by Erik Carter
Marco wasn’t like Matt. He liked to think he was smart, but he knew he wasn’t smart in the same way that his brother was—that degree of his hanging on the office wall. Marco hadn’t made it through his first semester of college. His physique was a mismatch to his brother as well. He was pale and thin. A bit below average height. He did have dark hair like Matt, but Marco’s was curly, oily, and already badly thinning and moving farther and farther back on his scalp. While his head was beginning to lack for hair, his arms and legs more than made up for it. Thick, black hair escaped the the cuffs of his dress shirts. Fur. More than one person had nicknamed him the Wolfman.
At the far end of the hall was a sizable lounge. It was dark inside but for the flashing light of a television, which faded in and out on the decor. The sound carried down the hall, muffled by the distance. Sitting on the couch, watching the TV, was Simona. Marco’s girl. She wore a gray mini dress that clung to her ample curves, her big boobs. She had a massive head of curly hair, jet black, and her finger- and toenails were painted bright red. The light of the television bounced off the smooth sheen of her crossed legs. She looked up and waved happily, flashed a toothy grin.
Marco gave her a half-hearted nod. If he was going to get some respect around this place, he needed his prostitute-turned-girlfriend to act a tad more refined—not wave at him like she’d just seen him from across the schoolyard at recess.
He and Matt stopped at the conference room, waited at the open door. They wouldn’t enter until asked by their father, who was sitting at the head of the table.
Angelo Alfonsi.
He was fifty-six years old, and while he was the same height as Marco, everything else about him looked more like Matt. Square-jawed. Classically handsome. His hair was slicked back like Matt’s as well, but it was more silver than black. There was a thin, white mustache on his upper lip, and his eyes were green, bewitching, and disproportionately youthful. To the people of San Francisco, he was an ever-present figure, enigmatic and often dangerous. To his enemies, he was a ruthless menace, something to be feared.
But to Marco he was simply Papà.
Sitting to the right of Papà, kept nearby as always, was his consigliere, Carlo Torrisi, an ancient, hunched man with a hawklike face, white hair, and dark, penetrating eyes. Papà’s underboss was present as well, as were five high-ranking caporegimes.
Papà made eye contact with Marco and stood up. He paused for a moment to adjust his cuffs before walking over. Papà wore expensive suits, bought exclusively during his trips to the old country, tailored immaculately. He walked around the table and approached the doorway
“Have a seat, Mateo,” he said to Marco’s brother and patted him on the shoulder. Matt entered the room.
Papà had just a hint of an Italian accent. Though Papà was born in America, Marco’s family was quite traditional and very much connected to their Sicilian roots since Marco’s grandfather first immigrated. Marco and his brother had been raised speaking both English and Italian, and Marco couldn’t count the number of times he’d been to Italy.
Papà shut the door. They were alone now, save for Simona, far away at the end of the hall.
Papà gave Marco a small, mediating smile, but Marco could tell that his father was frustrated and pressed for time.
“Not today, Marco. Not this. It’s much too important. You’re not ready.”
Marco felt the sting of injustice surge through him. “But Matt—”
“Mateo is who he is, and you are who you are. And he’s never failed me.” Papà focused in on him with those green eyes. “Your time will come to prove yourself again. But it’s not today.”
Papà went back into the room and shut the door behind him.
Marco didn’t move. He just stared at the door.
He felt Simona’s eyes upon him and turned to see her stand up from the couch and start toward him. He waved her back down and walked to the lounge. He sat beside her and put a hand on her smooth knee.
Her big, brown, doe-like eyes looked at him with deep concern. “They didn’t take you?”
He gave her a look. She was being sweet, but he wasn’t going to grace a stupid question like that with a response.
“Aww. Soon, Marky baby. Soon.”
Marky. Her name for him. She used it incessantly. Marky, Marky, Marky...
She put her hands on either side of his neck, began giving him a shoulder rub. He let his chin drop to his chest. Her hands felt good, breaking up the tension in his muscles. Strong fingers. His mind drifted, away from his father’s condescending eyes and toward the immediate future.
“‘Soon’ is right,” he said. “I started my plan.”
Simona’s hands stopped. She craned her face around to look at him. Her eyes were open wide, pink lips in a big circle.
“What?”
Marco nodded. “That’s right. It’s begun. Soon Papà will have to respect me.”
Chapter Nine
Paulie “Big Paul” Fair had always been critical of people who self-pitied, but as he took another sip of his drink, he felt like the most despondent man in San Francisco.
He sat in his wingback chair and stared into the flames dancing about the fireplace, tears in his eyes. The rest of the lights were off, and the fire bathed him in a warm, orange glow. In his hand was a tumbler. Whiskey, twenty years old. His second glass.
He rested the glass on his knee, noting how his robust thighs completely filled the more than adequate space between the two arms of the chair. He’d always been a very large man, but even by his standards, he’d gained too much extra weight over the last several years. His wife had always been concerned about his health, and part of him felt like he owed it to her memory to lose some pounds. And he certainly wasn’t getting any younger. Lately, the strange circumstances under which he’d found himself were forcing him to reconsider many things like this, different aspects of his life. He’d been in a morose and contemplative mood.
And he longed for the past. He ached for his wife. But more so, he yearned for his two long-lost children—because, unlike Mary, they were still among the living.
Behind him, he heard the doors of his study swing open. Someone rushed into the room. He didn’t turn to look.
“Pop! We got trouble.” It was his son, Danny. The footsteps drew nearer. “Pop…?”
Paulie held up a finger. “Do you miss the twins, Danny?”
It took a moment for Danny to process the sudden question before he answered. “I do.”
It was a token response.
Paulie knew that Danny didn’t miss his brother and sister. Danny was lacking something, deep inside. It wasn’t as though he was completely devoid of a soul—there was certainly a zest for life in him—but he was without any compassion. And while Paulie loved him immensely, there was something about Danny that frightened him too. A tinge of sinisterness.
Paulie heard Danny grab the rolling chair—from behind the desk on the other side of the room—and wheel it to the fireside next to him. He sat down. Paulie finally looked over at him.
Even through a father’s eyes, Danny was a rough looking man. He had a lean frame and awkward proportions. His neck craned forward, and his back was slightly hunched, making him look rather like a vulture stuffed into a business suit. His skin was craggy, oily, and he had a shock of coarse, carrot-red hair, receded and with an alarming amount of premature gray. He had a sunken face, ears that were a couple sizes too big, and a few stray hairs where his eyebrows had all but disappeared. His lips were chapped, and he was always licking them, chewing them.
Paulie took a sip of his whiskey and felt the warmth travel to his gut. “It was my fault they left, you know. I’m the reason Jane took your brother, changed their names. They never even claimed their nicknames. Me and your mother—God rest her soul—we thought they could be ‘Johnny and Janey.’ As soon as they were old enough to understand what this family is about, they didn’t want anything to do with us. Or me. They’re just not criminals.”
“They’re nutcases.”
Paulie turned on Danny, gave him a dark glare. “Don’t you dare talk about your brother and sister that way.”
“Oh, come off it, Pop. You know it as well as anyone. You hid them away as long as you could.”
Paulie couldn’t deny what Danny had said. He took another sip of whiskey. “I’d like to say that I did that for their own good, but the truth is I was embarrassed.”
“I don’t blame you with one of them hearing voices and the other a panicky mess with sleep problems.”
Danny had been almost smiling as he described his siblings’ issues. Like he was enjoying it.
Paulie looked away from him, back to the fire. “I should never have sent you—of all people—to bring them back. All those years ago. But Janey despised me. She never would have listened had I tried myself. I thought that sending their brother might convince them. A family connection.”
“I tried, Pop.”
“I know you did, Danny. But it scared them off, and they disappeared for seven years. Now one of them has lost his mind. And he’s out there, and the whole damn world is chasing him. My boy...”
“Pop, listen. Jonathan—”
“Hit an Alfonsi bank? Yes, I already heard.”
Danny didn’t immediately reply. The embers in the fire popped.
“They’re going to strike,” Danny said finally. “And soon. The Italians aren’t going to buy that Jonathan did this accidentally due to a mental condition.”
“I imagine you’re right.”
Another pause from Danny. Then he said, “So what are we going to do?”
“We can either wait for them to strike,” Paulie said and drained the rest of the whiskey. “Or we strike first.”
Chapter Ten
It was nighttime, and the California air felt just as good as it had during the day. Comfortable. And clean, even in the middle of a big city.
A couple blocks ahead of Dale and Yorke was the bank. There were four squad cars outside, lights on. The street in front was blocked off, and police tape surrounded the entrance. Outside the tape was a mob of media, and they’d spotted Dale and Yorke, some already making their way toward them.
Dale strode briskly, but he was still having to book it to keep up with Yorke. Her feet pounded the pavement, seemingly as much from frustration as their hurried pace.
“Shit,” Yorke said. “lt’s an Alfonsi bank. Just like the first one eight months ago. Beau Lawton is going to flip his lid. I know how the guy thinks.”
“You work with him a lot?”
“First time. But remember me telling you I dated someone for six years?” She started her next sentence, hesitated, then continued. “It was Beau.”
Dale looked at her. She didn’t look back.
The reporters were upon them. Cameras. Lights. Arms and shoulders and grabby hands jockeying for position.
Deputy Marshal Yorke, what can you tell us about tonight’s events? Is this a sign of strife between the two families?
Is there a pattern to Jonathan Fair’s crimes?
Tim Melbourne, a statement?
Yorke turned on Dale upon hearing the “Tim Melbourne” name. “Don’t you dare say anything, smartass.”
They continued past the media and ducked under the crime tape then pushed through the cops to the steps by the front door. Two plainclothes detectives were talking to a security guard—a black guy with a thick beard wearing a navy blue uniform.
One of the detectives recognized Dale’s partner. “Yorke.”
She nodded. “Can we get a few minutes, fellas?”
As the detectives left, the guard ran a hand over his beard and pointed at Dale, a respectful and impressed look in his eyes.
“Nice beard, man,” he said.
Dale and Yorke were in the empty, echoey lobby of the bank. Green marble everywhere. They stood at the security desk, behind which the guard was seated. He faced a bank of small video monitors.
On one of the monitors, they watched as Jonathan Fair ran away from the bank’s vault and scurried for cover. The vault’s door exploded, and a moment later Fair returned and slipped through the cloud of dust and into the vault.
“That’s enough,” Dale said.
The guard stopped the tape.
Dale took a few steps back and looked at the desk. Yorke joined him. Across the front of the desk was a message, crudely painted in broad strokes.
“478…” Dale said.
Yorke crossed her arms. “That’s the number of—”
“The number of dead in the 1906 earthquake,” Dale said. In his research the last couple days, he’d seen that number so often that it was now seared into his memory. “But why would Felix think it’s a lie?”
Dale thought over his own question for a moment. Then he turned to the guard.
“And he wrote the message just before he left?”
“That’s right,” the guard said and fast-forwarded the tape.
Dale watched as Fair exited the vault, walked over to the desk, unhooked a quart of paint from his belt, and took a brush from his pocket. He quickly opened the paint can and slapped out the message before turning toward the front door. His figure exited the side of the video image.
Dale and Yorke moved their attention to a different monitor where the entrance of the bank could be seen. Fair appeared from the right side of the screen. He hurried to the front door then stepped outside, got into a car, and left.
“Wait. Back up,” Dale said.
The guard rewinded the tape.
“What is it?” Yorke said.
Dale pointed. “Look. The car was waiting for him.”
Yorke shrugged. “So what? A taxi. He was in no rush. He overpowered the guard before he could pull the alarm.”
The guard looked away, embarrassed.
“No,” Dale said, shaking his head. “It looks like he got in the passenger side. Why wouldn’t he get in the back of a taxi?” He turned to the guard again. “Let’s see how he got into the bank.”
The guard pushed the button, and the images on the screens zipped backward in time—Fair erasing the message; the vault un-exploding; Fair walking backwards to the entrance; the collapsed form of the guard reanimating and standing up; and finally a conversation at the door between the guard and Fair before before both of them exited in opposite directions.
The guard stopped the video. Then he started it again, playing forward now. In the darkness, through the glass, was visible the form of a car stopping outside the bank. A figure stepped out of the passenger side of the car and approached the door. As the figure drew closer, it was clear that it was Jonathan Fair. He pulled back a fist, as though he was going to punch through the glass.
But then he stopped abruptly.
Another figure exited the car from the driver side and approached Fair, excitedly waving his hands in a STOP motion. The angle was awkward, and the image was grainy, making the man’s face unclear and ambiguous. There was an animated, urgent discussion between the two men, and then the driver returned to the car. Fair faced the door again, and instead of punching through the glass, he tapped on it.
“Oh my god...” Dale said.
He looked at Yorke. Her mouth was open a bit, eyes wide.
“Stop,” Dale said to the guard, who paused the tape.
Dale was floored.
All this time he—and Yorke and everyone else on the task force and everyone else watching the events around the world—had assumed that Jonathan Fair was working alone, continuing where he left off with the first robbery that led to his arrest, a crime that had been conclusively proven to be the work of Fair alone.
But the man who got out of the car and had the animated discussion with Fair was clearly a part of the robbery. Not only was he driving the car, but by the heated nature of their exchange and Fair’s sudden change of plans—having almost punched through the glass before simply knocking on it—there was no doubt in Dale’s mind that the unknown man was involve
d in the planning process.
Jonathan Fair had a partner.
Dale thought of the images on the cork board back at the Hall—the other five men who had escaped the mental hospital. Beau Lawton had marveled at how they were all intelligent, professional...
“Jonathan Fair isn’t alone,” Dale said to Yorke. “And I’m guessing his friend is one of the other escapees.”
Chapter Eleven
The man hovered over her, and Jane Logan tried to scream.
But no sound escaped her lips.
She was lying in bed, wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. The sheet hardly covered her. She felt exposed with the tall man standing directly over her, a pure-black figure in the darkness of her room.
But she couldn’t move. Not one muscle. Not her lips, not her arms or hands … only her eyes. All she could do was watch as the figure drew closer and closer.
This isn’t real, she told herself. This isn’t real.
She could tell herself that all she wanted, but it was as real as it needed to be in that moment. Right then, it was very much her reality.
She tried to move a finger. If she could move something, anything, it would be over. She could break it.
She focused on her left thumb.
Move. Move.
The man put one knee on the bed then pulled his form over her, straddling her. She felt herself sink down as his weight compressed the mattress.
This isn’t real.
The figure was pure black. A living shadow. The hands came down upon her chest, at the top of her breasts.