Greenmantle (14 page)

Ali nodded and took a few steps closer to him. When she reached him, Valenti put an arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick hug, his cane bumping against the side of her leg.

“Go on,” he said, never taking his gaze from the car and what was happening around it.

“He…he said that he…that he’s my dad….”

Valenti shot her a quick glance. His gaze snapped back to the car as the stag hit the vehicle again.

“We’ll talk about that later,” he said. “Now go.”

He left her side and walked slowly toward the car as the stag backed up once more. In the silence that lay heavy around them, he heard the distant music return. He wasn’t sure what was going on, who the men really were, what they wanted with Ali, but it seemed fitting—
right
, somehow, that the stag would show up again to help her. He couldn’t have said why. The answer to that was in the music.

He lifted his gun as the man who’d been on the road before the car arrived suddenly stood up from behind the vehicle, levelling his own weapon at the stag. Valenti’s finger began to squeeze the trigger of his automatic, but he was too late to stop the man from firing almost point blank at the beast. He squeezed the trigger anyway.

* * *

Howie didn’t know if a handgun could stop a monster-sized buck like this, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying. He got off two shots—no way he missed—but the deer just looked at him. There was something in its eyes… And then Howie heard the music again. It was a discordant sound, unpleasant. Like fingernails on a blackboard.

Drop, you fucker, he willed, but the deer merely continued to stare at him.

Howie shivered. He was about to fire a third time when he felt a shock go through his right arm. The whole arm went numb and his gun spilled from suddenly limp fingers. It landed with a thump on the road. Pain exploded in his arm. For a long moment he was stunned by it. He reached up to clamp his left hand to the arm and winced at the pain. Blood trickled between his fingers.

“I…I’ve been shot,” he said to no one in particular and leaned weakly against the car.

The entire vehicle shook as the stag hit it for a third time. The impact made Howie grip his arm harder and he howled as a sudden new pain shot down his arm. He looked down the road to see the man there getting closer, using a cane and walking with a pronounced limp. Chewing at his lip, Howie let go of his wound and scrabbled with bloody fingers at the side of the car, looking for the door handle. He sobbed with relief when he found it, hit the knob, and tugged the door open. He almost fell into the car in his hurry to get in.

“Let’s go,” he said to Earl. “Christ, man, let’s
go
!”

But Earl wasn’t listening. The deer had backed up again, but he wasn’t watching it, either. His gaze was locked on the man approaching the car.

“You’re dead,” he said softly.

* * *

When the man Valenti had shot got into the car, the interior light went on and Valenti recognized the man behind the wheel. At the same time he realized that the man must have made him. His name was Shaw…Ernie Shaw? A small-time punk that they’d used once because he’d had a connection in Miami that came in very handy for a deal the family was working on.

Valenti had been the family’s spokesman for that deal, working with this Shaw. There was no way Shaw hadn’t made him now, and there was no way Shaw wasn’t going to spill his guts to the first member of the
fratellanza
he could get a hold of.

As he lifted his gun Valenti was surprised at the feeling that touched him. It wasn’t as though this punk didn’t have it coming for a lot of other reasons. It wasn’t as if Valenti had never killed a man before. But there was a feeling of wrongness about what he was doing now, just as earlier, he’d sensed a rightness about the arrival of the stag. The music heightened that feeling. But if he didn’t do something right now, he might as well go back to New York and hand himself over to the new Don, because they sure as fuck were going to be coming for him if he didn’t.

* * *

“Get the wires,” Earl hissed.

“Christ, man. I’ve been—”

“Get them.”

Gritting his teeth, Howie bent over and fumbled with the wires. When he had them connected, Earl turned the engine over. Once, twice. He bent low as Valenti fired, the bullet shattering the windshield and whining above his head. The third time he tried the engine, it caught. Foot on the clutch, he rammed the gearshift into first, eased the clutch out again, then floored the gas pedal.

As the Toyota leapt forward Valenti dodged out of the way. Earl checked the rearview, but it was too dark to see where Valenti had gone. Now if they could just get away from that fucking psycho deer…

He hit the brakes and pulled hard on the wheel, slewing the car into a 180-degree turn, tires spitting dirt into the underbrush on either side of the road. The head beams caught Valenti struggling to his feet. Gotcha, Earl thought as he tromped on the gas again.

But the stag stepped out of the woods to stand almost on top of Valenti, so Earl had to swerve by him. He heard the pop of Valenti’s gun, thought about staying to play this out, but the odds were all wrong. There was that deer, for one thing; the fact that it was Tony Valenti who was here, for another. He’d let the mob boys handle Valenti. For a price, he’d lead them right to him. And then he’d finish his own business with little too-big-for-her-britches Alice Treasure.

“I…I need a doc,” Howie said from the seat beside him.

Earl shot him a glance. For a moment he felt like opening the passenger’s door and just booting Howie out, but what the fuck. He’d done his best. It wasn’t Howie’s fault he was such a dipstick.

“Just hang in there,” he said. “First we need new wheels.”

“O-okay, Earl.”

“Hang tough, Howie, m’man. Things just look bad. But the truth is, they’re turning sweeter all the time.”

He grinned, concentrating on the road. When he reached Highway 1, he turned left, heading for the junction with 511 that would take them into Calabogie. A couple of guys he knew who owed him a favor or two had a cottage out that way. This being the weekend, he figured they’d be up. If they weren’t, well, he didn’t think they’d complain about him using the place. Not if they still wanted to own their balls after they were done talking to him.

* * *

Valenti rose slowly from the dirt and watched the taillights disappear. He didn’t know what had made Shaw swerve at the last moment, but he wasn’t complaining. He returned his automatic to his pocket and picked up his cane.

Time to go, he thought as he stood up and brushed the dirt off his jeans. He wondered how long he had. Till Shaw reached a phone? Valenti knew he’d winged Shaw’s partner. Maybe they’d see to the man’s shoulder first. So what did he have—an hour tops? Then he thought of Ali.

He looked up the road to his place, realizing that the music had died away again. That made him think about the stag, which in turn brought him back to his own predicament. He had to be gone—by yesterday—but he couldn’t just leave Ali alone. Take her with him? No way.

Still trying to decide what he should do, he limped up the road to the place he’d called home for the past year and a half. He was sure going to miss it.

13

Ali was sitting on a corner of the couch nearest the fireplace when Valenti came in. She was wearing jeans and a white cotton-knit sweater and holding a plastic bag between her legs that she was staring at. When he stepped inside, she looked up with a nervous jerk, then settled her gaze on the floor by her feet once more.

“You okay?” Valenti asked.

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

She nodded, shooting him a quick glance.

Valenti smiled. “Okay. You just take it easy while I make us some cocoa—how’s that sound?”

“That’d be fine. Do you…do you want some help?”

That’s the girl, Valenti thought. “You bet,” he said aloud. “I can never get the cocoa to dissolve properly and if there’s anything I hate, it’s lumps of cocoa floating up and touching my lips when I’m taking a sip—you know what I mean?”

A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“C’mon,” he said.

He waited while Ali laid her bag of books aside and went into the kitchen, then quickly switched his .32 from the jacket he was wearing to the pocket of a sports jacket, which he then put on.

“The cocoa’s in the cupboard on the right there, second shelf up,” he said as he came into the kitchen. “Can you reach it?”

“I think so.”

“Good. I’ll get the milk.”

* * *

There was a nip in the air that was due as much to what they’d just gone through, Valenti thought, as to the actual temperature, so he built a small fire in the hearth and they sat in front of it, sipping their cocoa and talking. Ali told him all about her afternoon, from why her mother’d gone into town to her confrontation with the wild girl who called herself Mally Meggan.

“She had
horns
?” Valenti interrupted when Ali was describing Mally. “You mean, like real horns?” He was remembering the girl who’d dropped out of a tree on him a few nights ago. She hadn’t had horns that he could see, but then she’d been wearing a hat. A floppy brimmed hat like Ali’s wild girl had.

Ali nodded. “Just small ones, like the kind you see on antelope.”

“And she lives in the bush?”

“That’s what she said. In the forest itself—not in a cabin or a house or anything. And she told me that the music we hear is played by some guy named Tommy….”

She went on to describe the rest of their conversation, regaining some of her old spirit as she did. It wasn’t until she started to tell him about leaving her house and hearing the car doors slam that she began to get nervous once more, her voice lowering. She wouldn’t meet Valenti’s gaze as she told him about the men catching her spying on them, what one of them had said about his being her father, and then the chase.

“And then… Well, you know the rest.”

She looked at him finally and Valenti nodded. The stag hitting Shaw’s car, Valenti shooting Shaw’s partner, the two men escaping…

“Do you think he’s really my father?” Ali asked.

“You don’t like that idea much, do you?”

Ali shook her head.

“Let me tell you something, Ali,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who your parents were, it’s what you make of yourself, understand? You want something bad enough—you want to
be
something bad enough—nothing’s going to stop you but you. You can pick stuff up—like habits, or a certain way of saying things by living with people, but just because your old man’s a piece of shit, that doesn’t mean that you are.”

“Yeah, but why would my mom…you know…why would she want to marry a guy like that?”

Valenti shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m betting he wasn’t like that when they first met. People change, not always for the better. When that happens in a relationship, sometimes the only thing you can do is get out. Sounds to me, from things you’ve told me—and having met your momma, who’s some kind of lady—that that’s what she did. She’s nobody’s fool.”

“You know him, don’t you?” Ali asked. “That guy who said he was my father.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just the way you’re talking.”

“Yeah,” Valenti said. “I know him. He’s a punk. A small-time, smart-ass punk. But that doesn’t make him any less dangerous.”

“If he is my father, why would he wait so long to come after me?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” Valenti said, “and I figure he heard about your momma winning that lottery. He probably figures there’s some bucks to be made—wants his own cut of the action.”

Ali nodded. “What happened after I left? I thought I heard some shooting…”

Valenti studied her for a moment. She was holding up pretty well. Maybe right now she wasn’t exactly the same happy-go-lucky kid that bounced around his place and told him jokes and stuff, but she was holding her own. Spunky kid like her, you wouldn’t be able to keep her down too long. He decided to level with her while he could. Might as well, seeing how after tonight he probably wouldn’t be seeing her again.

“They threw around some lead—at me and the stag,” he said. “I clipped one of them, but they got away before I could do any real damage.”

Ali regarded him a little wide-eyed. “You were… Were you trying to kill them?”

“Guns aren’t toys, Ali, and what happened tonight wasn’t a game. If you pull a piece, you’d better be ready to use it. And if you use it, you’d damn well better kill whatever you’re shooting at, or it’ll up and get you.” The rules of the business, courtesy of Mario Papale, Valenti thought mirthlessly.

“Yeah, but…”

“Remember I told you I was a soldier?”

Ali nodded.

“Well, that army I was in, they weren’t too happy with me when I left. They put a contract out on me that fell through, but only because I disappeared. Now this Ernie Shaw, he used to—”