"No, Tommy, thank you, for joining me on such short notice," Sal said as they entered the adjacent room and the large doors closed behind them."Now, I'm not sure how much you share with your family about the business, and of course it isn't my place to tell you, but I want to be absolutely certain that you have never spoken of our relationship." Sal turned meaningfully toward Blue who answered so quickly that it nearly startled him.
"Of course not." Blue had no hesitation because he had no relationship with Sal and trying to figure out what Sal was driving at would have been an utter waste of time. As it turns out, this was precisely the right tack to follow, saving both men considerable time as Sal had something urgent on his mind and mulling over the details of who Tommy might have said what to would only have served to infuriate him.
"Good". He started,"I have several very important matters to discuss concerning our arrangements. First of all, I assume that you are aware of the missing shipment?" Blue, knowing that going with the flow is usually best in situations when dealing with an individual tied to an agenda, simply flipped his hand in the air as if the mere mention of it was repetitive enough to be monotonous."Right," continued Sal,"are you then, also aware of the other missing shipment?" Blue raised both hands slightly, turned his palms upward and parted his arms wide, illustrating that he was sitting in Sal's house. This caused a little glimmer of a smile to cross Sal's face as he went on, "and I can assume since my men did not bring you back here dead that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of said shipment." The smile was mirrored back by Blue."Oh, speaking of which, sorry to hear about Maxie's little outburst. Can't say I understand what went down that day but apparently neither you nor Victor were meant to die. Nicely done on the pummelling as well, heard you really kicked his ass!" Sal's smile grew a little wider."Still, I told you not to kill him. I've spent a lot of time setting this whole Farb-damn operation up and I don't need you, Maxie or Victor Bastin' me around. Come to think of it, Maxie probably did the right thing to blast you, would've upset the balance to leave you alive if Victor was dead." Sal's smile grew into laughter. Blue crossed one leg over the other and leaned as far back as he could while still keeping his eyes on Sal. If he was going to listen to this shit, he was going to get comfortable. "Tommy, I gotta hand it to ya, you really have changed since you got shot. You know what they say 'What doesn't kill you, makes you healthy, wealthy and wise! So let's get down to the business of wealthy. I have no doubt that both shipments will be recovered. Nobody wipes their ass in Rat Town without McGoogle knowing about it and there isn't a breath that McGoogle takes that isn't first cleared through me. So you know what that means..."
"Yeah, sounds like you end up smellin' a whole lot of shit!", Blue couldn't help himself. He couldn't believe the set-up and if he didn't drop the punchline he'd not only regret it on this world, but just about any other. His own laughter was surprisingly overpowered by Sal's.
"Guess I stepped right into that one!" Sal was actually scoring bonus points with Blue at the moment. Nobody enjoyed beating a dead horse more than Blue. In fact, Blue liked to not only beat the dead horse but he would often crouch down real low, dig his shoulder right into the withers, forcing his upper arm under the animal and push with all of his might. With any luck, the horse would slide out into the road a little bit, just enough to get run over by a semi or bus and then he would wait. Blue would wait until the horse got nice and flat and then he'd roll it up like a rug. He'd take that rug and he'd throw it up over his shoulder and start walkin' down that road a piece 'til he came to a clearing in the otherwise elephant's eye high cornfield, a path, down through which he could see a farmhouse, with a clothesline. He would walk that rug over to the clothesline and he'd toss one end of it over the line so the whole rug would hang free in the air. Then Blue would walk up to the door of the farmhouse, introduce himself in a well-mannered yet confident tone and politely ask to borrow a broom. With that broom he would tirelessly beat the dust of the road from the rug, whistling to himself, usually a tune like 'Horse with no name' or 'Wild Horses'. Sometimes he would sing to himself, something along the lines of the theme song to a favorite TV show from his childhood called, 'Mr. Ed', often carrying on until he became hoarse.
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