by Hugo Damas
“Don Infeperio,” he corrected, making the man gulp.
“You should leave,” the nervous button told him, showing courage.
Lazaros considered his options. He could shoot them, but there were probably more of them inside. He could try and turn ‘em. Would he able to?
“D’you know what I’m doin’ ‘ere?” They shook their heads. “I’m here to stop Giuseppe from making a very bad mistake.”
“He ain’t he--”
“By taking his wife and daughter,” Lazaros interrupted. The two looked at him in shock, but he just spat out the spent cigar and got another.
Lazaro let the silence last as he lit the new one and took a big slow puff.
“Yeah. You dunno anything, you’re too down the food chain, but the monsters who’re tearing the East a new one? They want the whole thing. They’ll come for us. Meanwhile, the Shadow Conclave, ever hear of it?”
They shook their heads. Lazaros found their unwillingness to get aggressive pretty promising.
“They’re this super-secret organization, see? They wanna take out the Beasts, but what really matters is that they’re backing me, see? So yeah, I’m gunning for top o’ the food chain and I’m ready to fight for it, and I’ll win too, see?” He paused to breathe out the smoke, using it to keep his tempo and his calm. It was easy to lie when it involved just some small details in-between truths.
“Giuseppe already agreed to bend, see? I was going to unite everyone peacefully but guess who’s gettin’ in the way?” Lazaros asked.
They didn’t answer, of course, they wouldn’t be smart enough. If they were, they wouldn’t be where they are in life. But that was okay, stupidity is easy to compensate for when people are willing to listen and to follow.
“Donna, you hollow-heads. She turned your boss against me again, but if I get his blood, he’ll think twice about fightin’ me in a war. Fer a while, at least.”
They looked so confused he almost laughed.
“Listen,” Lazaros called, warning them. “I’m goin’ to win, and even if I don’t, you know if we go to war, Giuseppe sure as crap ain’t gonna win. I’m the only real contender that’s here, see? Talkin’ to you ‘cause you can be of use. You follow what I’m saying?”
“We ain’t no rats,” the loyal button said.
“Helping me ain’t being a rat, I’m not a pig,” Lazaros said a bit impatiently, it was time to start making them feel like that was an offer that they couldn’t refuse. “Helping me’s the thing to do if you wanna live to see the end of the world.” He grinned, “or a long life should the world not end -- which it won’t, of course.”
Now to make it clear to them that if they refused him, they would not only be choosing the wrong side, the losing side, but they would be painting a personal bullseye on their backs.
“Turn me down now, and I’ll make sure you two see exactly one day o’ action when the war starts. If I can guarantee you anythin’ is that I’m not backin’ out. That’s why I’m here. I’m a fighter, unlike yer boss…”
They seemed to notice that the Don was alone for the first time. They looked behind him and then back down at him. They were thinking, he could tell by their pained faces.
They looked at each other. If it were just one dumb son of a gun, he’d be convinced, but the more there are of them, the harder it is to sell a side turn. If they doubted Lazaros even the slightest bit, he would be dead.
In fact, if they were smart enough, they would just kill him. Everyone would believe them if they said what he had said and Donna would easily convince Protos to bend, he wasn’t the type to look for revenge no matter what, he’d seek survival for the family.
However, they nodded at each other, lighting up Lazaros’s heart.
“Alright, boss. We’re with ya.” Lazaros then noticed they were brothers. Their brows were almost identical, as were their noses. That was why it had been possible to turn them, they counted as one.
Lazaros smiled. He gave them that winning smile he had had just before talking to Donna. That was a good start.
“Go inside, make up some lie and bring’em out to the car here.”
They nodded, looking serious. “You gottit.”
They went inside the gate and Lazaros could hardly contain himself. He laughed in his head, knowing he had pulled it off. This small part and it was such a small part, but with it, he could see an unraveling chain of events that looked unstoppable to him.
They came out with the girls, and the look on the mother’s face made Lazaros feel so utterly powerful.
How is he here? The mother seemed to be thinking. She didn’t understand why her husband’s own men, probably men she talked to and had been friendly with, had just delivered her and her daughter to him.
The answer was power. Not money, just true power. The thing that can move anything in the world. Because it can move people.
The lady didn’t want to worry her daughter, a pretty eight-year-old.
“Beautiful ladies, hello, let’s not make any noise, yeah? The neighbors will get upset,” Lazaros told them, smirking meaningfully. The mother hesitated, probably considering whether or not to yell. He focused on her and didn’t give her much time to decide.
“Go on, get in.” Lazaros opened the car door and nodded them inside, keeping the other hand inside the overcoat as he gave them a polite little bow. The little girl giggled and just went inside, the mother almost grabbed her but thought better of it in a moment of hesitation. That was it.
“Don’t worry,” Lazaros told her, standing up straight. “Odds are these’ll just be some short holidays.”
“Odds are?” She asked, a bit anxious. He shrugged in response.
“Why do you think I’m doin’ this? It’ll all depend on Giuseppe, see? N’ how much he cares for ya. Now get in.”
He didn’t have to explain much. Although she didn’t get the long-term plan, she understood the short. She knew she was being kidnapped for leverage. Scared and nervous, she stepped inside the car. It was a four-sitter, so he sat one of the brothers with the girls and the other in the front on the seat next to his. Lazaros would be driving.
You think you can get one up on me, you old hag? Lazaros thought, driving off.
His hands were still stiff on the wheel. Lazaros still felt cornered, perceiving the entire web Donna had fashioned to entrap him. However, within an hour, he had force-grasped a fighting chance. He was loose enough to have a shot, and if there’s anything he never wasted, it was that one single shot.
I’ll show you what happens when you go against Lazaros Infeperio. No matter who you are.
* * *
“YOU RAT!”
Lazaros did his best not to snort. “Now let’s—”
“I WILL KILL YOU! You come for my daughter?!? I WILL KILL YOU!!!”
It was an expected reaction. Lazaros would’ve thought less of the man if he wasn’t murderously angry.
“Jus’ call me back once you can—”
“DEAD! YA HEAR ME?? YOU’RE DEAD!”
“Just call me back when you’ve calmed down, we’ll talk this out.”
“YOU’LL TALK IT OUT WITH MY BASEBAT, YOU—”
Lazaros hung up. Basebat?
Florin and Protos were there with him, along with four big lugs which were part of Florin’s crew. His two new buttons were guarding the door. The owners of that house were huddled on a couch, attempting to silently shrink away from Lazaros’s notice. The girls were stashed in the kitchen, being watched by the last of Florin’s crew that had shown up.
“This is reckless, Lazaros,” Protos said. Again.
“I know, you don’t think I know?” Protos had brought up intelligent points, unwittingly curbing a lot of Lazaros’s confidence. But it was done, the course was set. “Donna’ll have our heads on a stake if we don’t fight.”
“This will not help us,” Protos argued. “You know very well he’s contacting her, and then she’ll contact everyone else. It’ll be near impossible to co
nvince them to bend now.”
“I’ve given up on convincing, it was impossible from the start,” Lazaros looked out the window, purely annoyed. “I’m gonna force ‘em, see?”
“How? We can’t stand against them all, not with the meager assistance the Conclave provided.”
“Look, if Giuseppe’s on my side, it opens up the playin’ field. Suddenly, they don’t have everyone, see? I can turn ‘em then.”
“You won’t turn Donna,” Protos said.
“I will if I turn everyone else,” Lazaros said. “Same ol’ plan, see? Just a different execution.”
“And I’ll ask you the same thing I did before, would you bend?”
Lazaros turned to him and gave him a meaningful look. The tone of voice had been a bit too judgmental.
“She ain’t me.” Lazaros grinned. “There ain’t no one like me, see? Seventy years and she never got to be The Don at the Conclave. Not once.”
“That’s right, boss,” Florin nodded in support. “We got this.”
“And it ain’t ‘cause she’s a broad,” he continued, ignoring Florin. Convincing him was meaningless, it was Protos’s trust he wanted. “I was there, they don’t care about that stuff.”
Protos regarded him levelly.
“Lazaros, you’re the boss, and I will do what you say. My counsel is that you should admit you acted rashly. But your instincts are what they are, they’re why we’re so strong, so I trust them. Even when they’re unreasonable.”
Lazaros smiled. Protos wasn’t blindly loyal, he just recognized the potential. He recognized the skills Lazaro had, that was why he was his consiglieri.
“But let’s take a breath and maybe make some sound decisions,” Protos added.
“I’ve thought about it, and I don’t see any move that would have been better,” Lazaros said.
“That’s Donna,” Protos agreed, “she leaves very little to chance.”
“But she has to leave that little,” Lazaros said, grinning. “At least where I’m concerned, she can’t make my chances nil.”
“No, she cannot,” Protos admitted.
Lazaros pulled out a cigar, it had been almost thirty minutes since he had last had one. He lit it and started smoking.
“Giuseppe will call back,” the Don assured the whole room, himself above all. “Without threats this time.”
“Should we be worried ‘bout an attack?” That was Florin, always thinking of danger.
“Always a chance.” Protos raised an eyebrow, looking at Lazaros.
“It’s fine! Florin, get your buttons outside, this nice couple ain’t gonna try n’ hurt us, ain’t that right?” Lazaros asked, dangerously.
They didn’t even answer, keeping their frozen disposition. Lazaros grunted in annoyance.
Florin laughed and motioned to his boys. They left through the front door to stand guard all around the house. Florin stayed, however.
“You sure we can trust the twins?”
Already a nickname. Lazaros smiled. “Yeah, they’re friends of mine,” meaning he was vouching for them, even though they were still not a part of the Infeperio family. He felt safe to do so, they seemed legitimately convinced the winning side was Lazaros’. That alone made ‘em okay in his book. “Argh, that bastard’s sure taking his sweet time.”
“He might be talking to Donna still. We should assume whatever he’s doing or saying is by her instructions.”
“He might be too angry to obey, though,” Lazaro pointed out, “that’s kinda what I’m gunning for.”
“We should assume the worst,” Protos cautioned.
“Yeah yeah.” Lazaros blew smoke up, trying to remain calm. “Always hate the waitin’ the most, I’m tellin’ you.”
“I know,” Protos smiled. “Remember back in Varonapolis? When we were waiting on Francesco to go to the police?”
“Ha.” He did remember, now that Protos mentioned it. “Haven’t thought about that in years. If we were wrong about ‘im, the real rat would’ve sold us out to the pigs.”
“You almost wanted to ice them all and be done with it,” Protos said.
“Makes my damn skin crawl, Protos, rattin’ to the pigs. But we couldn’t risk losing good people.”
“Yes, some of them have turned out to be very worth the stress.”
The Don looked back at Florin. It was interesting how close one can be to death and never know about it. He knew the same had happened to him a lot of times, most likely.
“Can’t end like this, Protos. The hard part was supposed to be over, we can’t let Donna take all of it from us.”
“We won’t, boss,” Florin nodded.
“We just have to try and waste as little resources as we can,” Protos brought up. “After all, the real threat is something we will still have to contend with.”
It made sense. His blood boiled and his emotional state was fluctuating like crazy, he realized. From high confidence to stressed out to worried and then all the way back around. Lazaros wanted to just start a war but he couldn’t, he needed as many resources as possible to deal with the Beasts. And moreover, if he lost too much, he’d never be able to strong-arm the law in the first place.
The phone rang. Finally.
Lazaros put out the cigar on a table and grabbed hold of the handle. He then looked at the couple again, a young man and woman who looked bland in their stay-at-home-all-day clothes.
“You two still deaf?” Lazaros asked, and they shivered but didn’t answer. “Good. Keep it that way.”
He traded a glance with Protos before lifting the handle to have what could be the most important conversation of his life.
He was surprised by Giuseppe saying absolutely nothing.
“Hello?” Lazaros called.
Nothing but silence. It was him, though. It had to be.
“C’mon Giuseppe, we’ve butted heads enough times -- you know I got no intention to hurt yer girls.”
There was no reply, but the Don could hear the shallow breathing on the other side of the phone. He decided to wait it out, but after a long minute, his patience was burning up to ashes.
“Fanabala, stop bein’ weird and say somethin’!”
“Everythin’s happenin’ too fast, Lazaros,” his voice woke up. “It’s getting harder and harder to make decisions.”
Lazaros grinned, happily. “Well this one ain’t hard,” he said without the slightest bit of hesitation. “You probably guessed already why I’m doin’ this, right?”
Silence again. He traded glances with Protos, it would be ideal if Giuseppe himself admitted about Donna, it would be a sign of at least an inclination to choose him over her.
“Donna,” the voice came over the phone, making Lazaros smirk wide.
“I figured she’d gotten to ya,” Lazaros said. “I figure she got to everyone by now.”
“What’d ya expect from me, here? Let’s just put it out there, what do ya want?” Giuseppe asked.
“I want you on my side, Giuseppe! Just that,” Lazaros said.
“Just that…” the voice said, sarcastically. “And how would I show I’m on yer side?”
Lazaros took a winning puff of his cigar.
“I’ll go on like nothing’s happened, see? Talk to the rest,” he blew audibly into the speaker end of the phone, so Giuseppe would hear it and know he was casually smoking. “You talk to ‘em after I do. You explain to ‘em yer sidin’ with me, and you suggest they do the same.”
“That’s all, huh? Play your lapdog?”
“Don’t be so dramatic, my friend,” Lazaros said again. He could say it in a very defusing way. It hadn’t worked with Donna, but it would work on Giuseppe. “I want your alliance. Under me, sure, but we’ll still be family. Family with a past we need to bury, sure, but still family. I want everyone together, I don’t want a war.”
Protos gave him a look of alertness, and Lazaros nodded, understanding what the old man wanted him to add. “Even though I’ll win it. I don’t want to lose people. After
all, the Beasts are comin’.”
Giuseppe was silent for a long time again. Well, in reality, for a few seconds, but it felt like a long time.
“When will ya lettem go?” Giuseppe asked, tersely.
“When I can trust ya, Giuseppe,” Lazaros replied.
“…So when you’ve won?”
“Doesn’t have to take long,” the Don said. “Just need everyone to be a big happy family. Under me.”
Lazaros heard the man sigh. It was a sigh of defeat, a breath of deliverance.
“Infeperio…I swear if you make me regret this, I will come after you so hard people will be talkin’ about it as they’re flyin’ cars to the moon.”
Lazaros almost laughed, that was a hilarious way to threaten someone.
“Well, for the good o’ the future then! Happy to have ya on my side o’ this. Start with Pedro and Tulio, I talked to ‘em already.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay. Can I talk to her?” Giuseppe requested.
“Of course,” Lazaros said, nodding at Florin, and he knew what he wanted. He walked straight to the kitchen to go get Giuseppe’s wife.
Lazaros muted the phone against his torso so he could instruct her. “Don’t tell ‘im where we are.” Then he handed her the phone. He walked back to Protos, leaving Florin to watch over her.
“See?”
“Can’t argue with results,” Protos said, shrugging gladly. “Our chances are pretty good, now.”
“I’m thinkin’ you can double-tap ‘em, Protos. I talk, Giuseppe talks, then you go and make first contact. Make it official, see? Let’s not give ‘em much time to talk to Donna and come up with a counter-plan.”
“Spreading ourselves thin, don’t you think?” Protos pointed out, ever the worry wart.
That notion only made Lazaros smile happily.
“Soon, Protos. Soon we’ll be too big for that to even happen, see? Just a few more risks, my friend, just a few more risks.”
Protos nodded in agreement, and Lazaros put out his cigar. Giuseppe’s wife had just been explaining that neither she nor her daughter had been hurt and at one point yelled at him for not posting more guards once he knew Lazaros was vying to take over.
“I told you he was trouble, I told you not to trust them!”
