The Book of Virtue Read Free Page B

read?”
    What?
    Like I was a dumb bastard?
    Hello.
    She flicked through it, said,
    â€œNow there’s a word.”
    I followed her to the main room, an XL Yankees T-shirt on, asked,
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    She read,
    Schadenfreude.
    I asked,
    â€œThe hell does that mean?”
    She pulled a battered dictionary from my battered book collection, found the entry, intoned,
    â€œA pleasure taken from another’s misfortune.”
    Looked at me,
    Added,
    â€œBrady.”
    Got my vote.
    Handed me a glass of the freshly blended batch, it tasted,
    Cold
    Good and
    Like
    Hope.
    As artificial as that.
    And as long lasting.
    I said,
    â€œOr my old man.”
    She sat lotus style on the sofa, looked at me for a long beat.
    Then,
    â€œWe need to deal with Brady.”
    Sure.
    How?
    I asked,
    â€œHow?”
    She took a deep gulp of her drink, her eyes watching me over the rim of the glass. And,
    â€œWe need to cash his check.”
    No dictionary needed for that.
    â€œI wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and insatiable as well as a desire to learn every word in the English language that didn’t sound pretentious or ditzy.”
    Pat Conroy.
    My Losing Season.
    I was beginning to understand that my old man had used his book in a vain attempt at catching an education. Was that admirable? Weighed it against the terror he’d inflicted on me all his miserable life.
    Time was running out on my supposed plea to the Mafioso to ask him to settle his tab. No doubt, if I did, he’d see it as the ultimate diss and, man, this was a guy who beat a busboy to pulp for standing too close while the psycho was getting up from a meal—a meal, of course, that he didn’t pay for.
    Too, the schmuck, horror, never, like, not ever , left a tip.
    Enough reason right there to whack his tight ass. I owned an illegal Browning Nine. You run my kind of club, you need to pack more than attitude.
    Cici had it down.
    Brady rented a fook pad on West 45th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues. Friday afternoons, he liked Cici to come by and … entertain him. She had a key and gave me a copy.
    Oh, and a shit-load of coke. Said,
    â€œScatter it around the bedroom, make it look like a dope gig gone south.”
    Cici would have a very high profile lunch with some friends, alibi ensuring. Me, I had none and that itself is its own defense.
    The gun was untraceable. I’d literally found it a year ago, shoved down behind a seat in the VIP section.
    Friday, coming up to noon, I felt calm. Removing Brady would be a downright freaking joy and, in some odd way, like a lash back at me old man. I dressed casual, not sure of the dress code for murder. Old jeans, a battered windbreaker, Converse sneakers that had always been a size too small. Walk in the blood and the cops, gee, they’d have a footprint.
    It went like clockwork.
    Brady had laughed when I let myself in. He was nose deep in candy, lolling on a sofa, rasped,
    â€œJesus, never thought you had the cojones to attempt a burglary.”
    Why wasn’t he alarmed?
    The coke had fried his brain … too out there to be alarmed.
    Put one in his gut first, let him whine a bit, chalk up serious payback … but all fine things must end so added three to his dumb head.
    All she wrote.
    I then scattered the coke like fragile snow around his pad.
    Found the money in a suitcase.
    Yeah, believe it, a suitcase.
    Enough cash to launch two new clubs.
    Got the hell out of there.
    Discreetly.
    Next day, the cops arrived.
    I kid thee not.
    Two detectives, one surly and the other surlier. Bad cop by two.
    The latter asked,
    Pushing a book at me,
    â€œThis yours?”
    â€œMy dad’s book!”
    Before I could protest, the first added,
    â€œIf it has your fingerprints?”
    They had a warrant and found the suitcase in jig time.
    Cici.
    The bitch.
    I did of course try to implicate her but her alibi was solid. More than.
    My lawyer was very young,