For Nothing (23 page)

Next to the large oak door was an empty chair. The plush, thick grey carpeting trailed down the hal way and in the distance, maybe another thirty feet, Rafael saw the reason for the empty chair.

A smal man, with a bulge coming off of his hip revealing the heat he was stacked with, turned his back and to talk to a cute little lady with a cleaning cart.

Rafael steeled his gaze and pul ed out a smal lock pick from the inside fold of his jacket pocket. Heart beating, he scurried forward; he was doing his best to remain innocuous to the peripheral vision of the lovely lady distracting his chief obstacle.

Sidling up to the door, he slipped his lock pick in the deadbolt key hole, crouching to align his ear with the lock. These were always the easiest to Rafael Rontego. With a click, the bolt lifted.

With a great deal of caution, and a fair amount of apprehension, Rafael looked in the distance and saw the two potential lovers deep in conversation. Readjusting his lock pick, and stooping even further, aligning his eye with the hole, Rontego began sliding and shifting the three piece set. In a moment, the entry device was calibrated, and Rafael felt the grooves give way to another satisfying click.

The assassin turned the door knob. With one final glance down the hal way, Rafael disappeared into the private residence of Chris ‘The Pope’ Biela.

The door shut behind him and he leaned against it in relief.

*

After a few minutes, the yel ing died down and the foursome rode on in silence. Hi-Def leaned over Alex Vaughn and was trying to say something, but whatever it was, Alex couldn’t understand. His voice was stil muted, and Alex figured the blast temporarily blew out his eardrums.

Vaughn was pretty sure he could hear just fine if the damned constant humming in his ear would just go away. Hi-Def asked another question, as evidenced by the quizzical look etched on his face.

Alex tried to sit up and said, “I can’t hear you, it’s the humming.”

He thought he said it normal enough, but he must not have been able to control his volume very wel , as both Hambone and El iot turned to regard him.

They shared a glance and Hi-Def turned Alex to face him and yel ed, loud enough for Alex to hear,

“It wil go away soon, it’s from the explosion!” Vaughn leaned backward against the side of the van and closed his eyes.

No shit
, he thought to himself.

As the van bumped along the Buffalo streets, the tal downtown buildings morphed into the low level buildings that defined much of the older part of the city. There were not many pedestrians out at this hour and the few that were out were up to no good.

There was a lady sel ing her feminine wares on the corner of one street, her skirt hiked up and a pair of leather boots indicated her intent. The van came around another corner, slowing down as rundown housing lined the street on either side. The houses in this part of town were in varying degrees of disrepair. Paint peeled from the sides of buildings of disrepair. Paint peeled from the sides of buildings and overgrown lawns threatened to swal ow the sidewalks.

If Alex didn’t know better, he would have thought several homes had late night garage sales, judging by the amount of personal effects littering the lawns and driveways.

As the vehicle drove onward, Alex noticed that his ears began to crackle as if someone was folding a piece of paper near his ear, but with each crackle his hearing began to return to normal. The van bounded down the uneven pavement until it got to a seedy looking home with a detached two car garage. The white paint was peeling on the sides of this house and it looked like it was a two story home.

Its colonial style build was dilapidated, but Alex could see that once, maybe fifty years ago, this house was quite nice.

The two-car garage set back behind the house was equal y as old, but looked like it’d painted of late. It was not your traditional, modern garage however, as the twin doors that opened outward were more akin to a barn type doorway than the mechanized garage doors that lifted to al ow entry.

As they approached, the van slowed down and Hambone exited in order to pul open one of the garage doors. Alex noticed that he unlocked and removed a padlock in order to lift an iron hatch to al ow for entry. When the latch was raised and the door swung open, Hambone disappeared into the side of the garage that remained shut.

The van pul ed under the structure and El iot, Hi-Def and Alex piled out. As they exited the rear of the garage, Alex noticed Hambone securing a tarp over what appeared to be another vehicle.

“Come on, I have something to show you.” El iot waved for Alex to fol ow and made his way towards the house’s back door.

It was a yel ow door with scuff marks along the bottom where a kick plate should have been instal ed. But it swung open with no trouble, and Hi-Def and Hambone fel into line behind the two men as they entered the building. They entered through a kitchen that was neglected as was evidenced by the Chinese takeout and pizza boxes that littered the counters. They proceeded through the kitchen and into what might have functioned as a living room, but was set up as a de-facto headquarters for this unit.

The blinds were pul ed shut in an obvious attempt to keep prying eyes at bay. There was a card table with dual laptops on it, connected by a series of wires which is where Hi-Def made his home. He plunked down behind his screens and began tapping on the keys.

Ninety degrees from him were a pair of corkboards placed on top of easels and several known Mafioso’s’ black and white mug shots graced them in an effort to outline the two warring factions.

Under each ‘family tree’ several members were listed as deceased. Notable among the Falzone crew were Sal Pieri and two of his men. Al three had a large red X crossing over their faces.

El iot wasted no time as they came in, and he picked up a red marker laying on the edge of the easel. He crossed an X through both Sonne Pieri and Frank DeRisio. Alex noticed that of the dueling factions, Joe Falzone’s crew seemed to be taking the brunt of the damage. Most of Falzone’s losses were being accrued at the officer level. Don Ciancetta lost only a handful of hitters, low level thugs for the most part.

A smal desk was cattycorner to the easels but was not burdened by much in the way of paperwork. The place was set up for a quick exit.

One thing caught Alex’s eye as he plunked down on an uncomfortable plastic chair, the kind you would get for a few bucks at a discount shop. He noticed that there was a chart of monetary shipments that were made at varying times to varying mobsters on both sides of the war.

Most streams, at a glance, seemed to flow independent of one another, each to their perspective sides of the family. It seemed that Don Ciancetta and his crew made quite a large amount more than the other faction, but that could be expected as he was the boss. Beyond the monetary flow of several thousands of dol ars here or there, one large payment leapt off the page, causing Vaughn to leap out of his seat almost as soon as he sat down.

He thought to go over towards the easel to study the outline in more detail, but El iot came forward and flipped the easel around revealing a chalkboard with the name “Jack” scratched across it in chalk. There was the date of his murder, just several days earlier and a list of facts that were several days earlier and a list of facts that were uncovered as of today. There was a photograph of the 9mm bul et that pierced Jack’s lungs along with its dimensions before and after the bul et flattened during its destructive course. The Sobranie cigarette was listed along with both locations the brand was sold.

It caused Vaughn to do a double take when he noticed a picture of himself, but then again, why wouldn’t they have documentation of him in action.

There was the useless photograph that Hi-Def showed Alex earlier that they believed was Rafael Rontego.

Rafael Rontego.

They had been so close. He was long gone by now. He could have been in another state. If they knew what the fucker looked like, they might be able to put an APB out for him and head him off. If they knew what he looked like.

Alex took another look at the red X’s that crossed the faces of men he spoke with just hours earlier. He felt his face pul up into a grimace as both the thought and the ache of his head wound assaulted him. He put a hand to his forehead tracing the outline of the cut. It was not as large as he thought; the amount of blood misled him.

Alex could imagine how he looked at that second. Coming back to the moment, he brushed his long brown hair backward away from the wound.

A few strands stuck at first, but the momentum of Vaughn’s hand tore them away, reopening the wound a little. Alex noticed that El iot was giving him a serious look; his lips were pursed together again.

He walked over to the picture of Alex and drew an X

across his face. Vaughn, flabbergast, just about choked.

“What the hel does that mean?”

El iot stood a bit straighter. “Alex, what happened tonight was damn near a disaster. We can’t have you getting kil ed.”

Vaughn felt heated rage wel up inside of him, threatening to boil over. “My work’s not done yet,” he said.

Stil , El iot stood toe to toe with Alex, resolute.

“Alex, think about it. Victor Garducci has already accomplished what he set out to do. It was you that cal ed in who the kil er is. Rafael Rontego kil ed Jack. That is a huge place to start. There is no need for you to be undercover and risking yourself. What purpose would it serve?”

Alex placed a hand on the easel and looked at the red X over his face. How large it loomed to him at that moment. He had, in fact, almost lost his life.

Vaughn felt the presence of someone else coming up to him and it was confirmed when a maul of a hand rested on his shoulder. Alex gave a slight turn to see that the size thirteen shoes staring up at him were Hambone’s. His voice seemed thick even if he was, in some smal measure, trying to soften it and seem friendly.

“You did a hel of a job up there, man. I mean, I haven’t seen anyone survive a blast like that. You got Angels sitting on your shoulder.” There was a pause as Alex digested the brute’s words. It seemed that El iot thought that was his cue. “Besides, think for a moment about the position you were in. What would you have done if you saw Rafael Rontego up there? Would you have pul ed the trigger yourself? Would you have let Sal or Frankie pul the trigger? Or were you gonna pul out your badge and arrest them al ?”

Alex stood up and turned around. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

El iot pursed his lips again. God, how Alex hated it every time he did that. He glanced at Hi-Def, who shrugged.

El iot continued on. “Face facts man, that explosion was the best thing that ever happened to you. That was a no win situation up there.” Best thing that ever happened to him. Alex winced as the image of Sal Pieri resting on the floor, stil smoldering and with Alex’s bul et embedded in his brain, flashed across his consciousness. Alex shook his head in affirmation of his resignation. Hi-Def, reading the body language began pounding on his keyboard.

“Ok then, Victor Garducci died in the blast.

That makes four.”

As he spoke the words he spun the computer around to face the three men.

A case file on Victor Garducci flashed on the left side of the screen “DECEASED.” On the right was a list of newspaper agencies that were at the same time emailed officer notations on finding multiple dead bodies on the scene. Listed were Sal multiple dead bodies on the scene. Listed were Sal Pieri, age 46, Frankie DeRisio, age 43, Victor Garducci, 28 and Muro Lucano, age 58.

“Muro?” El iot and Alex questioned at the same time.

“Yep. Officers on the scene found a body near the back entrance. Seems a winner is starting to emerge in this war. Muro is a huge loss to Falzone.” Hambone let out a low whistle. It seemed whistling was his thing.

“Two guesses as to who got the drop on Muro.”

El iot clenched his face and you could tel he was thinking hard. His lips began to purse together again and Alex watched it hoping to God he wouldn’t do it again.

“For God sakes El iot, it was a joke. You know it has to be Rontego.”

El iot let out a laugh and it interrupted his puckering. “It’s not that, I was just wondering how Slate was doing. We haven’t heard from him in a bit.

I am sure he is fine.”

Alex nodded his head, but made a mental note to make a cal to his friend the second he was away from these rodeo clowns. Alex looked at Hi-Def. “So, Victor is dead?.”

Hi-def leaned back. “Victor is dead.” His mind made up, Alex Vaughn pul ed out his pistol and replaced the bul et he lost in Sal’s brain matter. With the resounding click of his magazine, he walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?” El iot asked.

“I’m doing what I should have done to begin with. I’m going to Jack’s house to see what I can find.”

El iot strode towards the door and into Alex’s path. “You think we haven’t been there? You think the rest of the Buffalo P.D. hasn’t been there? They found nothing. We found nothing.”

“Yeah, wel , you people don’t know Jack like I did.”