by the look on Brian’s face. After a moment, he took another drag off his cigarette and then nodded. I felt the air move when she left. Five seconds later, right on time, the door to her bedroom slammed.
“If I wanted you out of this apartment,” I said, “I wouldn’t need to own most of the building to do it.”
“True,” he said, eyeing me. His head was turned toward me, but his body faced straight. “Business then.”
“Personal.” I reached inside of my jacket, pulling out the knife. “You or me, but either way, you’re delivering the message.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You doin’ this for your wife?”
“I’d do much worse for much less done to her.”
“I told Lee,” he said. “I told him not to fuck with your woman. I advised him not to get involved with the Scarpones either. The boy listens when he hears words. The rest of the time he only hears dollar signs.” He shrugged, turning forward, putting out his cigarette on the cast iron ladder.
He took another minute or two, and then he shook his head. “He’s going to die regardless,” he said. “But I get it. He’ll get pissed enough to find you—if the Scarpones don’t get to him first.” He sighed, stood, stretched his arms over his head, wiggling the nine fingers he had, and then used the window to step into the apartment.
The smell of smoke lingered on his clothes as he rummaged around a kitchen drawer for a minute. He pulled out a knife used for hacking between the bones of an animal about to be put on for dinner. Brian knew his way around a butcher shop, since his brother and grandfather had been butchers.
He lifted the knife up to me. “Mind if I use my own?”
“I’d rather keep mine clean.”
“As long as this’ll do.”
“That or your heart.”
“The finger is worth more than a heart. You can get more done with it.”
“I have no problem taking your heart, since it’s worthless.”
He met my eye for a long second before he took a firmer grip of the knife, proving his words bullshit. He didn’t want to die because his nephew was a fucking moron.
He set his hand on the chopping block on the counter. It still had carrot pieces on it. He narrowed his eyes for a second, and then, bringing the knife up, he came down with a hard thwack! His middle finger disconnected from his hand as soon as the knife connected with the block. It tilted a little before it righted itself. The nail still had a blood bruise where he must have hit it with a hammer.
He must’ve done it when he was hanging a picture of him and Molly taken at Sullivan’s bar. I’d noticed the hammer and nails on a table right under where the picture was hung when I was making my way through the apartment. It was the same place she had a picture of her and my old man back in the day.
I handed him a dishtowel that was hanging on the oven. He applied pressure for a minute before using it as a tourniquet. He lifted both of his hands, a grin on his face. “At least now they match.”
My old man had cut off his other middle finger years ago, when another war had been going on between Cormick and my old man.
“Consider your name Carver Turkey,” I said. “One more move against my wife, and I’m going to serve you to your nephew on a fucking platter.”
He waved the hand at me, the blood seeping through the dishtowel, like the crazy son of a bitch he was. “Gobble Gobble. I’ll be sure to tell him.”
Brian was like a father to Lee, and after losing his own, he wasn’t going to risk it. Whenever Lee was in trouble, Brian either hid him or got him out of it. This time, though, Brian knew the end game was coming—either from the Scarpones or me. Brian might not convince Lee to give up the entire game, but he would convince him to leave my wife fucking out of it, or he’d be the one paying the price for his nephew’s decisions.
As I shut the door to the apartment, I heard Molly yelling from inside. The volume of it rattled inside of my skull until I was about ten minutes away and consumed by my own chaos. The madness went up a notch after I pulled up to Harry Boy’s house and