“Uh, well, I've mostly been, y'know, keeping her busy with clerk stuff, filing, typing up motions and complaints and all that.”
Carla saw Mario's eyes narrow.
Oh, you stupid asshole, you're making it sound like I'm some kind of secretary who doesn't know her ass from her elbow, she fumed silently. There's no way they'll want me to work with Gio now. We gave you a very simple cover story, Louie, and now you're wiping your ass with it.
“But, but, um, but she's good, though,” Louie added quickly, swallowing hard. “She's very sharp, she's helped me out on plenty of cases, and she's got, y'know, a brilliant legal mind. She was the, uh, daughter of one of my professors at Stanford Law, Phillip Hackton, and he was one of the most respected criminal attorneys in the country, so...”
Carla tried to keep her expression neutral, but rage erupted inside her like a volcano. She couldn't believe her ears. How could he make up such outrageous lies on the spot like that? All it would take was ten minutes on Google for anyone to see through such transparent bullshit.
She wondered whether Phillip Hackton was even a real law professor at Stanford, or if Louie had simply decided to wing it on that one too. She tried to imagine the look on Don's face as he listened to this remotely.
Mario turned to Carla. “That's some kind of pedigree you got there. What does your old man think about you working for guys like us? He doesn't feel like you're tarnishing the family legacy, or nothin' like that?”
“Maybe that's why she uses a different last name,” Gio pointed out.
Carla registered Louie's slight wince out of the corner of her eye.
Yeah, you couldn't even bother to remember the last name of my alias to make it match your dumbass fairy tale, could you? she thought. If this whole thing goes south because of you, Louie—if Fred goes unavenged because you fucked us here—I swear to God I'll wipe my ass with that guarantee of immunity and make sure you get locked in the most miserable hole the federal penal system has to offer.
“Actually, he died the year before I went to law school,” Carla said. “I decided to use my mother's last name because his tends to cast such a long shadow, and I felt I wanted to succeed on my own merits rather than his reputation.”
Mario nodded slowly. “You wanted to earn your career instead of inherit it. I respect that. I'm hoping with your help, my little Gio will be able to do the same.”
“You don't need to talk about me, Papa,” Gio said tightly. “I'm sitting right here.”
Carla could hear the resentment in his voice, and she noted a subtle, defensive slump in his posture. When she'd first entered the room, he had seemed lively and confident, but the more his father talked down to him and dismissed him, the more he appeared to regress into a sullen teenager.
She had taken numerous classes on criminal psychology at Quantico, and she knew that in many family-based criminal organizations, sons found it difficult to live up to their larger-than-life fathers, which often resulted in mental or emotional problems—addictions, abusive patterns with their own children, violent behavior toward other authority figures, and even disordered sexuality. She had no doubt this was somehow tied to the rumors about Gio's kinks, and wondered whether she might be able to find some way to exploit that.
Besides becoming one of his subs, of course.
Mario continued to talk to Carla as though he hadn't heard Gio. “If he's gonna make it in this life, he's gotta establish himself as more than just my son. He's gotta show people he's his own man. They won't be loyal to him if they think he had everything handed to him.”
Carla raised an eyebrow. “I was under the impression that you just handed him this restaurant.” She knew it could be risky to seem like someone with a smart mouth, but she also knew it would be better to offer an incisive observation—even if it seemed disrespectful—than to look like nothing but an empty-headed brownnoser. She could always apologize if she overstepped her bounds. Establishing her credibility was far more important.
But Mario nodded vigorously. “See, you get what I'm saying. In fact, that's gonna be your first job. You're gonna move some money and papers around so that legally, it looks like Gio bought this place for himself. That should make sure nothing that happens here can be connected back to me or vice versa. And to the other guys in our thing, it'll dispel rumors of, whatchamacallit, nepotism or the like.”
Carla nodded. “I understand. That shouldn't be a problem.”
The door opened and Shimizu entered with a bottle of grappa.
“Finally!” Mario exclaimed. “I'm parched as hell over here. Louie, let's get out of these kids' way so they can work out what they need to. I got some of my own business to go over with you anyway.”