The Freeloader Who Kept the Mob’s Books

The first time Nico brought his girlfriend along, he asked if I minded dropping her at work. The coffee shop was two blocks from the Brooklyn social club where I kept the Bellandi family’s books. I told him it was fine.

After that, he stopped asking.

Nico had driven my father for eleven years. When he started driving me, he still got out to open my door, even in the rain. The morning I found the note, he stayed behind the wheel and watched me open it myself.

A yellow sticky note was stuck to the leather on my side of the back seat.

NO FREELOADERS.

I peeled it off. “Nico. What’s this?”