The rest of the commission did not react well to Commissioner Krautmick’s update on the status of their arrangement with Don Chamaeleontis.
“Sixty percent?” the chief executive officer of Mount Charles Royal Casino, Limited said. “I said we were crazy to give him fifty percent for a one time job.”
“It’s not just a one time job,” the woman who represented The Meadows said. “We give the Lead Soprano fifty percent interest and he becomes invested in our security. We become untouchable.”
“Untouchable to anybody but him and his endless relations,” the Mount Charles man said. “Who was it who said ‘They that would trade a shitload of money for some hoodlum’s security will have neither?’ Oh, that’s right. It was me. At the meeting where you fuckwits decided to give away half our profits!”
“We decided,” Krautmick said. “You had a vote and a voice the same as everybody else.”
“Yeah, yeah, everybody has a voice… does everybody have a brain?”
“It’s pointless to debate what was already decided…” the Meadows’ representative said. “We’ve already decided to deal with the Lead Soprano, so it’s really just a…”
“Just a void-damned minute,” the Mount Charles chief said. “We agreed… against my better judgment… to cut him in for fifty percent. Adding another ten on top of that is not some minor bit of reshuffling… I can’t believe you offered him that, Krautmick. That’s the sort of thing that needs to be voted on by the whole board.”
“That’s what we’re doing… I just threw it out there to keep the option open,” Krautmick said.
“You should have thrown it out the airlock… we’ve got the intruders, Fortunato’s only got the loyalty of a small portion of the hospitality department. What do we need the Lead Soprano for?”
“Of course you’d say that,” the Meadows rep said, “when you’re raking in the chips at our expense.”
“Of course you’d say otherwise, when you’ve bungled your affairs so badly that your whole operation’s suspended.”
“People,” Krautmick said. “The profit-sharing agreement is in full force, and as this is a legitimate state of emergency, the emergency clause is in effect. All profits earned from the time The Meadows evacuated until it opens its doors go into the kitty, to be split proportionally based on each outfit’s revenues for the past two weeks.”
There was grumbling and open expressions of outrage from more casinos than just Mount Charles at that news, but Krautmick stood fast.
“We all agreed on the rules,” he said. “You’d all be insisting we honor them if it were your casinos that were shut down…”
“But it’s not our casinos!” somebody said.
“This is all very far afield of the point,” the woman from The Meadows said. “We need to figure out a way to seal the deal with the Lead Soprano as fast as we can, sweeten if that’s what it takes… he’s hinted often enough that he has men in place on the station already. That’s an asset, waiting to be used.”
“Your asset’s waiting to be used! You know what that guinea-wop fuck is going to do?” the Mount Charles chief said. “He’s going to sit on the sidelines and wait to see who’s winning, which side is going to be in a position to pay, and then he’s going to step in and claim his payment. I don’t believe he even has men on the station in the first…”
The rant cut off abruptly as a tiny spurt of blood blossomed from a neat little hole that had suddenly appeared in his forehead.
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