I didn't want it to be either of them, but if I had to have picked one, it would have been Petey. I'd known Jake Marconi since we were kids. We'd practically grown up together. He was one of the guys that I hung out with, and when I thought about the future of the Bertoli family, he was the guy I’d always seen in the position his father filled. There was a sort of generational completeness to the idea, and we'd both grown up knowing that we could always depend on the other for anything. That he was my friend as well just compounded the problem.
Maybe that was the reason that I decided to talk to Petey first. It wasn't that I didn't like the guy. He'd always been a decent sort of fellow. A little thick, and definitely the sort of guy who thought with his fists before he thought with his head, but until now, I'd never had a reason to distrust him. But still, someone made that phone call.
I tried to think of a reason that Petey or Jake would betray the family. It couldn't have been money. The Gaea Defense Force was the sort of group that did almost everything on the cheap. They rarely had two dimes to rub together. They wouldn't have been able to make a payment to a Bertoli man, not enough to buy one of our guys off, especially when they knew the consequences.
I sat out by the pool, resting my leg on the stool in front of me, watching as Luisa swam laps back and forth, a nice view as she went down doing crawl stroke before switching over to back stroke for the trip back.
Petey came out onto the deck at exactly noon as I'd asked him to. Pausing to watch Luisa's well-shaped backside cut through the pool, he shook his head before turning to me. "Hey, Tomasso. You wanted to see me?"
"Yeah. Have a seat, Petey. How're you doing?" I wanted him relaxed, not thinking it was an interrogation. "Great weather today, isn't it?"
"With a hell of a view," Petey commented, his eyes drawing toward the pool again. "If a home nurse like that comes with the package, I'm going to go break my ankle next week."
I laughed and reached over, pouring him a drink. "Here, this should help. I know I've had more than my fair share. Helps with the ankle, actually."
Petey took my offered glass and sipped at it. "Thanks. It sucks about your ankle, but this is the life. So what did you want to meet with me about?"
"I've got myself one hell of a home nurse, but there are things that I need that I can only trust someone more familiar with our operations to get," I said. "I need someone that I can trust to do the job well. Do you think you can do this for me?"
I could see his eyes light up. He expected that if he got in good with me, that he'd have a better chance to become a full Bertoli family member. I felt a little bad about leading him on like that, but there was time to worry about it later. "What can I do for you, Tomasso?"
"I intend to rehabilitate my ankle faster than what the doctors are telling me," I said. "I need a few . . . performance enhancers that I shouldn't have delivered here.”
"What kind of performance enhancers?" Petey asked, looking over at Luisa, who'd just completed a neat flip turn before kicking off and starting her next lap. "That’s a pretty effective performance enhancer in itself."
His mouth was the main reason he'd never get beyond the position in the Bertoli organization he currently held. If he'd made such a comment to Pietro or my father, he'd have earned a slap across the face at a minimum. Still, I needed to draw this out some more. “Maybe, but that isn't the performance help I need. I need a little more.”
"’Roids?" Petey asked. "That's easy. I know a guy who sells them out of a CrossFit box—makes good money at it too. The Don wouldn't mind. He's pretty small potatoes overall."
"I appreciate that, but I have someone who’s a specialist in things your normal gym goer doesn't use. He hooks up some of the Seahawks after surgery, stuff like that. I trust his supply, and I don't want to pay top dollar so that some mook can sell me salad oil instead of the real deal. Not saying your buddy is, but I don't know him, so I don't trust him."
"I can understand that, Tomasso. So who’s this guy?"
"Let me give you his number. You got your phone on you?" I asked. It was the point of the entire conversation, and one that had taken most of the day before setting up. I wouldn't be giving Petey an order for designer steroids—I’ve never used them, and never would. I didn't even know who the professional athletes in town got their designer steroids and test evasion kits from. Instead, the phone number I was giving him was for another Bertoli associate who thought I was giving Petey a loyalty test. If Petey did the job right, he'd be picking up vials of garlic extract pills and, ironically, salad oil.