Classics Mutilated (24 page)

He looked at the firepower all around and grinned. If everyone came after me right now there'd be no way for me to fight it out. He knew it and I knew it and everyone else knew it, but that didn't mean it would ever happen. I wasn't worried. We were all one family. We'd fought off waves of attacks by outsiders.  

But when you got down to it, when you got to the heart of the matter, we were all a bunch of thieves and murderers, and we didn't trust each other at all.

Most men, even wiseguys, don't like violence. They had to ramp themselves up for it. They had to throw back a few shots of liquid courage, or find a partner to go shoulder to shoulder with. They had to sneak up on the other guy and take him from behind. They had to shoot out a window during a drive-by, let the crazy noise and the action get into their blood. They had to let the rage and terror take them to the place where they lashed out in fury.

I didn't need to do any of that. That's what set me apart from the other men who killed.  

Chaz glared at me, and his two soldiers tried to act rough and imposing by letting their heavily muscled bodies and sheer bulk do their talking for them. They were used to being intimidating. They had faces like rock formations. They could crush an enemy's bones to powder if they made the effort. Their vanity and confidence was scrawled in their features. They scowled at me.  

I wasn't carrying. I usually didn't. In fact, I hated guns. When I did my business I usually used a knife or my hands. I had strong, fast hands that could break stone.  

Chaz was barely keeping control over himself. His best friend's death had rattled him and I'd embarrassed him in front of the family. I hadn't handled the situation well and there was no stopping the runaway train now. Chaz made no signal but his boys moved out to brace me. Portman said nothing to stop them. Neither did anyone else.  

The thugs were used to men who backed away and ran. They moved in on me with a slow and methodical pace. Instead of waiting for them to reach me, I lunged.

It wasn't going to take much to take them. I chopped one in the throat and he doubled over and threw up on himself. I brought my knee up into his nose and the cartilage mashed and blood arced in an explosive fountain.  

The other threw a lumbering roundhouse. I wheeled, turned my back to him, and watched his fist come rushing over my shoulder. Facing away from him, I caught his wrist in my right hand and pulled down hard, levering the bone over my shoulder blade. His arm bent the wrong way across the hard muscled ridge of my collarbone. I kept yanking on it as he screamed, his shriek eventually hitting a high and keening note until the bone snapped. I spun and drew his body across my hip and hurled him against the far wall.

I watched the subtle hint of fear and grudging respect swirl into Chaz's eyes. It wasn't enough to stop him from moving against me, but he'd keep in line for at least another few days. The rest of his crew gathered up his two wounded soldiers.

The other troops remained silent. No one pulled their piece on me. No one else tried to muscle me. No one else bitched or grumbled. Chaz looked cool and a touch humbled. I knew I should say something to the men, but I had no idea what. I was hoping Portman would come in and quiet them all and bring them around, but he just stared at me a little nervously.

"Rally your troops," I said to the capos. "Keep them in line. Wait for orders. Chaz will take his turn soon. Until then, keep the course and watch your backs. You know that the other mobs like to move in during these times of stress when a don dies. And there's still someone out there who might be coming for us."

"Out there?" Chaz said. "Or is he right here with us?"

"Either way, we'll find him."

I let the dig pass. Nobody believed I would have capped the Ganooch anyway. They knew I was loyal. They just didn't like this turn of events. It didn't matter. Some of them wouldn't like Chaz taking over immediately either. Some of them wanted to run the show themselves. It would all come out in the following six months or so, and then we'd all settle back into our usual routine.

The crews filed out of the warehouse. I looked out the window and watched them pulling faces and gesturing and bitching me out as they crossed the parking lot. The sky was completely clear.

Portman sat and poured himself a glass of wine.  

"That was foolish," he said.

"It's only until we figure out who iced the Ganooch," I told him.

"I know that. But you should've explained it to them. You should've elaborated upon your position."

"Elaboration isn't my strong suit, Cole."

"Neither is keeping the crews in line. Instead of bringing us together in this time of trial you've got them all foaming at the mouth."

"They weren't going to listen to me no matter what I said. Chaz is too headstrong. He would've felt disrespected either way. This way, it's all in the open. They know I'm not going behind anybody's back. It'll keep them steady."

"There's going to be repercussions."

"There always is."

He poured me some wine and pushed a glass over to me. I took it and finished it in one sip. He stared up at me and shook his head again. "You're doing this so that you stand out in the spotlight. You want to see if whoever clipped the don will come after you now."

"I'm protecting
la famiglia
. I made a promise."

"We're no closer to finding out who killed Frankie."

That wasn't true. I'd had visions, seen images. Light breaking upon the darkness. Blood splashing on a tree. A beautiful blonde without a face, who wasn't a woman. Pythoness. Fishwives. Familiar spirit. I remembered what the words meant in the Bible.

"We're a little closer," I told him. "The Ganooch was murdered by witches."

That night I slipped into Gina's room and held her while she sobbed. Grandma was upstairs with the cousins and uncles and the rest of the family, half of them having flown in from Sicily. Every so often we could hear her bolt across the room and grab something off the wall, maybe Frankie's portrait, and bang it around.  

"It doesn't feel like we'll ever get over this," Gina whispered.

"You will. It'll just take time."

"You're still not over your father's murder."

It was the truth. "You learn to live with it. You have no choice."

"Is that why you do what you do? Is that your way of living with it?"

"Maybe. In some fashion."

She fell back against the pillows and turned herself to me and hooked one hand around the back of my neck and drew me to her, into a kiss abandoned to pain and despair. Those emotions drove me much more deeply than love. I was comfortable among them and lifted her into my arms like a child and hugged and rocked her while she wept.  

At midnight Gina fell into a restless sleep where she occasionally whimpered and whined. I stared at the ceiling and wondered how I was supposed to defend the family against someone who could kill a man just by willing it.

I nodded off at four a.m. but was awake again twenty minutes later. I turned and Gina was staring at me. Moonlight backlit her so that her face was heavy with twining shadows. She kissed me but it was almost chaste.  

"It's wrong," she said.

"What is? Us being together? We're not wrong."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Why should it be wrong?"

I couldn't read her eyes in the darkness. What had attracted me to her the most was the fact that she could always keep me guessing. Others were easy to read. Once you knew what they coveted, you knew what drove them, and you could figure out exactly how far they would go to get it. I knew what went through people's minds and could take advantage of that. I could see if they were going to jump left or right, pull a gun or call the cops or make a run for it. I could predict their actions and ascertain their weaknesses.

But Gina was a paragon of cool, calm, and seeming indifference most of the time. Like her brother, she was attending Brown, attending some kind of nonsense accounting and management courses. Unlike Tommy, she was destined to be in the business. The Ganooch never wanted it for her, and Gina never said anything about it, but I could see her running the show in a couple of years when guys like Chaz Argento went up on RICO charges and the other old wiseguys retired to Miami. I always expected to do for her exactly what I did for her father and grandfather.

I was hired help. Mafia princesses didn't fool around with hired help. Well, they did, but they weren't supposed to. They were being prepped to be the wives of politicians or movie producers or Mafia princes, so they could beget other little heirs to the throne. Chaz was too old for her but I knew he'd always wanted to make a move on her. With Frankie dead, maybe he would go for it now, once he got me out of the way.  

"Are you going to catch whoever killed my father?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"And make them pay."

"In the worst way."

"When that day comes will you let me know? I want to see it. I want to watch."

I nodded in the dark, with her head pressed against my chest. "I'll let you know. I'll let you watch."

Cole Portman knew about my mother. He knew about my fevers. He was the consigliere to the Ganucci family but could trace his family roots back to the Mayflower and was as WASPish as you could get. He didn't share our Catholic penchant for drama, history, and superstition. He didn't believe my mother had been blessed or cursed. He thought she was a schizophrenic and that I shared some of the same traits. He didn't mind so long as I remained effective. Now he was having doubts. He told me as much that morning. I had to keep an eye on him, like I had to keep an eye on everyone else.

I hit the streets. Most of the guttersnipes, low-level dealers, heisters, and wharf rats knew my name but didn't know my face. I threatened, coerced, blackmailed, and paid informants looking for any clue as to who might be behind this.  

There was a Haitian mob that had risen to some power in northern Jersey and I kept wondering if some voodoo priest was sitting in front of a shrine with a shriveled doll that looked like Frankie. I kept prodding. I didn't expect much information and I didn't find any. I just wanted my enemy to know that I was out there on the prowl. I needed word to get back.

I shook things up for three days. In that time I paid out twenty grand, broke two men's arms, and clipped one overzealous bartender who snatched up a sawed-off ten-gauge hidden beneath the beer tap. No one knew anything about the hand behind the Ganooch's demise. A few mooks had heard whispers about how Chaz was planning to ice me. I wasn't surprised or worried.

The next morning, Portman phoned me to come to his home.  

He lived in his own cottage on the Ganucci estate, about a quarter mile from the main house. He'd never invited me there before, but I knew every inch of it. I'd crept the place and gone through his desk, his files, every hidden cache and cubbyhole. I knew the combination to his safe. I knew the password on his password-protected computer. I knew his habits, his sexual proclivities, his preference for track lighting, the fact that he hadn't talked with his sister for thirty-seven years and the reason why.  

He met me at the door, smiling sadly, his face full of near-hysteria. I could smell the scotch on his breath. He'd managed to wrap a robe around himself, but he was still wearing his PJs and slippers.  

He didn't look sick. Not the way that the Ganooch had when the illness had hit him. Withered, with that deep weakness and flood of age and infirmity taking him over. Portman just appeared to be scared as hell, and he was trembling so bad that his back teeth were clicking.

"What is it?"I asked.

He ushered me inside his home, and I stepped into his small foyer. He led me to his living room, where a half-bottle of scotch stood open on a table. He hadn't been using a glass but drinking straight from the bottle.

"I noticed something when I woke this morning," he said.

"What?"

The smile played in his face, twisting his lips like softened solder. "Don't you see?"

Sunlight streamed in from the open window, the breeze carrying with it the smell of the ocean, mixing with the stink of the liquor and his morning breath.

And then I saw.

"Christ," I said.

"Goddamn right!"

I learned forward and double-checked. It was true.

Cole Portman had no shadow.

"I can feel it," he told me.

"You can feel it?"

"Writhing. It's in a bottle and someone's holding it. I can feel his hand on it. I can feel him watching it." His breathing came in ragged gasps now, the terror flooding his eyes. "It's ... it's crying. It's not just a shadow." He let out a small, crazed laugh. "I think it might be my soul."

I remembered an image that had been passed to me by my mother's seizure. A strange black bug in a jar.

I took him by the shoulders and gave him a tremendous shake, hoping it might snap him back into himself. It did nothing but rattle him a little more loose. "You can fight," I told him. "You can hold on, Cole."

"Ah God, it's an easy thing to say, but ... it's like ... it's like having ... I feel...." He couldn't put it into words. "I'm not here. I'm not all the way here. I'm missing. I've vanished. I want you to kill me. You have to end this."

"Cole—"

"You don't understand ... you don't know what this is like. What it feels like. What it means. I'm ... I'm...."

I thought I understood enough. He wasn't in pain. He might not even be dying. But the full horror of having no soul was slowly inflicting a terrible and bewildering knowledge on him. It was something that no man should be aware of. I was slowly watching him lose himself, his past, his mind. His eyes were completely unfocused, staring into the cosmic abyss. He smiled insanely at me and couldn't even find his voice anymore. A newborn's gurgle escaped him. Then a kind of mad giggle that was trapped inside his chest the way his soul was trapped in someone's bottle.

I rose, got my arms around his throat, and snapped his neck. It took twenty seconds, and all the while I had to listen to that laughter.