The Immortal Game (7 page)

15

In the streets, the war began.

Messengers from both the Scarlotti and Denatale families had been sent to Providence, to obtain permission to kill the other’s boss.

In a restaurant in Federal Hill, old men listened to conflicting positions. The old men sighed and sipped their espressos or their
Sambucas
.

The messengers waited.

The old men had seen these things before, these blood feuds. Better to end it quickly.

The oldest patriarch there finally cleared his throat and told the messengers, the families had one week to sort this out. After that, it would be sorted out for them.

So it began.

One of Red’s biggest earners was gunned down in the front room of La
Famiglia
. Early the next morning, a child found three dead drug dealers in the playground across from Joe’s American Bar and Grill.

The North End was turning into the Wild West, and Hanover Street became the Mason Dixon line. Scarlotti controlled the south, Denatale the north.

Angelo’s son explained all of this to his father, who only nodded.

“What does the German have to say?”

The younger Denatale grinned. “Apparently Red hired a private investigator.”

Angelo’s brow wrinkled. “What for?”

“To find his son.”

“Who took him?”

“PI thinks Kat’s got him.”

Angelo made a noise with his lips. “What’s that dame up to?”

16

The boy was making Kat nervous.

Christopher wanted to talk to his parents. He was worried about them. She was not used to this. Protection was not her thing. Offense not defense was her thing. This kid was a liability, made her weaker, slower. But she’d made up her mind. Nothing was going to happen to this child. Not while she was alive.

The idea of being hunted unnerved the huntress.

She was in one of her safe houses, an apartment in Chestnut Hill. Just a few miles away, but it felt like a different planet here. A world of brick mansions and luxury shopping, Range Rovers, men in suits, women with stiff jaws and perfect hair. A place where people didn’t look at faces, just clothes and cars.

Kat tried to visualize an end game she could live with.

Her best-case scenarios involved a lot of dead bodies. Her worst-case scenario included hers, too. She refused to imagine anything happening to Christopher.

“Do you think my parents are okay?”

“I know they are.”

“How?”

“People like your parents, something happens to them, it makes the news.”

So they watched the news.

Bad idea.

“Hey, that guy was at my birthday party. Remember?”

The title of the segment was “Mob War?” Kat winced when the reporter said, “Scarlotti crime family.”

War, Kat thought sadly. And I’m on babysitting duty. The segment ended. “See,” she said. “Mom and Dad are okay.”

Christopher shot Kat a skeptical look.

Kat remembered hearing about her father. From her mother. He was a son of a bitch, but it had still rocked her world. In her imagination, it had always been Kat who did the deed, to protect her mother. Kat knew how something like that could affect a kid. She didn’t want that for Christopher.

17

She was gone when Lonny woke up. The day hit him like a knee to the groin.

His head was full of exclamations, his hangover a swarm of hornets buzzing every inch of him. Naked, he lurched pathetically to the bathroom and vomited his soul into the toilet. The cool of the porcelain was the only mercy granted.

Pathetic.

He stared at the guilty face in the mirror.

Wretched.

It took all his strength not to take a swing.

He dressed, trying to remember more than a glimpse of his ex-wife’s kindnesses last night, but it was all fleeting.

He went home, head buzzing, conscience throbbing, partly over last night but mostly over the still missing boy. Christopher needed rescuing. Lonny couldn’t save himself.

His German shadow followed.

He had received his instructions.

Find the boy. Kill the girl.

Boy alive. Girl dead.

The German was not a kidnapper and was not happy. He did not enjoy having to be careful. But he understood the usefulness of a captive.

A thought occurred to him. A plan. A means of applying pressure. If needed, he thought. Let’s see where this man takes us first
.

It was early and cold. The detective pulled his jacket tight as he walked through the empty cobblestone streets of Quincy Market. Just a handful of cars as he crossed to Government Center and climbed the steps next to it. The German followed him into a T station and descended a steep staircase to the tracks. There were only three or four other people waiting for a train. The German sat and glanced around. But not at the man he was following until a train arrived and they both got on.

The detective got off at Kenmore Square.

He walked past Fenway Park and cut through a large parking lot to get to
Audobon
Circle, an apartment just off Beacon Street.

The German trailed a safe distance, but clearly the detective had other things on his mind. Several times, he had to stop to cough and spit something to the ground.

The detective looked cold and weak, ashamed. Vulnerable. The German wondered if this drunk would be of any use to him.

Then he saw something he couldn’t believe.

There were a few people in the North End who knew Whitey was still alive. They told him about Lonagan.

Christ. Not now, Lonagan.

Whitey needed him clean and sober. He decided to go explain this to Lonagan. He knew where the detective lived.

Christopher was not sleeping well.

Nightmares.

But he no longer dreamed of monsters, under his bed or in the closet. Gone were the snakes and spiders and creepy crawly creatures of even six months ago.

Now he dreamed of men. With guns. Dreamed of heads exploding, heads he knew, his Aunt Kat, his Uncle Whitey, his father, his mother.

He woke screaming.

His Aunt Kat would be there, with a hand on his head, fingers brushing through his hair. A soothing “
Shh
” on her lips.

His tears shamed him. He wanted to be tough and brave like her, like his uncle, like his dad. Brave. But he was scared and knew if not for his Aunt Kat’s protection he would be dead
.

Like his Uncle Whitey.

Nobody really talked about what happened. When asked, grown-ups looked sideways, avoided the question. A better place, his father said.

“Heaven?” Christopher asked.

His father would look away, and almost smile. “Not quite.”

He was dreaming again. A man, a bad man, in black clothes was shaking him.

No, it was Aunt Kat.

“Hey, Christopher,” she said and stroked his cheek. “We gotta get up, buddy.”

It was early. The dimmest of light through the bedroom window, the world just a sketch, an outline without colors.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Where are we going?”

“To see a man I know.”

“Who?”

“Someone who might help us.”

Might? Christopher thought.

She smiled at him. “You’ll like him. He used to have a boy your age.”

He used to be a hero, she thought. He used to save people.

18

Lonny knew there was someone else in his apartment.

Something was off, a scent, a sound.

He drew his pistol.

Strong hands squeezed around his other arm, like a vice around his wrist. Panic seized his insides just as hard.

“Easy, Lonagan. It’s Whitey.” He let him go.

“Motherfucker,” Lonny spat.

He walked to the kitchen. A bottle of water in the fridge.

“Just getting in?”

“You got something to say, Whitey?”

“I need you to hold it together.”

Lonny closed his eyes and drank.

Whitey studied him.

Lonny wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Where would she go?”

“How the fuck—”

“You taught her, right? Taught her everything she knows. Where would she go?”

“Out of the state. Out of the country. But the kid throws everything off.”

“How?”

“With the kid, you’re more vulnerable, slower, easier to spot.
”

“What the hell is she doing with that kid?”

Whitey shook his head. “Hey, watch out for a guy. Blond hair. Blue eyes. They call him the German.”

A face appeared to Lonny from the night before. “What about him?”

“He works for Denatale. I caught him tailing me last night.”

Lonny tried to put the face in context, but it would only float, isolated in the murk. “Does he have a scar right here?” Lonny touched the side of his face.

Whitey nodded. “You too, huh?”

A knock on the door.

Whitey’s pistol was in his hand.

Lonny quietly stepped to the door, looked through the peephole, thinking, please be Kelly, please be Kelly.

Kat
Scarlotti’s
serious face stared back at him. Next to her, the boy, Christopher.

Lonny leaned his head against the door,

“What’s up?” Whitey whispered.

“Put that piece away.”

“What?”

“Holster it.”

Reluctantly, Whitey did as he was told.

Lonny took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Lonny, I need your—” she started to say then her jaw turned slack and useless.

“Uncle Whitey?” Christopher’s eyes sprang wide, joy spreading over his entire face as he ran to him.

Whitey spread his arms and picked the boy up in a bear hug. “Christ, look at the size of you.”

“Everyone said you were dead.”

“Ha!” Whitey said. “Man hasn’t been born who could put me down.”

“Aunt Kat can you believe it?”

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

She hadn’t moved a muscle.

Christopher ran back to her and pulled her inside the apartment. Her eyes never left Whitey.

“You’re a son of a bitch, William Scarlotti.”

Lonny was poised. Ready to block an attack. Not sure who it would come from.

“Me? I’m the bad guy?”

“You were always the bad guy. Like the kid said, you were dead. But you weren’t, were you? You might have told your wife. The love of your life. Oh, but maybe you did. Maybe that’s not the same person.”

“They wouldn’t let me contact anyone.”

“Since when do you take orders?” she whispered, then shouted, “Since when?”

Whitey looked at Christopher.

The boy seemed utterly lost. Lonny knew how he felt.

“Look what happened when you found me.”

A sad smile as she shook her head. “You’re not just a son of a bitch. You’re a stupid son of a bitch, William Scarlotti.”

“That girl didn’t deserve—”

“You made that choice when you invited her into your life. And don’t you dare talk to me about deserve.”

Whitey’s face turned red, then purple.

“I wasn’t paid to hit her. The
Denatale’s
wanted you. If it wasn’t me, you’d be dead.”

“You want I should thank you?”

“You think you can just start over? Become someone new? You think you’re some kind of dirty saint that can still get into Heaven?”

Whitey’s eyes burned. Maybe that was
 
what he thought
.

“Put yourself in my position, Whitey. What would you have done? What would the
old
Whitey have done, the
real
Whitey? The killer. The man I loved.

Whitey trembled with emotion.

Kat came closer to him. “Do you remember what you taught me? Everyone is expendable.” Her eyes were shiny with tears. “Everyone but us. Remember? It was us against the world.
”

Whitey cleared his throat. “I remember.”

A gunshot.

Broken glass.

Kat. In the chest.

The speed of Whitey’s return shot, as fast as a cobra strike.

Whitey glanced at Lonny, who realized, as if waking from a dream, that he had pushed Christopher to the floor and was covering him with his own body. Lonny nodded. “Go get him.
”

Whitey squatted next to Kat, took her hand. “Everyone but us,” he said and kissed her lips.

Then he was out the screen door and over the railing.

More gunshots.

Lonny moved over to Kat. She knew what Lonny knew. She was acquainted with deadly wounds. He put a pillow over the hole in her chest. She hugged it.

Christopher knelt next to her.

“It’s okay, Aunt Kat. This is just one of my dreams. I’m gonna wake up any second.”

A smile trembled on Kat’s lips. The expression in her eyes, a look Lonny knew so well; it was the look of breaking someone’s heart. She reached for Christopher, who took her hand, those deadly hands, which never touched anything so gently
.

Lonny clasped the boy’s neck. “Kiss her goodbye, Christopher.”

A flash of gratitude on her face. “Take good care,” she whispered to Lonny, the blood filling her lungs. She coughed.

“I will,” Lonny said.

“Don’t trust her,” she said.

“Who?”

“Tell Whitey….” Her eyes drifted.

“I will,” Lonny said. “But he already knows.”

The last breath shuddered out of her. Lonny watched her eyes as they froze on her nephew. Lonny couldn’t help but notice, she made a very pretty corpse.

The German had seen a light go on. On the third floor. After the girl and the boy went in, the German climbed up the side of the building.

Easy enough. Plenty of big brick blocks to hold onto.

He moved slowly.

At this hour, the street was quiet. A handful of pedestrians. None looking up.

He pulled himself over the deck’s metal railing, fingers still cold even through his gloves.

He watched the heated exchange of the Italian couple, the killers. He let her speak her piece.

Aimed.

Fired.

A blur of movement, a blink, and the German’s shoulder exploded with pain. He went over the railing, caught the next floor’s railing, then dropped to the pavement, his ankle twisting. He limp-ran down the street.

Above him, a sliding door opened with a splash of glass falling.

A bullet missed him by an inch. Maybe less.

The German lurched into an alley. Knew he had only moments to save himself.

A poor unsuspecting fool, a man in a suit, an agent of the devil, was unlocking his car. A German sedan. He was still, frozen by the sound of the gun firing.

The German raised his pistol. “The keys,” he said.

The man dropped them on the seat.

The German shot him in the head. The man nodded stupidly, as if he was in agreement with everything happening, then collapsed. The German slipped into the car and started the engine.

Whitey saw him duck into the alley. He knew another route, and sprinted down a different alley, ran around an apartment building. Heard the crack of a bullet. One more poor bastard down.

He emerged into the German’s alley. Saw the stockbroker or lawyer or accountant on the ground. Saw the German at the wheel, waiting.

Whitey crept up to the car.

Sirens in the distance.

A woman came out of a door. She squinted at the man lying in the street, then at Whitey, pistol in hand, and she screamed.

The German turned and saw Whitey. Punched the gas.

Whitey opened fire. Two tires popped. The back window shattered. He emptied his clip. The car skidded on metal rims, turned the corner and sped away.

The woman who had screamed remained frozen on the sidewalk like a scared statue.

Whitey sighed. “Call the police,” he said.

The German was easy for the police to spot, sparks flying from the metal rims grinding pavement. He saw the flashing lights in his rearview. One cruiser, then another.

They were on a bridge.

The German squeezed the steering wheel as he braked.

When the first cruiser was even with him on his right, the German stomped the gas pedal and turned the wheel into the squad car. The cruiser jumped the Jersey barrier and punched a hole in the chain link fence, and then tumbled, nose first, onto the Mass Pike.

The German swerved back onto the road and slammed on the brakes.

In a blur he was out the passenger door, gun drawn, before the other cruiser had even stopped or realized he’d left.

The officers opened their car doors, buzzing on adrenaline and fear, their heads full of curses to scream but mouths stuttering in rage and shock.

Then the German came out of nowhere, like a bird of prey; and there were two more cop widows in Boston, three more orphans.

Cars were piled on both sides of the bridge, plenty of witnesses to interview, a glorious confusion for the police to try and make sense of. The German grinned as he scaled the fence and leapt half a story to a courtyard below. The landing made him cry out. Then he vanished into the swarms of students crowding the campus of Boston University.

He sent a text. “Finished with woman, pursuing child, sorry for mess.”