Old Wounds by Sam Powers

Author:Sam Powers [Powers, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-23T22:00:00+00:00

***

It became a little less comfortable to be around the rest of the crew as each week passed. Tom felt the weight of his actions, but worse than that, he worried the others could see his moral dilemma, read the tension on his face.

He sat at the bar and nursed a soda-and-lime. Seb, the bartender, had taken pity on him early on and recognized that, like the staff, he wasn’t really made for Primo’s world. And he’d agreed to pass him soda water all night in the guise of “gin and tonic.” If nothing else, the wise guys expected him to drink like a hoodlum.

At a table a few feet away, Ralph held court, playing poker with three of the older guys. They were loud and boisterous, telling jokes, ten-letter expletives flying around like greetings, the booze going down freely.

Vince took the stool next to Tom’s. “How you doing?”

“Forget about it. My week? You don’t want it.”

“I heard about what happened. How’s your throat?”

Tom ran a finger along the thin scab that ran from the left side of his neck to his jugular. “It’ll be fine.”

“You figure out who yet? My money’s on Tenorio’s friends or family. He’s got a brother in Ocean City who’s retired, but I can see him keeping a hand in.” Vince took a small vial from his inside pocket, unscrewed its cap, then tapped a tiny pile of cocaine out onto the counter. He used the edge of his pinkie finger to crudely spread the powder into a long thin line. He licked the excess white powder from his finger before taking his money clip from his back pocket, peeling off a hundred-dollar bill, and rolling it into a small tube. He leaned down and hoovered the cocaine up into his sinuses. Then he leaned his head back quickly and breathed in hard, sniffing and pinching at his nose, his eyes momentarily closed as the drug rushed in.

Tom looked sideways at him for just long enough to convey his irritation. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’ll be someone else tomorrow, or maybe next week.”

Vince sat up straight and crossed his arms. “So? They’ll come at us, but we’ll still be standing. That’s why it’s a family. It ain’t just on you, Tom. I mean, shit man, I’ve had your back since we was kids.”

“True enough,” Tom said. “But this is different. This is…I mean, it’s one thing to talk about it when we were little. But…I don’t know, man…I feel like neither of us is really supposed to be here, you know? And what’re you doing shoving all that powder up your nose all day? I mean, really?”

Vince frowned, then wiped some clear snot from his red nostrils. “The Hell you say. What I do with my money is my business. And the job? You know this was all I ever wanted.”

“It was all you ever expected. But you wanted more, at one point.”

His friend squinted. “Are you judging me two minutes after we talked about you whacking Vito Tenorio?”

Tom held up both palms.

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