He playfully jabbed Liam in the shoulder on his way out. “Enjoy the newburg, kid. It’s my own personal recipe.”
~~~
Albert Mather walked slowly down the long, steep driveway, careful to control his forward momentum. The jet-black Lincoln was still running. He opened the passenger door and got in.
“That didn’t take long. How’d it go?”
Al Mather grimaced with displeasure. “Like a fart in church, my friend.”
“Will she do it?”
“Will she do it?” He blustered, “She’s my daughter—of course she’ll do it.”
“And she’ll do it anyway?” Rossetti wisecracked.
Al’s middle finger sprang to attention. “Screw you, Monte. Put the car in gear and drive.”
Chapter 10
“Albert always was a bounder.” Grace sighed and then uprooted a chunk of lobster meat from the casserole dish. She and Liam had been picking out of the dish, binge eating as one would ordinarily do with a soupspoon and a container of Häagen-Dazs. “I guess what they say is true.”
“How’s that?” Liam asked.
“Every girl wants a bad boy who will be good just for her, and every boy wants a good girl who will be bad just for him.” She studied the lobster meat impaled on her fork and tore off a bit with her incisors. “But it doesn’t work, does it? I mean, once a cad always a cad, but I had no idea …” She put her fork down on an empty plate, sighed again, and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s love, you see. It makes you want to believe that everything will turn out okay even when you know it won’t. Every girl thinks she’s the one who can tame the wild beast, but … I was a stupid young girl when I met him and he was so handsome and confident.” She sighed again. “I was caught up in his spell.”
“A lot of people are guilty of that.”
“Any left?” I asked as I entered the kitchen. I’d gone to the bathroom to pop a tab of Vicodin, stared at the pill bottle for a while, and then put it back in the medicine cabinet. I decided to fight the pain like a man, with a large tumbler and a bottle of scotch.
“Pretty slim pickin’s,” Liam said. His fork had been hovering over the casserole dish, but he put it down the moment he saw me. “Grab a fork before it’s all gone.”
“There’s plenty,” I said, looking into the dish. Grace had baked a fresh cottage loaf, which now sat on the corner of the table untouched and looked to me like an elephant’s foot. I tore off a toe and dragged it across the bottom of the casserole dish, covering it with cheese, sauce, and bits of lobster meat. “This is the best part.” I stared at it before stuffing it into my mouth. “What the hell just happened?” I huffed and then devoured the amalgam of cheese sauce, scrumptious fresh bread, and lobster.
“He’s got such gall. He knocks on the door after all these years like nothing ever happened.” Grace shook her head in disbelief. “The nerve of that man.”
“And what the hell did he mean, ‘Give me a call, little girl. We’ve got business to discuss’? I mean, Jesus Christ, what’s that all about?”
“Do you think he needs money?” Liam ventured.
“Of course he needs money,” Grace huffed, “but he wouldn’t come to us for it. He knows better than to pull a stunt like that.”
“So what, then? I mean, we haven’t talked to each other in years.”
“Goddamn him.” Grace speared a claw and wolfed it down. “When I saw him at the door I thought that he had somehow heard that you’d been shot and that there was still some good in him, but no … the man doesn’t have a decent bone in his body.” She blotted a tear with her napkin. “I should’ve smacked his face.”
“Where do you think he’ll stay?” Liam asked.
“Who gives a damn,” Grace replied.
“One of those short-stay motels if need be, the ones you pay for by the hour perhaps. I honestly don’t care.”
Liam had only heard secondhand accounts of my father’s misdeeds. I knew he hated him for what he had done to Grace and me, but at his core Liam was still a bit of a bleeding heart. “That wouldn’t bother either of you?” he asked.
“By the hour or five minutes at a time,” Grace said venomously. “I don’t care if there’s a coin slot by the front door and he has to feed it quarters all night long.”
“That makes it official. My father’s transgressions are officially more painful than a bullet wound. Anybody want a drink?”
Their hands shot up like they were elementary school students eager to please their teacher.
“I’ll get it,” Liam said. “What are we drinking tonight?”
“Single malt,” I ordered. “It’s my hero’s dinner. No one’s getting off cheap tonight.”
He rushed out of the kitchen and was back in a jiffy with a well-aged bottle of Glenlivet and three glasses meant for serious drinking. He poured me two fingers, saw me sneering at him, and filled the glass to the midpoint.
I raised my glass and toasted, “Here’s to that chronic pain in the ass and having the constitution to deal with him.”
Grace concurred, “I’ll drink to that.”
Liam grinned as well. “I’ll drink to anything.”
Chapter 11
Carla Rossetti-Miles placed two Midol Complete tablets on her tongue and washed them down with bathroom tap water. She washed her face with cool water and quickly touched up her makeup. “Ready, boys?” she hollered. “We don’t want to be late for practice.” She cleaned mascara from the corners of her eyes and hurried downstairs.
“Where’s Dad?” Brandon asked. He was the elder of the two, born three minutes ahead of his twin brother, Josh. He was dressed and already wearing his soccer cleats, the ones he’d forgotten to clean after the last game. Caked crumbling dirt littered the carpet beneath his cleats.
“He’s going to meet us at the soccer field after he gets out of work.”
Josh was wearing his cleats as well but was sitting in his briefs with his soccer jersey lying on the floor in a heap.
Carla rolled her eyes, resisting the temptation to sneer. Her belly ached mercilessly and her fuse was short. “Why aren’t you dressed, Josh?”
“I told you a hundred times—my uniform doesn’t fit, Ma,” he complained.
“I’m in no mood, young man. Just put it on and let’s get going.”
Josh shook his head. “No. I told you, it makes me look like a goofus.”
Goofus? You’re about to look like an abused child. She glared at him. “Get dressed,” she shouted, “and don’t make me tell you again.” She picked up her bag and walked toward the door. “I’ll wait in the car. Don’t keep me waiting. And, Brandon, make sure you dust-bust the carpet the moment we get home later. How many times do I have to tell the two of you to bang out your cleats over the garbage before bringing them into the house.” She twisted the doorknob and yanked it open. “If I told you once, I’ve told you—oh shit!” She recoiled at the sight of Milosh Wrga’s face. “What the—who are you?”
Wrga’s response was visual and not auditory. He pulled a gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at her face. “Get inside,” he ordered in his Slavic tongue. “And keep your mouth shut.” He gave her a shove and followed her into the house, pulling the door shut behind him.
Josh was in the process of pulling up his soccer shorts.
“Sit down,” Wrga said in a hostile voice. He quickly aimed at the boy and then his brother.
Josh began to tremble and plopped onto the sofa, with his shorts down around his ankles.
Brandon’s voice trembled, “M-Ma?”
“Just do as the man says,” she said as she panted with fright. “Wha-what do you want?”
Wrga was busy studying the layout of the house. “Who else is home?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“N-no one.”
Wrga used the gun to direct her to sit on the couch with the boys. “What about Grandpa Monte?”
“What?” She squeezed in between her two young sons and pulled them close.
“No. I told you, no one else is home.”
“When was the last time you spoke to him?”
She paused for a moment while she considered the request and then mustered the courage to ask, “What do you want with my father?”
He advanced on her in an aggressive manner. “Maybe you don’t understand what a gun does.” He pointed it at Josh. “Shall I demonstrate?”
Josh began to tremble. He buried his head against her shoulder.
She pulled both boys closer still. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“The old man,” Wrga ranted. “Where is he?”
A few tears ran down her cheeks. “I don’t know.”
“No problem,” Wrga said in a cocky tone. He grabbed her purse, opened it, and removed her cell phone. Tossing it at her, he said, “Let’s find out. Tell the old shit to come quick if he ever wants to see his daughter and grandkids alive.”
“Tell me what this is about,” she insisted.
He pulled the large knife from the sheath affixed to his belt. “I asked someone to make a call the other day and he refused. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I cut off his fingers and carved his ribs.” He stuffed the gun into his waistband and grabbed Brandon’s hand. Holding it firmly against the arm of the sofa, he positioned the blade over the boy’s fingers—less than a millimeter separated steel from flesh.
“Give me the phone,” Carla pleaded. “I’ll call. I’ll call.”
Chapter 12
“Jesus, look at this sorry son of a bitch.” Albert Mather pulled a hanky out of his back pocket and pressed it against his nose. “Nothing stinks worse than a dead wiseguy.” He turned to Rossetti, who looked faint. “Maybe you better cop a squat, Monte. You look like shit.”
“Nunzio was my friend, Al. What do you expect from me?”
Al shook his head. “Rough way to go. What’s with the fingers? That a Cosa Nostra thing?”
“You mean like a Sicilian necktie or something?”
“The hell is that?”
“That’s when they slit the guy’s throat and pull his tongue out through his neck.”
Al winced. “No shit. That for real?”
Rossetti nodded. “Yeah, but I doubt this was a mob thing. I mean, I haven’t talked to the guy in five years, but I don’t remember him being involved. Somebody must’ve wanted information, so they tortured him—they cut off one finger at a time until Nunzio couldn’t take it anymore and broke.”
“For Christ’s sake, it looks like he held out until the bitter end.”
“Yeah. Nunzio was no pussy.” He pictured himself in his den watching the news while speaking with his estranged friend. “Eat shit and die,” he said, recalling something he had heard.
“Excuse me?”
“Nunzio. I was watching the news like he had asked me to when out of nowhere he says, ‘Eat shit and die.’”
“How come?”
Rossetti shrugged. “I don’t know. He said that he wasn’t talking to me, but …” His eyes flashed as revelation crossed his mind. “Son of a bitch, he must’ve been talking to his killer.” He clutched at his chest. “Shit! I can’t believe it. He made some stupid reference to the cemetery, and it went right over my head. Some piece of shit had chopped him up into sausage meat and he didn’t breathe a word. I guess he was going to say something after I was finished watching the news about Benzino, but he didn’t last long enough.”
“We’d better make an anonymous call to the police. Ain’t right a man’s body lying here like this,” Al said.
“So you say Mike Otho was murdered too?”
Al nodded. “That’s right. I doubt it was a coincidence. Someone is after the old crew.”
“The question is why?” Rossetti’s phone vibrated. Who the hell could that be? For some inexplicable reason a feeling of foreboding swept through him and his hand began to tremble as he reached into his pocket to grab his phone. The appearance of his daughter’s name on the display normally brought forth a smile and a swell of emotion, a feeling of pride and inner warmth that for him defined what it meant to be a parent and grandfather. But Rossetti was inexplicably numb. At his feet was the corpse of a man he had once called his friend. Nunzio Faciamano’s stone-gray skin was covered with dried blood. He had died with a sardonic grimace on his face while clutching the telephone in his frozen grasp. Eight of his fingers had been severed and had been strewn about on the floor. He was belly up, and the flesh between his ribs had been deeply and coarsely cut. Rossetti pictured him speaking on the phone, bleeding to death like a slaughtered animal.
“What the hell is going on, Al?” He knew that Faciamano had been trying to warn him. Why didn’t he ask for help? May God forgive him. He made the sign of the cross and walked into the next room before answering the phone. He did his best to mask the shiver in his voice. “Hello, sweetheart.” He was normally an upbeat person, but the carnage he had just observed had incinerated his spirit and turned it to dust. “Is everything all right?” he asked cautiously.
A long moment passed before she finally responded, and when she did, she said something he hadn’t heard her say since she was a child. “Daddy,” she finally replied. “I’m scared.”
Chapter 13
United States Senator Jim Donovan sat in his den, watching the president address the nation on national TV. He was not so much listening to what President Kent Coolidge had to say as much as the way he said it. He was replaying the broadcast for the third time and had already absorbed the message. He was far more interested in the man’s presentation and charm, his delivery techniques and the emphasis he placed on key words and phrases—valuable lessons to be learned from a man who was so good he could sell turnips and straw to a man-eating tiger. What can I steal from him? he wondered. I want what he has. He had studied Coolidge for years and had copied every last one of his tricks. The tape ran a fourth time—now without sound Donovan homed in on the inaudible, the man’s smile, his posture, and the determination in his eyes when he was driving home a point.
It should’ve been easy for him, for a man born with a silver spoon who had the support of a wealthy and influential family, but the party had turned him down once before, and he was beginning to wonder if his best years were already behind him. Worse still, the American public was beginning to wonder the same thing. He’d be fifty-eight by the time Coolidge stepped down, not terribly old for an American president, but it was likely his last shot at the brass ring.
“I can do him,” Donovan boasted.
His wife sauntered in from the next room, holding a dirty martini. “Who are you going to do, darling, one of those sneaky young interns who peek through the keyhole when you go to the men’s room, or that redheaded news correspondent, the one with boobs like Christina Hendricks?” Scarlett Alexandria-Donovan spoke in a slow, elegant Southern tongue not heavy enough to be considered a drawl but deliberate enough to be considered unconventional. She was the quintessential blasé Southerner, as nonchalant as God had ever made a woman. She was a soaring drink of water, who didn’t give a damn about her intensely overt sexuality. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen was her motto, and she held back for no one, not even her husband.
“The redhead,” he quipped. “She’d keep me warm on those cold DC nights when the wind blows off the Potomac like daggers.”
“Well, that’s the natural choice, Jimmy, but is she worth the effort? I’ll wager that those scallywag interns are much hungrier. Why, I’m sure they’d indulge your every misogynistic whim.”
“What are you talking about?” he snapped. “I don’t hate women.”
“Well, you fuck me like you do.”
He was still studying the television when her comment caused him to redirect his focus. He was accustomed to her acerbic comments, but this one took him by surprise. “What?”
“I said, ‘You fuck me like you do.’”
He stared at her incredulously.
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“It’s quite all right, Jimmy. I think it’s courageous that after all these years you still put so much effort into your lovemaking.” She sauntered over to him and kissed him while her lips were still wet with her last sip of the cocktail. “Grrr.” She gritted her teeth like a hungry lioness. “In the immortal words of Jerry Lee Lewis, ‘You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain’ … like a horny nineteen-year-old Ole Miss running back. That’s the kind of man I want in the White House.” Indeed, her bones had been rattled by many Ole Miss running backs … tight ends and quarterbacks to boot.
“The White House.” He turned back to the TV with a grin on his face. “From your mouth to God’s ears.”
“Well then, you’d better hope God’s ears are between your legs, because that’s where he’ll find my mouth on most nights.” She picked up the remote and shut off the TV. “Stop trying to copy Kent. He’s got his style and you’ve got yours. You know why you haven’t been nominated? I’ll tell you why. You’re too worried about what people think of you. Just relax and let the people see who you really are, a senate whip who kicks ass and takes names. Don’t you think the public is tired after two terms of Coolidge’s Ivy League manners and broken promises? The voters want a real man, a man who’s not afraid to take on a threat like ISIS and deliver on his promises to the people.” She checked the wall clock. “Only a few minutes before we have to go downstairs to the charity event. Don’t forget to show the photographers your pearly white teeth and handsome smile.”
He slapped his leg, inviting her to sit down on his lap. “You ought to be my campaign manager,” he said while grinning broadly.
“Oh no, Jimmy.” She kissed him near the mouth while she fondled him. “That sounds exhausting. I’d much rather be your whore.” She quickly unbuckled his belt and had him in hand when she stopped abruptly, stroked his hair, and looked him directly in the eyes. “Now don’t forget to mention your devoted wife’s name when you accept your award this evening. Scarlett Alexandria-Donovan is a hell of a lot more than window dressing.”
The Mather Triad: Series Boxed Set (Chloe Mather Thrillers) Page 52