Tommy called on a Sunday.
“Need you for a thing tonight,” he said.
No preamble.
“Guy’s been robbing the card game.
We’re gonna remind him why that’s a bad idea.”
Enzo sat on the edge of his couch.
The coffee in his hand had gone cold an hour ago.
“What do you need me for?”
“You read people.
I want to know if he’s got the money or if he spent it.
I want to know if he’s got friends.
And I want you to see how this part works.”
The part that wasn’t counting.
“Okay,” Enzo said.
“Pick you up at eight.
Dress warm.”
The line went dead.
Enzo set the phone down.
His hands rested flat on his knees steady, both of them, like they belonged to someone who’d already decided.
CONTRACT attend the lean.
RETURN: standing + blooded.
PRICE: [calculating]
The Bookkeeper didn’t finish the line.
That was new.
Tommy’s Cadillac smelled like cigars and the sandwich he’d finished on the drive over.
He drove south through Belleville with the radio off, and for ten minutes the silence did more talking than either of them wanted it to.
“This guy,” Tommy said finally.
“Ricky Pastore.
He’s been skimming from the game for three months.
Thought we wouldn’t notice because he’s the one who sets up the chairs.” He shook his head.
“Stupid and greedy.
Worst combination.”
Enzo watched the streetlights slide past.
“How much?”
“Twelve grand, give or take.
Probably give.”
“You want it back?”
“I want him to remember why you don’t steal from the people who let you run a game in the first place.” Tommy glanced over.
“We’re not gonna kill him.
Just make sure he understands the lesson.”
Enzo nodded.
Tommy pulled into a neighborhood off Bloomfield Avenue, narrow houses packed tight, cars lining both sides of the street.
He parked two blocks down from a squat duplex with a sagging porch.
“That’s his place.
Upstairs unit.” Tommy killed the engine.
Opened the glove box.
Took out a tire iron and a roll of duct tape and set them on the seat between them like groceries.
Enzo’s gaze went to the tools.
Then to Tommy.
“I told you,” Tommy said, quieter now.
“You’re here to read him.
But you’re also here to see it.
Because sooner or later, this is the part of the job that shows up.”
Enzo made himself nod before his throat could find a word.
“Okay.”
“You don’t have to do anything.
Just be present.
Watch the windows.
Tell me if someone’s gonna be a problem.”
They got out.
HEAT [new metric online].
RETURN: Tommy’s trust + standing.
Confirm?
Enzo didn’t know how to say no.
They crossed the street.
Ricky Pastore opened the door on the second knock, and the look on his face said he knew exactly why they were there.
“Tommy,” he said.
His voice cracked on the second syllable.
“I was gonna”
“Shut up.” Tommy stepped inside.
Enzo followed.
The apartment was small and smelled like old beer and someone who didn’t open windows enough.
A TV played low in the corner.
A couch that had been nice once.
Ricky backed into the center of the room.
Mid-thirties, thinning hair, wearing a Rutgers sweatshirt with a stain on the sleeve.
His eyes locked on the iron in Tommy’s fist and stayed there.
“Sit down,” Tommy said.
Ricky sat.
Tommy laid the iron on the coffee table.
Let it sit there between them like a price tag.
“Twelve grand,” Tommy said.
“You want to tell me where it is, or you want me to guess?”
“I don’t” Ricky started, but his voice died when Tommy leaned forward.
Enzo watched.
Not the conversation.
The room.
One window facing the street, blinds half-open.
Another window on the side, curtain drawn.
A neighbor’s house close enough to hear a shout if the TV wasn’t covering it.
Ricky’s hands were shaking but his feet were flat on the floor not ready to run.
Scared, not stupid.
READ he spent it.
Gambling debt, somewhere else.
The money’s gone.
He’ll say anything to buy time.
NEIGHBORS: the side window, second floor of the adjacent house.
Curtain moved 40 seconds ago.
Someone’s watching.
“He spent it,” Enzo said.
Quiet.
“It’s gone.
And there’s someone watching from the house next door.
Second floor, side window.”
Tommy kept his eyes on Ricky.
Never glanced at the window.
Just nodded once.
“Gone where?” Tommy said.
“I had a bad week,” Ricky said, the words spilling out now.
“I was gonna pay it back, I swear to Christ, I just needed”
Tommy picked up the iron.
Ricky flinched so hard he knocked his own knee into the coffee table.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” Tommy said.
“You’re gonna take a beating.
It’s gonna hurt, and tomorrow you’re gonna look like you fell down a flight of stairs.
And then you’re gonna show up to the game next week and you’re gonna tell everyone who asks that you understand why you don’t steal from people who trusted you.”
“Tommy, please”
“And if you ever, ever skim another dime, I’m not bringing the kid who reads rooms.
I’m bringing the guy who doesn’t stop when you start crying.”
Ricky made a sound that wasn’t a word.
Enzo’s hands were steady.
The steadiness was the part that made him sick.
It didn’t last long.
Tommy was efficient.
Ricky tried to cover his head and Tommy went for the ribs, the arms, the thigh.
The metal made sounds Enzo was going to hear in his sleep.
Ricky screamed once and Tommy told him to shut his mouth or the next one goes across the teeth, and after that it was just sobbing and the flat percussion of metal on meat.
Enzo stood by the door, weight against the frame, watching the side window.
The curtain twitched second time now, and the gap between twitches was getting shorter, which meant whoever was behind it had stopped debating whether to keep watching and started debating whether to pick up a phone.
“We’re done,” Enzo said.
Tommy stopped mid-swing, arm cocked, breathing hard.
“Neighbor’s deciding.
Maybe a minute before that lands somewhere we don’t want.”
Tommy let the tire iron clatter to the floor.
Ricky curled tighter at the sound, knees to his chest, blood on the Rutgers sweatshirt.
“Clean yourself up,” Tommy said.
“Remember what I told you.”
He walked out.
Enzo followed, pulling the door shut behind them without looking back.
They were in the car and two blocks gone before Tommy spoke.
“You did good,” he said.
“You kept it small.”
Enzo turned to the passenger glass.
His reflection stared back, calm as a stranger’s.
HEAT rising.
Witness involvement logged.
Neighborhood complaint likely inbound.
Note: HEAT rises fast, kid.
Falls slow.
Remember that.
They drove back north in silence.
Tommy dropped him at his apartment a little after ten.
Inside, Enzo washed his hands scrubbed them twice under water hot enough to sting, even though he hadn’t touched anything.
Then he sat on the couch in the dark and listened to the building settle around him.
The Name on the List surfaced again, uninvited, dragging a face with it a friend, in another life, who’d worn that same terrified expression Ricky just had: mouth open, hands up, the word please cracking apart before it landed.
Enzo had been the one who’d made the call that put him in the room where it happened.
He’d told himself he was different now.
That the Envelope showed him what a thing would take before it took it, and that knowing was enough to steer around the wreckage.
But Ricky’s ribs were broken and Enzo’s hands were steady and nothing about knowing had kept anyone safe.
HEAT 87%.
Federal attention: minimal, rising.
Neighborhood canvass likely within 48 hours.
The number sat there.
Glowing red in his mind’s eye.
It held.
He sat there until after midnight, waiting for it to drop for that bright ugly number to bleed down the way a bruise fades, slow and visible and eventually gone.
But the number just hung there, humming behind his eyelids, stubborn as bone.
Nothing changed.
HEAT falls slow.
You don’t get to put this one down.
Enzo closed his eyes.
The Bookkeeper was right.
The number was exact.
And Enzo was going to carry it not because he chose to, but because it had already climbed inside him and settled.
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― DECREE ―
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