The Woman at the Docks - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,45

would know who he was and what he did. It couldn't have made dating easy. Because who in their right mind wanted to date someone who could get caught up in some street war some day? Someone who might bring the federal government into the house they had built, tearing apart their lovely life?

"Maybe you just work too much to meet someone," I suggested.

"I've been accused of that more than a few times," he admitted.

"Your family owns a lot of business in this area, right?"

"Yeah. Famiglia. Lucky's pizza places. Some laundromats. A dive bar. The list is long," he added, shrugging it off.

"How long?

"It's a big family. Everyone runs something."

"You mostly handle the restaurant. Fam.."

"Famiglia. It means family," he told me. "And yes and no. Famiglia is my father's pride and joy. These days, he'd rather handle the inner workings of that than do all the dirty details about the family as a whole. So, yes, I am an owner. But I don't do much there personally. The docks are where I spend most of my time. And then going around and visiting the other businesses to make sure everything is running smoothly."

"Can I ask what happens at the docks? Like what is your job there?"

"Creating new connections with importers, deciding which containers to search, hiring and firing, employee issues. The usual workplace kind of thing. Do you like wine?" he asked, reaching up into a cabinet. "I'd ask if you want whiskey, but I don't think you were a fan of that," he added, giving me a smirk.

"Wine is my drink of choice," I told him. Even though I was pretty sure he was not someone who kept my favorite three-dollar bottle of cab sav in his million-dollar home. "If you inspect the containers, how is it possible that someone could traffick people in?"

"We don't inspect every container. You've been watching. You know how many come in on the average week. It's impossible to inspect more than a small fraction. Some we... choose not to inspect," he told me as he handed me a wine glass, and I knew what he was telling me. That part of their business was being paid to look the other way, to inspect other containers. Because what was in some of them couldn't be seen. And that was likely where they made a large chunk of their money—from other criminals who paid them to walk past their containers. "And sometimes containers come from very reputable sources, so there is no need to check them."

"Is that the loophole, then?" I asked, making his head pop up, brows furrowing.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm no expert, but is it possible that someone could take over a reputable, long-standing import business, and then ship things in right under your nose because they have been someone you've worked with for so long?"

He stared at me for long enough for my stomach to flip-flop, sure I had just said something completely idiotic.

"It is," he told me, voice a little rough. "That is completely possible," he added, moving away from his untouched wine glass, grabbing his phone. "Angelo. Tomorrow morning. Six," he told him, hanging up. "I don't know why we haven't thought of that."

"It's just an idea," I said, shrugging.

"Don't play it down. It could be important. We will know more over the next few days. How's the wine?" he asked.

The rest of the evening went much like that.

Small talk—though we moved away from crime talk, choosing instead to discuss family—about my upbringing, about my initial thoughts when I first visited Venezuela, how it felt leaving it behind after building a life there.

Over the lasagna and garlic bread, we discussed my decision to go into interpreting, talking about my love of language, how I'd been speaking Spanish since birth but then majored in Mandarin because that was the third most spoken language in this country, that it would give me an advantage over others applying for jobs who maybe only spoke English and Spanish.

It was the deepest, longest conversation I had ever had with someone who wasn't related to me. My throat was actually a little sore after we finished cleaning up, both tired, but awkwardly dragging our feet about heading to bed.

I finally made it to mine sometime after nine, sure I would climb into the bed and pass right out, but instead, I lay awake, scrolling through the highlights of our conversations—the sound of his laugh on occasion, something I thought must have been rare for him, and