Greenmantle (42 page)

She would have thought that he was putting her on, except he had told the whole story through so matter-of-factly, so very seriously. He had his own doubts, but he couldn’t deny that there was
something
going on, that all this talk of mysteries and the like had some basis. And he’d seen the stag. He’d seen the wild girl.

“I don’t like it any better than you,” he had finished up with, “but my not liking it sure isn’t going to change anything.”

“But Ali—she could be in danger.”

“She’s in the middle of it—I’ll give you that—but I don’t think she’s in danger. Do you think I would have let her go if I thought she was?”

Frankie had wanted to go looking for Ali right then—into the forest, to that village or to the stone—but Valenti had talked her out of it.

“She’s a big kid,” he said. “We got to give her a chance to work things out for herself.”

“Tony, she’s only fourteen.”

“And going on thirty-five.”

Frankie had to smile, remembering that. Tony was right. But then the image of the stag in her daughter’s room came back. The smile faded, then was gone.

“What’re you thinking about?” Valenti asked.

Frankie turned to look at him. They were sitting on lawn chairs behind his house. With iced drinks on the arm rests, the two of them looked as though they were simply soaking up the sun, a domestic picture that was only flawed upon closer scrutiny. Frankie had a holster on her belt. The automatic was nestled in it. Balancing its weight on the other hip was a leather pouch with extra ammunition clips. Valenti had a .38 in a shoulder harness, the UZI hanging from the arm of his chair by its strap. He, too, was carrying extra clips for the UZI and rounds for his pistol.

After talking over lunch, they’d returned to Frankie’s place so that she could get some clothes suitable for the bush. Valenti had decided to take to the woods near the house tonight, rather than wait inside where they could get bottled up, depending on how many men Louie brought with him. Outside, the advantage came back to Valenti and Frankie once more. When they’d returned from Frankie’s they made a number of circuits through the brush closest to the house to get a feel for the area. They knew the terrain now. Louie had only seen the place at night, and that was briefly. His men would only have what Louie told them to go on.

“I’m sorry,” Frankie said. “What did you say?”

“You keep smiling, then frowning, then smiling again. I was wondering what you were thinking about.”

Frankie sighed. “Oh, everything.” She touched the handgrip of the automatic. “I feel like nothing’s very real right now…or maybe it’s too real. I don’t know. Here we are with all these guns, waiting for either Earl or some extras from the
The Godfather
to show up. Meanwhile, my daughter is running around the woods with a stag and some girl who has horns growing from her head. Does any of it make sense to you, Tony?”

“Your ex and Louie—yeah, that I can understand. And I think I know what you mean about the rest. It’s unreal and too real, all at the same time. But I’ll tell you something: When that music comes drifting from the woods, or when I hear it close up like I did last night, I feel like I’m really close to something then, you know what I’m saying? It’s like the answer to everything—not just what’s going down now, but that
everything
is just out of sight and if I hang in for a couple of seconds longer, it’s all going to be laid out in front of me.”

“I’m really worried about Ali,” Frankie said.

“Yeah. I know.”

“I mean, I understand what you’re saying, but I find it pretty hard to believe.”

“Look.” Valenti glanced at his watch. “It’s going on four. Why don’t we give her until four-thirty or five, and if she’s not back by then, we’ll go looking for her, okay?”

Frankie wanted to go right away, but she nodded in agreement. She was always willing to give Ali a pretty free rein, mainly because Ali could handle it. Frankie could put her foot down when it was needed, but mostly it wasn’t. Whatever her daughter was mixed up in now, she supposed she owed it to Ali to let her handle things her own way. Doing otherwise was a breach of the trust built up between them. But God, it was hard. If she could just
know
, instead of having—

“Heads up,” Valenti said quietly.

Frankie turned to look at him, then caught motion out of the corner of her eye and saw what had prompted his comment. A bedraggled tatterdemalion of a figure had stepped from the forest and was approaching them. It was the wild girl, Frankie realized as the figure came closer. Mally. She took in the girl’s pinched features, the thick tangle of hair with its twigs and leaves, the raggedy clothing, patched and burred, and there, rising up from her forehead just by her hairline, was a pair of small horns.

Frankie swallowed thickly. If this much was real, then what was to stop all the rest of it from being real? The stag…

The wild girl came to a few paces from where they were sitting, then sank languidly to the grass. She’s like a cat, Frankie thought, taking in the unblinking eyes and the smooth movement that never wasted a motion. For a moment or two they regarded each other, then Mally laid an antler on the grass between them. There were feathers and beads tied to it by leather thongs, swirling patterns scratched into its beam.

“’Lo,” Mally said and smiled her Cheshire smile.

“Where’s Ali?” Valenti asked, voicing the question that had been on the tip of Frankie’s tongue.

“In the forest,” Mally replied, nodding behind her. The motion hardly made her hair move at all, it was so tangled today. “But she sent me here with a message so you wouldn’t worry. The message is: ‘Not to worry—I’ll be back later tonight.’”

“What is she
doing
out there?” Frankie demanded.

“She’s planning to call Old Hornie—the mystery—to her tonight, but I also think she’s learning how to be a secret like me.”

“You’re not making a lot of sense,” Frankie said.

“She’s like that,” Valenti muttered.

“Please, Tony.” Frankie looked back at the wild girl. “I’m Ali’s mother, and I’m very worried. Why does she have to call this mystery to her? What’s going
on
out there?”

“And why didn’t she come and deliver the message herself?” Valenti added.

“Well, I’m faster in the forest than she is,” Mally said, answering Valenti first, “and as to what she’s doing and why, that’s something she’ll have to explain to you, if you can’t riddle it for yourselves. I won’t do it because some things can’t be explained, some shouldn’t be, and some lose their heart when they are.”

“Is she in danger?” Frankie asked. “Will you at least tell me that?”

Mally met her gaze for a long moment, then she reached over and traced the curve of one of the antler’s tines with a fingernail. She started at its base and circled around until the tine ended in a point and her finger was just touching air. Then she did it a second time. The third time she brought her hand toward the antler, she picked it up and shook it lightly. The beads made a little rattling sound against the bone as she handed the antler to Frankie.

“This is for you,” she said.

Frankie took it gingerly. “This…?”

“…is special,” Mally said. “The mystery shed them a year or two ago and I’ve kept them ever since. We’re using one to call him, but Ali wanted you to have this one.”

“But what does it—what is it for?”

Mally shrugged. “She said you’d like it. I did the carving and hangings and all myself.”

Frankie glanced at Valenti, then back at the wild girl. “Thank you,” she said. It was obvious that Mally was proud of what she’d done with the antler, and it did have a certain primitive charm. In fact, Frankie thought as she studied it more closely, it radiated a certain feeling of goodwill. Her hand tightened around it.

“Please, Mally,” she said finally. “Will my daughter be all right? This isn’t a joking matter for me—I’m worried sick. I have to know that she won’t get hurt playing…doing whatever it is she’s doing with you.”

“Will she be all right?” Mally repeated. “I don’t know. She’s calling the mystery to her. If it comes, she’ll be…changed. But she’s already changed some as it is. She’s been to the heart of the mystery once already and if it speaks to her tonight…” Her thin shoulders lifted and fell. “Everything is dangerous. She won’t be in any physical harm—not that I know of—but she’ll have to be strong in her own heart so that she’s not swept away by the wonder of what she’ll meet tonight.”

Valenti remembered the dogs that could look like men, or like both. “What about the pack?” he asked.

Mally turned to look at Valenti, but her gaze seemed to go right through him, as though she were seeing into some far distance. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “All I know is that the fire burns strong in both you and her, but it burns purer in her. If anyone can free the mystery—from ceremony, from worship, from disinterest, even from the hounds—it will be someone like her.” Her gaze focused suddenly and settled on the UZI. “Besides, you face your own danger here tonight, don’t you? Where do
you
think she’ll be safer? In the forest, where the secrets will watch over her, or here?”

“Oh, God,” Frankie said. “I don’t know. What she’s planning to do, what you’re saying…it scares me.”

“But only because you don’t understand. The unknown doesn’t have to be grim.”

Valenti thought about what could happen here tonight. It was bad enough that he had one amateur around. Did he really need someone else to look out for?

“I think we should let Ali get on with what she’s doing,” he said to Frankie. “She’s your daughter and it’s your decision, but that’s what I think. Things could get pretty hairy around here tonight.”

“Maybe I should just take her and go,” Frankie said.

“That’s running again.”

“I know that, Tony. But maybe I’m just not cut out for making a stand. I came back here to exorcise old ghosts, not take part in a gangster shoot-out.”

Valenti nodded. “Well, it’s your decision, Frankie. Either way, I’ll back you. Just do what you think is right.”

“But I don’t
know
!”

“When all’s said and done,” Mally said, “all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it.”

That made sense, Valenti thought. We all got to die sometime. So it’s the way you lived that you left behind. Beside him, Frankie nodded as she, too, thought it through.

“Tell Ali I wish her luck,” she said.

“As she’d do to you,” Mally said. “I think you made a strong choice. Whether or not it’s the right one, I don’t know. But it’s a strong one.”

Frankie found herself smiling.

“Listen,” Valenti said. “Do you think you could take Ali to stay with Lewis for tonight? I mean, I don’t know how long it’s going to take you to do whatever it is that you’re going to do, but I’d feel better if I didn’t have to worry about her suddenly showing up in the middle of a firefight, you know what I’m saying? I’d like to think that whoever’s moving out there in the bush around this place tonight isn’t someone we got to look out for.”

“She can stay with me,” Mally said.

“I thought you didn’t have a place,” Valenti said.

“But I have the whole forest!” Mally hopped to her feet, grinning. She waved breezily to the pair of them. Before either of them could speak, she was moving off across the lawn, heading for the forest. In the blink of an eye, the trees had swallowed her and Frankie and Valenti were alone once more.

“Did I do the right thing?” Frankie wondered aloud.

Valenti didn’t answer. He knew she didn’t expect him to.

“God, I wish I knew what was going on there tonight,” she added.

“I know what you mean,” Valenti said. “But right now, I think I’d like to know what’s going down with Louie more. He’s playing this whole game too cagey for the way I like to do business.”

“Maybe he’s not coming anymore,” Frankie said. “Maybe your friend Mario managed to talk some sense into the people in charge.”

Valenti shrugged. And maybe Mario had declared open season on the Magaddino family and then there’d
really
be hell to pay.

“Of course,” Frankie said, “there’s still my ex…” Her voice trailed off.

“It’s always something,” Valenti said. “
Così fan tutti
—that’s the way of the world.”

4

“He
what
?” Louie growled into the phone. “You’d better run that by me again, Johnny—I don’t think we got such a good connection.”

Sitting by the window, watching him, Earl smiled. Aw, he thought. The big bad Mafia hitman’s getting himself some bad news. Ain’t that a fucking shame. He studied Louie for a moment, taking in the whitening knuckles around the handset and the strain that was showing in the man’s features, then turned to look out at the view of Ottawa’s skyline. This was Louie’s seventh or eighth call—Earl had lost track after the first few—and the first one to give him some answers.

It had all started when Louie went to make his regular late afternoon call to his old man. For a while there, he’d gotten no answer. When someone finally picked up the phone at the other end, it turned out to be a cop. Louie had hung up quickly, phoning around until he’d gotten hold of Johnny “Bomps” Bompensiero. Maybe he’s gonna wish he never did, Earl thought.