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Right now, neither the flawless set-up nor the excellent turnout of guests is giving me any pleasure I march over to the bar and ask for a double shot of whiskey, neat Aida watches ulp

“What?” I snap, slalass back down on the bar

“Nothing,” she says, shrugging her bare shoulders and turning away from me to order her own drink

Trying to get the thought of Oliver and Aida out of ot to talk to Calibrese and Montez I spotto the state treasurer She’s been here for hours, overseeing the set-up and greeting the first guests as they arrived

Then I see somebody who definitely wasn’t invited: Tymon Zajac, better known as the Butcher Head of the Polishpain in my ass

The Braterstwo control ht up to Chinatown, Little Italy, and the wealthier neighborhoods to the northeast that are controlled by the Irish—aka me

If there’s a hierarchy to gangsters, it goes soentrified gangsters who use the levers of business and politics to o We run this city We’ve gotleprechaun And we ally—or at least, in that nice gray area of loopholes and backdoor deals

Which doesn’t et my hands dirty I’ve made more than one person in this city disappear forever But I do it quietly and only when necessary

On the next rung down the ladder, you’ve got gangsters with a foot in both worlds—like the Italians They still run plenty of strip clubs, nightclubs, illegal ga, and protection rackets But they’re also involved in construction projects that form the bulk of their income They have heavy sway in the unions for the carpenters, the electrical workers, the

glaziers, heavy equipment operators, ironworkers, masons, pluet anything built in Chicago, and you don’t want it to burn down halfway through, or get “delayed,” or your materials stolen, then you have to hire the Italians as your foremen, or else pay them off

Then, lower down still, you’ve got the Polishin violent cri shit that causes problems for those of us ant to keep up the perception of a safe city

The Braterstwo are still actively running drugs and guns, boosting cars, robbing banks and aret their dirty deeds published in the news, and they’re constantly pushing the boundaries of their territory They don’t want to stay in Garfield, Lawndale, and the Ukrainian Village They want to push into the areas where the money is The areas I own

In fact, Ty up here at my fundraiser is a problem in and of itself I don’t want him here as an enemy or a friend I don’t want to be associated with him

He’s not exactly the kind of guy who blends in He’s nearly as broad as he is tall, heat-colored hair just starting to gray, and a craggy face thatworse He has hatchet-like cheekbones with a Roman nose He’s carefully dressed in a pinstripe suit, with a white bloom in the lapel Sohness of his face and hands

Zajac has a o for a century, he hi a sophisticated car-theft ring frolehandedly tripled the number of exotic car thefts in the country, until the wealthy Polish hardly dared buy an imported car, because they kneould disappear off the streets or even out of their own garages within the week