R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

It was then, in the early part of June, that the ghosts came back to find me.

I was alone that night, Victor was away with friends at the cinema and I did not expect him back until late.

I was in the back room smoking a cigarette, and now I cannot remember what I was thinking about. I heard a car passing in the street beyond the front door, and then the car slowed and started to reverse. What made me rise and walk through to the front I do not know, perhaps some preternatural sense of foreboding, but I did rise, and I did walk through, and there I drew back the curtain and looked out into the street.

My breath caught in my chest. I could not believe that I was awake, that this wasn’t some awful dream, some nightmare sent to punish me. Ahead of my house a car had come to a halt, a deep burgundy car, a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, a car that had once belonged to Don Pietro Silvino and had been stored in a lock-up in Miami in July of 1968. A thirty-five-year-old memory surfaced like a dead body through black and turgid water.

The driver’s door opened. I strained to see who was getting out of the vehicle. I could barely stand when I saw him. I leaned against the edge of the window and started to breathe deeply. There, on the sidewalk, no more than ten yards from where I struggled to maintain my balance, was Samuel Pagliaro, a man I had only ever known as Ten Cent.

He turned, and though he could not have seen me there behind the curtain, it seemed he was looking right at me. I felt a cold rush of fear pass through my body, and for a time I could not move.

He started walking towards the house. I backed away from the window and made my way to the front door. I opened it before he reached the end of the path. He stopped in his tracks. This old man, a man who made me see how far we had come, stood there for a moment and then held his arms wide and smiled.

‘Ernesto!’ he said proudly. ‘Ernesto, my friend!’

I felt tears in my eyes. I stepped out onto the path. I walked towards him. I hugged him. I held him for some small eternity and then I released him and stepped back.

‘Ten Cent,’ I said. ‘Ten Cent… you are here.’

‘That I am,’ he said. ‘And as this is such a special occasion I have brought you your car!’ He turned and indicated the Cruiser. It was the same as it had ever been. Three miles of silken paintwork and burnished chrome. My gift from Don Giancarlo Ceriano after the deaths of Pietro Silvino and Ruben Cienfuegos. I remembered everything, the past, all the things that had brought me here to this point, and I was overcome with emotion.

I started to cry, and then I was laughing, and then the two of us were walking into the house and closing the world out behind us.

We ate together, we drank wine, we spoke of things that had been, a little of things that were to come. Ten Cent asked after Victor; I showed him some of Victor’s work and Ten Cent was pleased and proud like an uncle would be of a talented and bright nephew. Ten Cent was family, had always been, would always be, but at the same time he represented everything that I had so much wanted to leave behind. I realized then that such things could never be left behind. They were always there, and it was simply a matter of time before they found you once again. The present, even the future – these things were always and forever only a mirror held up to the past. The man I once was had now been reflected, and though time had passed, though the mirror was aged and spotted with distortions and discolorations, it was still the same man who looked back at me: Ernesto Cabrera Perez, killer, absentee father, indirectly guilty of the deaths of two of the people whom he had loved most.

Later, three, four hours perhaps, Ten Cent was quiet for a moment. He looked at me seriously and I asked him what was wrong.

‘I came for a reason,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see you. I brought the car also. But there is another reason I came.’

I fell quiet inside. I could feel my heart beating in my chest.

‘Don Calligaris is dead,’ he said. ‘He died three weeks ago.’

I opened my mouth to ask what had happened.

‘He was an old man, and despite everything he survived all the world could throw at him. He died in his own bed, surrounded by the people who cared for him. It has taken me all this time and a great deal of money to track you down, Ernesto, but in his last moments Don Calligaris wished that I find you and tell you the truth.’

‘The truth?’ I asked, fear roiling up inside me like a tornado.

‘The truth,’ Ten Cent said, ‘about Angelina and Lucia… the night they died.’

I felt my eyes widen.

‘The bomb, as you know, was meant for Don Calligaris, and he did not tell you about it for fear of what you might do. But he is dead now, and before he died he wanted to know that you would discover the truth of who was responsible for their deaths.’

Ten Cent shook his head. ‘It all went back to Chicago, the friends we made back then, the people we were involved with. There were disagreements, people in New York who were unhappy with the way things turned out, and the responsibility for resolving the differences was given to Don Calligaris.’

‘Differences?’ I asked. ‘What differences?’

‘The differences between those within the family and those outside who we were involved with.’

‘What people?’ I asked.

‘Don Calligaris was charged with the responsibility of closing down any business agreements we had made with Antoine Feraud and his New Orleans operations.’

I looked at Ten Cent. I was struggling to understand what he was telling me.

‘Don Calligaris, as he died, wanted me to tell you who was responsible for attempting to kill him… who was responsible for the murder of your wife and your daughter.’

‘Feraud?’ I asked. ‘Feraud was responsible for the car bomb?’

Ten Cent nodded and then looked down at his hands. ‘Don Calligaris did not tell you, and made me swear that I would not tell you, because he feared that your vengeance might begin a war between the families that he would be held accountable for. Now he is dead, and he does not care what happens, and he loved you enough to want you to know the truth. He told me to tell you that you should take whatever action you felt was just in order to revenge the deaths of your wife and child.’

I sat back in my chair. I was emotionally and mentally overwhelmed. I could not find any words to describe how I felt, and thus I said nothing. I looked back at Ten Cent. He looked back at me unblinkingly, and then I nodded slowly and lowered my head.

‘You understand I will do what I have to,’ I said quietly.

‘Yes,’ Ten Cent replied.

‘And if I die doing this then it is not on your head.’

‘You will not die, Ernesto Perez. You are invincible.’

I nodded. ‘Perhaps so, but this thing I am going to do will be the undoing of everything. It will mean losing Victor perhaps, and it will mean trouble for the families.’

‘I know.’

‘But even so, you tell me this and you are prepared to let the cards fall where they may?’

‘I am.’

I reached forward and took Ten Cent’s hand. I looked up at him and saw the washed-out pale blue color of his eyes: the eyes of a tired man.

‘You have done what Don Calligaris asked you to do,’ I said, ‘and for this I am grateful. Now I think you should leave, you should forget me and Victor and pay no mind to what happens now. This thing of ours is done.’

Ten Cent nodded. He rose from his chair. ‘Give me your car keys,’ he said. ‘I am leaving the car I brought and I will take yours. You do what you have to do, and do it with the blessing of Don Fabio Calligaris.’

‘I will,’ I said quietly, and my voice was nothing but a broken whisper. ‘I will do this thing, and that will be the end.’