**Mishap With The Mafia **Chapter One

I slowly and carefully approached him, giving him a nervous smile, as well as a small wave. “Umm… Hello.”

“So, you’re new here?” Virgil asked, turning back to look down at the empty street.

I stood next to him, shoving my hands in the front pockets of my jacket. I watched him from the corner of my eye. “How’d you guess?”

“Well, for one thing, almost everyone in the building heard that little argument you had with your brother,” Virgil replied, “and second of all, I’ve lived here for pretty long and haven’t seen you around until tonight, at the café.” He turned and leaned back against the guard rail, folding his arms across his chest in a nonchalant manner. His eyes connected with mine, and the strange intensity of his gaze made me look away.

“So we live in the same building... Did our yelling wake you?” I asked, my voice apologetic.

Virgil shook his head. He smiled lightly at me down at me. I was right. His smile was amazing. “Nah, I wasn’t sleeping.”

“No, you were eavesdropping,” I accused, though I didn’t really mean it. I looked up at him, noticing how much taller he was than me. Probably a good seven inches.

He chuckled. “It was kind of hard not to, if you know what I mean. That’s sort of the reason why I came up here.” After the small glare I gave him, he added, “I wasn’t really respecting your privacy and all, just staying in my room, being able to hear everything you were saying.”

The corners of my mouth lifted, forming into a small smile. “Nice save. I bet the other tenants are already complaining to the landlord, though.” He just chuckled again, and the silence stretched on. Then I remembered the newspaper article. I spoke again, “Virgil?”

“Virg, actually.”

“Well, okay then, Virg,” I said, leaning heavily on his shortened name. “I was wondering… What’s with the article the paper about those murders? Are the cops seriously just forgetting about them?”

Virgil didn’t reply right away, but when he did he sounded resentful of the subject, “The APD have their… dull moments.”

“Dull moments?” I echoed with a scoff. “You’re kidding, right? Letting people getting away with murder?”

Virgil sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “The APD aren’t bad at their jobs. There are just some cases that are beyond their ability to solve… But that family… They deserve to know-”

“-who Jack McKinnon’s killer is,” I finished for him, folding my arms across the guard rail and leaning into it. A soft breeze rolled by, rustling lightly through my hair. “It’s just… really sad, is all, not being able to have that feeling of justification, you know?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “My thoughts exactly.”

I looked down over the railing when I heard the door of the apartment complex open, seeing Mikey step out onto the sidewalk. “That’s my brother, Mikey,” I said to Virgil. I tried to hide the resentment in my voice but failed.

A lone car, very expensive-looking, drove up to the curb in front of Mikey, slowing to a stop. The tinted window of the driver’s seat rolled down. From where I was, I could see that the driver was a man in a pinstriped suit and a fedora hat atop his head. I couldn’t tell how old or young he was from the rooftop, nor could I hear their conversation very well when the man and Mikey began speaking to each other.

Virgil craned his neck to follow my gaze. I noticed his whole body tense up when his eyes landed on the man in the car. He spun around, his face seemingly calm, but his hands were gripping the guard rail tightly.

Despite Virgil’s strange change in behavior, I focused on what was happening below. There was a lot of purposefully low murmuring coming from my brother and the man, and many hand gestures, making curiosity spark to life inside of my head. From Mikey’s body language, it looked like he was frustrated and stressed, but that could have been because of me. The man looked completely calm throughout the whole conversation.

“How does your brother know that man?” Virgil asked, sounding a bit strained.

I shrugged, though the man looked very familiar to me. I tried to remember where I had seen him before. My curiosity spiked up as the he pointed his finger forcefully at Mikey, saying something to go along with it, before rolling up the window and driving away.

After standing there for a few moments, Mikey walked back inside.

“Are you sure you don’t know?” Virgil asked again.

And then it came to me. “Oh! That guy in the car is one of my brother’s bosses, I think. I wonder what he wants at this late hour. Ah, how could I forget him? The guy’s kind of creepy, the way he kept staring at us when Mikey brought me to the building he works at. And who the hell still wears a fedora anyway, am I right?”

Virgil's face seemed to be relaxed now, but his body was still tense. He chuckled, though it sounded forced. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He looked at his wristwatch, then at me, giving me half a smile. “It’s close to 1:00am, and there’s a curfew in the city for kids under seventeen.”

I glared at him. “I’m not a kid! And I am seventeen! Even if I wasn‘t, I haven’t technically left the building… Hmph… Curfew. Yeah, like that‘ll keep me inside the apartment.”

His smile was full this time. “So the city’s got a rebel on its hands now, doesn’t it?”

“You got that right,” I muttered, returning his smile. I brought my hand to my mouth, stifling a yawn. “Well, I guess it is kind of late, so I’m going to go to bed. Night, Virgil. See you around.”

“Goodnight, Naomi,” he said, nodding once.

I walked back to the fire escape and made my way down the ladders, and into my room. I flopped onto my bed, not bothering to change out of my clothes. I thought about how strange Virgil acted when he saw Mikey's boss, and what his boss had askedof Mikey. Whatever it was, that workaholic brother of mine wasn't happy about it.

Before falling into a quiet sleep, I thought I heard Mikey shout out, "Shit!"