Headstone City Part 13

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No."

"You look a little sick."

"Do I?"

Dane's scars began to heat. He tried to keep his hands at his sides but couldn't. He rubbed at the back of his head. Sweat coursed down the side of his face, and a sudden wave of nausea pa.s.sed through him.

He looked toward the doorway and saw a flickering image of Vinny standing there with his mouth moving. Staring at Dane but talking to himself. Wearing a gray Armani suit but no bulge beneath the jacket, so he hadn't come packed.

Dane took a step toward him as Vinny faded in and out, solidifying for a second, then dissolving from the scene. Finally, he was gone.

Glory Bishop came over and handed Dane a beer. "Jesus, don't worry, I'm not going to make you get in the swing. Not if you hate it that much."

"Thanks."

Dane thought he knew what had happened. This situation was one of the three tracks that Vinny had been able to step into, wander around in for a few minutes before returning to where he started. Vinny had stepped into it for a few seconds-meeting with Dane here in Glory Bishop's apartment-then rejected the reality. The same as he'd done in Chooch's that day. Facing Dane down but then vanis.h.i.+ng, moving into some different track.

So, Dane thought, he'd waited long enough to actually make Vinny impatient. Look at that.

Enough with this shadow dancing around each other. Tomorrow he was going to have to visit his old buddy and get the ball rolling.

But right now, as he sipped the Mexican beer and Glory Bishop came into his arms again, licking at his neck, he looked up at the ceiling to see what kind of supports that weird swing had. Maybe he'd try it out after all.

FOURTEEN.

There was a new Monticelli crew member Dane didn't know standing at the door of Chooch's. Big kid, maybe twenty-one, with a flinty glare he practiced on everyone who pa.s.sed him in the street. He probably gave it to his parish priest, trying to get the Jesuit altar boys to tremble during Ma.s.s.

He had to start things off right. He stepped inside the place, noting the few goombas who were already drunk at the bar. Three in the afternoon and these guys could barely keep their faces out of the ashtrays.

The mob was a young man's organization. The old dons and their original crews, if they'd survived into their sixties, usually wound up hitting the skids and living worse than folks on social security. They lived large while they could, but over the years they slowly shrank inside their ratty sweaters until they disappeared.

The kid pressed his meaty hand to Dane's chest. There it was again, the hand, like that would be enough to stop anybody who wanted to get past.

This thug barely moved his lips when he spoke, hissing so he'd sound tougher. He said, "Listen, bud, we don't open to the public till eight tonight, so-" and Dane punched him in the gut. Even if a guy had six-pack abs, he'd still fold if he hadn't tightened up. The kid doubled over and Dane brought his elbow around and cracked him in the chin.

It felt better than when he'd fought in the showers, somehow more natural to do this sort of s.h.i.+t in Brooklyn.

Dane drew his .38, pressed it into the kid's nostril, and told him, "You've probably heard about me. My name's Johnny Danetello."

The thug coughed blood and said, "Who?"

Now that just p.i.s.sed Dane off. He turned the gun around and smacked the kid between the eyes with the b.u.t.t, let him drop, and walked farther inside.

He spotted Vinny in the back at the VIP table, drinking with most of the main players left in the Monticelli clan: Georgie Delmare, the consiglier; Joe Fresco, the hitter; and Big Tommy Bartone, the last of the real capos.

Vinny hadn't bothered to look up yet, letting the moment drag out a touch longer. That was okay. Everybody needed a little drama in their lives, hoping to milk every drop of cool out of the scene that they could.

Georgie Delmare was pure poise. The Don's former right-hand man had been inherited by Vinny. An attorney who managed to make everything look legal when the feds and the IRS came knocking. Sharp in business and always clearheaded. Pint-sized and soft, with bland eyes and a rugged complexion like he'd taken a lot of knocks when he was a kid.

Delmare said, "John, was that show of force really necessary?"

"Ask a skinhead named Sig about being excessive, Georgie. He charbroiled himself in my cell but he still didn't get the job done."

Delmare had heard the story. His face crumpled and he slid back uncomfortably. Even he knew the Montis were going off track.

Joey Fresco's hands were under the table and Dane knew he'd be holding a gun in one and the b.u.t.terfly knife in the other. He was a real edgy b.a.s.t.a.r.d who used to boost cars around the Heights. Drive them down to Atlantic City for the weekend, then bring them back and leave them right where he'd stolen them, in people's driveways with a full tank of gas. He liked to consider himself a gentleman bandit, eccentric but also personable. Except sometimes the cars would have a body locked in the trunk, some charred corpse with its face blowtorched off or a bullet in each eye. That sort of thing tended to ruin his cavalier image.

Big Tommy used to be Don Pietro's number one capo, in charge of all the dirty work. He ran the legbreakers and the shooters, and clearly enjoyed his work. Tommy had a smug smile and overconfident eyes that danced with a kind of mischievous light. He was stocky and his jacket bulged with hardware. His leather holsters creaked and rasped when he moved. His ferret face was drawn into a perpetual sneer. Dane was still a little surprised that n.o.body had put a hit on Tommy just for the way he looked. Always grinning and arrogant as h.e.l.l, ready to toss his wine on someone's s.h.i.+rt.

"You're brash as h.e.l.l, Johnny," Big Tommy said. "I could've used you back in the day. But right now, you should probably move out of here before something happens and we gotta do a lot of cleanup. Drag you in back and spend all night at the sausage grinder. So back away now."

"Sure, Big, in just a minute."

Dane still had his .38 out but kept it low against his leg, not pointing it at anybody. He stared at Vinny and waited, wondering what it was that Vinny had been saying to him last night in Glory Bishop's apartment.

"I think you should stop this thing now," Dane told him. "Before it goes any further."

"That right?" Vinny's fake eye looked like it might be giving Dane the malocchio, the evil gaze, but with emerald hints of chagrin mixed in. "It's only got a little ways left to go."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah," Vinny said. "You will be too, soon. Don't you feel any different than you did a few weeks back? I knew all we had to do was wait and you'd step up. You're looking healthier. Happier."

Big Tommy had been inching his left hand under his jacket, where he kept his knife upside down in a holster. You had to give it to a few of these crews, they had some style left.

Dane put the barrel of his .38 in the wiseguy's ear and said, "How about if we just remain respected adversaries, eh, Big?"

Tommy's hand strayed another half inch under his arm. Dane sighed, still not too bothered by it, but wis.h.i.+ng he and Vinny could just go and slug this out someplace alone.

"You listening, Big?"

"Sure, Johnny."

Vinny wiped his lips with the cloth napkin and finally glanced straight into Dane's face. You always got the feeling the fake eye knew a little more about you than it should.

He nodded to the crew, the slightest tilt of his chin. They moved off from the table, settling in close by, Joey with his gun out, the barrel angled toward Dane's belly. If it was going to happen, they wanted to keep him alive and make it last for a good long while.

Dane reached across the table, took Vinny's gla.s.s of wine, and drank the remainder of it. He asked, "Hollywood, huh? You want to produce, direct, or star?"

"You had to come back. You had to show up here. I understand. We'll get through it all eventually. Enjoy your happiness, don't feel embarra.s.sed by it."

"What?"

"Really, you need to stop hurting yourself." The words coming out of him as if rehea.r.s.ed for months. "What is it that pushes you down onto the blade, eh? All this inner conflict? You even got an answer?"

Dane stared at him, trying to find something to say.

"Don't worry about it."

It was good to know that Vinny, for all the rest of their troubles, could still read Dane well. When you needed a friend, you went back to the guy who knew you best, even if he wanted to kill you.

"You know what happened to Angie wasn't my fault."

Vinny's voice took on a different tone, like he had fallen into a deep well and couldn't climb out. "She was fifteen. You take her to Bed-Stuy and sit outside with your thumb up your a.s.s, and you're surprised by my reaction?"

"Not really," Dane admitted.

"Then we know where we stand. I know if you ever gave a s.h.i.+t about anybody or anything, maybe even yourself, she wouldn't have died in the back of your cab. You couldn't have saved her, but it wouldn't be on your shoulders."

"You're as complacent as I am," Dane said. "Or you would've done it by now. You send half-a.s.sed cons after me for two years, then you let me walk around for weeks after I get out of the stir?"

"I told you, don't worry. I've got something special planned for you."

"You've had plenty of time to make it happen if that's what you wanted."

It seemed they were both discouraged about what was going to happen. Dane felt a sudden and intense sorrow, missing his friend desperately for an instant. Then it was gone, replaced by his own anger.

One of them was going to die because Dane had been a lousy taxi driver, too lazy to go out and hunt fares, too weak to say no to a teenager with a fast rap.

It made him sigh. "Which trail do you see now, Vinny? You see me thras.h.i.+ng around and p.i.s.sing myself? You got robbed by fate, seeing only three possibilities. Let me guess what they are. One where I pop you, one where you pop me, and one where we just walk away from each other."

"Something like that," Vinny told him, letting his grin out, like this had all simply been part of the warm-up act. "But not quite. At least we'll go through them together."

"Okay."

The kid from the front door had managed to get to his feet and stumbled through the bar, his arm extended, gripping a Baretta. His hand was wavering because he couldn't see straight. If he missed, he'd take out Vinny on the other side of the table. The crew perked up over there, shaking their heads.

Might be fun to see what happened, but he didn't want the kid to get killed over nothing. Joey Fresco had already raised his pistol above the table, getting ready to fire.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you broke my nose!"

Dane shot the kid through the upper leg, same spot where he'd stabbed Mako and Kremitz, where it would hurt like h.e.l.l but hardly do any damage.

"Settle down, junior."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I'll get you for this!"

"You have no idea who you work for." Maybe he'd saved the a.s.shole's life, or maybe they'd already decided to bury him for being so stupid.

Dane turned to go. But he knew Vinny would have to yell something after him before he left. He waited for it.

"Hey," Vinny called. "That swing I saw in her place. It looks like it'd crack your nuts wide open. You get into that freaky thing last night or what?"

FIFTEEN.

Back at La Famiglia Bakery, with another list written out by his grandmother. It felt like he was always at a bakery, grabbing almond biscotti, cannoli, tiramisu, and napoleons. Jesus, how the h.e.l.l did a seventy-eight-year-old lady eat sugar like this and not wind up with diabetes? He'd known crack addicts who didn't need a fix as bad as Grandma Lucia needed her dessert.

It had only taken two days to clean away the blood and bodies, for the crime-scene tape to go up and come down again, and then business was back to normal. There was a different girl behind the counter and she was fulfilling orders with swift efficiency. Dane glanced across the shop, hoping he wouldn't see JoJo Tormino sitting in the chair where he'd died.

JoJo wasn't there but somebody else hung back in the seat, staring at Dane. Straw-yellow hair chopped at the sides and a little too long in front. A hee-haw smile full of thick square teeth. Wearing a jacket with specially made creases so that the hardware underneath wouldn't show. Sungla.s.ses carefully folded and lying on the little table.

Immediately Dane figured this had to be the fed who'd been nosing around. Cogan. Keeping Dane under surveillance until he'd determined his routine. Then jumping ahead and just sitting back to wait for Dane to stroll in with his grandmother's list.

It was pretty sad when the feds didn't even have to chase you around the block because you were in such a rut they knew where you'd be all the time. Buying Grandma some f.u.c.kin' cookies. It made him want to sulk.

Somebody's leftover paper stood open on the table, and Cogan sipped a cup of coffee. It wasn't his paper, no newsprint ink on his fingers. It was just a prop he used. Dane stepped over. The smile got wider.

"You got some real bra.s.s, John, stepping into an outfit-owned place like Chooch's when there's a hit on you." He p.r.o.nounced it Choochie's with a slightly Southern tw.a.n.g. Sounded like Tennessee or Kentucky.

"I grew up with just about everybody in there," Dane said. "It doesn't take much backbone to go see them again."

"It does if they want you dead, don't you think?" Talking in a normal voice, not whispering or worried about anybody overhearing. No one at the counter even looked over.

Dane took the chair across from Cogan and slipped the list into his pocket. This was embarra.s.sing enough. "The contract's more symbolic than anything. Only one of them really wants me dead."

"Two, including his brother Roberto." Saying it like Robert-oh.

"Okay, you got me there. Two."

"Maybe even one more, depending on where the old Don stands, right? Yep, and the sons do run the rest of that there crew now, am I right? They control all the b.u.t.ton pushers and muscle?"

That cheerful smile was starting to get Dane down. "You already know that."

"Tha's right."

Cogan thought he was doing pretty good, right in there with the hip guy chatter. On the inside track to getting Dane cracked open and talking.

Like Dane might actually give a d.a.m.n at this stage. All these mooks trying to polish their dialogue, make it sound natural without being real.

"I've got to tell you, I like Brooklyn," Cogan said, glancing out the window at the busy street traffic. "I've been in DC most of my career, but this place, with these people . . . I could really get used to this. There's something special about this city. The atmosphere, I don't know, the mood, it makes me excited, makes my belly tingle. One heck of a sight different from Hazardsville, Kentucky, let me tell you that, son." The broad, authentic grin reaching his eyes. "Here you can talk about mob hits and n.o.body even looks twice at you. It's all so natural to them, they're not even interested."