“Love you back, Frankie,” he replied softly. “Now go to sleep with the promise of me, and tomorrow I’ll make certain I do somethin’ to fulfill it.”
God.
I fucking loved Benny Bianchi.
“Okay, honey.”
“’Night, Frankie.”
“’Night, Benny.”
I waited and he waited, then I let him off the hook and disconnected first.
After that, I brought my phone to my lips like it was him and I could touch my mouth to his as a goodnight.
In a couple of months.
Then I’d be full-on happy.
I set the phone aside, snuggled up, and fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Firing Line
The phone rang in Benny’s back pocket. He flipped the flaps closed on the box he was sorting through in the basement, pulled his phone out, and saw it was his ma calling.
“Hey, Ma,” he answered.
“Benny, we’re out,” she told him something that he really didn’t need to know.
“She’s out and she dragged my ass with her!” He heard his father shout, which meant wherever they were, everyone heard it.
“Quiet, Vinnie, yeesh,” his ma shushed his pop.
“Ma,” Ben called to get her attention back in hopes of getting this conversation over a lot faster.
“We’re at a furniture shop and we’ve just seen the sweetest bed,” she announced.
“She thinks it’s sweet,” he heard his father yell. “I think it’s girlie.”
“Vinnie, quiet,” his mother snapped.
But Ben knew what this was about. He’d told them Frankie was moving in and he was doing a clear out to prepare for that event.
He’d also, now he saw was stupidly, told them Frankie wanted a guestroom.
“Ma, let Frankie pick the furniture,” he ordered.
“I am,” she returned smartly. “But she needs to see this bed so I need her email address ’cause I’m takin’ a picture of it with my phone. I don’t wanna text it to her. She’s gotta see it bigger, in all its glory.”
Ben gave a moment’s thought to the kind of redecorating Frankie would undoubtedly instigate in his house. These thoughts included the muted colors, candles, minimal knickknacks, and photos she decorated her apartment in. Since he liked all that, he quit thinking about it.
What he did not think was that any bed his mother picked would be something Frankie would want. It was a surprise, but when it came to her home, Francesca Concetti wasn’t about flash but was about taste and minimization. Theresa Bianchi decorated in bulk, with a heavy dose of Catholicism.
Still, he gave his mother her email. A bonus of having Frankie, she could deal with his ma when she got like this. He felt no guilt about that. He was going have to put up with her whacked family, she was going to have to put up with his family’s brand of whacked.
This was something, he’d noted repeatedly, that she not only had no problem doing, she actually liked doing it.
“Do you want your father to come over and help with the basement this weekend?” she asked, taking him out of his pleasant thoughts.
“Workin’ on it now, Ma. And goin’ to Brownsburg this weekend.”
“Oh, right, of course,” she muttered. “Do you want me to send your father over there now?”
Vinnie Senior popping the cap on a beer, finding a sturdy box to sit on, and bossing his ass around for two hours?
No. He didn’t want that.
“I’m good,” he answered.
“You sure?” she pushed, and he sighed.
“Yeah, Ma, I’m sure.”
“Boy, deliver me!” his father yelled over him talking, and Ben looked at his feet and shook his head.
“Okay, you need us, call,” his ma ignored his pop, and gratefully ended it.
“Later, Ma.”
“’Bye, Benny.”
He disconnected, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and moved to another box. He was finding the ex-owners of his house left him mostly junk. Some was good enough that he’d call the Salvation Army to pick it up. The rest he’d take to the dump.
That said, this was not going to be a day’s job. It would take at least a week and he was not looking forward to it.
What he was looking forward to was not having to drive down to Frankie’s every few weeks or waiting for her to come to him. He wanted this. She wanted this. He wanted her to make his house hers. So he was doing what he could so she could do that.
He got through two more boxes before his phone rang again. He pulled it out, expecting it’d be his mother having seen another piece of furniture, or God knew what, this time something she wanted him to see. This was something that could happen easily when his mother was out doing anything.
Not for the first time he was understanding Carm’s play of moving all the way across the country.
But his display said, Sal Calling.
He put his cell to his ear and greeted, “Yo, Sal.”
“Where are you?” Sal barked, and Ben’s back shot straight.
“In my basement,” he answered, not feeling good feelings about Sal’s greeting.
Sal was talking to someone else when he ordered, “Get him to put someone on her and you drive down now.”
Ben took the punch to the heart those words caused and he did it moving quickly to his dog, who was lying on his back, four paws in the air, sleeping on a pile of rags Ben had tossed in the corner. Gus was out because Gus had attacked every attackable item in the basement, and there were a fair few of them, and he’d engaged in this activity for a solid hour.
Benny bent, scooped up Gus, who jumped with surprise in his arm, then immediately started wriggling, ready for play, even right out of sleep. But Ben had to ignore it for once as he headed to the stairs.
He did all this demanding, “Talk to me.”
“Word’s shiftin’ through Indy. A man lookin’ for someone to do a hit for him. Easy job. Some computer kid who works for Wyler Pharmaceuticals. He’s in a hurry this time and doesn’t mind local. He’s also found local.”
Jesus, what the fuck was happening where Frankie worked?
“You are fuckin’ shittin’ me,” Ben growled, making it to his kitchen.
“I’m not. Got that, but yesterday, I got more.”
Fucking brilliant.
More.
“What?” Benny bit out.
“PI down there, sleazebag and middleman for a variety of shit, he’s got himself a job trailin’ some boy who’s boinking his secretary. Guess where that boy works?”
“What the fuck?” Ben clipped, now taking the stairs to his second floor two at a time.
“This shit is not good shit, whatever this shit is. But I do not know what this shit is and I do not like that. So I’m gonna find out. I also know two hits called on two folks who work where Frankie works, this PI—who is not a good guy, Benny, he’s a piece of shit—if he’s involved, I’m not likin’ this at all. I got friends down there. They’ll put a man on Frankie until my boy gets down there to take over.”
Ben stopped dead in his bedroom. “Why’re you doin’ that?”
“Why?” Sal clipped. “’Cause this is Frankie. She could be standin’ in a field in the middle of the day and a dead body would drop on her.”
He was not wrong.
Frankie got born into a family who bounced her around, didn’t give that first shit about her, and caused her headaches to that day. Her first and only real boyfriend before Benny got involved with the mob, then was murdered. Her play for redemption with his family got her shot. Now she had a job where people were getting whacked.
Fuck.
“Why is the computer guy a target?” Ben asked.