The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(179)

“Call Nightingale off,” Sal demanded immediately.

“Talked to the man once. Even so, it was pretty clear he’s not the taking-orders-from-a-mob-boss-or-anyone type of guy,” Benny returned.

“Convince him,” Sal ordered.

Ben looked to the ceiling.

I tightened my arm on Sal and he looked at me.

“Maybe we should let him do what he does, seein’ as he does it for a living,” I told Sal.

“And we don’t know this guy. Maybe he’s shit at what he does, and us turnin’ this over to him means you bein’ safe now becomes you bein’ not so safe.”

I didn’t know anything about PIs, but the Nightingale Investigations website was pretty cool. It was attractive. Very male. Extremely professional. It wasn’t wordy. In fact, outside of a one sentence mission statement that was an actual mission statement, not a hokey tagline, everything was bullet points.

Then again, a good website probably didn’t make a good private investigator.

I pressed my lips together and looked to Benny.

Benny sighed before he said, “Right. We get the go-ahead from Frankie’s girl, I’ll call Nightingale. Tell him we’ll do the drop, but we want to meet his man during it so we know who we’re handing this shit over to.”

“And tell him his man will work with my men,” Sal added.

“Sal,” Benny began, “not only does this guy not strike me as a take-orders type of guy, he also doesn’t strike me as a take-on-random-partners-in-an-important-investigation type of guy, those partners being Mafia.”

“He’ll understand a good deed,” Sal replied.

“Even I don’t understand you doin’ a good deed, and I just witnessed you givin’ something to my woman that was straight-up good and clean,” Benny returned, and my heart skipped a beat as I felt Sal’s body tighten beside me.

I felt it loosen and I looked up to see him grinning a shit-eating grin as he remarked, “I think you just said somethin’ nice to me, figlio.”

“Be sure to write it in your diary,” Ben muttered as my phone rang.

I disengaged from Sal and dashed to the kitchen, Gus on my heels, thinking it was a game, and nabbed my phone.

It was Tandy.

I took the call and got confirmation that Roxie and Hank had a Christmas Eve wedding, thus their colors were green and red, something Tandy’s friend’s sister knew since she was invited.

These were the colors Nightingale put in his email.

Nightingale was on the up-and-up.

I thanked Tandy and gave this news to Sal and Ben.

The instant I did, Sal looked to Benny and ordered, “Make the call, figlio.”

Ben stared at Sal for long moments before he looked at me.

“You absolutely sure you don’t wanna work at the pizzeria?” he asked. “Shit like this does not happen at my pizzeria.”

I smiled at him.

He waited.

I kept smiling at him so he’d know that was all the answer he was going to get.

“Shit,” he muttered and reached into his back pocket to get the phone.

Gus licked my foot.

I called, “Sal, you want some coffee and a day-old donut?”

Sal turned and grinned at me.

* * * * *

We walked into Frank’s restaurant at two thirty that afternoon, the meeting pushed back so the Luke Stark guy could land at Indianapolis International Airport, get his rental, and meet us. A change in plans I understood, from listening to Benny’s side of the conversation, Lee Nightingale didn’t like all that much. A change in plans we discovered, from the instant we entered the restaurant, Lee Nightingale didn’t inform Herb of.

And Herb brought company.

We knew this when we walked in and heard a woman’s voice call out, “Yoo-hoo! Are you Frankie and Benny?”

I looked to a back table and saw an older woman with her arm up in the air, waving at us. Sitting beside her, staring at her like she was crazy, was an older, red-haired man.

Sal was with us. He had two men stationed outside the restaurant and one in a car across the street. For some reason, he was prepared for an ambush.

I really hoped Lee Nightingale truly was on the up-and-up since I didn’t want an old-fashioned café, which looked like it hadn’t changed since the early ’60s (not to mention its patrons), caught in the crossfire of whatever Sal’s brand of protection would be.

“This doesn’t give me good feelings,” Sal muttered, eyes on the waving woman as we made our way to the back table, Benny leading at the same time hauling me with him since his hand was in mine, Sal following us.

Benny stopped us by the table and declared without greeting, “It was our understanding we were meeting a Luke Stark here.”

“You are,” the red-haired man replied. “Lee told me I was out.” He jerked a thumb at the woman at his side. “But she wanted to come anyway.” He looked to her. “Just sayin’, you’re explainin’ this shit to Lee.”

She turned narrow eyes to him and admonished, “Herb, don’t say ‘shit.’”

“Woman, I’m a grown man. I’ll say ‘shit’ if I wanna say ‘shit,’” he shot back.

“It’s uncouth,” she retorted and swung a hand toward us. “We barely know these people.”