Tom Piccirilli - Headstone City

“You want to tell me what's up with all this Steve McQueen car chase shit? Coming after me out in the middle of the goddamn street?”

“I'm sorry about that, Johnny.”

“I just bet you are, Big. It's a nice car, you should take better care of it. You know how many people we could've hurt? I thought you wiseguys like to keep things quiet, up close and personal.”

“I do.”

“Then, really, man, following me around a hospital? You want we should shoot up a few leukemia patients? Turn the ICU into a fire zone? Come on, what the fuck?”

Tommy held the gun out, a moderate offering. He must've had three other pistols in holsters all over his body, plus the knife. “I got no clue, Johnny.”

“What's that mean? And don't move for your upside-down blade, Big. That shit might look cool but you won't clear it in time.”

“I won't go for it.” None of the smugness there anymore, all of it washed away in a kind of juvenile humiliation. “Listen, everybody, even the Don, knows what happened with Angie was an accident. We know you ain't responsible. But we got no choice, see? An order is an order.”

“Put the pistol away, Big, and keep your hands clear of the other hardware.” Tommy did it carefully, afraid to move his arms. “Now, use your head. You guys really want to be part of a crew run by somebody like that?”

“Not much we can do about it. We signed up for the long haul. We betray the Montis, and nobody else will have us anyway.”

“The Don isn't dead yet. He's old but he's not senile. Why isn't he putting his foot down about stupid moves like this one?”

“He's sick and in a lot of pain. It makes him a little loopy sometimes. He lets Berto run the show any way he likes.”

Dane hadn't expected Roberto's name to come up at all. He figured everybody was really following Vinny's orders. “And Vinny?”

“He spends a lot of time alone. He's playing the violin again, I hear it in the house every once in a while. But on all of this, he don't say much.”

Angelina had told Dane the same thing. Vinny doesn't say anything. The hell was going on? Vinny was taking a backseat while Berto ran the show? Dane couldn't see it.

“And what about Delmare? Even the old school consigliere goes along with this sort of crap? He's supposed to be the one with the brains. He tells the family when they're acting pazzo. What's going on over there?”

“His brains will be all over his breakfast plate if he doesn't go along with Berto.”

But no, that wasn't a good enough answer. It was the goomba in him talking, a natural tough guy response. “You're scared of him, Big?”

It skinned his ego, being asked a question like that. “I'm not scared of anybody.”

“Then why not put your foot down?”

“I got three kids in college.”

Dane snorted. “You wiseguys, everything you do is for your kids' education. You squeeze a guy's nuts with vise grips, and it's because Tommy Jr.'s gotta take a class on French Renaissance poetry.”

“You're from the neighborhood, Johnny, you know how it is.”

True enough, and maybe that explained everything, and maybe it didn't and never actually would. Dane stared into Big Tommy Bartone's face and remembered how, when he was a kid, he used to see this man strutting down the sidewalk in front of Chooch's with a beautiful woman on his arm, heading for a Lincoln Continental, and think how much he wanted to be like him.

“Where is everybody?” Tommy asked, his eyes weaving left and right. “We been here for fifteen minutes and I ain't seen anybody.”

“Not even the sick kids?” Dane asked.

“Who?”

“Forget it. They're busy. Now, tell me about Vinny's movie plans.”

Tommy wet his lips. “I don't know much about that.”

Dane pressed the barrel harder into Tommy's nose, really working it into his nostril. “Does it always have to be the hard way, Big? Tell me what you do know so we can both go home.”

“Vinny wanted to get back into the drug business, cutting deals with some shithead out in Hollywood.”

“Yeah. Glory Bishop's husband. You know the dink's name?”

“No.”

It was starting to get to Dane, not knowing the guy's name. “And you all just went along with it? After working so long to get out of the drug trade, get everything legit so the feds would get the fuck off your backs?”

“It was a way to get all the way out.”

Dane repeated the line out loud and it still made no sense. “Explain that, would you?”

“If we had to pick up the drug trade a little so we could have the cash flow to invest in some production companies in Hollywood, it seemed like the wise choice. Delmare agreed. We don't need to score all that much coke for these California types, and the cash is easily laundered. It was an okay business proposition. Do a little of the old business so we could invest in a new legitimate one. After a while, we drop the drugs and we're totally set up on the West Coast with new friends, new opportunities.”

“Except the guy, Glory's husband, was already being watched by the feds.”

“They were all over him. I ain't never seen anything like it before, the way they were on him. The idiot was bringing the stuff up from Central America on his own, and the people he was working with were paying off by transporting guns. Down there, they have revolutions like we have garbage strikes. I don't think the feds even cared about the stuff, it was about the weapon shipments in and out of the country.”

Dane's scars began to heat.

The nausea rolled up through his belly and almost made him gag, but he swallowed the sickness down. Icy sweat slithered across his scalp, and his skull started to burn. He tightened the muscles in his legs to control the trembling. He jammed the gun harder into Tommy's face so he'd turn away.

Behind them in the alcove, Dane saw the flickering image of Vinny standing there pulling a cigarette from the pack. He held it out in Dane's direction like he wanted a light. Vinny looked only half-formed, like a child's inaccurate drawing. He moved his mouth carefully so Dane could read his lips. You're real, all right.

Dane frowned, hoping Vinny would step forward into this particular reality, but he only stood there dissipating, strand by strand, one line after another erased until he was gone.

Games, always with the games. Dane's head cleared. He waved Tommy off with the.38 and said, “I gotta worry about you and a fuckin' drive-by now? Like the mulignan gangbangers? That what the Monti crew is down to?”

“No. That's not what I want.”

“Good. Now go back home and tell them you missed, but it's no problem. Johnny Danetello will be visiting soon.”

“I can't tell them that.”

“Say whatever you want, Big, but if you come at me again, I'm going to have to kill you, okay? We clear on that one point, you and me?”

Big Tommy Bartone, who used to be Don Pietro's number one capo, the heaviest hitter, in charge of the dirty work and the shooters, with eyes that used to dance with a kind of insanely happy light whenever blood was spilled, looked at Dane with a thousand-yard stare and nodded.

It made Dane a little sad, seeing that nod, wondering where all the old-time good guys and bad guys had gone.

Tommy started off down the hall, stopped, and turned back. “There's something else.”

“What's that?” Dane asked.

“I don't think Vinny's really mad at you at all. I just think he's out of his fuckin' mind.”

The pink hair like neon fire.

With little grace but full of commitment, Grandma Lucia plodded along, those powerful arms swinging at her sides, the pocketbook really jumping. As if she were heading off to face the village elders who'd forced her to deny the Virgin Mary. How it must still bother her even after seventy years, those wide hands balled into fists. You knew where you stood in the mortal chain when you saw that old woman walking toward the cemetery where your parents were buried. Seeing her like that, you realized how weak you really were down where it counted most.