Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy (12 page)

While in the escape cars some of the men had
engaged in nervous satirical and obscene comments about the
shooting. Now, during the time spent quietly in the darkness of the
van on the ride to the saloon, all were quiet and somber. After
time to reflect on the recent events they were glad to be on the
winning side; some felt compassion for the thirteen men and one
woman they had just gunned down. But along with a sense of
compassion was a rationalization of their right to defend their
turf, jobs and livelihood. The truck, which proclaimed by the signs
on each side to belong to an industrial uniform and laundry
cleaning firm, was driven to the Twelfth Street Saloon and backed
up to the rear entrance. Some of the men went into the main bar
area, most went up the back stairway to the private rooms.

Clay passed through the bar and crossed the
street to a pay phone on the other side of the street. Inside the
phone booth he dialed the number at Tony’s house, let the phone
ring three times, hung up, redialed, again let the phone ring three
times, and then hung up.

Leaving the phone booth, he crossed the
street and entered the bar. Going from man to man he quietly
thanked each of the men in the crew for their efforts.

Clay headed upstairs after telling Floyd, the
evening bartender, to watch the men in the bar and listen for loose
tongues, as some of them would surely drink too much.

Upstairs, he went to each man, singly or in
small groups to thank each of them for their role in avenging the
shooting of Tony and their other friends. He shook each man’s hand
and stated his personal thanks for their help. Leaving Joey till
last, Clay asked him to accompany him into a separate room. Once
the door was closed and they were alone he gave his approval of
Joey’s performance in private. “Although we didn’t always see eye
to eye on this operation, I thank you for your support and backing
to accomplish what needed to be done. I couldn’t have done it
without you; even with the help of all of the other men. I want you
to know how much I appreciate all the effort you put into pulling
this off.”

Joey countered him by saying “Hey, I had a
job to do and you had a job. At first I thought you were just a
snot nosed kid who was a hanger on at Tony’s house and would just
screw things up. But I was wrong. I still don’t feel like I know
who you really are, or just what your future role here is, but I’ll
give credit where credit is due; you put together a damn good plan
and got the job done.”

“Don’t be concerned about my future here”
Clay counseled, “Because I don’t want a future role. I’ll stick
around until Tony is able to take over and then I’ll go away. So
relax, I’m not a threat to you now, nor will I be in the
future.”

“I appreciate you telling me, and I’ll
approach all of the men again to insure your name is kept out of
this. There’s no guarantee it won’t leak out, but I’ll try.”

There was a knock on the door. When Joey
answered, two of the men sent out earlier to deal with individual
Russian gang members gave him a thumbs up sign and said all three
of the men they had been assigned had been dealt with and disposed
of.

Joey went back to the other room with his men
and Clay had two more hefty drinks of straight whiskey in private.
The whole operation had been a roaring success, but he didn’t feel
like celebrating any of it. People had died tonight, a lot of
people. Even thought he knew they had instigated the fight the fact
remained he was responsible for twenty two deaths tonight alone.
After having time to reflect on the night’s happenings in the
darkness of the truck ride from the pallet warehouse, he had a
queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach and it refused to go
away.

Joey came in twice to tell him other men had
reported in with good news, until all had reported they were
successful. Only the last hit had gotten messy. The target had
sensed something was awry and had gotten off two shots at his
attackers before he died. One of the men was hit in the right
shoulder and was in the hospital. The dead man and his gun had been
disposed of and the wounded man would claim he was walking home
when he was shot without warning by someone in a passing car.

Clay directed Joey to get the men out of the
saloon and order them to go straight home to get some sleep. In the
morning they were to get up and go to church with their families as
usual. All had previously arranged for alibis to account for their
time during the evening.

By then he felt drained of energy and left
the saloon. It was nearing midnight when he arrived at Anna’s
house. After getting through the gates and talking to the guards he
entered through the front door and found Anna. She had waited up to
talk to him. She was wearing a pure white silk negligee with a
white silk wrap over it. The contrast of the white silk against her
olive skin was striking and dramatic. Her long hair was pulled back
and secured in a bun; she still wore make up and looked beautiful
even at this late hour. “It’s over” he told her, even though she
had received his signal of success hours earlier. “Your parents and
Tony’s mother will be able to return home tomorrow and all of you
can now visit Tony.” He crossed over to the liquor cabinet off the
living room and poured himself a half glass of bourbon.

Anna came to stand in front of him, so close
their bodies almost touched. Taking the glass from his hand she
sipped the drink, and exhaled slowly before saying “Thank God it’s
over.” Handing the glass back to him she said “You had better get
to bed; you’ve had a long and stressful day. I’ll thank you
properly later.” She rose up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek
and said “Thank you Clay; thank you for again being here when I
needed you.” Anna turned, walked from the room, and he listened to
her bare feet patting the oak stairway as she went upstairs.

I don’t care if she is over forty years old;
she is one good looking, sexy woman, he thought to himself. Clay
felt a stirring in his crotch and instantly felt guilty for the
thoughts he was having about Jimmy’s mother and Tony’s wife. He
knew then the events of the day and the late hour were having their
effect on him, so he poured some more bourbon, turned off the
lights and as silently as he could went upstairs to his room.

All of the parents were at the right end of
the hall. His room was on the left, next to Anna and Tony’s room.
He made his way to his assigned quarters as quietly as possible,
entered the bathroom and started the water in the shower so it
could warm while he undressed. As he began to relax, he realized
just how tired he was. He hadn’t allowed himself to notice it
before, because of the demands of overseeing the evening’s
arrangements and waiting for the reports on the individual hits to
come in. When he stepped into the shower stall the hot water hit
his body with its full force; it felt as if all the stress
accumulated over the last two weeks left his body like steam vapor
leaving a pot of boiling water. He felt relaxed and calm for the
first time since this duty had been thrust upon him. For ten
minutes he stood with his head bowed, the water beating on his head
and back, while he finished the whiskey. Taking the wash cloth and
soap he scrubbed his entire body hard and vigorously, as if trying
to remove a dirt and stench only he saw and smelled.

After drying himself he brushed his teeth and
went into the bed room. His bed covers had been turned back and he
crawled in between the fresh clean white sheets to slowly drift off
into a deep but troubled sleep.

Twenty minutes later he awoke to the
sensation of a cool, soft, naked body lying next to him under the
covers. He slowly became aware of the touch of smooth, soft skin
along the entire length of his body as he groggily struggled to
grasp what was happening. In the moonlight coming through the
uncovered window he recognized Anna’s face as she moved to hover
above him. He felt her breasts against his chest and felt himself
swell in response. Her makeup had been removed and her long dark
hair was cascading straight down on each side of her face. He
couldn’t determine if she was real, or if he was having a delicious
dream. His next thought was if this is a dream, there’s going to be
a hell of a mess in the sheets to clean up.

She whispered softly “I owe you a great deal
Clay, but tonight will even the debt. You will never speak of
tonight to me or anyone else. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sure.” He was struggling to clear the
fog of sleep and exhaustion from his mind, and was still having
trouble focusing on what was happening since he had been
awakened.

Anna spread her legs to either side of his
torso, slid up his body and pushed back on her outstretched arms
until she was above him and looking down. She took his hands and
placed one on her hip and one on her breast and said “What are you
waiting for?” Reluctantly removing his hands, he leaned over to the
bedside table and turned on the table lamp to better enjoy the
vision before him. Returning his hands to their assigned positions
he smiled in appreciation of the beautiful woman on top of him.

Then there was no conversation between them;
what little talking they did was to direct their partner into a
preferred position, or to give verbal encouragement to the other to
heighten their own sexual releases. Several times Anna slowed his
pace, encouraging him to engage in prolonged foreplay past the
point when he would have mounted her. He had never experienced a
sustained sexual encounter of such intensity or duration and was in
awe of this mature woman. Several hours before dawn both were
satiated, sweaty and exhausted.

Clay woke up at ten o’clock and reached out
beside him. The bed was empty, as he knew it would be. “Christ” he
muttered “what a night. What a woman.” He had never had sex with a
woman more than three or four years older than him. He had been
indoctrinated with the objective of scoring with younger women, not
older women for Christ’s sake. Before last night he would never
have dreamed of approaching a forty eight year old woman to have a
sexual affair. Now he had to rethink all he had learned and had
accepted about sex. The bedding was a wreck and he was sticky from
the sweat induced during the couplings of the hours before
dawn.

And then the memory of last night’s killings
crashed into his consciousness!

My God, he said out loud. It went completely
out of my mind until now. He rose and walked into the bathroom and
relieved himself. Standing in front of the mirror above the
washbowl, he studied himself but instead saw images of death. He
pictured fourteen people being shot to death and their bodies
burned to unrecognizable charred pieces of cooked meat. Leaning
over the washbowl he splashed cold water up to his face and said
out loud, I’ve got to come to terms with this before it drives me
crazy.

Later, after showering again, he dressed and
went downstairs. Tony’s mother and Anna’s parents had left before
dawn to visit Tony before returning home. Anna was dressed and in
the breakfast room reading the Sunday morning paper. Her charcoal
gray slacks with a crème colored long sleeved blouse make her
appear as fresh and alert as always, although he knew she couldn’t
have had more than three hours sleep the night before.

“Good morning,” she greeted him cheerfully.
“Sit here and read the paper while I fix you something to eat.
Would you like breakfast or lunch?” After he opted for breakfast,
she continued, “There’s an article on the front page about your
handiwork last night. It says the police think it was gang related;
aren’t they clever? Tony’s name was mentioned, and the article
say’s he left the hospital last Friday, but no one knows where he
is.” Then she added, “Reporters were here earlier but left when no
one would talk to them or let them through the gate.”

He resisted the urge to stare at Anna’s butt
as she walked to the kitchen and instead began to read the paper’s
feature article. There was a picture on the front page and several
more toward the back of the paper. According to the article a group
of rival gang members had shot Tony Giliano several weeks ago.
Sources were quoted as saying the attackers had taken over his
criminal holdings with little resistance. Last night unknown
persons had ambushed the rival gang leaders and some of their
underlings, killing all of them. Identification of the principal
victims was tentative pending forensic test. The main article ended
by stating the police had no clues and did not anticipate any
imminent arrest; although, a large taskforce had been mobilized to
investigate the matter and suspects would be brought in for
questioning.

There were associated articles from the
mayor’s office, two state senators and several religious and civic
group leaders condemning the violence and multiple murders, urging
authorities to investigate the crime and bring charges against
those responsible. Blah, blah, blah and more blah.

Several prominent citizens had pledged to
donate a total of fifty thousand dollars as a reward for
information leading to the conviction of those responsible. Clay
felt like an old west outlaw with a price on his head.

Anna brought the food she had prepared into
the room and Clay settled down to eat the sausage links, eggs,
fried potato slices, toast, grapefruit juice and coffee. He had
just about finished eating, when the door bell rang. He was
surprised when he looked down the main hallway to see three older
men standing at the front door; the guards were still on duty and
had been instructed to hold all visitors at the gate until the main
house was notified. Through the leaded glass door and side lights
he could see they were all dressed in suits; they had probably come
here after attending church with their families. Anna anticipated
the question forming in his mind, and as she rose to answer the
door said “Its alright, I’m expecting them. They’re the three
syndicate boss’ of Chicago’s major families. I’ll handle it. You
stay out of it unless I or they call you. Do you understand?”