Savage Lover: Chapter 4

When I come down to breakfast, Greta has made a batch of fresh biscotti to go with the coffee, plus a red pepper frittata in that ancient iron skillet that’s probably older than she is.

She offers me the food. I only want the coffee.

“More for me, then,” Dante says, taking a second helping of frittata.

My father is at the end of the table, reading three newspapers at once. We might be the only people who still get the paper delivered—singlehandedly keeping the Tribune and the Herald in business.

“I can get those on your iPad,” I tell Papa.

“I don’t like the iPad,” he says, stubbornly.

“Yes you do. Remember that game you kept playing, where you have to shoot peas at the zombies?”

“That’s different,” he grunts. “You’re not reading the news if you don’t get ink on your hands.”

“Suit yourself,” I say.

I take a sip of the coffee. It’s real coffee—heavily roasted, bittersweet, made in a three-chambered aluminum pot. Greta also makes cappuccino and macchiato on order, because she’s a fucking angel.

She’s not actually Italian, but you’d never guess it by the way she cooks the traditional food my father loves. She’s worked for him since before he married my mother. She helped raise us all. Especially after Mama died.

Greta is plump, with a little red left in her hair. She’s got a surprising number of stories from her wild youth, once you get some liquor in her. And she’s the only person bringing life into the house now that Aida’s moved out.

Dante just sits at his end of the table like a ravenous, silent mountain, shoveling up food. Papa’s not going to talk unless he finds something shocking in the paper. Sebastian is living on campus and only comes home on weekends.

I never thought I’d miss Aida. She’s always been an annoying little puppy, yapping at my heels. She loved to follow us around everywhere we went, trying to do everything we were doing, but usually getting into trouble instead.

It’s funny that she got married first, since she’s the baby. Not to mention the last girl you’d expect to put on a white puffy dress.

Hell, she might be the only one of us to get married at all. I’m sure as fuck not doing it. Dante’s still hung up on that girl he used to date, though he’d never admit it. And Sebastian . . . well, I can’t guess what he’ll do anymore.

He thought he was going to the NBA. Then his knee got all fucked up by Aida’s husband Callum, when our families weren’t on good terms. Now Seb’s sort of floating. Still doing physical therapy, trying to get back on the court. Sometimes joining Dante and me when we’ve got work to do. This winter he shot a Polish gangster. I think it fucked with his head. There’s being a criminal, and there’s being a murderer . . . you cross that line and there’s no going back. It changes you.

It certainly changed me. It shows you how a person can leave this world in a split-second. Dead in the time it takes to flick off a light switch. And that’s it—infinite nothingness, like the infinite nothing that came before. Your whole life is just a brief flare in the void. So what does it matter what we do? Good, evil, kindness, cruelty . . . it’s all a spark that goes out without a trace. The whole existence of humanity will mean nothing, once the sun expands and burns the planet to a crisp.

I learned that lesson at a young age.

Because I first killed someone when I was only ten years old.

That’s what I think about while I drink my coffee.

Papa finishes his first paper, switching over to the next. He pauses before he starts perusing the front page, looking over at Dante.

“What’s our next project now that the Oak Street Tower is done?” he says.

Dante stabs his fork into the last bite of frittata.

“The Clark Street Bridge needs renovating,” he says. “We could bid on that.”

Gallo Construction has been taking on bigger and bigger projects lately. It’s funny—the Italian Mafia got into contraction so we could control the labor unions. It started in New York. For decades, there wasn’t a single construction project in NYC not controlled by the mob in one way or another. We bribed and strong-armed the union leaders, or even got elected ourselves. When you control a union, you control a whole industry. You can force the workers to slow or stop construction if the developers don’t make the proper “donations.” Plus you have access to massive union pension funds, almost totally unregulated and ripe for tax-free money laundering, or straight-up robbing.

But here’s the irony—when you get into a business for nefarious reasons, you sometimes start making a legitimate profit. That’s what happened to the mafia dons who moved to Las Vegas—they opened casinos to launder their illegal money, and all of a sudden, the casinos were raking in more cash than the illegal rackets. Whoops—you’re a legitimate businessman.

Bit by bit, that’s happening to Gallo Construction. Chicago is booming, especially our side of the city. The Magnificent Mile, Lake Shore Drive, the South and West Side retail corridors . . . there’s five billion in commercial construction going on this year alone.

And we’re getting more of it than we can handle.

We just finished a twelve-hundred-foot-tall high-rise. Papa wants the next project lined up. For once, I’ve got an idea . . .

“What about the South Works site?” I say.

“What about it?” Papa says, peering up at me from under his thick gray eyebrows. His eyes are beetle-dark, as sharp as ever.

“It’s four hundred and fifteen acres, completely untouched. It’s gotta have the biggest untapped potential in this whole damn city.”

“You ever see a python try to eat an alligator?” Dante says. “Even if it can strangle the gator, it chokes trying to swallow it down.”

“We don’t have the capital for that,” Papa says.

“Or the men,” Dante adds.

That may have been the case a year ago. But a lot has changed since then. Aida married Callum Griffin, the heir to the Irish Mafia. Then Callum became Alderman of the wealthiest district in the city. As the cherry on the sundae, Callum’s little sister hooked up with the head of the Polish Braterstwo. So we’ve got access to more influence and manpower than we ever had before.

“I bet Cal would be interested in my idea,” I say.

Dante and my father exchange scowls.

I know what they’re thinking. Our whole world has already been thrown into a blender. We were bitter rivals of the Griffins for generations. Now all of a sudden, we’re allies. It’s been going well so far. But there’s no baby to seal the alliance just yet—no shared heir between the two families.

Dante and Papa are fundamentally conservative. They’ve already had all the change they can stomach.

I’ll have to appeal to their competitive natures instead.

“If you don’t want to do it, that’s alright. The Griffins can probably handle it on their own.”

Dante lets out a sigh that’s more of a rumble. Like a dragon in a cave, forced to rouse itself in response to an intruder.

“Save the negging for the girls at the bar,” he growls. “I get your point.”

“Four hundred and fifteen acres,” I repeat. “Waterfront property.”

“Next to a shit neighborhood,” Papa says.

“Doesn’t matter. Lincoln Park used to be a shit neighborhood. Now Vince Vaughn lives there.”

Papa considers. I don’t talk while he’s thinking. You don’t stir the cement when it’s already setting.

At last he nods.

“I’ll set up a meeting with the Griffins to discuss,” he says.

Flush with success, I grab one of Greta’s biscotti, dunk it in the last of my coffee, and head down the stairs to the underground garage.

If I identify with any superhero, it would be Batman. This is my Batcave. I could live in it indefinitely, fucking around with machinery and only coming out at night to get into trouble.

I’m currently working on a 1930 Indian Scout motorcycle, a ‘65 Shelby CSX, and a ‘73 Chevy Corvette. Plus the Mustang I’ve been driving around. It’s a 1970 Boss 302, gold with black racing stripes. All original metal, V-8 with a manual transmission, only 48,000 miles on it. I swapped out the vinyl seats for sheep leather.

Then there’s my absolute favorite. The car I searched for years to find: the Talbot Lago Grand Sport. I’ve spent more hours on that baby than all the others combined. It’s my one true love. The one I’ll never sell.

The only thing I feel the slightest sentimentality about is my cars. Only machinery gives me that impulse to care and nurture. It’s the only time I can be patient and careful. When I’m driving, I actually feel calm. And even just a little bit happy. The wind blows in my face. Speeding by on an open road, everything looks clean and bright. I don’t see the little details—the cracks and grime and ugliness. Not until I stop and I’m walking again.

Anyway, that’s why I like summer the best. Because I can cruise around all day long and not worry about my cars getting fucked up with snow and sleet and salt on the road.

I don’t even mind being Dante’s chauffeur. We’ve got a bunch of places to go this morning—gotta drop off payroll for our construction crews. They all want to get paid in cash, because half of them owe child support and taxes and they still need money for drinking and gambling and rent. Speaking of gambling, we’ve got to pick up the rake from the underground poker ring we’re running out of the King’s Arms Hotel.

So much of our day is this kind of tedious busywork. I miss the adrenaline shot of pulling proper jobs.

When I was fifteen and Dante was twenty-one, we used to pull the craziest shit. Armored truck heists, even a couple of bank robberies. Then he enlisted out of fucking nowhere and spent the next six years in Iraq. When he got back, he was completely different. He barely talks. He can’t take a joke. And he lost that daredevil spirit.

After we’ve made the rounds, we grab some lunch at Coco Pazzo, then Dante has to meet with our foreman. I’ve got zero interest in that, so I drop him off, planning to head back home and do some work on the Mustang. Ever since I juiced up the engine, it’s been overheating like crazy. Doesn’t help that it’s a hundred degrees out today and Dante’s been sitting in my passenger seat like a 250-pound block of granite, putting strain on the engine.

In fact, even though I’m driving slow on the way home, my gauges keep going higher and higher, and the car’s straining to go up the tiniest of hills. Fuck. I might not even make it back.

As I’m driving down Wells Street, I see the weathered sign for Axel Auto. Impulsively, I pull the wheel to the left, turning round the side of the building so I can pull up to the auto bay.

I haven’t been here in ages. I used to have Axel Rivera order parts for me, before you could buy anything you needed online. And he used to do work for my father, before I got to a level where I could fix any of our vehicles myself.

I expect to see Axel working in the bay like no time has passed at all.

Instead, I see a much slimmer figure bent over under the hood of an Accord, wrestling with something in the engine. Camille is struggling with a piece, finally wrenching it free and straightening up. She sets the cap down on a nearby bench, wiping her sweaty face with the back of her arm. Then, deciding that’s not enough, she strips off her shirt, using it to towel off her face, neck, and chest.

She’s only wearing a plain cotton bra underneath, wet with sweat. I’m surprised to see how fit Camille is. Her arms are lean and strong, and there’s a line of muscle down either side of her belly button. Plus, she’s got more up top than I would have guessed—full, soft breasts, cupped by the damp, clinging material of the bra. She always dresses like a dude. Turns out she’s actually a girl under all that grime.

I clear my throat. Camille jumps like a startled cat. When she sees who it is, she glowers at me and yanks her t-shirt back down over her head.

“This isn’t a peep show,” she snaps. “Exotica is twelve blocks that way.”

“Exotica burned down,” I tell her.

Actually, I burned it down myself, when I was in a tiff with the owner. It was my first foray into arson. It was pretty fucking satisfying seeing the flames roar up like a living thing, like a demon summoned from hell. I could see how people get addicted to it.

“Really?” Camille says, eyes wide. She has extremely dark eyes—a deep, liquid mocha color, as dark as her hair and lashes. Because she doesn’t smile much, her eyes give most of the expression to her face. She seems unnerved by what I said.

Oh, that’s right—Exotica is where her mom worked.

“Yeah,” I say. “It burned down in the winter. It’s just an empty lot now.”

She looks suspicious, like she thinks I’m fucking with her.

“How did it burn down?”

“Guess somebody spun around a pole too fast,” I smirk. “G-string friction. Only takes a spark to start a fire.”

Or several cans of gasoline and a zippo.

Camille scowls at me. “What do you want?” she says.

“Is that your best customer service?” I ask her. “No wonder this place is so busy.”

I pretend to look around at a host of invisible customers.

Camille’s nostrils flare.

“You’re not a customer,” she hisses.

“I might be,” I say. “My engine’s overheating. I want to look at it before I drive the rest of the way home.”

I don’t ask for permission to pull it into the bay; I just drive the car into an empty stall. Then I get out and pop the hood.

Camille peeks in, curious despite herself.

“Have you been using original parts?” she asks me. “You can get almost anything for the ‘65-‘68 models, but once you move into the ‘71-’73 . . .”

“This one’s 1970,” I tell her.

“Still—”

“It’s all original!” I snap.

“No performance brake kit?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

She makes an irritating little “Hmph!” sound, like she proved her point.

I’m starting to remember why nobody liked Camille at school. ‘Cause she’s a stubborn little know-it-all.

“Did you add a turbo?” she says. “How much horsepower is it at now?”

She’s really pissing me off. She’s acting like I’m some rich kid down at Wacker Drive, not knowing the first fucking thing about my own car.

“It’s not unbalanced!” I snap.

“Then why is it overheating?”

“You tell me, mechanical genius!”

She straightens up, glaring at me. “I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t work for you.”

“Where’s your dad?” I say. “He knows what he’s doing.”

I knew that would piss her off, but I underestimated how much. She snatches up the closest wrench and brandishes it like she’s going to hit me upside the head with it.

“He’s sleeping!” she yells. “And even if he weren’t, he’d tell you the exact same thing I’m telling you. Which is to FUCK OFF!”

She turns around and storms out of the auto bay, heading up the stairs to who knows where. Probably her apartment. I’m pretty sure her whole family lives above the shop. “Whole family” meaning her dad and that little brother who’s been selling Molly for Levi. I wonder if she knows about that. I don’t think Camille even drank in high school—she’s always been the responsible type.

Well, that’s her problem, not mine.

My problem right now is getting my car running smooth again. And if Camille’s going to stomp off, then I’m still gonna use her tools. No point letting a perfectly good garage go to waste.

Most of her equipment is older than Moses, but it’s well-maintained, organized, and clean. I set the radio to a better station, so I don’t have to listen to Shakira or whatever the fuck that was. Soon I’m elbow-deep in the engine, sorting out the Mustang.

After about an hour, I’ve concluded that there might have been a teeny sliver of truth to what Camille said. With some of the mods I’ve put on the engine, it’s running at double the horsepower it was originally intended to withstand. I may need to rethink some of the additions.

But that’s a job for my own garage. For now, I just need to top up the coolant. I sort that out, then I toss a couple hundred bucks on the workbench in return for the tools and materials.

I may be a criminal, but I’m not cheap.