“But Mikey is still out there.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah, he is. And there are others, too. Lorenzo will go down, but that won’t stop them.”
“What will?”
He doesn’t answer. He hugs me tight against him and holds me there. I feel the fear rushing through my body but I feel so powerless.20MaxThe local cops come and take Lorenzo away. I’m tempted to rough him up some more and ask him some questions before they arrive, but Archie hovers over the man like a guard dog and won’t let me near.
I make Delia get some sleep and I manage to catch a few hours before Patricks wakes me up. It’s just after six in the morning.
“I leave for one night and all hell breaks loose,” he says.
“Took you long enough.” I step out into the hallway and let the door shut behind me. I wince at the motion.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I’ll live.”
“Good. Because I’m told there’s still one guy out there.”
I sigh and lean up against the wall. “More than just one. There’s a whole fucking mafia. They won’t give up after this.”
Patricks nods and crosses his arms. “What do you propose?”
I look at him. “I don’t know.”
He lets out a breath. “That’s not helpful.”
“I don’t know how to get the mafia off someone’s ass. That wasn’t my fucking job.”
Patricks just grunts and looks at the floor. “I might have an idea. Well, maybe half an idea.”
“I’m all ears. Better than what I got right now, which is jack shit. I figured I’d hunt down the other guy, beat his ass, and go from there.”
Patricks chuckles then shakes his head. “I’ll go to Mrs. Lofthouse.”
I snort. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Patricks gives me a long look. “How much do you know about the Lofthouse family?”
“Not much,” I admit. “I know they’re rich and well connected. I know they’ve been rich for a long time. Like one of those old-money families.”
Patricks leans against the wall next to me. “Yeah, that’s right. Most people know that much. But they don’t know how the family made their money.”
I cock my head. “I assumed it was in railroads or something like that.”
He laughs. “Well, they did own a railroad at one point, but no, this is way back in the day. Before the West was settled, before the trains. The Lofthouse family goes back to the start.”
“Wait, hold on. Are you about to give me a history lesson?”
He glares at me. “Shut up and listen.”
“All right, fine. Go ahead.”
“Anyway, they started one of the first banks in the country. It wasn’t really a bank back then but more like a loan shark business. They’d give loans to farmers and take a percentage of their crop as payment. They got wealthy off the hard work of others, and from there, they branched out. There’s the railroad, a media company, and they were bootleggers during Prohibition.”
I can’t help but laugh. “No kidding?”
“Serious bootleggers. Government couldn’t do shit because the politicians were all in their pocket.”
“So what happened to them?”
“They invested, made more money, married rich, but they kept their connections. See, when you were a bootlegger, you had to know people, the kind of people that could take an illegal product and distribute it.”
I stare at him for a long moment. “They had mob ties?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know if it was the mafia exactly. Definitely gangsters in general. Irish, Italian, Canadian, they didn’t give a damn back then. If someone could buy and sell illegal hooch, they were friends of the Lofthouse family.”
“How the hell do you know this?” I ask.
“There’s a fucking book about it.”
I shake my head. “No way.”
“I’m serious. Some distant relative wrote a book about it in the eighties. It was well-reviewed at the time. A serious piece of scholarship.”
“Okay, fine. So the Lofthouse family’s wealth comes from loan sharking and bootlegging. What’s that got to do with the mob now?”
He gives me a flat stare. “They still have connections.”
“Get out of here.”
“I’m serious. I’ve heard Mrs. Lofthouse on the phone. I’ve seen the men they do business with. They’re not all fine, upstanding citizens.”
I lean my head back on the wall and stare out across the hall. I find it hard to believe that the prim, uptight woman I met would do business with gangsters.
But it almost makes sense. I mean, the ultra-rich like the Lofthouse family have a lot to lose and even more to gain. They could easily help the right people out in exchange for certain favors. That woman would do anything for this family, and if that meant helping out some mobsters in exchange for a good land deal, for example, then I think she would do it.
“Do the rest of them know?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” he admits. “I think the father knows, but he’s not the one driving the family. Hasn’t been since he married her.”