For Nothing (26 page)

“Private: Case File Notes.”

Alex sucked in his breath. Jackpot. He thumbed through the notebook, page by page, and his excitement faded to amusement and reminiscing as he recal ed some of the cases that went back three years or more. It was like a freaking yearbook of Jack’s last years on the force. But as he thumbed through the booklet he thought it less and less certain that he would find anything useful. His fears were confirmed when he got to the last page and it was a case from a few months back.

Alex took the notebook and tossed it on the floor. It didn’t make sense. Why hide a notebook that contained nothing that should be hidden? Alex sat there for a moment and then picked the notebook back up. He flipped it right to the last page. He ran his finger across the paper and felt its smoothness on his fingertips. Alex noticed that there was a slight indent along the side of the paper. Perhaps it was just the indent from the pressure of a pen resting on it. But the impression ran along the page vertical, and it ran in to straight of a line.

Vaughn peered more close at it and realized it was not an indentation, but more like the softening of the paper. The detective lifted the pad of paper up to his nose and caught the faint smel of glue. He could feel his heart beat in his ears. Vaughn pul ed out his knife and found where the two pages out his knife and found where the two pages connected up near the top. He slid his knife in between the two pages and brought the blade down around the edges of the paper, pul ing the parchment apart. There in front of him was information about the case for sure. But how it fit together, Alex was not so sure. It read:

• $200,000 intercepted from Bonanno crew

• El iot can be trusted

• ‘The Pope’ has answers

• Get Alex’s help for the meet

Alex was now ful y awake. He could trust El iot, Jack wrote.

If it was good enough for Jack, then it sure as
hell is good enough for me,
Alex thought.

Alex threw his gun holster over his shoulders and tucked his knife back into the anklet above his boot. He grabbed his jacket and tucked the notebook inside. If ‘The Pope’ had answers, then that was where Alex was going to go.

Vaughn walked to the mantle and saw his old badge resting atop it, just as he left it. With a quick smile he dusted it off and pinned it to the inside of his jacket. Striding towards the door, Alex paused as he reached the banister. Some part of him pul ed at him to run up and say hel o to his wife, to check on his baby girl. His heart was up there already.

Brushing his fingers through is long brown hair; Alex set his face and forced his feet toward the door.

Rafael Rontego carried his bag of cash slung over his shoulder and his fedora tilted low over his head as he approached the cashier behind a relic of a wooden desk and a glass window. Rontego found it funny how similar to movie windows train station ticket windows were. A bald gentleman with glasses too large for his face greeted him at the window.

Christ
, Rafael thought.
Was this joker really
wearing a bowtie?
Best to get this over with.

“I’l take your quickest line to Toronto.” Rontego slid his passport under the window.

The geek behind the counter let out a chuckle and said, “Wel , that’s easy enough, sir. There is only one line from here to Toronto and it departs promptly at three in the afternoon.”

Rafael looked over the clerks shoulder and noticed a clock peaking back at him that read 6 A.M.

Nine fucking hours
.

The clerk must have noticed the dismay curl out of Rontego’s lips because he said, “Yep. You’re in for a bit of a wait. May I suggest those wooden benches over there? They are more comfortable than they seem.”

Rontego peered out at the little man and asked, “How long do you think it would take to walk there?”

The man chuckled again and his bowtie bounced with his Adam’s apple. “Wel , you could always take a cab. Or the bus, now that wouldn’t be so bad.”

Rontego shook his head; he wanted to take the train in, and the people on buses aggravated him.

Screw it. I’m in no rush.
“I’l take one ticket please to Toronto.”

“Very good then sir. One ticket it is. Would you like that to be first class?”

“Sure.”

The clerk handed over a ticket booklet and Rafael slid him cash to cover the ride. Rontego took a walk over to the benches suggested by the clerk and laid back down across the bench on his back.

He tilted his hat over his eyes and rested his head down on his bag of cash with one hand resting inside of his jacket on a curious cold lump of steel.

If one existed, God forgive the bastard who
tries anything funny.

With that thought, Rafael drifted into an uneasy sleep, waking up as each new passenger arrived in the station.

*

Vaughn stepped out of the cab that carried him away from his old neighborhood, in front of a low office building on the corner of First and Franklin Street. A plain white sign with black lettering read Law Office of Christian Biela: Attorney At Law est.

1999. Alex Vaughn knew who The Pope was, and he knew where to find him. The advertisement didn’t hurt the search any either.

“Wait right here,” he directed the cab driver.

Alex walked from the curb to the building, attempting to evade the cold that seeped in under his jacket. He walked inside to the heat of the building and swung the door around behind, shielding the room from the encroaching cold.

A young receptionist sat in the rear of a smal lobby area and held a telephone in one hand and was writing information on a pad with the other. Alex walked past her and headed straight for the door.

She stood up and put the phone down and held up a hand as if to stop Alex and said, “Sir, you can’t go in there.”

Vaughn pul ed his jacket back revealing his pistol and continued on past her. He pushed open the door and saw The Pope sitting at a desk facing him. He wore a white button down and a red tie. His suit jacket was draped on a sofa to the left.

Vaughn took two steps inside before he heard the click of a gun hammer coming from his back and felt the cool steel of its muzzle pressed against his forehead. Not moving his head, Alex looked to the side and saw a rather imposing man standing off to his side.

Spitting out the one thing that he could think of, Alex declared, “I’m a cop.”

“Sure you are,” The Pope smiled. “They al are. Let’s see the badge.”

Alex grabbed the buttons of his jacket and lifted its fold. Revealed beneath, was his gold badge with its American Bald Eagle spread across its breadth.

breadth.

With a grimace and a wave, The Pope cal ed off his man.

“Mr. Biela, I have something very important to discuss with you.”

He started hacking and wheezing as some sort of bug started doing jumping jacks in The Pope’s throat.

“Wel , what’s keeping you, officer?”

Alex was not fond of how The Pope seemed to spit that last word at him.

“I’l make this brief. My friend Jack Benton was murdered three days ago. He was a cop with the Buffalo P.D.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yes, he was. You, sir, were implicated in his personal notes.”

The Pope shifted in his chair. “Now I don’t know nothing about anything like that.”

“I’m sure you don’t. But this isn’t about whether you pul ed the trigger.”

Alex pul ed his gun out and rested it on the table. Leaning forward he continued.

“Now I am not here to make things hard on you, though I could, you know. I could be a hassle for you each and every day of your fucking life.” He was inches from The Pope’s face at this point. Alex straightened up and pul ed back, “Or you can answer a few quick questions and I’l be out of your hair. Like I was never here.”

The Pope gave a little cough, “What do you want to know? Depending on that, my answers depend.”

Alex Vaughn laid it out for him, “Two things.

The first is I know who kil ed my friend Jack. His name is Rafael Rontego and he is a man said to be under the employ of your boss, Leonard Ciancetta.

Where is he? The second, why do you suppose my friend intercepted a shipment of two hundred thousand dol ars from the Bonanno crime family here in Buffalo?”

Clearing his throat, The Pope closed his eyes as if going through a mental checklist of the ramifications of each avenue pursued from this moment forward.

Final y, he opened his eyes again and said,

“Fuck you.”

Alex Vaughn snapped. He worked too hard to get to this point to be stonewal ed by an antiquated vow of silence. He unhooked his badge and threw it against the wal . Pul ing his pistol out faster than he had ever been able to in the past, he cocked the hammer back and pressed the barrel against the lips of The Pope.

“Fuck me? Fuck you!”

Spit flew out of Alex’s mouth and his bloodshot eyes watered as he strained keeping himself from pul ing the trigger and letting his aggression fal with the hammer launching it into the mouth of this asshole.

“They cal you The Pope, wel you better fucking have a way forward with God because I swear to Christ you’re about to meet him!” Pressing the barrel forward even more, the steel grated against the teeth of The Pope. The Pope’s eyes were wide, matching the rage in Alex’s with the type of fear that comes from something unexpected.

Already holding down his coughing, The Pope went into a terrible coughing fit but he refused to shut his eyes with the steel shoved indelicate between his lips. Alex took a breath, regaining some of his composure but not letting The Pope know he had beaten back the urge to see the color of his brain matter.

“Now are you going to tel me what I want to know, so I can leave here with your face intact?” The Pope nodded his agreement.

Vaughn pul ed the muzzle out of Christian Biela’s mouth and walked over to the sofa that held The Pope’s suit jacket. He picked it up and used it to wipe the saliva off of the barrel of his pistol.

“I’m fucking waiting.”

The Pope swal owed, wetting his mouth, and let out a final cough rasp. “The answer to your first question is he’s in a cabin outside of Toronto. If not yet, than he soon wil be. Here’s the address.” The Pope started scribbling an address on a piece of loose leaf paper. “The second is a bit more complicated, but I guess even you cops aren’t so dense as to miss the fact that we’re in the middle of a damned civil war here. I assume, and again this is just conjecture, that the two hundred grand was a payment from the Bonanno crew for an al iance of mutual benefit with the Falzone crew. I could have heard that somewhere. Why your friend Jack had it, heard that somewhere. Why your friend Jack had it, that I do not know.”

Alex stood there a moment, taking it al in. He didn’t know why, but he believed The Pope. A gun in the mouth has a way of finding truth.

“Alright. See, that wasn’t so hard.” Vaughn walked over and picked up his badge.

He walked back to the desk and grabbed the piece of paper with the cabin address etched across it. The Pope, happy to have the ordeal over with nodded his head, but never took his eyes off of Alex.

Alex composed himself and turned to leave, backing out of the room.

“Oh officer? Here is one last piece of advice.

Do with it what you wil . Don’t trust the fucking cops.” Vaughn tilted his head, not sure where to go with that statement. He opened the door and walked out. After he took a few steps he heard The Pope cal after him, “Oh, and fuck you!”

Alex Vaughn let a little smile cross his face as he folded the address up and slipped it into his pocket.

The Pope waited for the officer to leave, then got up and poured himself a scotch from a mini bar in the corner of his office. Dropping two ice cubes into the drink, Christian wondered whether or not drinking before noon made him an alcoholic.

It didn’t matter
, he decided.

Given what he was going through this week, he figured the alcohol gods would give their blessing to his indulgence. He sat back down, letting a heavy sigh escape his lips.

The Pope looked into his scotch searching for answers. Cops coming to his business, old friends and associates getting gunned down daily, and to top it al off he had to sit down with people most likely intent on kil ing him. Tonight was the night. Either way, things were going to end tonight.

He fought back the urge to cough again. He was so tired of hacking and coughing. He even went and saw his physician. Damned doctors. Al he said was that he must have the flu and he was ‘going to run some tests’. Al those lab coats were the same.

You paid them a hundred bucks just to hear what you already knew—that you’re sick.

The Pope thought about what just transpired.

Nosy fucking cop
. At first, Christian thought he should just stonewal the bastard. After al , he took an oath of silence. But there was something unnerving about the look in the cop’s eyes. That and a pistol in your mouth was a definite wake up cal .

It wasn’t the first time The Pope came face to face with a barrel of a gun, but while he was sucking on metal a genius thought occurred to the crafty consigliore. This cop wanted Rafael dead. The Don wouldn’t be saddened to see that loose end wrapped up. So if Rontego got taken out, that was fine with The Pope. Conversely, say that the cop got laid low at the hands of Rafael. Wel then, there was one less prying cop to deal with.