Headstone City (24 page)

“It should be easy to answer, don't you think? It's not like you could forget a night like that, right? Or could you?”

“You got some nerve, Johnny! You got some goddamn frickin'—”

“I've got nerve, we both know that. What I don't have is an answer. You want to give me one?”

“Get out of my car.”

“Can I still have the money? Five g's. Maybe I'll invest it.”

“Get out of my car, you
strunzo
prick!”

“Sure,” Dane said, and slid out of the Caddy. He smiled and let his cigarette hang loose from the corner of his mouth, hitting his father's pose.

Phil Guerra knew he'd messed up, showing heat like that. He sat looking at the dash for a minute, calming down. Then he held his index finger out, cocked his thumb like it was a gun, pretended to shoot Dane again, the same way he had the other day. Sometimes it felt like you were onstage all the time, in a very old play, hitting your mark and saying lines you'd said a thousand times before.

Dane walked inside and went to the kitchen junk drawer, grabbed a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers. Grandma was at the counter cooking
ziti.
She said, “You two have a good talk?”

He turned back for the door. “No.”

“Where you going?”

“To make a point.”

“Be home by six.”

“I might be late.”

“Six!”

The breeze could bring you back in time the way nothing else could. The smells in the chill air, the scent of impending rain. He tucked his chin against his chest and huddled against the wind. He walked with a fast stride over to the Guerra house.

Phil had parked the Cadillac in the garage but hadn't locked the door. Dane opened it, got in the car, used the tools, and got it started. He pulled out of the driveway slowly and waited in the street, his foot on the brake pedal, until he saw the front door open. Then he stomped the gas until the smoke of burning rubber rose up around car windows, cut loose on the brake, and peeled the fuck out.

He was feeling good, back behind the wheel, the horsepower working up into his chest to fortify his heart.

When you start moving you don't stop until it's finished.

He was moving again, finally. He drove over to the Monticelli mansion like the Caddy was leading the way. It was time to talk to the Don.

TWENTY

T
he forsaken understood the tactics of cruelty.

A pressure at Dane's side grew worse block after block until he thought maybe Phil had gotten a shot off and winged him. It came from the pocket where he carried the diamond ring he was supposed to give to Maria Monticelli. The pain intensified until he looked over and saw JoJo Tormino there beside him, his finger pressed into Dane's pocket.

“Give me a break, JoJo,” Dane said. “I'll get to it. I've got a lot on my mind right now. Go visit my grandmother, I think she's got a thing for you.”

But JoJo didn't buy that and shoved even harder. With love in his eyes and a tormented grimace, and all the regrets that a man with an unfinished mission might have, even under the mud, he stuck it to Dane.

They didn't turn over in their graves. They stood up and came after you, and they prodded you in your softest places.

JoJo opened his mouth as if to say something and suddenly Angelina was there, wearing a wild smile. She said, “Wow, you two really went at it in that swing! You deserve to have some fun, don't be ashamed of it.”

“I'm not.”

“You are, and you shouldn't be.”

It was like living in a sideshow, where they watched your every move. You stared at them and they stared at you, gasping at the things you did.

The old ache revisited itself on him, his chest feeling huge and hollow, like he'd been embalmed, side by side in the morgue trays with all the rest of them. The mansion on the hill loomed above him, the sound of the heavy waves roaring in the bay.

“You still haven't come by to visit me,” she said. “But that's all right, you've been having fun. I'm glad.”

“It hasn't all been fun.”

“No, but you've been doing okay so far. And I can see you're enjoying yourself now.”

You really couldn't ask for more than that. Not from a girl you'd driven to the people who killed her.

“Your mother—” Angie slid closer, trying to curl across his lap.

“That's right. You said she had something to tell me. What is it?”

Now, the dead playing coy, she nibbled her bottom lip and let out a soft purr, the kind of sound he'd never heard her make when she was alive.

“You don't really want to know, Johnny.”

“You're probably right.”

“Are you going to kill my father?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are. You're going to murder them all.” A titter eased free, thick with lust, like she wanted it done. “Send them to me.”

Maybe he couldn't keep her sane in hell. Maybe he'd only driven her ghost out of its mind.

“My mother, Angie, quit sidetracking and tell me what she wants.”

“She's finished with you, soldier boy. But I'm not.”

He already knew that. She breathed against his ear, and he heard her mad desire there. The dark hair fell against him, floating in front of his mouth, stifling him with its heady scent, until he was nearly panting. He almost took his hands off the wheel. She moaned against his neck and he was hard and crazy and it didn't really matter a goddamn.

“I need you,” she said.

“To do what?”

“Make things right.”

He swung up the hill toward the Monti estate, gunning it hard, the Caddy's engine humming smoothly, rushing like his blood.

“We love you, Johnny. You're going to find that out.”

It started to rain, and the water washed down the lengthy cobblestone driveway in heavy rivulets. There was a guardhouse at the front of the private gates to the estate, where he used to phone Vinny and ask him to come outside on summer days. Vinny would always say he had to stay in and practice, but every once in a while would sneak away, steal one of the patrol jeeps, and they'd go down to the beach.

Instead of Dane having to talk to someone or yell into a speaker, the gates opened as he approached. He drove right on up. Seemed like Phil Guerra was a welcomed guest.

Angelina drew closer, until he couldn't be sure where she was anymore, on top of him or under him or sinking farther inside. It got tiring trying to figure out which ghosts you carried, and which ones carried you.

He pulled up to the Monticelli mansion. Looked around for any overt action. Guns, goombas who'd read
The Valachi Papers
too many times, with a bit too much vino in them. Wanting to crack wise and throw down with a machine gun. Or maybe they were all sleeping in front of the television, empty plates in front of them on the coffee table.

Dane cruised up to the door. Just a nice Italian boy coming out for a visit. Maybe they were asking him in.

He parked, walked up to the door, and rang the bell. Why not? Don Monti had manners, at least. Before he did anything else, the man would want to talk. The Monticellis liked to talk.

Georgie Delmare, the
consigliere,
met him at the door bordered by two younger Monti thugs. He was surprised to see Dane but hid it well. His chin stiffening only the slightest bit. “Mr. Danetello. My, you certainly do come seeking trouble, don't you?”

“Never my intention, Georgie, believe it or not.”

“As Daniel told the lion. What do you want?”

“I think you know. Vinny here?”

“If he were, you'd very probably be dead by now.”

“You popping off one-liners like the wiseguys now? That was pretty good, I gotta admit. You gotta loosen your shoulders a little though, you know? Work your neck. Hey listen, there's this movie called
Under Heaven's Canopy.
Watch for the scene with the chick with the rocket launcher on the bridge. You can pick up a few pointers.”

One of the thugs glared at Dane, but the other had a thousand-yard gaze going, probably thinking of Glory Bishop and the look on her sweaty face when she pulled the trigger.
I'm gonna rock your world, baby!
A stupid grin started pushing his lips out of shape, but he caught himself in time and began glowering again.

Delmare stared at the Caddy, glowering, mouth open, then closing, then opening. “Isn't that Phil Guerra's Cadillac?”

“No, it's mine.”

The tiniest change of expression, which in Georgie Delmare was pure shock. “Yours? But, no, I'm quite sure that it's—”

“Yeah, mine. Listen, I love gabbing with you, Georgie, but I want to see Don Pietro.”

“That's quite impossible. Don't be ridiculous. Leave now and you might save your skin for a few days more. I suggest you leave the city immediately.”

“The man taught me to play five-card draw when I was seven. I've had about five hundred meals here and attended every baptism, confirmation, and graduation in the family for the last two decades. Minus the last couple of years anyway. He'll talk to me.”

“I don't think this is in your best interest.”

Dane took a breath, feeling his impatience welling and about to break the surface. He'd always hated being edgy before, but now it felt kind of good. “You want to check out a real show of force?”

It perked up the legbreakers, who both sneered because they thought it was the thing to do. Dane wondered why no one bothered to teach them anything nowadays, content just to have muscle milling around without any purpose.

Delmare said, “You're a very foolish man, Mr. Danetello.”

“Quit trying to sweet-talk me.”

Stepping back, Delmare gestured for the thugs to frisk Dane. They did a sloppy job of it, these mooks always afraid to touch a guy's groin or ass. You could smuggle a little palm-sized mini-Glock in your crotch and wipe six guys out without trying.

“If you won't listen to reason, Danetello, then enter. The Don is a very ill man. If he wishes to speak to you, he will. If not, you'll leave without any trouble. If there is trouble, I'll take matters into my own hands and abolish you as a problem for this family. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

“Sure. Thanks, Georgie.”

The
consigliere
led Dane through the foyer, the thugs strutting behind. They walked past glass cases and shelves containing Renaissance artwork, statuary, and shrines of Catholic significance. Family photos took up most of the remaining space on the shelves. Plenty of dour-faced people standing around frowning at the camera. Italians loved to show off the faces of their family.

“They always wore a lot of black,” Dane said.

“Many of them have died violent deaths,” Delmare told him. “Additionally, Catholics like to mourn.”

“Don't I know it.”

He was escorted into a broad living room that was dark with cherry paneling and burgundy carpeting, waves of rain slashing at the bay windows. More photographs abounded. A deep sense of anguished expectation spun in the air.

Don Pietro Monticelli still generated an overwhelming sense of power and confidence, even crippled in his chair, the years wearing into him like sandstorms cutting into rock. He had been one of the roughest, most intimidating bastards back in his prime. He sat smoking a thin European cigarette, fringed by Joey Fresco and Big Tommy Bartone, who were assembled on an uncomfortable-looking settee. Dane was a little shaken to see they were all drinking coffee and being chatty as the nuns of Our Lady of Blessed Mercy during a bake sale.

Delmare leaned down and whispered in the Don's ear. The old man waved his
consigliere
away and gestured for Dane to enter.

“John,” the Don said.

“Hello, Don Pietro.”

“You show great confidence inviting yourself into my home. Perhaps too much.”

“I didn't invite myself in. I just rang the bell.”

Dane stepped closer to the huge windows at the back of the room, watching as the streaming water battered the glass.

They all remained like that until Joey Fresco decided to tighten the tension and flex his attitude.