by Ethan Cross
“I love you too, kid,” Romeo said. “But you don’t make it easy. Why did you have to become a cop, and, even worse, then you tried to become a fed?”
“Yeah, but for some reason they won’t accept me into the academy. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”
“Not me, kid. But you may want to take that up with my crazy-ass brother.”
“So dear old dad blackballed me with the FBI?”
“I really don’t know. Could be that they don’t want Tommy Jewels’s kid in their little club. Fox in the henhouse and all that.”
“Maybe. So what’s eating you? You look like a guy who just got diagnosed with ass cancer.”
Romeo slammed his glass down on his mahogany desktop. “It’s family business, and you ain’t a member of the family. I wish that you hadn’t abandoned us. Wish it wasn’t like this. First, you go blue on us. Then your brother dies. Maybe if he still had you, then your Pop wouldn’t be … Well, the past has passed. No use bitching and whining about it.”
“What’s going on with Pop?”
“Not your problem. Why you here? I told you before I don’t give information to cops. I ain’t no rat, and I never will be. No matter who’s asking. And what’s with you bringing LJ into this? You trying to blackmail me with my great niece as leverage? That’s low, even for someone who bleeds blue.”
Nic moved to the edge of his seat and said, “It’s not like that. I just thought that maybe seeing her would soften you up a bit.”
Romeo looked over at a computer monitor sitting on a table behind his desk. The large screen showed the views from several security cameras. LJ and Burke could be seen prominently on one of the center scenes.
“The older she gets, the more she looks like your brother.”
“Yeah, she’s a pain in the ass just like him too.”
“It’s not polite to speak ill of the dead,” Romeo said. “Who’s the Kurt-Cobain-meets-Ryan-Gosling-looking kid with LJ? Don’t tell me the grunge rocker there is her boyfriend.”
“Absolutely not. He’s way too old for her.”
Romeo shrugged. “At my age, you all look like babies. Who is he? He doesn’t smell like a cop.”
“He’s not. His name is Dr. August Burke.”
“Doctor of what? Smoking pot and watching cartoons.”
“I don’t really know,” Nic said. “Criminal psychology, I think. He’s some kind of genius, consulting on this hostage situation.”
Romeo raised his eyebrows and said, “That testa di cazzo is a doctor and a genius?” He shook his head and added, “I don’t understand this world anymore.”
“I hear you,” Nic said. “But listen, Uncle, I really need your help. We have a hostage situation that I think is right on the edge of going bad.”
“The GoBox thing on the news? They’re saying it could be terrorists.”
“I honestly don’t know what it is, but it sure isn’t your average crew or a normal heist. We need to know everything we can about GoBox and whatever shady dealings they might be involved in. Even rumors and hearsay. Anything you know could help us save lives.”
“So you’re asking me to rat on Tivoli Loria?”
“Come on. This is just between us, and Dr. Burke probably wants to ask you some questions too. It’s not like I’m asking you to testify before a grand jury here.”
Romeo smiled and said, “You’re misunderstanding me. If I would have known this was about Ty Loria, I wouldn’t have been busting your balls. I hate that rotten pompinara and his whole family. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Chapter 47
Lamar Franklin hated feeling stupid. Although, he supposed nobody liked feeling stupid. But for him, it went deeper. His gran-mama had taken him in when his mother went to prison for dealing. And gran-mama never missed an opportunity to slap him across the back of the head and tell him that he was a worthless burden without a brain in his head.
When he was seven, he had asked for a puppy. Gran-mama had laughed and said, “Boy, you too stupid to take care of a goldfish.” Then she walked out to the driveway, picked up a rock, and brought it back to him.
“There, a pet rock is more your speed, but your dumb ass will prolly find a way to kill that too,” she said with a chuckle.
She had treated him like dirt his whole life, but when he was in Afghanistan and received the news of her death, he had cried a river and would have given anything to be insulted by her one more time. Funny the way grief and family worked.
He could hear gran-mama’s voice in his head now, and with the way things were shaking out, he was afraid she’d be waiting at the pearly gates, ready to tell him all about where he had gone wrong and slap him on the back of the head. The thought of that was oddly comforting.
Gran-mama had been right all along. He was an idiot, and now he knew he’d pay the ultimate price for that ignorance. He tried to stand at his post, maintain watch, be a good soldier. But gran-mama’s voice wasn’t the only one in his head.
He heard the FBI agent’s voice: “He’s using you, kid. You’re expendable to him, and you know it.”
Then he heard the Indian woman’s voice: “They’re playing you for a fool.”
Maybe they were right? Maybe he was being used?
Franklin looked toward the vault room door. Mr. K and the Doc had been in there for a long time, and the Indian woman was correct. He had no idea what was going on or what the real plan was. But it was about time that changed.
Idiot or not, patsy or not, either way, Franklin was going to find out what they were after and how in the hell they were going to escape from a building surrounded with every cop in the county.
His mind made up, he gave himself a little pep talk and then headed for the vault room door. Each of his footfalls sounded like a thumping subwoofer in the absolute quiet of the room. Or maybe that thumping was his heart. Either way, he had been trained to ignore fear and focus on his objective, and right now, that objective was finding answers. That was the only thought he allowed to enter his mind. He needed to know, no matter how frightened he was of Mr. K.
He forced himself to keep his eyes locked on the gray metal door marked “No admittance. Authorized personnel only.” He was damn well authorizing himself, but he didn’t want to see the smug look on the Indian woman’s face. Maybe she was the one who was really playing him for a fool. Her and the old fed.
He reached out for the door’s handle, took a deep breath, and pulled it open.
He expected a stern dressing down from his superior officer for disobeying orders. But he heard nothing.
He expected to see a large and terrifying South African man with an annoyed look on his face. He saw no one.
“Hello? Doc? Mr. K?” he called out to the empty room.
He moved inside, checking everywhere, not that there were many spots where a seven-foot mercenary could hide.
They were gone. They had simply vanished. And they had abandoned him to take the fall.
Chapter 48
Elisabetta Juliano had never met someone quite like August Burke. She had crushes before—famous actors, boy bands, the running back of the high school football team—but none of those infatuations had gripped her thirteen-year-old mind quite like August Burke.
He was everything she imagined her husband would be like someday. He was gorgeous with his dirty blond mop of hair and piercing blue eyes. But he was also intelligent, funny, and a little shy and awkward. But the thing she liked most about him was that he knew what it was like to be a freak, to be bullied and pushed out by the normals just because he was born different. She could definitely relate, and he was one of the only people she had ever met who could understand that pain.
They sat at the bar in Uncle Romeo’s club. The place smelled to her like someone had dumped an ashtray into a sweaty gym sock. The room was nearly empty. A few old drunks sat at one end of the dark wood bar, which she suspected had been beautiful at one time. She could tell it had been carved by a craftsman who k
new his trade and notched each piece with intricate detail. But now the old bar looked as scuffed up and gouged out as the prune-faced bartender who had poured her soda.
Burke had requested a chocolate milk, but he had to settle for root beer. He was so strange, in an awesome sort of way. A walking contradiction.
He had his iPad out on the surface of the bar and was staring at it with a brooding intensity. She tapped him and signed, “You okay? What are you looking at?”
With a crooked smile that made her heart flutter, he pushed the iPad in her direction and signed, “My notes on the case.”
What she saw on the screen didn’t look like any kind of notes she had ever seen. The view was zoomed out, showing several interconnected panels of sketches, boxes, text, pictures, lines, and arrows. The detail of the drawings was incredible, but she couldn’t make much sense of it all. It looked more like a giant mural she had once seen on the side of a building rather than notes for such a serious and dangerous case.
She wasn’t quite sure how to respond, and so she just signed, “It’s awesome. Beautiful.”
Burke pulled the iPad back over and signed, “It’s called sketch-noting or visual note-taking. It enhances your memory and retention of information because it gives your brain access to written and visual cues. You can see that even the different fonts are distinctive and hierarchical. These then combine with drawings and images and containers in a sort of narrative flow. I can also record complex patterns and concepts more quickly using visual mnemonics. You’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well, thoughts and ideas that may take someone else five paragraphs to describe, I can manifest with a single drawing. It helps me to see patterns and details that I may have otherwise missed. It all probably looks like chaos to you, but it’s really only for my own purposes, so that’s okay.”
LJ had only understood half of what Burke had told her, but she could watch his hands move and his eyes sparkle all day, no matter what he was signing.
“That is so fascinating,” she said. “You are amazing.”
His cheeks turned red. “Thanks, but most people think I’m a weirdo, or a nutcase,” he signed.
“They’re missing out.”
“Thanks, kid.”
She frowned, not appreciating such a derogatory term that made her feel like a child. She was a woman, and she was tired of everyone treating her otherwise. If the comment had come from Uncle Nic, she would have snapped at him, but with Burke, she decided to let it slide.
Light flooded the dimly lit bar as the bouncer admitted three young guys who swaggered in like they owned the place. They looked drunk already, and their clothes were rumpled, like they hadn’t changed them in at least a day.
With the sudden illumination, she noticed for the first time the hideous stuffed horse’s head, which had been mounted in a place of distinction above the bar. She grimaced and shook with a tingle of revulsion. What kind of a savage would cut off a horse’s head and then name his club after it? Her Uncle Romeo, she supposed. What a lovely family she had been born into. She was fairly confident that she was the only vegan of the bunch.
Her revulsion at the dead animal’s head was quickly forgotten as one of the club’s newcomers slammed two one hundred dollar bills down on the bar. LJ crinkled her nose up at him. He wore a leather jacket with a tank top underneath, which showed off a wide array of tattoos, most of them involving skulls or naked women. He smelled like he had overdosed on tanning oil and hair gel and looked like he belonged on an MTV reality show, one which didn’t depict reality at all.
“What are you boys having, Wally?” the prune-faced bartender asked.
LJ read the old man’s lips and chuckled at the newcomer’s name. She turned her attention back to Burke, who was focused solely on his sketch-notes. His jaw was tight, and his brow furrowed. Something in his artwork must not have been making sense to him.
She felt the hands on her shoulders a second before her bar stool was forcibly swiveled around.
Wally, a hand on both her arms, leaned down into her face. His breath smelled like whiskey and vomit. His face was flushed with anger. She read his lips. “I was talking to you. Think you can just ignore me, you little whore?”
She tapped her ears and gave him an OMG look, but he didn’t get it.
“You think this is a game?” he said. “Something funny to you?”
By this time, Burke was on his feet and by her side. She looked over at him in time to read his lips. “Take it easy. We don’t want any trouble,” he said.
The bartender returned and sat a large bottle of whiskey in front of Wally. LJ didn’t see what the old man said, but she suspected he was also telling Wally to calm down.
LJ, however, wasn’t going to sit back and let some Jersey Shore reject insult her. She tapped Burke’s shoulder and motioned her head toward Wally, wanting Burke to translate for her.
Then she signed, “Tell him this. I find pretty much everything about you funny, shit for brains. But I bet the funniest part is when you take your pants off.”
She looked at Burke, who wasn’t speaking. She slapped him on the shoulder, raised her eyebrows, and held her hands out toward Wally.
“Okay,” Burke signed. She turned her eyes to Wally to see his reaction.
LJ wasn’t sure if Burke translated exactly what she had instructed, but based on the growing rage on Wally’s face, Burke had at least given Wally the gist of it.
Wally’s head looked like it was about to explode. She noticed for the first time that his pupils were bloodshot and dilated.
She gave him the finger, and her best fake smile.
Wally started to say, “Little girl, I’m going to turn you over my knee and—”
But the drunk and probably coked-up idiot wasn’t able to finish his sentence.
A blur of movement flew past her face as August Burke sprang into action. Wally was leaning on the bar, his hand resting beside the bottle of whiskey that Prune-face had just delivered.
To her shock and amazement, Burke moved with ferocity and purpose. He snatched up the bottle of whiskey and busted it over Wally’s hand.
Glass exploded all over the bar, and Wally screamed in pain. But Burke wasn’t done, he drove his knee into Wally’s crotch, doubling him over.
Then Burke grabbed Wally by the balls with his left hand and pushed the jagged end of the broken bottle against Wally’s carotid artery.
LJ had taken a few steps back, but she could still see Burke’s face. The young doctor’s features showed no real emotion or fear. She read his lips as he said, “Do you want to die today, Wally?”
Chapter 49
As she had hoped, the young gunman had started to doubt his boss. Gabi could see it in his eyes as he walked with purpose toward the vault room. She debated with herself on whether or not this was her chance at escape, a chance for all of them. Maybe the last and only chance they would get. But what if their captors heard them, or the frightened young man was told to get back to his post. There was no way she could get them all out quickly enough. Too much could go wrong, and as keyed up as the young gunman was, he could very well react out of panic and mow them down with his assault rifle.
But what if she made a break for it alone? She didn’t owe these people anything. Maybe this was an opportunity to save herself.
As she glanced around at the terrified faces of her coworkers and clients, she dismissed the thought. When she had left India to study at an American university, her father had squeezed her tightly and said, “I know you’ll be fine. You are the strongest of all my children. But having strength of any kind means that you have a responsibility to those who are weaker than yourself.”
She couldn’t abandon these people. She needed to be strong for them.
She heard the young man call out, “Hello? Doc? Mr. K?”
That seemed strange in the moment, but what was happening in the vault room was not her concern. She needed to focus on the brief opportunity that she had creat
ed.
She couldn’t get everyone out, and she couldn’t escape on her own. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t use this distraction to level the playing field, to gain a tactical advantage.
Think! She inwardly screamed at herself. What could she reach? What could she use against her captors? She had already scanned every inch of the lounge area, but she hadn’t noticed anything that could do her much good.
The young gunman entered the vault room and allowed the metal door to close behind him. This was her chance, but he could come back at any second.
Her chest was tight, every muscle tensed. She could barely breathe. Her mind swirled with a maelstrom of indecision and doubt. She felt like she stood at the edge of a cliff and was willing herself to jump.
Move! She screamed at herself.
Some deep part of her listened. Before she realized what was happening, she was on her feet. The other hostages looked up at her in fear and dismay.
She was on her feet, but what now?
Then she noticed Quentin Yarborough hunched over on the arm of one of the couches. He clutched his wounded hand to his chest, and his one uncovered eye looked glassy and distant. Blood was soaking through the bandage covering his other eye.
She realized where to go. The manager’s office could contain something of use. Knowing Yarborough and the nature of some of their clientele, she could quite possibly find a gun tucked away in a desk drawer.
In the vault room, she heard a muffled thump and a clang, as if someone had struck one of the metal sorting tables.
Time was running out.
Her mind made up, she ran for the door to the manager’s office.
Chapter 50
Nic slammed the door to Romeo’s office with such force that the entire wall shook. A picture of Romeo with James Gandolfini, the actor from the Sopranos, rattled free and fell to the floor with the sound of crunching glass. Nic was too angry to care.