Bad Apple by Anthony Bruno Page A

her. She thinks she’s better than her upbringing. But in her case, that was okay. He liked the fact that she had a backbone, that she told people to go to hell all the time, and that she said she wanted nothing to do with wiseguys. That was okay.
    But on Santoro, this attitude wasn’t so becoming. It justshowed him up for what he really was, a snot-nosed shitass. He needed to be taken down a few pegs, and Bells was just the guy to do it. That’s what he gets for messing around with Gina. That was the only reason he’d gone head to head with Buddha over getting these two mamelukes their loan. Sure, they were gonna get their money, and he was gonna encourage them to use it on their business right away, all of it. He was gonna lead them down the garden path because he wanted them to fuck up. And they would fuck up, he’d make sure of that. And when they did, they’d have to deal with their good ole shy, who was gonna be right there to wipe that smile off Santoro’s face. First off, Bells was gonna have to take over their porn business and run it himself to satisfy the loan. He’d keep Freshy around to run the day-to-day stuff, out of the goodness of his heart, of course. But Mikey-boy would have to go. And Gina, if she was brought up right, which Bells knew she basically was, would thank him from the bottom of her heart for saving her little fuck-up brother’s ass. In fact, he knew she would thank him, even though she might not make a big show of it, because he knew she was devoted to the little jerkoff and worried all the time about Freshy getting his head blown off or being sent to jail or something. She’d told him.
    The two black guys were moving slow toward the door, the one with the dirty face still holding the fin in his fingers like a retard who didn’t know enough to put it in his pocket. Then the boss showed up. Finally.
    â€œHey, Bells, Stanley, what’s happening?”
    Randy Slipowitz was a skinny guy with black black hair, thick eyebrows, and a honker like a sailboat sticking out of his face. He sort of looked like that guy on M*A*S*H who was always wearing women’s clothes to get himself booted out of the army. Slipowitz smoked like a chimney and always wore dress shirtsand dark dress pants, which were always covered with hair. He had this problem. A sickness, really. He had this nutty thing for animals. His house was full of strays he’d picked up here and there. Two dozen dogs and who knows how many cats. It wasn’t unusual for him to have a couple in the car with him, and right this minute he was holding this little cat, a sleepy little orange tabby, bigger than a kitten but not quite a teenage cat. Slipowitz scratched its head with a lit cigarette between his fingers even though the thing was already sacked out in the crook of his elbow with its little head upside down and its paws up in the air.
    But Randy Slipowitz’s animal problem went beyond stray cats and dogs. He had a thing for the ponies, too. Without fail, he’d spend every afternoon at the track, winning some, losing more, just like every other schmuck who lives for the ponies. He’d borrowed a hundred and seventy-five grand from Buddha to buy this Maxximum Muffler franchise, but he wasn’t here enough to make the place work for him. He must’ve thought the place would run itself, that it would somehow turn into some kind of magic money machine. But that wasn’t how you ran a business. You didn’t leave the help in charge day after day on a regular basis. Bells could see disaster coming down the road. Slipowitz hadn’t fallen behind in his payments—not yet—but Bells knew the signs, and it was definitely coming. The franchise itself was worth shit as far as he could tell. If the Slip defaulted, Buddha didn’t want the shop and neither did Bells. So that was why Bells was here today. To give ole Randy a little financial advice and get him back