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Brood of a New Age
40
Hans Albers was always punctual. A legacy of his German ancestors, even if he rarely made a big fuss about the German in him - for obvious historical reasons. But that was something he was proud of. Being punctual and tidy. His little problem with gambling, the trouble with the bookies, the money he borrowed, not knowing at the time that he had gotten it from one of Anthony Dracon's moneylenders - he wasn't proud of that. He was weak. Repeatedly weak, and feeble in other ways as well. On the other hand - in rare cases even weakness gave you something beneficial. Like the possibility to pay off his immense debts as "tutor" of the little Dracon princess. There were worse ways to give the mobsters what they thought they deserved. Better than losing a few fingers or "sleeping with the fishes".
Especially after he arranged himself with the bossy housekeeper and nanny Graziella Dracons, it was almost a pleasant job. The little princess was remarkably clever for her age and remarkably delightful for her pedigree. Compared to his other students- arrogant, snotty, or bored college kids- she was a pleasant change, even if he had to trim the curriculum down to the level of a foreign kid from the backwoods of Italy, of course. But if things went on like this, the child would soon be caught up and might be able to start fifth grade material by the fall. If she were in a normal school and if her teachers there weren't stupid, she would be a grade skipping candidate. Her constant fatigue was a minor problem but heavens HE was tired too. The whole world was tired.
So he was happy when he entered the ridiculously stupid house code punctually at half past eight on that Monday and pushed open the door to the mansion with a "Good morning, this is Albers". And at that moment he heard glass shattering in the kitchen. As in his first days in the Dracon house, Hans ducked his head in a way that would have made a turtle jealous, waiting for shouting, for gunshots - for something out of a gangster movie. Instead, the crying of a child. Barely relaxing the already chronically tense muscles in his shoulders, the tutor walked against his better judgment through the first floor and peered through the swinging door.
Maria had a telephone receiver in her hand and was talking to the person on the other end. Or she was trying to. Her Italian was absolutely deficient which showed that she was the child or even grandchild of the very first Italian-born immigrants in America, most of whom had jettisoned their heritage even faster than other immigrants because of the strong racist tendencies among the Mayflower Protestant descendants at the time. A glass lay shattered on the floor. The orange juice formed a piss-yellow puddle at the child's feet, making it look for a second as if she had wet herself. Graziella Dracon, the daughter of the current official leader of the Dracon Syndicate, was crying bitterly and shaking all over. But there was no dark stain on her pink jeans, the mess on the floor was just juice, and she might have swept the glass off the kitchen island countertop because whoever Maria was trying to communicate with on the phone had upset her so much.
"Scusi, stop!" Maria ruled into the receiver, then turned almost desperately to Graziella, stroking her wet red stained cheek.
"My darling. My sweetheart. Please, I don't understand this guy. What's the matter! Tell the Auntie."
But the child only rubbed her eyes with her little fists, shook her head, obviously incapable of human speech at the moment, and sobbed even harder (although she did not bawl loudly as many children usually did, and Hans gave her credit for that).
Hans would have liked to turn on his heel at the chaotic scene. But he was not only punctual and tidy, but also considered himself a helpful person - even towards mobster children and their employees. So he gathered what little courage he possessed, strode into the kitchen and approached Maria, who was still holding the phone from which came a low Italian babble. One look from him and the housekeeper understood. Her features became unusually grateful to him as she handed him the bone and Hans set about using his numerous degrees in linguistics and foreign languages in the open field.
" Ciao, sono Albers. Puoi parlare con me," he said in his somewhat rusty but quite good Italian as he thought.
The man on the other end of the line spoke in a barely intelligible Naples backwater accent - that much Hans knew. But he understood him, even if his sentences were somewhat disordered by grief and stress.
Maria, meanwhile, had taken the child in her arms and was looking at him with petrified but uncomprehending features. And after a few seconds, the tutor pressed his lips together and understanding and sorrow entered his voice as he spoke to the person from the girl's home village. There would be no lessons in this house today.
.
.
"Where have you been Tony?" hissed Maria as the mob boss opened the door. It was after ten, but Maria had stayed. Because she didn't know if she could leave her charge alone. She didn't WANT to leave her alone, but every time she approached Graziella today, the child started crying again.
Anthony Dracon didn't give her his usual smug smile and that no-problem expression and that was his damn luck. Things were too serious for that.
"Will you make me an espresso?" he asked as he took off his jacket. The resolute female majordomo pressed a cup into his hand. Tony made a surprised noise. They were still standing in the hallway and Maria had obviously known that this was what he would want. Was he that predictable?
"Don't tell me you've been making espressos every quarter-hour since this morning because you thought I'd come running." He took a sip. The espresso was no longer hot but coincidentally just right. Too bad - now he couldn't even sit in the kitchen for ten minutes to sort himself out.
But obviously Maria had done the sorting for him. She pointed up the stairs.
"You go talk to your daughter now."
"Man, Maria knock it off. People are dying everywhere every day."
"Her grandmother was the last relative she had!" Tony smirked and Maria corrected herself, grumbling. "The last relative in Italy. The person who raised her. And she had to find out this morning from a NEIGHBOR that she had died."
"Of what again?"
"Of stomach cancer! I told you on the phone!"
Anthony Dracon, apparently denied even a minute's rest by the house staff, leaned against the doorframe to the living room and sipped his lukewarm espresso.
"Those Italians always drink their coffee scalding hot. No wonder they get stuff like that. It's unhealthy."
"Now don't get smart with me, Tony. I wiped the snot off your nose when you couldn't even get to my knee. I tolerate everything the Dracons do, I cover for you and everything even though I know a lot of it is dirty -"
"Much? All of it I'd say. That's just the way business is."
"- but you're gonna go to Graziella now and comfort her. She's been up there in bed all day, hasn't eaten, won't talk to me."
"And you think she wants to talk to me?"
"You're her FATHER Tony. I know Graziella was-," Maria made quotes in the air "-`an accident`. But she only has us now - you made sure of that in your quick-fire wisdom. She has only YOU. She is a wonderful smart and strong child but she MUST know that you will be there for her. No stupid comments, just sympathy. I don't care if it's real or if you're playing it but you're going to get up there and TRY!
"Or what?"
"Or you'll never get more than dishwater in this house again," she threatened, baring her teeth. Anthony Dracon rolled his eyes. But he pressed his empty cup into her hands and walked up the stairs.
"Fine, I'll give her the dad."
"Sympathy Tony. Talk to her like you wish you'd been talked to back then."
Tony took a breath in front of the door to Graziella's room. Not because he was afraid or something. Just ... because he needed air. Then he knocked. It was his house, but he knocked anyway. The arrogant smarmy mobster didn't have many manners but he thought it was decent not to barge into this room today. When there was no answer he opened the door. He had to admit - what Maria had done with this guest room - of course with the help of strong employees who had dragged in the appropriate furniture - was quite nice. Dark oak furniture had been replaced by bright friendly white cabinets. There was a large dressing mirror and a vanity table with a smaller oval mirror. The small TV from the kitchen was on the dresser - clearly something Maria had tried to comfort the child with. Likewise with the large but untouched bowl of vanilla pudding with raspberries on the bedside table. The old bed (not used since the last high-level visitor from Italy) was still the same, but Maria had transformed it into a girl's dream with white semi-transparent curtains. The small figure of the child was barely visible on the mattress because of the pillows. Tony left the door to the lighted hallway open, paced the already dark room. He wasn't that lucky, of course, that the child was sound asleep. She turned around and even with flushed cheeks, glassy bloodshot eyes, wrinkled clothes (Not a dress, but T shirt and jeans) and wild hair, she looked better than other kids at Sunday Mass. Tony was conceited enough to credit himself for the glorious result of his lechery but the Italian slut back then hadn't really been ugly either. If only she hadn't been so damn clingy.
"Well Dolly? Shitty day?" he asked coolly and the kid acknowledged his tone by clutching the stuffed bunny in her arms tighter and turning away from him.
He turned on the lamp on the nightstand, bathing the room in diffuse yellow light with long shadows, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He bounced a little. A king size bed for a small child.
"You know. I would have liked a room and a house like this when I was a kid. Don't get me wrong, we weren't poor suckers 20 years ago either, Dino's and my parents' businesses were doing okay. But everyone thought it would be good for me and my sister to share a room. God, we fought with each other a lot. Your aunt always acts all classy and sophisticated now, but her right hook was nasty. I'm sure it still is."
Tony realized he was babbling and rubbed his forehead. He was thankful the kid had her back turned to him so she wouldn't see what a bad figure he was cutting here. At that moment he hated that the hitman he had sent to Italy to kill the suddenly greedy broad with her mother-father-child fantasies that he had knocked up then had not finished the job. Eliminate them all, Tony had said. And this schmuck just finished off the mother and then took off with the generous down payment. Goodbye for ever over all mountains. What a bungler. And that Dino had also offered the old witch, who had now bitten the dust, to take in the child -. Everything was such a nuisance to him. HE- Tony Dracon- a daddy! From one minute to the next. How ridiculous. The kid still wasn't responding to him and that was really insulting.
"Been a long time since a woman gave me the cold shoulder," he grumbled.
Tony thought for a moment, then lay down on the bed, shoved a pillow under his head and folded his hands over his stomach. It had been a long time since he had lain in a bed with a being that didn't want to fuck him or that he didn't want to fuck. This felt strange. He looked to the side at the back of the child's head that was supposed to be his according to the DNA test. She was still lying half a meter away from him but he saw how her body had stiffened when he had laid down.
"There are days that fuck you from back to front. Sorry about your grandma."
Briefly he thought she would ignore him again. Then she took a deep breath.
"Thanks. Tony," she whispered in a choked voice. And a new feeling crept into the criminal whose job it usually was to make people suffer so they would bring him and the family money. Pity - and - disgust. Because she reminded him of himself. Of his former insecure self. Of his self when he was weak. Of his self when he ran away. Like when he had fainted in the arms of that gargoyle asshole Goliath. He had made his white strand of hair his trademark but that didn't mean it didn't keep reminding him where he got it. People said it was just a saying that hair turned white when you were scared to death. His white streak was a reminder to stop being such a weakling. And weaklings - even little girls - he disliked because they reminded him of himself.
He wrinkled his nose.
"When I started my business-," he said casually, - "no one took me seriously. Everybody said. What's this kid doing here? Why doesn't Dino take over all the businesses? But I made my own name. Because I was tougher than others. Because I had employees around me who were just as tough. Dino is also a badass but he is too subtle. He plans, he's a strategist. That's great but in the sectors I operate in, sometimes you just have to be an asshole."
"An asshole?" the kid asked, and Tony realized that maybe he shouldn't say words like that in front of her. Then again - he couldn't care less if she parroted him.
"A hard ass. A bastard. So people have respect for you. Sometimes people must be a little afraid of you, that all business runs smoothly. That's why people like Dino have their place. But so do people like me...What I'm saying is. The world is not nice. So you can't always be nice either. Now you still have Maria to cook you puddings and cuddle you. But when something bad happens, it does you little good to cry and curl up in bed. You're not an asset to the family that way. There are hundreds, sometimes thousands of livelihoods hanging on and depending on you to function and keep things going." Anthony scratched his stubbled chin. The day had been long and he talked more about himself than anything else. Not helpful. All he really wanted to do was go to bed.
"Ahhh. You're a little girl. You probably don't get a word I'm saying."
"Yes I do."
When the mobster turned his head, he saw that she had turned her upper body and was now looking at him. "Yes, I do," she repeated no longer with an outburst of emotion in her voice.
"In short. You are a Dracon. You are Gabriella Dracon."
"Graziella Dracon," the child said dryly, and Tony grinned at that.
"Thank you, Dolly. I'm Tony Dracon, and I'm the boss of a lot of people who depend on me. But you have to learn to be your own boss now. You have to be strong so that people take you seriously and have respect for you. Otherwise you will always be the crying little girl. And if you are weak you can't help anyone."
The child looked at him without understanding and he sighed. God, this was hard.
"Today you cried. And grieved. That was right and okay. But starting tomorrow, you're going to swallow your grief. You have to learn to be strong, for yourself and for others."
"For what others?"
Tony frowned. A lot of kids in the family knew about what he and his staff were doing. What the family, the organization did for a living. But Graziella was so small. She wouldn't get it at all if he explained it to her now, like this, between doorways.
"You have to be strong and tough sometime for the people who need you."
"That's what my grandma used to say. That I have to be strong to help weaker people."
Tony grinned. Weaker? He pretty much knew that the Syndicate only helped its own people. In exchange for their labor or because they paid for protection and support with money or goods. But ... somehow that was also helping. They helped weak idiots who did not know how to help themselves. That others were trampled underfoot was part of the business.
"Then your grandma automatically taught you the right thing. So. Be stronger. You don't have to be from one day to the next. But practice. So that one day the other idiots won't dare to mess with you anymore. We're Dracons. We have to be bastards and hard-asses. We have the family behind us and they have our back. And if others don't respect us, they're gonna get in deep shit. Got it?"
For the first time, the child showed a glorious smile- glorious despite the stupid gap in her teeth.
"Got it. I'm already a bastard. I can also be ... a hard-ass."
With a disconcertingly rare feeling in the pit of his stomach, Tony sat up, reached out and patted the girl's head somewhat awkwardly. She let it happen, even smiling a little. Tony got up and headed for the door.
"Tomorrow will be a better day. You'll see. Night."
"Good night, Tony," Graziella said as he closed the door behind him.
He saw Maria lingering against the wall a few feet away. Clearly, the old bat had been eavesdropping.
"Something you want to tell me?" he asked suspiciously, expecting a good tongue-lashing.
"That was rubbish. You gave her the mobster speech," Maria said. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "But better than I thought," she added with a broad smile on her plump cheeks.
Tony pulled up one corner of his mouth at his old nanny's praise.
"You go on home, Maria. I'm sleeping here tonight."