Smooth Criminal

I turned back to the bar and took a drink of my beverage. “Martino,” I said to the small, yet spry man before me. “Is what Dom said about Vincent true?”

He looked up at me. “For the most part,” he said as he finished mixing a green drink and poured it into a martini glass and sent it down to a shifty looking man at the other end of the bar. It wasn’t that surprising since most of the people in the building were at least a little bit shifty looking.

I blinked. “What do you mean by for the most part?”

“Well, your brother, like most people, only knows the basics,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that I am one of the few people that knows the real Vincent. You want another one?” he motioned toward my nearly empty glass.

I nodded and said, “What is there about him that not everyone knows?”

“He’s just, more reclusive than some people,” Martino said, trying not to give much away.

Both of us averted our gaze to the opposite side of the room to take a look at Vincent. He was sitting on a table, talking to some of the men from his gang, hat still pulled down. Every once in a while, he would look I our direction, possibly hoping for something, and then reengage himself in the conversation.

“Please tell me,” I said.

“Well, you know that Vincent and I are cousins, right?” I nodded. “And you know that he is one of the only people I trust with a key to this place, right?” I nodded again. “Do you know why I work here and not out in the field with Vincent or your brother?”

I nodded again, feeling a little like a bobble head doll. “It’s because you shattered your shoulder during a knife fight where someone pulled a gun.”

A sigh escaped Martino’s lips. “There’s more to that. You see, Vincent’s the oldest in his family with a younger sister and two little brothers, and I have a little sister. Our families moved here from Detroit and the two of us became more like brothers to each other than we had ever been to our real siblings. When we were fifteen and sixteen the two of us joined a local gang and worked our way through the ranks until I was at the top with Vincent right behind me.

“The two of us were unstoppable in a fight. We were both much quicker and more agile than most people in gangs. And in a fight, Vincent would never have a messy kill. That’s how he got the name Perfetto. Even with one or two people out of the picture, everything would be left as it was: perfect. But the one fight that put me out of the business was the one where everything did not end up being perfect.

I sat in silence trying to absorb everything that Martino was saying.

He continued speaking: “There were these guys from back in Detroit had had a grudge against the Castagno family for years. When they came to Chicago and found out that we’re here now, they challenged Vincent. He accepted, of course, but on the conditions that it would be double with me on his side and that it would be a knife fight. They agreed, though all of us knew better than to trust the other side, so when we all showed up, everyone had a gun hidden away somewhere.

“Well, the fight ensued and I guess these guys, like everyone else, didn’t realize that the two of us were as quick as we are. But unlike everyone else, the leader on their side snapped and pulled his gun on Vincent. I knew that twenty-two was too young to die, so I pushed him out of the way right as he pulled the trigger. The bullet missed Vincent, but it hit me straight in the shoulder, shattering the bone, muscle, and everything.

“Seeing what had become of me, Vincent grabbed his own gun and, well, he-“

“Killed them,” I finished.

Martino nodded. “More violently than any other time. After that, he took over the business, while I retired and opened this place. But think, if it weren’t for that incident, Vincent would not be the man he is today.”