For Nothing (4 page)

We should be moving on. Christ, I hate voicemail.

Cal me.”

He looked out his window. It was beginning to snow, and with an annoyed huff Alex went into his bedroom closet and grabbed a pair of brown leather gloves and his brown beanie.

He flipped open his cel and hit a button to return the cal . She answered on the second ring.

“Hel o?”

She sounded even better in real life.

“Charlotte, it’s me Alex.”

She gave a nervous giggle. “I know Alex; it says it on my phone. How are you? I’m so sorry.”

“I’m alright. It wasn’t me that was shot.” The words sounded hol ow. He knew she wasn’t fooled either.

“Okay? I just wanted to let you know it’s okay if you don’t want to go tonight.”

Alex felt his grip tighten on the phone. “No, it’s okay. I’ve been trying to get you to meet me for weeks now.”

Alex walked over to his nightstand and pul ed out the two tickets to Shea’s Theater. Bribing her with tickets to a musical was the only way she would agree to see him, even on her birthday.

“I’m stil not sure it’s a good idea.”

“I’l see you there at seven.”

Alex hung up before she could protest. The truth was he needed to see her. He felt numb. He studied the tickets for a moment and then put them in his jacket.

Alex looked around. He was forgetting something. He glanced at his nightstand one more time and a Saint Christopher medal ion hanging on a silver chain, tossed over his bottle of Bean. Not only had the bottle smacked him down, the damn thing looted him while he was in his sleep as wel . Alex Vaughn walked to the bottle and grabbed his chain.

“Mine,” he said.

Alex stepped out of his bedroom with the chain safe, tucked under his jacket and white T-shirt.

The coffee was ready. In a whirl, Alex grabbed his steaming mug and walked out of his townhouse apartment.

He got into his Ford Taurus. After two attempts at getting the engine to start, it rol ed over with a moan. Alex drove through the city streets; he was heading back toward Walden Avenue, the scene of the crime. He already knew what he had to do, with a smirk he reached into his coat pocket and pul ed out the cigarette butt from the scene.

“A h ,
MY
latest victim,” he said with

“A h ,
MY
latest victim,” he said with satisfaction.

This little baby was going to give some information to work with. This was a rare cigarette, Vaughn was sure of it. Al he needed to do now was go into some convenience stores and ask around, ask who knew a guy that had a very particular taste in nicotine. Once he found out whom, it would official y be on.

*

The assassin stood stil in the gloom of the night club. His eyes needed a moment to adjust as the blackened double doors closed behind him. As his eyes came back into focus he noted the familiar surroundings.

Off to the left was a bar that came out into the center of the room in a semicircle. In front of the gunman, extending outward from the bar was a dance floor that was settled underneath a twirling disco bal . At the head of the dance floor was a DJ

booth that was enclosed by a metal cage on three ends. On the right, after two doors leading toward separate gender restrooms was a door that led to a manager’s office.

Rafael Rontego swept his hat from his head and tucked it under his arm along with the newspaper he purchased earlier; with his free hand he brushed his hair back from his face.

Two large men came out of the back office, but with one look at Rontego, they nodded their heads and went back inside. Rafael walked up to the office door and raised his hand to knock on it.

Before his hand could lie to rest on the sturdy oak door, he heard the expected “Come in,” from within.

The assassin eased opened the door and slipped inside.

“Hel o Rafael. I have been waiting for you,” said an old man at the desk.

The man was slender but had strength built into his frame that age developed. The veins that stretched tight under his thinning and aged skin obscured his corded muscles. He wore a suit, but the jacket was hung over the back of his large mahogany chair and his white shirtsleeves were rol ed up to the elbows. His right hand was somewhat yel owish in color and the large cigar that was half smoked in the ashtray explained the discoloration.

“I supposed as much Don Ciancetta.

However, the business of which you and I discussed previously is now complete.” As he spoke to the Don, Rafael tossed the newspaper on the old man’s desk.

Circled in black ink on the lower right hand column of the front page was a headline that read
Local Cop Slain in Shooting
.

“Hmm, I see our little friend is no longer a problem.” The Don shifted the paper and started reading the caption under the headline.

As he read it, Rafael studied the old man’s eyes. Though his eyes were a light green and might even be considered kind, Rafael knew the deception hidden beneath that gaze and marveled at the contradiction. Those green orbs of his were set deep into the angular features of his face. He was always clean-shaven but Rafael was almost positive that it was because he didn’t want the gray of his beard to show. Speckled into the Don’s slick black hair were patches of gray that brought a distinguished look to the boss.

“Because of the nature of the target’s position and the inevitable fal out surrounding its completion, I am going to have to ask for double my usual rate,” Rontego said as a matter of fact.

With a cough, Ciancetta looked up at him. “Of course, my friend. It is a wel earned twenty.” He reached down under his desk, into a drawer at his side. Rafael heard the drawer slide open. Ever the soul of caution, Rafael shifted his weight so that he could angle sideways toward the old man; even as he shifted he dropped the hand behind his hat backward toward his hip, until he felt the cold steel of his pistol brush up against his palm.

At that instant there was a rush of air at the assassin’s back. With a quick and fluid motion, Rafael spun around, pistol in hand. His gun was level right at the forehead of the interruption.

“Holy Shit!” said the young man with his arms raised wide at his side.

Rontego recognized the youngster as the son of Ciancetta, and with a death-cold stare at the boy, holstered his pistol.

“Jesus, Rontego!” yel ed Don Ciancetta.

“Jesus, Rontego!” yel ed Don Ciancetta.

“Here’s your fucking paycheck”, he said as he tossed a bundle of cash at Rontego.

The assassin caught it in the air, even as he finished holstering his pistol with his other hand.

“Damn, you are fast man,” stammered Joseph Ciancetta as he let out a long breath of air.

“Just be careful who you’re pointing guns at Rafael. My boy should be viewed as if he were me,” Don Ciancetta said. His voice flat and even, his way of issuing a threat.

Rafael hated when the old man threatened him, the vein in his head throbbed along his jaw line with an unnatural pulse. He was afraid that one day it would burst, then al the other Guido’s in the place would pin the death on him and then he would have his hands ful .

“I understand, Don. I just always watch my back, comes with the territory.” Rafael tucked the money away into his jacket and flipped his hat back onto his head. “Now Mr.Ciancetta, with your permission, I take my leave.”

“Sure thing. Rontego, I have something I want to talk to you about, later.” With that Don Ciancetta stood up and extended his hand.

Rontego took the Don’s hand and felt the expected foreign object embedded in his palm. He grinned with the realization of that feel, relished its implications. With a deft motion, Rafael slipped the object into his own palm and brought his hand into his pocket.

With a nod and a quick tip of his hat, Rontego pivoted and left the room. As the door shut behind him, the assassin quickened his step and with a flourish, was out the entrance and back onto the quiet city streets of Buffalo. He checked his watch.

He had a play to catch.

Alex drove for about three miles, down into the heart of East Buffalo. Walden Avenue wasn’t much to look at during the day, and at night it was a downright nasty place to be. The need for survival oftentimes turned on the predatory switch that caused some human beings to treat other human beings like crap.

Alex did a stint as an undercover narcotics officer in this district several months back. At the time he went by the name of Victor Garducci. When Alex was about one key piece of evidence from being able to get an indictment against the Mafia crew in which he was embedded, they yanked him from his post. He found out later that there was an unsubstantiated rumor that his cover had been compromised.

Vaughn was displeased. In the name of

‘Alex’s safety’ the higher-ups decided this was the correct course of action. Alex felt that it was al politics. The force could il afford another undercover agent to be revealed and executed.

A string of deep agents were discovered as of late and the Internal Affairs people, as wel as the Feds, were al over the situation but came up blank.

Years of posturing, maneuvering, gaining the confidence of several gangsters al resulted in wasted time and free information for the lucky soul that inherited Alex’s case file.

Alex pul ed up to a Gas and Go convenience store. He grabbed his cigarette butt that was now in a Zip-Lock baggy and entered the store with a RING

as the door chimed to announce his entrance.

On the right of the inside were rows of various goods that the gas station sold, with a freezer in the back for beverages. In front of Alex was a fountain machine for soda and on the left was the clerk counter where cigarettes and lottery tickets were sold.

Alex walked up to the fountain machine and fil ed up a large cup with root beer then proceeded to the counter. There, he encountered a large and round Haitian man with a jovial face and a pair of thick spectacles that hung around the tip of his nose.

The man had curled gray hair and wore a yel ow Tshirt with “Gas and Go” in bright red letters. His name tag read ‘Enrique’.

“Hey there...Enrique,” Alex said, reading the man’s name tag, as he leaned on the counter.

The clerk was preoccupied adjusting some things beneath the counter. Without looking up he said, “Hey yourself, what can I do you for?” Alex reached into his back pocket and pul ed out his wal et. He wanted to get this man’s attention.

With a flip of his wrist he tossed out the back flap on his wal et, revealing his metal ic police badge, ID

number 4977.

“Just have a quick couple questions and a pop that I want to buy.”

Enrique glanced on the counter and saw the badge, he stopped in mid business. Stil paused, the clerk moved his eyes upward from the badge and looked at Alex Vaughn.

“What kind of questions?” he asked.

“The kind that need answers, it wil take just a moment,” Alex said as he replaced his wal et in his back pocket.

He continued, “I need to know where I can find a cigarette like this.” He pul ed the Zip-Lock containing the cigarette butt from his side and tossed it on to the counter in front of the clerk.

Enrique picked up the bag and held it up to the light. “Wel , officer, I hope you don’t need any of this right now,” he said with a chuckle as he peered along his nose and through his goggled glasses.

“Why’s that Enrique?” Alex asked. His interest was piqued now. He felt his list of targets was about to narrow in drastic fashion.

“Wel sir, to be honest, there are just two places that sel these, if my eyes serve me right. This cigarette you have yerself here is a Sobranie. The only two places you can get these is Smoke ‘n Stuff over in the vil age of Hamburg. And the other place is a specialty shop downtown.”

Enrique put the bag back on the counter and looked with triumph at Alex. He was milking the attention like a weatherman that knew the forecast.

Alex indulged the man, however.

“And good sir, what might the name of this specialty shop be?” Vaughn put the baggy in his coat pocket.

“How’d I know you were going to ask that?” Enrique laughed. “The name of the shop is Inhaled Imports and is about five-ten minutes north of here.

Imports and is about five-ten minutes north of here.

Go down Genesee a bit I think.”

“Thanks Enrique, I know the place. You have been a tremendous help.” With that Alex turned to leave the store. He had business to attend to.

Alex was interrupted though; hand on the door, with a cough from Enrique. Alex, tired of the clerk’s games, turned around and with an undertone of annoyance questioned, “Yes?”

“That’l be a dol ar six sir,” Enrique said with his eye on the root beer in Alex’s hand.

Alex, more than a little embarrassed, pul ed a five out of his pocket and put it on the counter. “Keep the change, man.”

With that Alex got in his car and pul ed out of the gas station. His mind was abuzz with these recent developments.

He knew of this place cal ed Inhaled Imports.

It was a Mafia owned business. It was right next door to the pool-hal that he frequented while undercover.

It was the same pool-hal that contained members of Old Joe Falzone’s crew.