Headstone City

by Tom Piccirilli

  “I think I know who you are. Perhaps you should come in.”

  “Another time.”

  As he pulled away from the curb, the storm kicked up another notch and the wind tore at the surrounding woodlands of Outlook Park.

  He swung up the hill toward the Monticelli estate and the gushing rainwater washed down the cobblestone driveway in a thick, pulsing torrent. He picked up his .38 off the seat and held it in his left hand, thinking he might have to reach out the window, plink a few guys, and crash through the private gates. You couldn't get away from the movie rolling in your head, your name leading the credits. The pressure pushed at the metal plates in your skull, trying to cut loose.

  The guardhouse appeared empty, the gates already open. There were occasional shouts and the squealing of tires as their Jeeps buzzed around the various paths on the grounds. Everybody in a panic over Berto and Joey, looking for Vinny, but nobody watching the door.

  Dane drove up and still didn't get the reception he'd been expecting. Nobody stopped him. There were no police cars asking questions at the Monticelli residence. His sense of farce was beginning to overwhelm him.

  Dane grabbed the shotgun off the backseat and walked up to the front door. It was unlocked and he let himself inside.

  His entire life had brought him right here, to this moment.

  Everyone, in his own way, had to be in on it, a part of the continuing process. Georgie Delmare, the consigliere, tucked away someplace in the house, thinking about how the business would have to be transferred into other names, already working on the new tax reports. Big Tommy Bartone, probably sitting in the next room, feeling old and waiting for a war. Any war. Dane turned the corner and looked up the staircase, seeing no one on the landing. He moved down the hallway, and there, sitting alone in the living room, anticipating this meeting, sat the dying Don.

  The debility and pain in his rough features had almost given away to placidity. He saw Dane and immediately lit a joint, rushing his first drag. He took it in deep and let it out in a thin stream so his eyes clouded.

  “Hello, John.”

  “Hello, Don Pietro.”

  “You've been working very hard lately.”

  Dane nodded. “I'm showing an interest in life.”

  “I'm glad. You're going to put my house in order?” Saying it with just the barest lilt of a question, putting a little dare into it.

  “If I can.”

  Would the Don be surprised to learn Grandma had blown Joey's ass to hell? Or would he have expected that? Knowing how powerful Lucia could be. Dane figured they'd probably fooled around some back in the forties or fifties, listening to Sinatra, Jerry Vale, and Mel Torme.

  “I knew if you were strong and patient, you would find the truth. The truth meant for you to find. That you would discover your nature.”

  “I just wanted to talk to Maria.”

  “That would be pointless now, don't you think?”

  “No. It's my only objective.”

  The Don held on with great resolve against his own cancer, still the boss of the family even with his rickety legs and shivery hands, stoned out of his gourd. They both looked around the room at the old photographs of brutal men who'd died violent deaths, their blood soaking down through the ages into the flesh and the concrete of Headstone City. Dane was as much a product of any of them as he was his own parents.

  Voices moved through the halls, coming closer. Dane snapped up, holding the shotgun, the .38 within easy reach, stuffed in his belt.

  The smart move was to take out the muscle first, the guys with the guns, but Dane just didn't see it happening that way. The Don was the only one left who wanted to end it with some honor, meeting the void with his head up.

  Dane had always held a fierce respect for him, but now he just wanted to hug the man, draw him close, and perhaps say a few of the things he'd never been able to say to his own father. Maybe because he owned the neighborhood, or because he'd been instrumental in providing Dane's small world with at least one beautiful thing.

  But he also felt a mild but crude hatred. For having given up so easily on centuries-old traditions of order and command. For degenerating what should've been a class act. For letting down his guard. For keeping Maria from true love.

  “Thank you, John.”

  Dane stepped up, drew his .38, and put a bullet into the center of Don Monticelli's peaceful face.

  It only took ten seconds for a couple of interchangeable thugs to appear. They let out hisses of fear and confusion but didn't yank any weapons. They glared with open mouths, unsure of what the hell else to do.

  These fuckin' kids, they all needed a lesson.

  Georgie Delmare walked in, his bland eyes showing only a little more emotion than usual, but not enough to shake his perfect composure. Big Tommy moved down the corridor to stand beside him. Big's perpetual sneer had vanished, his lips welded together like scraps of tin. They both stared at him, disregarding the Don slumped in his seat.

  “What about Vinny?” Tommy asked, and his voice damn near broke.

  “He wanted to prove to me he wasn't afraid of dying.”

  “So?”

  “So he wasn't.”

  Sgt. John Danetello's son was taking over the Monti crime organization because he was bored and needed something to do. Because already there were plenty of scores to settle.

  “I'm going to need your help,” Dane told them. “First thing we do is dry up the drug trade into Hollywood through the company once run by Glory Bishop's husband.”

  “What's his name?” the consigliere asked. He'd seen his masters dead in their chairs and beds before, and he'd survived them all. He served whoever was at the top of the heap at any given hour.

  “I still don't goddamn know. But the feds are all over it. We're going to sell plenty, just not through Hollywood. There's a crew in Williamsburg we can put to use.”

  Fuck Cogan and his little wars in Central America. Dane was going to start his payback with that son of a bitch.

  “You bringing in the mulignan?” Big asked.

  “They're already in. We're just going to take some of their pie. Hollywood is wide-open for other things. I think we'll front a few independent film makers.”

  Georgie Delmare grinned with interest, his thoughts moving fast. “Who?”

  Dane remembered all the stacks of shitty scripts on the floor beside Glory Bishop's bed. The one where the serial killer runs across the river and doesn't get wet. Lots of topless broads capering around. “I don't know yet, give me some time. But start setting money aside. And get a list of the best-looking whores and strippers on the payroll.”

  “There aren't many.”

  “Yeah, yeah, because you're so legit now, I know.”

  Big Tommy glanced over at the Don, looking contented there in his seat. “You really taking over, Johnny?”

  You could only do what's given you to do. Dane thought about his grandmother's dream. About how Dane didn't get chased out of the village, but wound up running it.

  Here we are, doing what we're meant to do. “Yeah.”

  “You're not even a made guy.”

  “That doesn't carry the weight it used to. You people held true for about a thousand years, but the last fifty have gone all to hell. I killed four people today. I think that qualifies me.”

  “Not even close,” Big told him, hitching up his shoulders and getting some bravura back. “You did Berto?”

  “It was sort of an accident.”

  “The other families won't accept you, Johnny. Even this crew here.”

  “That doesn't matter.” He glanced at the toughs, who he'd never be able to distinguish apart. “If they want to make a run at me, let them. You're welcome to try too.”

  Dane tightened, holding the shotgun in one hand, setting himself. He shifted so he could swing on Big and take his head off with no trouble.

  Big Tommy Bartone wasn't an idiot though, not anymore. “You want to live like that, Johnny? Never relaxed? Alwa
ys on your toes?”

  You could do worse. Dane thought about his life up to this point and how he'd walked through so much of it without giving a damn about anything. Like Vinny said, they'd already met death and gotten tangled in the veil. “It's something to do.”

  Delmare said, “The police will be here soon asking questions about everything that's happened today. You need a cover story for why you're not at home.”

  “Call the Marriott in Mount Laurel. I'll hole up there for a few days, then come back. I'll tell the investigators I had to hide for fear of retribution.”

  “Who do we say whacked Roberto?” Tommy asked.

  Delmare liked using his mind, letting his instincts run. “Joey Fresco. Joey did it all. He had bad debts catching up to him. He used to visit the Ventimiglia casinos a lot and owed them at least twenty large. We say he was a traitor who went to work destroying our organization from the inside.” Delmare gestured with his chin toward the Don. “He did this. And Berto. He also murdered Vinny. We lay it all at his feet, and we implicate the Venimiglia family in doing so.” Staring into Dane's eyes now. “You were Vinny's best friend. Joey Fresco knew you'd come after him, so he tried to ice you in your grandmother's house. But you were faster and killed him.”

  “Actually, she did.”

  “Holy fuck,” Big Tommy said. “I gotta meet this lady.”

  Dane asked, “Does this place have a large kitchen?”

  “What?”

  “Is there a lot of room to move in the kitchen?”

  “The hell are you doing talking about the kitchen for?”

  “Just answer me.”

  “Yeah, it's huge.”

  “Good, my grandmother will like it.”

  He imagined Grandma Lucia moving into the mansion, settling in upstairs, an old-world cafone peasant woman surrounded by all this wealth. So long as Dane had the strength to keep it all.

  He'd get Pepe over here to act as his capo, help sharpen up these poor examples of la cosa nostra. Who knew, maybe even Fran, with all that awful hate inside her, could be put to good use. If not, then he'd have to kill her. He didn't want somebody like that walking around anywhere near him in this town.

  Delmare stared over Dane's shoulder. Dane turned and looked down the corridor.

  And there she was.

  Maria Monticelli.

  With her insanely black hair coiling and twining to frame her dark and eternal eyes, the luscious angles of her body shown off to perfection. Her blouse open one button too far. The hem of her burgundy skirt caught over her knee to give an enticing view of what he'd dreamed about most of his life. If this wasn't love, it was the next best thing.

  This is what you've always wanted.

  She moved from the bottom of the staircase, looked at her murdered daddy in the chair. She said nothing, but took another step closer. He breathed her in. His chest was constricted with the insane excitement of being so close to her again.

  Of course you would murder men for her. You'd have to be crazy not to.

  He drew the bloodstained box from his pocket and opened it, held the diamond ring out to her.

  “What's this?” she said. “You . . . you're asking me . . . ? You—?”

  “Yeah.”

  Those lips, drawing him in, as if he'd traveled a thousand miles but somehow the journey got easier with each step. Leading him to stand before her. The funny guy who wasn't so tough.

  She said, “Everything you did today, Johnny. What they've been saying. About my brothers . . . and my father—my daddy?”

  “Yes, Maria.”

  Everybody just stared at him, maybe waiting for her to give the order to kill Dane.

  Dane scowled at one of the toughs. Just another kid really, no more than twenty or so. Dane said, “You. You just got promoted. What's your name?”

  “Nunzio.”

  Jesus, all these old-world Italians and their names from the Olive Oil villages. “All right, Nunz, I want you to take the Don out of here. Use the Caddy out front. Vinny's in the trunk.”

  “Holy fuck,” Big Tommy said.

  “Bury them wherever you get rid of bodies, Big. The Meadowlands? Fresh Kills?”

  “Yeah, Staten Island. There's no room behind Kennedy Airport anymore.”

  “Go take them.” Gesturing to the muscle. “Both of you help him. Remember the spot though. In a couple of weeks we'll drop a call to the police, have them found and brought home. Give them a big funeral.” They deserved that, and both of them would've understood this had to come first. “Afterward, I'll have a list of more to do. And your salary's just been doubled.”

  “Everybody in the organization?” Delmare asked.

  “Everybody in this room. Get the troops together in the morning. I got a few things I can teach them.”

  “Do you mean military tactics?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you planning to do?”

  “To pay a visit to the Ventimiglias. We're going to take out Vito Grimaldi.”

  “But why? They haven't done anything. By implicating them with all these recent crimes, they'll be smeared in the media and under continuous investigation for months. There's no reason to take a stand against them.”

  Dane looked at him. “They're the last rough crew around.”

  “Yes, that's right.”

  “So that's the reason, Georgie.”

  Everybody grateful now. The two thugs with the same expression on their stupid faces—giddy, sensing major changes ahead. They grabbed the Don's body and hustled him down the hallway and out the door. Big carried away the blood-smeared chair, and that was the only evidence that the Don had died in his own living room. Georgie nodded and left for his office.

  Dane turned to Maria and saw real fright in her eyes.

  He stepped closer and saw the lust there too, the reverence.

  Rispetto.

  She was looking at him as if noticing him for the first time since he was a child, and she was.

  It made his pulse hammer and the sweat flood down his back. He took her gently but assuredly, encircling her waist and drawing her to him. She held her ground for an instant, then flowed against his body, squirming there, then yielding.

  “Do you still want to be an actress?”

  “I never really cared much about that,” she said. “It was something to dream about until something else better came along.”

  He thought of her on the screen, sharing her with the world, ten thousand theaters filled with squirming men, guys at home with their VCRs all freeze-framed on her. “Good,” Dane told her. “I need you here.”

  “You need me.” Her face softening even more, so beautiful that he could barely control himself.

  “I always have.”

  “I've been waiting for you, Johnny.”

  JoJo had been right. We all got one thing in the world that we love more than anything else. That makes us do what we do and makes us who we are.

  He led her upstairs, kicking in doors until he found her bedroom. As he kissed her throat he saw the photo of JoJo Tormino behind her, on the night table. He eased her down on the mattress, reached over, and slapped the frame to the floor.

  She unbuckled his belt and he said, “JoJo loved you. I promised him I'd tell you that.”

  “I don't give a shit,” she whispered, and Dane rolled her back on the bed and was on her.

  The boy with the sick brain happily bounded forward from a corner of the room, perhaps finally ready to tell Dane whatever it was he'd been trying to say. An angel with golden wings as shiny as coins sat on the edge of the mattress, supplicant but silent, a burning sword in its right hand. Dane lay with his love and let out his first real laugh in thirty years against her throat as he waited for the kid so much like himself to again mutter all the grievous, joyous, secret languages of the profane and fitful dead.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TOM PICCIRILLI is the author of fourteen novels, including November Mourns, A Choir of Ill Children, The Night Class
, A Lower Deep, and Coffin Blues. He's had over 150 stories published, and his short fiction spans multiple genres and demonstrates his wide-ranging narrative skills. He has been a World Fantasy Award finalist and a three-time Bram Stoker Award winner. Visit Tom's official website, Epitaphs, at www.tompiccirilli.com. Tom welcomes email at PicSelf1@aol.com.

  OTHER BOOKS BY TOM PICCIRILLI

  NOVELS

  November Mourns

  A Choir of Ill Children

  Coffin Blues

  Grave Men

  A Lower Deep

  The Night Class

  The Deceased

  Hexes

  Sorrow's Crown

  The Dead Past

  Shards

  Dark Father

  COLLECTIONS

  Mean Sheep

  Waiting My Turn to Go Under the Knife (Poetry)

  This Cape Is Red Because I've Been Bleeding (Poetry)

  A Student of Hell (Poetry)

  Deep Into That Darkness Peering

  The Dog Syndrome & Other Sick Puppies

  Pentacle

  NONFICTION

  Welcome to Hell

  Don't miss

  Tom Piccirilli's

  exciting next novel

  coming from

  Bantam Books

  in Fall 2006.

  Read on for an exclusive sneak peek

  and pick up your copy at

  your favorite bookseller

  On sale fall 2006

  Killjoy wrote:

  Words are not as adequate as teeth.

  Incisors are incapable of lying. If I pressed them into wax or paper or fish or flesh you would know my meaning, the constraints of form, and every trivial fact there is to be found. Words are deficient, even impractical, when attempting to convey the substance of true (modest) self. Deed is definition. We are restricted by mind and voice but not in action, wouldn't you agree? That we can never completely express that which is within. That sometimes the very act of feeling isn't enough to encompass all there is to feel. Frenzy is trying to explain your behaviors to yourself. I suspect I have yet a long way to go at the art of becoming human.