Invasion of Privacy

Zuppone. “The fuck you letting happen here?”
    “Hey-ey-ey, Mr. Ianella—”
    The younger man cuffed Primo, a heel of the hand to the jaw. Junior was quick, but, in my opinion, not very smart for doing it.
    Zuppone struggled to control himself. “Mr. Ianella, please—”
    Another cuff.
    “Mr.—”
    And another.
    I saw Primo’s fist get ready to come up, and I think Cocozzo saw it too, because the balding man said, “Boss,” but not as a question or for permission to speak.
    Ianella turned to him. “What?”
    “I got a different idea. What say we have Primo talk to this guy some more while you and me go out, buy a capuccino or something, wait by the car?”
    “You mean just walk the fuck out, after all the shit this dickhead’s been giving us?”
    Again patiently. “Boss, we want to find DiRienzi, but this ain’t our turf. We’d be spending our time asking for directions, spinning our wheels, am I right? We let Primo and Cuddy here handle it for us, we’re ahead of the game and back home sooner, with that rat’s head on a platter.” Ianella didn’t like it, but I was getting the impression that Cocozzo had been right in the past about a lot of things, and somebody, maybe the patriarch, had made Junior recognize it.
    The scarred eyebrow seemed to resolve itself as the younger man rose, unbuttoning his own suit jacket. I tensed, but all Ianella did was pick up my chair and use it as a battering ram, legs first, on the door side of Cocozzo’s wall. Once, twice, and a third time, the legs penetrating the fiberboard, sending dust into the air and chips of paint to the floor. A series of three, like his cuffing Primo, and a dozen jagged holes.
    Junior dropped the chair so that it was standing on its feet. Then he shrugged his shoulders to get the suit jacket to drape correctly and buttoned up. “Next time, dickhead, it won’t be your wall.”
    Cocozzo waited until the younger man was into the hall before backing up and through the door himself, closing it behind them.
    Zuppone had watched all this without a word. Waiting a count of five after they left, he turned back to me. “Thanks for returning my calls, you stupid fuck.”

    “Look at it this way, Primo, things could be worse.”
    “How?”
    “Well, instead of just the one section of fiberboard there, I might have to replace—”
    “I don’t mean about your fucking wall, Cuddy.” Zuppone squared himself in the client’s chair. “You got to understand something. My organization owes their organization, only it’s more personal than that. We owe them for a favor they did us when we fucking needed one bad. Now they think we can, like, reciprocate, get me? And it sure looks like we can, and should, but you’re playing the turd in the soup.”
    “Primo, I told you before, I’m not setting up this Di-Rienzi for those guys to kill.”
    “The fuck do you care, they whack him or not? The fucking guy’s a rat. What’s he to you?”
    “Nothing. But I’m not going to be the reason they find him if I can help it. And besides, it’s more complicated now.”
    “Complicated how?”
    “My client’s missing.”
    “On the level?” said Zuppone.
    “Yes.”
    “That wasn’t just some bullshit con you were running to stall us?”
    “No. Ever since I told her that the boyfriend wasn’t checking out, nobody’s heard from her, and several people should have.”
    Primo looked down at the floor. “I guess I gotta take your word on that.”
    “It’s the truth.”
    “And that’s the complication.”
    “If she and this DiRienzi are together somewhere.” Zuppone’s head snapped back up. “What, you’re worried about us hitting the woman too?”
    “Yes.”
    “I told you once, Cuddy, we don’t go off on a drive-by, spray some fucking street corner with an Uzi like these kid gangs. We do a hit, it’s specific.”
    “Primo, why do you suppose Junior there came on this trip?”
    “ ‘Junior.’ That’s all you need to call—”
    “Cocozzo’s the executioner type, Rick’s here without a gun, but when it comes to happen, I think I can picture the son avenging his father. That way on visiting day, he can go out to the prison, say to the old man, ‘Hey, Poppa, I’m the one did the Judas for you. Tell him, Coco .’ ” Zuppone just shrugged.
    “Primo, if somebody anonymous was tapped to pull the trigger on DiRienzi, then I can see my client being okay. How’s she going to identify some guy from Vegas or St. Louis , brought in