In the Beginning by Gary Ponzo

Author:Gary Ponzo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, Fiction, Suspense, Terrorism, Crime, Thriller
Publisher: JK Publishing
Published: 2015-09-02T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Denaro’s expression changed. He went from fascinating storyteller to somber newscaster. He looked around at the stragglers in the restaurant, finding no one interested in their meeting. He cocked his head and stared at Nick.

“You want the truth?”

Nick didn’t like the sound of the question.

“Of course he wants the truth,” Tommy answered for him.

Nick nodded tentatively.

Denaro had a faraway stare, speaking while still looking out into the ether. “I got this kid in my territory who likes to bet on slow-moving horses and over-the-hill pitchers. He has all the signs of a compulsive gambler: he bets money he doesn’t have, then he doubles down hoping he can recover from his losses, only to get deeper into debt. I let this go on for several months before I cut him off and . . .” Denaro cleared his throat, “and encouraged him to make his payment rather soon.”

“Yeah?” Nick said, still not liking where it was going.

“Well,” Denaro waved his arms over his body and said, “I may look tough, but really I’m a cream puff. So I tell your father what’s going on and he visits this guy at work. He tells him he wants to get him help. So the two of them hash things out and the guy agrees to get help, but he asks if your dad could loan him some money to pay off his gambling debt. Four thousand dollars. Your dad agrees to help, but the problem is he doesn’t have that kind of money.”

Tommy was tapping his index finger on the table. “Can we get to a name soon? I’m gonna die of old age before I know who did this to us.”

Denaro held up his hand. “Hang on, partner, we’re almost there.”

Tommy leaned back in his chair and crossed his right ankle over his left knee.

“So your father had this rookie Boog Powell baseball card, back when they still called him John. It was worth like five thousand dollars and he convinced this guy who owns a pawn shop on Gold Street to give him four thousand for the card so he could pay off the deadbeat’s debt.”

Denaro looked back and forth between Nick and Tommy to see if they knew where he was going but coming up with blank stares. “Don’t you see what happened?

Nick shrugged. “The card was a phony?”

“No.” Denaro leaned on his elbows and crouched forward. “The card was real. The gambler was a phony. He was never going to rehab. He wanted that money to gamble with. He asked where your father would come up with that kind of cash and your father told him.”

“Oh no,” Tommy said, his eyes opening wide.

Denaro pointed a finger at him. “See, he gets it.”

Nick looked at his cousin. “What?”

“He set up your dad.”

“Exactly,” Denaro said, smiling with the satisfaction of a proud parent. “This guy knew when your father was going to go pick up the cash for the card and the coward sold that information to a couple of gang members for two thousand bucks.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.