Tom Piccirilli: Headstone City

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.

Three guys but nobody moving up on him, no one spreading out any covering fire. The rattle of a glass caught Dane's attention.

Son of a bitch.

One of them was actually in the candy dish.

Sometimes you had just enough guts and technique to get you where you were going. He thought of Maria, his promises met and those unkept, and he spun into the doorway and aimed at the nearest hitter, easing back on the trigger of the.38.

It took Joey's lieutenant in the thigh and whipped him around so that he faced the opposite direction. Dane didn't even get an impression of what the bastard looked like, of who he was, this man he was killing. He fired twice more and nailed the guy both times between the shoulder blades, a splash of blood soaring against the plastic-covered couch pillows.

Look at this, look at where I am now.

And it's only going to get easier.

Dane had screwed up, the scene was too large in his mind. He'd lost his cover, jumped out too far, and had nowhere to hide. No choice but to continue leaping forward to the end. He fired twice more at the other hitter and missed both times, and he only had one bullet left. He was saving it for Joey, who was chewing on Grandma's black licorice, the.357 held too low. The thug was closer, already aiming his.45 at Dane's chest.

The pesto funghi had started to smoke, filling the room with a sharp odor of overcooked sauce that still managed to make Dane's stomach growl.

This was bad. His hand flashed out and caught the thug by the wrist, pulling him forward so the barrel of the.45 actually passed over his ribs. The guy wasn't fast enough to pull the trigger in time, and nowhere near light enough on his feet to stay balanced.

You had to count your good fortunes when they occurred. The hitter threw his arms out like a little kid walking on ice, sliding on Grandma Lucia's plastic runner protecting the carpet. After thirty years of walking on that goddamn thing, Dane was finally happy it was there.

He brought the.38 up, pressed it to the prick's cheekbone, said, “This isn't about you,” and shot him through the head.

Joey spit out his licorice.

He wasn't as good with guns as he used to be. He'd grown lazy as he'd been promoted up the family chain, and he wound up putting too much faith in the men around him. Joey held his.357 out in front of him but had too tight a grip on it, the way second-rate drivers would grip a steering wheel in a high-speed pursuit. The gun angled slightly downward. Joey was used to his snub-nosed.22, and the weight of the Magnum was throwing him off a hair.

Ten feet separated them. Dane aimed the empty.38 at Joey's heart. He just might be able to bluff his way out here, if he had enough slickness to get by. Joey Fresco probably hadn't counted the shots. He was getting older, more insecure, not keeping his mind on the business at hand. His suit jacket had stuffed shoulder pads to lend him some extra size, but they appeared as stiff as a French general's epaulets.

“With a Magnum, I can miss you and still punch a hole through your chest,” Joey said.

“Drop it. I'm trained. I can put out your eye from a thousand yards.”

“Yeah, they teach you that in the army?” Joey asked. “Special Forces? No wonder you handled those two so easy. Am I right?”

“Yeah.”

“You do any assassination stuff?”

“All the time.”

“Down in Nicaragua?”

It was becoming fairly apparent that the men of the Monticelli clan were about as upright and stable as the Tower of Pisa.