“And maybe I seen you at the Inferno,” Fatalgio said. “Me and my brother—Dominic—that’s him down there, we go in there from time to time.”
“Yeah, maybe I seen you in the Inferno,” Frankie said. “I hang out there sometimes. And I’m thinking of going to work there.”
“Hey, Dominic!” Joey Fatalgio called to his brother. “Bring your glass down here and say hello to Frankie Foley.”
Dominic hoisted himself off his stool and made his way down the bar.
“Frankie, Dominic,” Joey made the introductions, “Dominic, Frankie.”
“How the hell are you, Frankie?” Dominic said. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Frankie said.
“Frankie was just telling me he’s thinking of going to work at the Inferno,” Joey said.
“Going to work? The way I heard it, he already did the job at the Inferno,” Dominic said, and he winked at Frankie.
Frankie felt a little nervous.
There were guineas on the cops. Are these two cops?
“Shut the fuck up, for Christ’s sake, Dominic,” Joey Fatalgio said. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?” He turned to Frankie. “You should excuse him, Frankie. Sometimes he gets stupid.”
“Fuck you, Joey,” Dominic said.
“There are places you talk about certain things, asshole,” Joey said, “and places you don’t, and this is one of the places you don’t. Right, Frankie?”
“Right,” Frankie agreed.
“No offense, Frankie,” Dominic said.
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Frankie said.
“He don’t mean no harm, but sometimes he’s stupid,” Joey said.
“Fuck you, Joey, who do you think you are, Einstein or somebody?”
“Where do you guys work?” Frankie said, both to change the subject—Dominic looked like he was getting pissed at the way his brother was talking to him—and to see what they would say. He didn’t think they were cops, but you never really could tell.
“We’re drivers,” Joey said.
“Truck drivers?”
“I’m a people driver,” Joey said. “Asshole here is a stiff driver.”
“Huh?”
Joey reached in his wallet and produced a business card, and gave it to Frankie. It was for some company called Classic Livery, Inc., with an address in South Philly, and “Joseph T. Fatalgio, Jr.” printed on the bottom.
“What’s a livery?” Frankie asked.
“It goes back to horses,” Joey explained. “Remember in the cowboy movies where Roy Rogers would park his horse in the livery stables?”
“Yeah,” Frankie said, remembering. “I do.”
“I think it used to mean ‘horses for hire’ or something like that,” Dominic said. “Now it means limousines.”
“Limousines?”