I heard a faint rumbling sound behind me and a light behind me cast my shadow along the road. Stefano looked over my shoulder and I turned too. A westbound train was coming around the bend, following the curve of the river. I looked back at Stefano and in the light cast by the train I saw a dark figure move up the riverbank behind him.
“Is Vito dead too?” I asked.
He nodded. “We took care of him just before we came to see you. Made it look like a robbery at a club he owns. Dad’s going to be awfully upset when he hears about it, the old vegetable. I might have to water him extra to help him get over the shock.”
I stood shivering in the rain, looking at this cold little bastard in his trim suit and polished shoes. The sound of the train grew louder. Then behind Stefano I saw Dante Ryan steal across the road, near the embankment that led up to the Parkway. What was he doing? Bailing on me?
The train blew a long loud whistle as it approached the level crossing. I heard bells ringing: the barrier lowering across Pottery Road. Ryan was behind the abandoned shopping cart, pushing it out of the weeds onto the road.
“Was Christine Staples in on it from the beginning?”
“Not quite,” Stefano said. “She actually did her job at first, tried to stop us from bringing goods across. But she turned out to be a most impressive woman. She saw things the way I saw them. She understood what the future could hold.”
Ryan was closing the gap between him and Stefano as the train drew closer, the sound of it getting louder, the light on Stefano’s face growing brighter. When Ryan was ten or twelve feet behind Stefano, he broke into a run. Whatever noise the cart wheels made was drowned out by the sounds of the approaching train, the river and the Parkway. Stefano never heard it coming. The cart slammed into his back at full speed. The gun flew out of his hand. As his slight body lurched forward toward me, I stepped forward and kicked him hard in the chest. He staggered backward. I kicked him again and he sailed off the road and landed on his back in the river with a splash and a groan.
Ryan leaned on the cart. I asked if he was okay and he nodded.
“And the Clip?”
“Dead. Drowned. Busted his head with a rock and held him under.”
“Saving my life is becoming a habit with you,” I said. “Don’t feel any need to kick it.”
“We’re not done,” Ryan said. “We can’t leave this one alive.”
I swallowed hard. Killing someone in a fight was one thing. Doing it while he lay helpless was another.
Ryan picked up Stefano’s gun.
“Just make it quick,” I said.
“I’m not going to shoot him,” Ryan said.
“No?”
“No,” he said, extending the gun-butt to me. “You are.”
CHAPTER 50
For the second time that day, I found myself questioning Ryan’s sanity. The words fucking and crazy featured prominently in my remarks.
“I can’t shoot an unarmed man,” I hissed.
“But I can?”
“It’s what you do.”
“Nice, Geller. Real nice.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“The fuck you didn’t.”
“Come on.”
“I should have let Staples shoot you. Or Stefano. Or Marco. How many times do I have to save your ass before you wake the fuck up?”
“But why?” I asked. “Why do I have to?”
“Because sooner or later, I’m going to have to face the old man, Vinnie Nickels. I’m going to have to look him in the eye and tell him I didn’t do his boys, and it’d be easier if it was true. But the real reason is if I do it, you’ll have witnessed three killings. Staples, Ricky and Stefano. You’ll have that on me the rest of my life. I like you, Jonah, and I trust you, much as I do anyone. But how do I know what you’d say if the cops bring you in? How do I know you won’t flip? You finish Stefano, at least we have something on each other.”
“I would never say a word against you.”
“You say it now and I believe you. Or at least I believe that you believe it. But it’s different when the cops start sweating you, laying charges on you.”
“So if I do it, I’m a co-conspirator. If I don’t, I’m a witness. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t leave witnesses.”
“Don’t go there, Jonah. Please.”
I looked down toward the river. I thought I could make out the dark shape of Ricky Messina’s body in the water, partially obscured by fallen cedar boughs. Stefano Di Pietra was lying on the stepping stones that led from one side to the other. He wasn’t moving. Maybe he was already dead and talk of killing him could stop. Then I heard him call out faintly for help. There would be no easy way out.
I looked at Dante Ryan. His left eye was horribly swollen. Blood was drying on his cheek. He had to tilt up his chin to look at me.
“I’m making my break,” he said. “I’m going home to my wife and my son. I’m going to clean myself up and hope I don’t lose my eye. I’m going to play with my boy, lie down with my wife and sleep for a week. Or until Vinnie Nickels calls me.”
I said nothing.
Ryan laid the gun on the ground. “You do whatever you want with Stefano. Kill him or don’t. If his life means that much to you, let him live. As long as you understand we’ll both be dead in twenty-four hours.”
Ryan started walking down the road toward the gate.
I picked up the gun and made my way down the river-bank, hoping Stefano would expire on his own or slip into an irreversible coma.
He was lying spread-eagled in the river, water lapping at his sides. There were large granite rocks under him, one with a sharp edge, as if it had cleaved off a larger boulder. The edge was right under Stefano’s neck. The tungsten lights brought out the pink of the granite. The water around him had a pink tinge too.
“I can’t move,” he said. “I can’t feel anything.”
I waded into the river and sat down on a rock beside him. The water level was halfway up his face, covering his ears. His eyes were glassy, unfocused. His hands bobbed in the water, palms up. Blood seeped out of a large gash in the back of his head, mixing in the water. Another pollutant fouling the Don.
“You should know Staples is dead.”
He moved his eyes to where I was. Strained to bring me into focus. “No…”
“Ryan killed her. She was about to shoot me and he shot first. Once in the chest, once in the throat.”
He groaned softly.
“I want you to know exactly how many people died because of you.”
“I can’t… feel my…”
“Can you feel this?” I tapped his chest with the barrel of his gun.
“Please…”
“Please what? Kill you or get you out of here?”
“Out?”
“You killed Kenneth Page.”
“Ricky did-”
“You ordered it done, yes?”
His eyes moved to the gun against his chest and then back to mine. “Yes.”
“And Francois Paradis.”
“Yes.”
“And Amy Farber.”
“Who?”
“Barry’s wife. Staples killed her before she took a shot at me.”
“Not Barry?”
“No.”
“She was supposed to get Barry too.”
I stood up with the gun in my hand and looked down at Stefano. His injuries mirrored his worst qualities: a cold man shivering in cold river water; a twisted man whose limbs were broken and askew; an unfeeling man whose extremities were numb.
In all my time in the Israeli army, I rarely saw my enemies’ faces. Stones would come flying out of a crowd. Masked men would open fire. Rockets would rain down from behind walls and orchards. Now I was looking an enemy in the face. The man responsible for so many deaths. Who would have killed me had he had the chance. Who’d still have me killed if I let him live.
The Book of Jonah says even your most intractable enemies are worthy of salvation. But what happens when you need saving more than they do?
I pointed the gun at Stefano Di Pietra. It felt much heavier than its one and three-quarter pounds. He closed his eyes.