Page 182 of Marcello

“What kind of arrangements?”

That was when he spilled his guts.

There was a hierarchy amongst the foot soldiers. The men with the most seniority had their choice of day shift or night shift – and everybody wanted the day shift.

Only the lowest-ranking guys got the night shift. It was a minimum of five nights a week, sundown to sunup. It was also nearly impossible to get off the night shift, because somebody had to leave in order for someone else to move up – and the only way that happened was if somebody died.

Not impossible, with the Camorra around… but nobody had gotten shot in nine months.

There were guys who had worked the night shift for a decade.

In addition, doing the night shift outside was the worst. You were exposed to the elements – heat, cold, bugs, and rain – and it was boring as hell.

Since they hated their jobs and couldn’t lead a normal life, the night-shift guys occasionally snuck in call girls through the stone corridor in the back wall.

When it happened, the other guards would leave the one guy alone to get a blowjob or a quickie. Kind of a wink wink, nudge nudge situation.

There were surveillance cameras outside the walls, but the guys in the control room looked the other way, too. They had all been on night shift themselves and knew it sucked ass, so they didn’t begrudge a guy having a little fun.

So that was Eugenio’s plan:

He was going to get on the night shift temporarily…

Hire a hooker to come through the back passageway…

And then I would sneak out instead of her.

“Wait – how does the Camorra not know about this?” I asked in confusion. “Don’t they control all the prostitution in Naples?”

“No, your family controls some of it, too,” Eugenio explained. “So we only use women who work for your father.”

GROSS.

I felt like I might puke.

I really, really hated being in a mob family.

“Even if the Camorra DID know about it,” Eugenio continued, “it would be suicide to attack us that way. Have you seen how narrow the back corridor is?”

I told him I had.

“It’s like that because if anybody tried to come through, they’d have to move single file,” Eugenio explained. “Our guards could just fire blindly into the corridor and plug up the passageway with a couple of dead bodies.”

That explained why the corridor was so small.

I frowned. “The woman who’s going to come in so I can sneak out – what are you going to do about her?”

Eugenio glowered at me. “I’m going to have to pay her to hang around while you’re gone… which will be very expensive.”

“Better than having to eat your own testicles,” I pointed out.

He didn’t like that, but he didn’t say anything.

“Where will she hide?” I asked.

“Probably in the corridor. So you’re going to have to be back before the day shift comes on so we can switch her out. Understand?”

“Okay.”