The Short List by Frank Zafiro

Author:Frank Zafiro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

25

CAMERON

I realized pretty quick that I’d left the roll door open on the side of the truck. Cases of liquor dumped out onto the street and surely made some wino very happy. The bottles that didn’t break, anyway.

I’d paid pretty good attention in the cab on the way there that I was able to retrace the route back to Aunt Ruby’s fairly easy. A habit since I was a kid. I was always watching road signs, street names. I like knowing where I am. With my life lately, you’d never know it.

Probably because I was moving alone and not in the wagon train of cars Fazzio and his boys were in, I made good time and rolled up on Aunt Ruby’s house before them. It didn’t hurt that I couldn’t have cared less about the truck and I made a few questionable yellow lights and scraped the paint off a few parked cars on the way. When I parked the delivery truck on the street I left the keys in it and didn’t look back. If they had the balls to take it, some kids from BU were gonna have party supplies for a month.

I left the hat and clipboard and took Charlie’s gun with me. When I knocked on the door, Tag answered.

“They’re coming,” I said as I pushed past him.

“Who is?”

“Fazzio. And he’s not alone.”

“Shit.”

Boyd showed up and Tag filled him in. The two of them spun in circles like confused dogs for a while. An unexpected turn like this really threw them for a loop. Then Aunt Ruby showed up.

“What’s going on?”

I explained. “Fazzio recognized Tag and Boyd. He and his guys are on their way here now. We gotta get you out.”

“Fazzio’s coming here?”

“Yeah. Grab your purse and let’s go.”

She clapped her hands once in front of her, made one of those Italian hand gestures that means bastard or sends out a curse or something. “Fuck him. Let him come.”

She went to the hall closet. Tag and Boyd were still scared and, from what I could tell, on the verge of holding each other for comfort.

“He’s got a bunch of guys with him, Aunt Ruby. We can’t stay.”

“The hell I can’t,” she said. “This is my house for fifty years. No piss-ant needle-dick is gonna run me off.” She bent into the closet and when she stood back up she held a double barreled shotgun. She needed two hands to hold it and in her tiny arms it looked like she’s taken the anti-aircraft gun off a battleship.

“Nobody’s gettin’ in here without an ass full of lead.”

I didn’t know what to say. I knew Tag and Boyd wanted to leave. As much as I wanted to take out Fazzio and any of his crew that wanted to die with him, we were outnumbered and it didn’t look like a fair fight.

“Aunt Ruby, I really think we should go.”

“I know what you do,” she said, staring through me with eyes as black as those double barrels.

“What do you mean?”

“I know your job for the family.

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