Finally, with a grunt of satisfaction, Roberto Monticelli got his pistol loose from the small of his back. His face bloomed with an ecstasy so ideal that he nearly glowed with happiness.
He cried out, “You're dead, you strunzo!” and started to bring the.44 around.
Dane slugged Roberto Monticelli on the point of his chin and knocked him back into the fervently turquoise front door.
Simple, sure, but the gun had barely cleared the holster and Berto hit the middle six panels of the door hard. A crack appeared in the wood. It vibrated roughly enough that the brass knocker clapped a couple times. A sweet scent of lilacs floated in from somebody else's yard. The big foot on the lawn appeared to be angry-ready to kick a lot of ass-in the slashing sunlight.
With a viciously slick grin twisting his mouth, the butchery so clear in Berto's eyes that they were black with hatred, his tongue lolled good-naturedly in his mouth until the Magnum went off behind him.
It blasted fragments of his spine into, and out through, his own heart. A burst of blood and gristle shot across the flagstone stoop.
Dane stood there staring, thinking, Un-fuckin'-believable.
There it is. I just crossed the final line. I'll never be able to get back to the other side again.
The door opened and he looked into the horrified faces of Carmella Monticelli, her podiatrist husband, and some fat broad in baby-blue orthopedic sneakers.
Dane blinked and found his voice, said, “It was an accident. Kind of. I'm sorry. Is Maria here?”
Nearly as beautiful as her sister, but lacking the nameless extra quality that sent the lightning down into his soul, Carmella's lips worked silently. She kept gawking at her dead brother on her front step, bits and pieces of his major organs having blown out onto the lawn.
“Where is she?” Dane asked.
“Vinny took her home a couple hours ago,” Carmella whispered, just as the podiatrist threw up on his welcome mat, and the fat lady started hopping around on her bad feet, shrieking.
TWENTY-SIX
It rattled him a touch. Dane quickly pulled away from the curb and drove back to Grandma Lucia's house. This was a turn of events that some people might describe as pretty bad. Seriously fucked, even.
But there was something else going on, and his scars began to warm. He checked around for Vinny but didn't see him anywhere. Dane clicked on the radio, waiting for the music to change to the voices of the dead, berating him, reviling him. It didn't happen. He said, “JoJo? Angie?” Struggling to remember his father's face. “Dad?”
All that blood, the guy's heart practically exploding out his chest and wobbling through the air, but not a drop on Dane. He sat behind the wheel fingering the ring, suddenly realizing just how small the rock was when you got down to it. All these wiseguys, tripping over themselves with new scams and enterprises, but what the hell did they do with their cash?
He lit a cigarette and got onto the highway, staring at the cracked, discolored, cement wall surrounding the cemetery. The shadows of the extravagant gravestones flashed out across the lanes. Cold patches warning you of what was coming. He took the exit and drove through Outlook Park and into Headstone City.
There was still only the one pattern he could move in through the neighborhood, this direction, with the faces of the deadly seven sins glaring down at him from the sides of the brownstones. They seemed to be having a deep dialogue.
Could you ever be forgiven for what you've done?
His mother said nothing. His father didn't run out in front of the grille. The Caddy hummed as he went along, the decades of power and beauty working into Dane's chest. He made a turn and rolled through the cemetery, taking precise curves, never hitting the brake, smoothly swinging past the leaning gravestones trying to make a grab as he went by. He drove out through the gates and parked in front of his grandmother's house.
Were you supposed to have done it? Did they want you to do it? Had they been waiting for you to take the step?
Dane had the storm door open, sticking his key in the lock, when the screech of tires drew his attention back to the street. A smudge of black motion coming from the driveway. They'd found him already.
Dane dove inside as Joe Fresco called out with an amiable, “Hey, hold up!”
Uh-huh. Dane slammed the door shut, threw the dead bolt, and drew the well-oiled.38 from his jacket pocket.
Who was in charge of matters now? Vinny or the Don? Or were some of the boys starting to cut loose?
The Monticelli mob liked to send their crews in teams of three. It was a stupid ploy. They were already getting in each other's way as they came up across the lawn. Joey seemed to be running this part of the show, with a bit too much composure. It would've been easier to take him out if he was raving, like back at the Monti mansion.
But Joey had it together now. He'd be tougher to drop. Dane tried not to think about what the inside of a trunk might feel like while you were waiting for somebody to fire up a blowtorch.
Grandma Lucia plodded out from the kitchen. She'd spent the morning dyeing her hair again. Christ, he had to turn away. “Why do you do that to yourself?” he asked.
Her presence pressed against him like the turbulent massing of a hurricane. “Where the hell's the cannoli!”
“Look, I got a situation here-” He rushed to her, took her elbow, and led her out of the living room and back into the kitchen.
“You piss somebody off?” she asked.
“You could say that.”
“Who?”
“I accidentally killed Roberto Monticelli.”
She let out a long-suffering sigh that went, “Uyh-” Really sounding deeply irritated, it was a talent she had. In all these years he hadn't quite gotten it down right.
She smacked him in the back of the head with fingers like iron. “Stunad! What'd you do? Run him over, the way you drive?”
He pushed her toward the cellar. “Go wait for me.”
“I've got pesto funghi on the stove.”
“Leave it, we'll have it later.”
“Don't talk to them. Those Monticellis like to talk.” She opened the cellar door and left it open, the basement steps creaking as she moved into darkness.
“Just keep your hot pink head down.”
“It's magenta, I told ya!”
Joey and his thugs forced themselves against the front door, shouldering the dead bolt. All three of them were at it, nobody coming around to the back of the house to cut off an escape. He heard them shouting, Joey still trying to sound smooth and natural, a pal come around to watch a ball game. “Hey, Danetello, c'mon, I just want to chat. Have a sit-down.”
So it was going to be like that.
“Yeah, about what?” Dane yelled.
“About our conversation the other day.”
“Which one specifically?”
“From the other day!”
“Oh, when I punched you in the throat a couple times?”
“Yeah!”
The hitters fired several shots, sort of playing around, shooting up the door, having a good time. Dane had to admit it felt like the ending of some movie where nobody gave a shit anymore, they all just go rushing headlong into hell. The door burst open.
Joey and his boys were in the living room now, chattering like they were sitting around a bar waiting for somebody to buy them a beer. Joey called out, “Hey there. How about if we just relax and have a nice discussion. Defuse this situation before it gets any worse. How's that? How'd that be?”
“Sure,” Dane said, and they opened up on the sound of his voice, firing into the other side of the wall. Splinters and chunks of plaster spewed all over the kitchen as he squatted lower behind the refrigerator. Joey Fresco was back to using his.357. Grandma was right, they liked to get you talking.