Over the Middle: A Sports Romance

by Lauren Landish

  “What's that, Julius?” I asked, rubbing at my jaw. The adrenalin was wearing off, and the pain of my missing teeth was starting to come through. My jaw was starting to swell too, and I doubted I'd be able to speak much in the next ten minutes or so unless I got some sort of ice on it. Actually, I could use some ice and some pain reliever on a few different areas of my body.

  “I ain't never seen anyone stand up to the Godfather and live to see the end of the hour,” Julius said, still in awe. “The funny part was, even when you were cursin' him, you were always in control of yourself.”

  “Glad I came off that way,” I mumbled, my jaw getting stiffer by the second. “Gonna need a dentist after this.”

  “I wouldn't worry about that. If you don't find Adriana, you're going to need a fucking undertaker,” Roberto shot back from up front. “Keep that in mind, lover boy.”

  Julius shot Roberto a dirty look and leaned in close. “You know how it is. Listen, most of us are rootin' for you to find her, and quick-like. You need any help, just ask me.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled. “Two things. One, I need my laptop from my BMW.”

  “Easy. I'll make the call now. And second?”

  “An ice pack. And some fucking Advil.”

  Chapter 21

  Adriana

  I came back to consciousness slowly, with a splitting headache that threatened to turn my brain into scrambled eggs. My throat ached and my nostrils were raw, but at least I was lying down.

  “Dan? Babe? I just had the worst dream . . .” I mumbled, trying to get up off the sofa. It wasn't until I was stopped three times that I realized that I wasn't on the sofa at Carmen's, nor was I free to go.

  “What the hell?” I whispered, looking down. Across my chest, just under my boobs, and over each of my thighs, right above my knees, were what looked like cargo straps, the kind that you might use to make sure a load in the back of a truck didn't fall off or something. About an inch and half or so wide and nylon, they were bright orange, and despite my best efforts, I couldn't move them. I tried reaching with my hands, but I couldn't find anything to adjust or move. “Help! HELP!”

  “Oh my dear, I held the book so tightly. I saw your picture, I heard you call my name . . .” a nightmarish voice said in the dim light of wherever the hell I was, and I paled.

  “Vincent?”

  “Glad to see you remember me, my love,” Vincent said, stepping into my field of view for the first time. “Like the bed I have prepared for you? I had to work hard to make it. It took all sorts of effort to prepare it for you.”

  “Vincent . . . let me go,” I said, trying to be calm. “Let me go, and I won't tell anyone about this. Not even my family.”

  Vincent giggled, his suit coat taken off and his tie dangling from around his neck, half removed. “Talk to me, baby. You never talk to me.”

  Great. Fucking Genesis. I decided to roll with it in a language he might understand. “I'm here now, Vincent. Talk to me now, Vincent.”

  “Why would you listen now, Domino?” Vincent asked, his voice grim and sad. I racked my mind, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, until it hit me. Domino, Parts 1 & 2, was a pair of songs from their 1986 album, Invisible Touch. In Part one, the lyrics are plaintive, as the lead singer seems to sing about an unnamed woman—presumably, in Vincent's madness, Domino—and a one-night stand that changed his heart and his soul forever.

  Part two, however, took on a much darker overtone, especially when filtered through Vincent's madness. Lots of lyrics about blood and some pretty apocalyptic stuff, but nothing more than standard Phil Collins's singing about social change.

  “Vincent, it's me, Adriana. I'm not Domino,” I tried to reply, using my most soothing voice. “You taught me sculpture, remember?”

  Vincent giggled, high and manic, and I saw him reach next to him. “Of course I do, baby. That was where you showed me your heart, and where I realized the truth. You were the one meant for me, not that stupid bitch that I called my wife.”

  “She was with you for over twenty years, Vincent. How can you say she wasn't for you?”

  He backed up and did a twirling, stuttering dance, laughing and singing the song “Cause Jesus He Knows Me.”

  I wanted to scream, to let my mind descend into the panic and madness that was nibbling at the edges of my consciousness. I was at the mercy of a madman. Instead, I clamped down with everything I could think of. I thought of a trick Angela had taught me, back when I was having problems focusing on my art. “Find your itten,” she had told me, as we sat around the apartment. “Then you'll be fine.”

  She told me that it meant ‘one point’, and it's used in a lot of different ways. Her grandmother used it as a way to say to find that one important thing in your life, the hypothetical thing that if you stripped away all the other things around your life, if you cut away all the bullshit, the thing that comes to you then.

  Her words from two years ago came to me now, and I knew the answer immediately. “Daniel,” I mouthed, thinking of his strong face with his eyes that took me in with acceptance, humor, and unmatched passion. “Please, I need you.”

  I kept up my silent prayer the entire time that Vincent had his back turned to me, closing my mouth and putting on an attentive face when he turned around. I had read the crime scene report from both Angela's and Vincent's wife's murders numerous times. Not only was he a cutter, but he was a rapist as well—no doubt two skills that he had developed in his time doing 'enhanced interrogations' in Central America.

  “Oh we're going to have such fun,” he said when he came back. “You want me to show you some of the games I prepared?”

  “I'd like to talk more first,” I said, trying to get his mind on his mouth and off my body. “Tell me about your art, Vincent. Please?”

  “My art? My art is not something you really want to explore.” Vincent howled, like I'd just told the funniest joke in the world. “You think my art is that stuff that I showed you in class, made of clay and metal and wood? Oh, sweetie, you have no clue at all. But I tell you what, let me show you some of my art.”

  He came over to the side of my bed and touched some sort of floor control, and my bed started to tilt until I was in a semi-reclining position. I could see a television on a cheap table, and with my new angle, I could see some more of the room. It looked like I was in a hotel room, but one that hadn't been updated since about the time I was born.

  Vincent turned on the television, the screen lighting up and giving me more light to see with. I honestly wished I didn't, as the room looked like a dump other than my bed/table and the television. Vincent picked up a remote control and stepped back to my side. “Some of these pictures are a little old, so forgive the eighties hair and fashion, but I think it adds to the art, in my opinion.”

  He had turned on a DVD player, I soon figured out, with a disc full of pictures in the tray. “Here's my first efforts, and while I was happy at the time, as I look back, I realize that I was so sloppy. My use of color and spirit just lacked cohesion.”

  The picture came up, and I couldn't help myself—I screamed. The image in front of me showed a man, but I couldn't tell much more than that. His face had been disfigured, and it was horrifying to look at.

  “I had the same reaction,” Vincent said conversationally, as if he were critiquing a bad piece of art. “Far too much emphasis on trying to be complex, to not let the art speak for itself. But I got better.”

  “It wasn't until my time with the military was done and I had my chance to go to the hospital that I realized what was lacking wasn't my skill,” Vincent said, tapping his chin with the remote. “After all, if you gave Leonardo da Vinci a pile of Play-Doh, he wasn't going to be able to create great works of art with it. What was lacking was in my materials. I'd been bottom feeding, just using the scraps that were given to me to demonstrate or to work from so I could advance someone else's corporate shell game. But in the hospital, I was exposed to the idea that if you start with goo
d quality supplies, you have a much better chance of creating good quality work. So, I invested a little bit of money, got some better tools, and upgraded my work materials. It took longer that way, but the results were worth it.”

  I couldn't help it. It was either cry out or pass out from the horror. I screamed, and Vincent smiled. “And the best part is, my sweet, you're going to help me create my masterpiece.”

  Chapter 22

  Daniel

  I was back at the Bertoli mansion, sitting in the dining room, ice packs wrapped to four different places on my body, staring at my computer. I'd been at it for over nine hours, and I was getting pissed. I knew so much about Drake except the one thing I needed most. I needed to know where the hell the bastard was keeping Adriana.

  For example, I knew that he was more than just a guy who flipped his lid once and killed two women. While his outburst was greater this time, I suspected that he'd been involved with at least a dozen other murders, stretching back nearly twenty-five years, and that was just in his time after he got out of the military. In each town that he lived in, including Seattle, there was a noticeable uptick in disappearances of young women, with bodies being found months or even years later. While the autopsies normally said that the women had died of exposure, accidentally, or due to some other natural cause, and that any disfigurement to the corpses came from normal decomposition or from small scavengers eating the body, I could tell from the way there were angles and symmetry that those wounds were intentionally inflicted. If I could tell that, any detective worth their salt could too—they must have been trying to not incite panic.

  I knew that Drake favored using tools from a company called Sculpture Hut, and that he ordered a lot of it online now that the company had gone to a Web-based presence. I even knew his fucking credit card that he used for placing his orders.

  What I didn't know was where in the hell he was right that second. Seattle's a big city, land-wise, and had done a lot of expansion and contraction over the years. Surrounded by the Pacific Northwest, it doesn't take a lot to disappear in Seattle. I needed something to point me in the right direction.

  Unfortunately, the pain in my body, combined with the lack of information, was driving me nuts. After looking at the same information for the third time without making any progress, I slammed my fist on the table, rattling the tea cup that was on the other side and sending it tumbling to the floor, where it shattered in a bomb-like explosion.

  “I never liked that tea cup anyway,” a voice said behind me, and I turned my head, instantly regretting it as my sore neck twinged. Margaret Bertoli stood in the doorway, her hair and face so similar to Adriana's that I nearly cried. She stepped in closer, seeing the pain in my face, and came around to sit down on the chair nearby. “Sorry, I forgot about your neck.”

  “Not your fault,” I replied, rubbing at the sore area. “It'll feel better soon enough.”

  “You're a pretty horrible liar for a Mafia man,” Margaret said with a chuckle. “Besides, I know that jaw has to still be killing you.”

  “I put some Orajel on it,” I mumbled, aware again of the sick throb on the left side of my face. “After I find Adriana, I can go to the dentist and get some nice, shiny porcelain replacements put in.”

  “How goes the search?” she asked. “Carlo told me he has every man in our employ out combing the city. Still, it's a big damn city.”

  “With a lot of places someone with military training could hide,” I finished. “And this guy—he's good. I've gotten to know more about him than perhaps even the cops they have on his ass, and he scares me. One on one, I'd have his ass for breakfast, but right now, he has the advantage. I have to find him, not wait for him to come to me.”

  Margaret nodded. “If you were him, what would you do?”

  I blanked for a second, then sighed. “I don't know. I'm not a psycho. I'm not like him.”

  She shook her head and put her hand on mine. “Don't limit yourself. Being married to Johnny, I saw both the wonderful man and the dark side of him over the fifteen years we were married. I came to understand it, and it's why, even after his death, I stay with the Bertoli family. It's more honest than the lie the rest of the world tells itself sometimes. Turn on the TV and listen to what normal people tell themselves. They hear about crimes, the horrible things that monsters like Drake do, and they tell themselves that they can never understand them. They say that they could never do the same, and that only someone aberrant would do such things. But the truth is different. We all have that monster inside us, the voices inside our heads. Most of the people out there refuse to accept it. They refuse to accept that your ancestors were the same people who perpetrated the Holocaust, while ancestors of the Bertolis thought that crucifixion was quite a normal way to treat undesirable people. The Irish and Scots . . . we engaged in the wholesale slaughter of each other, uniting only when we hated the English more than other clans. This idea that we call civilized culture is a relatively new thing, overall. Within the Bertoli organization, we accept that dark animal side, and by accepting it, we've been able to have greater strength and control over ourselves. So don't deny that side of you. Accept it, knowing that when you are done with it, you can put it away.”

  I thought about it, then nodded slowly. “I'll try.”

  “In the meantime, though, can you answer another question for me?” she asked, her voice different. She sounded both concerned and happy at the same time.

  “Sure. Whatever you need.”

  “Were you two going to invite me to the wedding?” she asked lightly. “Or was I going to find out through email?”

  I smiled and let my head hang. “We were going to wait on the wedding,” I said softly. “She wanted to try and reconcile enough that you'd be able to come.”

  Margaret smiled and leaned over, kissing me on the cheek. “Thank you . . . son. Now, when you find her, we can have the wedding here, and not at some cheesy hotel.”

  I chuckled, then stopped, a lightning bolt of inspiration flashing through my mind. “Hotel. Hotel . . . shit!”

  “What?” Margaret said, excitement dawning in her face from the sound of my voice. “What did you think of?”

  “Adam did a complete background on Drake, and he was going to check out everything, but outside of his house, there wasn't anything. But his wife . . . there!”

  “The Vista Pine Motel,” Margaret said, reading over my shoulder. “What is it?”

  “An old motel on Route 99, south of SeaTac,” I said. “It's in his wife's name. It's been sitting in probate the whole time. The cops went through right after the murder and didn't find anything, but if I were to try and kidnap someone . . .”

  “Let's go,” Margaret said, standing up and offering me a hand. “I’ll drive. You armed?”

  “No,” I replied. “Carlo's men did a smart job of that.”

  Margaret nodded, then shrugged. “There's always some guns somewhere in this house. We can get you something from the kitchen safe.”

  I took her offered hand and lurched to my feet. Going to the kitchen, she opened the safe there and pulled out two pistols. “Which do you prefer, 9mm or .45?”

  “Forty-five,” I answered. “Beretta.”

  “Always buy Italian, Daniel. Don't you know that? Here.” She handed me the forty-five handle first, and I took it. It was nice, one of the newer pistols from Beretta's Cougar line, not my preferred model, but still damn good. “Good enough?”

  “Good,” I said, checking the magazine. I had eight rounds of gleaming brass inside, with hollow point rounds. If I put one of these into him, the fight would be over. “Come on. What are we driving?”

  “The Gran Turismo,” Margaret said, pointing. I was impressed. She normally drove much more conservative cars, but the Maserati Gran Turismo Stradale was different. Sleek, powerful, with feminine lines and that touch that just differentiated it from its competitors. “Need help into the passenger seat?”

  “No, I'll make it,” I said, limping over
and ungainly dropping into the passenger seat. “See?”

  She started the engine up, and I couldn't help but grin at the rumbling power under the hood. This was one sexy car. “Think you can peel this thing out?” I asked, buckling in. “I can navigate.”

  “Watch me,” she said, slamming the gear stick forward and jamming her foot to the floor. “Johnny took me on a couple of trips to Europe. I got to drive cars like this on the Autobahn. Hold on—we're going to break some traffic laws.”

  According to what I checked out later, the distance from the Bertoli mansion to the Vista Pine Motel was thirty-seven miles. If you follow the traffic laws, driving that would take you between forty-five minutes and an hour.

  For Margaret Bertoli, driving to find her daughter behind the wheel of a car with four hundred and sixty horsepower, racing suspension and near super-car status, she nearly ripped street signs off in her wake as she tore down Interstate 5. I wanted to navigate, but I was so focused on trying to just hold on as she took curves and corners at nearly suicidal speeds that I barely had the presence of mind to call Pietro. “Pietro? Yeah, it's me. Mrs. Bertoli and I are checking out a lead. The Vista Pine Motel, it's a closed down motel near SeaTac. Yeah, I'll send you the address. Get some men over there before us if you can. What? FUCK!”

  “What is it?” Margaret said through clenched teeth as we passed a semi before quickly cutting back in to swerve around a minivan in the passing line.

  “Pietro says they don't have anyone near SeaTac right now,” I said. “Everyone is in the downtown and University areas. They figured that he'd keep her close by, as much as he was able to get onto campus.”

  “Then we get there first,” Margaret said. “You take the lead.”

  I stopped, then turned to her, surprised. “You're going in with me?”

  “That's my daughter,” she said, her voice filled with steel. “There's no way I'm not going in after her. Besides, I know how to handle a gun, Daniel.”