“You mean, did Annie send a message through a medium to say you murdered her?” Blood dribbled down my chin and pooled on my neck. “I haven’t seen any ectoplasm shimmering through my office. If she wrote your or Sol Mandel’s name on the living room floor, the cops kept that detail private. Of course, Oswald Brattigan, watch commander at the Fourth, he was your boy, he could have disposed of any evidence you left, to make sure Stella Guzzo carried the can for you.”
The circulation was starting to go in my hands. I would have been worried about them, except I was more worried that I was going to die soon. I curled and uncurled my fingers. My wrists scraped against the rope.
“Mandel was soft,” Scanlon said. “He let that little bitch bleed him, instead of taking care of her from day one. As soon as he told me what she was up to, he agreed something had to be done, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. I made him go to the Guzzo’s front door, on the pretext of reasoning with the girl about her demands. We let Spike do the honors, since it was his career we were helping build.”
Vince made a restless gesture.
“You think I shouldn’t say anything, little cousin?” Scanlon jeered. “Don’t tell me you’re soft, too. Warshawski isn’t going anywhere, isn’t going to tell anyone anything. Mandel and McClelland both knew Spike was tough enough to do anything, and he’s proved that over and over again in Springfield.”
“Yes, all you cousins,” I said, proud that my voice was steady, despite my terror and my aching mouth. “You and Vince, and Nina Quarles, who owns that law firm. Did you have her buy it in case Mandel had left any loose bits of evidence lying around in his old files?”
“Never mind why we did what we did. You wouldn’t understand that kind of loyalty, to family and to shared values. I’m giving you one chance to let me have the original of any other papers that came into your possession.”
“And if I give them to you?”
“Then your friends will survive to say prayers over your grave. If not, all those people, the old man, the dogs, the doctor, the musician, we will eliminate them one by one, and they will die cursing you.”
“Then if I had any papers to give you, I would do so in an instant. I don’t.”
More questions, no answers. More blows, no defense. Time lost meaning, voice lost meaning, body lost feeling.
We ended where we all knew we would, back in the pickup, out onto the docks, the hood on my head, truck driving up an incline, someone tossing me over the side, a smear of dust coming under the hood, choking me. I was on the coal mountain where Jerry Fugher died.
“That’s over with,” the smooth white voice said. “The last of the Warshawskis. They all thought they were too good for this world, and by God, they were.”
“Hey, man, you ain’tcha gonna bury her?” one of the green shirts asked.
“No need,” Scanlon said. “She’ll choke to death soon enough.”
“You’re making a mistake.” It was Bagby, his voice urgent but somehow supplicating. “You don’t own Rawlings and he won’t let her death go.”
“There’s no evidence, at least not if you do a good scrub-down in your office.” A pause. “Oh, Vince, Vince, don’t tell me you had the hots for her? It wasn’t an act? You ever get inside her pants? Want the boys to bring her back to the loading bay for some action before she dies?”
Bile rose in my throat.
“You’re an asshole, Rory.”
“Hey, I look out for widows and orphans and helpless cousins.”
Feet thudding on concrete, getting more remote. I burrowed hard with my butt, made a ledge in the coke. Shifted buttock to buttock, worked my hands down behind my thighs, bunched forward in a ball, slid my hands up over my legs. I lifted my bound hands to my face and the blood pounded painfully in my fingers. I tried pushing the hood away from my head, but it was buckled behind me. I couldn’t budge it. I stood on quivering legs, fell heavily.
Hands grabbed mine. Some action before I die, you’ll see action before I die. I kicked hard.
“Hey, Vittoria, mio core. Easy does it: I play with these fingers.”
STEALING HOME
I sat on the ground, leaning against Jake’s legs while he unbuckled the hood. When he’d freed me, he helped me down the hill, our feet sliding and sinking to their ankles. I kept coughing up balls of black phlegm and at the bottom, I was hit by such a violent paroxysm that I fell again.
Jake squatted, pulling me to him, stroking my filthy hair. “I was so afraid, mio core, so afraid I wouldn’t be in time.”
The dogs had roused the whole building, he said. He’d run first to my apartment.
“I saw that the door had been broken open, but my brain wouldn’t work. And then I saw them carrying you through the gate, that foul thing on your head. I ran to the alley, but their truck was already rattling away.”