by Dave Daren
He ran his hand over the hood of the car as he walked around it, and stood staring at it before he finally climbed the steps and rang the doorbell. His eyes were still glued to it when their housekeeper, Katarina, opened the door.
“Congratulations on the new ride,” she said with a smirk. “It’s nice.”
“Nice doesn’t begin to cover it,” the younger Febbo said. “How are you doing?”
“Good,” the young woman said as she stepped aside for us. “Your mother is almost done in the kitchen. I would wait in the dining room for her unless you want to hear a rant about how small the kitchen is and how there’s not even room for a proper hug.”
I pursed my lips together to keep from laughing, she’d clearly heard the martriarch vent about it already, and I almost felt bad for her being stuck in the smaller home with the frustrated woman.
“The dining room it is,” my client said as he led the way.
The townhouse was not nearly as grand as the Febbo estate. It was modeled in a more English style than an Italian villa, and the hallway where we entered was thin and dark. There was a long carpet runner that led past the stairs and straight back to the kitchen where I could glimpse Gulia as she rushed about.
There was a sitting room to the right with dark green couches and solid cherry wood side tables. Some of the light from the street peeked in through the bay window, and the wall directly across from the door was lined with bookshelves.
To the left was the dining room. A table that could sit six comfortably was the centerpiece, but with two other daughters, their husbands, and all of the grandchildren, I could see why Gulia was feeling cramped.
“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” Gulia called from the kitchen. “Take your seats. Your father is in the study. Katerina, can you go get him for me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the young woman said with a small smirk.
The whole house smelled like tomatoes, onions, and cheese, and my stomach growled as I wondered what delicious meal the matriarch had cooked up for us.
“Shall we?” Anthony asked as he led the way into the tiny dining room.
He took the seat to the left of the head of the table, across from where his mother sat, and right next to where his father would sit. The seat to his right was left open for me, and I gladly sat down as I looked at the plate of rolls that his sister brought in.
“She’s been at it all day,” Annie said. “Don’t bring up anything about this house. Not even a compliment. Unless you want to hear about how the house in Riverhead is taking too long.”
“It is taking too long,” my client said.
“I’ve already heard about it for the last two hours,” his sister said. “I’m warning you, don’t set her off.”
“Or what?” the mafioso asked with an arched eyebrow.
“I’ll put cat litter in your bed,” the Italian woman said. “Used cat litter.”
“You don’t have a cat,” her brother retorted.
“I have friends that do,” Annie said before she returned to the kitchen for another dish.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone threaten to put kitty litter in another person’s bed before,” I said.
“What can I say?” Anthony laughed. “Annie’s one of a kind.”
“Yes, yes, I am,” the woman in question said as she brought in a bowl filled to the brim with fresh salad.
“What are we talking about?” Gulia asked as she brought in a dish of baked ziti.
The large red casserole dish was covered in mozzarella cheese that still bubbled as she set it on the table. The top was spotted with fresh cut basil, grated parmesan cheese, and red pepper flakes that added a splash of color to the creamy white dish.
“Are we all ready to eat?” Sal asked as he came in with Katarina on his heels.
The head of the Febbo took his place at the head of the table while the rest of us filled in our spots. Katarina took the chair opposite of him, and the young woman kept her eyes down as if she was uncomfortable. She was usually a little more talkative, but she didn’t seem to like being on the end of the table.
I thought about switching places with her, but then I would be in the hot seat, and she started to relax before I could make up my mind on what I wanted to do. My attention shifted to Sal as I waited for him to make his plate. I’d learned pretty fast that the head of the family always took the first bite before the rest of us were allowed to start, and Gulia always came second even though she would protest and tell the kids to eat.
The surly man filled his plate with the ziti, rolls, and salad before he motioned for us to start. His appetite must’ve been in full swing because he didn’t bother to wait before he dug his fork into the delicious pasta. He’d probably been at work on the companies he wanted to sell, and that meant that after dinner he’d have more paperwork for me.
Over the last week I’d seen so many of the Febbo family companies that I was no longer shocked by the number of them. I’d already cleared three of them so that they could go legit once some new forms were filed, but there were seven more in my inbox that were a little more complicated and would involve shifting some assets and management around.
“How did you like the car?” the older Febbo asked once everyone had served themselves. He had an uncharacteristically large smile on his face as he looked at his son, and his eyes were bright with barely-contained joy.
“I admit that it’s better than I was expecting,” Anthony conceded. “But it must’ve cost a fortune.”
“Bah,” my client’s father said as he waved his hand. “You’ve earned it. The Serbs are off our backs, so is that damned Webber--”
“Language,” Gulia scolded him before she took a dainty bite of salad.
I had to hide a laugh in a cough when the matriarch corrected her husband. The Italian woman had said plenty of curse words in front of me before, most of them in Italian, and I’d recognized a few of them despite my WASP upbringing.
“We don’t curse at the dinner table,” the auburn-haired woman said as if she knew what had made me laugh.
“Excuse me, cara,” the patriarch reached over to squeeze his wife’s hand before he turned back to his son. “You’ve done a good job, Anthony, and I want to show that I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, Pops,” the younger Febbo said. “But Hunter was a big part of it, too. We should do something nice for him. Maybe a vacation?”
“A real one,” Annie said.
Anthony’s younger sister didn’t keep her nose out of family business quite as well as her mother, but her father gave her a look, and she gave a half-hearted shrug without an apology for interrupting.
I was fairly certain that Annie would be more than willing to take over if Anthony decided that he wanted to go back to his original plan of opening a brewery, but I’d learned enough to know that the reins would always be passed down to a man.
“A vacation would be nice,” I said. “But I can wait. We have a lot of work to do with the companies.”
“Speaking of which,” Sal said as he pointed a fork filled with ziti at me. “I have some things to discuss with you later. But that can wait.”
“I think you both could use a getaway,” Gulia said to change the subject. “You’ve both been putting in such long hours. I’ve never seen bags as big as the ones under your eyes. Have either of you even been sleeping?”
“I have,” I promised. “I get at least five hours a night. And I put up blackout curtains so that I can sleep past dawn.”
“Good,” the matriarch said with a nod of her head. “But five hours is hardly enough.”
She shook her head, took a big bite of her ziti, and then washed it down with a dry red wine. Her husband received a pointed look over the rim of her glass as if to tell him to back her up, and the surly man nodded in agreement.
“You should take the Enzo down the coast,” my client’s father said. “You can really open her up and see what she can do. Maybe go to Atlantic City.”
“They have a fantastic spa there,” Gulia added. “I can book you facials and a nice relaxing massage.”
“Facials?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Annie piped up. “Your skin is somehow oily and dry. And a facial will help get rid of those designer bags under your eyes.”
“I didn’t realize that I looked that bad,” I laughed.
“You look like you’re two steps from the grave,” the young woman said with a smirk.
“Annie!” her mother chided. “You don’t look quite that bad, Hunter. But I do think that you’ll enjoy it.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said.
Annie had begun to treat me like she treated Anthony, so I figured that the young woman had decided that I was part of the family, too. I was happy that I’d been so accepted because the Febbos were good people, though Sal still had second thoughts whenever I suggested taking the legal route rather than the way he’d always done things.
“Then it’s settled,” my client’s mother said with a nod. “I’ll book the whole trip for you. It’ll be this weekend so make sure you clear your schedules. Hunter, are you free Friday? Or do you have some court case that you have to be in town for?”
“I can leave on Friday,” I said. “My next court appearance is tomorrow morning.”
“And you won’t bring any new work with you,” the matriarch said, and she gave all of us a stern look, including her husband, and then broke into a bright grin as she tore apart one of the still warm rolls.
“I guess we’re taking a vacation,” Anthony said with a shrug. “It will be nice to take the Enzo down the coast. Though I’ll need to park it in a garage. I don’t trust the valets in Atlantic City. They’ll take the car out for a joyride and probably wreck it.”
“They’ll definitely wreck it,” Annie said with a nod. “That car is too much for mere mortals.”
“Let me guess, you want to give it a test drive?” my client said with a roll of his eyes.
“I am your baby sister,” the auburn-haired young woman said while she batted her eyelashes at her big brother.
“Which is why I wouldn’t trust you with a go-kart,” the mafioso teased.
I listened to their banter as I ate the rest of my meal and then went for seconds. Trips to see my own family were a little frequent, and I felt less disconnected when I was around the Febbo dinner table, though it always reminded me to call home and check in on my parents.
“You’ll need to bring Hank and Big Tony,” Sal said as the conversation lulled. “Cara, can you make sure that you book a suite big enough for all the boys?”
“Of course,” Gulia said with a warm smile. “Those two need a break, too. I’ll make sure that they have a massage.”
“I can’t picture Hank wanting one,” I said. “He wouldn’t be able to take his Glock with him.”
“You’d be surprised,” Anthony chuckled. “Don’t worry about Hank and Big Tony. Even if they have to check their weapons, they’ll be able to take care of just about anyone.”
“Does anyone want dessert?” my client’s mother asked as she stood. “I managed to make some gelato despite the tiny kitchen that I have at the moment. It's a banana with a caramel ribbon flavor. I wanted to make one that tasted like bananas Foster.”
“That sounds delicious,” I said as I put my fork down.
I was stuffed, but Gulia’s gelato was worth overeating for. Besides, there was nothing like a late-night run to work out the stress before bed. I’d ordered a treadmill for my bedroom since I still hadn’t found a gym that I liked, and with so many enemies it was better not to jog on an open road where a driveby was easy.
The three ladies all rose from the table and cleared the dinner dishes away before they brought out the ice cream bowls loaded with the sweetened dessert. Gulia brewed some coffee to go with the gelato, and soon I was in heaven as I tasted the caramel and banana creation.
At this point in the evening we’d usually retire to the back patio that overlooked the vineyards on the Riverhead estate, but the townhouse didn’t have a porch for us to recline on, so we stayed where we were in the dining room.
The conversation lulled as we all indulged, and occasionally Gulia would add something about the renovations that she wanted to make to the big house. She huffed a few times at her daughter when Annie argued that something wasn’t needed, but Sal always cleared his throat and gave the younger woman a pointed stare that quieted her.
“This was the best one yet,” I said when I’d finally finished the large helping that I’d been given. “I’d forgotten how much I love caramel and banana together.”
“It’s an underrated taste,” Gulia said with a proud smile. “I’m glad that you like it. Once I’m back in my real kitchen, I’ll make you some for your house. I can even write down the recipe so that Tommaso can make it, too.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think I’m going to give him a raise if he keeps cooking for me. He’s become my paralegal and my personal chef.”
“He’s a good cook,” Annie said. “So I’ve heard.”
The young woman glanced over at her brother and then her father as a blush crept up her cheeks. Dating wasn’t talked about very often in the Febbo household, at least not where I was in earshot, but I imagined that as the baby girl of the family she had to deal with a lot of overprotectiveness from her father and older brother.
“I’m sure,” Sal said. “He’s a good kid.”
That one comment made Annie smile brighter than I had ever seen, and I guessed that it was as close to getting an approval as she was going to get. I wasn’t sure how I felt about my paralegal dating my client’s baby sister, but I couldn’t be too upset about it. At least as long as they kept it out of the office.
“We should retire to the study,” the patriarch said as he rose from his chair. “I want to go over some of the companies with Hunter.”
The older man was a little stiff as he walked out of the room and toward his makeshift office. The coma he’d been in for months after the attempt on his life had left its mark on him, and he’d only finished his physical therapy a few weeks ago. He refused to walk with a cane, at least if he could help it, and so his pace was slow and jilted.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said to Gulia before I wiped my lips one last time and rose from my chair.
“I’ll email all of your reservation information to Anthony,” the auburn-haired woman said. “And when you come back, I want you to look like you’ve slept more than five hours a night.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I chuckled.
The beautiful woman nodded her head and then breezed out of the room with our empty gelato bowls.
“What does she think a weekend in Atlantic City looks like?” Anthony muttered as we walked to the study. “We’re probably going to be at shows and the casino until dawn every night.”
“We’ll have to make sure the facial does its work,” I said. “Maybe we can get two.”
“We should go to the sauna before we leave to get all of the booze out of our systems,” the younger Febbo said. “Have you ever been to Atlantic City?”
“Once or twice,” I said. “Until recently, I didn’t really have the disposable funds for that.”
“Ah,” the mafioso said with an understanding nod. “Well, then, you’ll have to go barhopping with me. There are so many great hidden gems that most tourists would never know about. You’re going to love it.”
“Am I going to remember it?” I teased.
“Maybe,” he said with a smirk. “But I’ll take plenty of pictures to show you, just in case you forget.”
“Naturally,” I said. “We’ll see who ends up remembering more.”
I walked into the study and looked around the small room. It had a dark green carpet that matched the furniture in the sitting room, cherry wood bookshelves that were lined with leather clad volumes, and a heavy desk that almost spanned the space between the walls. There were no windows, but a chandelier ma
de out of deer horns had been hung above the desk.
“You two should be careful,” Sal said. “The Serbians can find you even in Atlantic City. That’s why Hank and Big Tony are going with you. You should still have fun, but make sure it’s not too much fun. You understand?”
“Yes, sir,” my client said with a somber nod of his head as he took the chair in front of his dad’s desk.
“Yes, sir,” I seconded.
The head of the Febbo family gave us both a stern nod like he was talking to two college students rather than grown men who’d been to law school and run the family business, though that was likely a hard habit for him to break.
“Alright,” he cleared his throat and pulled out a stack of folders. “Let’s get to work. I’ve found three more companies that can be liquidated. They shouldn’t be that difficult. Most of their funds come from online sales, and one of them is based in Sweden.”
“Okay,” I said as I took the offered paperwork.
I’d handled a few of the liquidations already, but online businesses were a little tricky since some of them didn’t have physical locations, and I made a mental note to check and see if any of the new ones did or not.
Sal explained what he wanted done, where he wanted the money placed, and the aspects of the companies that he wanted to keep for the future. Apparently one of them did have some inventory that would need to be distributed, but he wanted that to be added to another company that he would be keeping.
The next few hours were spent with me taking notes and asking questions while Anthony would occasionally give his input on a particular brand or move. I was happy to see how much the head of the family listened to his son, and I realized that the older man must have been more ready for retirement than ever. It wasn’t a surprise, especially after the chaos of the last year and a half, and it was finally safe enough for him to do it with the Serbians behind bars.
It was almost two a.m. by the time we’d finally finished. Sal had added two more companies that he wanted me to review to the first stack he’d handed me. He hadn’t quite figured out what he wanted to do with them, but he wanted me to look them over and give him my opinions. I was reminded that he would have the final say, and that I should keep everything that we’d discussed between us, but over all he’d seemed a little more accepting of me than he had when he’d first come back from being in a coma.
