Page 117 of The Beast Who Broke Me
The meeting is tomorrow night,about twelve hours before Big Gee is expecting me to turn up at the Obelisk on Sunday morning and hand over the Clemenza. I’m sitting in the great room, looking at the seating plan for the meeting that Caligula asked me to review. Because Strike Ferraro and his people did what their Don asked, and convinced a bunch more Loyalists to come out of the woodwork. That means more bodies in my house and more chances for someone to try something stupid.
Rosa brings me coffee, and I give her a nod of thanks, but I don’t look up from the page. And then Caligula walks into the room, and I look up at him. I’m painfully aware that I might not have infinite chances to look at him, so I’m trying to take all of them as they come.
He sits next to me and I shove the paper across the table. “Take a look,” I say. “I’ve flagged a few guys I don’t like.”
But before he can give me any feedback, we hear footsteps, and Sammy appears in the foyer, stopping in front of the full-length mirror to admire himself.
It’s obvious from the posing that he expects an audience. So I look.
And then I stand up from the table.
“What thefuckdid you do to that suit?”
His Lorenzo Benedetti suit was delivered yesterday by courier. Today, the charcoal jacket has a painted red X across the back, and he’s studded a bunch of safety pins and studs down the lapels. The cuffs are cut off at a deliberate angle so the lining shows through. He’s slashed the trousers at the knees and sewn them back up with red yarn. And the shirt underneath is plain white, but there are ink drips all over it—big black splotches that make him look like a fucking Dalmatian.
Sammy looks down at himself with a pleased smile. “Do you like it?”
“That suit cost more than I pay you in a year! Lorenzo Benedetti made that suit!Lorenzo Benedetti, Sammy!”
Sammy’s smile drops.
But I can’t stop myself. “Lorenzo Benedetti made a suit for the goddamnPope!” I holler at him.
“Well then maybe the Pope will want me to cut his up for him, too,” Sammy says, his voice rising.
I take a breath to keep yelling, but Caligula breaks in casually, “Sammy is an artist, Dami. He took a masterpiece and made it his own. That’s all.”
I turn on him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
He gives me a look. That’s all he does. Turns his head and looks up at me from the table, chin resting on his hand, those golden eyes steady.
I sit down hard. My hand bangs down flat on the table, and the coffee cups rattle. But I don’t say another word.
Somewhere in the back of my skull, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Seb’s saysOh, is that how it is, and I tell it to fuck off.
“Lorenzo is a brilliant tailor,” Caligula says. “But the man who wears the suit outranks the man who makes it, Sammy. And I bet Ricky will think it’s amazing, too.”
Sammy flushes. I didn’t even know hecouldblush, but there it is—color climbing up his neck, a grin breaking through his scowl like sun through clouds. He looks down at the suit, at the slashed knees and the studs and the yarn, and something in his face opens up.
I think about those art pieces in his room. The ones made from scraps, from reclaimed trash, things other people threw away.
I understand that urge.
I still think that suit looks like a fucking travesty. But I keep my mouth shut.
“These two,” Caligula murmurs to me as Sammy goes back to preening in the mirror. He taps paper, pulling me back to business. “We’d better put them further apart. I remember their names, and they weren’t exactly friends—” He glances at Sammy and drops his voice. “—in the old days.”
He leaves the room and I watch him go up the stairs, my eyes helplessly drawn to him. Sammy watches him go, too. And then he turns to me.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“What’s going on? You’re standing there looking like a janky motherfucker, and you’re asking me what’s going on?”
“Between you two.”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing whatever he says, Dami. You never do what anyone says.”
