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bedlamsbardI posted an altered version of this earlier, but it's been rewritten to reflect the ending of New York Minute. No, I have no real explanation for this, except that it was Very Late when I was writing. (Think midnight).
“Bonasera, Nicholas,” the man said, and Nick smiled at him, feeling the thrill run though his body to settle in the pit of his stomach. I’m getting out. I’ll be a free man. I’ll see my daughters.
“That’s me.” He went through his possessions curiously, not really remembering what they were, it’d been so many years from the day they locked him up. There was a wallet with a flurry of faded pictures there and he spread them out across the table with interest. He, and Odelia, and Christ but they’d been young then. Pictures of Stella, from the days she’d been born till a blurred snapshot taken at the Central Park zoo, where she’d stood on tiptoe to stretch her hand out toward the baby elephant that had snuffled curiously at them. She giggled as she’d run her fingers over its rough pebbled skin and Odelia had smiled at them, laying her hands protectively over her pregnant belly. There was one picture of Astra tucked amid the stacks of Nick and Odelia and Stella, a tiny sleepy baby with her thumb in her mouth and her eyes screwed tightly shut, lying on a red blanket patterned with stars like a milky banner of victory. The stars in my night sky, Nick had joked to his wife. My girls, my baby girls.
He’d thought about that a lot. Thought about it nights, lying awake in his bed listening to his cellmate snore, thought about when he got so tired of watching his back that he just wanted to say fuck it and let the wolves take him like he knew they wanted. It was the thought of his daughters that let him sleep, that let him keep watching his back, that let him wait for the day he came up for parole.
And now he was there, and he stood by the doors and went through the relics of his old life. There wasn’t much, besides the wallet and the pictures. He was wearing a tux the day they took him in, and thirty years later he stood and weighed the bowtie in one hand and thought wow. The bowtie went back in the envelope and the last thing he pulled out was his wedding ring, which he turned over and over before sliding it on. It sat loosely on his finger and he was struck by that somehow, because it used to fit perfectly and now it didn’t.
Used to.
Thirty years behind bars for a robbery he admitted to and a murder he didn’t commit. Used to. Used to be a con man, used to be a thief, used to be a husband and a father and Kevin Price’s partner. Now he wasn’t. Now he was just Nick Bonasera, ex-con, ex-husaband, but still a man. Still a father, maybe. Maybe. If he could find his daughters, if Odelia wasn’t lying when she called him up from a fucking payphone in fucking Nebraska, Omaha fucking Nebraska, and told him she’d left his daughters at an orphanage in New York.
His daughters. In a fucking orphanage.
Jesus Christ, and she’d just left them there, like you would a dog youd didn’t like at the pound. His kids, and Nick had thought of abusive foster homes with sick horror in his stomach and signed the divorce papers Odelia had sent him a month later without regret.
“Mr. Bonasera? Your car’s here.”
*
He’d shared a cell with a Mafia don called Luciano Constantine for the past couple years. Lucky Constantine had probably been running cons since Nick was in his cradle, but they’d exchanged tips and tricks, each grateful that they hadn’t ended up sharing a cell with one of the real whackjobs in the prison. Lucky had promised Nick that on the day he got out he’d have someone from the Constantine Family drive down and pick him up. My boy Val’ll take care of you, he’d said. Constantine can always use good men.
Nick had wanted to laugh because it had been like something out of a movie, the motherfucking Mafia, for Christ’s sake. But Lucky hadn’t been joking and Nick knew it was real, something more real and more tangible than the everpresent spectre that had hung above him and Kevin Price when they were running their cons in the streets of New York, in Nevada casinos and the homes of Boston brahmin. There were people out there that make him look like an amateur, and Nick knew he was anything but. It wasn’t like they’d known each other, really, or ran in the same circles, but the ghost, the threat had always been there. We’re watching you. Fuck up, and we take your head. He and Kevin may have run independent cons, but in New York, there was always someone watching, and in the thieves’ world, that was the Mafia.
The car waiting for him outside the thick gates of the prison was a slim black Jaguar, but Nick had never seen one with thick tinted windows like this one, never mind the large dent that marred the left front bumper and the silver scratches that spiderwebbed the front of the car. If it hadn’t been for those flaws, the car would be in mint condition.
The man standing by the front of the car exchanging lazy glares with the security guards was a stranger. He was wearing a sportcut leather jacket over a crisp white shirt and black slacks and from the way he moved, Nick was willing to wager he had at least one weapon on him somewhere. His russet red hair was cut incongrously short, so that Nick could see the thick white scar under it. He turned as Nick came toward him, face creasing in a wary smile that wasn’t entirely unfriendly.
“Hi,” Nick said.
“Hey,” the man said in reply. His eyes flicked curiously to Nick’s wedding ring and then back up to his face, all so quickly Nick wasn’t sure whethere he’d imagined it or if it had really happened. “Nick Bonasera, right? I’m Carmine d’Alessandro.” He held out his hand and Nick took it after a moment.
“Nice to meet you.” D’Alessandro’s grip was warm and dry, with the kind of callouses acquired from years of handling a gun or knife on his palm. “You work for Luciano Constantine?”
D’Alessandro’s face closed off a little, like he didn’t like what he was hearing, and his voice was perfectly neutral as he said, “For Val Constantine. The Old Man’s son.”
“Oh.” Nick didn’t know what to say to that, because when Lucky talked about his son, he talked about Valentine Constantine like he was fifteen and had never grown up. He’d assumed it was Lucky who ran the Constantine Family, even from behind bars. But from the look on d’Alessandro’s face and the way he said Val Constantine’s name, it had been a long time since Lucky was head of the family in anything but name.
D’Alessandro stepped around to the other side of the car and held open the passenger’s door for Nick. “Why don’t you get in,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride back to civilization, and then you and Val can talk business.”
Val Constantine. Again with Val Constantine. Of course. Nick felt his future slipping away like loose sand through his fingers.
*
They were driving down the highway when another car edged up behind them, riding their bumper like cowboys at a rodeo. Nick turned around, half-expecting to see the blue and red lights of a police car signaling them to the side of the road.
It wasn’t. It was a seal-grey Ferrari (Nick hadn’t known they even made them in grey) with tinted windows, and d’Alessandro’s mouth tightened when he saw it. He pulled the Jaguar over for no reason Nick oculd see and sat gnawing on his lower lip with one hand slipped up his sleeve and the other down by the edge of the seat. The Ferrari pulled up behind him, and Nick heard the door bang open and slam shut.
“There’s a Glock in the glovebox,” d’Alessandro said conversationally. He rolled down the window as the stranger approached, saying casually, “Hugo Dukes. Fat Freddy send you, or you come by your own sweet self?”
Dukes leaned forward through the open window and popped his gum, sending the scent of cinnamon spiraling through the car. “I’m going to kill you someday, you know, d’Alessandro.”
D’Alessandro laughed. “You’re not the first to say that, Wren, and you won’t be the last. You’re not still blaming me for your brother, are you?”
“You sent my fucking brother to jail.”
“No,” the Constantine soldier said lightly. “The cops sent Reggie Dukes to jail. See, they don’t like it very much when one of their own is hurt. Or killed. Or even looked cross-eyed at. And the Lark and Johnnie Boy kidnapped a cop, kidnapped an NYPD detective, and they handcuffed him and stuck him in the trunk of a car. Then they drove off with him. If Danny Messer had died, see, the Lark wouldn’t have lived to see trial. So you should count yourself pretty fucking lucky he’s still alive.”
Dukes’ hands clenched angrily on the edged of the window. “My fucking brother, d’Alessandro. You got a brother, right? How’d you feel if he went to jail?”
“Ashamed he let himself get caught,” d’Alessandro replied promptly. “Get the hell over it, Dukes. The Lark’s in prison, and likely to stay there till you’re dust in the ground.”
“I’m going to kill you someday,” Dukes repeated. “You, and your god-be-damned partner, and Val Constantine too.”
“Wren,” d’Alessandro said, laughing again, “if you ever get close enough to Val to ice him, you’re more than welcome to try, and I wish you the best of luck. But until then, don’t make a threat unless you know you can carry it out.” There was cold anger behind the friendly tone of his words, and very real warning over all that. He’s killed, Nick realized. And hasn’t thought twice about it. Briefly, he wondered what it was d’Alessandro was talking about.
D’Alessandro reached out to pat the butt of the gun Dukes had tucked down the front of his jeans. “Wren,” he said, “be careful with that. You could blow your dick off.”
Dukes scowled at him. “You’re dead, d’Alessandro. You just don’t know it yet.”
“Oh, really? It’s news to me. Next time you kill me, but a bulletin out in the Times, why don’t you. Let me know so I can pass on and get some fucking peace.”
Nick strangled a laugh that died in his throat when both Dukes and d’Alessandro looked at him. Dukes’ brow narrowed. “Who’s this, d’Alessandro? Friend of yours?”
“Friend of the Old Man’s,” d’Alessandro said flatly. “And I’d keep the fuck away from him if I were you. He just got out of jail.”
Dukes cocked his head to one side. “Those rumors about Old Man Constantine true?” he asked.
“Which ones?”
The stranger leaned in close, so that his lips practically brushed against d’Alessandro’s ear. “That he put a hit out on his own son.”
D’Alessandro flinched abruptly away. He put the hand that had been down at the edge of his seat in his lap, letting Nick catch the dull gleam of polished metal. Dukes’ eyes widened, and one hand came up to finger the scars almost hidden behind the scruff on his jaw. “Get the hell out of my car, Dukes.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll shoot you on the assumption you’ve spent the last five minutes wiring it with explosives.”
Dukes took a step back, then another. “Hey, d’Alessandro,” he called. “You’re fourth on Patriso’s shit list.”
“Only fourth? I’m not trying hard enough. A few more jobs, maybe take Blue Eyes out – I’m aiming for numero uno, baby.”
“Danny Messer,” Dukes said, smiling. “Valentine Constantine. Joey Sforza. Don Flack. You know those names?”
D’Alessandro’s expression suddenly went dead serious. “You get within a mile of Val or Danny, Wren, you’re fucking dead. You got that? Dead.”
“Not warning me off Sforza, d’Alessandro?”
“Joey can take care of himself,” d’Alessandro said darkly. He flipped something out of his sleeve, held up a knife that gleamed silver in the sunlight. “You see this, Wren? You should know it; I cut those holes in your face with it three years ago. Unless you wanna feel it across your fucking throat, you’ll stay the hell away from Constantine and the Crime Lab both.”
Dukes backed up another few steps. He didn’t seem like he knew he was doing it, and d’Alessandro’s predatory smile grew even wider. “I got a message for your boss from Fat Freddy, d’Alessandro. Constantine’s going down, so far down people’ll forget it even existed. And anyone who ever bore the name or the shield is going down with it.”
D’Alessandro tossed the knife up, caught it by the very tip of the blade. He brought it back by his shoulder like he was planning to throw it. “Yeah? Well, I got a message for Fat Freddy. It’s pretty simple, so even you should be able to remember it. Just two words. Fuck. You. You got that, Wren?”
Dukes started backing away toward his car, his eyes on the knife in d’Alessandro’s hand. “Fuck you, d’Alessandro,” he spat, and the door slammed open as he disappeared from Nick’s vision.
D’Alessandro seemed almost disappointed as he slid the knife back into its wrist sheath and the gun back into its hiding spot, waiting with his fingers tapping impatiently on the wheel for Dukes to pull back out into traffic. Once he did d’Alessandro spun into the highway with enough speed to put a 747 to shame, Nick clutching the door handle for very life.
“You can quit that,” d’Alessandro said, eyes on the road. “I’m not going to crash.”
Nick tried not to think about the dents on the bumper or the silver lines that spiderwebbed across the front of the car.
“That wasn’t me,” d’Alessandro said, seemingly reading his thoughts. “Joey was driving that time.”
“Who?” Nick asked, because he thought that was one of the names Dukes had mentioned.
“Joey Sforza. Another one of Val’s guys, like me.”
“Who was that guy?”
D’Alessandro twisted around in his seat enough to raise a knowing eyebrow at Nick. “That,” he said, “was Hugo Dukes, also known as the Wren. His brother’s Reggie Dukes, the Lark, a hitman for the Patriso Family, and he went to jail some months ago because he kidnapped an NYPD detective that happened to be Val’s nephew.”
“NYPD?” Nick said blankly. “I thought Constantine was –”
“Danny’s not Constantine,” d’Alessandro interrupted. “Val’s sister was his mother, before she passed away. You picked the wrong time to try and join La Cosa Nostra, Bonasera. Constantine and Patriso are having one of those kill or be killed family feuds right now, and joining up isn’t going to do anything but put you in the crosshairs, especially now that the Wren’s seen you. You just took about thirty years off your life expectancy. Congratulations.”
“…oh,” Nick said faintly, and tried to remember the hitmen he’d known in prison. There were a couple of them, cold men who boasted about the number and style of kills they’d carried out, the people who’d hired them, those that had died under their hands. My God, he thought faintly, because this wasn’t prison. This was outside, and this was real.
“War,” d’Alessandro said shortly. “Declared the day after the Lark was arrested. Official and everything. I’d hold on to your hat if I were you, and keep my hand on my gun.”
“I don’t have a gun.”
“That’ll change.”
*
They were a few hours further down the road when the bright trill of d’Alessandro’s cell phone woke Nick from his doze. He opened his eyes to a New York summer, wondering at the thick heat and the brilliant glow of the lowering sun as it chased across the fields.
D’Alessandro flipped his cell phone up to his ear, eyes flicking briefly to Nick, then back to the road. “D’Alessandro,” he said. “Hey, Val. What’s up?” He was silent a moment then, “Jesus H. Roosevelt fucking Christ,” burst from his lips. “Joey got himself fucking arrested? Oh, Jesus Christ.” He took both hands off the wheel, rubbed at the bridge of his nose, then lowered one hand.
Nick breathed easy again.
“I’m going to kill the son of a bitch,” d’Alessandro said. “An hour or so out, yeah. You want I should drop Bonasera off at Mordecai and Michael’s place? I’ll be there soon as possible, armed and dangerous. You see Joey, tell him I’m going to kick his ass for being so fucking dumb.”
“Bonasera, Nicholas,” the man said, and Nick smiled at him, feeling the thrill run though his body to settle in the pit of his stomach. I’m getting out. I’ll be a free man. I’ll see my daughters.
“That’s me.” He went through his possessions curiously, not really remembering what they were, it’d been so many years from the day they locked him up. There was a wallet with a flurry of faded pictures there and he spread them out across the table with interest. He, and Odelia, and Christ but they’d been young then. Pictures of Stella, from the days she’d been born till a blurred snapshot taken at the Central Park zoo, where she’d stood on tiptoe to stretch her hand out toward the baby elephant that had snuffled curiously at them. She giggled as she’d run her fingers over its rough pebbled skin and Odelia had smiled at them, laying her hands protectively over her pregnant belly. There was one picture of Astra tucked amid the stacks of Nick and Odelia and Stella, a tiny sleepy baby with her thumb in her mouth and her eyes screwed tightly shut, lying on a red blanket patterned with stars like a milky banner of victory. The stars in my night sky, Nick had joked to his wife. My girls, my baby girls.
He’d thought about that a lot. Thought about it nights, lying awake in his bed listening to his cellmate snore, thought about when he got so tired of watching his back that he just wanted to say fuck it and let the wolves take him like he knew they wanted. It was the thought of his daughters that let him sleep, that let him keep watching his back, that let him wait for the day he came up for parole.
And now he was there, and he stood by the doors and went through the relics of his old life. There wasn’t much, besides the wallet and the pictures. He was wearing a tux the day they took him in, and thirty years later he stood and weighed the bowtie in one hand and thought wow. The bowtie went back in the envelope and the last thing he pulled out was his wedding ring, which he turned over and over before sliding it on. It sat loosely on his finger and he was struck by that somehow, because it used to fit perfectly and now it didn’t.
Used to.
Thirty years behind bars for a robbery he admitted to and a murder he didn’t commit. Used to. Used to be a con man, used to be a thief, used to be a husband and a father and Kevin Price’s partner. Now he wasn’t. Now he was just Nick Bonasera, ex-con, ex-husaband, but still a man. Still a father, maybe. Maybe. If he could find his daughters, if Odelia wasn’t lying when she called him up from a fucking payphone in fucking Nebraska, Omaha fucking Nebraska, and told him she’d left his daughters at an orphanage in New York.
His daughters. In a fucking orphanage.
Jesus Christ, and she’d just left them there, like you would a dog youd didn’t like at the pound. His kids, and Nick had thought of abusive foster homes with sick horror in his stomach and signed the divorce papers Odelia had sent him a month later without regret.
“Mr. Bonasera? Your car’s here.”
*
He’d shared a cell with a Mafia don called Luciano Constantine for the past couple years. Lucky Constantine had probably been running cons since Nick was in his cradle, but they’d exchanged tips and tricks, each grateful that they hadn’t ended up sharing a cell with one of the real whackjobs in the prison. Lucky had promised Nick that on the day he got out he’d have someone from the Constantine Family drive down and pick him up. My boy Val’ll take care of you, he’d said. Constantine can always use good men.
Nick had wanted to laugh because it had been like something out of a movie, the motherfucking Mafia, for Christ’s sake. But Lucky hadn’t been joking and Nick knew it was real, something more real and more tangible than the everpresent spectre that had hung above him and Kevin Price when they were running their cons in the streets of New York, in Nevada casinos and the homes of Boston brahmin. There were people out there that make him look like an amateur, and Nick knew he was anything but. It wasn’t like they’d known each other, really, or ran in the same circles, but the ghost, the threat had always been there. We’re watching you. Fuck up, and we take your head. He and Kevin may have run independent cons, but in New York, there was always someone watching, and in the thieves’ world, that was the Mafia.
The car waiting for him outside the thick gates of the prison was a slim black Jaguar, but Nick had never seen one with thick tinted windows like this one, never mind the large dent that marred the left front bumper and the silver scratches that spiderwebbed the front of the car. If it hadn’t been for those flaws, the car would be in mint condition.
The man standing by the front of the car exchanging lazy glares with the security guards was a stranger. He was wearing a sportcut leather jacket over a crisp white shirt and black slacks and from the way he moved, Nick was willing to wager he had at least one weapon on him somewhere. His russet red hair was cut incongrously short, so that Nick could see the thick white scar under it. He turned as Nick came toward him, face creasing in a wary smile that wasn’t entirely unfriendly.
“Hi,” Nick said.
“Hey,” the man said in reply. His eyes flicked curiously to Nick’s wedding ring and then back up to his face, all so quickly Nick wasn’t sure whethere he’d imagined it or if it had really happened. “Nick Bonasera, right? I’m Carmine d’Alessandro.” He held out his hand and Nick took it after a moment.
“Nice to meet you.” D’Alessandro’s grip was warm and dry, with the kind of callouses acquired from years of handling a gun or knife on his palm. “You work for Luciano Constantine?”
D’Alessandro’s face closed off a little, like he didn’t like what he was hearing, and his voice was perfectly neutral as he said, “For Val Constantine. The Old Man’s son.”
“Oh.” Nick didn’t know what to say to that, because when Lucky talked about his son, he talked about Valentine Constantine like he was fifteen and had never grown up. He’d assumed it was Lucky who ran the Constantine Family, even from behind bars. But from the look on d’Alessandro’s face and the way he said Val Constantine’s name, it had been a long time since Lucky was head of the family in anything but name.
D’Alessandro stepped around to the other side of the car and held open the passenger’s door for Nick. “Why don’t you get in,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride back to civilization, and then you and Val can talk business.”
Val Constantine. Again with Val Constantine. Of course. Nick felt his future slipping away like loose sand through his fingers.
*
They were driving down the highway when another car edged up behind them, riding their bumper like cowboys at a rodeo. Nick turned around, half-expecting to see the blue and red lights of a police car signaling them to the side of the road.
It wasn’t. It was a seal-grey Ferrari (Nick hadn’t known they even made them in grey) with tinted windows, and d’Alessandro’s mouth tightened when he saw it. He pulled the Jaguar over for no reason Nick oculd see and sat gnawing on his lower lip with one hand slipped up his sleeve and the other down by the edge of the seat. The Ferrari pulled up behind him, and Nick heard the door bang open and slam shut.
“There’s a Glock in the glovebox,” d’Alessandro said conversationally. He rolled down the window as the stranger approached, saying casually, “Hugo Dukes. Fat Freddy send you, or you come by your own sweet self?”
Dukes leaned forward through the open window and popped his gum, sending the scent of cinnamon spiraling through the car. “I’m going to kill you someday, you know, d’Alessandro.”
D’Alessandro laughed. “You’re not the first to say that, Wren, and you won’t be the last. You’re not still blaming me for your brother, are you?”
“You sent my fucking brother to jail.”
“No,” the Constantine soldier said lightly. “The cops sent Reggie Dukes to jail. See, they don’t like it very much when one of their own is hurt. Or killed. Or even looked cross-eyed at. And the Lark and Johnnie Boy kidnapped a cop, kidnapped an NYPD detective, and they handcuffed him and stuck him in the trunk of a car. Then they drove off with him. If Danny Messer had died, see, the Lark wouldn’t have lived to see trial. So you should count yourself pretty fucking lucky he’s still alive.”
Dukes’ hands clenched angrily on the edged of the window. “My fucking brother, d’Alessandro. You got a brother, right? How’d you feel if he went to jail?”
“Ashamed he let himself get caught,” d’Alessandro replied promptly. “Get the hell over it, Dukes. The Lark’s in prison, and likely to stay there till you’re dust in the ground.”
“I’m going to kill you someday,” Dukes repeated. “You, and your god-be-damned partner, and Val Constantine too.”
“Wren,” d’Alessandro said, laughing again, “if you ever get close enough to Val to ice him, you’re more than welcome to try, and I wish you the best of luck. But until then, don’t make a threat unless you know you can carry it out.” There was cold anger behind the friendly tone of his words, and very real warning over all that. He’s killed, Nick realized. And hasn’t thought twice about it. Briefly, he wondered what it was d’Alessandro was talking about.
D’Alessandro reached out to pat the butt of the gun Dukes had tucked down the front of his jeans. “Wren,” he said, “be careful with that. You could blow your dick off.”
Dukes scowled at him. “You’re dead, d’Alessandro. You just don’t know it yet.”
“Oh, really? It’s news to me. Next time you kill me, but a bulletin out in the Times, why don’t you. Let me know so I can pass on and get some fucking peace.”
Nick strangled a laugh that died in his throat when both Dukes and d’Alessandro looked at him. Dukes’ brow narrowed. “Who’s this, d’Alessandro? Friend of yours?”
“Friend of the Old Man’s,” d’Alessandro said flatly. “And I’d keep the fuck away from him if I were you. He just got out of jail.”
Dukes cocked his head to one side. “Those rumors about Old Man Constantine true?” he asked.
“Which ones?”
The stranger leaned in close, so that his lips practically brushed against d’Alessandro’s ear. “That he put a hit out on his own son.”
D’Alessandro flinched abruptly away. He put the hand that had been down at the edge of his seat in his lap, letting Nick catch the dull gleam of polished metal. Dukes’ eyes widened, and one hand came up to finger the scars almost hidden behind the scruff on his jaw. “Get the hell out of my car, Dukes.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll shoot you on the assumption you’ve spent the last five minutes wiring it with explosives.”
Dukes took a step back, then another. “Hey, d’Alessandro,” he called. “You’re fourth on Patriso’s shit list.”
“Only fourth? I’m not trying hard enough. A few more jobs, maybe take Blue Eyes out – I’m aiming for numero uno, baby.”
“Danny Messer,” Dukes said, smiling. “Valentine Constantine. Joey Sforza. Don Flack. You know those names?”
D’Alessandro’s expression suddenly went dead serious. “You get within a mile of Val or Danny, Wren, you’re fucking dead. You got that? Dead.”
“Not warning me off Sforza, d’Alessandro?”
“Joey can take care of himself,” d’Alessandro said darkly. He flipped something out of his sleeve, held up a knife that gleamed silver in the sunlight. “You see this, Wren? You should know it; I cut those holes in your face with it three years ago. Unless you wanna feel it across your fucking throat, you’ll stay the hell away from Constantine and the Crime Lab both.”
Dukes backed up another few steps. He didn’t seem like he knew he was doing it, and d’Alessandro’s predatory smile grew even wider. “I got a message for your boss from Fat Freddy, d’Alessandro. Constantine’s going down, so far down people’ll forget it even existed. And anyone who ever bore the name or the shield is going down with it.”
D’Alessandro tossed the knife up, caught it by the very tip of the blade. He brought it back by his shoulder like he was planning to throw it. “Yeah? Well, I got a message for Fat Freddy. It’s pretty simple, so even you should be able to remember it. Just two words. Fuck. You. You got that, Wren?”
Dukes started backing away toward his car, his eyes on the knife in d’Alessandro’s hand. “Fuck you, d’Alessandro,” he spat, and the door slammed open as he disappeared from Nick’s vision.
D’Alessandro seemed almost disappointed as he slid the knife back into its wrist sheath and the gun back into its hiding spot, waiting with his fingers tapping impatiently on the wheel for Dukes to pull back out into traffic. Once he did d’Alessandro spun into the highway with enough speed to put a 747 to shame, Nick clutching the door handle for very life.
“You can quit that,” d’Alessandro said, eyes on the road. “I’m not going to crash.”
Nick tried not to think about the dents on the bumper or the silver lines that spiderwebbed across the front of the car.
“That wasn’t me,” d’Alessandro said, seemingly reading his thoughts. “Joey was driving that time.”
“Who?” Nick asked, because he thought that was one of the names Dukes had mentioned.
“Joey Sforza. Another one of Val’s guys, like me.”
“Who was that guy?”
D’Alessandro twisted around in his seat enough to raise a knowing eyebrow at Nick. “That,” he said, “was Hugo Dukes, also known as the Wren. His brother’s Reggie Dukes, the Lark, a hitman for the Patriso Family, and he went to jail some months ago because he kidnapped an NYPD detective that happened to be Val’s nephew.”
“NYPD?” Nick said blankly. “I thought Constantine was –”
“Danny’s not Constantine,” d’Alessandro interrupted. “Val’s sister was his mother, before she passed away. You picked the wrong time to try and join La Cosa Nostra, Bonasera. Constantine and Patriso are having one of those kill or be killed family feuds right now, and joining up isn’t going to do anything but put you in the crosshairs, especially now that the Wren’s seen you. You just took about thirty years off your life expectancy. Congratulations.”
“…oh,” Nick said faintly, and tried to remember the hitmen he’d known in prison. There were a couple of them, cold men who boasted about the number and style of kills they’d carried out, the people who’d hired them, those that had died under their hands. My God, he thought faintly, because this wasn’t prison. This was outside, and this was real.
“War,” d’Alessandro said shortly. “Declared the day after the Lark was arrested. Official and everything. I’d hold on to your hat if I were you, and keep my hand on my gun.”
“I don’t have a gun.”
“That’ll change.”
*
They were a few hours further down the road when the bright trill of d’Alessandro’s cell phone woke Nick from his doze. He opened his eyes to a New York summer, wondering at the thick heat and the brilliant glow of the lowering sun as it chased across the fields.
D’Alessandro flipped his cell phone up to his ear, eyes flicking briefly to Nick, then back to the road. “D’Alessandro,” he said. “Hey, Val. What’s up?” He was silent a moment then, “Jesus H. Roosevelt fucking Christ,” burst from his lips. “Joey got himself fucking arrested? Oh, Jesus Christ.” He took both hands off the wheel, rubbed at the bridge of his nose, then lowered one hand.
Nick breathed easy again.
“I’m going to kill the son of a bitch,” d’Alessandro said. “An hour or so out, yeah. You want I should drop Bonasera off at Mordecai and Michael’s place? I’ll be there soon as possible, armed and dangerous. You see Joey, tell him I’m going to kick his ass for being so fucking dumb.”
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 01:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 02:16 am (UTC)how much Nick's kind of-- lost, it seems, right now, suddenly in over his head when all he wanted to do was go and see his daughters.
That's it exactly. He's lost. He wants revenge on his ex-partner for costing him thirty years of his life and his ex-wife for leaving his daughters alone in an orphanage, but most of all he wants his daughters. Which is going to blow his mind a little when he finally gets around to meeting them, because - well, obviously they've changed, thirty years can do that - but they're complete opposites. Stella's a cop and Astra's - if I told you about Astra, then I'd have to kill you. Although I am surprised nobody grabbed me by the neck and shook me about her little appearance in NYM.
Poor Nick. The Mafia, and right in the middle of a war, too.