Read Online Grimm Tales by John Kenyon - Free Book Online Page A

Coppola’s
The Godfather
involving a brazen confrontation in an Italian restaurant.
    Quando sederis ut comedas cum principe,
    diligenter adtende quae posita sunt ante faciem tuam…
    Hmmm? What is it, Johnny?
    Tyler Hooper’s been waiting outside almost an hour? Who’s Tyler Ho—
    Oh. Yeah. The Good Samaritan. Fine, show him in.
    Tyler! Glad you could stop by. Sorry if Johnny kept you waiting, but I’m a busy man. You know Johnny from the neighborhood? No? Remind me to tell you a story.
    Hey, it’s about lunchtime, and I always like to talk business over a meal. Johnny, run down to the kitchen for us, would you? Whatever you want, Tyler, just say the word. A sandwich? That’s rich. Johnny, bring us a couple of steaks, Delmonicos if we have them. What’d you want to drink, Tyler? A Coke? Heh, it gets richer. Bring him his Coke and me a bottle of Cab. You’re a gem, Johnny.
    Coke. That brings back memories. When I was a young man this Jersey gunsel came here to negotiate a certain understanding. He asked for coke, too, only not the kind in a can. I had to explain to him that I run this house like I run the organization—clean. Not interested in poisoning the community or my people. Then asks why I have so many
boys
—that’s his word—who aren’t Family. I gotta explain the economics of integration to this halfwit? Forget it, I was a busy man, even back then.
    People come in here with expectations. “Gonna see the King,” and all that. At least Brando got a sensible moniker, you know? They look at the marble floors, the Degas on the wall, that fish mounted right above you. They start getting ideas. They forget I’m a man. I have expectations of my own. Johnny knows something about that.
    Since we’ve got a few minutes before we eat, let me tell you a story about Johnny. Truth be told, Taylor—that’s your name, right, Taylor?—it’s just as well he’s not here. This story makes him a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t always wearing Armani and standing in air conditioning.
    Not long after that little visit with the Jersey gunsel, I took a vacation to the Keys by my lonesome. This was before the wife and kids. Now, if I’d been thinking, I’d have waited to see how everything shook out after that meeting. But I was young. I wanted to catch some rays and a bonefish or two. Which is how I met Johnny: He was a guide, poling a skiff over the salt flats. Hard work. Hot work.
    I thought we were going out alone, but the morning of this other guy turned up. Broad-shouldered. Quiet. Wearing jeans and an army jacket. Not dressed for fishing, in other words. Plus, he couldn’t cast to save his life. Flats fishing is fly fishing, and soon as we got out there he started losing flies, snarling his line. I was thinking I should’ve insisted on privacy, but I was young, on vacation, taking everything as it came. Plus, I didn’t really care as long as I caught something. See, Johnny worked with this taxidermist who’d take your catch right at the dock, mount it and overnight it to you. I’d given Johnny the office address beforehand and everything. But the way this yahoo was scaring the fish, I’d be going home empty-handed, and when was I going to make it to the flats again?
    So, I was about to give up hope when I snagged something. It wasn’t weed because it began to fight, although not as hard as a bonefish. I was just landing it, Johnny scooping it up with the net, when I heard a splash. Army jacket had dropped his rod in the water. That wasn’t all. He had four inches of steel in his fist and was glaring right at me.
    â€œFrancesco Palmera,” army jacket said, “I have a message for you.”
    Now Johnny was a little slow on the uptake back then. He’d only just stuck the fish in the cooler—ugliest fish I ever saw, by the way, all flat and brown and slimy—when he saw the knife. He