Don of the Dead

by Casey Daniels

  He looked up at the ceiling. Like he was praying for patience. "Don't you get it? You fell. And hit your head on—"

  "On your mausoleum." The blood drained from my face. It left me feeling chilled. "You mean because I smacked my head on your grave—"

  "You're the only one lucky enough to be able to see me."

  "It's weird."

  "I don't make the rules. And let me tell you, I don't like it. Used to be better in the old days when I had final say."

  "Then who does?" It wasn't like I thought I could talk whoever was in charge into changing anything. But somehow, I hoped I might be able to get a better handle on how it all worked. "If somebody can make me see you, then somebody can make you go away. Right?"

  Gus laughed. Not like it was funny. More like he'd never heard anything so stupid. "Let me tell you the way I understand things." He sat back down and leaned forward, pinning me with the sort of look I imagined had intimidated more than one mobster in its day.

  "Most of the dead are just that. Dead. They're here. They're gone. Over and done with. You know what I mean?" He didn't wait for me to say that I pretty much did. "But then there's me," he said, "and I've got what you might call some unfinished business."

  "And the unfinished business is why you've been hanging around for thirty years?"

  He pointed his index finger at me and brought his thumb down on it. Like he was shooting a gun. He winked. "You got it, baby. The way I understand this thing, I can't leave until all the unfinished business in my life is settled. And let me tell you something, I'm sick to death—you'll excuse the expression—of hanging around this place. Nothing but a bunch of stiffs and not one of them interesting."

  "And you're looking to pass on. Or pass over. Or go to the light or whatever they call it."

  "The light?" He waved like the suggestion was an annoying insect. "That whole bright white light thing? It's for babbos. You know, dopes. The kind who believe in all that sappy stuff. Not me. When I go out, honey, I'm going to go out in style." He tipped his head back and smiled. "I'm going to make my exit to the strains of Sinatra singing 'My Way.'"

  "So finish your unfinished business and leave!"

  "You don't think I would have done that before now if I could?" Anger flared in Gus's eyes. He rose to his feet and when he reached across my desk, I thought he was going to slap me. Instead, he grabbed for the stack of magazines I'd just gathered up.

  His hand went right through them.

  "See?" He plunked back down in his chair. "How can I take care of things for myself when I can't do a thing? And when nobody can see me? Or hear me? Nobody but you."

  There was some unspoken message in what Gus said. I wasn't sure what it was, I was only sure I didn't like it.

  The next second, the truth dawned. I shook my head and sat back in my chair, distancing myself from the whole thing. "Oh, no. Whatever it is, I'm not going to help. I wouldn't know how if I wanted to and besides, I don't want to. You're the great criminal mastermind. Why don't you just—"

  "Like I said, I can't." Gus's voice was as low and just about as friendly as the purr of a hungry lion. "You think I like asking for help? You think I wouldn't rather go to my friends? Or my son? A good consigliere, that's what I need right about now. Instead, I get a little girl with no brains and a big chest."

  "Hold on there, pal. I might be young, but I'm not a little girl and I'm not dumb. I'll have you know, I'm a college graduate."

  "College is wasted on girls. They should stay home, get married, and have babies. Besides, if I had to guess, I'd say you majored in something like home ec. Or was it art history?"

  It was art history.

  I wasn't about to admit that to Gus. Just like I wasn't going to tell him that at the time I declared my major, I never thought that I might actually have to use my overpriced education as a springboard to making a living. After all, my life had been laid out before me like my mother's had been before her. I had a tradition to uphold, and generations of Livingston (her maiden name) women who served as my role models.

  First, college.

  After all, it was expected, and besides, it gave me a place to make just the right contacts and Mom something to talk about when her friends at the tennis club asked about her only child.

  Then, an engagement. But only, of course, if it was what Grandmother Livingston liked to call "the right match."

  Three cheers for me, mine was as right as they came. It arrived in the form of Joel Panhorst, who just happened to be on the brink of being named a partner in one of the most prestigious financial firms in the area. Was Joel the man of my dreams? I hate to admit it, but yeah, I was nuts about him.

  What was not to like?

  Joel was good-looking. Joel was charming. Joel was going to make my dream of being a full-time CCW come true. That's Country Club Wife, and I was all for it. It would have been my parents' life, only kicked up a notch. A little more exciting. A little more interesting. A lot more stylish.

  I was ready, willing, and able, and would have gone along for the happy ride if my life hadn't gone down the dumper when my dad's status officially changed from renowned plastic surgeon to just-another felon.

  That pretty much explained it all, didn't it? With Dad up the proverbial river, my social contacts had withered, my engagement had crumbled, and, suddenly, my resume actually mattered. Unless tennis and suntans counted, I had no job experience to speak of. I had few usable skills. Presto… here I was in the deadest of all dead-end jobs.

  I got rid of the thought before it got the best of me, and got myself back on track.

  "A degree is a degree," I told Gus, firmly ignoring all thoughts of my country club aspirations. "And women don't just get married and have babies anymore. Haven't you been paying any attention these last thirty years? We have careers. And real lives. And although I can't speak for other women, I can speak for myself. I'm smart enough to—"

  "To take care of what I need you to take care of." Gus's smile was predatory.

  And I knew I'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book. "Great, get me to admit that I'm smart just so—"

  "So you can help me out." He nodded and smiled. "I always knew you would. Even if I had to—"

  "Make me an offer I couldn't refuse?" I couldn't help myself, the opening was too good to pass up. It wasn't until the words were out of my mouth that I wondered if I'd said something I shouldn't have.

  I was pretty sure of it when fire flared in Gus's eyes. "That was my line, you know. Way before that movie came along. That was my line and they stole it."

  "Yeah. Right." I looked at the clock on the wall and got up. "I've got a meeting to get to. With Jim. He's my boss's boss."

  "Bosses." Gus nodded. "Yeah, I understand that."

  "Then you'll understand that if I'm late, he'll have my head."

  "Heads? Nah! We never would have taken any heads. Too messy."

  "It's just a figure of speech." I grabbed for the file where I kept a calendar of all the upcoming tours. I held it to my chest like a shield. "Look," I said, "I'd like to help you but I can't, so I think you'd better just go away."

  Gus shrugged. "Wish I could, baby doll. But I can't. Not until this thing is resolved."

  "But I wouldn't know where to begin."

  "It's not like I wouldn't help you out."

  "But—"

  He held up one hand. "It is time for me to impose my will and just so you know, I don't take no for an answer."

  "But—"

  "I don't take no buts, neither. You don't like it. I don't like it. But you're the only one who can do this thing."

  I could stand there and argue with this brain blip. Or I could try to move on. My sigh was a sure sign of surrender. "What do you want me to do for you?"

  Gus stood and went to the door. He couldn't open it so I did that. He stepped back so I could walk out. "Honey," he said, "you're going to find out who really murdered me."

  Chapter 3

  Did I want to stick with the
tried and true and stay with Pretty in Pink? Or was I looking to shake things up? Maybe I needed something a little more dramatic for my date with Dan the Brain Man.

  I was deep in thought while I glanced through the selection of lipstick tubes in my top desk drawer.

  Paris Nights? I twisted the tube and checked out the color.

  Pink Passion? I held the two side by side.

  Red Hot—

  "So what kind of name is Pepper, anyway? Sounds like a schnauzer."

  Gus's question snapped me out of my thoughts. I'd been hoping he'd get bored and go wherever it was he went when he wasn't hanging around my office. No such luck. He'd been sitting in my guest chair ever since I got back from my meeting with Jim, Ella, and the rest of the cemetery administrative staff, and I glanced at him over the stacks of newspapers piled between us. If he noticed I was irritated by the canine reference, he didn't let on.

  "It's a nickname," I said. "Short for Penelope."

  "Pen-el-op-e." He drew out each of the syllables, and I couldn't tell if he liked the sound or if he was making fun of a name that was too long and way too old-fashioned. "To give you a name like that, your parents, they must think they're pretty high-falutin.'"

  Against my better judgment and certainly against all reason, he'd already talked me into raiding the cemetery archives for all the info I could find about him. He wasn't about to Dr. Phil me into a heart-to-heart about my family.

  I refused to answer, hoped he got the message, and decided on Paris Nights. I put the tube within easy reach so I could toss it into my purse when the time came to close up shop and head out for the evening. According to the clock on the wall opposite from where I sat, that was in exactly sixteen minutes.

  Sixteen minutes… a drive home, where I could leave my car in my reserved space so I didn't have to fight for a parking place near the restaurant… a quick walk to Mangia Mania…

  And then I'd have Dan Callahan all to myself. And Dan Callahan was the yummiest guy I'd met since—

  "You're not listening to me. You need to get down to work here, honey. You're supposed to be thinking about me, not about how soon you can go home."

  I forced my gaze away from the clock and my thoughts from Dan back to the not-so-dearly departed don. I wasn't about to correct him and tell him that I wasn't going home. At least not to stay. It wasn't any of his business and besides, I didn't think I needed to run my social calendar by a guy who'd been too busy being dead to worry about dating.

  "I have been trying to get some work done," I said, my words cut in half because my teeth were gritted. "I've been at this all afternoon. In case you haven't noticed, we're getting nowhere."

  To emphasize my point, I slapped a hand against the stack of yellow and brittle newspapers closest to me. A little puff of dust and who-knows-what-else rose up and tickled my nose. Just in case I needed it, I plucked a tissue from the box I swiped from Ella's office while she and Jim still had their heads together after our meeting.

  The tissue box was decorated with teddy bears dressed in picture hats and strings of pearls. As much as critters in clothing offended my fashion sensibilities, the tissues had come in handy plenty of times in the hours since I started researching Gus's life. And his death. I sneezed.

  "There's nothing in any of these newspapers that's new." Considering that the news and the papers were thirty years old, it was an understatement. I touched the tissue to my nose and wondered how red it was and how bad I was going to look by the time I got to Mangia Mania.

  For the third time in as many minutes, I snapped open my compact and checked out the damage. Not bad considering. Nothing a touch of moisturizer and a dusting of powder wouldn't help. If I ran to the ladies' room now—

  "How do you know?" Over the wall of newspapers, Gus pinned me with a look. "How do you know we won't find anything? You've barely scratched the surface."

  At the moment, the surface in question was the copy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on top of the pile. I snapped the compact shut, but rather than look at the grainy black-and-white photo that showed Gus flat on his face in the middle of the street, a dark liquidy pool all around him, I shuffled the newspaper to my left and glanced at the next one on the pile. This one was the Cleveland Press, and the picture on the front page was just about the same. Cops. Street. Gus. Blood.

  Plenty of blood.

  I guess I must have made a face.

  "What?" Gus stood and cocked his head, the better to see what I was looking at. "That bothers you? All that blood?"

  "I'm surprised it doesn't bother you. I can't believe you're not upset by the fact that you're—"

  "Dead?"

  I still wasn't ready to say the word out loud. I slid back in my chair. "Aren't you mad?"

  "At whoever did that to me?" He pursed his lips, thinking. "I was," he finally said, tipping his head back and studying the mottled ceiling panels. "When I first sort of… you know… When I woke up and realized… well, I suppose I realized I was never really going to wake up."

  "And that's when you knew you were… " It wasn't exactly a question but then, I wasn't exactly sure I wanted an answer.

  Gus grunted. "I didn't think dead. Not right away. After all, in my family, we'd been raised to think that dead meant heaven. Or hell." He looked away. Just long enough for me to wonder if the thought bothered him.

  Not that I was going to ask. It was one thing having a conversation with a dead guy. It was another to question his religious beliefs. Or to ask if he thought he deserved eternal fire and brimstone because of his life of crime.

  "And once you realized you were de—" I caught myself before the word slipped all the way out. Gus didn't miss a trick. He grinned.

  "Glad you're finally getting the picture, chicky." He winked. "Now if we could just get back to business… " He glanced at the newspapers we hadn't looked through yet.

  My gaze automatically traveled to the clock. Twelve minutes and counting.

  "I'd love to." So I lied. I had to believe that Gus had told a lie or two himself in his lifetime. I figured it was payback. I checked the calendar hanging on the wall to my left. The following afternoon, the Sacred Heart of Jesus Ladies' Guild was coming for our angel tour. Which meant that the next morning, I'd have to dig the angel tour script from one of the piles on my desk and actually read it. In the time I'd been here at Garden View, I hadn't conducted the angel tour yet. I didn't know anything about angels.

  And something told me that the Sacred Heart of Jesus Ladies' Guild did.

  "I really don't have the time tonight," I told Gus. "And tomorrow isn't looking much better. Maybe next week or—"

  "I am not a man who likes to be jerked around." Gus leaned across my desk, his eyes narrowed and fire burning in them. "Next week is too damned late. You're wasting my time, little girl. Get busy. Now."

  Call me diplomatic. Or maybe I'm just a weenie. I didn't think it was smart to piss off a guy who, according to what I'd been reading in the newspapers, was a combination Tasmanian Devil and Hannibal Lecter.

  I sighed and my shoulders slumped, and Gus knew he'd won this round.

  "A couple minutes more," I told him, checking the clock one more time. "That's as long as I can stay. And it's not like we're going to find anything new. There's nothing in any of these news reports that we haven't seen already. It's all the same story. You went to dinner at… " I should have remembered but I'll confess, after hours of rummaging through news that was older than me, it was hard to keep all the facts straight.

  "Lucia's Trattoria." Gus supplied the information and a smile touched his lips. "Ah, Lucia's! Best veal parmigiana in the world! And the wine cellar… " He kissed the tips of his fingers. "Magnificent!"

  "So you ate dinner and drank wine. Who were you with?" I thought I knew the answer to the question but I wanted to see if Gus's memory agreed with the newspaper reports. Besides, if I could get the few facts we knew for certain covered—quickly—maybe I'd have time to slap on a coat of lipstick, check my ma
keup, and get to Mangia Mania before it was too late.

  "Johnny the Rat. Benny No Shoes. Mike the Dumper. And Pauly." Gus listed his dinner companions. "That would be Pauly Ramone. When he was a kid we called him Pudgy Pauly but then Pauly got bigger than everybody else and we couldn't get away with it no more. We knew him as Pounder. Just Pounder. And when you said Pounder, everybody on the street, they knew who you were talking about."

  I glanced down at the cheat sheet I'd started on a yellow legal pad, a list of the facts I'd been able to glean from the newspaper articles. Johnny, I supposed, was the John Vitale who was said to have been seen leaving the scene of the crime. Benny No Shoes must have been the Ben Marzano who was wounded in the attack that killed Gus. Mike was Michael Cardorella. He was identified as one of the onlookers at the scene pictured on the front page. Pounder I didn't need to guess about. As Gus had pointed out, he was Paul Ramone.

  All present and accounted for.

  "No one else was there?"

  "You second-guessing me?"

  I didn't like the tone of Gus's voice. Or the fact that he shot daggers at me across my desk. It was getting to be a habit but I couldn't help myself. I sighed. Right before I sneezed again. "I'm not second-guessing anyone, just trying to get the story straight. And wondering if the newspapers got it right. Nobody else was there?"

  "Sure. There were a lot of people there. Lucia's was a popular place."

  "But there was nobody else there with you?"

  Gus straightened his tie. "Nobody."

  So much for that line of questioning. I felt my shoulders slump again and this time, the dust and eye-straining research had nothing to do with it. I had asked all the questions I could think to ask and, let's face it, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. The closest I'd ever come to any kind of criminal investigation was watching Law & Order reruns on cable. I wracked my brain, wondering what Detectives Lenny and Ed would do next.