Bloodline (3 page)

“I don’t understand, sir.”

Doctor Singer pulled the chair over to the side of Tommy’s bed and sat near the younger man.

“I’m not going to feed you a lot of nonsense,” he said. “We’ve given you too much morphine over too long a period of time.”

Tommy’s panic swelled. He could feel his temples pounding. Growing up on the streets of New York’s Little Italy, he had seen enough of what morphine could do to be scared.

“Am I a drug addict?” he asked slowly.

Singer shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it that. I prefer to call it a ‘morphinist.’”

“What’s that mean, sir?”

“It means that I don’t think that you have the temperament to be a drug addict,” Singer said. “It means that I think I can cure you.”

“How, sir?”

The doctor hesitated.

“For one thing, we’ve been steadily decreasing the amount of morphine we’ve been giving you. We’ve taken you down from nearly five grains a day about six weeks ago to just a little more than one grain a day now.”

“That sounds good,” Tommy said. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“That’s another thing that makes me hopeful.”

“What do we do next?” Tommy asked.

“We’ve already done it. As of this morning, we’ve taken you off all drugs altogether.”

Tommy had heard before about what that meant, heard it on the streets of his neighborhood.

“Cold turkey from here on in?” he said.

“Yes,” Doctor Singer answered. “The next couple of days might be pretty hard on you.”

*   *   *

N
ILO
S
ESTA WANTED TO DIE.
He wanted nothing more than release. Release from his pain. Release from his shame. He could not live anymore. He wasn’t a man. Not after what had been done to him. He was not a man and he was worse than a woman.

Nilo let himself sink deep into the sea. It made no difference. The sea was warm and inviting. The Gulf of Castellammare would take him into its bosom, hold him there, not let anyone hurt him anymore, not let anyone shame him anymore.

Nilo sank until he could go no farther. He was too buoyant. His body was rejecting its watery grave. His body wanted to breathe fresh clean air. Nilo wanted to open his mouth and let his lungs fill with water and sink even deeper down into oblivion. He wanted to, but he could not make himself do it. He began rising, rising not because he wanted to but because of his body’s own natural buoyancy.

Something brushed briefly against Nilo’s leg, something big and wide and rough. The boy shuddered. Sinking peacefully to the bottom of the bay and dying gently was one thing, but being bitten and hacked and chewed to death bit by bit, piece by piece, by sharks or barracuda was something else again. Nilo kicked out at whatever had bumped into him and began frantically flailing his arms. He rose even faster than he had before. Once he began rising, his body took over from his mind: it had determined to live, regardless of what Nilo’s brain had been planning. He kicked even harder.

Nilo broke the surface of the sea at first without even knowing it. He took in huge gulps of air before he realized that he was breathing again. His eyes feasted on the moon and stars, as he thought that they had never been more beautiful, that life had never been more precious.

He trod water unthinking for almost a minute before he remembered that he did not know how to swim, before he remembered that to fall into the sea was automatically to drown, to die. The thought panicked him, and he began flailing the water again frantically, desperate for rescue and yet not desperate enough to call out for help lest Fredo or the Selvini brothers hear him and turn back to finish the job they had begun.

In his flailing, Nilo turned in a complete circle, and as he started halfway around again, he noticed only a few meters away the dark silhouette of the two
tonnara
boats riding high in the water.

Nilo forced himself to calmness. He could not stop his fear, but he could control it, prevent it from becoming panic. He tried treading water again and found that it worked. He was able to remain upright, in place. The only problem now, he realized, was how to get to the boats to keep from drowning.

But if he went back to the boats, Nilo told himself, he would be delivering himself once more into the hands of his assailants, and that was certain death. He would have to, somehow, get to shore. But that too was impossible. The shore was a mile away at its nearest point. He could never reach it.

He felt panic rising in his throat like a swollen lump of flesh, and he fought to keep from retching. Perhaps, he told himself, if he could get to the side of one of the
tonnara
boats and somehow hold on until the rest of the fishing crew returned from the wedding celebration, then maybe he could be rescued.

Nilo forced the top part of his body to lean in the water, toward the boats, and then tried to use his hands and arms to move forward, just as he had seen swimmers do. The distance was not great, but it seemed to take an eternity to traverse.

When he finally reached Fredo’s boat, he searched desperately for a safe handhold until he came upon the anchor line dangling overboard. He grabbed the coarse rope and held on with a fierce determination.

I am alive, God damn their souls. I am alive.

Time came and went. Minutes passed, then hours. Nilo could hear the sounds of drunken revelry from the three crewmen aboard the boat above his head, and while he waited, his determination just to survive grew and changed into an even more powerful desire for revenge.

Finally, Nilo grew aware of a change in the activity on the boat. He listened carefully for what was being said but could not make out the words. Then he knew what was happening. Paolo and Enzo were leaving the
tonnara
and taking one of the smaller rowboats to go back to shore to meet the partying fishermen after they returned from the wedding.

Nilo waited for the Selvini brothers to leave. A few minutes later, he heard snoring from above his head. Fredo had gone to sleep. Or passed out. Slowly, Nilo worked himself around the boat until he reached the stern, where he could hoist his upper body onto the gunwale and then pull himself completely onto the deck. He lay there on the wet cold wood, gasping and puffing, fearful that he would wake Fredo and yet not really caring if he did so. But Fredo did not wake.

Nilo crawled forward to the rack where the gaffs were kept and only then stood up. Most gaffs were hammered into a hook, but throughout the fishing season, Nilo had been using a straight spear with a sharp bladed barbed end. He quickly found that tool in the rack.

He crossed the small deck in three quick steps and positioned himself over the thin pallet where Fredo slept. Nilo gently prodded the older man with the point of his weapon.

Fredo stirred and Nilo prodded again.

“Who is it?” Fredo demanded thickly. “What do you want?”

Nilo did not answer at first. Then he said, “You, Fredo. I want you.”

Fredo sat up, still not fully aware of what was going on. Nilo did not give him a chance to say anything. He drove the gaff hard between Fredo’s legs. His aim was sure.

As neatly neutered as any capon or gelding, Fredo screamed, a horrible mixture of pain and anguish. He grabbed at the place where his manhood had been. Nilo laughed and slammed the end of the gaff pole into Fredo’s face. The burly man collapsed back into unconsciousness, and Nilo trussed him up with heavy fishing lines until the older man was immobilized. He took his folding knife from his pocket and slowly began to carve away on Fredo. For the first five minutes, the fisherman screamed, begging for mercy, begging for death, begging for Jesus and Joseph and Mary to help him.

By the time his screaming had stopped, there was hardly a strip of skin more than three inches wide anywhere on Fredo’s body that had not been sliced by Nilo’s knife.

The necessary deed done, Nilo sat back on the gunwale and quietly contemplated his work. Fredo was dead now or soon would be. That left Paolo and Enzo Selvini. The brothers would be more difficult, watching out for each other, protecting one another.

For them, I will need a weapon more powerful than a knife or a hook.

Nilo began looking through all the cabinets and lockers of the two boats. Occasionally, he had seen the owner on board carrying a
lupara
—a sawed-off shotgun—and that was what he was searching for. He finally found it hidden under the captain’s bunk. Now all he had to do was to get ashore and run Paolo and Enzo to ground.

Another dinghy was tied up to the other
tonnara
boat, and carefully holding the shotgun out of the water, he worked his way across the nets to the other fishing boat, clambered into the rowboat, locked the oars in place, and began pulling for shore.

*   *   *

T
OMMY
F
ALCONE COULD NOT STOP YAWNING.
He tried and could not do it and became very annoyed with himself.

He rose from his bed and began pacing the floor of the hospital room. It was early afternoon now, and Doctor Singer and the homely nurse and a pair of burly orderlies had been coming and going all day.

He wondered where they were now and decided they were off drinking coffee somewhere. Or smoking. He wished he could get out of the room and see for himself.

So far, one day, and it had not been so bad. Maybe the doctor was right. Maybe he was not really a drug addict. Just a “morphinist.” Whatever that was. The doctor had to be right. He was not ever going to be a drug addict. It wouldn’t be fair, especially since it was not his fault. He had never asked for the morphine. They had just shoved the needle in him and kept pumping him full of the stuff all during that horrible three-day trip back from Belleau Wood to the hospital in Paris and then, afterward, during all the operations. It was not his fault.

God, but his nose was runny. He had lost track of how many handkerchiefs he had used already today, and now he needed another. He was amazed at how many disgusting fluids could come out of the human body, and he wondered how doctors and nurses could stand seeing it all.

A new set of handkerchiefs came, and somebody—an orderly and nurse he had not seen before—asked him how he was feeling, and Tommy told them that he felt just fine, really okay, there was no trouble.

He walked over to the window and looked out. Other patients were outside now, walking on the great green lawn, being pushed about in wheelchairs. He crossed himself and thanked God that he was not one of those poor souls who would never walk again. What kind of life did they have to look forward to? He considered himself lucky. All he had to do was to get through the next couple of days and then he would be free.

The breeze coming in through the window was surprisingly hot. Tommy felt weak and began to sweat. He shut the window and moved over to his bed and lay down on it. In a moment, the heat passed and Tommy felt cold. He started to shiver and his teeth chattered. That had not happened since he was a little kid. Tommy curled himself up in a ball, wrapping himself in blankets and burying his head in his pillow. He got colder and colder, and just when he thought he could not stand it anymore he felt a flash of heat pass through his body.

Tommy threw off the covers and got up, sitting on the edge of his bed. He sat quietly for a moment, feeling almost at peace with himself. Then his nose began running again. He dabbed away at it frantically, blowing into a handkerchief and disgusting himself with the mucus that filled the small piece of cloth and spread out over his hand. Annoyed, Tommy wiped his hand on his bedsheet, but his damned nose was already running again.

He tried to sit quietly, to fight down the rising panic, the ever-increasing disgust with his own body. When he thought he had things almost under control, something happened to his breathing. He could not get enough air. Nothing was coming through his nose.

It was probably normal, he thought. Probably to be expected.

He tried breathing through his mouth, but that did not do any good, either. His breath came in short, jerky gasps, and he suddenly knew, beyond any doubt, that he was going to die. He began to cry. He wanted to call for help. He wanted more morphine.

That’ll make this go away. I know it.

But he would not let himself call out. He concentrated hard on his breathing, working to make it normal, and to his surprise, he succeeded.

Then the chills started again. Tommy went back to the window, to the steam radiator in front of it, and tried to turn the heat valve. It did not work. Back to the bed, curling up in blankets, burying his head under his pillow, Tommy fell asleep.

He awoke with a start, fully and instantly awake. It was dark outside. His room was dark. The hospital around him was deathly silent except for some moans and screams somewhere far in the distance.

Tommy lay in bed for a moment, almost at peace with himself, and then began yawning again. The yawns grew bigger, more frequent, more demanding. In five minutes’ time, they had become so overpowering that it felt as if all the muscles in his neck were being stretched and pulled apart. He thought that this must be what a man feels when he is being hanged.

His jaws ached and then went on, beyond aching, to pure pain. Tommy began to shiver again. It was cold, so cold. The yawning stopped and he began to sneeze.

The first sneeze was not so bad. The second was a little worse. By the tenth—or was it the twentieth?—he felt as if his lungs were being ripped out through his mouth. His chest was heaving and the back of his head was aching, feeling as if it were being banged against a brick wall harder and harder with each sneeze. That too stopped just before dawn.

Tommy walked to the window to watch the sunrise. He tried to feel a moment of peace. He would have, too, except for the chills that he felt and the fact that his eyes would not stop watering.

He thought it still had not been too bad. And it had been a long time now. A week at least.

He wondered how much longer it would be until the withdrawal period was over.