Known Devil

by Matthew Hughes

  “Is there anybody out there who’s likely to get in front of a grand jury someday and testify that what you told the captain is a crock of shit?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Calabrese couldn’t do it without incriminating himself, and all the other potential witnesses died at the scene.”

  “I can think of one who didn’t,” he said. “Your so-called guardian angel.”

  “Oh, yeah – him.”

  McGuire looked through the glass into the squad room, which was starting to get livelier as other detectives showed up for the start of the night shift. “Have you considered the possibility that it could be Karl? I seem to recall he’s watched your back in the past, without letting you know he was doing it.”

  “There’s no way he could’ve been aware I was in trouble from that far away,” I said. “Besides, he would’ve told me by now if it was him.”

  “If you say so, OK. I agree with you that it probably wasn’t some other cop – he’d have stuck around to get the kudos for saving a fellow officer’s life.”

  “And that’s the same reason I don’t think it was one of Calabrese’s guys. He’d want the boss to know that he helped get him out of a tight corner.”

  McGuire spread his hands. “So, who does that leave? Who’s gonna show up in the middle of a gunfight, pop some scumbag who’s about to pop you, then disappear without so much as a word?

  “Yeah, who was that masked man?” I said. “He never gave me a chance to thank him.”

  “You didn’t hear anybody calling out a hearty ‘Heigh-ho, Silver!’ did you?” McGuire almost grew a smile for a second, but then changed his mind.

  “The only silver I remember was the slug that went into that vamp’s back,” I said.

  “Well, if you ever find out who it was, be sure to let me know. In the meantime…”

  “In the meantime,” I said, “I have a dinner date.”

  It was a little after 10pm when Karl and I got to Ricardo’s Ristorante, which is on the lower end of Moosic Street. Despite being a Polack, I love Italian food, and Ricardo’s serves the second-best veal scaloppine in town – right after the place owned by my old buddy, Large Luigi.

  The restaurant’s in a two-story building made of red brick. The terrace outside the front door is open in warmer weather, for those who like sharing their food with the local bugs. I prefer to eat inside, where the only insects I’m likely to encounter have two legs.

  The front is wide enough to have room for three identical canopies made out of maroon fabric running across the front. Each one had a fancy-looking black “R” in a circle, and under that it read, simply, “Ricardo’s.”

  The place was said to have the best wine cellar in the Wyoming Valley – not that Calabrese would care. He never drinks the stuff.

  Two guys were hanging around the entrance, wearing dark suits that were almost cut well enough to conceal the gun bulges under their arms. As Karl and I approached, they took a couple of steps toward us.

  “You gentlemen have reservations?” one of them asked, flashing a little fang in the process.

  I already had my badge folder ready in my hand – I’d figured that guys like these might react badly if I were to reach under my jacket suddenly. I held it up and said, “Yeah – right here.”

  “Me, too,” Karl said, displaying both his badge and fangs.

  “Hold it!” the other goon said, with a raised palm. He looked a little older – in human terms, anyway, and I guess he was the one in charge. More politely, he said, “Sorry to bother you, officers, but it isn’t too hard to manufacture police ID these days. Mind if I take a closer look?”

  It took some guts to do that – I’ll give him that much. I suppose the sight of Karl’s fangs had spooked them, since they were at war with another gang of vampires. And maybe not everybody in the underworld knew that the SPD now had an undead cop among its members.

  I handed him the leather folder that proves I’m a cop. He looked at both the badge and ID card carefully, and compared the photo with my face. Then he handed it back, said, “Thank you, officer,” and turned to give Karl the same treatment.

  That surprised me, since my own ID had apparently passed inspection. But the guy might’ve had specific instructions from Calabrese, and fangsters who disobeyed the boss’s orders have been known to come to a bad end. Or maybe the guard just didn’t believe there were vampire cops.

  The guy handed back Karl’s ID folder and said, “Thank you, officers. Please go on in.” He made a gesture toward the door that was almost gracious. Not bad for a thug.

  Inside, a red-haired hostess gave us a quick once-over and said with a smile, “Good evening, gentlemen, and welcome to Ricardo’s. Table for two?”

  “We’re here to see Calabrese,” I told her.

  She tried to look puzzled, but wasn’t a good enough actress to make it work. “I’m sorry, sir, did you say Calabrese? Is that someone dining with us this evening?”

  “You know who he is,” I said. “It’s alright – we’re expected. Tell him it’s Markowski and Renfer.”

  For a moment I thought she was going to continue her little charade, but then she dropped the smile, said, “Wait here, please,” and headed off into the dining room.

  In less than a minute she was back, and so was the professional smile. “If you gentlemen would follow me, please?” I noticed she didn’t pick up any menus to take with her.

  The dining room continued with the motif from outside. Red brick columns were used to support crisscrossing ceiling beams that looked like polished mahogany. Every table was occupied, and the room hummed with the noise from a couple of dozen quiet conversations.

  The hostess led us to a corner table that was well away from the windows. On the way, Karl and I received hard looks from several pairs of men in dark suits who were sitting at tables scattered around the dining room. I assumed that Calabrese was paying for their dinners, which mostly came in glasses.

  Three other men were with Calabrese, although only the boss had his back to the wall. Two of them were anonymous soldier types, but I recognized the third one as Louis Loquasto, who was the consigliere.

  Loquasto was a slim guy with gray hair, wearing a sharp suit and an even sharper expression. He was the only member of the Calabrese Family who hadn’t crossed over into the world of the undead. Calabrese probably considered it an advantage to have a trusted associate who could move about in daylight.

  As we reached his table, Calabrese said something I couldn’t hear, and the two soldiers got up and left. Loquasto stayed where he was.

  I nodded at Calabrese. “You’re looking pretty good for somebody who almost met true death a few hours ago.”

  He looked at Karl sourly, then back at me. “You didn’t say anything about bringing a friend.”

  “Neither did you,” I said. “But you don’t hear me complaining.”

  Calabrese took a sip from the tall glass of red liquid he had in front of him and gestured toward the two empty chairs. “Sit down, if you want.”

  When we were seated, I nodded at Loquasto. We all knew each other, so introductions weren’t needed. Calabrese said, “You guys want a drink, something to eat?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee,” I said. I was going to need a lot of that, just to get through my shift tonight.

  Karl nodded toward Calabrese’s glass. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  Calabrese made a slight gesture, and a waiter appeared at our table immediately. “A pot of coffee” – I guess Calabrese had noticed the circles under my eyes – “and another one of these.” He touched his glass.

  It came as no surprise that we were served quickly. Once the waiter had gone, Calabrese looked at me. “You said you wanted to talk – so talk.”

  “You’ve got some vamps from out of town trying to muscle in on your business.”

  He snorted. “How’s about you tell me something I don’t know.”

  “That’s kinda what I was hoping to get fr
om you – some things I don’t know,” I said. “Like who these new guys are.”

  Calabrese started to speak, but Loquasto laid a gentle hand on his boss’s forearm. “Perhaps before you say anything, we should consider the possibility that one of these gentlemen is wearing a wire.”

  I looked at Loquasto. “Maybe we oughta consider the possibility that you’re full of shit, Counselor. If I wanted to take down Don Calabrese, I didn’t need to come in here with a microphone under my shirt to do it.”

  Loquasto rattled the ice cubes in his glass, but didn’t take a drink. “Is that right?” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly right – all I had to do was sit on my hands this morning and watch while the three fangsters who had him trapped eased his transition from Undead to True Dead with a couple of silver bullets in the brain.”

  I stirred some sugar into my coffee. “Instead, I killed two of them and let him leave the scene afterwards.”

  I was exaggerating my body count by fifty per cent, but there was no reason why these guys had to know that.

  Calabrese pulled his arm from Loquasto’s grasp. “Forget that wire bullshit,” he said.

  Then he turned to me. “These motherfuckers making a move on me are out of Philly – the Delatasso Family.”

  “Philly, huh?” Karl said. Not exactly next door.” Philadelphia’s about a two-and-a-half hour drive south from Scranton.

  “Compared to the kind of action they’ve got down in Philly,” I said, “Scranton’s got to be pretty small potatoes.”

  “It ain’t Charlie Delatasso who’s trying to expand,” Calabrese said. “It’s the son, Ronnie.”

  “With his father’s blessing, of course,” Loquasto said.

  “Sounds like a young man in a hurry,” I said. “How old is he, anyway?”

  “Thirty-nine, I believe,” Loquasto said.

  “Eldest son?” I asked.

  “Only son,” Loquasto told me.

  “I don’t get it,” Karl said. “Why would he take all the risks involved in starting a war – and so far from home, besides? Shit, all he’s gotta do is wait.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Sooner or later, the old man’s either gonna croak – from either too much linguine or multiple gunshot wounds – or get sent up for a long stretch. Either way, the kid gets to take over.”

  Calabrese gave me an indulgent smile. “Didn’t you know?” he said. “Delatasso the elder came over, about four years ago.”

  I stared at him. “Came… You mean he’s undead?”

  “That’s exactly what he is,” Calabrese said.

  “Our sources say Don Charles had a heart attack,” Loquasto said. “Apparently you were right about all the linguine. He recovered eventually, but the close look he got at the Grim Reaper frightened him – enough so that he took steps to postpone indefinitely any future visits.”

  I nodded slowly. “I think I begin to see the problem.”

  “Me, too,” Karl said. “The old man, if he’s careful, could live a long, long time. And even if junior got turned, too, he still has to wait… and wait.”

  “Oh, he has been,” Loquasto said. “Delatasso told everyone in his Family that they could either change, or leave. That edict included his son, who, as you pointed out, Detective, will nonetheless have a very long wait before he can take over the business.”

  “Unless he takes steps to move things along,” I said. “That’s not exactly unheard of.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Calabrese said. “In some Families, maybe. But from what I hear, Ronnie is everything a father could want in a son. He loves his old man – worships him, even.”

  “There’s a more pragmatic issue for young Mister Delatasso to deal with as well,” Loquasto said. “His father is very popular among his soldiers and the other members of the Family. Apparently the Don has been generous in distributing the profits of his various enterprises among his employees. I also understand he possesses a great deal of personal charm.”

  “So,” Karl said, “if the kid bumped off his old man and tried to take over…”

  “He would likely face vengeance at the hands of his father’s former associates,” Loquasto said. “All of which makes a takeover very unlikely.”

  “So Junior’s feeling his oats and wants to make a name for himself,” I said. “And to do that, he’s gotta branch out.”

  “And the little cocksucker picked Scranton,” Calabrese said.

  I refilled my coffee cup. The stuff they served here wasn’t as good as McGuire’s Jamaican Blue Mountain, but it wasn’t half bad.

  “Waging a war’s expensive,” I said. “And over a hundred miles from home, too. It must be costing the old man a fortune.”

  “It would, if he were paying for it,” Loquasto said. “His preference is for Ronnie to stay at home and help run operations there – he held quite a responsible position, I understand. Charlie has not forbidden his son from engaging in this attempt at expansion, but he has declined to bankroll it.”

  “What the fuck’s the kid doing, then,” Karl said, “putting it on his MasterCard?”

  “The source of Ronnie’s funding is something of a mystery,” Loquasto went on. “But it seems abundantly clear that he has found a backer.” He gave an expressive shrug. “Perhaps in one of the other Northeast families.”

  “The fucker probably promised them a cut of the profits on that new drug,” Calabrese said. “That’d get their attention.”

  Louis Loquasto was probably the only man, living or undead, who could get away with the hard look that he gave Calabrese right then. The Don had just said something he wasn’t supposed to – and judging by the expression on his face now, Calabrese knew it, too. Maybe the attempted assassination attempt last night had affected him more than he wanted to admit. Even vampires have nerves, you know.

  Things at the table went very quiet. I let the silence go on for a little while before saying, in a conversational tone, “Oh? And what new drug might that be?”

  Calabrese looked at Loquasto. The consigliere was usually a hard man to read, but this time the small shrug, combined with his facial expression, said clearly, You might as well – we can’t go back now.

  Calabrese hesitated a few seconds longer before he looked at me and said, “On the street, they call it Slide.”

  I can’t say I was exactly blown away when he said “Slide”. It was pretty damn unlikely that two new drugs were being sold in this town.

  “Sounds like that name’s something you guys recognize,” Calabrese said.

  “I heard it for the first time just a couple of nights ago,” I said, “from an elf I was questioning. We busted him and one of his buddies when they tried to take down Jerry’s Diner. Turns out they wanted the money to buy more of this Slide.”

  “Our sources tell us that it’s been on the street for about a month now,” Loquasto said.

  “Something like that’s not supposed to exist,” I said. “A drug that addicts multiple species of supes.”

  “Yes,” Loquasto said. “We find it very puzzling – not to mention unprecedented.”

  “I know that elves can get hooked on it,” I said. “I’ve seen that with my own eyes. But I also heard a rumor that it has the same effect on vampires – I didn’t know whether to believe that one or not.”

  Calabrese and his consigliere exchanged a look. Whatever passed between them ended with Calabrese saying, “Yeah, it affects us, alright. And fuckin’ weres, too.”

  Karl whistled softly, which must have been hard to do through his fangs. Then he looked at me and said, “Worse and worse.”

  I said to Calabrese, “And this shit is coming from the new guys – the Delatassos. Not you.”

  “You got that right,” he said grimly.

  “Takes some pretty big balls,” I said. “Selling stuff like that, right under your nose.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s one thing about having big balls,” Calabrese said. “They’re easy to find when you’re ready to cut ’em
off.”

  “So that’s how the war started?” Karl asked. “Delatasso Junior sent some people into town, who started pushing Slide. And you… objected.”

  Loquasto started to say something diplomatic and non-incriminating, but Calabrese interrupted him. “Yeah, we objected, alright,” he said. “We got hold of two of those guys, tied ’em up good, then left the fuckers in a field to meet the sunrise.”

  I swallowed. Vampires exposed to sunlight burst into flame. What Calabrese had done, or ordered someone to do, was the equivalent of pouring a gallon of gas over somebody, then dropping a match on him.

  “How’d you know they worked for Delatasso?” Karl asked.

  “We had a little conversation before they went out to that field,” Calabrese said. “One of my guys poured some holy water on them until they felt like talking. It didn’t take long.”

  Of course it had been Loquasto. He was the only member of Calabrese’s crew who could handle a vessel containing holy water, and I bet the screams hadn’t bothered him at all. Loquasto might not be a blood-drinking monster – but he was a lawyer, which was close enough.

  If I’d needed any reminder of what I was dealing with, Calabrese had just provided it. Not that it changed anything – it was either deal with him or try to reach an accommodation with the Delatassos, if they took over. And Ronnie Delatasso didn’t sound like the reasonable type.

  “Did you ever consider just letting the Delatassos sell Slide in Scranton, in return for paying you a hefty commission?” I asked. It was too late for that now, of course – I just wanted to see Calabrese’s reaction.

  “No fuckin’ way,” he said. “You let those bastards get a foothold, and before long you’re the one who’s on the outside, looking in. And besides…”

  Calabrese hesitated, and I wondered why. He hadn’t exactly been shy about saying what he thought, so far.

  After a few seconds, he said, “For the sake of discussion, say that we do a lot of business involving… illicit pharmaceuticals – heroin, coke, crack, even marijuana.”

  “Not meth?” Karl asked him.

  “Naw, that shit’s too hard to make, and dangerous besides. Independent operators handle that, and we let ’em. They can sell it to the fucking goblins – they’re animals, anyway.”