Secrets of the Don Chap 5
#5 of Secrets of the Don
With an old friendship repaired and a new one budding, I almost felt as happy as I did when I first got the Auto Shop off the ground. That good mood was infectious, and my employees all seemed to be in high spirits after they clocked in. Music blared from the radio, and we finished jobs at a much faster pace than usual. It was as if we all got into a rhythm. The guys were curious about the attitude adjustment, and it only took a few hours for a certain asshole to say something that almost ruined it.
"Yo Boss, what's got you so upbeat today?" asked Eric. "You win the lottery or something on your day off?"
"Caught up with an old friend of mine," I replied, as I worked on replacing a flat tire from someone's shitbox Chevy. "Petey, hand me the wrench please?"
"It's just that you usually come in with either a scowl or some kinda neutral look on your face. But after your day off, we catch you humming with the radio. I didn't think you even liked pop music. What's changed?"
"He had a lot of good news to share, what's it to you?" I turned my head to the other junior mechanic. "Pete, wrench."
"On it, boss."
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Eric," said Jerry. "If the big man is in a good mood, just make sure it stays that way. Knock it off with the fucking questions."
Eric just couldn't leave it alone, though. "No, he has a story to tell here! We're going drinking with this mook tomorrow and all we know about him is his age and part of his criminal record."
That was enough. I had a lot of patience with Eric and his wise-assery, but I couldn't let this little shit heel bring up my criminal record without saying anything. I stood up and grabbed him by the collar. "You don't talk to me like that under my own roof, alright? You don't talk about my fucking rap sheet like you have any clue what I did or why, alright? I should smack the shit out of you for even bringing it up." I raised my hand for emphasis, eliciting a flinch. "I give you work, and I sign your checks. I don't owe you dick, much less my life story. Don't act like you've somehow earned that privilege ever again, capisce?"
The room tensed up, with the other mechanics stopping their own work to watch the spectacle. Eric shrunk into himself and broke eye-contact, stammering out an apology. "Sorry, Boss, I went too far with the criminal shit! I didn't mean anything by it, I swear!"
I let go of his collar. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood today. Another boss would fire you on the spot for that display. You're paying for drinks this Saturday, then we'll call it square."
My mechanic, scared out of his wits, nodded and got back to servicing the car he was working on. I looked at my other two employees, who took the hint and followed suit.
Things returned to normal by lunchtime, and both Friday and Saturday passed without any major screw-ups or any more overt disrespect from my guys. At closing on Saturday, I pulled them all aside and reminded them about our plans.
"Tonight's the night, boys. Remember that we're going to Redblood Lounge and that we're meeting in the parking lot at 7:30."
"I thought we was going to Whisker's?" asked Pete.
"I can't step foot in Whisker's. I got into a bad fight a couple of years ago, and management still hasn't lifted the ban." This was only half-true. I could go back to Whisker's if I wanted to, but it was deep into Capodano territory, and I wasn't going to risk getting seen there in the dark.
"Redblood it is." Jerry nudged Eric with his elbows. "Make sure you bring enough money for all of us, Eric."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," he grumbled.
"Don't start any shit with the bartender either," I added.
"Drinking calms me down, that won't be an issue. Tonight's gonna be fun, boss, relax. See you all at Redblood."
We all said our goodbyes and went home to prepare. After inspecting my place for any sign of intrusion, I greased up my hair and trimmed my beard to something a little more presentable. It would be unbecoming of a boss to not look his best in front of his workers, even if this wasn't a work event. I put on a leather jacket, a t-shirt, and a clean pair of jeans then got behind the wheel.
Redblood Lounge was a strip club, and the neon signs in the windows betrayed its colorful nature. The bar maintained a drab appearance during the day, invisible when viewed within the surrounding office buildings. At night, however, the Lounge was a glowing bastion of debauchery, lit up with signs of both human women and rat-girls. Most importantly though, it was far enough from town that I didn't have to worry about unwelcome attention from any hairy gentlemen in tuxedos.
I arrived at the bar a couple of minutes early, so I spent a couple of minutes on my phone scrolling through my email. Most of it was just junk mail and scam offers, interspersed with a few questions and complaints from customers. At about 7:30, Jerry and Eric both showed up in their own shitbox cars. It took only 15 minutes of waiting for our last companion until Eric blew a gasket.
"That motherfucker always does this. Everybody agrees to a time and he shows up 20 minutes late! Let's just grab a table and wait for him inside." He started to tap his feet on the ground.
I put a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down, Eric, he probably just hit traffic or something. It's no big deal."
"You don't know Pete like we do, big man," said Jerry. "Eric's right. Rat-boy spends at least 10 minutes after he's supposed to leave looking at himself in the mirror."
As he said this, a red Maserati comes speeding into the lot, swerving into the entrance before carefully parking. Behind the wheel was our missing coworker.
Pete rolled down his window. "Hey, Boss, how do you like the ride?"
"You're late. I'm more interested to hear how you managed to afford it on your wages."
The smirk died on his face and a hint of red appeared behind his fur. "I uhh... I saved up for most of it and a friend helped me pay for the rest."
That was troubling. I made note of it in my phone before bringing everyone together. "'A friend.' Ok, Pete. You've kept us waiting long enough tonight, let's just get our table, and then maybe you can tell us what kind of friends you have that would help you pay for a sports car."
We walked into the club and took our place in the booth farthest from the stage. The bartender told us that the show didn't start until 8:30. We each ordered a drink and sat down to unwind.
"I know it's your business and all," said Pete. "But I really am curious about what's got you in such a good mood these last few days. What news did you get that made you so chipper?
"I've told you already, I saw an old friend and got a chance to reconnect. His family is doing well, isn't that enough to celebrate?"
"That's a bunch of bullshit, boss, no offense," said Jerry. "Nobody gets so excited over hearing that someone's family doing well. Is this about a girl?"
I gave him an incredulous look. "Do you really think I'd take you all to a titty-bar over a 'girl thing?' For a breakup, maybe." I felt a twinge of guilt, remembering my conversation with Marcia two days before. Even if she was only part of the reason I felt so upbeat, there's a sad irony in celebrating your success with women at a strip club.
"You're an enigma, big man. It's hard to read you sometimes."
We spent half an hour sitting around the booth, each passing around stories none of us would tell sober. When it fell to me to tell a story of my own I started to get nervous. The guys were smart enough not to ask about my alleged crimes during my time with the family, but I could tell they were hungry for some stories from our thing. In my infinite drunken wisdom, I opened with a story of a dinner that almost went horribly wrong for the Don himself. I took a few liberties as to avoid giving away any potent information, of course.
"So, I know you chucklefucks already know about my criminal record, how I spent some time in the can for fraud, right? I used to be an accountant, and one of my other clients was Mr. Angelo Capodano."
"You worked for Don Angelo?" asked Pete. "That's crazy! How close were you guys? Did he tell you about the Chance Street robberies? Do you know what happened to Tom Diviosi?"
To answer this, I lied through my teeth. "I just worked for him as an accountant, making sure that all of the revenues on his smaller businesses were taken into account. I didn't ever know him as 'Don' Angelo, only as Mr. Capodano, and after a couple of years, just Angelo."
Pete looked a little disappointed, but my other coworkers continued to pay rapt attention.
"Because we were associates, we went to a few public and private functions together. One day, he and I were visiting an associate's house in Pull's Point."
"We walk in and Angelo immediately compliments the guy's wife, you know, trying to play the gentleman. He makes some comments during the dinner that we thought were innocent enough, and it gets some laughs from the lady of the house. We don't know it, but this associate is fuming underneath all of this. Apparently, he was really fucking insecure about fidelity, and he thought Angelo was flirting with her. 2 hours into the visit, some old song comes on the radio. Angelo takes the guy's wife by the hand and brings her out into the living room. The associate snaps, grabs a rifle from the wall, and points it at the Don's head. He says 'Step away from my wife, you dirty fuckin' rat.'"
My coworkers listened with bated breath, hanging on to every word.
"I'm not sober at this point, Angelo even less so. Both of us are scared shitless, and Angelo steps away from the woman and puts his hands high in the air. He makes a big show of an apology, then stumbles over to the damn guy, reaches out his hand and says 'You know, if I knew you were the jealous type, I would have danced with you first.'"
My booth erupted with laughter.
"I think if Angelo was anybody else he would have gotten his head blown off. The guy calmed down after that at least. Shame he didn't take him up on the offer, though."
"How many stories you got like that, Boss? Too funny!" wheezed Eric.
We had just finished a story about another bad date from Pete when the speaker from the stage started to buzz. "The first show of the night starts in 5 minutes."
Both Pete and Eric jumped out of their seats and started tripping over each other to get to the best seats in the house, followed by a swarm of other sleazy men. Jerry and I, however, stayed in the booth.
Sure enough, 5 minutes later, the lights in the stage area went dim, and the speaker had turned on again.
"We at Redblood Lounge believe that both human and rat girls are beautiful in their own unique ways. But tonight, we've decided that if we're going to show tail, we should show some goddamned tail! We only have rat-girls performing tonight, and we're starting tonight's performance with one of our crowd favorites. Please give it up for Janet!"
A rat-girl with black fur and several articles of white clothing came out from behind the curtain and wasted no time on starting the performance. Her movements had the perfect balance of grace and sexual allure. The crowd went wild as she danced, chanting for her to take off more and more, to which she obliged until her breasts were on full display, and the bills started flying. At least, that's what I assumed happened. I'd seen Janet's show twice before, so I decided to pay more attention to the conversation I was having with Jerry.
"Not interested in the show, big man?"
"Hard to be interested when you've been to a hundred like it." I took a swig of my third beer.
He raised an eyebrow. "Why did you bring us to a titty-bar if you were tired of staring at titties?"
I stuck my thumb towards Dumb and Dumber by the stage, tossing their money on stage like a bunch of jack-offs. "My other employees seem to be enjoying themselves, and I wanted to talk to the competent one alone for more than 5 seconds."
Jerry nodded and rested his head on crossed arms. "I despise strip clubs," he grumbled. "A bunch of horny men crowding around a performer stripping naked while shoving money in her face. I feel like I'm cheating on my wife just by being here. It's fucking degenerate and demeaning."
"Degenerate? Yes. Demeaning? Not quite so sure about that one. I've talked to Janet and quite a few of the other girls here. Some of them take a lot of pride in making a performance... titillating. If everyone's having fun with it, where's the foul?"
"Don't play dumb, Boss. You know that a lot of the girls here are only doing it because they can't support themselves otherwise. It just looks like a business taking advantage of desperate people to me. Why do you think they hire so many rat-girls?"
I took another swig from my mug. "Jerry, you're a well-read guy and I respect your opinion on most things, but with this, you don't know what you're talking about. Half of the strippers here are doing it to pay for college. It's like a temporary deal. Besides these girls are all adults; they can be their own advocates. If they don't like stripping, they can get a job somewhere else, like 2Deep or some shit. And even for the desperate ones, it's a better option than real prostitution."
"'It's a better option than real prostitution,' Christ. It's like I'm talking to the owner of this place. Were you a pimp in your past life?"
"Don't start this shit with me, Jerry. I was an accountant, not a pimp. I did the books for places like these and sometimes had a chat with the ... You know what? Fuck this." I slammed my mug on the table. "I didn't come here to cry about the plight of titty-bar performers. They can choose to make money by doing something they may or may not enjoy, boo fuckin' hoo. They're just people trying to make ends meet, like the rest of us. Let's talk about something else."
Jerry looked over at the stage for a second, directly at my other two employees. "What about Pete?"
"Good choice. I'm curious about how he paid for that damn car, do you know?"
He shrugged. "He just said he saved up for it when we asked him. I'd believe him if he wasn't so full of shit about everything else. You think he has a buddy out in Pull's?"
"I think maybe he got help from somebody else."
Jerry's eyes widened. "You don't mean to say that-"
"Just don't be surprised if he asks either us for a loan when his 'help' comes knocking at his door with the bill."
"Poor kid. If it's true, there's no way he knows what he's getting into."
My eyes drifted back to the stage, stealing a glance at Janet before zeroing in on Pete, continuing to throw money on the stage. "Let's just hope it isn't."
Waiting some time for the alcohol to wear off, I got into some more conversations with Jerry, mostly about his own family. After 4 or 5 performances, Pete and Eric came back to the table. where we talked and joked around for a few more hours. We said our goodbyes and made it back to our cars. There was no trouble on the way home, thankfully.
It was about midnight when I decided to text Marcia. I had remembered that she was all finished with her interviews on the car ride over, and so I felt it prudent to send her a text in the parking lot.
"how did u do on the interviews?"
I was on the elevator ride up when I felt a buzz in my back pocket. She responded "Think I got hired!"
Not wanting to waste time, I asked "congrats, u free 2 meet up tomorrow, same place same time?"
I got a response to this almost immediately. "Sure! See you there! :)"
Satisfied and exhausted, I strolled up to my apartment, searched my drawers, brushed my teeth, and fell face-first into bed.