.
O’Leary presses a key fob and the Mercedes EQS’s lights flash. They both climb inside. Nico’s nerves are flaring now. He’s relieved when none of O’Leary’s boys slip into the backseat—a sure recipe for two in the back of the head. Then again, probably not in O’Leary’s $100,000 sedan.
O’Leary revs the engine and they’re off.
“Where’re we going?” Nico finally asks.
“It’s a beautiful day, thought we’d get some fresh air,” he says. It’s not a beautiful day. The sky is the color of granite, with intermittent showers.
“And the bar has ears,” O’Leary adds. “You never know who’s listening.”
Nico doubts that. O’Leary nearly severed a man’s hand fifteen minutes ago and surely sweeps the place for bugs daily.
O’Leary grips the wheel, zigging and zagging around traffic. The area is filled with tire stores, overgrown lots, and decaying row houses. Old trolley-car rails rivet the road, but there haven’t been trolleys in years.
“So, there’s something I wanted to talk with you about,” Nico says.
O’Leary turns, puts a finger to his lips. “Let’s wait till we get there. Cars have ears too.”
Nico doesn’t ask where there is, and his gut is roiling. This was a mistake. A miscalculation. If it is O’Leary who sent someone to kill him, he’s put himself alone with the guy. They have a history, Nico and Shane, through their dads, and their paths crossed when they were kids, but O’Leary wouldn’t hesitate to take Nico out if it was good for business.
O’Leary turns up the stereo. It’s a pop station and O’Leary seems to be getting into the Olivia Rodrigo song. He’s an odd duck—not that Nico would ever say that out loud.
Nico watches out the window as roadside ministries and murals give way to elegant
brownstones bordered by iron gates. A sign says: PENN TREATY PARK, and O’Leary veers around and pulls into a lot.
Nico looks out at the large open space. Dozens of kites fill the sky, a kite festival, by the looks of it.
O’Leary parks and they climb out of the vehicle. Standing in the lot, O’Leary says, “Don’t take this the wrong way, Nico, but I need you to take off your shirt.”
Nico gets it. O’Leary wants to confirm that Nico isn’t wearing a wire.
Awkwardly, Nico removes his sling and pulls off his shirt.
“Damn, that looks nasty,” O’Leary says, examining the blood-soaked bandage.
Nico makes no reply.
“But I gotta say, no wonder the girls like you so much,” O’Leary adds. “Don’t worry, I’m not a ho-mo-sex-ual,” he accentuates each syllable. “But a guy can admire another man’s abs, am I right?”
He nods that Nico can put his shirt back on.
O’Leary moves to the rear of the car. Fishes out the key fob. This could be it. Where Nico finds himself in another dark hole, the trunk of a Mercedes.
O’Leary opens the hatch and Nico breathes a sigh of relief. The face of a large red dragon stares up at them. O’Leary removes the kite, unfolds it carefully, and they head out to an open space on the field.