by Neven Carr
“And exactly how would you know if I gave up the business?”
Reardon burnt his direct gaze straight into Macey. “I… just… would.”
Macey pulled away, cleared his throat, readjusted a tie that didn’t need readjusting. “Fuck you, Reardon. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“Are you talking about yourself or the mystery person who appears to control you and your business?”
Macey bucked with all the virility of a well-seasoned fighter. “No-one… controls… me.”
“But he does, Senator. Do you even know who he is, how to contact him, where to find him if you needed to? Isn’t he the one always giving the instructions, you always following them?”
Macey’s cheeks reddened to a hot shade of crimson. “He knows you.”
Reardon’s puppeteer theory grew momentum. “I already figured that.”
“He’s someone you can’t fight.”
“I seriously doubt it. In the meantime, let’s get back to what happened to Claudia at Araneya.”
Macey grazed his face with his hand. Anger still burnt bright on his skin. “Claudia Cabriati,” he began. “So fucking uncontrollable, strong willed, opinionated, so unlike my own children. They knew the term respect.”
“More like you were incapable of manipulating Claudia as you did your own.”
“Incapable is not in my blood. It was that fucking Polinski woman, always filling Claudia’s head with some bloody moral rectitude. That’s what made Claudia impossible. She believed all Alice’s bloody crap, that she was someone special. She was seven fucking years old.”
“Imagine how you must have felt, that a seven-year old could rattle you like that, even now. That’s power.”
“That’s not bloody power. Polinski had twisted her mind.” Macey heaved a huge breath and blew out slowly. “You have to understand, during our meets we, well… we did some things that people would’ve disapproved of.”
“Such as?”
“Such as alcohol, drugs, women, amongst other things.”
It was the amongst other things that bothered Reardon the most. “Sounds quite the party.”
“It was our way of surviving,” Macey snapped. “Not that anyone comprehended that.”
Reardon knew about surviving horrors; but something about the Senator’s version bothered him, quite a lot.
“After a while, it wasn’t enough. The longer the foolish public subjugated us to their hostility, the angrier we got, until we began questioning our love for this country. We’d often joke how our initials formed the word Smith. And as much as you hate coincidences, Reardon, there it was. We actually thought it was meant to be, that fate was telling us something.”
“And in your screwed up states of mind you believed it.”
“It wasn’t hard; our need was great. We would’ve believed anything to satisfy it. Anyway, Hercolani was one bad bastard; he knew people. One thing led to another, and our new racketeering group was formed.”
“Except for Cabriati.”
“Cabriati was a different story.”
“And your racketeering specialty?”
“Weapons and ammunition.”
Reardon sighed. He was past being surprised anymore.
“You have to understand, we wanted to hurt this country the way it had hurt us, especially after the whole Benjamin Lucas affair. As I said that particular incident became our turning point.”
Reardon didn’t want to understand. How many innocent people were victims because of the clan’s so-called needs? “And did Cabriati know?”
“Cabriati detested the whole idea, but he’d never rat on his brothers.”
“So tell me more about Hercolani. You said he knew people. Like who?”
“At the time I didn’t care who. Years later, when I felt I was being….”
“Controlled.”
Macey glared sharply. “Manipulated…, I approached Hercolani. He swore he didn’t know who this person was.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I never believed a fucking word from that warped psychopath’s mouth. All he could tell me was that no-one knew who he was or what he looked like; that he was a man of many names and many faces.” Macey scoffed. “What a load of shit, nothing more than scare tactics.”
Shit, perhaps. But there was no denying the fear in Macey’s own warped, psychopathic eyes.
“And Thomas Bellante?”
“Hercolani brought him in. Said it’d be good to have a corrupt solicitor on side. Bellante proved useful, many times.”
“But you had him killed.”
“I was ordered to.”
“And you don’t know why?”
“Of course not.”
For the first time in a long time, Reardon felt real hope. Could Hercolani’s relationship with Bellante be a link for his own personal cause? Could Hercolani have lied to Macey, knew who this nameless, faceless man was, this person Reardon now dubbed The Puppeteer? “Know where Hercolani is?”
“Reckon he’s hiding. Are we bloody finished yet?”
Barely, Reardon thought. “How did you know about our plan for the hospital tonight? Via your ‘manipulating’ boss?”
A small, wisp of confidence appeared to semi-energize the Senator. He glared at Reardon through wickedly lowered brows. “What you should be asking is why someone in your ranks would rat you out in the first place?”
Inside? Reardon’s gut contracted.
Outside? He remained totally poker-faced. “You know who?”
Macey laughed. “Even if I did, you’d think I’d tell you?”
If Macey wanted his freedom, yes he would. But oddly, Reardon believed Macey didn’t know. “What really happened to Claudia?”
Macey rolled his hands, huffed and puffed several times. “Claudia would hide out in the most ridiculous places,” he began.
Hidey holes.
“But there was one place that was her favorite. A special room just for our group. I’d warned her many times to stay out of it but she was such a contrary, willful little bitch. She had overheard us talking about our new… business venture. I didn’t know how much she understood, but the girl was smart.
I cornered her almost immediately, told her she was never to repeat what she had heard to anyone, not even to Alice. She stood staunch in that fucking room and said, Alice says that you have to do what you feel is right and I will always do that… or some such shit. Anyway, I managed to convince her that her Papa and Alice could be in a lot of trouble if anyone found out. She then promised to keep her mouth shut.”
Reardon couldn’t imagine Claudia contrary or willful; so different to the overly compliant and obliging adult today.
“My warnings didn’t stop her.” Macey appeared lost in his own rabid past. “But one very huge lesson did.”
“And what lesson was that?”
Macey stared into the dark and smiled.
“She saw Ricky Taccone shoot himself.”
Chapter 41
Araneya Estate
1990
TONIGHT WAS SOMEHOW different.
Wrong.
She could hear it in their loud, spirited voices, their erratic, intoxicated movements, stumbling, guffawing.
The little girl huddled in her hidey-hole, an air vent set a few feet from the floor of her Papa and uncles’ special room. Inside, the space was dark, narrow, filled with fetid odors and a low, constant drumming noise like lots of tiny sledgehammers. On either side of her were two endless black tunnels. Further into those tunnels, she imagined sticky, thick cobwebs, scurrying rats and large well-fed cockroaches. She shivered and stayed close to the rusty, old-fashioned grill as silently as one her age could.
She didn’t want to be caught, to bear Uncle Carlos’ awful wrath again. But hiding there helped her to understand her Papa, see if he were truly getting better.
Heavy footsteps stumbled closer to her, then stopped short of the grille; someone wearing khaki pants tucked into a pair of b
rown steel-capped boots. The girl stiffened, held her breath.
“Where’s Carlos? Shouldn’t he be here by now?” a man replied. His voice, as intoxicated as it was, was still strong, gravelly with a hard edge to it. The girl recognized it as her Uncle Johnny’s. She didn’t like Uncle Johnny as much as she liked the others. He began tapping his steely toe, quick, impatient taps.
In the distance, a door opened and closed, and footsteps thudded along the concrete steps. “About time,” Uncle Johnny said. And he staggered back to the others. Their voices became strangely serious. She didn’t like it when they were serious. She tried hard to listen to their conversations. But some of their words were too muffled to make out. She moved a tiny bit closer, careful not to make a sound and then strained her ears in their direction.
And what she heard frightened her.
It frightened her a lot.
Her small body withered and she hugged herself tightly, praying everything would be all right.
They cheered, clinked glasses and the serious became joyous and light-hearted again.
All except one.
He was weeping, shaking. “I want to die… I just want to die,” he kept mumbling over and over again.
It then went quiet. And when the voices returned, so did the seriousness.
A shiny, black gun appeared, one she easily recognized.
“Yes, please let me die.”
The girl slapped her hand across her gaping mouth; her eyes ballooned wide. No… no… no.
What should she do? She was only a little girl. What could little girls like her do?
But time didn’t wait for little girls’ decisions.
Time waited for no one.
When the single gunshot sounded, she knew it was all over.
Shock annulled any fear. She shoved the grille open. It landed with a resounding clang onto the stone floor. She hurriedly crawled out, scraped her knee on the sharp edge and ran to the room’s center.
It was a whiplash of heinous sounds, ungodly smells and….
Wake up… wake up.
The yelling, the painful cries, the nasty odor of fresh gunpowder and something else, a stench so strong, so unbearably vile.
The girl studied his blue and white striped shirt, the one she gave him for Christmas, the one he promised he would wear forever. Thick, crimson liquid blotted it.
Wake up… wake up.
Blood dripped like a faucet from his slumped head. His eyes wide, lifeless, staring at her. No one else just her, as if it was her fault, as if she could’ve done something to stop it.
So… so… much blood.
And those horrible, horrible eyes calling her, appealing to her.
Something sharp burnt her insides.
Wake up… wake up.
Why wouldn’t he wake up?
Hands gripped her quivering shoulders. It was Uncle Carlos. “What have I told you about hiding here,” he said.
The little girl said nothing.
“I think a lesson is in order,” said Uncle Carlos, “don’t you, my friends?”
Lesson? What lesson? The girl felt dreadfully sick.
“A lesson. Yes, yes, a lesson,” her uncles said. They appeared dazed, with half-closed eyes and uncoordinated gestures.
The girl stepped back, glanced at the concrete stairwell. It seemed further away than normal. “I… I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” she whispered.
“Too late, dear girl.” She looked at Uncle Carlos and gasped. He didn’t look like Uncle Carlos, not any longer. He looked more like a bad man in one of those scary movies she wasn’t supposed to watch.
Fear ordered her to run and run fast.
She did, heading towards the exit, yelling Alice’s name. Before she reached it, thick arms circled her waist, lifted her clear off the floor. She kicked and screamed. It was no use. Uncle Johnny was too strong.
He brought her back to Uncle Carlos where Uncle Johnny imprisoned her with his hands. Her heart thumped crazily.
What were they going to do?
Chilly bumps scurried over her like thousands of small crawling insects.
“You look cold, sweet girl,” Uncle Carlos said. In his hand was a thick, yellow sponge. “I think we should warm you up.”
They all cackled and she instantly pictured ugly, craggy warlocks chanting around a huge black pot.
“Ah, Ricky, my friend, let’s clean you up a bit,” Uncle Carlos said, as he soaked the sponge with Ricky’s blood. He then slowly approached the girl, dropped to one knee and began carefully bathing her bare feet in the blood. It was grossly warm, so very warm, moving, prickling her as if it were still alive, as if it were living and breathing on her.
“No, please… no,” she screamed. “Please, no more.”
“But of course, there is more, sweet girl, much, much more. We have only just begun.”
Horror struck her dumb. And she began to cry. As she felt the sponge dab higher, she tried hard to think of good things like Alice and the pretty fairy-like cottage, like her precious Dolly, the stone lions, the huge water fountain where she loved to play.
In time, the acrid stench became too unbearable, the weight of her now blood-soaked hair too heavy, the incessant, foul prickling of her skin too torturous. When Uncle Carlos finally reached her stricken face, finally began soaking it with the foul-smelling fluid, she screamed… louder, longer, higher than ever before.
And after that, she remembered nothing.
Chapter 42
Saul
December 29, 2010
1:25 am
MACEY STARED INTO the night, his dark eyes silent, still. “After the shot,” he whispered, “Claudia appeared from her usual hiding spot and tried to wake Taccone. In doing so, she accidently got his blood all over her. When she saw the blood, she began screaming.”
“And all this took place in the neighboring forests where Taccone was found?” Something about Macey’s version bothered Reardon, but be buggered if he could pinpoint what that something was.
Macey nodded, swung his gaze back to Reardon. “She was like a fucking Duracell battery, just wouldn’t stop.”
Reardon tasted the first savor of rage. This cold bastard recited the event as if it were nothing more than an irritating hiccup in his pathetic life.
“I’m telling you, Reardon, that scream was the most ungodly sound I’d ever heard. I reckon the girl always had bloody issues. Mercifully, she passed out.”
Reardon took several breaths whilst the haunting picture of a little girl screaming, stained in blood, of his Claudia, drenched his mind. He forced down the rising bitterness.
“So, except for Cabriati, the whole clan was present when Taccone shot himself?”
Macey nodded. “It was an oath we all took. If one of us wanted to end it, we would be there as support. Afterwards, we gave each other alibis, made it looked as if it we had no involvement of the incident. Took Claudia to Alice. Made Alice swear on Claudia’s life to keep quiet about what happened. Fortunately for us, Claudia never remembered anyway.”
What total ‘fuckedup-ness’ was this? And then a more disturbing thought struck Reardon. “You knew Claudia was hiding there.”
“I… I….”
“Shut the hell up. You knew. Not to mention that you finally got to wield your power over her, get your own back, teach her that ‘lesson’ you spoke of, you sick bastard.”
Reardon furiously rubbed his temple. He could feel a headache take its first breath.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Of course it bloody was or at least, something close to it. My god, she was just a child. And Cabriati worked it out. That explains why he came back for Claudia, washed his hands of you all.” Reardon tried to maintain control but he was fast losing the battle. “And then what?”
“And then nothing.”
Bullshit, there was nothing. This man, however disappointing as an opponent, was far more evil than Reardon had initially thought. Reardon lunged to Macey’s rear and s
eized his neck. Macey instinctively grabbed Reardon’s arm with both hands, tried pull it away. But it was useless.
Reardon pressed his mouth near Macey’s ear, arrowed his blade mere inches from Macey’s eye. “Not a word now, Senator.”
Macey nodded, but there was a steely stubbornness in his look.
“Because I want you to hear every word. Right now, all I’d like to do is slice this little beauty clean out of its socket, section by raw little section.” Reardon swiveled the blade to the other eye. “Then I’d do it all over again with this one, make you as blind as you obviously are.”
Reardon dropped the blade, tried to jimmy it between Macey’s lips. But Macey’s jaw was clammed shut. Reardon increased the pressure on his throat. Macey struggled for air, slackened his jaw. The blade slid in smoothly. Reardon zigzagged it slowly against the flat of his frozen tongue. “Then there’s this device you use in voicing your bloody lies…when I’m through with it….”
Macey gabbled something indecipherable.
Reardon extracted the knife. “What was that, Senator?”
“There’s… there’s more.”
Reardon shrugged, slid the hungry blade back into Macey’s mouth. “Sorry, Senator, I don’t believe you.”
Macey’s eyes bolted wide, his body shook fiercely and the noises he made sounded more like an opera singer doing his warm-ups. Reardon waited a few more seconds, slipped the switchblade from his mouth and relaxed his hold.
Macey wheezed, coughed, wheezed some more, began massaging his reddened neck. Reardon squatted in front of Macey, waited for him to collect himself, waited for the more.
It finally came in the form of the other members of the clan. Reardon listened as he heard of their mounting paranoia regarding Alice Polinski and the possibility that her sudden appearance and her murder would reignite Claudia’s memory, a version that corresponded with Reardon’s recorded phone conversation between Macey and Iacovelli. “And so they panicked.”
“Of course they bloody panicked.” Macey’s voice was jerky, raspy. “I tried to assure them that even if Claudia did remember, she wouldn’t say anything because of her father. They weren’t convinced. They recalled how ridiculously irrational she became after that bloody fiancé of hers. They were worried that if in the same state, she would blurt out what happened at Araneya, not even think of her father.”