Page 17 of Gray Area

“I know your word is good, Tony,” he assures him. “That’s why I’m here, so we can sort this shit out.”

Perez nods. “Good, I want that to be clear between us.”

“I’ve known Eddie since he was twelve, poor kid. His family is a bunch of shit bags, and I felt a connection to him. I’d grown up in a similar way and I wanted to help him. I wanted him to have it better. So I started to have him do things for me—get me the paper, shine my shoes, grab me a water from the store—and I’d pay him. He was like a poor beaten dog, he was so hesitant to take anything, but slowly he warmed up to me. And he was a great kid. Loyal and trusting. He could handle any task I threw his way. And I started trusting him with more and more tasks. My kids were still young, and slowly Eddie became my right-hand kid. He took on a lot of things.

“A couple of months ago, I started to bring my son Dominic around. He is nineteen, and college didn’t work out for him. I started to show him some of the business stuff, some of my legit stuff. I want him to get ready to slowly start taking over. I could see Eddie getting irritated with how much time I was spending with Dominic. He didn’t like it when I would send Dominic to have him do things.

“And one day Eddie asked when he was going to be taking over. I was shocked. I have always talked about how I’d worked so hard so my kids would have something. I know Eddie had heard me say it over the years.

“I told Eddie this is a family business. The poor kid says he thought he was family.” Tony looks down and shakes his head. “I was blunt, too blunt. I didn’t give it any thought. I forgot that he was still the poor kid who wanted to belong, the poor kid who had earned my trust. And I more or less told him that he was just an employee.”

Perez shakes his head again and looks back to me and my dad. “He was so hurt, but we were out. I couldn’t talk it out with him, because we were in the middle of business. I planned to talk to him later that night. But that was two weeks ago, and I haven’t seen him since. He just left. I’ve heard rumblings that he is starting his own thing. But Eddie, he’s not a leader. More likely he took a job with someone else, someone who will abuse his loyalty. I’ve been trying to track him down, but he knows where I’d look for him, he knows how I’d do it, and who would look for him. He knows how to avoid them and where he can go. I’m worried about him, but he’s also—”

“A liability,” I fill in, and Perez nods.

“So no, Jude, I don’t have anyone trying to sell in your venues. And I don’t think this is Marco either. We have clear distribution lines and plans to merge down the road.”

“Any idea who Eddie might be working for?”

“I haven’t heard about anyone else in the area. I mean, it could be him trying to create a war, distracting both the big markets on this coast with it, and then get his own supplies in,” Perez says, thinking it through.

“It isn’t a bad idea if that’s what he is trying,” my father adds, and Perez shakes his head.

“But you don’t think that is the case?” I ask, bringing them both back to the issue at hand. “That Eddie would run his own thing.”

“No, I don’t,” Perez says. “It’s more likely someone else hired Eddie to try and create the conflict. He isn’t a leader. He follows commands well, but he can’t come up with his own thing.” Perez shakes his head, his gaze drifting off. “I’m not sure how your family ended up in the middle, but this isn’t the first time someone has tried to create a rift between the Vavitos and my business. I will look at this more for you, Jude.”

“Thanks, Tony. If you hear anything, please let me know.”

“I will,” Perez says to my father, and then he meets my eyes. “And if you see Eddie, or hear about his whereabouts, please let me know.”

I nod, and Perez comes over to shake my hand while my father moves to get himself out of the chair. I watch him out of my periphery and notice it seems to be taking him a little effort to get up. Before I can look closer at him, Perez starts to speak to me.

“It was nice to meet you, Declan,” he says. “Please know that my agreements with your father stand for your whole family.”

I nod, even though I have no idea what he is even talking about. My father has made his way over to us, and he and Perez hug.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Perez says to him.

“You either, Tony,” Dad says among some back slaps, and with that we leave the room. My eyes take a second to adjust as I goback out into the brightly lit warehouse and we head down the stairs and out to my car.

“You and Perez close?” I ask after a few minutes of silence.

My father smirks. “I worked with him when I was a kid.”

“You never said anything,” I say.

My dad shrugs and then sighs. “I made a good deal of money hustling drugs, along with loan-sharking and collecting before the navy. I had nothing. I get what Tony is saying. My dad was a drunk. I went in the navy because I knew I didn’t want to be doing that shit forever, and I hoped to make a career of it. That didn’t pan out, so I came back here, cause I didn’t know where else to go. No family. Tony set me up. He had started some of his own stuff then, and he had me doing the collecting. I took that money and rented the Flint location. I met your mom, and she didn’t like that I associated with drugs. It was a hard no for her. So Tony and I, we parted ways. But he is good people.”

“He sells drugs, Dad,” I remind him.

“He’s a businessman, Declan. There is a market for it and he provides it. He also donates millions into drug education for public schools each year, but he doesn’t talk about that. He has his money in other pots, more legal ones, but the most profitable is the drugs.”

I shake my head, because it seems like he is saying what Perez does is okay.

“I’m not saying I condone what he does, Declan,” my father says, eerily reading my mind. “But we have our gambling rooms, and you’ve seen what kind of lives that can destroy too.”

He might have a point.

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