“So what’s the problem, Tim?” Pat asks.
“They come in tugging their cuffs,” Tim says. “They’re here about every afternoon, drinking pitchers they don’t pay for, ordering sandwiches, burgers . . . You seen the price of beef lately? Buns?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Now they want an envelope, too?” Tim says. “I got basically ten, eleven weeks of summer to make money, the rest of the year I’m fucked. A few locals and fishermen nursing their beers for two hours at a time. No offense, Danny.”
Danny shakes his head, like Forget it.
They walk through an open slider out onto a deck precariously cantilevered above some rocks the state put in to try to prevent the whole building from sliding into the ocean. From out there Danny can see the whole southern shoreline, from the lighthouse at Gilead down to Watch Hill.
It’s beautiful.
The Moretti brothers sit at a white plastic table next to the railing that Chris Palumbo’s got his feet up on.
Peter Moretti looks like your classic wiseguy—thick, slicked-back black hair, black shirt rolled up at the sleeves to show off the Rolex, designer jeans over loafers.
Paulie Moretti is a skinny guinea, maybe five-seven, with caramel skin, his light brown hair highlighted and permed into tight curls. Permed, Danny thinks, which is the style now but nothing Danny can get down with. Danny thinks Paulie’s always looked a little Puerto Rican, although he ain’t gonna say it.
Chris Palumbo’s something else. Red hair like he came from freakin’ Galway, but otherwise he’s as Italian as Sunday gravy. Danny remembers what old Bernie Hughes said about him—“Never trust a redheaded wop. They’re the worst of the breed.”
Yeah, Peter is smart, but as smart as he is, Chris is smarter. Peter don’t make a move without him, and if Peter does make the big step up, Chris will be his consigliere, no question.
The Irish guys pull up chairs as a waitress brings two pitchers and sets them on the table. The men pour their beers, then Peter turns to Tim. “You went running to the Murphys?”
“I didn’t ‘run,’” Tim says. “I just was telling Liam—”
“We’re all friends here,” Pat says, not wanting to get into the protocol of who told what to whom.
“We’re all friends here,” Peter says, “but business is business.”
Liam says, “This place doesn’t pay tax. Never has, never will. Tim’s father and my father—”
“His father is gone,” Peter says, then looks at Tim. “May he rest, no disrespect. But the arrangement passed with him.”
“It’s grandfathered,” Pat says.
Peter says, “They’re tax-exempt forever because thirty years ago some bogtrotter boiled a potato in here?”
“Pete, come on . . .” Pat says.
Chris kicks in, “Who do you think got the Works Department to put this rock in, the place doesn’t turn into a raft, you’re Huckleberry fucking Finn? That’s thirty, forty grand of material, never mind the labor.”
Pat laughs. “What, you paid it?”
“We arranged it,” Chris says. “I didn’t hear Tim crying then.”
Tim says, “I already use your food supplier. What they charge me for meat? I could do a lot better someplace else.”
It’s true, Danny thinks. The Morettis are already making money out of this place, what with the vending machines and kickbacks from the wholesalers. Never mind the freebies.
“And the last time you had a health inspector really go through your kitchen,” Chris says, “will be the first time.”
“Then don’t eat my fucking food, all right?”
Peter leans across the table toward Pat. “All we’re saying is that we’ve had expenses related to the place lately and we think Tim should contribute a little. Are we being that unreasonable?”
“I can’t give you what I don’t have,” Tim whines. “I don’t have the money, Peter.”
Peter shrugs. “Maybe we can work something out.”
Here it comes, Danny thinks. The demand for a tax was just a come-along. The Morettis know that Tim don’t have it. That was just to open the door for what they really want.
“What do you have in mind?” Pat asks.
“One of our people,” Peter says, “went to do a little transaction in the men’s room here last week, and Tim here got heavy with him.”
“He was dealing coke,” Tim says.