Headstone City Part 25

Crying, Fredric dropped to his knees and vomited on the sidewalk. Dane grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to the curb and told him, "Say it. C'mon. Angelina Monticelli. Say it."

But Fredric Wilson had already pa.s.sed out facedown in the gutter, blood and bile soaking into his green tie.

Dane turned to the muscle standing beside him. "Who do I contact to do some serious business?"

"My name's Cutter Bunk. You ever want to talk real money, you come to me."

Dane walked back to the Caddy and got in, pulled out, and swung around the corner heading back toward Bedford Avenue.

Forever fifteen years old and seething with a dark att.i.tude. Smiling but with the annoying glint of superiority in her gray eyes s.h.i.+ning through even more clearly now. That was okay, he was getting used to it. Angie's oversized black sweater and midnight-blue jeans made it difficult for him to see the subtle lines of her body. Black hair fell straight back over her ears, showing the slightest curl of bangs up front, moved by her breath although she didn't breathe.

JoJo Tormino sat in the backseat with her, staring at the side of her face like he didn't recognize her anymore. Or thought she was someone else.

Angelina leaned forward and said in Dane's ear, "Thank you."

"Sure."

"But you should have killed him."

"Maybe some other time."

"Will they really take his fingers?"

"I don't know. It might be a point of pride now, since I put the idea in their heads."

"I hope they do."

She climbed forward into the pa.s.senger seat, curling against him without touching. That familiar heat flooded into his guts and got him sweating, worse than usual because his heart was still hammering.

Could any woman alive ever do for him the things the dead could do? He started breathing heavily, nervous in the way that guns could never make him. Her bangs wafted again, brus.h.i.+ng against his throat.

"You told me that my mother wanted to say something to me."

"She does."

"What is it?"

"How should I know?"

JoJo Tormino stared out the window. Unwilling or unable to speak. Funny how some of them had so much to say, and others so little. JoJo turned his gaze forward and caught Dane's eye in the rearview. He was going to start that whole prodding in the side thing again, Dane could tell. It was time to go give her the ring.

"Where's Maria now, Angie? In Hollywood?"

"h.e.l.l no, she's never been west of Jersey."

"But I thought Vinny was setting up her career?"

"He hasn't done a thing for her yet."

"So where is she?"

Angie smiled, like she knew what was coming next. "At our sister Carmella's house out on Begoyan Street. She's married to a podiatrist."

Dane didn't know Carmella all that well. She was older, the daughter of the Don's longtime goomar, a girlfriend he started hanging around with back in the late fifties. She didn't have much to do with the family, and Dane had only met her a couple of times at Monticelli functions a long time ago.

"Why's she there?"

"Berto is keeping watch over her."

"For what?"

"He thinks the Ventimiglia family might be taking a run at her."

Dane tried to track it but couldn't. With a touch of frustration he realized he still didn't see things the way the goombas did. After all these years it should be second nature, understanding their impractical moves, but he just couldn't ever get it into focus. "Why would they do that?"

"Because of JoJo Tormino."

"The Ventis think he died because of her?"

"Well, he did, pretty much."

"But she had nothing to do with it. The Ventimiglias work like that? Send a crew against a family member in payback? They've got to know JoJo loved her, right? So now they're gonna whack her?"

"They're the only rough family left," Angie said, her lips just under his ear. The Caddy veered a little over the double yellow and Dane had to yank it back. "I always hated those guys. Vito Grimaldi was constantly trying to paw me whenever there was some kind of get-together. Barbecues. Baptisms. Even at funerals."

"He a capo?"

"Yeah."

JoJo still had his bullet holes: the left elbow, left thigh, jagged melted graze along his jaw, and high in the chest. The sucking wound above his heart hissed and gurgled. How long could a dead man bleed? It got worrisome, having JoJo back there just watching, waiting, his spiritual peace all hinged on Dane facing a woman he'd wanted his entire life.

If only you could throw a corpse out of the car. It would make life so much easier.

"By the way," Angie said. "What did Mr. Fielding want with you? He no longer cries in his grave."

Dane told her, "He had a confession to make."

"Oh," she said. So beautiful, so much like Maria, that Dane had to rub his palms along his pant legs to dry them. "Oh, I know what that's like."

"Yeah, me too."

TWENTY-FIVE.

The podiatrist's house stood so far out on Begoyan Street that you could see it from three blocks away. The front door had been painted a fierce turquoise, and there was a large wooden foot hanging from a pole on a pair of chains at curbside. The name DR. STANLEY WEINTRAUB arced along the heel in black-framed block letters. Cla.s.sy.

Maria's sister Carmella had married young and gotten as far away from the Monticellis as she could: about two miles across Flatbush Avenue. Dane knew it was a whole different world here. You might as well be in Antarctica if you had to take a subway to get good pasta f.a.gliogli.

But you couldn't really run from Don Monti, not even if you were his illegitimate daughter. You could only hope that family wasn't keeping an eye on you every minute of the day.

Like Angie had told Dane, they were watching the house.

Roberto Monticelli was out front in a sleeveless T-s.h.i.+rt, holding a cigar in his huge hand. He stood about six-four, heavily muscled but with a little spare tire around the middle and a double chin he'd never get rid of. He pretty much had only one eyebrow and didn't seem bothered by it. He kept his hair short but well moussed so that it appeared curly as razor wire.

He had surrounded himself with an atmosphere of self-importance, marred only by his extreme and total uncool. He wore a leather holster on his belt at the small of his back, housing a .44 Magnum. The barrel was so long that it hung out the bottom of the holster and made it look like Berto had a pipe sticking up his a.s.s.

Dane used to be terrified of him-if you so much as said good morning to Maria in the school hallways, Roberto would stab you in the eye with a pencil.

It was sort of rough trying to visualize Berto under the bridge with transs.e.xual hookers. Once you started bending your imagination in that direction, it just wouldn't stop. It made you wonder how long Berto's lifestyle had been curving like this. Since high school? Teenage son of a mob boss feeling up the t.i.ts of Bernadette, sucking her tongue, saying yeah baby baby, only to grab hold of Bernie's tool. Was it a turn-on right then or did he have to work it out for himself, struggling with his shame? Yeah, probably killed the first one out of revulsion, but the interest was implanted. He dumps the strangled body of Bernie but keeps seeing that swinging d.i.c.k in his dreams. Gets him nauseous and aroused at the same time. No wonder he was always in such a bad f.u.c.king mood. Did he have one girlfriend he kept returning to, waiting for him beneath the bridge? How much was the standard rate for around-the-world with somebody you could do twice as much with? Like there weren't enough questions to make you crazy.

Seated in the Caddy, Dane scanned the area, looking for more members of the crew. n.o.body else seemed to be around.

Dane knew what he was going to do now even though it was bound to cause a lot of problems all around. What the f.u.c.k.

Pocketing his keys and the .38, he slid from the car. Berto had seen the Cadillac go by, but showed no interest. It was a common sight to him.

Dane made sure he made some noise and slammed the door hard, stepping heavily across the street, kicking loose asphalt. He walked up with his arms loose at his sides, hands open. Roberto didn't quite recognize him and puffed intently on his cigar, blowing smoke in a thick cloud as if it somehow made him groovy, like one of the Old Mafiosi sitting around in their tomato gardens.

Dane moved up the flagstone walk and realized there wasn't any way to be hip with what he had to say, so he just let it out. "Berto, I want to talk to Maria. She here?"

Roberto fell back a step with a shocked expression, and for a second he looked like he might be having a heart attack. His features fell in and contorted and went a nice shade of blue, then purple, and then the immense, lunatic Sicilian rage was on him. "The f.u.c.k you say my sister's name!"

"Man, you have really got some serious hangups about Maria. But that's okay, you aren't the only one."

It was kind of fun watching Roberto turn so many colors at once, the veins standing out in his temples, writhing and throbbing and clogging up along the contours of his neck. Dane was trying to stay focused and not let himself dwell on the fact that Berto had sent the hitters to off him in the can. "It's you. Soldier boy."

Dane sighed and figured, all right. "Yeah, okay, it's me, the soldier boy."

"And you strut right up to me? To my sister's house?"

"It wasn't much of a strut."

"After what you did?"

"You got a hangup about Angie too, don't you? Okay, I'm starting to see the picture now, why you've done the things you have."

It was easy to keep Berto off-balance, the guy puffing away like a maniac, making himself sick on the cigar. Dane tried not to think of what Freud might've had to say about the demonstration. "You know how much is on your head?"

"I've been out of the joint for three weeks. I walked up to your brother and his crew in Chooch's. I walked into your father's house. Except for one lame a.s.s try by Big Tommy Bartone, n.o.body's done much to collect on your bounty. How much you offering anyway?"

Berto took another serious puff, sucked too much into his lungs, and had to suppress a cough. "Five grand!"

"You embarra.s.s yourself," Dane said.

"Get out of my G.o.dd.a.m.n sight before I put two in your skull right now, you disrespectful p.r.i.c.k! Your time is coming! I ought to kill you on general principle!"

There it was again. The threat but not the follow-through. What kind of wiseguy only stands there talking to the guy he's put a bounty on, when he's got a f.u.c.king Magnum hooked to his belt? Jesus. You'd think he'd be wailing Angelina's name, throwing his arms up to heaven. But no, just the same schoolyard bully s.h.i.+t he used to pull during recess.

"Really, can't we skip the goomba drama?" Dane asked. "Your boys screwed up on taking me out in the slam. Big Tommy messed up at the hospital. A few more of your muscle boys flubbed the hit on JoJo Tormino. I mean, really, three against one and he still manages to ice them all? That's just f.u.c.king sad. He's dead but so are they, if you care about cost-effectiveness and such."

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h. I don't care, so long as the job got done."

"Why did you come to the prison?"

"I want you dead."

"Sure. But why go yourself? Why didn't you just let Vinny send a lieutenant?"

Still flexing and puffing, getting his veins in those big hands to stick out but never making the move. "He wouldn't. He wouldn't pay anybody to hit you, so I did. You deserve to be chopped into dog food." His face burned with emotion. Whatever was going on, Berto Monticelli wasn't going to talk about it. "I'm gonna cut your liver out with a cleaver and-"

"Yeah, yeah. I need to speak to Maria. She around?"

"Vaffanculo!"

Okay, so maybe he should've handled it differently, more diplomatically, but JoJo had tapped him and this was the only way it was going to be.

Roberto's lips started to crawl over his face. Dane recognized the expression from back in the hallways. It was his way of grinning. He went for his Magnum, trying to jerk it out fast but unable to tug it free from the holster. The forward sight on the barrel was hung up on the leather and, as he fought to draw, yanking harder, it looked more and more like a puppy's tail twitching back and forth. Dane figured that Berto had never pulled a gun while looking a guy in the eye, so he had no clue how to do it.

The mood kept s.h.i.+fting but things weren't quite totally tense yet. Dane could do a few things here. Go for the throat, work the inner thigh, even knee Berto in the crotch if it came down to that. Dane's father had taught him how to disarm a perp, toss him down, and twist him up. Maybe that was the way to go. He thought it was about time to try a few moves, but the weight of the ring in his pocket felt heavier than before, his promise to JoJo so loud in his mind. That wearisome indifference was back and dulling him. He took a few seconds to sigh, scratch his head, and let loose with an "Uyh."

Finally, with a grunt of satisfaction, Roberto Monticelli got his pistol loose from the small of his back. His face bloomed with an ecstasy so ideal that he nearly glowed with happiness.

He cried out, "You're dead, you strunzo!" and started to bring the .44 around.

Dane slugged Roberto Monticelli on the point of his chin and knocked him back into the fervently turquoise front door.

Simple, sure, but the gun had barely cleared the holster and Berto hit the middle six panels of the door hard. A crack appeared in the wood. It vibrated roughly enough that the bra.s.s knocker clapped a couple times. A sweet scent of lilacs floated in from somebody else's yard. The big foot on the lawn appeared to be angry-ready to kick a lot of a.s.s-in the slas.h.i.+ng sunlight.

With a viciously slick grin twisting his mouth, the butchery so clear in Berto's eyes that they were black with hatred, his tongue lolled good-naturedly in his mouth until the Magnum went off behind him.

It blasted fragments of his spine into, and out through, his own heart. A burst of blood and gristle shot across the flagstone stoop.

Dane stood there staring, thinking, Un-f.u.c.kin'-believable.

There it is. I just crossed the final line. I'll never be able to get back to the other side again.

The door opened and he looked into the horrified faces of Carmella Monticelli, her podiatrist husband, and some fat broad in baby-blue orthopedic sneakers.

Dane blinked and found his voice, said, "It was an accident. Kind of. I'm sorry. Is Maria here?"

Nearly as beautiful as her sister, but lacking the nameless extra quality that sent the lightning down into his soul, Carmella's lips worked silently. She kept gawking at her dead brother on her front step, bits and pieces of his major organs having blown out onto the lawn.