Mafia Heir Turns Me Gay novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: Use the Bartender

Mickey should have shut the drawer.

He pulled the string instead.

The first thing that slid out was a photograph.

Kelli, in the gold dress she'd worn to her cousin's wedding, coming out of the lobby of her South Loop building at night.

Nunzio's hand low on her back.

A date was printed in the corner. August 9.

Mickey had been at that wedding with her.

He'd left early to cover a shift.

The next photo was Kelli getting into Nunzio's car on Wabash. August 21.

Then the two of them at a steakhouse window. August 30.

Then the coat room at the Forty-One, shot through the crack of the door. September 12.

Mickey knew that night too.

He'd made her a hot toddy afterward because she said she had a headache.

There were nineteen photographs.

Under them were columns of numbers on Lazzara letterhead, liquor deliveries, truck by truck.

Some lines were highlighted in yellow. The first highlight was in July.

Under that was a single page about Mickey.

His address. His sister's school. His parents' dates. The bar fund, with Kelli's name on it.

At the bottom of the folder was a sheet of yellow legal paper.

Three lines in black ink, in that slanted, leaning-backward hand Mickey had seen on five years of tip envelopes.

10/16, 1:10 a.m.

N. will come for him. Let him.

Use the bartender.

He read it until the words stopped being words.

Then he sat down in Santino's chair with the folder in his lap and waited.

The sky went from black to blue to grey.

At ten past seven he heard the elevator.

Santino came into the study already talking.

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