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The Freeloader Who Kept the Mob’s Books

NovelShort new Completed

Billionaire Mafia CEO Hot

Chapters (5)

Chapter 1

The first time Nico brought his girlfriend along, he asked if I minded dropping her at work. The coffee shop was two blocks from the Brooklyn social club where I kept the Bellandi family’s books. I told him it was fine. After that, he stopped asking. Nico had driven my father for eleven years. When he started driving me, he still got out to open my door, even in the rain. The morning I found the note, he stayed behind the wheel and watched me open it myself. A yellow sticky note was stuck to the leather on my side of the back seat. NO FREELOADERS. I peeled it off. “Nico. What’s this?” His girlfriend twisted around in the passenger seat. “You can read, right? Every morning you climb into my boyfriend’s car like he owes you a ride. If you can’t afford a cab, stay home.” Nico met my eyes in the rearview mirror, then looked away. “I don’t know why you think he’s your personal chauffeur,” she added. “It’s embarrassing.” At that, Nico got out and came around to the rear door. He lowered his voice. “Ms. Bellandi, she doesn’t know I’m your chauffeur.” “What did you tell her you do?” “I told her I work for the family.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “She gets jealous. This is just her way of showing she cares.” “Does she think the Cadillac is yours?” He looked past me. Through the windshield, I could see her checking the time on her phone. “She doesn’t want to ride with you,” he said. “I’ll drop her off first, then come back for you.” He shut the rear door while I was still standing there with the note in my hand. By the time I said his name again, he was behind the wheel. His girlfriend reached over and turned up the radio. Neither of them looked back as they pulled away. My father would have called the club. The men who brought their crews’ envelopes to my counting room took my word on what they owed. Two of them were already there that morning. Either one could have brought Nico back before his girlfriend finished tying her apron. I folded the sticky note and put it in my coat pocket. Then I took out my phone and dialed 911. “I’d like to report a stolen car,” I said. “My driver just drove off in my Cadillac without my permission. There’s a woman with him. I have the plate number.” …… Twenty minutes later, a patrol car pulled up. I’d just handed one of the officers my license when I heard tires squeal at the corner. My Cadillac came into view. Nico hit the brakes so hard the nose dipped, then threw the driver’s door open. He was halfway to me before he seemed to realize how fast he was moving. He stopped and smoothed the front of his jacket. “Ms. Bellandi, what happened?” He looked from me to the officers. “What are the cops doing here?” I let him wait for an answer. One of the officers handed back my license. “Ms. Bellandi reported that someone drove off in her car without permission. Were you behind the wheel?” “Yes, but I’m her driver. I pick her up every morning.” Nico raised both hands, palms out. “I dropped somebody off on the way. It took a couple of extra minutes. That’s all.” “On the way to where?” I asked. He looked at the empty passenger seat. “Look, I brought it straight back.” He pointed at the Cadillac, trying for a smile. “You can see that for yourself. Nobody stole anything.” The officer turned back to me. “Do you still want to make a report, Ms. Bellandi?” Before I could answer, Nico took a step closer and dropped his voice. “Please. Think about my dad. All those years he drove for you and your father. Just let this go.” I looked at him then. “He’s still sick,” Nico said. “You know how long he’s been after me to find somebody. I finally do, and she thinks there’s something going on every time I pick you up. I was trying to keep the peace. What was I supposed to do?” Tell her whose car she was sitting in. He could have managed that in one sentence. But when he brought up his father, I pictured Owen holding that same rear door open with both hands on a windy day so it wouldn’t swing shut on me. He’d driven my father for eleven years and me for six. In all that time, he’d never been late and never picked up so much as a parking ticket. Every Christmas I gave him a bonus in a plain envelope. Every Christmas he tried to hand it back, and I had to tell him to take it home before he’d put it in his coat. Three months earlier, Owen’s doctor had told him he needed to stop working while he received treatment for a lung condition. Owen turned in his keys that week. On his last day, he stood in my office above the social club, turning his cap in his hands. I’d already thanked him and told him to call if he needed anything. He was still standing there. “It’s my boy,” he finally said. “Nico lost his job. If you’ve got something for him, would you give him a chance?” Men came into that office all the time to collect on favors they claimed my father owed them. In seventeen years, Owen had never asked for one. I told him his son could start Monday.

Chapter 2

Nico gave me little cause to worry at first. For two months he was outside my building five minutes early, the Cadillac was spotless, and he knew to leave the radio off when I went over the crew receipts. Owen used to keep a spare pen handy because I was always losing mine. Nico never thought that far ahead, but he got me where I needed to be. Then, at the start of his third month, I came downstairs and found a woman touching up her red lipstick in the visor mirror. Nico got out before I reached the car. He shut his door and came around to mine. “Ms. Bellandi, that’s my girlfriend, Cara Fox,” he said quietly. “She works at the coffee shop two blocks from the club. Do you mind if we drop her off?” I had a nine o’clock with a bookmaker whose figures had come up short two weeks running. We had time to stop for Cara. “Sure,” I said, and got in. By the end of the week, she was already in the car every morning when Nico pulled up. At first, she mostly took pictures. She’d lean across the console to get the Cadillac badge in the shot, then film herself stepping out at the coffee shop. Once, I heard her tell the camera she could get used to being driven to work like this. She was young. I could live with a little showing off. It was the way she looked at me that I couldn’t figure out. She’d turn when I opened the door, give my coat and shoes a slow once-over, then face forward without saying hello. One morning, as soon as I buckled in, she pulled a bottle of perfume from her bag and sprayed it over her shoulder. The mist hit the back of my throat. “Jesus,” she said. “How does a car this expensive always smell so cheap?” I figured she’d picked up on something I hadn’t. I sent Nico to get the car detailed. The next morning it smelled faintly of leather cleaner. Even so, when I stepped out to pick up an envelope on the way to the coffee shop, I glanced back and saw Cara spraying disinfectant on the seat I’d just left. A few days later, I opened the door to find a disposable seat cover stretched over my side of the back seat. “Nico,” I said. “A word.” He followed me onto the sidewalk. “She’s worried something might get on your clothes,” he said. “That’s all. She’s particular about keeping things clean.” “She put it on my seat.” “I know. She was trying to be considerate.” Through the window, I could see Cara checking her lipstick. Inside the club, three men were waiting to explain why the money in their envelopes didn’t match the numbers they’d given me. I had to hear them out, count the cash again, and decide which of them was lying. I let Nico’s answer stand and went to work. The note had finally made sense of the perfume, the disinfectant, and the plastic over the leather. Cara thought I was the one getting a free ride. When I called 911, I’d meant to make both of them answer for driving off in my car. Now, on the sidewalk, one of the officers reached for his notebook. Nico dropped to his knees. “I’ll tell her the truth today,” he said. “She’ll never ride in your car again. I swear.” I could see one of the officers watching him. “Please, Ms. Bellandi. My dad’s sick. For his sake. Just this once.” I looked down at him. Owen had asked me to give his son a chance. In all those years he’d worked for us, that was the one thing he’d ever wanted from me. I sighed and turned to the officer. “I have my car back. I won’t be pursuing it.” Nico stayed quiet until the patrol car pulled away. Then he let out a long breath and thanked me three times on the short walk back to the Cadillac. He opened my door and stood there waiting. “Take me to the club,” I said. Over the next two weeks, the passenger seat was empty every morning. Nico had the car cleaned again, right down to the little patch of adhesive the note had left on the leather. He drove as smoothly as ever. He just couldn’t seem to get there on time. The first time, an accident had backed up traffic. The next time, his alarm hadn’t gone off. Then a pipe burst in his apartment, and he’d had to talk to the neighbors downstairs about water coming through their ceiling. Every excuse got a little more elaborate. He always got out, opened my door, and apologized before I could ask what had happened. I had my doubts. For the time being, I let it slide.

Chapter 3

By Saturday, I’d heard enough excuses from Nico to last me the month. On a whim, I decided to spend the weekend at my house in Westchester. I hadn’t been there in weeks. By noon I’d packed a bag and told the men at the club they could settle their own arguments until Monday. I called Nico. “Where are you? I need you to come pick me up.” For a few seconds, all I heard was his breathing. “Ms. Bellandi, I found a flat this morning,” he said at last. “I’m at the tire shop now. The guy says he can’t get the right tire in until tomorrow.” He paused just long enough for me to wonder why he hadn’t called me when he found it. “Where are you headed?” he asked. “I can get a car sent over.” “Forget it. I’ll call one myself.” The driver dropped me at the gate, which somebody had left wide open. I could see my black Cadillac parked beside the front steps. I checked the plate. Then I walked around the car and looked at all four tires. The front door was ajar. Nico knew the gate code, and the spare house key was on the ring I’d given him for the car. I’d asked him to use it once to let in a repairman. I pushed the door open. The first thing I noticed was the smell of stale cigarettes. Then I saw the rug. Someone had tracked mud from one end of the rug to the other. Empty liquor bottles crowded the coffee table, along with orange peels and a pile of sunflower seed shells. Someone had stubbed out a cigarette on the arm of my sofa. Two more had burned holes in the cushion beside it. I’d spent six months getting that room the way I wanted it. The rug alone had taken three trips to a dealer in Manhattan. At the club, I could hardly get through a cup of coffee without somebody knocking to tell me who owed us money. Up here I could sit by the window until the light went and hear nothing but the wind in the trees. I set my bag down. I’d been holding the handle so tight it had left a mark across my palm. Cara was on the couch facing the door, surrounded by people I’d never seen before. Nobody had noticed me come in. “You hit the jackpot,” a woman beside her said. “A guy who runs the Bellandis’ Brooklyn operation and still goes out for sweet potatoes because you said you felt like having one.” “Roasted sweet potatoes,” somebody corrected. “She told him which place to go to, and he was out the door before she finished her drink.” “When you marry him, remember who knew you when you were making lattes.” Cara smiled into her glass. Then she looked up and saw me. She set down her glass, walked straight up to me, and slapped me before I could get a word out. My head jerked sideways. I put a hand to my cheek. The sting took a second to catch up with the sound. “You shameless bitch,” she said. “You followed my boyfriend all the way up here?” Nobody on the couch moved. “Cara,” one of them said. “Who is she?” “The freeloader I told you about.” Cara pointed at me without taking her eyes off my face. “Hitching rides with him every morning wasn’t enough. Now she thinks she can walk right into his house.” I lowered my hand. “Who told you this was Nico’s house?” She laughed. “Nico did. Who else?” She said it with such certainty that I let her keep talking. “You found out he runs things for the Bellandis in Brooklyn and decided you wanted a piece of it. First you need a ride every morning. Then there’s always some reason you’ve got to talk to him alone. Now you show up at his weekend place hoping to get him to yourself.” Behind her, somebody quietly put a glass down on the table. “He told me you keep his books,” Cara went on. “He drives you to the club because you work for him and he feels sorry for you. That’s all it is. Get that through your head.” I’d wondered why she was so sure about the car. Nico had spent two months driving me before he ever brought her along. He knew which crews paid tribute at the club and who came to see me when their envelopes were short. He’d heard me take enough calls from the back seat to talk about it like it was his business. He’d taken enough of my life to make his story sound true. The Cadillac was his. The house was his. The men at the club answered to him. And I was the woman he paid to keep his books.

Chapter 4

I almost laughed. Then I remembered Nico swearing he’d tell her the truth. Cara turned to her friends and raised her voice. “You want to know how far she’ll go? Every morning, she gets in his car like the back seat’s got her name on it. I left her a note telling her to find her own ride, and she called the cops. Told them Nico was harassing a woman who worked for him.” Someone on the couch let out a low whistle. “Now he has to take me to the coffee shop first, then go all the way back for her,” Cara went on. “If he cuts her off, she’ll tell people he’s punishing her for going to the cops. The family can’t have that kind of talk going around. Nico has to think about his reputation.” There it was. The accident that had backed up traffic. The alarm that hadn’t gone off. The burst pipe and the neighbors downstairs. Every time I’d opened the door and found the passenger seat empty, I’d taken it as proof that Nico had kept his word. All it proved was that he’d already dropped her off. I’d given him a second chance because of Owen. Nico had used it to figure out how to keep lying to both of us. I called the lawyer who handled the Bellandi family’s properties. He’d closed the sale on the Westchester house himself. He picked up on the second ring. “I’m at the Westchester house. Get here now and bring some people with you. The place is full of strangers. I want the damage documented before anybody leaves.” Cara ripped the phone out of my hand and threw it down. It struck the hearth and landed facedown among the cigarette butts. “Your house?” she said. “Jesus, do you even hear yourself? This is Nico’s house.” “Somebody ought to tell her she has to land the guy before she starts claiming his property,” a woman on the couch said. Another snorted. “She heard he had money and got down on her knees. That’s all there is to it.” “You’re too nice, Cara,” said a third. “I’d have slapped her twice.” Cara stepped closer. My cheek was still hot from the first slap. This time, I saw her hand coming, but she went for my collar. She twisted the fabric in her fist and pulled me toward her. “Hear that?” she said. “Everybody in this room knows what you are.” Her eyes dropped to my throat. My collar had fallen open, exposing the little green pendant I wore beneath my clothes. “Well, somebody paid good money for that.” She hooked a finger through the chain. “Who’d you sleep with to get it?” I went for her wrist, but she jerked her hand back before I could get a grip. The clasp snapped. By the time I felt the scrape on the back of my neck, the pendant was swinging from her fingers. “Give it back.” Cara looked up at my face. Whatever she saw there made her smile. “That valuable, huh?” “It’s worth nothing to you.” I reached for the chain. She pulled it away. “It was my mother’s. Give it back, Cara.” I’d been sick from the day I was born. When I was four, I spent three nights unconscious in a hospital bed. On the third night, a doctor took my parents into the hall and told them to prepare themselves. My father had called every specialist whose name he knew. My mother went to a shrine in the hills where she’d prayed as a girl. A priest there kept a small jade pendant carved with the image of the Virgin. She meant to bring it back to the hospital and put it in my hand. She vowed to make the climb on foot, dropping to her knees and touching her forehead to the ground after every step. It was a hundred degrees that afternoon. By the time she reached the shrine, her knees were torn open and blood was running into her eyes. Two women held her upright while the priest put the pendant in her palm. I woke up in the hospital. By then, my mother had been taken in with heatstroke. She never recovered. The last time I saw her, someone lifted me onto the edge of her bed. She took my hand between hers and pressed the jade into it. I remember how much effort it took her to close my fingers around something that small. “Promise me you’ll keep it safe,” she whispered. I promised. For years, every time I changed the chain, I sat down and did it over a folded towel so the pendant couldn’t fall onto the floor. It was the only thing I wore every day. Now Cara had it dangling a few inches above the stone hearth. I stopped reaching for it. I was afraid she’d let go just to watch me scramble. “Cara,” I said, as evenly as I could. “Put it in my hand.” She watched me hold out my palm. “You know what?” she said. “The more you want it back, the more I want to smash it.”

Chapter 5

I lunged for the chain. Cara swung her arm down and hurled the pendant against the stone hearth. The jade shattered. One piece skittered under the coffee table. Another landed on the rug by the toe of my shoe. I could still see the Virgin’s folded hands on it. “No.” I could hardly draw a breath. For years I’d kept that tiny thing safe, and she’d broken it in less time than it took me to say her name. Now Cara was looking down at the pieces as casually as if she’d dropped an ice cube. “You’re a fucking animal.” I slapped her hard enough to send her stumbling into the arm of the couch. For a second she just stood there, one hand to her cheek, staring at me. “You bitch.” Her voice rose. “Get her on the floor. Beat the shit out of her.” Her friends looked at one another. Nobody moved until Cara said, “A million dollars to whoever does the best job.” The woman who’d told Cara to remember her once she got married caught my arm first. I pulled free, but somebody grabbed me from behind. A fist caught me under the ribs. I doubled over, and a kick behind the knee put me on the floor. “You just hit the future wife of a man who runs Brooklyn for the Bellandis,” someone said. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I planted a hand on the rug to push myself up. A heel came down on my wrist. “All this over a necklace,” another woman said. “Go sleep with whoever bought you the first one. I’m sure he’ll get you another.” “First you go after her man, then you hit her in her own house?” someone said behind me. “You got a death wish?” The piece with the Virgin’s hands was still there, caught in the rug between a muddy footprint and a cigarette burn. I stretched my fingers toward it. The woman standing on my wrist pressed down harder. “You’re going to regret this,” I said. For a moment, the room went quiet. Then someone laughed, and the rest of them joined in. “Who are you going to call?” a man asked. “Nico? He’s the one who signs your checks.” “You keep the man’s books,” somebody else said. “You’re lucky he lets you in the building.” Someone put a knee between my shoulder blades and forced my cheek down against the rug. “Stay there,” she said. “You’ve got a lot to learn about knowing your place.” I heard Cara’s heels on the floor. She stopped in front of me, took a fistful of my hair, and pulled until I had to look up at her. There was a red mark across her cheek where I’d hit her. “Regret it?” she said. “I’ve never regretted a damn thing in my life.” She leaned in close enough that I could smell the liquor on her breath. “Go on, then. Show me what you’re going to do about it.” An engine roared up the drive. Cara’s grip slackened. Headlights swept across the living room wall. Through the front windows, I saw a black sedan brake at the foot of the steps. A second pulled in behind it, then a third. Farther down the drive, engines were still coming through the open gate.