Tea for Two Read Free Page B

the United States. We need to make sure he’s not surrounded by any suspicious characters.”
    “Suspicious characters, eh?” Uncle Laz popped his head into the office. “Did Bella tell you the story of how the Rossis have ties to the mob?”
    I groaned and leaned my head down onto my desk. “It’s. Not. True.” I looked back up, my gaze shifting to Uncle Laz, who beamed like he’d just landed a role on a television sitcom. “My uncle Sal was in the mob, but he’s dead now.”
    “They took him out?” Agent O’Conner scribbled in his notepad.
    “No.” I groaned. “He died of natural causes. And he wasn’t technically my uncle.”
    “Sal Lucci was my brother from another mother.” Uncle Laz squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “Never had a closer friend.”
    “And your best friend was in the mob?” The Secret Service guy stared with great intensity at my uncle. “Tell me more.”
    Laz took a few steps into the room and I could literally feel the Secret Service guys stiffening their backbones. “Well now, you see. . .once upon a time old Lazarro Rossi—yours truly—was a bit of a scoundrel. To say I was a heavy drinker would be putting it mildly. We lived in New Jersey at the time, and I was on my way home one night when suddenly, from out of nowhere, I had a Damascus Road experience.”
    “Damascus Road?” O’Conner looked up and I could read the confusion in his eyes. “Isn’t Damascus in the Middle East?”
    “Yep.” Laz nodded and his eyes filled with tears, something that often happened when he shared his story. “See I was blinded by a bright light, just like the apostle Paul in the book of Acts.”
    I shook my head. “What he means to say is, he was stumbling out of a bar in a drunken stupor and landed in the middle of a street late at night. A city bus was headed right for him.”
    “As I said, a bright light.” Laz squinted, as if seeing it all over again. “Back in those days, I was a vacuum cleaner salesman.” He shifted his gaze to the Secret Service man. “For real, I mean. It wasn’t a cover for anything else. Anyway, I sold a vacuum—a Kirby, model 516—to Sal. . .and the rest was history.”
    “He pulled you into the mob?” O’Conner asked.
    “No. He pulled me into the bar. We were there together the night I saw the light. It took several years before he saw it too, but he did. Before he passed, praise the Lord.”
    “Sir, are you saying that your friend Sal Lucci was hit by a bus, as well? Is that how he died? If so, I would hardly call that natural causes.”
    “Oh, no. Not at all. Sal passed years later. He died with his hands and heart clean as a whistle, washed in the blood.”
    “Washed in blood?” O’Conner took to scribbling again. “Mob hit? His old life caught up with him?”
    “No, his new life caught up with him. He died a happy man. And along the way, we even got Guido saved.”
    “You saved his friend, Mr. Rossi?” O’Conner glanced up from his tablet. “From harm, you mean?”
    “Yes, from harm. Saved Guido from a host of other issues, as well. He used to curse like a sailor.”
    “Mr. Lucci, you mean?”
    “No, Guido.” Laz grinned. “But we have a ways to go with Guido, if you want the truth of it. I doubt he’ll ever make it all the way to the heaven, unless I tuck him under my arm when it’s my time to go and we fly off to the great beyond together.”
    “You plan to take Guido to heaven?” O’Conner eyed Laz with more suspicion than before. “You’ve made that your mission?”
    “That’s the plan.” Laz leaned back in his chair. “Kicking and screaming all the way, I dare say.”
    “Where is this Guido you speak of?”
    “In the front hall.”
    Every man in the room startled to attention and they all began to argue over whether or not they’d passed a man named Guido in the front hallway of Club Wed.
    “Calm down, everyone,” I said. “Guido is just a parrot.”
    “In the figurative sense?” one of the