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.
"You got gas?"
"Something like that."
The lawyer stuffed a small slip of paper in Casey's pocket. "Here is an address. South End. Three weeks. Saturday night. Your move. You'll want to be there not too early but not too late. The bird likes to fly."
Seconds later Casey found himself on the sidewalk again near the Haymarket. The towncar was just another set of tail lights in the distance. He was sweating, as though he had just finished his run.
From the first time he saw the Subject he knew that he could not woo the girl away from her fast life with sweet talk and genteel seduction. Maybe that would work with some innocent, milk-fed Minnesota farm girl. But this was no naïf. This was a "been there, done that" girl. He would have to push the edge with this one.
His hair had been a bit long when they made the deal. He grew it longer. Dyed it black with blue highlights. Grew a devilish chin tag. Went ahead and had a silver skull with ruby eyes plugged into his left earlobe. Did a nostril diamond, though it felt like shit. Knew he should get a tongue stud and a penis tattoo but chickened out. Distressed his leather outfit even more. Painted a skull insignia on it to match the temporary tattoos he got for his belly, his back, his arms, his cheek. He sought out and hired a couple of old friends, big guys he used to play Rugby with in college. Told them half the truth, that there was this very young chick he had a jones for and she liked it crazy and dirty and was into a scary party scene. He would carry their tab, pay them a daily and take them to some wild places. For this gig they were Duke and Darin. No questions. No answers.
They were a lot easier with it than he was. They "duded up" too. One did a pirate thing, the other, Yakusa.
They all bought bikes, old bikes. Casey's was an antique Indian, with the wide saddle. His buddies had high rise Harleys.
No guns, only some interesting sharp things.
You could hear the party from down the block, the minute the hogs cut out. It hammered against the glass and steel of the high rises around. Somebody must have paid off the locals. When the door to the private elevator opened into the penthouse lobby the sound hit like a sledgehammer. The little lobby, all mahogany and gilt, was filled with bodies. A blonde with very long hair, red eyes and a runny nose had one foot up on the ashtray next to the elevator. A guy with a ring in his nose was giving it to her right there. She made howling cat sounds between tokes on her reefer and sips of her martini as he did it.
Casey and his Krew marched in the door in step, motorcycle boots crashing into the expensive parquet. Hardly anyone even looked up. Casey scanned the room for his Subject. Impossible. The place was literally jammed from the gilded mirrors to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river.
"Any more people come in here those windows are gonna pop right out."
He grabbed a skinny long-haired kid by the scruff of the neck.
"I want you to get me a very tall, cool drink. It's gotta have ice, but not too much ice, orange juice, but not the whole tree and seltzer, but not the whole fountain. Three fingers of gin. My fingers. With a twist of lime, not lemon. I want you to bring it back to me soon, and don't you even think of ducking out. My boys are watching the door. And if I don't like it, it goes down your pants, so make it right."
He pushed the kid away and grabbed the first attractive woman he saw, a thin girl with gypsy eyes and a dragonfly tattoo in the middle of her back.
"I need to dance. Can you dance?"
He looked her in the eyes over his gunslit sunglasses.
"Oh yes, you can do a lot more than dance. You can tie those damn long, skinny legs in knots. Show me. Show me what you can do."
He took the girl's drink and swallowed most of it, ice and all while he stared at her.
"C'mon! C'mon! That nothing! That's cherry ass. I want to see what you can give me. Get those arms up over your head. Move it!"
