Chapter 6 - The Mulberry Street Reckoning
The neon sign of the San Gennaro Cafe hummed with a low, dying buzz against the wet brick of Mulberry Street.
Dawn was still an hour away, and the rain had settled into a greasy, cold mist that clung to the iron fire escapes of Little Italy.
Inside the back parlor of the social club, the scent of burnt espresso and sweet anisette mixed with the stale smoke of cheap cigars.
Leo Romano sat at a round baize table, counting rubber-banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills under a hanging brass lamp.
He was thirty-two years old, wore a tailored silk track jacket, and carried the unearned arrogance of a prince whose father owned the borough.
Three of his regular enforcers stood near the back door, laughing quietly as they cleaned grease from their fingernails with pocketknives.
They believed the morning would bring good news from Columbus, Ohio.
They believed Cindy Stone was currently weeping in a locked cellar, signing away the digital ledger codes for Carter Logistics.
The heavy wooden front door did not open with the gentle chime of the brass shopkeeper's bell.
It exploded off its iron hinges with a concussive roar that sent shattered splinters of oak raining across the front display counter.
Silvio, the six-foot-four bouncer posted at the vestibule, barely had time to reach inside his leather coat.
Andrew Carter stepped through the fog of splintered wood like a phantom born of salt water and gunpowder.
He did not draw a weapon.
He caught Silvio by the lapels of his heavy jacket, pivoted on the ball of his foot, and drove the man’s skull directly into the cast-iron espresso machine.
The brass steam valve sheared off with a piercing shriek, blasting scalding white vapor into the dim parlor.
Silvio collapsed to the tiled floor, twitching in absolute unconsciousness as hot water pooled around his boots.
Andrew did not break his stride.
He walked into the back room with his hands resting loosely at his sides, his charcoal overcoat open over his dark cashmere sweater.
The two remaining enforcers at the baize table leaped to their feet, their hands scrambling toward the holsters at their hips.
Andrew’s hand came up from his pocket with the silenced Sig Sauer he had carried from Cindy’s ruined hallway.
Two muffled cracks tore through the sound of the hissing steam.
The first round struck the nearest man directly through the meat of his right shoulder, pinning him against the wood paneling with a sickening crunch.
The second round took the other enforcer through his right kneecap before his revolver could clear his waistband.
Both men crashed to the floor, gasping and clutching their ruined joints, filling the confined parlor with screams of agonizing shock.
Leo Romano remained in his leather chair, frozen in mid-motion with a stack of bills clutched in his jeweled fingers.
The color had drained from his face so fast he looked like a corpse dredged from the East River.
"Carter," Leo choked out, his voice cracking into a high, defensive register.
"What the hell is this? You can't come into Mulberry Street! My father has a treaty with your uncle! The Commission will bury you!"
Andrew walked to the table, his polished shoes stepping calmly over the pooling blood on the checkerboard tiles.
He pulled out a bentwood chair, turned it around, and sat down three feet from Leo Romano.
He laid the warm, smoking barrel of his firearm on the green felt, pointing it directly at Leo’s throat.
"Your father’s treaty guarantees that you do not touch civilians who carry my corporate credentials," Andrew said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
The silence between his words was heavier than a vault door.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Leo stammered, raising his trembling hands into the air.
"We’re running numbers here, Carter. Just sports books. We don't touch your docks."
Andrew leaned forward, resting his forearms on the backrest of the chair.
"You sent David Vance to Forty-Second Street to beat my assistant with an aluminum bat for an eighty-thousand-dollar debt."
Leo swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently against his gold chain.
"Vance is an independent contractor... he owes everyone in Queens... he told me he had access to Carter manifests—"
Before Leo could finish the lie, Andrew’s left hand shot across the table like an iron snake.
He seized Leo’s left pinky and ring fingers, bending them backward across the edge of the wood until the joints snapped with a crisp, dry pop.
Leo threw his head back and shrieked, the sound tearing through the steam-filled room like an animal caught in a combine.
Tears and snot exploded across his cheeks as he buckled forward, his forehead slamming onto the felt table.
"Call off the two men on the Greyhound bus to Columbus," Andrew whispered into Leo’s ear.
Leo was gasping, his breath coming in ragged, hyperventilating sobs.
"I can't!" Leo wailed, his forehead grinding into the green felt.
"I can't call them off, Carter! I swear on my mother’s soul!"
Andrew gripped the broken fingers again, applying a fraction of an ounce of fresh pressure.
"Why can't you call them off, Leo?"
"They’re off-grid contractors from Boston!" Leo screamed, his body shaking with unendurable pain.
"They don't carry cell phones when they're on a snatch! They have a dead-drop protocol at the Greyhound locker in Columbus at eight-fifteen! If I call them, they don't answer until the girl is secured in the van!"
Andrew let go of the shattered hand.
He stood up slowly, smoothing the front of his cashmere sweater as if he had merely brushed away lint.
He picked up the Sig Sauer from the table and slipped it back into his shoulder holster.
"Your father spent forty years building a criminal enterprise that survived three federal indictments and two mob wars," Andrew said, looking down at the sobbing man on the floor.
"And you destroyed all of it in a single night because you wanted to prove you were bigger than a bookmaker."
Andrew reached out, picked up Leo’s private diamond-encrusted smartphone from the table, and dialed a number from memory.
He waited through three long rings until a gravelly, aged voice answered on the other end.
"Who is this on Leo’s private line?" Frank Romano demanded, his tone sharp with patriarchal suspicion.
"Frank," Andrew said evenly, staring at the shattered man sobbing beneath his boots.
The line went dead silent for five full seconds on the other end.
"Carter?" the old Don rasped, his voice dropping into cold caution.
"Why do you have my son's phone at six in the morning?"
"Because your son broke the skull of Cindy Stone and sent two animals to abduct her sister from Ohio State," Andrew said.
"I am standing in his club on Mulberry Street. He is currently breathing through broken teeth."
"Andrew, listen to me," Frank Romano said, the old man’s voice tightening with genuine dread.
"Leo is reckless, but we have protocols. We call a sit-down at the Plaza. We settle the financial compensation."
"There is no financial compensation for what he did to her face, Frank," Andrew replied, his voice chilling the line.
"I am giving you until noon to surrender your waterfront warehouses in Brooklyn and crawl back into Staten Island."
"And if I don't?" Frank snarled, his ancient Sicilian pride flaring through the phone.
"Then by nightfall, you will be burying Leo in a closed casket, and I will erase the Romano name from the map of New York," Andrew said.
He tapped the screen, ending the call before the old Don could reply.
May you like
He dropped the phone onto the floor and crushed it beneath the heavy heel of his dress shoe.
Without looking back at the three bleeding men in the parlor, Andrew walked out into the misty drizzle of Mulberry Street, his eyes already turning westward toward Ohio.
