They took their seats on opposite sides of the desk. Nick had six pencils lined up on the cherry surface, all perpendicular to the edge, all sharpened to exactly the same length. So, Teddy thought. He’s stressed. Nick’s OCD always kicked in when he was stressed. It had to be the pressure of the trial.
Nick said, “You’re looking well, Teddy.”
Irene’s hand tightened on his arm. Teddy smiled, kept his eyes on Nick. “And that haircut never gets old.” He leaned toward Irene. “Literally, it cannot get old.”
Irene kept her smile in place.
“Because it’s a fake,” Teddy said.
“Uh-huh,” she said without moving her lips.
“A toupee.”
“I get it, Dad.”
Nick laughed like it was a thing he’d seen people do in movies. “Still giving me the business, after all these years. Glad you still got some balls, Teddy.”
Teddy shrugged. “Mitzi not coming?”
“She’s feeling under the weather. Caught a bug.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Teddy said sincerely. “She seemed fine the other day.”
“She’ll snap back. She’s a tough bird.”
They agreed on this. Teddy told the story about Mitzi hitting an unruly drunk on the side of the head with a telephone. “What was his name? Right on the tip of my tongue.” He made a shaky gesture with one hand, playing the doddering old man, the scatterbrained ancient. The name of the victim was Ricky Weyerbach, and he used to be an electrician at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse before he hurt his back. “Anyway. Big guy, twice her size, and bam, right on the temple.”
Nick laughed, and it nearly sounded human this time.
“This was one of those Bakelite monsters that weigh ten pounds,” Teddy explained to Irene. “Put the guy in the hospital.”
Nick liked that, Teddy saw. He liked any story about the fearsome Pusateris. At least any story that wasn’t on the front page of the Sun-Times.
“So,” Nick said. He frowned at one of the pencils, and made a microscopic adjustment. “I’m meeting with you out of respect for our history.”
“I appreciate that,” Teddy said.
“But your boy has already been in here, and we’ve worked out a payment plan.”
Frankie came on his own? God damn it. Teddy had deliberately not told Frankie what he was up to, so the boy wouldn’t do something stupid. And now he’d gone and stupided it up anyway.
Teddy let his annoyance show. “I told Mitzi I wanted to be the one to work out a deal.”
Nick shrugged. “He’s a grown man. And if you’re here to get back the house, that’s not going to happen.”
This was the first Teddy had heard about a house. But it might explain why Frankie had moved into Teddy’s.
“Why take a man’s home, when you can take cold hard cash?” Teddy asked. He reached into his jacket pocket—a move Nick paid close attention to. Teddy’s arthritic fingers came away with the envelope. Teddy set it on the desk, being careful not to disturb the pencils. “That’s fifty thousand. Mitzi let me know the full amount when I saw her.”
“The full amount,” Nick said. Putting a skeptical spin on it.
“Is there a problem?”
“Just that you saw her over a week ago.”
“Ah,” Teddy said. He pretended to just now understand that over a week meant that interest was due. “How much?”
“It’s not just the vig,” Nick said. “A lot has changed. The real estate market, for example.”
“How’s that doing?”
“It’s booming, Teddy. Fucking booming.”
Irene squeezed Teddy’s arm. “How much to make it all right?” Teddy asked. “The house, Frankie’s remaining debt, everything.”
“You don’t have that kinda weight, Teddy.”
“Try me.”
“A hundred K.”
Teddy let his face fall.
“And the watch.”
“What?” Teddy’s hand fluttered near his wrist, as if unconsciously protecting it.
Irene looked shocked. “What do you mean, his watch. That’s—that’s his pride and joy.”
“He owes it to me,” Nick said. “He’s owed it to me for twenty years. I should have taken it back then, but I fastened it to his fucking wrist, and let him go.”
“We’re leaving,” Irene said. “Come on, Dad.”
“No.”
Teddy lifted his head. He withdrew a second envelope, put it on top of the first. Then, without looking at the watch, he unlatched the steel band and slid it over his fingers. He dropped it onto the middle of the desk, sending the pencils rolling.
Nick quickly caught the pencils. Only when he’d lined them back up did he pick up the watch. “Jesus, that’s beautiful. Paul Newman used to wear one of these when he raced.”
“You don’t say,” Irene said.
“It was worth twenty-five grand when your pop won it in a poker game. And now? Who knows?”
“Right. Let’s go, Dad.”
Teddy put his hand over hers, so she wouldn’t move it from his biceps. “There’s one more thing,” he said.
Nick raised his eyebrows.
“It’s about your son,” Teddy said. “And your daughter-in-law.”
“Graciella?” Nick seemed genuinely confused.
“She never wants you to see her again. Or the boys.”
“What the fuck is that to you?”
“I said I’d speak to you on her behalf.”
“Are you talking? To my family?”
“And she wants you out of Nick Junior’s real estate company. It’s not going to be your front anymore. No more money laundering.”
Nick still didn’t seem to understand. “Graciella said this to you. A stranger.”
“We’re not strangers. I met her at the grocery store. By accident.” He held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. The thing is, she’s offering something in return.”
“And what the fuck would that be?”
“Your freedom.” He nodded at Irene. She opened her purse and took out the lunch box. Nick looked impatient. Then Irene lifted out the clear-plastic container of teeth and set them next to the envelopes of cash. She was polite enough to not disturb the pencils.
“Those once resided in the mouth of Rick Mazzione,” Teddy said. “Before you evicted them. Nick Junior says that some of the blood on ’em is yours, though the FBI wouldn’t have to take his word for it. They’ve got labs for that kind of thing.”
Nick picked up the bag. He tapped the bottom of it, as if testing whether the teeth moved realistically.
“Graciella will take no action against you,” Teddy said. “She hasn’t talked to the cops. All she’s asking is that you promise never to contact her, or the boys, again.”
Nick couldn’t take his eyes off the teeth.
“She wants them out of the life,” Teddy said.
“The moron kept them,” Nick said in a faraway voice. “Why would he do that? Why would he fucking keep them?”
“Why do kids do anything?” Teddy said. “They disappoint us. Half the time they’re trying to win our approval, half the time they want to bury us.”
Irene dug her fingernails into his arm. That wasn’t a signal, except if the signal was “I’m pissed at you.”
“So what do you say?” Teddy said.
Nick rubbed a hand across his face. “Where are the other teeth?”
“I don’t know,” Teddy said. “I told her to put them in a safe place, not in her house.”
“You’ve got them, don’t you?”
“I’m not that stupid,” Teddy said.
“Oh yes you are. You’re an idiot if you think you can come between me and my grandchildren.”
“That may be so, but I felt I had to help her out. She was afraid to talk to you.”