An Offer He Couldn't Refuse
The Mother Superior had told Casey that "an influential person", a brother of one of her Sisters needed some help with a young person. He wasn't exactly the 'capo di tutti capi' but he was high enough up the food chain that most other people got out of his way.
Casey's services were supposed to be confidential, but somehow the sisters in the convent all knew and during a family dinner of vegetarian lasagna and 'frito misto' this particular nun had learned from her brother that he had a problem that might be best solved by someone with Casey's talent and expertise.
Maybe that was why certain large men kept appearing in the places where Casey hung out, O'Donohue's Bar, the gym, the dog park, the Stop and Shop. After a while it became pretty obvious that they were watching him. Sometimes he even caught them taking notes.
So it came as no surprise one Sunday when he had just finished his jog in the park and was running in place on the corner of Boylston and Charles that a simple but elegant town car pulled up next to him. Nobody rolled down a window and said, "Get in if you value your life," but the chauffer, a big man with a serious gut and a bulge under his black coat over his heart, got out, leaving the Sunday drivers to honk and pound their steering wheels. He handed Casey two cards. One was from the Mother Superior. It had a small note. "This is the man who needs your help." The other card was a business card. Buon Giorno Trucking. The name on it was (not his real name,) Angelo DiCapo.
Casey discovered, as soon as he got into the car that the man with the slick hair and the pencil mustache on the elegant leather seats was not DiCapo but Ivan Bernstein, DiCapo's lawyer and 'business partner.'
Ivan was chewing on something and regularly rolled down the window to let fly a gob (whether or not a person was outside). He filled in the details as they drove.
"Y'see, this client of mine...this man...well you know he is Mr. DiCapo because of the card, but you must never refer to him, to anyone, even me, as Mr. DiCapo, just say 'the client', OK? I'm gonna draw it up in writing here, once we are on common ground. But general rule. No names.
"Anyway, the client has this other person, a young person, very close, should I say very close to the Client, but the client is, how shall I say, more than a little concerned, because this person, what shall we call her, The Subject, yes, that's good, The Subject, has taken to running with, how shall we say, a bad element, and is perhaps in danger to her person, or her health, or perhaps even the reputation of the Client who is, as I said, very close to the Subject, close enough to have his reputation, how can I say, tarnished, if certain behaviors continue, or, worse, worse, certain members of certain other families, could gain advantage...anyway, anyway, forget that, only that the Client would like you, the Practitioner to guide the Subject back to some, how can we say, more beneficial behavior. Am I clear?
"Not at all."
Casey had a hunch that the limo ride would be the real explanation. Sure enough, they pulled over next to the curb after passing a Catholic girls' school that was just letting out.
They sat for some time without saying anything. The only sound in the sealed car was the cracking of the chauffeur's gum. Bernstein switched his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other and played drums on his knees.
The chauffeur stirred, pointed.
"Yeah, there she is." Casey could tell the lawyer was excited.
A gaggle of three girls was coming down the sidewalk. They were all different and all the same. One had the ruddy tan of an Hispanic girl, her auburn hair in a soft halo around her face. The second girl was Asian with a sheet of long shining black hair down to her ass. The third was European, light olive complexion, her streaked hair pulled up in a raspberry scrunchy, kind of deliberately messy. Their bodies were virtually identical, tight and curvy with impudent busts and long, slim legs emerging from plaid uniform skirts that had clearly been hiked halfway up the thigh leaving an expanse of smooth skin down to the white knee sox.
"Which one is she?"
"Guess." Said Ivan.
It wasn't hard. (Or rather it was.) The Asian and the Hispanic girl just walked down the street, their books clasped to their chests, but the other girl pranced around them, swinging her backpack effortlessly at the end of its strap, giggling, scanning the street. As she passed the car she walked over to the tinted window and checked her look, inches from Casey on the other side of the glass. She dropped her backpack and turned away from the car. Bending neatly from the waist, legs straight she unzipped and prowled in the bag for a long time, coincidentally providing an immaculate view below her shortened shirt of a perfect ass, without a tan line and seemingly naked except for the hint of a pink thong. She turned back to the window with a tube of lipstick and carefully applied it, her lips wide, smoothing the corner of her mouth with the tip of a pinky decorated with a silver star. She slowly licked her lips to give them a shine, placed a sweet kiss on the glass and turned away with the tiniest of winks.
Ivan had placed his briefcase on his lap.
"So. You think maybe you can teach the 'Subject' how to be a lady, kind of a Henry Higgins thing, if you get my drift?"
"Two problems."
"Yeah?"
"My...services...are really tailored to women who are having...difficulty discovering their own sexuality. Now this young lady, and I'd like to accent the word young seems to have no trouble knowing what is going on in that department, rather the opposite. And second...I really don't want to go to jail."
"Howzat?"
"This young person is clearly below the age of consent...and even though Mr. Di...the Client may have some experience in, shall we say, bending the law, I do not. My livelihood, my reputation and, maybe my balls could suffer if this went bad."
"Now, now, now, now. You underestimate the sagacity of my client. This, this is why he has brought me into the picture. Everything is to be strictly legal and on the up and up. I have here documents confirming that the person in question has indeed reached her eighteenth birthday. I have a letter, a very unusual letter signed both by my client and by the Mother Superior, engaging your services as a counselor, a letter which shall remain in my possession unless such time as you need proof this is the real deal, and of course a fee, in Benjamins, 25 large upon signing of the contract and 25 upon satisfactory completion of the project, the subject having returned to a more respectable life style as confirmed by the Mother Superior and two other persons of respectable reputation as you and she shall agree on. Is it a deal?"
"Two things."
"You already had two things."
"Well, one of them is the same thing. This work is not..."
"Casey...may I call you Casey? Call me Ivan. Here's how we figured. We know who you were up against with the nun thing. Now that was not a matter of a shy broad needing some confidence. That was going head to head with Mr. Bad himself. So we surmised that if you could pry a sweet lady loose from him..."
"But that was different...and I didn't..."
"Not the way we heard it, and we are counting on your talent to resist. Trust me, and this goes no further than this car, this kitten can melt strong men. So, have we got a deal?"
"The other thing."
"Oh, yes, the other other thing."
"What happens if I refuse?"
Bernstein sat back in his seat and looked at the ceiling. The toothpick snapped between his teeth.
"Now that could be difficult. Y'see, the kitten is kind of, how you say, already out of the bag. You know a name. You have seen this Subject. You could say something we don't really want said. And we know where you live...and work...and eat...and shop. It is a fine, well paid job. Half of the city would die to be in your...pants...for free. I think we have, how you say, 'crossed the Rubenstein'. Ain't no going back."
There was a serious cramp between Casey's shoulder blades. It wasn't from nervousness. Something hard and metallic pressed into him through the seat.
"The Client really hates to install new upholstery. This is Italian leather, hand dressed. Do you need time to think about it? No? Good. Then we got a deal."
Bernstein extended his hand. Casey hesitated. All this could be bluff. The chauffeur turned in his seat. His hand was under his coat. Casey shook the lawyers hand.
