“I stop by when I can, Lucia. It's good to remember.”
“Yes, it is.”
“My own mama taught me that.”
“A kind and decent woman,” Grandma said.
“I visit her and my dad when I can. Some of the rest of the family.” He sniffed. “Cold today.”
“It'll be a bad winter.”
“That's why me and Mabel are going to Florida. I'm getting out. We've been here too long.”
Dane looked into his grandmother's face, wondering if this was why she'd brought him here. To listen to this one little fact about Phil leaving. Telling him in her way that the clock was ticking. You have to take him out soon if you're going to do it. Before he finally escapes.
You'd think you'd have fewer questions the older you got, but it only seemed like you wound up with more. One leading into another.
They stood there and prayed in front of his parents' graves, his grandmother muttering in Italian. While Dane had his eyes closed, Phil put his arms around him. Drew him in close, pressed his cheek to Dane's the way the Mafiosi in the fifties would kiss somebody right before they punched his ticket.
“I miss them,” Phil whispered.
A wedge of hate snapped loose inside Dane's body and lodged in the back of his head. He thought of how easy it might be to reach over and grab your partner's gun, hold it up to his temple, and pull the trigger. No brawling, no real force necessary. One swift motion and all the brains go out the other side, you don't even get any blood on your slacks.
You stared at the graves and the graves stared back.
“I'll drive you both home,” Phil said, showing those teeth.
Dane thought his grandmother would shrug off the offer, but she said, “Grazie, va bene. This wind, my arthritis is acting up.”
So now Dane had to watch his grandmother clambering into a '59 Caddy, squeezing herself into the back because she'd never sit in the death seat. Whenever Dane drove her someplace, she'd perch directly behind him, talking in his ear the entire time.
But this was different. She relaxed and stared out the window while Phil Guerra drove up through Wisewood and out the gates, making a wide left for the Danetello house without slowing down or looking both ways. They cut off an oncoming Miata and the blaring horn made Phil giggle.
Halfway up the block, he pulled to the curb in front of the house and put his hand on Dane's leg, gripping pretty hard. Dane got the point and didn't get out of the car. Grandma must've seen the move. She shoved the seat forward and crushed Dane against the dash while she climbed out. He grunted, staring into the dust that had gathered there and thinking, Christ, it's never easy.
“I'm going to talk to Johnny a little longer,” Phil said.
“You sure you don't want to come in for coffee and biscotti?”
“I wish I could, Lucia, but I need to get home soon.”
“Say hello to the wife for me.”
“I'll do that.”
“Always nice to see her at bingo!”
Phil drew away from the curb without checking his mirror and nearly took out a Chinese delivery kid on a bicycle. The kid screamed and almost flopped off the bike but managed to keep from going down.
Phil looked over and stared through the yellow lenses of the aviator glasses. The hell kind of statement was he trying to make wearing those things? “It true that you and Big Tommy Bartone had a shoot-out in a hospital in Bed-Stuy?”
“No,” Dane said.
Phil was connected and had the story down. Big Tommy wouldn't have lied about the specifics, not even to save his ass. He'd play it up that Dane had spent time in the army, knew all kinds of Special Forces moves. He had a reputation firm enough to bear up under the brunt of that, and it would make the rest of the crew that much more reluctant to deal with Dane.
“It's not true? That's all anybody's been talking about in Headstone City the last couple days. You're saying it's a bunch of lies?”
“It wasn't a shoot-out. I got the drop on him and let him go.”
“That was stupid! He'll just come at you twice as hard next time.”
“I think we reached a general understanding.”
“Which was?”
Dane still didn't know where Phil fit into it all. Sometimes you had to make yourself extremely clear so nobody misunderstood your position on a particular issue. “That I'd kill him if he took another run at me.”
Phil cut loose with a jolly laugh, genuinely tickled. It almost made Dane smile. He hadn't heard the man's honest laughter in years. Phil touched him on the knee. “You think that'll scare him off?”
“It doesn't matter. If he tries again, I'll clip him.”
“And anybody else who makes a run at you?”
“Yeah, and anybody else.”
“You've got a dangerous view of the world, Johnny. I don't know how you've survived this long. Acting like everything is a joke. A silly game.”
He probably did, Dane knew, but it was the only way to make it through the day.
They circled the area, and Phil drove past his own house, like he might be checking to see if his wife was on the front step making a nasty face. Waiting for him, expecting him home to clean out the garage. He circled Wisewood and drove under the highway, jamming the brakes to avoid hitting other cars, cruising through intersections just as the lights turned red. Talk about dangerous.
“You shouldn't be hanging around this part of the neighborhood, Johnny.”
“You already told me that.”
“It's not the safest place for you.”
“You said that too.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah. Relax yourself about it. Nobody's going to get the drop on me.” Dane thought that maybe Phil had fallen back into his cop role, reading his script to the punks on the street. He seemed a little lost, unsure of where he was supposed to be now. No longer a cop, no longer a real player. Sitting comfortably in the pocket of the Don, but only because he was a neighborhood boy and was content to play fetch.
Phil took the next turn so sharply they wound up bumping over the curb. Dane reached into the glove compartment and pulled out Phil's thick glasses. “How about you take off those aviators and put these on now.”
“I see fine.”
“Really, you might at least consider it. You don't have to wear them all the time. Maybe just now and again, you know? On cloudy days. At night.”
“I don't need them.”
Dane put the glasses back, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.
Phil started to screw around some more. He honked the horn and waved at people on the street. They stared at him in terror. Dane tried hard not to fidget but all he wanted to do was grab hold of the wheel, show him how to really groove with a '59 Caddy.
“I've got some money I could give you,” Phil said. “It might help you to make a fresh start. So you can get away from here.”
“Where'd you get the money?”
“I earned it on the job. It's not much. Maybe five grand. But enough for you to have a stake and move to a new city. Somewhere warm.”
Dane still couldn't come to a decision on where Phil stood. The man was actually much more perplexing than he should be. Was Phil trying to get rid of him because he realized Dane knew what had really happened to his father? Or because he had orders from the Montis to make a show of friendship?
“Just think about it,” Phil told him, and pulled up in front of Grandma's house again.
Dane looked at him and asked, “Where were you that night, Phil? When my mother died.”
Phil scowled, his lips tugged back in a near pout. “What do you mean?”
Some guys could play dumb with a real tact and delicacy, and then others, they just looked at you, frowning, trying to make it seem like your question made no sense.
“I phoned you from the hospital. I called the precinct, remember? You were supposed to come by at the end of your shift, but you never showed up.”
It didn't really matter, but D
ane couldn't control his need to confront the man and hear some kind of answer. It should all be secondary to hearing him admit to killing Dad, but he'd always known his priorities were fucked.
“You accusing me of something?” Phil asked, his eyes appearing jaundiced behind those lenses.
“I'm asking a question.”
“Well, I don't like it.”
“I didn't think you would.”
“You got something to say, you just say it.”
“I already did. I want to know where you were that night.”
“Who the hell do you think you are? Asking me that! In my car! In my Cadillac while I'm driving. After I just been to the graves of your parents! And you're asking me that? You got something to say to me? You accusing me of something? This I want to hear! This I really want to hear!”
“It should be easy to answer, don't you think? It's not like you could forget a night like that, right? Or could you?”
“You got some nerve, Johnny! You got some goddamn frickin'—”
“I've got nerve, we both know that. What I don't have is an answer. You want to give me one?”
“Get out of my car.”
“Can I still have the money? Five g's. Maybe I'll invest it.”
“Get out of my car, you strunzo prick!”
“Sure,” Dane said, and slid out of the Caddy. He smiled and let his cigarette hang loose from the corner of his mouth, hitting his father's pose.
Phil Guerra knew he'd messed up, showing heat like that. He sat looking at the dash for a minute, calming down. Then he held his index finger out, cocked his thumb like it was a gun, pretended to shoot Dane again, the same way he had the other day. Sometimes it felt like you were onstage all the time, in a very old play, hitting your mark and saying lines you'd said a thousand times before.
Dane walked inside and went to the kitchen junk drawer, grabbed a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers. Grandma was at the counter cooking ziti. She said, “You two have a good talk?”
He turned back for the door. “No.”
“Where you going?”
“To make a point.”
“Be home by six.”
“I might be late.”
“Six!”
The breeze could bring you back in time the way nothing else could. The smells in the chill air, the scent of impending rain. He tucked his chin against his chest and huddled against the wind. He walked with a fast stride over to the Guerra house.
Phil had parked the Cadillac in the garage but hadn't locked the door. Dane opened it, got in the car, used the tools, and got it started. He pulled out of the driveway slowly and waited in the street, his foot on the brake pedal, until he saw the front door open. Then he stomped the gas until the smoke of burning rubber rose up around car windows, cut loose on the brake, and peeled the fuck out.
He was feeling good, back behind the wheel, the horsepower working up into his chest to fortify his heart.
When you start moving you don't stop until it's finished.
He was moving again, finally. He drove over to the Monticelli mansion like the Caddy was leading the way. It was time to talk to the Don.
TWENTY
The forsaken understood the tactics of cruelty.
A pressure at Dane's side grew worse block after block until he thought maybe Phil had gotten a shot off and winged him. It came from the pocket where he carried the diamond ring he was supposed to give to Maria Monticelli. The pain intensified until he looked over and saw JoJo Tormino there beside him, his finger pressed into Dane's pocket.
“Give me a break, JoJo,” Dane said. “I'll get to it. I've got a lot on my mind right now. Go visit my grandmother, I think she's got a thing for you.”
But JoJo didn't buy that and shoved even harder. With love in his eyes and a tormented grimace, and all the regrets that a man with an unfinished mission might have, even under the mud, he stuck it to Dane.
They didn't turn over in their graves. They stood up and came after you, and they prodded you in your softest places.
JoJo opened his mouth as if to say something and suddenly Angelina was there, wearing a wild smile. She said, “Wow, you two really went at it in that swing! You deserve to have some fun, don't be ashamed of it.”
“I'm not.”
“You are, and you shouldn't be.”
It was like living in a sideshow, where they watched your every move. You stared at them and they stared at you, gasping at the things you did.
The old ache revisited itself on him, his chest feeling huge and hollow, like he'd been embalmed, side by side in the morgue trays with all the rest of them. The mansion on the hill loomed above him, the sound of the heavy waves roaring in the bay.
“You still haven't come by to visit me,” she said. “But that's all right, you've been having fun. I'm glad.”
“It hasn't all been fun.”
“No, but you've been doing okay so far. And I can see you're enjoying yourself now.”
You really couldn't ask for more than that. Not from a girl you'd driven to the people who killed her.
“Your mother—” Angie slid closer, trying to curl across his lap.
“That's right. You said she had something to tell me. What is it?”
Now, the dead playing coy, she nibbled her bottom lip and let out a soft purr, the kind of sound he'd never heard her make when she was alive.
“You don't really want to know, Johnny.”
“You're probably right.”
“Are you going to kill my father?”
“No.”
“Yes, you are. You're going to murder them all.” A titter eased free, thick with lust, like she wanted it done. “Send them to me.”
Maybe he couldn't keep her sane in hell. Maybe he'd only driven her ghost out of its mind.
“My mother, Angie, quit sidetracking and tell me what she wants.”
“She's finished with you, soldier boy. But I'm not.”
He already knew that. She breathed against his ear, and he heard her mad desire there. The dark hair fell against him, floating in front of his mouth, stifling him with its heady scent, until he was nearly panting. He almost took his hands off the wheel. She moaned against his neck and he was hard and crazy and it didn't really matter a goddamn.
“I need you,” she said.
“To do what?”
“Make things right.”
He swung up the hill toward the Monti estate, gunning it hard, the Caddy's engine humming smoothly, rushing like his blood.
“We love you, Johnny. You're going to find that out.”
It started to rain, and the water washed down the lengthy cobblestone driveway in heavy rivulets. There was a guardhouse at the front of the private gates to the estate, where he used to phone Vinny and ask him to come outside on summer days. Vinny would always say he had to stay in and practice, but every once in a while would sneak away, steal one of the patrol jeeps, and they'd go down to the beach.
Instead of Dane having to talk to someone or yell into a speaker, the gates opened as he approached. He drove right on up. Seemed like Phil Guerra was a welcomed guest.
Angelina drew closer, until he couldn't be sure where she was anymore, on top of him or under him or sinking farther inside. It got tiring trying to figure out which ghosts you carried, and which ones carried you.
He pulled up to the Monticelli mansion. Looked around for any overt action. Guns, goombas who'd read The Valachi Papers too many times, with a bit too much vino in them. Wanting to crack wise and throw down with a machine gun. Or maybe they were all sleeping in front of the television, empty plates in front of them on the coffee table.
Dane cruised up to the door. Just a nice Italian boy coming out for a visit. Maybe they were asking him in.
He parked, walked up to the door, and rang the bell. Why not? Don Monti had manners, at least. Before he did anything else, the man would want to talk. The Monticellis liked to talk.
Georgie Delmare, the consigliere, met him at the doo
r bordered by two younger Monti thugs. He was surprised to see Dane but hid it well. His chin stiffening only the slightest bit. “Mr. Danetello. My, you certainly do come seeking trouble, don't you?”
“Never my intention, Georgie, believe it or not.”
“As Daniel told the lion. What do you want?”
“I think you know. Vinny here?”
“If he were, you'd very probably be dead by now.”
“You popping off one-liners like the wiseguys now? That was pretty good, I gotta admit. You gotta loosen your shoulders a little though, you know? Work your neck. Hey listen, there's this movie called Under Heaven's Canopy. Watch for the scene with the chick with the rocket launcher on the bridge. You can pick up a few pointers.”
One of the thugs glared at Dane, but the other had a thousand-yard gaze going, probably thinking of Glory Bishop and the look on her sweaty face when she pulled the trigger. I'm gonna rock your world, baby! A stupid grin started pushing his lips out of shape, but he caught himself in time and began glowering again.
Delmare stared at the Caddy, glowering, mouth open, then closing, then opening. “Isn't that Phil Guerra's Cadillac?”
“No, it's mine.”
The tiniest change of expression, which in Georgie Delmare was pure shock. “Yours? But, no, I'm quite sure that it's—”
“Yeah, mine. Listen, I love gabbing with you, Georgie, but I want to see Don Pietro.”
“That's quite impossible. Don't be ridiculous. Leave now and you might save your skin for a few days more. I suggest you leave the city immediately.”
“The man taught me to play five-card draw when I was seven. I've had about five hundred meals here and attended every baptism, confirmation, and graduation in the family for the last two decades. Minus the last couple of years anyway. He'll talk to me.”
“I don't think this is in your best interest.”
Dane took a breath, feeling his impatience welling and about to break the surface. He'd always hated being edgy before, but now it felt kind of good. “You want to check out a real show of force?”
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