Anticipation. JENNIFER LABRECQUE

No one saw Jo-Jo without going through Big Al and no one went through Big Al if he didn’t want them to. Big Al reminded Nick of a crocodile he’d seen once at the reptile house. It owned the same cold, unblinking stare.

      Nick fished the double-shot derringer out of the ankle holster and straightened his pant cuffs. He might be in trouble, but he wouldn’t go in with his pant leg stuck in his sock. He’d go in with panache.

      Big Al released his arm. “Don’t keep the boss waiting.”

      Nick paused and deliberately brushed his suit jacket arm where Big Al’s hand had just been and then he opened Jo-Jo’s office door. He didn’t have to worry about closing it behind him. Two more beefy guys flanked the door inside. Nick’s legs shook as he crossed the room. Big Al was dangerous but he didn’t frighten Nick. Neither did the two goons behind him. Jo-Jo, however, scared the hell out of him.

      Silence, fraught with disapproval, shrouded the room like a heavy velvet curtain. The carpet’s thick, plush pile absorbed his footsteps as he crossed the room. Nick settled into a club chair in front of the ornately carved desk. His uncle’s tall chair, upholstered in the finest leather, was turned, its back facing him. Jo-Jo appreciated the finer things in life.

      Even as a young boy, that had been something he’d had in common with his uncle Jo-Jo. It had pained Jo-Jo to witness the dismal living conditions his nephew Nick and his sister Angelina had endured as Nick’s father—a good, kind man, but inept—had failed at one endeavor after another, shackling them in poverty. Nick had been fourteen, a boy transitioning into manhood, when his father had met with an “unfortunate accident,” one Jo-Jo had manufactured. Nick’s beautiful, fragile mother had been devastated by the loss of her husband. Nick had never recounted the chilling conversation he’d overheard that had left no doubt about who had been behind his father’s death. Nick thought it would totally destroy his mother to know the brother she adored had disposed of her beloved husband like offending offal. And Nick had enough street smarts that he’d made sure Jo-Jo never found out just how much he, Nick, knew. But, at fourteen, he learned a quick, harsh lesson about where kindness and good intentions got a man versus cunning and power. He saw who was alive and who was dead.

      With his dad out of the picture, Jo-Jo had stepped in as Nick’s father figure. He’d pulled them out of the rat-infested, graffiti-covered neighborhood. Jo-Jo had brought death and destruction to his family, but conversely had plucked them out of poverty and given Nick access to the finer things in life and given him opportunity. Nick regarded Jo-Jo with a mix of fear, loathing, admiration and respect. In Nick’s world, his uncle was pretty damn near God. Jo-Jo giveth and Jo-Jo taketh away.

      The chair swiveled slowly, bringing Nick face-to-face with his uncle.

      Jo-Jo leaned forward and put a Game Boy on his desk. He leaned back in his chair and smiled at Nick. Nick’s gut tightened. As usual, Jo-Jo looked affable and mild, the personification of a vague, favorite uncle. And as usual, his smile never quite reached his eyes. Nick always found Jo-Jo’s smile chilling.

      “I’m disappointed, Nicky. I get a call from a mutual friend and you know what he says to me?” Nick kept his mouth shut. It was a rhetorical question. “He tells me, ‘Your nephew could fuck up a wet dream.’” Of course, that cop wasn’t original enough to come up with something new. He kept recycling the same insult. “Do you know how that makes me feel, Nicky? It doesn’t make me feel good. All my careful planning, months of setting this up. I see a man in the paper who has committed a crime and yet he hasn’t gone to jail. And I ask myself who would hire such a man now? Who would give him a decent job? Who would trust him? I think he would be grateful for a good job. And I also think he looks like you, same build, same height, close in age. And my wheels are turning, because I’m a very smart man. I work it so that he gets hired by my company. I have all the pieces in place. I hand you opportunity on a platter and you repay my genius with carelessness. Without our mutual friend, you would be enjoying the comfort of a very small jail cell right now. How can you respect me and be so careless?”