Big Al's Cake

Sometimes a gift isn't a good thing

“Haven’t I already done enough for you people?” Seth’s hand shook as he held the coffee close to his lips, spilling a little over the brim of the mug, but wincing a little as the hot fluid splashed on his thumb. He took a slip, but kept the mug in front of his face to hide that he was talking to the two men sitting behind him in the next booth.

The larger of the two men, the one who kept his hat on despite being inside the diner, sat across from the smaller one, at an angle to one another. When he spoke to Seth, it looked to observers as though he was speaking to the man across from him. “Capone might be in prison, but his organization is still running at full steam. And he’s getting out next month.”

“I warned you about that. I told you the Outfit isn’t just one man. It’s a business, and Mister Capone might be young, but he knows how to make a business work.”

“Look, we appreciate that you tipped us off to the meeting in Atlantic City. But we need more than illegal gun charges to lock this guy up. No one wants a repeat of the Saint Valentines’ Day Massacre.”

“Of course not.”

“So you’re his lawyer, you’re up to your eyeballs in this. You know where the bodies are buried.”

“I am a business lawyer, not a criminal lawyer. Real estate, contracts.”

“Taxes and stuff?”

“Mister Capone doesn’t pay taxes.”

The smaller man turned his eyes directly at the back of Seth’s head. “Really?”

“He has a few legal businesses. I help with those. And I make sure he pays taxes on those.”

“But no taxes.” The small man stood up, picked up his hat and smiled. “Tax evasion is a pretty serious crime. I think you’ve given us exactly what we need, Mister Miller.”

“Thank you,” the bigger man said as he slid out of the booth.

Seth finally begin sipping his coffee for real when the two men left the diner. When it was half empty, the waitress came by to refill it. “Want some pie to go with that coffee, Sweetie?”

Seth took a deep breath. “I saw come chocolate cake when I came in. I haven’t had any chocolate cake in four years.”

The waitress patted his arm. “I’ll get you a big slice.”

Seth set the coffee down as he watched the waitress set to her task.

The last chocolate cake he had had was four years ago, on his daughter’s seventh birthday. Sarah had presented him with a saucer topped with a crudely cut wedge of cake flopped over on its side. “Daddy I kept the best piece for you!”

Seth dug in with an exaggerated enthusiasm. “Wow, Sarah, this is the best cake ever! Your mommy did a great job. I bet you helped her make it.”

“No, Daddy. It’s a present from your boss.”

“Mister Silvers?”

“Mister Capone. Everyone says he is bad, but he loves us. He sent a chocolate cake for my birthday!” Sarah began dancing to some music that only a seven-year-old can hear.

“That’s nice,” Seth had said.

But as he finished eating the slice of cake and his daughter ran off to her own room, his wife whispered to him. “This isn’t a gift.”

Seth smiled. “Public relations. He does this for all the kids in the neighborhood. Makes sense.”

“No. He knows our daughter’s name. Her birthday. And he wants us to know that the knows. It’s not a gift, it’s a threat.”

Seth set down the saucer, a bit harder than he intended, then sat down himself just as hard. “He knows Sara’s birthday,” he said slowly.

“You have to stop doing work for Al Capone.”

“You don’t say no to a man like that.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

Seth sunk into a dark swirl of what-if’s and dead end ideas. Every option was unacceptable. Every potentiality was worse than keeping his head down and praying that Capone's syphilis or his rivals kill him sooner rather than later.

In the diner, four years after his daughter gushed over the surprise birthday cake, Seth could feel the weight of worry begin to lift. “Tax evasion’s a pretty serious crime,” he muttered to himself when the waitress set the chocolate cake in front of him.