Elf Against the Wall: A Holiday Romantic Comedy (The Wynter Brothers Book 2)
Elf Against the Wall: Chapter 6

The big, burly muscle flicked the sterling silver lighter, holding it up to the cigar in the mouth of the Mafia boss. The grizzled older man puffed the cigar, catching the flame, then leaned back in the chair, smoke swirling around his face. Bulgarian? Croatian? Ex-Yugo Mafia?

It did not matter.

He was not who I came to see. He was smoking that cigar like a toddler sucked a pacifier to keep from crying for his mommy as he faced the expressionless man in front of him.

Aaron Richmond.

The Mafia boss’s men were draped menacingly around the windowless New York City bar. It was exactly the sort of place you’d think a midnight Mafia meetup would occur.

Except Aaron had no bodyguards.

The Mafia boss puffed his cigar.

Aaron waited.

I kept my mouth shut and my helmet on. It was not my business.

Beside Aaron sat his assistant, Betty, who was about a thousand years old, four feet tall, and eighty pounds soaking wet. She’d swapped her usual hot-pink sun visor for a green-and-red holiday edition. The polyester tracksuit, straight out of one of those eighties JC Penney catalogues my little sister, Elsa, used to cut up for her paper dolls, rustled as she loaded paper into the portable typewriter in front of her.

Coke-bottle-thick glasses were perched on her nose. She raised her hands over the typewriter keys. The toes of her feet in their orthopedic shoes barely brush the floor.

“Your bodyguard’s late,” one of the Mafia boss’s men chortled, breaking the tense silence and slamming his shoulder into me.

The Mafia boss inclined his head. One of the handlers backhanded the muscle across the face.

“He means no disrespect, Mr. Richmond,” the boss assured Aaron.

“That’s actually my twelve thirty.” Aaron glanced up at me then looked back at the Mafia boss.

“Wait in the corner, love,” Betty called.

One of the mob boss’s men handed Aaron a folder.

Aaron opened it and pulled out the paperwork inside.

The Mafia boss began, “I want to make sure that you know exactly what you’re insuring, no funny business from our side.”

Aaron thumbed through the papers.

Betty typed rapidly on the typewriter, bony fingers flying over the keys.

“We’ll launder money from illegal imports through our in-house construction company, paying laborers in cash. Additional cash will be funneled through the bar, club, restaurant, and on-site parking lot, contributing to an initial operation fund and a twenty-percent rolling maintenance fund. It doesn’t need to be said that we can’t just open our books to any insurance company.”

The mob boss laughed.

Aaron didn’t.

I watched my sometimes-employer review the documentation.

People thought that the Mafia ran New York City.

Maybe fifty years ago, sure, but today?

Try getting anything done without insurance. Want to launder money through a pizza joint? Insurance. Running a shady shipping operation? Insurance. Even casinos depended on insurance. Overworked government officials often relied on insurance companies to vet businesses, assuming that if an insurer issued a policy, the business must be legit.

Once an insurance company like Van de Berg had their hooks in an enterprise, you better not piss them off. They could expose your dirty operation to the FBI while claiming ignorance. The government wouldn’t challenge them because if a giant like Van de Berg collapsed, it took the whole economy down with it.

The mob boss shifted in his seat, his cigar almost burnt down to his lips.

“Make it twenty-seven percent.” Aaron crossed out a number with a red pen. “And we’ll work out an insurance policy.” He closed the folder.

The boss visibly relaxed and stubbed out the cigar.

“Pleasure doing business with you, sir.” The boss stood up and gave Aaron a little bow.

The typewriter clanged.

Betty loaded in a new sheet of paper and handed Aaron a large black book as the Mafia boss and his men cleared the windowless bar.

Aaron opened it flat on the table

It was a ledger. Old school. No digital records for Aaron, not on business like this.

He looked up at me. “Next.”

I approached the oversize table and removed my helmet.

“Evening, Betty.”

“What’s shakin’, sugar?”

Aaron ran his capped fountain pen down the handwritten ledger.

“Anderson Wynter,” he began. “On June 24 of this year, you fucked up.” His glittering green eyes regarded me.

I stared at the spot above his head.

“I hired you,” he continued, “to investigate a nonprofit for fraud. Instead of delivering the evidence that I know you found, you destroyed it, lied to my face about it, and cost me 5,342,010 dollars and five cents.”

I ground my teeth together.

“Because I hate to burn a good investigative firm, and your brother’s come through for me when other firms have failed, I gave you a second chance. I granted you mercy. Pay back the debt in six months, and all would be forgiven. Now here we are. December 10, and you still owe me”—he tapped the ledger—“exactly 745,632 dollars and sixty-four cents. Where—” He steepled his hands. “Is my money, Anderson?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Not good enough.”

“I’ve cleared through dozens of potential fraud cases,” I reminded him, “dug up evidence your people overlooked, and,” I added, slipping the printouts from my jacket, “I just cleared a little over two hundred fifty thousand. The Steppes account.”

Aaron flipped slowly through the evidence.

“You’re still short.”

“In progress.”

“Is it?” Aaron asked mildly. “Because I heard that you were caught. America’s pride and joy, apprehended by a college dropout with a toy rescue dog.”

“It had very sharp teeth.”

Aaron raised an eyebrow.

“You’re lucky it didn’t latch on to your willy.” Betty peered up at me through the thick glasses.

“It’s actually going to work in my favor.”

“Enlighten me.”

I pulled out the list of names, many of them crossed out, the majority of them with a dollar figure noted neatly to the right.

“These last ones here on the list? The girl, Evie, is related to them, and I have her under my boot. She’ll get me access to these last few names. I’ll dig up the evidence of insurance fraud and done. It’s the last half a million. I have two weeks. It’s nothing. I’ll clear the list with time to spare.”

“By dating some girl who’s blackmailing you? Color me not confident.”

I clenched my fists. Forced myself to relax.

“I would never actually date her. I can’t stand her. Or her family.”

Aaron gave me an assessing glance. “My mistake.”

“She’s a tool to be used. Believe that.”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“I will pay you back by Christmas,” I promised Aaron. “I give you my word.”

The typewriter dinged.

“You better.”

As the winter landscape passed me by in a blur, I wondered, as usual, what the hell was wrong with me.

How had I fucked up my life so bad?

I wished I could just ride and ride, as fast as the motorcycle could take me. Away from it all—out west.

Just escape.

Instead, I rode to Maplewood Falls, to the good part of town.

“Bro, you’re late.” My younger brother Talbot slapped me on the back when I walked into the big commercial kitchen, where I tossed my jacket and helmet into a locker.

I grabbed an apron from the hook on the wall, tied it around my waist, and pulled the silk tie out of my pocket.

Talbot took it from me and popped the collar of my starched white dress shirt.

“If you see anyone from the Kingsley-Alden job, give me a heads-up, okay?” He deftly tied a Windsor knot. “Look at you in your little monkey suit.”

“Did yous get more tattoos?” the manager demanded when he saw me.

“Stop riding him, Mac. He’s been up all night.”

The manager cracked his neck. “I always tell you kids to get more sleep. Yous gonna to wake up like me with aches and pains one day.”

“Gets colder every year, don’t it, Mac?” one of the cooks called.

“I have some extra firewood. I’ll bring it by your place later,” I promised Mac. “Have to borrow my brother’s truck when he’s not in town.”

“I’m good. You kids don’t worry about me.”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s just from another job,” I lied. “Rich woman decided it was too rustic. Felt like someone should use it so it doesn’t go to the landfill.” Mac wouldn’t accept it if he’d known I’d chopped it just for him.

“All right, all right, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you have five minutes to eat, Anderson,” he barked at me.

“Like I want to eat your shitty food,” I said with a smile.

“Your brother’s an asshole.” Mac slapped a towel into Talbot’s hands.

“Always!” Talbot quipped as I grabbed a bowl of the eggs, potatoes, and bacon Mac had left for me, then I wolfed it down.

A hundred fifty years ago, the Wynter family had been this club’s most prominent members. Now I cleaned the tables they used to dine at.

“The bridge club is coming in at eleven,” Mac told me. “I’m putting them in your section. Zeke says he’s going to quit if he has them again. Put those tattoos to work. They’re a big draw with some of the neglected housewives.”

“I don’t know why you’re complaining. You did some of them,” I reminded him.

“Just the shitty ones. Hey,” he added, serious, “you haven’t been picking up that many shifts. I can schedule you in for more if you need.”

“Doing some work to pay back some money I lost.” The lie slipped out easily.

Talbot, walking by, made a slot machine noise.

Mac slapped me on the back of the head. “Make better choices.”

I stacked waters on my tray and headed out into the ornate Gilded Age–era dining room, my face professionally neutral, and took orders for the first of the brunch rush—mostly cash-flush retirees out with whiny grandkids.

Even though it no longer was the gathering place for one sixth of the world’s wealth, it still was the country club of choice for a number of high-status individuals. Regular access to them was worth the hassle.

Usually.

I peered out over the privileged elite as they complained loudly about the state of their grilled fish and beurre blanc sauce, demanded to speak to the manager, or let their little dogs and ill-mannered children run around the dining room.

“Fuckers,” I mumbled.

“Hey!” Mac grabbed my jaw. “Leave it. This is a job. They’re a paycheck.”

But that girl in a red-and-green pinafore sitting in front of the sparking crystal glasses and fine china, fidgeting with the ends of her hand-knitted scarf?

She wasn’t just a paycheck.