For Nothing (9 page)

Rontego took no notice of his victim’s concerns. He flipped through a smal black booklet of compact discs. He settled on one with a slight scratch but that Rontego loved al the same.

With a clearing of his throat the assassin put in an album by The Animals. The album, entitled
The
Animals Is Here
was Rontego’s favorite for many reasons, but most of those reasons had to do with the number one track from 1964 cal ed “House of the Rising Sun.” He glanced at Sonne, stil eyeing him like a hawk from above the tape that held his mouth silent. Rafael Rontego cranked up the volume one click at a time. The music was coming through the speakers with more clarity now.

Rafael walked towards Sonne as the hypnotic guitar work introduced the song. He lifted his foot and rested it on the knee of his victim. Reaching behind him he pul ed his black-handled blade out and rested it against Sonne’s neck.

As the organs began to join the guitar work, Rafael pul ed back a corner of the tape from Sonne’s mouth and leaned next to his ear. The breath from the assassin as he spoke, so close to Sonne, sent a chil through his captive. Rontego noticed the goose bumps that found their way down his captive’s neck.

“I’m gonna pul this tape off of your mouth now, Sonne, but I want you to understand a few things. One is, you are going to die. The second is, how many pieces you die in is up to you. I am gonna ask you questions. You answer them you get to keep your fingers, toes, nose and ears. If you so much as lie to me, I start taking them off one at a time. Do you understand me Sonne boy?”

Rontego’s nose was now just a few inches from Sonne’s face. The assassin leaned forward on his knee, his foot stil resting on the captive’s leg and his hand stil dangling the knife beneath Sonne’s chin. With his eyes shut tight and his breath now coming out in quick rushes Sonne shook his head in agreement.

As Rafael Rontego ripped the duct tape off of Sonne’s mouth there was the noise of hair tearing out of skin, mingled with the lyrics blasting from the speakers:

There is a house in New Orleans/ They call
the Rising Sun

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy/

And God I know I’m one

“Shit Rontego, man, I’m just fol owing orders....” Sonne began talking as soon as the tape was free from his mouth.

Rontego snapped his head forward and shut Sonne up before he could finish. Rontego’s forehead blasted into his captive’s nose and splattered it into a bloody mess across his face.

For a moment Sonne’s head fel forward and Rontego thought he might pass out. A sharp sting across his left cheek brought him back to his senses and he looked at Rontego through his watering eyes.

Rafael noticed the tears in Sonne’s eyes—a shattered nose wil do that to a man. The blood from his nose was running down his face and into his mouth and down his neck onto his shirt, staining the white Armani a thick, almost purplish, crimson.

My mother was a tailor/She sewed my new
blue jeans

My father was a gambling man/Down in New
Orleans

Sonne, silenced except for a low moan and a slight gurgling of his own blood, looked up at slight gurgling of his own blood, looked up at Rontego with a questioning look in his eyes.

Rontego almost felt sympathy for the man. In a flash, however, he remembered that this man came here to kil him.

Sonne broke into his home with the intention of murdering him. But why? That was what Rontego needed to find out. Who wanted him dead and why?

Rontego leaned forward, his dark eyes were steeled and his penetrating glance did nothing to assuage the many fears that were no doubt running through the imprisoned capo’s mind. Al the while, the song drained on in the background.

Now the only thing a gambler needs/Is a
suitcase and a trunk

And the only time he’s satisfied/Is when he’s
on a drunk

“Simple question Sonne, and don’t make the mistake of feeding me excuses again, we aren’t in a confessional. You spoke of orders, before you felt the need to taste your own blood. Whose orders?” He was met by silence and the slow drip of blood, but Rontego continued.

“And before you answer, remember you have a father and a brother that I can repay for any of your foolishness once you’re far from this world.” Rontego spoke, not in anger but with a coolness that promised the certainty of his words.

He saw Sonne’s eyes flash with the recognition of his truth. Rontego was considered a lot of things, but never a welcher. With a moment of hesitation, Sonne confirmed what Rontego suspected.

“Raf, you know my orders come only from Falzone.”

Oh mother tell your children/Not to do what I
have done

Spend your lives in sin and misery/ In the
House of the Rising Sun

Pieri continued speaking even as the disc continued spinning the music Rafael chose for this special occasion.

“Man, just let me out of here. Think of it bro, together we can....”

He was cut off by the sudden impact of a solid backhand on his already tender cheek. This time, though, Sonne’s cheek did not absorb the impact of the blow, but rather split into an unnatural seam perpendicular to the scar he already wore on that side of his face. The two marks created an eerie looking crucifix design for a moment before the blood caught up with the sudden rip and dripped over the cross, hiding it beneath the spreading liquid.

The hit, however, had the desired effect.

Sonne resumed his silence and waited for the assassin’s next question. Rafael noticed the control shift; there was no doubt whose show this was. He smiled.

“I know Old Falzone gave you the order, but did Don Ciancetta tel him to give it to you?”
Well I got one foot on the platform/The other
foot on the train

I’m goin’ back to New Orleans/ To wear that
ball and chain

Sonne’s bloody smile cracked out of the corner of his mouth and his eyes revealed a slight edge of superiority that flashed for a moment. The gleam in his eye was not lost on the assassin.

With a half-scoff Sonne spat at the assassin,

“You stupid fuck, the old Ciancetta has no clue what’s going on. We al know Falzone holds the real power with his union support. You think that old bastard lets Falzone have control over the unions out of the goodness of his heart? You were just the first target in a hostile takeover man, one of Ciancetta’s bitches that were deemed ‘in the way’ and

‘expendable’.”

The arrogant and victorious tone that Sonne took with the assassin did not sit wel with Rontego and Sonne found that out with another sharp rap to the left side of his face. Rontego then took a step back from Sonne and reached into his shoulder holster which held his pistol.

Well there’s a house in New Orleans
Rafael Rontego reached into his left pocket and pul ed out a thin metal tube with screw ridges protruding from the bottom of it: a silencer. Sonne’s eyes began to widen even more, so that the whole of eyes began to widen even more, so that the whole of his face seemed unable to contain the enormous apertures.

They call the Rising Sun

The assassin screwed the silencer into the barrel of his pistol. His eyes snapped up and focused on those of Salvatore Junior—Sonne—

Pieri.

And It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
Sonne opened his mouth as if to scream, his eyes never leaving the assassin’s, sweat trickled down from his forehead and mixed with the blood stil flowing unabated from the wounds in his cheek.

His neck strained and every muscle in his face became taut as he tried to let out some sort of noise to voice the protest wel ing up inside of him. Rafael lifted his pistol and took aim.

“Seems

Old

Falzone

deemed

you…

expendable,” Rontego stated it as fact.

Sonne was now quite certain that this
was
fact.

And God I know I’m one

With a flash of the muzzle and a slight emanation of sound through the silencer, the bul et impacted the center of Sonne’s forehead at a speed in excess of three thousand feet per second. The .22

caliber bul et penetrated the forward section of Sonne’s skul but did not have enough force to drive through the back of it as the speed slowed down thanks to the initial entrance into the capo’s cranium.

The result was a ricochet effect that sent the bul et and pieces of skul ripping into the soft tissue of Pieri’s brain.

If death had not consumed the man so fast, and if he could have registered each shred as the foreign material cut new paths into his brain matter, he might have described it as hundreds of migraine headaches

happening

in

rapid

succession,

nanoseconds apart. As it was, death was as instant as death can be and the blinding flash of the muzzle was the last thing he ever knew.

His eyes remained wide open and his head snapped backward with the impact. Then, it eased forward with the force of gravity and his chin came to rest upon his chest as if he dozed. Rontego stood there for a moment and looked at the fresh kil . And as if frozen in time at the instant of death the song repeated over and over.

And God I know I’m one. And God I know I’m
one. And God I know I’m one…

The damn thing was skipping. Rontego shook his head and broke from the eerie trance. With a grunt he walked over to the stereo and yanked the plug away from the wal and sent a shower of sparks into the air. Just like that, there was silence once more.

*

Victor Garducci walked silent with his thoughts into the cold Buffalo night. He glanced at the now crumpled piece of paper in his palm. The address was not so far away, and despite the blistering cold, Victor decided to walk the distance.

He traveled two blocks, and then the two became four. As the snow began to saturate his clothing, Victor slowed as he came to within a block of the address on the paper.

1371 West Boat Shuttle Street was a decent place. Garducci frequented the place quite often for more pleasant business, a few months prior, when he was ‘official y’ undercover. He shared in a pie ‘on the house’.

It didn’t make sense though. As far as he knew, the place was control ed by Don Ciancetta himself. He would never have to make a payment to a capo like Sal. The funds always shifted up the chain of command.

The money chain. He would have to explore this more. Victor decided that the best thing to do, for the moment, would be to continue on and see what came of the inquiry into Sal’s whereabouts. At the least it would gain him confidence with the crew and might al ow for him to gain information on the Sobranie which littered Jack’s death scene.

As he walked, Alex Vaughn thought of the times he spent with his dear friend, within the snowy confines of the Buffalo winter. They were both confines of the Buffalo winter. They were both adamant Buffalo Bil s fans and spent a large percentage of their income on season tickets. Year after year they were let down, but each year was fol owed with a ‘this year is our year’.

They spent the crazy years of ’91 to ’94

together

getting

drunk

in

glorious

AFC

championships only to get drunk later in depression due to horrid letdown after horrid letdown in the Super Bowls. After the third loss in a row, Jack defined the character which he embodied and which appealed to Alex. Vaughn was depressed, thinking the ultimate glory would never come to fruition.

“Always second best man, the story of my life,” Alex muttered over a stiff Kessler Whiskey.

Jack looked at him and a frown crossed his face, the look was etched into Alex’s memory now.

“Second best eh? Wel , I don’t think it’s that bad, to be honest,” Jack said with a certain tone that made Alex look up from the drink he sipped.

“How so?”

Jack looked him dead in the eye and said,

“Bro, these are our boys, and they have proven better than al but one team in the entire league.

‘Least we were stil able to go out, root for our guys, get drunk together and have a good time, one more night then the other guys out there. And best yet, we get to hang out together and get drunk one more time before the Monday morning grind.” Then he laughed. Not a fake laugh that you often get in those stupid moments of depression. He laughed a ful - hearted, schoolboy laugh, a laugh that made you feel better about any situation, no matter how dreary it was.

Jack was like that when Charlotte left. Even when she took El a away. He made Alex laugh and made any darkness seem like a fleeting thing.

Now, though, the light that he brought to Alex’s world was extinguished. Alex’s brother had been taken from him. The clue to who did it was tucked away within Inhaled Imports. If this trip to Super Nova Pizza, to Sal’s col ection, helped shed any il umination on the shadowy enterprises that surrounded Jack’s death, then that’s where Alex was going to go.

As the snow fel down around him and settled on his shoulders, Alex walked to the vicinity of Sal’s dark green Escalade. He was now close to wherever Sal was and he needed to make contact with him and bring him to the bosses at Wizeguys.