Dopplegangster (48 page)

Authors: Laura Resnick

BOOK: Dopplegangster

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This was a little too much for me. “Nelli, give me that,” I insisted. I took it away from her.

Hobbling along with her bad leg, she rose up to knock the human skulls off the altar, then did her best to destroy them.

“No, no, no!” Father Gabriel was practically weeping now.

I swung the dead, mangled chicken and walloped the priest with it as hard as I could. He cried out and backed away. Stomping toward him, I hit him with the deceased bird again.

“Do you know how terrified Charlie and Danny were when they died? Did you get a kick out of that, you malicious bastard?” I hit him again. “You were going to kill Elena? A
woman?
Because she resisted being raped by your murdering, gloating, disgusting partner in crime?” I tossed the chicken aside and kneed Gabriel in the groin. He doubled over in pain.

Max’s chanting grew louder. I was sweating. I thought it was because of my rage and exertion. But it dawned on me that, actually, the room was suddenly hot.
Very
hot. Unnaturally so.

“And you were going to have Buonarotti kill
me?
” I shouted. “ME? What did I ever do to you?”

Gabriel moaned pathetically. “You were going to find out. You were going to stop me.”

“And you
should
be stopped, you warped, twisted, pathetic, homicidal asshole!” I grabbed him by the shirt shook him really hard. His head thudded against the wall. “You were
killing
people! You were going to get lots more people killed! Even innocent people! People who aren’t wiseguys! Like Lopez!”

I clamped my fingers around his jaw and squeezed until he made a strangled sound of pain. “And you nearly blew my audition for
The Dirty Thirty!
You
JERK!
”

There was an explosion so strong it shook the whole room. I staggered backward, releasing my hold on the weeping, whining, disheveled priest. A blaze of fiery heat washed over my back. Nelli howled. I heard more gunshots somewhere in the belly of the church.

I turned around and raised an arm to shield my eyes from the intense glow emanating from the sacked altar. Squinting and looking through my fingers, I could see that Nelli and Max were enveloped in a bright golden light. Max was on his knees now, his arms raised overhead and spread wide, as Gabriel’s had been when we first entered this room. Nelli sat next to him, her muzzle turned skyward as she continued howling. Max was bellowing words I didn’t understand, and the intensity of light and heat increased until flames were rippling all around him and his familiar.

“Max!” I cried, afraid they wouldn’t survive. “Nelli!”

Shapes started developing in the glowing flames, struggling to coalesce into coherent forms within the undulating white fire that consumed the whole altar. I thought I saw arms, legs, faces . . . Something huge and rotund emerged from the tangled fray of writhing, twisting, hideously suggestive shapes in the fire. It looked like . . .

“Charlie?” I said.

The figure resembling Chubby Charlie Chiccante seemed to fold into itself, tumbling over into more molten white heat and fire, and then another figure emerged, then another.

I saw the graceful curves of Elena Giacalona’s figure moving through the flames, as well as Lopez’s clean profile and taut body, Danny Dapezzo’s tidy form, and Johnny Be Good’s disturbingly Elvis-like image. Something that looked like Lucky floated through the flames and then dissolved, followed by a writhing entity that looked like my own perfect double, glowing in the liquid heat of this mystical cleansing. As the flames began receding and the glow faded, one final shape passed through my vision. I frowned, thinking I must be wrong about who it was.

And then the heat faded, dissipating almost as quickly as it had gathered. The flames vanished, leaving just one feeble candle on the altar to illuminate this old, forgotten room.

Breathing hard, Max slumped and started to keel over sideways.

“Max!” I rushed toward him and caught him before he hit the floor.

He was damp with sweat and panting with exhaustion. Nelli rose, staggering as she discovered that her foot was too tender to hold any weight, and hobbled a couple of steps closer to investigate Max’s condition, her black nose wiggling as she sniffed his head. I saw that the intense heat had melted the wax in the painted symbols on both their faces, so that they were now covered with runny, rust-colored streaks and splotches.

I petted Nelli with one hand as I held Max in my arms. “Good work. Very good work.”

Her tail wagged wearily.

“Max? Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just a little . . . fatigued.”

We heard another gunshot.

I stiffened. “Lucky!”

“We must assist him,” Max said faintly. “Help me up.”

“He said to stay here until he told us it was safe to come out.”

“We can’t, Esther. There’s one more doppelgangster.”

“I thought so.” I looked over my shoulder to demand the priest tell us who it was, even though I thought I knew.

But Gabriel had escaped while Max was destroying the altar where the priest had cursed his victims with certain death.

“He’s gone,” I said in dismay. “I didn’t beat him up enough.”

“But you certainly gave it your best effort.” Max stumbled toward the door. “We must go to Lucky’s aid.” I followed him as he added, “He will be outnumbered and taken by surprise.”

Nelli was limping heavily behind me. Max turned in the dark doorway and said to me, “Oh, bring the candle.”

Nelli suddenly growled. I turned away from Max to look at her. I heard a dull thud behind me and whirled around. Buonarotti was standing in the doorway holding the gun with which he had just pistol-whipped Max. Max fell to the floor, unconscious. Buonarotti seized my throat, pulled me against him, and pressed the gun to my cheek. Holding me between himself and Nelli, who was snarling and barking, he backed out of the room, ordering me, “Shut the door.”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t shake my head. I hung by my throat from Buonarotti’s squeezing fingers. His fingernails dug into my skin. The pain was mind-fogging. I thought I would pass out in another second.

“Shut the door,” he repeated, “or I’ll shoot the dog.
Now
.”

My hand fumbled for the door handle. I found it and pulled. Max’s body was in the way. Buonarotti kicked Max with his foot, rolling him over. My eyes watering with pain and my vision blackening, I pulled the door shut.

“Good.” Buonarotti pressed up against me in the pitch dark hallway. “Now tell me where he is.”

I made a strangling sound.

“Huh? Oh.” He loosened his grip enough to let me talk. “Where is he? Tell me, bitch, or I’ll blow your head off.”

“Where’s who?” I choked out.

“Gabriel.”

“I don’t know.”

He slapped me so hard I reeled away, then he yanked my hair to pull me close again. No wonder Elena had called him an animal.

“He ran off,” I gasped out.

“Why?”

“He’s a coward.”

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Huh?” And then the truth dawned on me.
This
Buonarotti’s face wasn’t bloodied. “Oh, my God. It
was
you.”

Another gunshot rang out. Then two more. My captor stiffened. “Who is that?”

“You don’t know?” I rasped.

I was right about the final figure I had seen in the dying flames of the altar.

Buonarotti’s doppelgangster grabbed my throat again. “You and I are getting out of here.”

Well, Gabriel had
said
his partner was proving to be more trouble than he was worth. Apparently the priest had decided it was time to help him shuffle off this mortal coil. Once Buonarotti came face to face with his own perfect double, he’d be easy pickings. Perhaps the priest intended to bring about the three-way war by giving up Don Michael to the other two families now that he was vulnerable.

Holding me by the throat, his gun pressed to my head, the doppelgangster hauled me down the pitch dark hallway. We paused at the doorway leading to the choir gallery, and my captor leaned against it, listening. We heard voices shouting on the other side of it.

“No, not that way,” he muttered.

“There’s another way?”

“Stairway to the courtyard.” He dragged me to the end of the hall. “It’s how I came up.”

“No, those stairs aren’t safe,” I protested as he dragged me toward them.

“That’s just what he tells people to keep them out of here,” Buonarotti said dismissively.

He took his hand off my neck long enough to open a door. Despite his comment, I was still anxious about descending a staircase in complete darkness with a gun pressed to my head. I was equally anxious about going anywhere with a murderous doppelgangster.

So it was a relief when I heard a man’s voice coming from somewhere beyond the bottom of the stairs.

Buonarotti went still and covered my mouth with his hand, pressing the gun harder against my head. Along with the voice, we heard a gurgling electrical noise, like someone switching channels on a radio. This was followed by a metallic sounding voice. I couldn’t make out the words, but I gave a reflexive start when I realized what the sound was: a walkie-talkie.

And then I realized what the voices were talking about. I could make out a man saying, “Shots fired,” and giving this address.

Someone was talking on a police radio. There was a cop at the other end of these stairs!

I tried to cry out. Buonarotti squeezed my throat so hard I nearly blacked out. He shut the door and then dragged me back to the other door, the one that led to the choir gallery.

“One sound,” he whispered, “and I’ll kill you.”

I was coughing helplessly from the abuse to my throat, so this seemed like a pretty stupid threat. He opened the door a crack and listened.

We both heard Gabriel whispering, “No, there’s a cop in the courtyard! We need to leave
this
way.”

Buonarotti—the real one—whispered back, “How do you think we’re gonna get past Lucky? He’s between us and the door.”

The doppelgangster’s body, which was pressed up against mine, stiffened. “Who the fuck is that?” When I didn’t respond, he prodded, “Who’s with Gabriel?”

“You are,” I said.

“Huh?” He made an irritated sound. “Dumb broad.” He opened the door and dragged me through it.

The gallery was pitch dark, too. Buonarotti and Gabriel weren’t giving Lucky a target by illuminating themselves.

“You and your bright ideas,” Buonarotti said to the priest. “I can’t see a fucking thing.”

“Then neither can Lucky,” Gabriel said. “We’ll slip past him.”

And then a familiar voice at the far end of the church shouted, “
Police!
Weapons down! Police!
Drop your weapons!
I’m a cop!”

Lopez!
Every cell in my body got a flood of renewed energy as I recognized the voice.

“Hey, I’m not armed!” Lucky shouted. “Don’t shoot! I am not armed!”

“That
liar
,” Buonarotti muttered.

“Lopez!” I cried.

“Esther! Stay down!” He didn’t even sound surprised to hear my voice. “Lucky, is that you?” he called.

“Yeah. Watch out! Buonarotti’s the killer! He’s so off his rocker, he’ll whack a cop!”

“Where is he?” Lopez’s voice was coming from a new position. He was getting closer to us.

“I think he’s up in the gallery,” Lucky called.

The doppelgangster drew in a sharp breath through its nostrils, thinking this meant itself.

“What’s wrong with the lights?” Lopez shouted.

“Not sure,” Lucky replied.

“
Shit!
I don’t have a flashlight.”

“Listen, cop!” the doppelgangster shouted, its mouth so close to my ear that I flinched. “I’ve got your girlfriend!”

“Who the fuck is
that?
” said Buonarotti in the darkness.

In the dormitory hallway behind us, on the other side of the door we had come through, I heard a man shout, “
Police!
Weapons down! NYPD! Drop your weapons! This is the police!”

The doppelgangster shouted down to Lopez, his voice carrying through the darkness, “I’ve got her right here, and I’ll blow her head off!”

“He’s lying! His gun’s empty!” Lucky said.

To clarify the situation, the doppelgangster fired a shot.

“Holy shit!” said Lucky.

“Who the fuck
is
that?” said Buonarotti.

“Lucky,” I shouted, “there’s a dopp—
agh!
” The hand on my throat tightened.