He knelt down and placed his hand on Lou’s heart. The little brother who had come up in the game beside Pop was now lying motionless in front of him. In a low voice, Pop spoke somber words of parting. It was a sentimental side of our father rarely witnessed by any of us.
“Who did this?” Pop finally asked, still on a knee. He kept his head down, depriving anyone of the opportunity to see the pain that had to be etched on his face.
“We don’t know,” I said, embarrassed to have been saying that way too often these days.
“Oh, I think I do. Dash was right,” Pop said, his voice cracking under the strain. The sound of it had me fearful of what was to come. “No more. No more Mr. Nice Guy,” he chanted, his words sounding like drumbeats to a war slowly building.
As Junior tried to console Pop and convince him to go back home, I stepped away to place a call.
“Yo.”
“Where are you?” I asked Paris.
“On the ground. Palm trees, sunshine, and movie stars. Oh, Crips and Bloods too. La-di-da.”
“You got him yet?” I followed up, cutting through the fluff.
“No, but I’m on his trail as we speak,” she answered. I heard car noise in the background.
“Hurry. Uncle Lou’s dead and Pop’s about to go scorched earth. If you don’t get him soon, Rio’s gonna be collateral damage.”
Harris
42
“I want you to reach out to the Italians again,” LC said after summoning me to his office at the dealership.
“Me?” I asked, incredulous. “I’m just—”
“Part of this family,” LC said swiftly. It took a moment for his words to sink in and for me to understand that he was saying I was part of this family, not theirs. With everything that had been happening, it was normal for a little paranoia to be creeping in, wasn’t it?
LC continued, “And they think they have some kind of connection with you, so let’s use it. Thank them for reaching out.”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to sound hesitant. The last thing I wanted to do was spend more time in the company of Sal Dash and his Mob associates.
“There’s more,” my father-in-law said, motioning for me to make sure his office door was closed firmly and that no one was eavesdropping. I should have known that wasn’t all he wanted of me. There was always more when it came to LC and his orders. “We’re about to move on Alejandro’s organization through our California affiliates.”
“Really? I mean... at a time like this? A war on both coasts? If this spills out onto the streets and the general public gets wind of this, it will be disastrous. We’re talking about everything you’ve worked so hard to build going up in flames,” I argued, doing my best to make him see the downside of this course of action without pissing the man off.
“You think it’s still about my shipment, Harris? It’s not. Lou’s dead. They killed my brother. Took him out in a drive-by. And they almost got Junior. Now they’re going to kill Rio—if they haven’t already. We’re already beyond disaster, boy.”
“Are you sure it’s the Mexicans? Alejandro and them?” I asked, needing to hear it.
“Yes. What Dash was saying makes sense, as much as I hate to admit it. If I’d had that info earlier, I would’ve never sent Rio to L.A.”
I had never seen LC second-guess a decision before, but I had a sense that was what was going on as he dropped his head and went silent for a second.
When he looked up again, he said, “The Mexicans have been playing us for fools all along, while slowly working the edges of our organization. Pablo probably had some deal with them that ended when he got cold feet or outlived his usefulness.”
If they were killing lieutenants, and if Pablo’s killing was tied in, then LC’s dream of getting away to Florida with my mother-in-law was now a pipe dream. This was going to take his life in years, if not through bullets.
“Do you trust Dash?” he asked me.
I hesitated, unsure what he was implying. How much could you trust a Mafia boss, especially considering the history of competition between his camp and ours? Especially when you had the history of him and me.