by Pratt, Scott
They waded across the shallow creek and climbed a slope. Charlie was carrying a spotlight in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
“Look. Right there,” Charlie said.
It took a minute, but Jack eventually made out the narrow, vine-covered opening. Charlie handed him the flashlight and said, “Come on, just follow me.”
Charlie had instructed Jack to wear boots, warm clothing and to bring gloves. He donned the gloves, wrapped his covered fingers around the flashlight and started walking. As soon as he breached the entrance, he stopped. His legs suddenly felt like tree limbs, as though he had no joints, no knees or ankles. His heart was racing, his breathing labored, and despite the sudden drop in temperature, a sheen of perspiration had formed on his forehead.
“Charlie?” he said.
She’d moved a few feet in front of him. She turned. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure. Something is telling me not to go in there.”
“Are you afraid?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember being afraid of anything in my entire life. I’m not shaking, but I’m sweating and my heart is beating like I’ve been running all morning. I’m sweating and I don’t think I can move my legs.”
“Maybe it’s just claustrophobia,” Charlie said. “Let’s go back out for a minute and talk, see how you feel.”
“Right now I’m starting to feel like a coward.”
“It’s probably the medication you’re on,” Charlie said, “or maybe there’s some kind of infection starting up in your wound. This was a bad idea, Jack. I’m sorry. Let’s go back out.”
They turned and walked back out of the cave. Jack looked up at the gray clouds boiling on the horizon. A brisk wind was blowing and the sky seemed angry.
“Feel better?” Charlie said. She moved close to Jack, removed the glove from her right hand, and caressed his cheek.
He looked into her eyes, the clearest, most beautiful blue he had ever seen.
“I’m not sure how I feel,” Jack said, “but there’s something about this place that is bothering me. I’ve always had this sort of knack for sensing when something isn’t right, almost a sixth sense sometimes. I think I get it from my mother. She can smell danger a mile away. But this is… this is… more intense than anything I’ve ever felt.”
“What do you think is causing it?”
“It has to be the gold. I’ve thought about it a lot since you showed me the bar. My dad and I have talked about it some. That gold… it came from a man who was probably evil. He had to be. I mean, who knows how many people he killed to climb to the top of the world he ruled and stay there? People glorify them, Hollywood loves them, but those men were ruthless and cruel. They were thieves and killers and extortionists. And sitting at the bottom of this cave is the fruit of their labors.”
“I know,” Charlie said. “I’ve been thinking about it, too. But what do I do? Just leave it there? It was a gift, a gift that can change my life. Surely I can take it and do some good with it.”
“I think you should leave it alone. It’s like an evil spirit that has been sealed up in a tomb for centuries and then someone accidentally stumbles across it and sets it free to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world. I could be entirely wrong, or maybe I’m just being overly dramatic, or maybe you’re right and it’s just the medication, but I think what I’m feeling is the presence of real evil. I don’t want any part of it, and I don’t want you to wind up being hurt by it.”
“Maybe we should just ride back down the mountain,” Charlie said, “and deal with it when you’re feeling better.”
Jack shrugged his shoulders. He knew he would never willingly set foot on this particular piece of the earth again, and he desperately hoped that the gold hidden in the cave would not become a wedge that would drive itself between him and Charlie.
“Another day,” Jack said, nodding his head, “when I’m feeling better. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 42
IT had taken Johnny Russo about two minutes to convince Carlo Lanzetti that they should do this. “It’ll be the biggest score ever,” Johnny had said to Carlo. “Bigger than Lufthansa. We pull this off, we come back here, and we rule this town. We rule the world.”
The story of his great-great-great-grandfather Russo’s gold had been a popular topic of conversation around the Russo family dinner table on Sunday when Johnny was young. His father had spoken of it many times, especially after he’d had a little too much wine, dreaming aloud about what he would do if he got his hands on it. His dreams stayed within the borders of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers; they involved buying and restoring Carmine’s old place in Bella Vista, sending the children to expensive, private schools, owning luxury automobiles, getting the best tables at the best Italian restaurants in South Philly. As he grew older, Johnny suspected his father’s dreams involved a few other things, too, things like usurping Sal Pistone and taking over all of the rackets in Philadelphia and Jersey and restoring the Russo family to the position of power and prestige it deserved.
Johnny’s meeting with the computer geek named Reno had provided basic information. He learned the full names and addresses of Zane Barnes and Charleston Story and their birthdates. He learned that Barnes was divorced and that Charleston Story had just graduated from law school. He learned that neither of them had a criminal history – although Charleston Story’s father was in prison in Beckley, West Virginia – and he knew their credit scores, which was of absolutely no use. He learned what kind of vehicles Barnes and Story owned. He had learned the address of the old man, Roscoe Barnes, who had jumped from a clock tower at a courthouse and splattered himself all over the steps. The newspaper story said the gold was probably hidden somewhere on the old man’s property. Reno had also managed to come up with electronic images of both Zane Barnes and Charleston Story, which he’d printed out and given to Johnny.
They’d left Philadelphia without telling anyone where they were going. They’d put their street business in the hands of a guy named Vincenzo Matta, telling him only that they were going out of town for a few days, maybe a week. Both Johnny and Carlo had known Vinny for years and he’d never given them a reason to distrust him. But they still threatened to behead him and stuff him in a meat grinder if he stole so much as a dime while they were gone. It was actually a good time to leave town. Their wounds from the beating were healing. Big Legs Mucci and Tommy Maldonado had taken all the money in their wallets that night – almost two thousand dollars – so they figured they were good on the tribute for a few weeks, but they’d talked it over and they still weren’t going to pay. That meant, at some point, there would be blood running in the Philly streets. And if Johnny could make this thing in Tennessee happen, if he and Carlo could walk away with millions, they could go back to Philly, hire whatever muscle they needed to hire, and take down Mucci, Maldonado, Pistone, all of them. Johnny would be boss, Carlo would be underboss. Pistone would be dead along with Mucci and Maldonado. The rest of his crew would either fall in line or die.
It had taken them eight hours to drive from South Philly to Northeast Tennessee. They’d rented a room in a flea bag motel off Highway 19E near Roan Mountain and had spent three days doing surveillance. They used the GPS on their cell phones to find the various places they needed to find and had spent a good deal of time hiking through the rugged terrain, trying to find good vantage points from which they could stalk their prey.
Johnny had decided to concentrate on Zane Barnes first. He reasoned that since Barnes was the old man’s son, and since he seemed to be living in the old man’s house, he would be the most likely candidate to be able to tell them where the gold was. They had seen Barnes walk out of the house to the barn and emerge on a four-wheeler several times. He would disappear into the woods behind the house and they could hear him heading up the mountain. He would stay gone for an hour or two and then return, but as yet, they hadn’t seen any gold. They’d broken into the house while Barnes was gone and had searc
hed it. They’d also searched the barn and the two other outbuildings on the property, but so far, nothing.
On their third night in Tennessee, both Johnny and Carlo were growing impatient. They had a discussion and decided their best course of action was to get their hands on Barnes and extract some information from him. Carlo was the one who suggested the vise. He’d seen one in an outbuilding and had mentioned a scene from a movie, Goodfellas or The Godfather or Casino, he couldn’t remember which, where some gangsters got some information out of a guy by putting his head in a vise and slowly tightening it. Carlo thought it would be an effective means of torture, and Johnny agreed.
The light in the old man’s house went out at eleven, and at midnight, Johnny and Carlo walked into the outbuilding. They rummaged around, found some hardware, and anchored the bench vise to an old picnic table. Once they were satisfied their torture device would work, they walked into the house and found Zane Barnes sound asleep in a bedroom.
“Get up,” Johnny said, pointing a pistol at Barnes’s forehead.
They forced him to the outbuilding in his pajamas at gunpoint, made him lie on his back on the table, and tied him down. Carlo positioned himself so he could operate the vise while Johnny stood over the wide-eyed, sniveling man. Carlo turned the handle on the vise and the jaws tightened snugly on Barnes’s ears.
“Name’s Russo,” Johnny said. “That mean anything to you?”
“What? Who?”
“Russo! As in Russo’s gold! Ring a bell?”
“I don’t… I don’t understand—”
“Shut up. I’m going to ask you some questions, and every time I don’t like the answer, my friend here is going tighten this vise. If you give me the wrong answer too many times, your head is going to explode. Got it? Good. So, first things first. Where is the gold?”
“I don’t have it,” Barnes said.
“Turn it,” Johnny said to Carlo. Carlo turned the handle a quarter turn and the vise tightened. Barnes shrieked.
“Don’t feel so good, does it?” Johnny said. “You didn’t answer my question, see? I didn’t ask you if you have the gold, I asked you where it is. So I’m going to ask you again, okay? Where is the gold?”
“I don’t know,” Barnes said. “I swear it.”
“Turn it again.”
Carlo tightened the vise a little more as Barnes howled in pain.
“This is gonna get real bad real quick, Zane,” Johnny said. “Don’t mind if I call you Zane, right? I mean, that’s your name, right? You are Zane Barnes, aren’t you? Say yes or no. Are you Zane Barnes?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. You see? Carlo didn’t tighten the vise. Three or four more turns on that thing and your skull is gonna start cracking. Now me and Carlo here, we came all the way down here from Philadelphia to get what is rightfully ours. My grandfather, my great-great-great grandfather, brought that gold down here. I guess maybe he brought it to your great-great-great grandfather, right? Or maybe he was your great-great grandfather. I’m not so good at that generation stuff. And your grandfather was supposed to give it back to my grandfather, but he acted like a mope and didn’t do it, so he wound up getting himself whacked. But from everything I’ve been hearing, the gold is still here, and since you’re here, I figure you know where it is. So again, where is it?”
“Please,” Barnes said pitifully. “Please, don’t do this. It’s here… you’re right… it’s here… somewhere. But I don’t know where. It’s hidden somewhere on the mountain I think. I’ve been trying to find it. I can help you find it.”
“How do you know it’s hidden? How do you know?”
“My father. Before he killed himself he showed me one bar. One bar. He said there was more but he wouldn’t tell me where it was.”
“How much is there? How much is it worth?”
“I don’t know… He said there’s a lot. Worth millions, but I can’t find it. I think she took it. I’ve seen her on the mountain riding her horse. I think maybe she has it.”
“She? Who is she?”
“The Story girl. Her name is Charleston. My father left everything to her in his will. I think she already took it.”
“I already know about her. Why would your father leave everything to her and nothing to his son? And if he left everything to her, what are you doing living in this house? I think you’re lying to me. Turn it again, Carlo.”
“No!” Foam was bubbling from the corners of Barnes’ mouth and tears were streaming from his eyes.
“Do it,” Johnny said.
Carlo turned the handle on the vise. Barnes screamed and his face contorted.
“Last chance,” Johnny said. “I’m getting bored with this. If you don’t tell me what I want to know in the next thirty seconds, Carlo is going to squash your head like a grape.”
“You need me to find it!” Barnes said. “You need me! There are a hundred gold bars worth fifty million dollars. I think the girl knows where it is. She’s the one whose head should be in a vise. I know her. I can help you get to her.”
“That’s better,” Johnny said. He winked at Carlo, who backed the pressure off just a bit. “How can you help us get to her?”
“I know what she cares about, what she wouldn’t want to lose.”
“Like what?”
“Her father, her uncle, her horse. That’s how you get to her. I can tell you all about her. I know this land like the back of my hand. I can help you get the gold. We can be partners.”
“Partners? Really? You want to be partners with me and Carlo? What kind of split are we talking?”
“I’ll give you eighty bars,” Barnes said. “I’ll take what’s left.”
Johnny heard Carlo laugh. “That’s rich,” Carlo said. “He’ll give us eighty bars and keep what’s left. That’s funny.”
“Finish this piece of garbage,” Johnny said. “He ain’t gonna do nothing for us.”
Carlo turned the handle. Barnes screamed again. Carlo kept turning. Barnes’ head began to elongate as the jaws of the vise closed. Johnny walked away, but Carlo was fascinated. Barnes’ eyes became larger and larger. They looked like red yolks on a fried egg. The tops and bottoms of Barnes’ ears began to curl around the jaws. Carlo heard the skull begin to crack, a sound like wadding up dry paper. Carlo gave the handle another, vicious twist and the skin across the forehead stretched like hot plastic, the wrinkles disappeared. There was a pop and the crown of the skull separated. Pink pudding oozed as a hiss of air escaped from the mouth. Barnes went limp.
“That’s it,” Carlo said. “He’s gone.”
They wrapped Barnes in a plastic drop cloth and loaded him in the trunk of the Mercedes. Then they drove in separate cars to the hotel, took naps and showers, hung out and watched television for a couple of hours. At four in the morning Carlo drove the Mercedes to Elizabethton with Johnny behind him. They had learned that one of the town’s prized attractions was an old covered bridge that spanned the Doe River. It was maybe a hundred feet long, at the northeast edge of the town, close to the jail. There was a park on the north side of the river. On the other side was downtown, which was as still as a cemetery. They pulled down South Riverside Drive and parked about fifty feet from the bridge. Carlo carried the body onto the bridge while Johnny followed with the same length of rope they had used to secure Barnes to the picnic table. They strung Barnes up in the middle of the bridge, plastic wrapping and all, and left him swinging.
“That was fun,” Carlo said as they walked back to their car. “We gotta do the same thing to Mucci and Maldonado as soon as we get back to Philly.”
“Yeah, it’ll send a nice little message to the hillbillies when they wake up,” Johnny said. “But now it’s time to start sending messages to the girl.”
Chapter 43
LUKE Story’s life was one of drudgery and routines. Things were a little easier and a little less dangerous these days, now that they’d finally moved him to a minimum security camp, but they weren’t any less bori
ng. He was up at six every morning during the week. He dressed in his drab, khaki uniform and made his bed in the required, hospital corner fashion, swept his room, used the bathroom, and washed his face and hands. He went to breakfast at seven. At seven-thirty, he went to his job cleaning the prison’s administrative offices. Lunch was at eleven, then back to work until three-thirty. Supper at four. From four-thirty to ten o’clock, he had free time, which he thought was ironic. Free time? He couldn’t even leave the place. How could the time be free? He killed the time in the evening walking on the track over the hill from the dormitory-style housing units, playing cards or chess with other inmates, reading and watching television. He was even taking a cooking class now. Charlie had arranged a job for him at Buddy’s Diner when he got out. It was the same place she’d worked as a waitress in high school and college.
There were no walls at the camp, not even a fence. There were usually no more than two guards on duty, and they were unarmed. It was far different from what he’d become accustomed to during the first twenty years of his incarceration. He’d spent the first five years in Atlanta, classified as a close security inmate because his sentence was so long. He quickly learned the most important rules, the unwritten rules, of prison survival: trust no one, don’t show emotion, don’t show weakness, say as little as possible, don’t be friendly with the guards, don’t be too friendly with members of other races, stay away from gangs, drugs and homosexuals, don’t stare, don’t reach across people’s plates in the chow hall, be careful what you say on the phone. He’d been forced to fight a few times during the early years – everybody is forced to fight eventually – but even with only one functional arm, he’d never been seriously injured. They moved him to the medium-security prison at Beckley when Charlie was ten. He spent ten years there, surviving the same way he had in Atlanta. Five years ago, they’d finally moved him to the camp.
Luke tried not to think about getting out, because he’d discovered that thinking about anything other than what was going on around him every day was both dangerous and futile. He looked forward to the visits from Charlie, as he had to visits from his parents when they were alive, but as soon as they walked out the door it was back to survival mode. He hadn’t felt joy or pain or compassion in so long that he sometimes wondered whether he’d be able to feel anything ever again. He hoped he would, though. He wanted to feel alive again before he died.