by Robert Swetz
“Welcome to the life of the poor,” she said. “No air conditioning.”
He grunted again as he tried to sit up, then gave up and fell back against the pillow. He turned toward her again and she kissed him. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, then their lips met again.
“I love you Vince,” she told him. “I always have, and I always will. You have no idea how sorry I am for what I did. I’m sorry, and…disappointed with myself too.”
“I love you too, Fran,” he told her. “And I’m also sorry that things went the way they did. And like I said yesterday…was it yesterday? I don’t know. The last time we talked…at Scuderi’s house. I want to get back with you too.”
“Then kiss me again,” she said, “and let’s get out of this bed and find out what Michael is throwing at us now. Because I for sure can’t figure out why we’re back here in my apartment.”
With Vince at her side, Francesca opened the door to her bedroom. She saw four men sitting in her living room, and another one staring at his face in the bathroom mirror. The one in the bathroom was her brother. In the heat of the apartment, every man was either in a t-shirt or was bare chested, and all of them seemed to have cuts and small bits of blood on their faces.
“Gerald?” she said as she looked again at the man in the bathroom. She saw him turn toward her and she noticed the blood and glass on his face.
“Hi Sis,” Gerald said with a smile.
“What happened to you?”
“You don’t remember the shootout at the airport?” Gerald asked. “You don’t remember the jet exploding?”
“My jet?” Vince asked.
“The very same. Sorry, but it’s in about a million pieces all over the airport.”
“But you’re alright?” Fran asked as she headed toward him.
“If you can call this alright. Either way, I will be, just as soon as I can murder Michael Scuderi.”
“Where’s Brian?” Fran asked as she pulled a pair of tweezers from the bathroom drawer. “Here. Let me,” she said to her brother as she started plucking tiny bits of glass from his face.
“The last we heard,” Vince said, “Brian was missing. I don’t know how he got out of there, but they were pretty damn mad about it. I think they only kept us alive as long as they did so they could find him. Did they?”
“No,” Gerald told them. “They didn’t find him, but he sure as hell found them. He’s the only reason you two are alive right now.”
“Where is he?” Fran demanded.
“He went down to some local grocery store to get some drinks. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a bit warm in here. He mentioned something about ice cream too.”
“Giovanni’s Market,” Fran told them. “We do more shopping there than we should.”
“It’s so hot in here,” Vince said, “if he doesn’t bring back some ice cream, I’m sending him back.”
The door suddenly opened, and Brain stood there with a bag in his arms. His eyes fell first on his father. “Dad?” Then he saw his mother. “Mom!”
Fran ran to him and hugged him. “Are you alright?” she asked.
“Yeah Mom. I’m fine. But how are you?”
“I’m alright,” she told him. “Still a bit lightheaded, but I’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t happen to get some ice cream, did you?” Vince asked.
“Chocolate,” Brian told him.
“Then come here and give me a hug…and get me a spoon.”
Brian set the bag on the table, then went around to his father. It felt strange giving him a light hug. For as much as he had always wanted a father, he didn’t really know this man.
“Now, will someone fill me in on what happened?” Vince said as soon as Brian had handed him a spoon.
Vince, Francesca, and Gerald sat at the table to talk…and eat ice cream. They had already told Brian they would be sending him back to the store for more in a little while. In the meantime, Gerald told them what little he knew.
“I got a call in the middle of the night from Brian,” Gerald told them. “On your cellphone Vince.”
“My cellphone?”
“Brian still has it,” he told him. “I’ve got your wallet around her somewhere too. But when he called me, they weren’t the only things Brian managed to pick up from Scuderi’s house, he grabbed Samuel’s gun too.”
Vince briefly looked over at Brian, then back at Gerald. “Where is it now?”
“One of my men has it.”
“Good.”
“How did you get out of there?” Vince asked Brian.
“I didn’t get out until after they took you and Mom. They searched for me, but they never thought to look in Samuel’s office closet. After they took you, I figured I needed some money to get by with, so I searched Samuel’s desk. The gun was in the same drawer with your wallet and cellphone, so I took it. When I left, there was no one around to stop me.”
“Vince smiled. “Damn good Brian,” he said. “And you called Gerald.”
“After I ran a few miles,” Brian replied.
“So what are we all doing back here?” Fran asked.
“I needed someplace safe to stash Brian for a few days, and like it or not, he pretty much insisted I bring him back here. But when we got here, it was obvious that Michael or some of his people had already been through the place. They left it a real mess. But I had things to take care of so we figured it would be safe enough for Brian to stay, as long as he kept his head down…which he didn’t.”
“Yes I did. Nobody saw me!” Brian told him.
“Yeah,” Gerald replied. “I guess not.” He looked at Vince. “He won’t tell me where he went or what he did, but he personally heard Michael talking about taking you and Fran to the airport and he heard him mention the bomb attached to the fuel line too. So he called me right away. We barely got there in time. When the bomb went off, we had just gotten you and Fran into one of the cars, but there were dead people all over the place. Mine, Michaels, and more than a few police too.”
“Police?”
“We did a lot of shooting to get you off that plane,” Gerald told him. “But Michael ran out and detonated the bomb before we could get away. Consider yourself lucky to be alive.”
“I do,” Vince replied. “Believe me, I do.”
“So what do we do now?” Fran asked.
“Now?” Gerald said. “Now we do what I came back here to do in the first place. Kill Samuel Scuderi. Except now I’m going to kill Michael Scuderi too.”
“Dad…” Brian said softly.
“Do you have a plan?” Fran asked. “Because I’d like to stick a gun to Samuel’s forehead too. And you have no idea in the world what I’d like to do to Michael. And his damn sister needs some payback as well.”
“Dad…” Brain said again a bit louder.
“Did we ever come to a conclusion that he has a sister?” Gerald asked.
“She was the one who stuck the needle in our necks,” Fran replied. “I recognized her as being the maid who told me that Vince was the one who killed father.”
“Irene or Iris?”
“Iris,” Fran told him.
“Dad…” Brian tried again.
“So how are we going to get at Samuel?” Vince asked. “By this time, I have no doubt that Samuel has surrounded himself with as many men as possible, and it will be impossible for us to get near him.”
“Dad!” Brian tried one more time.
“What is it Brian?” Vince asked, annoyed that his son was interrupting an important conversation.
“What if there’s a way to get back at the Scuderi’s, and get your hundred and twenty million dollars back.”
“The money is gone, Brian. Your mother changed the password, and the local street gang stole it.”
“But I know where it is,” Brian told them.
They all stared at him. “You do?” Vince asked.
“Where?” Fran asked.
“The police have it.”
/> “How do you know?”
Brian considered how to answer. “Because…I saw them with it.”
“When?” Vince asked.
Brain paused, not wanting to answer, then said, “When I talked to them.”
“When did you talk to the police?” Fran demanded.
“Mom. Don’t ask, okay? I just did. Once. And trust me, they asked, but they never got my name out of me.”
“Why were you talking to the police?” Fran asked.
Brian sighed. “Look,” he said. “I found something, okay.”
“What did you find?” Vince asked.
“A box. Just a small box, but it belonged to the Scorpions.”
“The Scorpions?”
“The damn local street gang,” Fran told him.
“Oh yeah,” Vince replied. “I remember you telling me about them.” He turned to Brian, “Where did you find the box?”
“Dad, don’t ask.”
“I’m asking.”
“And I’m not telling,” Brian insisted. He saw his father’s eyebrows go up at that. “Look,” he said. “Where I found it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” his mother muttered.
Brian ignored her. “The box was full of stolen credit cards, driver’s licenses, bus passes, all stuff like that.”
“What did you do with it?” his father asked.
“That’s the problem. I couldn’t figure out what to do with it.”
“Wait a minute!” his mother said. “My purse was stolen. Then it mysteriously showed up hung on the door with my driver’s license and bus pass in it, but nothing else. You found it!”
“Uh…yeah Mom. I did. Sorry I couldn’t tell you, but you wouldn’t have understood.”
“Where’s the rest of my things?”
“Gone,” he told her. “Sorry. I was able to find your purse, but the Scorpions had dumped it out with a bunch of other stuff. I didn’t know what makeup and stuff was yours.”
“And the bus pass and my license?” she asked.
“They were in the box I just told you about.”
“How about my old driver’s license?”
“That was there too, but I didn’t know it was yours. The name was different, and the woman in the picture was a lot younger than you and she had real long hair.”
“I was a lot younger then,” Fran muttered.
“Brian,” Vince said, trying to get back to the question at hand. “You said you didn’t know what to do with the box. Where is it?”
“Like I said, the police have it now, although I didn’t think they’d wind up with it.”
“Then how did they?”
“Well, I went to this soup kitchen just to see what it was, and I had lunch there a few times. This nun decided I needed to talk to Father Joseph. I heard at school once that when you tell a priest something, they’re not supposed to tell anyone else, but trust me, Father Joseph has a big mouth. A real big mouth.”
“You went to confession?” his mother asked.
“Confession? He kept asking me if I wanted to confess anything, but why should I. All I did was find a box. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
“It’s my fault,” Fran told Vince. “In all the years we were gone, I never took him near a church. He’s got no clue about any of it. You should have heard his version of the David and Goliath story.”
“Hey,” Brain said. “That was a good story. Except they didn’t have basketball back then.”
“Does the story of David and Goliath come into this somewhere?” Vince asked.
“Just that since I wouldn’t tell Father Joseph my name, he decided to call me David, then he told me that story.”
“Okay,” Vince said. “I’m not sure if I’m caught up yet, but let’s get back to the box. What happened?”
“Anyway,” Brian said, “I didn’t know what to do with the box. I found Mr. Giovanni’s driver’s license in there, but when I brought it back to him, he told me I shouldn’t have bothered, he had already gotten himself a new one. Because of that, I figured there was no sense in me trying to track down anyone else to give them their stuff back. So I had all these cards and things that I didn’t know what to do with.”
“And where does the priest come in?” Vince asked.
“I asked Father Joseph what I should do with it, and he said I should just give it to him, and he would figure it out. So I did.”
“And the police?” Vince asked.
“When Mom finally told me she had also lost her old driver’s license, and it seemed to be something really important to her, I went back to try and get the box back. But Father Joseph said he had turned it over to the police. But I insisted I had to have it, so these guys from the police brought the box to the church for me. But when I looked through everything in the box, I didn’t see anything that belonged to Mom. Then this other cop finally held up another driver’s license that he had pulled out of his pocket, but it didn’t have Mom’s name on it either. I didn’t figure it all out until Uncle Gerald showed up and Mom told me our real name. That was the name on that license. Honestly, I didn’t know.”
Vince turned to Gerald. “Why would the New York Police Department pick on that one driver’s license and not any of the others?”
“A good question,” Gerald replied. “I’m from L.A. You’re from Chicago. And Fran has no connection at all with New York. I can’t see any reason why New York police would even recognize the name let alone be that interested in it.” He turned to Brian. “Did they ask you about your mother’s old license?”
“No,” Brian said. “Not after I told them it wasn’t the one I was looking for. But Michael Scuderi was sure interested in it.”
“Brian,” Vince said. “When did you see Michael?”
“He was talking to the Scorpions. He talked to them a few times.”
“How do you know?”
“I was there. I saw him. I heard him.”
“You were there?” Vince asked.
“Brian!” Fran said. “You told me you weren’t part of that gang. You promised me you weren’t.”
“I’m not Mom, believe me. I just saw and heard them.”
“How?”
“I was just….there, okay? Leave it at that.”
“You were in the room with them when Michael was talking to them?”
“No.”
“Then how did you hear them?”
“Look,” Brian said. “I was there, but I wasn’t there – there. You know? I was just…there.”
“There, where?” Vince asked.
“Dad, don’t ask, okay? I heard it all. I saw it all, including everyone that Michael and his two friends killed.”
“Everyone they killed?”
“Yeah. After the last time, I went and got a good look at their bodies, but the police were coming so I had to get out of there. Dad, can we please talk about this later?”
“You mean so I won’t hear?” his mother asked.
Brain said nothing.
“Trust me,” Vincent said. “You and I are going to talk. But believe something else too, other than not being honest with your mother, I’m not mad at you. Okay?”
“Yeah Dad,” Brain replied, grateful to hear that.
“Okay,” Vince said. “Back to the beginning. What were you talking about when you said we could get the Scuderi’s and the money? If you know for a fact that the police have that license now, then there’s no way we can get it.”
“I was thinking that maybe we could trade them something for it.”
“Like what?”
“I was thinking, we could trade them the Scuderi’s. Or at least Michael. That one time when I talked to them, you should have seen that one cop when I told him who had killed who between the Scorpions and the Dragons. I thought his eyes would pop right out of his head.”
“The Dragons?”
“Another gang Dad. They fight with the Scorpions all the time over territory. The cop seemed to think I could close a
lot of cases for them, but I refused to talk anymore unless I finally got the box back. But I also mentioned that I saw who had killed the Scorpions the first time that Michael showed up there, although at the time, I didn’t know Michael’s name, so I just told them it was three guys wearing suits. But now I’ve seen Michael kill four more of the Scorpions, and I saw Michael personally walk over to Frank and put a bullet in his head, after he had already been shot and was dying. He told Frank it was for some woman who he used to like a lot, or something like that.”
“And you saw that?” Vince asked.
“Dad, I couldn’t miss it!”
“Michael put a bullet in Frank’s head?” Fran asked.
“That’s what I said.”
Fran smiled. “That may be the sweetest thing he’s ever done for me.”
“He did that for you?” Brian asked. “You were the woman he was talking about?”
“It’s a long story,” Fran told him. “We knew each other in school.”
Gerald leaned across the table toward Brain. “Do you really think that the police might give us back that driver’s license?”
“Yeah. I bet they will.”
Vince shook his head. “They’ll never go for it with just some gang murders on the line.”
“I wouldn’t think so either,” Gerald replied.
“Of course,” Vince said, “we could sweeten the pot for them. A hundred and twenty million dollars might make it worth our while to try. We’d each get our original sixty million back.”
“That’s one hell of an incentive,” Gerald agreed. “What did you have in mind?”
“We tell them we’re offering up both Samuel and Michael Scuderi to them.”
Gerald shook his head. “No. No matter what, they’ve got to die!”
Vince leaned toward him. “Who says they won’t be dead before the police get there. Timing could be everything.”
Gerald let that sink in for a moment. “If we did that, it would mean that Brian would have to be the only one talking to them. You and I for sure can’t show our faces. But from what I gathered, they don’t know who Brian is.”
“No,” Vince said. “It doesn’t sound like it.” He looked at his son, “But so far, Brian seems to have not only managed to get through everything, he’s done pretty damn well every time. I barely know my own son, Gerald, but I think he can do it.”