Macchiavello.
My wife tried to tell me I was channeling all of the things I couldn’t control into my hate for him. The more out of control things felt—the dullness behind my wife’s eyes, the smile I couldn’t get from my daughter—the more I wanted to kill him.
Maybe I was fixated on destroying him.
The thought of him was destroying me. Everything he stood for and had stolen from me was like acid to my mind.
It was why they called me Scorpio. I had poison inside of me, and once I received an order, or my mind was made up about something, I refused to let go until it was over. Just like I refused to let the enemy go.
It had been two months since I met the kid in the park. Two months since Adriana’s dramatic performance in the kitchen. Two months since the light in my wife’s eyes seemed to dim even darker, mostly when she was thinking, not noticing that I watched her. Two months of my daughter growing and rejecting me.
“Self-imposed misery,” I said to the man in the picture, repeating something he had said to me once.
It hung across from what had been his desk. The men hung it up after he was murdered: Emilio Capitani when he had first arrived in New York. His profile was mine, but other than that, it was hard to find the family resemblance. My eyes and features belonged to Corrado Palermo.
I’d seen a picture of him walking out of the courthouse, after the Scarpones had gotten him off some charge he was probably guilty of.
Self-imposed misery was what Emilio had once told me made men did to themselves. There was nothing to be miserable about in this life of ours. The world was at our feet. Men like us were untouchable, unless we did something stupid and broke the rules. At the time, I thought he had meant physically. But the words came at me differently this time, because I was at a different time in my life.
We were untouchable when it came to feelings, not just flesh and bones.
We did what we did, and that was that. We felt what we felt, and then we moved on. That ideology carried over to home life.
It took me up until this second of my life to realize I had them. Feelings. Not for all but for two.
A knock came at the door, and I didn’t break eye contact with the man staring at me from across the room. Another ghost.
“You hear any more from the kid Lima Bean calls ‘Roy’?” Calcedonio said, standing to answer the knock.
I shook my head. “Not a fucking thing.”
“Maybe he really is a ghost,” he said before he opened the door. Baggio came in first, followed by Adriano.
“He says to me, ‘Pigeons are the way of the future.’ And I say to him, ‘No, go with a fuckin’ fish. I’m telling you. They’re intelligent.’ You know what he tells me?” Baggio said, taking a seat. “He says, ‘You don’t say what to go with. I say what to go with.’ And I tell him, ‘Go with a fuckin’ horny toad for all I care. Your entire place is going to smell like bird shit.’”
“Fuhgedaboudit,” Adriano said, plopping down in the seat next to Baggio. “He hasn’t seen what Gilberts can do. Though I do think fish delivering messages to a person would be difficult. The message wouldn’t last. And how would he get there?”
“Yeah, birds have an advantage, but that’s not taking away the thinking capacity of a fish.”
Men started to come in while this fucking conversation went on.
“Between chicken and fish…” Adriano scrunched up his face. “I really enjoy both. Both are lean, depending on the way you fix them, but I think eating fish might be better. Brain food, with the oils and stuff.”
“Fuck-exactly!” Baggio said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Though I’d really fuckin’ hate to eat Gilberts. Only if I had to.”
These fucking guys.
After all of the men arrived, we discussed the usual business.
Calcedonio mentioned redoing the Primo Club, maybe making it look like a real gentlemen’s club. It needed to be different, he said. It was about time.
I liked the plain look of it. The tables scattered wherever with cards on them. The old bar with countless scuff marks. Even the floors gave it a touch of nostalgia. They had been there since my grandfather had owned it. Ceramic tile with red rose patterns. Some of the roses looked like bloodstains. The floor had cracks that I could see when I closed my eyes. They’d been there since I was a kid.
Another man brought up the Scorpio Lounge—most people just called it Scorpio—a known business that made good money, and said that Dario Fausti had redone it.
“Moving on,” I said.
Toward the end of the meeting, Tito walked in. Calcedonio forfeited his chair so he could sit. The guy next to Calcedonio stood so he could set his bag down. A dozen or so red roses stuck out of it.
Tito stared at me, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You come here to show me how your glasses can fog from your fuming?” I said when all of the men left and Calcedonio had shut the door, leaving us alone.
He took them off and cleaned them with his shirt. His eyes looked beady when he didn’t have them on. “I went to visit your wife,” he said. “At Bella Luna. I wanted to buy Lola a gift.”
She was there later than usual. “Nunzio is with her,” I said. “She’s going over her inventory with Brooklyn.”
“I know this,” he snapped. “I was there.”
I sighed. “Say what’s on your mind.” If he had something to say, and you didn’t acknowledge it, he had a way of causing havoc without speaking a word.
He adjusted his glasses on his nose. Now he was staring at me like I was a specimen. “I feel responsible for this.”
I waited for a minute or two.
“For giving her to you,” he said.
“Ah,” I said. “You come to lecture me on being a good husband.”
He shook his head. “I am godfather to many children. I have even walked some down the aisle when their fathers were not able to, or were not fit. And I have always made a promise to them. I would always take care of them. I did the same when I became godfather to your wife.” He became quiet for a minute, thinking. “I would have never brought the two of you together if I did not think you could be a good husband. If I would have even suspected you would have tried to bring her here to face Silvio and his son for any price, but especially for the price of a sham.”
I narrowed my eyes against his, demanding the truth. The price of a sham?
“Silvio told your grandfather that you had disobeyed him. That he had asked you to find Alcina in return for the information he had on the Scarpones, and you had agreed. Emilio did not want you involved in the situation with Vittorio Scarpone. You knew that. So did Silvio. So you both disobeyed him. But Emilio felt what Silvio did was worse.
“Silvio was setting you up—he never had the information on Vittorio that you were looking for. So Silvio did not kill Emilio because he wanted the family. That was just a bonus. Silvio killed Emilio because he knew Emilio was going to kill him first. As for Vittorio Scarpone? Whatever your grandfather knew about Vittorio Scarpone, he took to the grave.”
“Tell me what you know about the man.”
“Listen to me,” he almost hissed. “I not only hear, but I listen. I not only look, but I see. I not only have thoughts, but I think them through.” He touched his temple. “I knew you were looking for Alcina long before you did. In more ways than one. I also knew that she needed you.” He dug in his doctor’s bag, bringing out a picture from our wedding day, slipping it toward me.
I was looking down at her and she was smiling up at me. That light, it was so fucking bright, like she carried the moon in her eyes. The one that drew me out and made me feel almost insane.
“I have been in the room when a heart is transplanted into another body,” he said, but I didn’t look at him. I stared at the picture. “I have heard the first beat when the connection was made. I have seen it give life to the almost dead.” He knocked on the desk, once, twice, making it sound like the beat of a heart.
�
��That was why I sent you to her. You needed each other. The body and the heart. I stood as the hands, the medico, that made the connection. I heard the first beat of it when your eyes met. And the two shall become one.” He slapped his hands together.
I looked at him.
“You are rejecting your heart,” he said. “The second chance you have at life. You do not get them every day, Corrado. We are both men who know that. For the first time in your entire life, I saw something other than the acceptance of death when you looked at her. I saw the life in you. Something other than this.” He looked around.
“Mark my words. You keep rejecting your heart, Corrado, and you will lose it. I see it in her. She is being strong because she feels she has chosen this life. She chose you. But didn’t you choose her, as well? I am not saying that you have to give this up. Or even change completely. But you have to decide—is an old ghost worth losing your life over?”
“What does my wife have to do with this? Tell me what you know.”
“You see,” he snapped at me. “But you are not looking! Your mind will not allow you to see what you are doing—to your family, to yourself. I knew a man like you once. A man who could not give up a thought even at the detriment to his family. Your father, Corrado. Corrado Palermo. He sacrificed his wife for an idea.” He stabbed his temple with a finger. “An idea that he was owed something he did not deserve.”
I stared at him for a minute. “You know who my sister is. Where she is.” He said Corrado sacrificed his wife for an idea, but nothing about the little girl.
“Sì.” He sat back in the chair. His temper had fizzled some. “I have known for a while.”
“Does she know about me?”
“Sì. She found out about you when you discovered her.” He lifted a finger. “Your relationship with her will depend on your relationship with the man you intend to kill.”
“Ah,” I said, sitting back. “She respects him for saving her life.”
Tito stood, picking up his bag, preparing to head toward the door. “See. Hear. Think.” He touched his temple. “You are a smart man, Corrado. I have always said that about you. Except for this. You are being anything but smart. So take my advice, ah? Use your brain and remember your heart.”
“Tito,” I said, stopping him before he left.
He stood close to the door.
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “Where was she all of this time?”
“Not far from you,” he said. “On Staten Island.”
Fuck me.
I could have called Gene, the genius, and asked him to search for records of children on Staten Island when she would have been there, but I didn’t. It was a waste of my time. What I hadn’t mentioned to Calcedonio was that Gene’s computers had been confiscated the day after we met in the park.
“I think he told on me,” he had whispered. “The only reason I’m not in big, big trouble is because the government wants me. B-A-D,” he’d spelled the word out.
In our world, that was called fucking ratting, but it just meant that Macchiavello had turned the tables on me once again. I thought he’d be in touch through Gene, but apparently, he had other plans for our first meeting.
I stood from my seat, shaking my head, going to stop Tito before he left the building. A few of the guys looked up to him, because he was old school, and that time in history was golden for men like us. They always stopped him and asked him for a few stories.
Before he got too carried away, I made eye contact with him and he came back into my office. I closed the door behind him, though neither of us sat.
“My wife,” I said. “I’ve noticed subtle changes. I see her. I listen to her.” I touched my temple. “I think about her and consider everything she does and doesn’t do.”
He nodded, urging me to go on after a minute.
“I looked up a few things.” I shrugged. “We left Italy when we found out about Eleonora. It’s been hard for her to leave her family, her home, and adjust to this new life. After she had Eleonora—” I struggled to find the words.
She had accepted this life, but whatever the fucking reason, she refused to accept my deal with Macchiavello. Over the last couple of months, it had gotten worse. I had pinpointed it to the exact day. The day she spoke to Rocco Fausti alone.
Another shot of acid ripped through me when I thought of it. She still hadn’t brought it up. I held resentment not only for him, but also toward her.
My wife having a secret with him ate at me like the thought of Macchiavello. She’d see it in my eyes sometimes when she’d look at me and catch me thinking of them together, though she probably associated it with something else.
Tito nodded, a solemn look on his face. “It has been a difficult transition for her. What has happened over the last few months would take its toll on a person who has nothing else going on, but a woman experiencing changes in hormones—” He shrugged. “It can be harder to get a grip on the things we feel are out of our control when we are feeling so many things we have no control over.”
“Postpartum depression.” I blurted the words.
He studied my face. “Love redeems,” he said in Italian and then adjusted his bag. “I have been watching her. She does not have postpartum depression. However. I’ve known Alcina all of her life. She takes and takes and takes. She gives her problems over when she goes to church, when she worries her rosary instead of her mind, whenever she lights a candle to brighten the darkness of her world. But when she breaks—she breaks hard.”
“You’ve seen it?”
He nodded. “After Junior sent the first man after her. She told me she did not feel as if her life was her own. It took some talking to her to make her realize that all would be okay, but she came back stronger than before. She always does. She always will. Don’t underestimate her.”
“Not from the moment I saw her,” I said.
“Ah.” He grinned. “She snap her shears at you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“The moment you fell innamorato.” Tito turned toward the door, ready to get home to his wife. I could smell the roses and one of Alcina’s candles in his bag. It was one of her romantic ones. The old gangster was going home to seduce.
I opened the door, squeezing his shoulder, deciding to walk him out. No one would stop him then. He looked relieved. He was still spry for his age, but I could tell the life was wearing him down some. Especially with the unrest in the Fausti famiglia on the rise. He was always front and center when it came to them, and they were keeping him busy.
Calcedonio, Baggio, and Adriano noticed that I was leaving, and they all stood up, preparing to walk me out. A bunch of the men followed, and we gathered outside, preparing to go our separate ways. Except for Calcedonio and Adriano, who were riding with me.
A few men were walking toward us—I recognized them from Baggio’s crew. They were with women. Probably from Scorpio.
“Hi, Corrado,” one girl said when they stopped. I couldn’t remember her name, but I’d met her at Scorpio a few times. She leaned in and put her arms around me, her lips coming close to my ear, about to whisper something.
Before I could tell her to move along with her assumed familiarity, screaming made all of the men turn.
Sicilian curses filled the air before my wife barreled through the crowd, coming straight toward the woman and me.
“If you know what’s good for you,” I said to the woman, reading the look on Alcina’s face, “you’ll get the fuck outta here. Subito.” Immediately.
The woman only had time to narrow her eyes, to realize the volcano coming for her, before she went to take off. She was too late. Alcina grabbed her by the hair, yanking her back, and then proceeded to beat the woman, screaming insults at her in Sicilian as she did.
Bitch! Whore! I should take your panties off and stick them in your mouth! My husband! Disrespect! Make a fool of me!
My wife was not slapping the woman, either, she was punching her.
I said her name once, but
I knew there was no getting through to her with words alone. I took a step forward, ready to end the situation, but before I did, Baggio stepped up and grabbed Alcina around the waist. He yanked her back so hard that her mouth opened. He had made her lose her breath.
Baggio was a beast on the streets, but I knew it wasn’t going to be long before he burned out. Men who only had violence and no thought behind it never lasted in this life. The day before, I’d been told that he had done something violent to another woman, but the woman had yet to be found. Then there was the issue with Vito. He had let him slip past, which gave him the opportunity to get to my wife and family.
As soon as he put his hands on my wife, our eyes connected, and he dropped her immediately. She fell to the ground, wheezing for breath. The woman she had been beating slapped her across the face. She went to do it again, when I stepped in between them.
“Your face,” I said. “I better never see it again.”
She took off running. I didn’t bother watching her disappear. I turned around and picked my wife up from the ground. She slapped at me, trying to curse while catching her breath.
I looked at Tito, who watched with a narrowed eye, Baggio, and then Adriano.
Nunzio stepped up, Brooklyn next to him. “We were passing by when your wife saw you,” he said. “She jumped out of the car before we could stop her.”
I nodded, walking toward where Nunzio had parked. A stream of traffic lined up. Either the cars went around or they waited. Most people in this area were familiar with who we were.
Brooklyn got in first, followed by Tito. I sat Alcina down next to him. She turned her face up, tears slipping from the sides of her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. She wasn’t crying because she was upset. She was crying because she was pissed.
Tito sighed. “I will check her.”
I shut the door and tapped on the roof once. The car pulled into traffic and I went back to Primo. Calcedonio was the only man standing outside.
He nodded at me. “Baggio and Adriano are inside.”
“Go home,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I shut the door behind me once I was inside, locking it.
Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3) Page 27