The House Always Wins

Chapter 17: Welcome

Freddy and Maxi finally finished counting the money after an hour and came up with a total haul of thirty-five thousand dollars. The man spoke. "Nice. Take your seven thousand and get out of here." Maxi handed Freddy three thousand five hundred bucks and told him to leave the room, but wait for him in the car. The man was too astonished at the money to notice that Freddy was gone. Maxi had seen that the man had put his gun away, as he seemed more delighted with the excellent service that Freddy and Maxi had forcefully done. Maxi then went to have a heart-to-heart conversation with the man. He spoke. "My name is Maxi, and you have done very well for yourself here, very well indeed. You know, I could use someone like you. It's just me and Freddy running the casino right now, so we need all the help we can get, and you seem like a perfect fit. Just the kind of guy that appears honest, but at the very core is brutal, hard as a rock and sharp as a nail, willing to get his hands dirty to make sure things get done. You see this money you got right here? Imagine the millions you'd get monthly just by working with us." The man had a deep thought and replied. "Sure. I'll join. I've been working down in the south, and where I'm from in Alabama, there ain't nothing to do besides selling rocks and smuggling guns. I'm OG south mafia. Sure, you can even call me a whiskey-drinking, gun-slinging country boy. The name's Eli. Thanks for the job." Maxi looked at Eli and spoke. "Glad you could join us. Now listen. This is real theft, real money-making, real crime. This is upper echelon stuff, not crawdaddies and sawdust. Our crime is not like yours. Ours is organized with a hierarchy, not scrambled like yours. This stuff is mob crime, not hillbilly hell. You know how a mob family works, right?" Eli replied. "Of course. I know this ain't at all like the movies. There's a boss. When do we meet him?" Eli was extremely enthusiastic about being a mob member. Maxi spoke. "You already have. You held him at gunpoint and forced him to count cash with his new consigliere. You told him to drive. It's me. I'm the boss." Eli instantly blushed and apologized profusely. Maxi told him about how the rest of the Lestima family had died off and how Freddy was helping him run the casino. Maxi and Eli then headed out with the money to meet Freddy at the car.