For Nothing (28 page)

*

Fifteen minutes across town, The Pope received a phone cal . He listened to the voice on the other line, and then he hung up. He waited a few moments and weighed his options. The consigliore looked at the scotch glass on his desk, then walked over to the bottle and took a swig directly from it. The Pope picked the phone back up and made a cal .

His southern accent coming out more with more force, he said to the man who answered, “I need you two to come here right now.” He listened to the voice coming through on the other line. Then he interrupted.

“I know it’s going to be hard. But get here anyway. Something’s come up.”

Again the voice on the line pushed back.

The Pope, irritated, screamed into the phone,

“I don’t give a fuck! Get your asses over here!” He slammed the phone down. Just once, he’d like somebody, anybody, to just do what the fuck they were told without questioning every little detail. The Pope felt his blood pressure at a dangerous high level and took a deep breath, holding it in and al owing himself to calm. When he exhaled he didn’t feel any different. It did however spur him into another coughing frenzy that left him feeling weak.

He cast a glance at the bottle and opted to cheat in order to bring things back into perspective.

The Pope took another drink and then put the top back on the bottle. Taking his suit jacket off of the chair, he put one arm through at a time.

Those bastards better not take too long
, he thought.

Vaughn woke up with a dul ache in his shoulders and a very vivid pain somewhere on his face. As he came to consciousness, he was aware that it hurt most under his eye and pretty much radiated around the back of this head. His ears didn’t hurt, though, that was good.

He tried to bring his hand to his face so he could feel the wound and that’s when he noticed he was hanging off of the ground with his hands stretched over his head. Alex groaned as he felt the pain throb outward from his eye and he pul ed his head back to look at his hands.

There was a rope tied around his hands in a figure-eight twist. The makeshift cuffs were thrown over a hook that hung from a thick steel chain wrapped around the rusty pipe that ran the length of the garage roof.

In a panic, he tried to look around the room, but his eye was almost swol en shut. His breath came out in labored wheezes due to the stretch and weight of his body hanging two feet off of the ground.

Catching his attention was a slight scraping sound coming from his left. Unfortunately, Alex couldn’t see what was making the noise.

Scrape.

Whatever it was, it was just out of the range of his right eye. He lol ed his head as far to his right as he could, and cocked his head at an odd ninety degree angle.

Scrape.

The blood from the wound under his left eye dripped across his lips and Alex could taste the iron of his own blood.

Scrape.

He just registered the taste as he picked up the source of the sound. Hambone was sitting in an old wooden chair in the garage. He held a piece of wood in his hand and a long, curved knife in the other. He was absently shaving pieces off of what looked to be a thick piece of wood that was being pared down. Hambone shot a quick look Alex’s way, noticing he regained consciousness.

“Welcome back,” he said.

His voice was even and thick. It was apparent that he’d waited there for some time.

Alex decided to get right to the point.

“Coward”. The blood from his mouth sprayed out with his spittle. “You kil ed Jack for the money.” He declared it as if it were truth. Vaughn hoped to get whatever information he could now that the gloves were off.

Hambone stood up, tucked his blade into his belt, and stood right in front of Alex, hanging on the hook helpless. Instead of seeing a hint of irritation on the man’s face, Alex was surprised when he let out a laugh.

“You real y don’t get it, do you? I thought you were supposed to be a detective.” Hambone turned around as if to go back to his whittling.

Alex didn’t know what to make of the situation. He was frustrated and the enormity of his helplessness fel upon him. He began to thrash back and forth on the hook, not knowing what else to do.

As he swayed on the hook, Hambone turned around to regard him.

“Calm down,” he said. “You’l just make matters worse.”

Through bloody teeth and ripped lips Alex’s voice came out in a coarse bark. “Cop kil er.” Hambone walked back towards Alex. “I have not kil ed a cop in my life…yet.”

“It doesn’t matter if you pul ed the trigger.

You’re no better than the rest. At least they can admit what they did, you pussy.”

Hambone’s face turned red as the sting of Alex’s words took hold. The man stood there and unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. Glaring at Alex, he rol ed each sleeve up and stood less than a foot away from Alex.

“Seems I tagged your face pretty good.”

“I wasn’t even looking.”

The brute scratched his nose with his thumb and gave a little snicker as he looked out at Alex from beneath his furrowed brow.

“Are you looking now, detective?”

With that, Hambone exploded into a burst of action delivering a bruising blow to Alex’s exposed rib.

The large fist buried itself into Vaughn’s side and sent his air out in a burst. The air rushing out of Alex’s mouth brought more blood from Vaughn’s throat and sprayed Hambone across his face.

Alex let out another groan and hung there, his Alex let out another groan and hung there, his lungs gasped for air for his battered body. Hambone walked to a shelf and grabbed a hand towel. He wiped Alex’s blood from his face and talked.

“El iot told me to leave you intact. So unfortunately, we can’t keep playing this game.” Vaughn sucked in some air and gathered a bit of his pride as he swayed back and forth, the momentum of the hit stil shaking through his body and articulating itself in the momentum of his swing.

“I’m stil here, you pussy.”

His cracked lips and bloody smile mocked Hambone, who tossed the rag to the floor. “You real y think you’re a tough guy, don’t you? Wel , I guess I can go one more round before El iot gets here.” He strode forward and curled his arm back to deliver another hit to the rib. But Alex was ready this time, and using his momentum on the return swing, curled his foot behind his leg and snapped his knee up, bashing it square into Hambone’s nose just as the large man swung his own momentum forward to hit the detective.

It resulted in a satisfying
POP.
It was Hambone’s turn to gasp for air as his normal means for breathing was temporarily caved in. He stumbled backward with a shout of surprise and bent over about four feet from Alex, whose momentum carried him back and forth yet again.

For a moment, Hambone stayed there, doubled over, watching his blood speckle the garage floor and felt his smashed nasal cavity. After a moment, he pul ed the blade from his side and ran at Alex. Before Vaughn could react, the man pressed the blade against his throat and was pressing it forward.

The two were eye to eye and the anger in Hambone’s eyes was apparent as the glare bore into Alex’s resigned eyes.

Hambone pressed the knife against his throat a bit hard and Alex felt its ridges bite into his flesh.

Vaughn felt like this was the end. He wasn’t going to give Hambone the satisfaction of seeing even a moment of fear or regret in his eyes. He locked into a stare with the man and dared him to do it.

“Fucking do it, you coward.”

At that moment, the door to the garage swung open and El iot and Hi-Def walked in. El iot, gathering a sense of the scene before him, held up a hand as Hi-Def came in behind him. Hi-Def stopped and looked in and a mask of horror crossed his face as he looked at the two men nose to nose in the garage.

“Go into the house and wait there,” El iot said.

Hi-Def, not needing to be told twice, walked out of the garage and shut the door behind him.

El iot came forward into the room and laid a hand on Hambone’s arm pressing the knife into Alex’s throat and said, “Go sit down.” Hambone sent a glare at El iot, but retracted the blade.

“Sit down,” El iot repeated.

With a frustrated shout, Hambone hurled the knife at the corner of the room and walked out of the garage snapping, “I’l be right outside if you need me.”

El iot walked back to the garage door and pul ed it shut. He then grabbed the chair that Hambone sat on and put it under Alex’s feet.

Backing up, he stood between Alex Vaughn and the exit. He pul ed his pistol and held it out as a reminder to Alex to not do anything rash.

Vaughn caught his footing on the chair and asked, “Do you mind if I pul my hands off of this hook and sit down?”

“Not at al , just remember who has the gun.” Alex nodded his head and brought his hands forward off of the hook. At once, he felt the relief in his stretch joints and felt the cartilage release from his overextended shoulders. El iot watched him with his lips pursed together as if contemplating what to do.

Alex faced the man and accused him, “You kil ed Jack.”

He jumped off of the chair and stood in front of it.

El iot looked shocked by the accusation. “I most certainly did not.”

Vaughn couldn’t believe that the man had the gal to lie to him. Face to face, he stil wouldn’t tel the truth.

“Enough of the games!”

El iot rol ed back from the force of the shout and held the gun up again to remind Alex who was in charge here.

Regaining his composure, the detective sat down on the chair, and asked point blank, “What the down on the chair, and asked point blank, “What the hel is going on here?”

He stood there a moment, as if he were deciding what to do. El iot said, “Fair enough Alex.

I’m going to level with you here. You’re a dead man and there is nothing I can do about it. Jack’s dead, and there isn’t anything I can do about that either.” Alex wasn’t as surprised to hear that he was a dead man as he would have supposed he might. It wasn’t often that one got his face kicked in and hung on a hook and had a knife put to his throat and the intent was not to sooner or later kil the guy being abused in such a way. But he was confused.

“So why tel me, if al you’re going to do is kil me anyway.”

“Because Alex, I am not a dead man, yet. I need that money.”

Alex brushed his bloody and matted hair away from his face. “Wel , I’m not going to tel you where the money is unless you tel me why.” Vaughn was resigned to the fact that he was not getting out of this.

El iot laughed. “No, I think you wil tel me Alex.” Here he waved his gun over his shoulder as he spoke. “You see there are those in our little group that feel if you don’t tel us, we might have to make a visit to your family down the road.”

Alex lunged forward and yel ed, “You son of a bitch!”

Vaughn wanted to rip this man’s lips off of his face and choke him on them.

As he came forward though, El iot brought the gun around and placed the barrel at Vaughn’s head, halting his momentum.

“Sit back down.”

Vaughn inched backwards and sat back down on the chair.

Keeping his gun leveled at Alex, El iot pul ed a finger up to his lips and stood there for another moment before continuing, “I don’t
want
to hurt your family, Alex. This business has gotten messy enough. But understand this; I wil do what I have to do to survive.”

Alex met El iot’s gaze and looked at him mustering as much nerve as he could.

“Tel me what is going on, and I wil tel you where your money is. Why did you kil Jack? That’s al I have wanted to know this whole time. Why is Jack dead?”

El iot scratched his head and looked at the ground for a moment before snapping it back up and declaring, “Deal.” He paused and took a breath then continued, “Jack is dead because one of his informants alerted him to a shipment of cash coming from the Bonanno crime family in New York City.

That money, Jack was told, was supposed to be delivered to Falzone, the underboss of Don Ciancetta. It was going to bankrol a major switch in al egiance before the war started.”

Alex shook his head. “Confiscations happen al the time. No outfit is going to kil a cop for intercepting cash and locking it up in the evidence ward. It’s the price of doing business.”

“Ah wel , you see there’s the problem. That money that was going to bankrol the switch was supposed to be delivered by me and my team.” Vaughn almost choked. “You’ve been working for them this whole time?”

“Wel , I wouldn’t say we have been working for them,” El iot said. “More like we make the monetary transactions between the families and we take a cut.

We tax it. Listen, this money was going to be delivered with or without us. At least we can make a few bucks on the side.”

Alex’s face went flush and he felt anger wel ing inside of him. “I don’t believe it. Jack would never...”

El iot cut him off. “Jack. Good God, no. Have you ever even met the man, Alex? That guy is straight through and through. No, Jack wouldn’t give us the money no matter how many times we told him we were the deep undercover unit on the case.

Never mind the fact that we
are
assigned to watch the family’s relations.”

“So then why, why was Jack even there that night?”