Page 41

CHAPTER FORTY

“ O kay. Indulge me. Just a little. The condemned woman. It’s not too much to ask.”

I take another sip of the lemonade.

“That really is lovely.” I give him a smile. “So, perhaps you’ll tell me this. When you staged your failed attempt at kidnapping me, were you planning to have me ransomed, or dumped out in the ocean, or was your plan simply to have me kept out of the way while you played your little games with our businesses?”

“Look, I don’t know what?—”

“Because you already knew what you were going to do. You got the keys to the kingdom from somewhere, didn’t you. Routes, locations, names of contacts. You found a rainbow that really had a pot of gold at the end. Lots of really top grade information. So. You thought; targeted raids, maximum disruption, weaken the Fortuna business empire. Blow holes in the foundations. Then, take over all of our territory, scoop up all the spoils, salvage the remains. Bingo. One giant leap, and you’d be bigger than Don Pucci.”

“Donna Fortuna–”

“Did you have plans for him, too?

“Listen–

“But you chose to play it safe. You wanted to get me out of the way first.”

“Please.”

“I should be flattered. I am flattered. Why not? Your family has been established here as one of the top five at least, for more than fifty years. The Life is in your blood. You’ve been bred to be a capo from generations of capi.”

“I–”

“But you thought I could be that big a threat.”

“Donna–”

“Me! A girl. Seriously, Don Romano, haven’t we come a long way? Hmm? Just five years ago, that would have been unthinkable. I’ll let you into a secret — my daddy thought it was pretty unthinkable, right up to — well. You know how it goes. The mind can get to a certain turning and then — away with the fairies. He seems happy. Considering. Even though he’s lost in a world of delusional shadows and specters. I think a guilty conscience is probably a bad companion for dementia.”

He draws breath to speak, but I get in too fast. “Still. I’m wandering off the point. Do forgive me, Don Romano. You never did tell me. Do you have a favorite?”

“What?” He sounds angry.

“Son. We talked about this before.”

“Stop asking me that. What–”

I shrug. “So. You arranged to get me out of the way, by having me kidnapped. Nice plan with a crash and a fake ambulance.”

I laugh. “You know, if my men hadn’t been stalking me, staking me out the way that they were, you would totally have gotten away with that. Very impressive. And you know the hilarious coincidence? The reason they were shadowing me, staking me out? It was all because of Jago.”

Now he’s listening.

“I know. Amazing. Right? You couldn’t make it up. Somebody found her in East Bumfuck, FLA, and let us know. We told them to keep tabs on her. Of course, they didn’t. Turned out to be a complete nincompoop.” That asshole. “But then, what do you know, she shows up here.” I shake my head. “That must have been when she came to make the deal with you, right?”

He blinks.

I ask, “What did he say, Carlo?”

Carlo says, “He said ‘yes.’”

Don Romano shouts, “What?”

I tell him, “Carlo is a world championship level poker player. He’s reading your face on the phone.” Don Romano’s eyes bulge.

I say, “It’s possible that you found Jago, but I doubt it. All that talk about capitalism, competition and the spirit of enterprise, it’s all very stirring but, deep down, you’re not that much of a pioneer, are you. Not really. No, I think she came to you. She knocked on your door with the pocket full of secrets. And you could not believe your luck.”

I wait.

“Am I right, Carlo?”

“Yup.”

So I go on, “I bet she had a little black book. Yes? She made detailed notes, all the time she was draining Don Fortuna’s balls. Whenever she wasn’t brewing up poisoned gruel — as far as I know, she didn’t set out to poison anyone. She’s just the world’s most horrible cook.

“So, she came to you. Out of the blue, most likely. And I expect she said, ‘Here’s how you can steal all the treasure in Fortuna Island and have it all for yourself. And what did she want? A share, I would think. But probably a modest one. She’s not a Bugattis and diamonds kind of a gal, is she? Be honest. No, she will have spent a long evening calculating the biggest number she could demand that you wouldn’t even blink at. Wouldn’t give it a thought. Am I right? I wonder what that number would be. Chump change to you. A fortune for her. That would hardly be enough to cover the tip for the treasure map to all of our crown jewels. What would you guess? Well, sorry. Rude of me. You can’t play can you. Not when you already know. I’m going to say… Half a mil. Just tell me if I’m way off base. Am I near?”

I ask, “Carlo? What did he say? When I said, ‘Half a mil’ what did his face tell you?”

“On the nose.”

I laugh. “This is all a bit like poker, isn’t it? And you really went all in. You bought her map, you ponied up her share. Probably gave it to her in parcels. So it felt even more like a lot to her. Two fifty, a hundred, fifty, then another hundred.” Then I realize… “Oh! She won’t have collected the last installment yet, will she?”

Interesting . I hadn’t thought about that angle. There’s an outstanding payment still due.

I press on. “So, you went all in. Got me out of the way. Jago will have liked that part a lot, I bet.” And then the penny drops. “Was that the cherry?”

Don Romano’s face pales, whitens over his cheekbones.

“Was that the real prize for her?” An icy chill runs down my spine. “Were you planning to make her a gift… of me?”

I hardly dare ask. “What did his face tell you, Carlo?”

Carlo’s voice is a soft, flat whisper. “Right on the money, kitten.”

My blood runs cold. I have to take a breath. “Now. I’m sorry but at this point, I really do have to insist. I will need to know now.”

“What?

“Your favorite son.”

His face looks as pale as mine feels. He says nothing.

“Well, okay. Never mind. If you can’t pick one, don’t worry. I will choose for you. They are without doubt both useless, dumb, idle, and in every way inept fools. And they have horrible manners. But I suppose they are quite pretty.” I look in his face. “Must take after their mother. But pretty has been enough of a yardstick to measure the worth of girls and women for centuries so, you care about them because they are yours, and you don’t need any more reason.”

I narrow my eyes. “Still, wouldn’t it be better if you chose one, rather than me?”

“Choose? Pick one? For what, Donna Fortuna?”

“Carlo? Would you patch Catlin in on the call, please.”

An image appears on the screen.

A wide ocean horizon. A long, heavy metal beam is horizontal in the center of the frame.

Off each end of the beam, hanging by his hands, a man dangles. I turn the phone to show Don Romano.

“Catlin, can you give us a couple of close-ups of the faces, just for clarity.”

The picture switches to a close-up of one of the twins, Dario or Ettore. I can’t tell them apart. Then it cuts to the other, on the far end.

“And close-ups of their hands, if you would, please.”

The frame is filled by a pair of hands, gripping onto the beam. A red dot flickers on the wrists. Then the screen flips to the other pair of hands, facing the other way, also with a red dot, wavering on the wrists.

Don Romano yells, “Trace that call!”

“Good luck with that. You’ll be able to locate this end easily enough, but you already know where we are. The other end is a satellite phone.”

“Where are they?”

“I have no idea. Nobody does. We told our snipers to choose the location and to keep it to themselves.”

“This is unbearable. You can’t do this to me.”

“Can’t I? Let me think. Hang on. Oh, wait up, no. It seems that I can.”

Tears stream down his face.

“I’m thinking that I might let you have one of them back, but I’m finding it hard to decide which one. And you’ve been no help at all. Of course,” I smile, “I can’t really tell them apart. Especially not from the pics over the phone. Can you?”

His face is hollow.

“So, this is the showdown. Here it can go either way. I can give you all that you ask for. I’ll sign your paper and hand over everything. And you can watch your two sons drop into the ocean. One after the other.”

I reach for the paper and hold out my hand for a pen.

“Or,” I pull out the paper I had drawn up from my own pocket.“You can sign everything to me, and I’ll let you have one of them back. Up to you. Have you decided yet which one is your favorite? Dario or Ettore?”

His head is in his hands.

I tell him, “So. It turns out you’re not willing to make the big sacrifices after all. When it comes to it, you can’t take the tough decision.”

I look at him as his head slowly raises. “At the crunch point, the moment where winner takes all, you fold. You went all in on me, Don Romano. And you could have won so big. But it turns out you went all in on a busted flush.”

“Shut UP!” he yells.

“You put it all out on the table. Big move. Bold. Courageous. And you lost. Now,” I push my contract to him. “Now you belong to me.”

“I expect your contract said much the same thing as mine. I’m taking it all. Clubs, bars, Wood Street dives. Dockside concessions, routes, everything. Everything.”

His head is shaking. “I wonder how carefully you’re listening at this point. I am recording this so we’ll have a record.”

His head is turning in his hands.

I say, “I believe you have a limo company, and a couple of planes, right? A teeny, tiny airline. What – two Beechcrafts and a helicopter, is that right? You can keep the cars and one of the aircraft. Take the best one, I don’t care.” I pause.

I don’t know if he’s taking any of this in. “I wouldn’t try to operate any of them here. Not if I were you. I would strongly council you to get out of the Pacific Northwest altogether. Take a powder. Up sticks, catch a breeze. Step on the bus, Gus. Begone. Like, yesterday.”

I sit back and watch him for a while. Watching the collapse of a bully is never pleasurable, but it does give some satisfaction.

“So.” I urge him. “Which son?”

He throws up his hands and howls.

“Take me. Take me instead. Let them go.”

“Everybody hear that? Are we all clear?” I look around the room at his men. The man who have watched their boss, the vicious tyrant, reduced to a blubbering wreck.

I tell him, “Sign first.”

And as he signs, I look at the Don’s henchmen around the room.

For years, every one of them has felt his moods and his temper. Like a lot of impulsive bully bosses that get drunk on their own charisma, he must have been as hard to take for them as he was for everybody else. Only they had the added chore of knowing that he would still be there tomorrow and next week and next year.

“Does anyone have any doubts or questions about what happened here today?”