$200,000 intercepted from Bonanno crew
Elliot can be trusted
‘The Pope’ has answers
Get Alex’s help for the meet
Alex was now fully awake. He could trust Elliot, Jack wrote.
If it was good enough for Jack, then it sure as hell is good enough for me, Alex thought.
Alex threw his gun holster over his shoulders and tucked his knife back into the anklet above his boot. He grabbed his jacket and tucked the notebook inside. If ‘The Pope’ had answers, then that was where Alex was going to go.
Vaughn walked to the mantle and saw his old badge resting atop it, just as he left it. With a quick smile he dusted it off and pinned it to the inside of his jacket. Striding towards the door, Alex paused as he reached the banister. Some part of him pulled at him to run up and say hello to his wife, to check on his baby girl. His heart was up there already. Brushing his fingers through is long brown hair; Alex set his face and forced his feet toward the door.
Chapter 25
Rafael Rontego carried his bag of cash slung over his shoulder and his fedora tilted low over his head as he approached the cashier behind a relic of a wooden desk and a glass window. Rontego found it funny how similar to movie windows train station ticket windows were. A bald gentleman with glasses too large for his face greeted him at the window.
Christ, Rafael thought. Was this joker really wearing a bowtie? Best to get this over with.
“I’ll take your quickest line to Toronto.” Rontego slid his passport under the window.
The geek behind the counter let out a chuckle and said, “Well, that’s easy enough, sir. There is only one line from here to Toronto and it departs promptly at three in the afternoon.”
Rafael looked over the clerks shoulder and noticed a clock peaking back at him that read 6 A.M.
Nine fucking hours.
The clerk must have noticed the dismay curl out of Rontego’s lips because he said, “Yep. You’re in for a bit of a wait. May I suggest those wooden benches over there? They are more comfortable than they seem.”
Rontego peered out at the little man and asked, “How long do you think it would take to walk there?”
The man chuckled again and his bowtie bounced with his Adam’s apple. “Well, you could always take a cab. Or the bus, now that wouldn’t be so bad.”
Rontego shook his head; he wanted to take the train in, and the people on buses aggravated him.
Screw it. I’m in no rush. “I’ll take one ticket please to Toronto.”
“Very good then sir. One ticket it is. Would you like that to be first class?”
“Sure.”
The clerk handed over a ticket booklet and Rafael slid him cash to cover the ride. Rontego took a walk over to the benches suggested by the clerk and laid back down across the bench on his back. He tilted his hat over his eyes and rested his head down on his bag of cash with one hand resting inside of his jacket on a curious cold lump of steel.
If one existed, God forgive the bastard who tries anything funny.
With that thought, Rafael drifted into an uneasy sleep, waking up as each new passenger arrived in the station.
*
Vaughn stepped out of the cab that carried him away from his old neighborhood, in front of a low office building on the corner of First and Franklin Street. A plain white sign with black lettering read Law Office of Christian Biela: Attorney At Law est. 1999. Alex Vaughn knew who The Pope was, and he knew where to find him. The advertisement didn’t hurt the search any either.
“Wait right here,” he directed the cab driver.
Alex walked from the curb to the building, attempting to evade the cold that seeped in under his jacket. He walked inside to the heat of the building and swung the door around behind, shielding the room from the encroaching cold.
A young receptionist sat in the rear of a small lobby area and held a telephone in one hand and was writing information on a pad with the other. Alex walked past her and headed straight for the door.
She stood up and put the phone down and held up a hand as if to stop Alex and said, “Sir, you can’t go in there.”
Vaughn pulled his jacket back revealing his pistol and continued on past her. He pushed open the door and saw The Pope sitting at a desk facing him. He wore a white button down and a red tie. His suit jacket was draped on a sofa to the left.
Vaughn took two steps inside before he heard the click of a gun hammer coming from his back and felt the cool steel of its muzzle pressed against his forehead. Not moving his head, Alex looked to the side and saw a rather imposing man standing off to his side.
Spitting out the one thing that he could think of, Alex declared, “I’m a cop.”
“Sure you are,” The Pope smiled. “They all are. Let’s see the badge.”
Alex grabbed the buttons of his jacket and lifted its fold. Revealed beneath, was his gold badge with its American Bald Eagle spread across its breadth.
With a grimace and a wave, The Pope called off his man.
“Mr. Biela, I have something very important to discuss with you.”
He started hacking and wheezing as some sort of bug started doing jumping jacks in The Pope’s throat.
“Well, what’s keeping you, officer?”
Alex was not fond of how The Pope seemed to spit that last word at him.
“I’ll make this brief. My friend Jack Benton was murdered three days ago. He was a cop with the Buffalo P.D.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yes, he was. You, sir, were implicated in his personal notes.”
The Pope shifted in his chair. “Now I don’t know nothing about anything like that.”
“I’m sure you don’t. But this isn’t about whether you pulled the trigger.”
Alex pulled his gun out and rested it on the table. Leaning forward he continued.
“Now I am not here to make things hard on you, though I could, you know. I could be a hassle for you each and every day of your fucking life.” He was inches from The Pope’s face at this point. Alex straightened up and pulled back, “Or you can answer a few quick questions and I’ll be out of your hair. Like I was never here.”
The Pope gave a little cough, “What do you want to know? Depending on that, my answers depend.”
Alex Vaughn laid it out for him, “Two things. The first is I know who killed my friend Jack. His name is Rafael Rontego and he is a man said to be under the employ of your boss, Leonard Ciancetta. Where is he? The second, why do you suppose my friend intercepted a shipment of two hundred thousand dollars from the Bonanno crime family here in Buffalo?”
Clearing his throat, The Pope closed his eyes as if going through a mental checklist of the ramifications of each avenue pursued from this moment forward.
Finally, he opened his eyes again and said, “Fuck you.”
Alex Vaughn snapped. He worked too hard to get to this point to be stonewalled by an antiquated vow of silence. He unhooked his badge and threw it against the wall. Pulling his pistol out faster than he had ever been able to in the past, he cocked the hammer back and pressed the barrel against the lips of The Pope.
“Fuck me? Fuck you!”
Spit flew out of Alex’s mouth and his bloodshot eyes watered as he strained keeping himself from pulling the trigger and letting his aggression fall with the hammer launching it into the mouth of this asshole.
“They call you The Pope, well you better fucking have a way forward with God because I swear to Christ you’re about to meet him!”
Pressing the barrel forward even more, the steel grated against the teeth of The Pope. The Pope’s eyes were wide, matching the rage in Alex’s with the type of fear that comes from something unexpected.
Already holding down his coughing, The Pope went into a terrible coughing fit but he refused to shut his eyes with the steel shoved indelicate between his lips. Alex took a breath, regaining some of his composure but not letting The Pope know he had beaten back the urge to see the color
of his brain matter.
“Now are you going to tell me what I want to know, so I can leave here with your face intact?”
The Pope nodded his agreement.
Vaughn pulled the muzzle out of Christian Biela’s mouth and walked over to the sofa that held The Pope’s suit jacket. He picked it up and used it to wipe the saliva off of the barrel of his pistol.
“I’m fucking waiting.”
The Pope swallowed, wetting his mouth, and let out a final cough rasp. “The answer to your first question is he’s in a cabin outside of Toronto. If not yet, than he soon will be. Here’s the address.” The Pope started scribbling an address on a piece of loose leaf paper. “The second is a bit more complicated, but I guess even you cops aren’t so dense as to miss the fact that we’re in the middle of a damned civil war here. I assume, and again this is just conjecture, that the two hundred grand was a payment from the Bonanno crew for an alliance of mutual benefit with the Falzone crew. I could have heard that somewhere. Why your friend Jack had it, that I do not know.”
Alex stood there a moment, taking it all in. He didn’t know why, but he believed The Pope. A gun in the mouth has a way of finding truth.
“Alright. See, that wasn’t so hard.” Vaughn walked over and picked up his badge.
He walked back to the desk and grabbed the piece of paper with the cabin address etched across it. The Pope, happy to have the ordeal over with nodded his head, but never took his eyes off of Alex.
Alex composed himself and turned to leave, backing out of the room.
“Oh officer? Here is one last piece of advice. Do with it what you will. Don’t trust the fucking cops.”
Vaughn tilted his head, not sure where to go with that statement. He opened the door and walked out. After he took a few steps he heard The Pope call after him, “Oh, and fuck you!”
Alex Vaughn let a little smile cross his face as he folded the address up and slipped it into his pocket.
Chapter 26
The Pope waited for the officer to leave, then got up and poured himself a scotch from a mini bar in the corner of his office. Dropping two ice cubes into the drink, Christian wondered whether or not drinking before noon made him an alcoholic.
It didn’t matter, he decided.
Given what he was going through this week, he figured the alcohol gods would give their blessing to his indulgence. He sat back down, letting a heavy sigh escape his lips.
The Pope looked into his scotch searching for answers. Cops coming to his business, old friends and associates getting gunned down daily, and to top it all off he had to sit down with people most likely intent on killing him. Tonight was the night. Either way, things were going to end tonight.
He fought back the urge to cough again. He was so tired of hacking and coughing. He even went and saw his physician. Damned doctors. All he said was that he must have the flu and he was ‘going to run some tests’. All those lab coats were the same. You paid them a hundred bucks just to hear what you already knew—that you’re sick.
The Pope thought about what just transpired. Nosy fucking cop. At first, Christian thought he should just stonewall the bastard. After all, he took an oath of silence. But there was something unnerving about the look in the cop’s eyes. That and a pistol in your mouth was a definite wake up call.
It wasn’t the first time The Pope came face to face with a barrel of a gun, but while he was sucking on metal a genius thought occurred to the crafty consigliore. This cop wanted Rafael dead. The Don wouldn’t be saddened to see that loose end wrapped up. So if Rontego got taken out, that was fine with The Pope. Conversely, say that the cop got laid low at the hands of Rafael. Well then, there was one less prying cop to deal with.
Win-win situation.
The Pope smiled. If only the prick cop knew how all of this was related. He was glad he withheld that information from the officer. He took down the scotch in one long pull from his glass until the ice cube bounced off of his lips.
He stood up and wiped the wetness from his lips with a brush of his hand.
Tonight. Tonight the house gets put into order.
If not, he would watch it burn down around him. He picked up the phone and called over to Don Ciancetta’s at Rumors.
Someone picked up on the other line.
“Hello?”
The Pope recognized the voice as a newcomer to the group, a friend of the Don’s son named Ricky Vincenzio.
“Tell the boss that the meeting is a go tonight.”
Then The Pope hung up. Just in time too, because he felt another one of his coughing fits creeping up on him.
The consigliore rose and walked over to pour another scotch. Almost as an afterthought, he called to his body man outside the door, “Hey Nuncio!”
He shuffled through the door. “Yes sir.”
“Grab the car and shadow our friend who just left. I want to know where he goes, who he talks to.”
“How are you gonna get around?”
“Don’t worry about me, just go!”
Nuncio did a curt turn and left.
Just once I’d like people to just listen without questioning every little thing.
The Pope shook his head in mild disappointment. He started coughing and had a handkerchief ready this time to catch a wad of mucus that escaped his lips. He looked at the brown-yellow phlegm and wondered if he saw blood in it.
Tonight.
*
Alex Vaughn left the office of The Pope and got back into the cab which loyally awaited his exit; probably because he hadn’t paid when he left last time. Alex found out over the years that if you want a cab to wait for you, keep the meter running and don’t pay them until you reach your final destination.
Alex Vaughn took out his cell phone and called through the dispatch number that Hi-Def provided him with. An automated voice directed him to enter the 8 digit code to be connected to his party of choice. After a few rings, he heard the familiar voice of Elliot on the other line.
“Elliot here.”
“Elliot, its Alex.”
“What can I do for you?” His voice seemed distracted or disinterested.
“A lot has happened in the last several hours. We need to talk.”
“I’m a bit busy Alex, can it wait?”
“Not really. Listen, I found a large sum of money at Jack’s yesterday. That and a notebook that had some leads on it.”
Elliot perked up in a hurry. “Christ. Hi-Def told me you didn’t find anything.”
“Well, I hid it from him. Listen, we can’t be too careful who we trust with this thing. I don’t know why Jack had all that cash, but it can’t be good. If they could have gotten to Jack, then they could have gotten to others. “
“Then why tell me? Jesus, this is heavy.” Elliot didn’t seem to like being entrusted with this sort of information.
“Because Jack was my friend and it was his personal notes that said I could trust you. But with all due respect to your men, outside of Ryan Slate, I don’t know them. Listen, we need to talk as soon as possible.” The warning from the Pope stuck in his head like a damned disc on skip.
There was a moment of silence on the other line and Alex thought that Elliot hung up on him for a second. “Elliot?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Ok, let’s meet at the safe house at nine. Can you make it then?”
Alex checked his watch, it was just passed seven. “Absolutely. Oh and Elliot?”
“Yeah?”
“I know where to find Rafael Rontego.”
There was a low whistle on the other line and Alex could almost feel Elliot pursing his lips together.
“That’s great work. How much money are we talking about over at Jack’s?”
“I don’t know, but a lot.”
There was another moment of silence as Elliot digested the news. “Where is the money now?”
A small warning bell went off in Alex’s mind. “I think I am going to keep that to myself, for now.”
“Sure, that’s
for the best anyway. All right, we’ll talk more when we see each other.”
Alex heard the click as Elliot hung up. Two hours. What the hell was he supposed to do for two hours?
Might as well head over to the safe house.
Alex gave the address to the cabbie and settled in for the rest of the ride. For a moment, he thought he noticed a sedan in the distance, but it pulled down a side road, and Alex let his mind wander.
Chapter 27
Vaughn got out of the cab and tossed the driver a wad of bills before heading up to the door of the safe house. For some reason the hair on his neck was tingling, as if he were being watched. He noticed that the door to the detached garage was open a bit and he slowed down to peer at it. Something in it beckoned to him and he remembered that something was covered by a tarp on his previous visit to the residence.
He took a step off of the main walkway leading to the front door of the home in the direction of the garage, when the front door opened. Ryan Slate, also known as Ricky Vincenzio, came out dressed for the role of his Italian alter ego.
Ryan walked up and grabbed a hold of Alex’s hand shaking it in congratulatory fashion. He was followed by Hambone who exited a moment after him, looking large as usual.
“I heard you made quite a few breakthroughs the other day,” Ryan said. His face was beaming.
“I got some work done. So I guess Elliot called ahead and filled you guys in?”
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