The Ortega Gambit: A classic crime thriller

by J. Palma

  LUCINA AND CHARLES headed out of Andes in the metallic gray Audi A6 with the Vuitton briefcase and shotgun in the trunk, both tucked under a blue bath towel. She had found the keys in Fat Mikey's right pocket and figured there was no better escape available. Charles sat in the backseat. Beside him sat the shoulder bag with the .357 Python pinched long ago from Tony Pipes. A little over a hundred and fifty miles to Larchmont, she wanted to get there by lunch. Not even a quarter mile from the cabin driveway, she was surprised to find an uneasy figure on the side of the road.

  She slowed to a crawl. Beyond the windshield, Vincenzo gimped along the hard-packed dirt shoulder. Still in his black suit, now tattered, rubbed with dirt and ripped in spots. Dragging his left leg behind him, he propelled himself forward with hardly any strength to do so. She stopped beside him and powered down the passenger side window. Emergency sirens grew louder in the distance. Half his face and body appeared mutilated and bloody. Raked with shrapnel and scorched with fire, smoke rose off his clothes.

  "Get in. Don’t try anything.”

  Wheezing, he entered the passenger side. Blood trickled from both ears and stained his collar. He slid into the backseat. Charles reached into the shoulder bag and hefted the Python with both hands, his lips twisted into a gloating sneer.

  Vincenzo half-smiled, his head lilted to the side against the glass. He closed his eyes. He looked waxen and feverish.

  On the asphalt, heading south, Lucina accelerated. The engine roared and the car seemed to leap forward, gobbling up the pavement. Behind them, a pair of squad cars, lights blazing, turned on Skyline Ridge road and raced uphill towards the cabin. Eager to put as much distance between the cabin and her, she sped towards Larchmont at over a hundred miles an hour.

  When Vincenzo awoke, the car was easing into a rest area somewhere off Interstate 87 south of Kingston, sometime near 8 a.m. A flat grassy area flanked one side of the parking lot, the other side had public restrooms and more grass. There were spots big enough for long haul trailers.

  She double-parked the Audi on the restroom side of the lot. Charles unfastened his seatbelt, hopped out of the car and sprinted towards the restroom.

  Lucina called after him, "You better wash your hands. I'm going to check." Her hearing had mostly returned.

  Vincenzo opened his car door and the heat enveloped his body. In the distance, a steady, low rumble from the passing vehicles on the Interstate. The morning sun burned bright, like the end of a cigarette. As he got to his feet, he held up his hand weakly to the sky. A family played in the grass nearby. A dog barked. A man and a woman ate from grease-stained fast food bags. Kids played Frisbee. Isolated and alone, Vincenzo felt removed from his people and his country.

  Lucina helped him to a picnic table and they sat beside each other. He stunk of fire.

  In Neapolitan dialect, he said, "How long was I asleep?"

  "About a half hour."

  "Why did you pick me up?"

  "I saw the look on your face and I knew."

  "Knew what?"

  "You're not the same as when I first met you."

  "How so?"

  "I've seen that look before."

  "Where?"

  “My Papa.”

  He looked at her and asked, "Where are you're going?"

  "I'm taking Charles back."

  "Then what?"

  "Then I see a friend. You may know her. Maria Tavanelli." She winced in terrific discomfort, her hand went to her side and fingered her wound. The pain had only worsened since they'd been on the road.

  He said, "Let me see."

  She lifted her shirt, twisting to show him the wound.

  "In the trunk you'll find a small leather bag. It has medicines that can help you. You need to fix this or else infection. Sepsis."

  The two stared at the Interstate traffic without saying anything. The semis sounded like claps of thunder.

  "I don't know this name, Maria Tavanelli. What do you think will happen when you find her?"

  "I dunno."

  "Maybe she doesn't want you to find her."

  Charles came up and said, "I found a soda machine. Can I get a Coke?"

  "Hands. Let me see."

  Lucina inspected the boy’s hands and said, "Ah, these are as dry as a desert. What did I say?"

  "I did wash them!” Charles protested.

  "You did not. And you still stink like a hobo. Now go wash. Please."

  "I don't want to."

  "No washing, no Coke. Understand?"

  Charles stood there for a few moments with a sulky expression on his face.

  She gave him a stern look and he retreated from his position with an exaggerated sigh, her tacit rebuke ending the standoff.

  "Jeez. Okay. Okay. You don't have to be so mean about it." Charles trotted off yet again to the restroom.

  Facing Vincenzo, Lucina asked, "Will there be others?"

  "There will always be others. You should ditch the car. No doubt by now it has been reported."

  "To the police?"

  "It's not the police I would worry about."

  "I don't need it much longer."

  "Why do you seek this woman?" He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands cupping the weight of his head. His sunken eyes considered her with coldness.

  "She brought me here and I want to know why."

  "Why? Why do we do the things that we do?" He sat upright and held his hands up to the sky. But the sudden movement pained him and he curtailed his gesture. "Why does the sun rise and set each day? It is nature and undeniable. There is no escape. Terrone, this is your fate just as much as this is my fate."

  "She called me that. Terrone. I grew up thinking that one word summed up my past, present, and future. That's all I ever was and would be. It was always a great insult. When I heard that word here, following me to America, I wanted to kill her. But when I hear it now, it is no longer a condemnation, but something else, something much more. I sit here beside you, still alive, and that confirms that I decide my own fate. To me that's what terrone now means. I'm sitting here with you, my assassin. Isn't that crazy? Maybe that's how this word came to be. We just wouldn't go away no matter how much the monarchists, the fascists, and now the Camorrists tried." There was a touch of anger in her voice as she tapped her sternum with her index finger.

  "Maybe America is hell,” Vincenzo responded. “A place where you are made to think you have free will?" He laughed and coughed up a mix of blood and phlegm. When he calmed, he looked out past the edge of the grassy area of the rest stop into the zipping line of cars and trucks.

  "Was it chance that brought me here?" she asked.

  "Fate, and fate alone."

  There was no point continuing with this line of questioning. Blood still spilled from her wound and she had no reason to think it would stop without treatment.

  "You think the police will come?"

  Vincenzo shrugged indifferently. After some time he said, "When they do, it will be too late." Not looking at her, he said, "A ball of white fire went up in the sky and it nearly killed me. I should be dead."

  She asked, “What will you do now?”

  “It’s already done.”

  Sweat dripped from his brow. He rose to his feet and limped across the lot. The driver of an El Camino honked and yelled at him. Vincenzo ignored the man and continued across the parking lot, then the mowed grass, until he was on the shoulder of the Interstate.

  Charles ran up to Lucina.

  "Can I get a Coke? Look, I washed them. You can check."

  "Get in the car."

  "What about my Coke?"

  "Just get in. We'll get your Coke somewhere else."

  "That's not fair. Is that man coming with us?"

  "Just get in and shut up." Lucina pulled out of the rest stop and merged into the high-speed Interstate traffic.

  "That's not fair." He swiveled in his seat, watching Vincenzo.

  "Turn around. Put the seatbelt on."

  "Is he ok
?"

  "His head is like a rotten fruit,” Lucina said. “There's nothing you can do."

  About a mile down the Interstate, in her rear-view mirror, she saw a dark silhouette step off the shoulder into the path of an oncoming big rig. The oversized tractor-trailer braked and peels of gray smoke lashed out from under the wheels, but it was too late.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  UNABLE TO DRIVE further, Lucina pulled into a Motel 6 near the town of Newburgh.

  "I need a room," she told the large Middle Eastern clerk with a thick black beard.

  He retrieved a guest check-in card and asked for her name, the make of her car, and how many people would be staying in the room. She lied and said she was alone. At the computer, he asked, "How many nights?"

  "Two."

  "How will you be paying?"

  "Cash."

  He punched in her information and explained the tax and resort charge.

  "Resort charge?"

  "For the amenities. We have a pool out back."

  "Suppose I don't use the pool?"

  "You still have to pay."

  She put down two hundred-dollar bills, snatched the keys from the counter and didn't wait for her change.

  Inside the room, an intense odor of Lysol overwhelmed them. She put the briefcase on the bed with starchy white sheets and told Charles to watch TV. She entered the bathroom with Vincenzo's medical bag. She removed her boots, jacket, and shirt, then she peeled off her leggings and threw them in the tub, leaving a blood smear where they landed.

  She unzipped the bag, then put one foot on the toilet and explored the bullet wound with her fingertips. With her thumb and index finger she pinched the wound until blood streamed out in a thick cord.

  Inside the bag she found a scalpel, forceps, bottles of antiseptic, and bandages. Most importantly, it contained a well-used notebook written in Neapolitan on how to treat various injuries. She read the section on bullet wounds. And read it again.

  Standing in the bathroom doorway, Lucina's face hardened automatically but then relaxed. She called out to Charles, "I need your help."

  The young child, now in the bathroom, blanched when he saw her injury.

  She pressed her fingers against the wound to stanch the bleeding. "I think I found it." She bit her lip, suppressing the urge to scream.

  "Found what?"

  Ignoring his question she said, "Come."

  "For what?"

  "What do you think? You're going to help."

  "I don't want to," Charles said, holding his hands up in front of him like a shield.

  "I need another set of hands. Grab that towel."

  "I don't want to."

  "I need your help. Please."

  Charles reluctantly moved to her side.

  "I'm going to make a cut on top of it. I want you to help me. Do you understand?"

  "How?"

  "Do exactly what I tell you to do."

  In her shadow, he nodded. After reading the notes one more time, she rubbed lidocaine around the wound.

  "What's that do?" Charles asked.

  "Makes it numb."

  After a few minutes the lidocaine kicked in and she readied her scalpel.

  She asked, "You ready? After I cut, I want you to squeeze some of the medicine from this bottle." She tapped a small clear bottle with an orange stopper.

  "What is it?"

  "Saline solution."

  "What's that do?"

  "Cleans it."

  He swallowed, his eyes big as plates.

  As though diving under water, she inhaled deeply and held her breath.

  The skin parted easily beneath the slightest touch of the blade, blood instantly filling the incision just above her hip. She tossed the scalpel into the sink and Charles squeezed saline solution into the wound just as instructed. She buried the tip of the forceps into the cut and her face wrinkled as she twisted in the mirror to see what she was doing. She yelled at Charles to towel off the blood. Frustrated, she hurled the forceps at the sink and missed, splattering blood against the mirror and wall.

  "I'm close," she said between gritted teeth. "I need you to hold the cut apart with both hands. Both hands,” she said, almost losing her breath.

  "I can do it," he said, his voice rising with more confidence.

  Swapping the forceps for brute force, she plunged her fingers into the incision and located the bullet. But her fingertips lacked the precision to grasp such a small piece. With her chin and a grunt, she motioned to the forceps. Charles understood and handed them to her.

  After minutes of trying to extract the bullet fragment, she was disappointed when she finally pulled it out: a misshapen piece of lead resembling a lopsided pebble. Again, she tossed the forceps into the sink.

  The boy let out an optimistic sigh. His face softened. Her bloodstained fingertips gingerly pushed against the surrounding tissue.

  "I can feel something else." Her voice changed. Out of breath, she said, "Clean it."

  He squeezed the rest of the saline solution into the wound. The red liquid ran down her leg and puddled under her.

  "Gimme the forceps,” she said.

  She groaned. Probing again with the forceps, she pulled out another smaller fragment flattened almost into an oval. She placed it beside the other on the sink countertop. She tested her skin again, roughly, and found no more reason for concern. With the back of her hand, she wiped sweat from her forehead. Her hands trembled as she rubbed Betadine into the wound.

  She sat on the closed toilet seat breathing hard, while blood dribbled down her side. She cupped the battered bullet fragments in her hand. Her eyes lingered on them, unable to comprehend how the bullet disintegrated after slamming into her body. She placed the fragments delicately on the bathroom sink, lining them up like toy soldiers. She poured half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on the open wound and cried.

  She pressed an adhesive bandage tight against her side and wrapped her torso with an Ace bandage. Finally looking up, she realized Charles looked miserable, like he was ready to vomit. She thanked him and told him to watch TV. Then time became a blur.

  Sleep, complete and black, took her. She slept for fifteen hours. She awoke like a drunk waking, unsure of the preceding day's events. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, she remembered where she was. A budget motel off the highway, across the river from Beacon. Her sheets were bloodstained and the bandage looked like a Rorschach ink blot. Charles had watched TV the whole time, ate food from a nearby vending machine and drank water from the sink. Later, she thought, they'd drive across the Hudson and she'd return him to his Larchmont home, and that was it.

  At eleven in the morning she showered, removed her bandage, doused her wound with antiseptic and looked on at the child with a passive love as he watched TV. She moved around the room, aware of a black and blue rose that had blossomed around her gunshot wound. Sitting on the edge of the bed in her underwear, she decided to let her wound air dry before she applied a fresh bandage.

  All was not bad news. She opened the briefcase and found a familiar blue folder atop of four neat rows of money. She counted out the money twice. Five hundred thousand in one hundred dollar bills, minus the two hundred she gave the clerk. In the blue folder, her work papers, passport, and clipped to the inside of the folder, a business card for Maria Tavanelli. The name on the card read Domestic Resource Procurement Agency. More important than the money or passport was the business phone number and address for a place in Queens. She removed the business card and closed the briefcase, hiding it beneath the bed. Meanwhile Charles laid on his stomach on the floor, watching TV with his feet swinging behind him, his head propped up on his elbows. She stared at the boy for an explanation for the last seventy-two hours, but of course, he had none.

  She felt sick all over when she thought of Charles and his future. That funny-looking shit would soon be all alone. But there was no other way. Rested and of clear mind, she warned herself again and again, there could be no other way.


  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  SHE PULLED INTO the Larchmont property just after 3 p.m. The grounds were empty. Why should they be otherwise? The custodial owners and most of the staff were dead somewhere Upstate. A chilly air-conditioned blast greeted them when she opened the front door. The house appeared untouched, as if no one lived there. In a way, no one ever really did. Her first impression of the Larchmont home remained prescient. Like a museum, people occupied time and space in the grand home but no one seemed to live there, only memories and artifacts of another history.

  For lunch, Lucina prepared canned tomato soup and crackers she found in the pantry. But Charles hardly touched his meal. The stress and anxiety of their misadventure had suddenly caught up to Charles and all he wanted was the comfort of his own bed. He explained that he barely slept in the motel because he was afraid she would die and he wouldn't know what to do next. She held his hand and led him to his room. Neither said a word. After he changed into his pajamas, he hugged her tightly and didn't want to let go because he knew when he awoke, she would be gone from the house and his life forever.

  She said, "You will always be my Batman."

  "I was thinking. I don't want to be Batman. I want to be Superman."

  "You no like the Batman?"

  "If I was Superman, I could fly us both away. Somewhere far away."

  "Does that make me your Lois Lane?"

  He smiled, pleased that she knew what he was getting at.

  "Are more bad men coming for me?" Charles asked.

  "No. It's over."

  "How about for you?"

  "I don't know. It will better for you if I go."

  "Is it weird that I don't miss my parents?"

  Lucina considered this for some time and said, "You're tired. Sleep. The dead can't hurt you."

  "Lucina, when you leave here, where will you go?"

  "I have a very important meeting."

  "I'm sorry this happened to you."

  "Why are you sorry? Don't apologize for something you did not do. This started long before I met you. A lifetime before. Things like this happen slowly, right? In the motel I tried to remember a phrase, a signal, something from my past that would have anticipated my situation. But I came up with nothing. I realized that sometimes your life is defined but what you don't do instead of what you do. That's what happened to me. Yes, this is true."