Two days later Bobby picked up where Victor had never left off. He was sitting at the front desk inside the middle class gym, skimming through a couple of magazines. So when Victor came in carrying a small black plastic bag, he asked him what he was doing.
“Just trying to figure out what the hell I’m gonna do with my life,” he said. Bobby wasn’t a brain surgeon but he was smart enough to know that he was approaching 30 and didn’t have a dollar to his name. Or a skill on his resume.
“Well when you get your balls back gimme a call. I already told you.”
“Likewise.”
“Here, man.” Victor pulled a sandwich and an orange juice out of the bag and gave them to him.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. I figure the less money you have to spend the quicker you can start payin’ me rent.”
Even though Victor was just being his usual old self Bobby didn’t respond. It ain’t easy being an ex-con. But he did tell him that “Lorenzo came by, looking for you.”
Victor nodded. And walked through the half empty gym, across the main floor and went to his small office on the other side of it, in the back, behind the free weights. It didn’t have much more than a desk, a Compaq computer, a file cabinet in the corner and a Rocky III poster next to the wall calendar. Plus some pictures of Victor from his boxing days, his teenage glory days. But he was there for something else. He locked the door behind him, and closed the shade. Then he moved the file cabinet to the side, and lifted up the carpet from the corner. He spun the knob on the hidden floor safe that faced the ceiling, put in the combination, then inserted the key, turned it and opened it.
Victor took out 20 thousand dollars in knots of 5. He put them in the sandwich bag and went back to the front desk.
“Yo, so you’re gonna come by around 8, right?”
“Of course,” Bobby replied.
“Good. Michelle’s cooking,” Victor said.
And he walked out the door.
YOU ARE READING
FOR BLOOD AND LOYALTY
General FictionIT'S 1999, Bobby Drakis is 26, and after 6 very long years inside state prison he's out on appeal and finally back home in Bayside, Queens, New York City- where his best friend Victor Saravano has become a wealthy and dangerous drug dealing loan sha...
