Everyone stood. We remained in the restaurant for over an hour, talking, drinking and telling stories of friends, family and our devotion to both. I couldn’t offer much short of my stories of my marine brothers—some of which were now my employees.
There seemed to be a consensus amongst the men. Although none of them knew me—and only two of them had ever met me—there was a degree of sorrow each of them expressed when they realized I had no family.
They insisted that I had a new family. A group of men I could lean on in times of need. They assured me—as individuals, or as a group—they would provide whatever I felt I needed to survive as a gun runner in the streets of Kansas City and abroad.
The conversation soon migrated to talks of weapons, other factions of the Italian mafia, and of potential future orders for their Italian brethren in need.
When we parted, I received something from each of the men I hadn’t expected.
A hug.
Filled with an unusual feeling of warmth, I walked to my car. I sat for several minutes and mentally digested what had happened, what—if anything—in my life had changed, and what the future held for me.
In doing so, I realized regardless of Agrioli’s offering, I would be spending the evening alone.
And the warmth soon vanished.
* * *
Cap folded his arms in front of his chest and glared at me in apparent disbelief for a moment. “You’re fuckin’ shittin’ me? That’s exactly what he said?”
“Well, it’s as good I can speak Italian. But he also said ‘a man of honor.’ And a member of the family by association, or something like that.”
“You don’t watch TV, but I do. I’ve seen the fuckin’ Sopranos. He made you an associate.”
I took a sip of beer and tried to act like I didn’t care. Part of me, however, did. “Yeah, so what?”
He shook his head and reached for his beer. “Let’s just say we won’t be havin’ any more problems with the mob.”
I found it reassuring everything in my business life would be without worry. “Back to normal is good.”
He leaned over and propped his forearms on the edge of the bar. “Yeah, ’cept for the girl. Now what the fuck you gonna do about that?”
I felt empty and weak. I wished there was a way I could fix it, but I knew better. I wasn’t the type of guy to go against her will or her demand of leaving her alone, and I really didn’t want to talk to Cap about how I felt about her.
I finished my beer and walked to the refrigerator. “Can’t really do anything.”
“Sure as fuck can.”
I opened the bottle, and tossed the cap and my empty in the trash. I lingered there for a moment, out of Cap’s view, and thought.
“She asked me to leave her alone.”
“Yeah. Guess fuckin’ what? My old high school sweetheart asked me not to poke it in her butt, too. But I did. And you know what? She fuckin’ liked it. Women don’t know what they want. What they say and what they want is two different things. Remember that. Words of wisdom from Cap’s vault.”
I laughed a light laugh and walked around the edge of the bar. “So she really wants me to talk to her?”
He pointed the mouth of his beer bottle at me. “Well, she wishes you were truthful with her from the start, and my guess is she feels like she was lied to. Now she’s embarrassed and hurt. She wants a fuckin’ explanation and an apology.”
I was shocked to be hearing life lessons from Cap. I didn’t know he had it in him. “When did you get so versed on life with women?”
“Netflix, fucker. Rom-coms,” he said with a nod.
“Rom-com?”
He took a sip of beer and nodded. “Short for romantic comedy. Whole fuckin’ shitload of ’em on there. Teach you a lot about life, too.”
“Well, rom-com or no rom-com, I’ve tried to call and I’ve tried to text her. No answer on either. She doesn’t want to talk.”
It seemed I’d insulted him. He pushed himself away from the bar and furrowed his brow. “You insensitive prick. A text? The woman you love left you and you sent her a fuckin’ text?”
He raised his index finger as if he had an idea. “Maybe you should buy her a box of fuckin’ chocolates.”
It seemed reasonable enough. “I could do that.”
“I was jokin’. You know, for as intelligent of a man as you are, you’re one dumb motherfucker sometimes, Tripp.”
He turned around, grabbed another beer from the fridge, and tossed his empty in the trash.
“She don’t want chocolate. Or a fuckin’ text message. You know, ninety percent of the problems on this earth could be fixed if we could just turn back the clock to 1860. If somebody broke into your house back then, they get shot. If we did that today, that’d stop burglaries. They used to shoot horse thieves. If we shot fuckin’ carjackers, I bet that shit’d stop too. All of them fuckers that lied and lost all them fellas money during the subprime bullshit? Shit, if they’d a done that in 1860, they’d would have been strung up by their necks. If a man rapes a woman today, half the victims don’t testify for fear of the man beatin’ their asses, and the rotten pricks walk free. Back then, they hung the bastards. If we started hangin’ rapists on the courthouse steps, I bet that shit’d stop.” He took a long drink of beer.