Chapter 9 - The Meeting in Cicero
The garage in Berwyn smelled of old grease, burnt transmission fluid, and the cheap cherry air freshener that Marco always hung from the rearview mirrors of his stolen Cadillacs.
Damian sat on an inverted plastic milk crate in the middle of the bay, his grey coat folded over his knee, his Sig Sauer resting on the timber table between two rusty oil cans.
Marco Moretti was forty-eight, five inches shorter than Damian, with a belly that hung over his silver belt buckle and a face that looked like it had been punched out of wet clay and left in the sun to dry.
Three of Marco’s men stood by the open overhead door, their hands tucked into their jackets, watching the rain drip off the iron gutters outside.
"You got a kid," Marco said. He was chewing on a plastic toothpick, his grey teeth showing through his upper lip. "That’s what the boys from the North Side are saying. A kid with red hair and a waitress for a mother."
"His name is Leo," Damian said.
"Leo," Marco repeated, spitting a piece of plastic onto the greasy floor. "Sounds like an Italian boxer from the thirties. Is he yours?"
"He’s mine."
"And the girl?"
"She’s mine too," Damian said.
Marco laughed—a short, wet sound that ended in a rattle deep in his throat. "You always were soft on women from Michigan, Damian. Your father was the same way. He spent three years in Grand Rapids with that singer before he realized she was selling his dock manifests to the union reps in Detroit."
Damian didn't move a muscle. "My father died in his bed, Marco. His brother died in an alley behind a bakery in Berwyn because he talked too much about people's mothers."
The room went very cold.
The three men by the door shifted their weight, their shoes scraping against the concrete.
Marco’s smile vanished. He took the toothpick out of his mouth and dropped it into an empty beer can on the table. "You brought her to the North Shore, Damian. You put ten million in a trust for a kid who isn't three years old yet. That money belongs to the family."
"I am the family," Damian said.
"Not if you’re dead," Marco said softly.
Damian stood up. He didn't reach for his gun. He simply stood to his full height, his shadow stretching across the greasy concrete floor until it touched Marco’s boots.
"Try it, Marco," Damian said. "Send your two boys from Berwyn up to Lake Forest. See if they make it past the front gate. Rafe’s been sitting in the trees with a rifle since four this morning. He’s bored. He’d love the practice."
Marco looked at Damian’s face—at the absolute lack of doubt, the complete absence of fear or negotiation. He knew Damian had killed three men in a basement in South Chicago when he was twenty-two and hadn't missed a day of work the following morning.
"You’re making a mistake," Marco muttered, looking down at his oil cans.
May you like
"I don't make mistakes," Damian said, picking up his suit jacket and slinging it over his shoulder. "I make decisions. And my decision is that if I see any of your cars within five miles of Lake Forest, I’m taking the haulage contracts back and giving them to the union in Local 703."
He turned his back on Marco—a deliberate, lethal insult—and walked out into the rain where Rafe was waiting in the running Mercedes.
