The Immortal Game (5 page)

12

Whitey was in a car across the street.

Lonny walked out of the Scarlotti house.

Whitey watched him. Remembered him. Wondered how much he could trust him.

He remembered the Lonagan job. If you could call a free hit a job. Whitey had been happy to do it, though Kat had pulled the trigger. Whitey had cleaned up. Made the man disappear. He remembered the man’s things, his secret stashes of child porn. Whitey shivered at the memory.

“We should let the cops find this stuff,” Kat had said.

Whitey shook his head. He didn’t want Dylan Lonagan to know about it. Didn’t want him tortured by it.

“What if one of these kids is his?”

“Then he’s better off not knowing.”

Whitey had stuffed all of it, boxes of filth and the man’s body, into the back of his Yukon. Took them all out of town and set fire to them.

As he watched the flames build and devour the man and the records of his sins, Whitey wondered what it would be like. To fight crime for a living. Make the streets safer.

Whitey watched Dylan Lonagan and wondered again. What would it be like to be a hero? To get called to save people instead of kill them?

*

His son dead.

His wife gone.

Sooner or later that dark whirlpool sucking at your feet, pulling at your legs, that bitch, despair, wins the battle and pulls you under to a dark world full of shadows and whispers, an inferno where hope is abandoned and everything is your fault.

But this wasn’t hell. There were ways to quiet the voices, dim the fingers pointing at you.

Things got pretty bad for Dylan Lonagan.

Boston’s an easy town to drink in. Especially when everyone knows your name. Everyone knew his story. Saving the kid, getting kicked off the force, losing his son. It made for entertaining reading; it sold papers, like any story that keeps getting worse.

There were plenty of people to buy him drinks. Plenty of cops to look the other way when he’d had too much.

One night, Whitey saw him stumble past the front window of Modern Pastry. Sometimes, after a job, Whitey liked to sit and unwind with an espresso and a biscotti, liked to act civilized, kid himself that he was.

Lonagan looked a mess, hair wild, eyes squinting. Whitey saw some local boys tailing him. He sighed and stood.

Just past the pastry shop, across the street was St. Mary’s Church. In front is a garden, a statue of Mary held center stage. The drunk saw her and wanted to chat.

The three boys saw an easy score. The drunk was on his knees, praying.

“I don’t know what to do, Mary. I don’t know what to do.”

His hand touched her stone feet. He sobbed.

The oldest boy grinned, turned to the youngest boy. “All right, Jimmy, go pop your cherry. Take his wallet.”

Jimmy nodded, then looked past the oldest boy, over his shoulder.

The older boys turned.

Every wannabe gangster in the North End knew Whitey Scarlotti. Wanted to be him. They looked in the mirror and practiced his dead stare. The same stare now directed at them.

“Not him, boys. He’s with me.”

They couldn’t leave fast enough.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Scarlotti.”

“Just
keepin
’ an eye on him.”

Whitey barely acknowledged them. He concentrated on Dylan Lonagan. The life of a hero. Heavy is the head.

Those kids still talk about the night Whitey Scarlotti stopped them from robbing some lush outside of St. Mary’s, and how shocked they were later, when they saw Whitey carrying him down the sidewalk over his shoulder. Nobody said a damn word to him.

Whitey followed Lonny, observed him get a phone call and change his destination. He was surprised when Lonny walked past a group of police cars and patrol men, all painted the color of flashing lights, and into Whitey’s old apartment building.

Lonny stood in the living room of Whitey and Kat Scarlotti. The room was full of cops. Detectives and forensics.

He remembered waking up there. Years ago. The same couch. His head felt like hammered tin. Dented. He had no idea where he was. The soothing voice of a woman singing. Breakfast smells, the pop and sizzle of something frying in a pan.

“You’re up?” Kat Scarlotti said.

“Where am I?”

“It ain’t Kansas, Dorothy.”

Lonny cradled his head.

“Can you eat?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You should.” She put a plate in front of him. “You throw it up, I won’t take it personal. Coffee?”

“God, yes.”

An omelet. Just a bit of cheese, a mix of herbs, tomatoes.

“This is amazing,” he told Kat when she brought his coffee in.

She smiled. “We aim to please here at Casa Scarlotti. Grew those tomatoes ourselves, out on the deck.

Lonny sipped his coffee.

“Not bad for a killer, huh?”

“Not bad at all.”

They sat for a while. Lonny couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, let alone something this good. Kat sipped her coffee and seemed quite content to watch Lonny enjoy her cooking. What had happened to her, he wondered, what had broken her, turned her into what she was?

“He suffered.” She turned her eyes on him. “If that helps.”

He had never seen kindness and wickedness teeter so precariously in one person before.

“I don’t know if it does.”

She nodded. “I hoped it would. Whitey knew it wouldn’t, didn’t he?”

“I guess he did.”

“That damned conscience of yours.”

“I suppose.” Maybe that was what she was missing. A conscience. “How’d I get here?”

She giggled. “I’m sorry. Whitey brought you. Carried you more like it.”

Lonny grimaced. He had no recollection of it. The last thing he remembered was a man buying him a drink and slapping him on the back. “This is one of the good guys,” he’d said. Lonny couldn’t down his drink fast enough. He wished he’d drunk enough to forget that line. One of the good guys. Used to be.

“He’s worried about you.”

“Who?”

“Whitey.”

“Where is he?” The whole scene was so incongruous, sitting here, chatting with the infamous Kat woman, like they were old friends.

“Whitey? It’s Sunday. He’s at church.”

“Wouldn’t have figured him for the church-going type.”

“He never misses.”

“A true believer?”

“Yes.”

“So….”

“So he knows he’s damned.”

It was a difficult piece to place in the puzzle of William Scarlotti. Lonny’s picture of him kept changing. Did he want to redeem himself?

“Kat, you’re a great hostess.”

Lonny could almost smell the breakfast Kat had made for him all those years ago. A wistful smile played on his face.

“Who called it in?” Lonny asked the detective, a man named Miller.

“Two calls. Building across the street.”

Lonny smiled. “Nobody from the building?”

Miller shook his head, the same smile on his face. “Four dead bodies. She got the last one between the eyes.”

Miller was pointing to the corpses splayed on the floor. Typical goons from the looks of them.

“All carrying. Looks like self defense.” Miller rubbed his eyes. “Word is, you’re working for her brother-in-law.”

Lonny nodded.

“Missing kid?”

“Maybe.”

“Check out the far bedroom.”

Lonny walked down the hall. Stepped into the room.

The unmistakable signs of a young boy. Superhero comic books, Harry Potter DVDs, in the closet, young boy’s clothes.

A chess set.

A familiar game.

Lonny looked at Miller and nodded.

“Fingerprints will confirm it.”

“I figure,” Miller said.

“How long have these stiffs been stiff?”

“Not long. Two hours, tops. They aren’t even stiff. Now I got a question for you. Why would Kat Scarlotti have Red’s kid? And who were these dudes after? Kat or the boy?”

Lonny shrugged. He had the same questions. He fought the urge, the old reflex, to order the cops in the apartment around. “You recognize these guys?”

They were back in the living room.

Miller crouched close to one of the dead men’s faces. “Giuseppe Rossi.
Footsoldier
for Angelo Denatale.”

Curiouser
and
curiouser
.

“Looks like the start of something,” Miller said.

Lonny nodded. He thanked Miller. On his way out, he looked at the door, turned back. “How’d they get in?”

Miller shrugged. “No sign of forced entry.”

And
curiouser
.

*

Lonny wanted a drink but settled for a double espresso at Mike’s Pastry. No sugar. This time of night there was a decent crowd. Lonny sat at a table and breathed the smell of confections, like the air was part sugar, part butter.

A tall man entered, wearing a leather jacket with chains on it, a blue bandana around his head and a scowl on his face. The sort of man you noticed immediately then looked away from. Unless you were a certain type of woman.

Even Lonny, trained at spotting faces in crowds, didn’t make him at first glance. But there was something familiar about him. The dead, dark eyes. The man didn’t move like a typical tough guy biker, heavy on his feet. Pulling out a chair at Lonny’s table, the man’s movements were careful, graceful.

Whitey Scarlotti.

Lonny sipped his espresso, put the cup down. Whitey ordered the same from the young waitress.

“Long time,” Lonny said.

Whitey smiled. Raised his eyebrows.

“There’s a man in a black suit looking for you in Vermont.”

Whitey let out a long breath. “I need to know what happened in there.”

“Was it Kat that shot up your place up north? Killed that girl?”

They spoke quietly, leaning toward each other. Whitey’s disguise had the effect of making people ignore them. They stopped talking when the waitress put down the tiny espresso cup.