THE BOSS' TOY by Andrej Koymasky (C) 1989 - 2002 written May 19th 1989 translated by the author English text kindly revised by my friend Frank, in Miami
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"THE BOSS' TOY" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
CHAPTER 1
Threatening clouds were making the late afternoon darker than it should have been as Benito Di Stefano was writing down the day's accounts while Maria, Giuseppe and Silvio were putting the family shop in order and cleaning up. Silvio, from time to time, glanced at his father because he sensed that the man was worried. In fact, on this gloomy day, the man occasionally raised his hand to fiddle with the hair on his nape, as he did every time he had some problem.
After Silvio's mother had died a year ago, business seemed to have slowed, and all of the family members had proceeded more and more wearily. Hers had been a kind of flair for business. She always knew what to buy and how to sell it. Often the clients came just to buy a package of pasta, but left with their shopping baskets filled with other items. After his mother's death, the shop still sold, but not like before. And Benito had worries. That was evident.
Silvio would have liked to be able to do something for his father, but the man was close-lipped about his own problems, and his children were barely, and seldom, able to make him open his heart even a little.
Somebody knocked on the back door. Silvio went to open it. It was Joe, one of his childhood friends.
"Silvio, are you coming to the movies tonight?"
"No, I can't."
"That's a pity... afterwards we could have gone to the attic..."
"No, it will have to be another time. I am busy, Joe, bye."
Joe was sixteen like him. They had grown up together. Three years ago, up there in the attic, Joe had taught him how to get pleasure from his genitals, how to masturbate. Then they had started to do it to each other. The day came when Joe started giving him head, and another day when Joe drew Silvio into fucking him. Silvio liked fucking Joe, but he never felt like giving head to his friend or being fucked by him. Joe was happy with that, and therefore they got along very well together. They didn't do it often, just two or three times per month. At times, Silvio also felt the desire to do it with other boys, but he found neither the occasion nor the courage. Once he saw his brother beating his meat, and that excited him very much but he did not reveal himself because Giuseppe had a girlfriend, and always spoke with contempt about faggots. At this point, Silvio realized he was gay - girls didn't turn him on at all.
He went back in the shop and resumed cleaning.
"Who was it?" Giuseppe asked him.
"Joe. He asked me to go to the movies with him."
"You could go. Maria and I could finish the work here."
"I didn't feel like..." the boy lied.
"You have to go out more, spend more time with your friends," Maria said, stopping to clean the refrigerator's doors.
"I don't feel the need. Anyway at times, I go out..."
They continued to work.
Again, somebody knocked at the back door. Silvio, bothered, went to open it. Four men, their hats pulled down to their eyes, stood in front of the small door. He recognized one of them. He was Willy Parker, one of Don Antony Russo's men.
The man said, "You papa, he'sa in the shop, right, boy?" His was a crude kind of speech, of the sort associated with Sicilian mafiosi.
"Yes..."
"Good. We musta hava talk wit' him," the man said and the four men entered, pushing the boy aside. Silvio grew tense as he followed them.
His father, when he saw Willy, stood up, and turning pale asked, "What do you want?"
"You know whatta we want perfectly well. You'rea late wit' you payments. Don Antony isa very angry wit' you. And you know dat it'sa no good to get Don Antony angry. You know it!"
"Business is slow, we earn just a little more than what the family needs... Look, I have the account books here..." A simple man with simple ways, Benito made a nervous gesture, his eyes darting to the items on his desk.
"I don'ta givea shit for numbers inna account book, I wanna just to see da numbers ona pile o' banknotes. When you think you pay, Benito?"
Silvio was annoyed by the man - even if he was the son of an American father and an Italian mother, he talked with a strong accent that contrasted with his wan Anglo-Saxon face.
"I hope by the end of this month... if not all, at least one part..."
"The enda dis month? In tena days? I no think thata Don Antony wants to waita for your convenience, do you understand?"
"But I..." his father started, but the man grabbed a nearby jar of tomato juice, twisted off the top and splashed the contents on the man's chest. Giuseppe was about to rush forward in defense of his father but a punch by one of the men sent him to the floor. When another pulled out a gun and pointed it at his forehead, Giuseppe, dazed, remained still where he was.
Willy, with a wicked smile, said, "Do you see, it really seemsa like blood. It's a trick dey usea for da movies. But Monday, if you no givea us alla da money you owe us, it'sa gonna be real blood. Yours! Do you understand?"
"I can't, for Monday..."
"Datsa you fucking business. Ona Monday, clear? Da money or..."
The four men left. Maria bent over Giuseppe and helped him stand up. Benito sat at the table, his head in his hands. Everyone was frightened.
"What can I do now? Where can I find five thousand dollars? My God, so many dreams, with poor Assunta... If he could just wait a little more..."
"Dad, why don't you try to talk directly to Don Antony?" Giuseppe asked.
"I did that... he seems kind, but he is pitiless. I can only put myself in his hands. But his father was a good man. Yes, Don Matteo Russo was an understanding man, that's why I accepted his loan. But unhappily Don Matteo died six months ago and... and Don Antony will turn us out of house and home. My poor children!"
"Dad, can't you ask for a loan from your friends?" Maria then asked.
"But from whom? They are in no better conditions than me. Moreover, one does not pay a loan making another loan. Forget it, it's useless to get a headache. Let's go home. Tomorrow I will inventory everything and the day after tomorrow I'll go to see Don Antony and to tell him to take it all. At least I can save my skin and I can look for work to maintain you all."
Giuseppe, alarmed at his father's decision, interjected, "Dad, Maria and I will look for work and you'll see that we can manage. I'm just sorry for the shop, that was mum and yours dream..."
"Me too, dad. I can look for a work..." Silvio said.
"My poor children. I dreamed a better future for you. You, Giuseppe, will have to stop going to school... and you two, too... Oh, you have a bungling father..." Benito concluded with a barely restrained sob.
"You are the best father in this world, dad!" Silvio said firmly, "and we love you, you know that."
"I know it, my son, I know it. Let's go home, now."
On the way, they all were silent, sunk in sad thoughts. Once at home, they sat idly before their only TV, so that at least they had a pretext not to talk. Silvio worriedly glanced from time to time at his father out of the corner of his eye. He was aware that the man wasn't following the program either - lost, God knows, in what thoughts, in what dark reflections.
Angelina moaned in her sleep and Maria at once went to see her younger sister.
Giuseppe said, "Dad, we can sell my bike and Silvio's guitar and stereo... we can try to do something, can't we?"
"Giuseppe, even if we sold half of the house, we couldn't raise five thousand dollars. And if we got that much now, next month we'd be at the same point. No, it's better to forget it, to give up, than to fight for nothing."
"Jane's father has money... Maybe he could help us."
"Don't fool yourself, Giuseppe. You could possibly be accepted by Jane's father as a son in law, in spite of being Italian, just because he saw we have a nice shop. But without it... I'm afraid that... that you'll lose also your Jane. Or, if you don't lose her, if she really loves you, she will lose her family's support."
Silvio was almost ill at his father's sadness, at the man's feeling of resignation, of defeat. There seemed to be a boulder in the boy's stomach. He wanted to do something for his father, but what?
In frustration, he said goodnight to everybody and went to his room, but he wasn't able to fall asleep. After about an hour, he heard Giuseppe entering the room, heard him undressing and slipping under the blankets. Restless tossing and turning were the only other sounds for long minutes - perhaps an hour - until his brother's regular breathing meant that sleep had come at last. Far away a clock struck three. A siren tore the night silence and then vanished far away. Silvio, still, on his back, his eyes open, stared at the reflections of the street's lights on the ceiling.
Little by little an idea took shape inside his head - he would to go to see Don Antony, in secret from his family. Perhaps, in front of an adolescent, Don Antony would feel compassion. Perhaps he could persuade the man to reduce the installments... and the family could then carry on with their shop. Yes, in the following morning, at mid morning... He would leave his school on a pretext. Or better, he would say he was going to school as usual but instead he would go directly to Don Antony's. Oh, but was he in his city residence or in his country house? The weather was bad, so it was more likely he was in town. Would the man's goons allow him to talk with the boss? Would he have the courage to face them until they admitted him... Or should he wait somewhere until Don Antony went out and then stop him... who knows... Somehow he would succeed in getting heard by Don Antony. Possibly with a ruse... Perhaps, he'd better not tell them he was Silvio Di Stefano... But if Willy, or any of his father's "visitors" were there, they would recognize him... The only solution might be just to go and see how things evolved, to trust his luck, to improvise...
The distant clock struck four. Giuseppe tossed in his sleep and uttered a groan. On the street a drunkard bawled aloud incomprehensible words. Silvio's thoughts ran on anxiously. Don Antony Russo had children... he could possibly try to talk with one of them, as a means of reaching their father. But he knew nothing of their nature, of the kind of people they were. At least he'd seen Don Antony's picture in the newspapers. That was a recognizable face. If he succeeded in talking to the man, would he ask for pity? No, if this was a man without pity, as his father said, then it was useless, completely useless to invoke it. Silvio thought he needed another angle... maybe suggesting that he could get more by waiting for his father's money than by seizing the store's meager assets, or by punishing the family some other way. But how could he show him that it was so? The boy didn't know what he would say, but he felt that he had to try to talk to Don Antony. He had to look the man in his eyes.
Five faraway strokes told him that another hour had elapsed. Sleep didn't want to come.
The sky was clearing up a little, or it was just his impression? Silvio, at last, slipped into sleep. And he dreamed. He dreamed his mother was telling him that he was a good boy, and that now the family happiness depended on him. And he swore to his mother that he was ready to do anything not to disappoint her, really everything he could. And he felt his mother's hand stroking his head, as she often did when he was a child, and smiling at him, and telling him, "Good boy, my Silvietto!"
He woke up.
Giuseppe was calling and shaking him. "It's seven thirty. You have to wake up. You have to go to school, Silvio. I don't go to the University today, I'll remain with Dad."
Silvio looked at his brother's athletic body, at his swollen briefs, and confusedly thought that he was a really handsome boy. He crawled out of his bed and went to wash himself. Then he went back to his room while Giuseppe went to wash in his turn. Like every morning, he prepared his books and notebooks, like every morning he ate his breakfast prepared by Maria, like every morning he said good-bye to his family and went out.
Outside the weather was gloomy, grey and wet.
He went to the nearest subway station and studied the city map. Where was the skyscraper on the top of which was Don Russo's penthouse? It must be...there! He checked the lines he had to use, bought the ticket and went to wait on the platform of the right line. The direction was the exact opposite of his school.
Having slept too little, Silvio felt uneasy, but the determination to try to do something gave him energy. After the dream he had... perhaps he would succeed! Arriving at his destination, the boy emerged from the subway in front of the Inland Steel Building and next to the Carnap Foundation's skyscraper, the seat of the Russos' business empire. Before entering it, he observed the entrance hall through the building's wide walls of glass. It was garrisoned by private guards. Efficient looking clerks, well groomed young women, were at the reception desk. He watched businessmen and their flunkies coming and going. He felt uncertain, intimidated. Would he ever be able to surmount all the obstacles that there must lie between that entrance and Don Antony's apartments, or his office? Taking a few deep breaths and glancing for a moment at his mirrored image on the wide glass door, Silvio took courage and entered. Trying to assume a natural appearance of self confidence, he went to the reception desk. He felt on him the eyes of at least three private guards. He stopped in front of a receptionist who was talking at the telephone, and she gave him a sign to wait a moment.
Then, after putting down the receiver and writing something, she addressed him with a smile. "May I help you, young man?"
"Yes. I have to meet Don Antony Russo."
"You have to meet... Mister Russo? Is he waiting for you? Do you have an invitation card?"
"Unhappily not. But it's a matter of the greatest importance."
"At most... I can see if someone on the staff can meet you. What is it about?"
"A personal matter of the greatest importance. Private. I can only discuss it with him in person."
"I'm sorry, you have no idea how many people would like to be able to do that. It is impossible, if it is not Mister Russo who invited you. If you don't want to speak with anybody else, there's really nothing else I can do. Or, at most, you can try to send him a letter," she said with a little smile on her face.
"If I write a letter, will you give it to him personally?"
"No, I will give it to his personal secretary's aide. More than that is not in my power."
"But I have absolutely to talk him, Miss. Please, help me... I must find the way to meet him!"
"I'm sorry. If you want to write him a message... that's the most I can do for you," she said through the same smile.
"I see. Can you please give me paper and an envelope?"
"Yes, certainly... here you are."
Silvio, whose mind was rushing ahead, wrote: "There is to be an attempt on your life, Don Antony. I am informed. I am waiting downstairs in the hall. I will talk only with you in person, so it is useless for you to make me meet other people. If you want to see me, ask at the reception for Steven Mallory." He slipped the note in the envelope, carefully glued it, and wrote on it: "Don Antonio Russo - personal - His own hands," and gave it to the girl, saying, "I'll wait here. If somebody asks for Steven Mallory, call me, please."
"All right. Sit there and wait."
The girl turned toward the pneumatic dispatch tube, slipped the envelope in a cylindrical box, turned the codex rings and sent it. Silvio waited. Don Antony would forgive him the lie about the attempt, he hoped. Anyway, he had no other means of trying to reach him. Twenty or so minutes later, a man emerged from one of the elevators and went directly to the reception desk. Silvio was pointed out. When the man turned to look at him, he had a surprised expression. He again asked something of the girl who nodded in assent, then went toward Silvio.
"You'rea Steven Mallory, boy?"
"That's the name I wrote."
"What'sa this story of an attempt. Whatta you know about it, boy?" the man asked him, looking straight into his eyes, and almost underlining the word "boy".
"I wrote that I will tell what I have to say only to Don Antony."
"You comea with me."
They took an elevator that was possible to call only by possessing a special key. Inside there were just three buttons marked G, B and P. The man pushed the B.
"You are not taking me to Don Antony."
"Whata do you know, boy?"
"You didn't push the P."
"I'ma not authorized. Now you will meet Mr. Joe Greco. He only can decide whata we havea to do wit' you."
"But I cannot tell anyone but Don Antony."
"You have to talk with Mr. Greco."
The elevator door opened silently. They were in a kind of small hall, off of which there seemed to be offices, very luxurious offices. The man took the boy to a nearby lounge.
"First they will searcha you."
"Search me?"
"Sure. If really there is an attempt, you coulda be da killer. Elementary precaution."
The man pushed a button on the wall. After a short while two men in uniform, the same as the private guards in the hall, entered. While one was carefully rummaging through Silvio's belongings and books, the other carefully searched his body, touching him and fingering him everywhere. Silvio smiled inside himself, thinking that it would have been good to be fingered by that young man in a completely different occasion, for a completely different purpose.
The one who was searching his body stopped and said, "Clean."
The other handed Silvio's student pass card to the man who received the boy.
The man said, "You name is Silvio Di Stefano, and no Steven Mallory, isa dat not it? Why you givea us a fake name?"
"I didn't write or say I was Steven Mallory, I just said to ask for Steven Mallory. To you, too, I just said that that was the name I wrote, nothing more. Therefore I didn't give a fake name."
"Nothing is done without a reason. Who sendsa you?"
"Nobody."
"Don't you think it woulda be better if you said all? You know dat we can persuade you to talk, right?"
"Absolutely nobody sends me. I have to talk to Don Antony."
"As you gave a fake name, could be you fake da rest, right?"
"But if instead it is true, and you don't let me talk to him, it will be your responsibility, right?"
"You guys watcha over him," the man said and left the room.
Silvio waited, in silence, standing up. Strangely, he was not scared. He felt quiet. He just waited for their next move. After a while, his interrogator returned, deferentially standing aside for another man. It was evident that the new man was important, although he wasn't Don Antony. Perhaps forty-five years old, he sported a thin moustache and wore an elegant chalk-striped, three piece suit.
"Here, he is the boy."
"Leave us alone," said the last arrival. The other three immediately went out. "Sit down, boy. So, whata you wanna to tell me?"
"Sorry, but, you are not Don Antony," Silvio said, speaking in Italian.
"I am Joe Greco, his lieutenant. Dere is no matter regarding Don Antony dat doesn't passa through my hands. Derefore, you cana talk to me as if I was him."
"I am sorry, I will talk only to Don Antony."
"It'sa useless to be stubborn, boy. Don Antony hasa no time to lose wit' a ragamuffin. It is already exceptional dat I have troubled myself to talk to you, be aware of dat. So den? What'sa dis story of an attempt?" He may have made a better appearance than the other men but his speech was just as crude, his accent just as thick.
"I will talk just with Don Antony."
"You will never, ever talk wit' Don Antony, get dat well in your head! If I want, now, I cana have you thrown on the street and you will never again put your foot a mile around here, do you understand?"
Silvio, still self possessed, stood up and gathered his belongings. "All the worst for you. It means that you don't care about your boss' life. I have nothing more to say."
Joe Greco reached out his hand, grasped Silvio's arm and, squeezing it painfully with a steel hold, forced him to sit again.
Looking at him with hard eyes, he said, "Silvio Di Stefano, isa it not perhaps your father who wantsa kill Don Antony? Because of da shop?"
"Don't talk bullshit! My father served under Don Matteo, he always has been faithful to the family. You must know that, don't you? You must know it very well!"
"So, who sendsa you here?"
"I will tell only to..."
"Boy, we can makea you sing wit' nasty methods, why don'ta you do it wit' a kind one? Itsa better for you, no?"
"Why don't you want to allow me to talk with Don Antony? Do you have a dirty conscience?" Silvio said, thinking fast. "Are you afraid I can tell him things that compromise you?"
The man gave him a slap in the face, then said, "Don'ta you play the smartass with me. Don Antony hasa no time to waste wit' any little shit who decidesa to talk to him. He trusts me because he knowsa he can trust me. You are making me losea my time anda my patience."
"Why don't you just ask Don Antony? Possibly he wants to meet me."
At that moment somebody knocked at the door.
"Come in!" Joe Greco shouted.
A man entered and said, "Don Antony on the phone, for you..."
"Stay here wit' dis boy," Greco said standing up.
"Tell him about me. It doesn't cost you a thing!" Silvio snapped.
Joe Greco looked at him with a harsh expression but said nothing and left. Silvio, massaging his still burning cheek, waited.
After a few minutes, an annoyed Joe Greco came back. "Comea with me. Don Antony got curious. But I warna you, if you mocked us, you'll leave here only ina pieces, or feeta first. Do you understand?"
"I do," Silvio drily answered and followed him.
They took another elevator and went up. The door opened in a wide hall reeking luxury. Greco went to the central door and knocked.
"Come in!"
They entered a wide studio all of glass, and finally Silvio recognized Don Antony, sitting in an arm chair and wearing an elegant gown.
"This is the boy."
"Comea here. So you are Benito's son?"
"Yes, I am Silvio Di Stefano."
"So, let'sa hear, what isa dis important revelation you gotta for me?"
"Please, tell your man to go out."
Don Antony laughed and made a gesture to Joe Greco, who left them alone.
"Are you satisfied? So, then?"
"Don Antony, beforehand I have to tell you two things, then I can explain everything to you..."
"Sit down in dat chair in fronta me. Good, I'ma listening."
"My father doesn't know that I'm here with you. He thinks I am at school like every morning."
"Ah, you father don'ta know."
"Right. And second, it is not true that there is an attempt against you. It is a lie. But I had to use it, or else I would never have succeeded in talking to you..."
"So I guessed, and datsa make me curious. Whatta you have dat is so important, then. boy?"
Don Antony seemed favorably disposed toward him, contrary to what he had feared, and had adopted a gentle smile, almost fatherly. Silvio was surprised and his heart opened to hope.
Therefore he started, "I don't know if you personally know the problem of my father and of the money he owes you, or if all the matter is just carried out by some of your men..."
"I'ma always well informed about all. My men do nothing withouta me knowing it. Your father owesa me two hundred thousand dollars - morea wit' interest. And he'sa late wit' hisa payments. So, whatta you wanted to tell me about dat, boy? Because dis is da subject you wanted to talk about wit' me, I guess."
That's right, Don Antony. Listen..."
CONTINUES IN CHAPTER TWO
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