Snow and Ice

“If you want to do what you’re talkin’ about doin’, you need to fuck him.” The man’s finger jabbed at the air, and the other man’s brown eyes turned to see the boy. Barely legal to drink—if legal at all—tight jeans, tight shirt, sunglasses on his head, light eyeliner.

“I need to fuck him?” The man turned to his friend and laughed, taking another drink. “Right. And fucking Little Miss Sunshine is supposed to help me how? We’re talking about taking the East. I doubt getting an STD is going to help.”

“Kid’s Luis Patelli’s son.”

“No shit.” Now the tone had completely changed and the man barely kept from knocking over his beer as he turned his head, looking at the boy once again. He had apparently either come with, or found, half a dozen supermodel wannabes that knew exactly who he preferred in bed and was probably trading hair gel tips and discussing the latest episode of some teen soap opera.

Gabe’s face was serious now as he turned to back to Pete. “If I find out you’re fucking shitting me, I will waste you.”

“Seriously. Kid’s his son. With a mistress that he married after his second wife died, but he kept his mom’s name.” Pete lit a cigarette. “Fuck the kid, get in with him, and get in good with daddy.”

“Daddy actually claims his faggot son?” Gabe asked, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s got two other sons to carry on the last name shit. He loves the kid. Which also means, fuck the kid, but don’t fuck with the kid.” Pete exhaled. “Look, I’ve got to check on the runner and collect. And I need a fucking fix and you may sell the shit, but you don’t do it so I highly doubt you have any on you. Got to split.”

“He’s really Patelli’s son?”

Pete tossed a twenty on the table and stared at Gabe through his cigarette smoke. “He’s really Patelli’s son. So fuck the faggot and wear a god damn rubber.” He grabbed his jacket and walked out of the club.

So there you have it. Saporta runs the crystal meth industry on the West and wants to take over the East. Bunch of fucking faggots that call themselves and other queers fucking names like it makes them less gay. I’m Will. Gabe’s best friend, the only straight guy in the fucking group. Not like anyone believes it, but nobody can change genetics except God and, trust me, I ain’t fucking God.

So, Gabe decided to fuck Luis Patelli’s son. If you don’t know who Luis Patelli is, you’re obviously either hiding under a fucking rock or you’re a fucking pussy. I’ve talked to both, so I’ll tell you anyway. Luis Patelli runs the cocaine business on the East. And West. Organized. Italian. Mob.

Gabe has a temper. He fucked the wrong kid.

Ryan has a temper, too.

—Ryan—

Look, I could tell the guy was coming onto me the second he walked over. He wasn’t actually my type, but he had this . . . something. He was cocky, good-looking but nothing special. I’ve fucked hotter. Starr threw her hair behind her when she realized, glaring and huffing. “All the good ones are gay. I need some coke. Ry . . .” She tried the pout. It didn’t work.

“Buy you a drink?” It was barely a question. I shrugged. It was barely an answer.

We drank for the rest of the night, danced. I offered him coke, he said no, but I did three lines anyway. We didn’t fuck. We didn’t even kiss. I was actually kind of disappointed. He seemed like he’d have a decent sized cock and I’d had every intention of getting laid that night. No, we traded numbers. Imagine my surprise when he actually called.

The next day even. Date. Dinner. Seriously. I hadn’t been on a date that didn’t involve drugs, bad dance music, and a hotel room since high school. So to break the monotony, and hopefully get laid or at least get a blowjob, I said yes. But before I even got to pick out what to wear, my mother somehow heard about it and was so fucking worried about the big, bad man I met at the nightclub that she forced me to have the date at Daddy’s restaurant.

I don’t even like the Italian food you get at Olive Garden, let alone an actual Italian restaurant. Not to mention, everyone there would be keeping an eye on me. A restaurant full of baby-sitters packing guns and knives. My idea of a great first date.

Gabe was thrilled.

I should have realized then. Or during the conversation at dinner.

“So, what do you do?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.

“I’m in, uh, business.” he said, licking his lips.

I raised my eyebrow. “What kind of business?” I asked in monotone. I wasn’t amused by the secrecy bullshit.

He stared at me hard for a minute, then darted his eyes at the tables around us, making sure no one was listening. (Why they fuck would they be?) “Drugs.” It was said quietly, almost mouthed.

I laughed at him. “Oh, really. I didn’t catch your last name at the club. What was it again?”

He told me. I laughed at him again. “Oh, oh, oh. I know you. You run West meth, right?” I rolled my eyes. “Some fucking business. I heard you don’t even do your own shit.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, how can you tell if you’re selling a quality product if you don’t fucking test it?” But despite my condescending, know-it-all, asshole tone . . . I was intrigued. A little. I’d heard Daddy mention him once or twice.

“I have other people who handle that part of it.” he said. His eyes never left mine.

We fucked that night. In his car. Then in his apartment. I was right. He had a pretty decent sized cock and he knew how to use it. Jesus. If there’s one good thing I can say about Gabe Saporta, he’s fucking amazing in bed. Other than that, there’s not much good to say about the bastard.

He sent flowers to my apartment the next day. I’ll admit it. I fell for it. No one had ever sent me flowers before. And he picked the perfect ones. Or probably had someone else do it. Not too girly. The card said Tomorrow? -G. I called him. We arranged a date.

He was so fucking good at it. Never mentioned my father unless I brought him up first. We were together for three months when Christmas rolled around. Of course, I was expected to bring him home for dinner. That started it all.

- - -

So, Gabe started talking to daddy dearest. He was never so bold as to ask for help, which was good. That’s probably why Luis liked him. Gabe asked for ‘hypothetical advice’. Not too often, not too much. Just enough. And it helped us. A lot.

The only problem was Ryan. The group was of two minds. Either, you wanted to shoot his brains out . . . or you wanted to fuck him through a mattress. I wanted to shoot his brains out. I actually put a gun to his head the first time I met him. He broke my nose. Fucking queer.

Ryan was a fucking coke addict. So he always acted like a fucking idiot. And when he wasn’t on coke, he was drunk as fuck and hitting on everything that moved. Which isn’t good when you’re surrounded by gay guys that either want to shoot you or fuck your brains out.

I don’t even know if Gabe liked him. I don’t think he minded him all that much, but I don’t think he really liked him. Not even platonically. (He did tell me once that Ryan had a mouth like a vacuum cleaner. It doesn’t actually sound too appealing, but trust me, it is.) But Ryan never realized. Gabe acted his part pretty well. When he fucked around on Ryan, he was really smart about who he did it with. Mainly Pete. Pete keeps his mouth shut. He took Ryan on dates a few times a week, bought him shit, kissed him on the cheek, told him he loved him, called him ‘baby’ and ‘beautiful’ and something in Spanish that nobody knows what the fuck it meant.

They moved in together in February, after five months. That was when Ryan started to help us. He didn’t do shit for his dad in the way of business, but he knew exactly what went on. And the kid wasn’t afraid of anything. I’ve seen him pull out a semi-automatic and shoot a guy directly in the forehead in front of a handful of witnesses. One girl asked for his phone number and they went shopping the next day. Ryan’s one guy nobody’s afraid of and everyone should be.

Gabe made that mistake.

With Ryan, we took over East in three months. It wasn’t hard once he got Dunave, their main supplier. I heard Gabe didn’t fuck Ryan for a week after he found out what the kid did. There’s three stories and nobody, except Ryan, knows which one is actually true. There’s the boring ‘shot him in the face’. Then the one where Ryan took Dunave to the roof of his apartment building, lit him on fire, and pushed him off. (I don’t think that one’s true.) The one I think is the most likely is the stabbing. ‘Cause Ryan was going through this weird fascination with knives at the time. He said that guns were for gentlemen and he wasn’t a gentlemen, even though he lost interest in knives about two weeks after the murder.

Ryan didn’t use meth. He stuck to coke, which he got from Daddy for free. So that was one thing he and Gabe had in common, besides the fact that they both liked cock. Gabe, however, didn’t do illegal drugs. At all. Just some drinking, a cigarette on occasion. When they fought, Gabe called Ryan a ‘cokewhore’. Ryan was usually too fucked up to respond with anything intelligible.

Gabe never killed anybody. Ever. I don’t think he was exactly thrilled with the fact that Ryan was either. I mean, he wasn’t about to complain. Like, I said, we took over East in three months. But we weren’t used to running business like that. Not with murder. And we didn’t do much of it. Ryan seemed to be the one killing everybody. I think Luis knew. He certainly did send a huge-ass fucking thing of flowers to the Dunave funeral. It wasn’t like Dunave was in with the Italians.

Ryan wasn’t even really in with them. He could just call them, get them to ‘take care of’ things, get coke, get money. He was in with Daddy, but not the mob. I don’t think they were too fond of having to cater to a faggot either. But they did. So did we.

Not like Ryan took over. He didn’t. He didn’t handle any of the business. Not physically. Except for the blood splatters and the trigger pulling. He just told Gabe where to get the meth, how to conceal better, where to drop off, how to make sure that our runners wouldn’t get caught, what cops he knew. Ryan was apparently well-known for that vacuum mouth.

He was a fucking slut. And he was pretty enough that a ‘straight’ guy could get a blowjob from him and not feel too guilty about it if they didn’t kiss after. Not that I did. I’m actually straight. Not a closet case. Why the fuck would I be?

Ryan tried to get Gabe to start wearing suits like Daddy and Daddy’s boys. Gabe smacked him. Ryan gave him a black eye. Tempers.

Gabe never should have fucked that kid. We would have been better off just keeping West.