The Godson

The 10 o’clock Staten Island ferry into Manhattan carried about five people and half a million dollars in unmarked bills. The boat powered through the water, leaving a churning wake behind it. Its few passengers were mostly random, but some of them saw each other daily on the same trip. They all took shelter from the January morning in the relative warmth of the cabin. New York was usually bustling, but by this hour, everyone working was already where they were supposed to be. Adonis was too lazy to make the early ferry, but he told his employers that he rode this one to avoid suspicion. Of course, his extremely tight-fitting suit and nervous eyes did anything but evade attention.

Those nervous eyes swept the cabin, supposedly absorbing every detail, but his mind was mostly focused on his mother’s homemade gyros in the sack next to his bag of cash and on the woman by the window. Today, her hair was in a bun and her furry-collared coat looked warm in the chill. At her feet was a small canvas duffel. She was reading her book like she did every day.

Adonis wondered what it was like to escape like that—to open a book and be transported away from normal life. He could talk to her, but his mission was one of stealth and people generally did not make small talk on the ferry. He thought of reading about other countries, or even better, fantasy places far away. Humming the theme song from The Sopranos, he made a mental note to look into reading and immediately forgot it. His burner was ringing.

“Corleone.” Adonis winced. He still hadn’t gotten comfortable with the name. He wished he had chosen a different one, but on that fateful night, it was the first one that had popped into his head.

The name started out as a way to get a job. His mother thought that a man in his late 20s should be working, but the Italian restaurant, La Vigilia, was not going to hire a Greek man named Adonis Papadopoulos. He figured he could pretend to be Italian. He waved his hands around a lot and spoke like Mario. When they asked for a name, all he could think of was Corleone. They hired him immediately and treated him like family.

The name came back to haunt him while he was washing the front windows and spilled his soapy water in the path of a customer. The customer was actually out on a hit to assassinate Adonis’ new boss, who turned out to also be a notorious crime boss. From that day, Adonis was a Made Man. Of course, it took him a while to understand that this meant “made” man, not “maid” man. Caught up in his memories, Adonis nearly missed the address for his daily cash drop.

As he scrawled the address across his palm, Adonis noticed the woman again. She kept glancing at the bag at his feet, which he had nearly forgotten. He carried a different bag every day, taking money into the city to various drop points where he swapped the full bag for an empty one. Today’s was a shabby briefcase, and as she looked at it Adonis knew exactly what was going on. She was on the ferry every day and was interested in his bag. She clearly was there to make sure he got where he was going safely. He gave her a wave.

The address on Adonis’ palm directed him to Carlo’s Laundromat, near Washington Square Park. It was random enough to avoid suspicion but definitely had ties to organized crime.

Adonis started to make his way off the ferry in the direction of the bus he needed. As he walked away though, he changed his mind. It might still be early, but his lunch was calling his name. He would take a detour to sit somewhere pretty and eat the gyros his mother had made for him. Battery Park was right there, so despite the frost on the grass, he changed directions and headed towards it.

At a bench in the middle of the park, he tucked the briefcase away and got out his lunch. His mouth watered, and he did not mind the fact that he was covering his hands in tzatziki sauce. He was finally relaxed, and his mind once again wandered back to how he entered this kind of life.

On the night the boss had called him to the back office of La Vigilia, the room appeared to be completely normal. Of course, the filing cabinets were full of contracts for hits and the books didn’t track the restaurant’s monthly profits, but besides that, no one would suspect a thing.

In the light of a single desk lamp, Adonis sat uncomfortably across from the man who would eventually give him his orders. The man was older, and his once dark hair had gone white though he continued to oil it in the same way as he always had. His face was so lined that any scars did not stand out. At the time, it seemed like an odd way to get a promotion, but Adonis wasn’t going to complain when he could use the money.

His new Capo spread his hands. “Welcome. You’re Corleone?” He studied Adonis.

“Um . . . yes. I come from an Italian family.” He was nailing this interview. The man’s eyes ran over his olive, Mediterranean skin and dark hair. He could certainly have passed for Italian, and the Capo nodded.

“With a name like Corleone the roots must be deep. My name is Luigi.” Adonis choked on nothing and chuckled. Luigi did not smile.

“Oh. You’re serious. That makes sense.” There was an uneasy pause before Luigi decided to continue.

“We need to know more about you. What are your . . . how to put it . . . skills?”

Adonis had spent time preparing for career questions. He had worked bagging groceries for a few years before this job and was sure that the work experience would impress Luigi, especially considering he would conveniently forget to mention getting loudly fired by his furious boss for crushing a customer’s eggs ‘for the last time.’

“Well, I’m very good at packing bags.”

“Oh, I think I know just what you mean.” He winked.

Confused, Adonis just gave his best smile and nodded. It was then that Adonis had been assigned to carry bags of cash to drop points throughout the city, which was an odd job for a restaurant worker. Eventually, he realized that things were not exactly as they seemed, but it was much too late to back out.

With his lunch now finished, Adonis focused on the mission at hand. He wiped his hands on his pants and his mouth with his tie. Standing up and stretching, he set out for the bus stop. He hummed as he went, trying to be inconspicuous in his now sauce-stained suit. Once again, the tune he had subconsciously chosen was The Sopranos theme.

He strolled through the gates of the park at ease. The majority of his work was finished now. The laundromat was only a short bus ride away, and then he simply had to make the drop. One bag for another. Simple. Looking down, he wondered where the bag had gone. Freezing, Adonis spun on the spot and ran the best he could in his tight suit back to the bench.

Luckily, the bag was still under the bench where he had left it. He only had to shoo off an interested dog that was preparing to lift its leg over the bag. The mutt was disgruntled but soon became even more interested in smelling the stains on Adonis’ suit. The dog’s owner jogged by, apologizing while also giving him a wide berth.

Bag now in tow, Adonis headed for the bus. As it wove through the streets of Manhattan, he made sure to keep a tight grip on the bag. He knew enough to understand that losing it would not be good for him. Luckily, that had never happened to him and he did not plan on letting it.

When he finally got close, he got off the bus at a stop and walked to his destination. For such a pretty area, the laundromat looked run-down. The sign that read Carlo’s was outdated and the windows were grimy. It sat squatted in the middle of the block, the front slightly recessed from the surrounding buildings. It would have been easy to miss.

He walked through the front door and the first thing he noticed was that the room was dripping with the smell of cannolis. The second thing he noticed was that the woman by the ferry window was sitting on the other side of the room, reading her book. The rest of the laundromat was relatively empty. A man leaned back, eyes closed, smoking a cigar as he waited for his laundry. Others sat around equally lazily, but no one was near the woman. She looked up as he walked in, and her eyes narrowed on him.

It all came together in his mind. She’d been watching him for a while, eyeing his bag, and now was at the drop location. She was the associate that he needed to swap bags with. He had made the swap with a variety of people before but never a woman. A signal was too risky, but the associate was usually obvious enough if you were part of the mob. He walked casually in her direction and took a seat in one of the hard, plastic chairs a few down from where she was. He set his briefcase by his feet and gently gave it a push in her direction.

“It’s me. Adon…I mean Corleone.” He waited for her to make her move. She didn’t.

He sat there, resisting the urge to begin humming again. As the minutes ticked by, Adonis’ pulse quickened. She really needed to do this soon, so he could get out of there. He hated cannolis and was sweating in this place. He risked glancing at her, and it was then that she spun in his direction. Her hand flew deep into her pocket and pulled something out as she rounded on him. From her keys hung a travel mace spray, and she pointed it directly at him.

“You’ve been following me all day, you creep!”

She was certainly making a scene, and Adonis was caught off guard. These drops were supposed to be stealthy. What was she doing? He said nothing.

“Listen, weirdo! I see you every day on that boat and you’re always so unusual, but this is not okay. You need to leave me alone, or I will use this.”

“But I’m . . . Corleone.”

“I don’t care who you are mister!” The buzzer went off on the nearest washing machine, and she looked at it. He glanced around, too. No one had reacted to her shouts; they didn’t care.

“If you don’t mind,” she hissed at him and stalked over to move her clothes to the dryer, mace still in her hand. As she loaded the wet clothes, Adonis knew exactly what she was getting at. She wanted him to make the swap now, and no one would suspect what was happening. He picked up her now empty duffel, realizing that it must have been full of laundry. Brilliant! He was working with a professional.

Before anyone could notice that they had just made the exchange, he snuck out into the street and was lost in the crowds of NYU students in the park. From here it was easy. He caught the bus back to the ferry and made the same trip in reverse.

The whole way he was astounded by her marvelous cover. Anyone would believe that she was really just a student doing her laundry.

When Adonis reached his house back in Staten Island, he dropped the empty bag on the front step. In the morning, if it was a new bag of money, then he would run the same mission again. He went inside to discover that his mother was still out for the day. She had left the news on, and he went to turn it off. He hated the news, it was always so depressing. The news host continued to drone.

“Today, we have a more unusual story.” Adonis hesitated turning it off, decided he would and looked back down for the power button. As he searched, he noticed the writing on his palm and tuned out what the host was saying.

“A local NYU student, doing laundry this morning before class, discovered half a million dollars in a briefcase at Carlo’s Laundromat.” Adonis eyed the words on his hand. He froze.

“Well, where did you come from?” he said to his palm. He went to wash his hands.

“The student describes the man the case belonged to as a stalker who followed her on her daily route from her Staten Island family home.”

He switched the news off, and as he scrubbed the ink from his hand, he began to hum.

Éamon Laughlin