For Nothing (32 page)

Final y, he turned his head and looked at Wil iam Spence. The I.A. officer peered back at Alex Vaughn and Alex could see his jaw clench. Something was resolved in Bil y’s mind.

Wil iam Spence slammed the folder shut and straightened his hunched shoulders as much as his bent frame would al ow. He took one hand and bent frame would al ow. He took one hand and pushed his glasses more secure onto his face and lifted his chin so that he was looking at Chief Wilcox square in the eye.

“How?”

“Excuse me?”

“Chief Wilcox, how is it prudent? What I mean by this is how is it prudent to take the only man who knows the location of a known cop kil er off of the case? The only man who is a witness to crimes committed by officers of this very department?” The Chief placed both hands on the dark mahogany desk separating him from the Internal Affairs officer.

“I’m not sure I fol ow you. The protocol is…” Wil iam Spence took two steps forward and placed the file on the desk. Interrupting, he waved his hand yet again.

“Bah. I’m saying that you are the Chief of Police. How do you think it wil look to the politicians? How do you think it wil look to the voting public? The politicians answer to the public. You answer to the politicians. If you take a detective who has
witnessed
corruption, who has the location of a cop kil er due to his investigation, no matter how unorthodox, and sit him on the sidelines….” Spence lifted his glasses and pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Wel , natural y, the question wil come up.”

“What question is that?” Wilcox’s face was gaining a red hue again. His voice trembled but whether or not it was from fear or agitation, Vaughn had a hard time tel ing.

“What question? Wel , who are you protecting, of course? Yourself? For political reasons or for criminal reasons? The corrupt officers? To what end? What dirt do they have on you?”

Wilcox glared at Spence and his fists curled into bal s on the desk. Alex could see the pressure building up there as knuckles turned white. Evidently, Wil iam Spence saw it as wel and attempted to diffuse the Chief’s mounting anger. He did another casual toss of his wrist and picked up his file.

“However ridiculous the questions, they wil be asked.”

The Chief sat down. The color drained from his face and he glanced down at the gun and badge.

He pushed them across the table toward Alex Vaughn.

Alex pul ed his tattered jacket around to stave off the cold that threatened to seep through the folds.

He rubbed his hands together generating friction in order to create some semblance of heat.

Ryan was stil grinning and he muttered something about “lucky bastard”, as he rubbed out his cigarette out on the brick wal of the station.

Alex smiled at Slate’s assessment but doubted the truth of the words. If luck was having a buddy who was dead, a wife who couldn’t bring herself to love him anymore, a daughter he only just knew, and a body so battered that every ounce of his fiber ached; wel then yeah, Alex felt lucky.

Alex felt his gun dig into his hip as he leaned against the wal . He couldn’t believe he so casual y offered up his gun and shield. As he watched the back and forth between Wilcox and Spencer, the whole thing struck him as out of place. It was as if he was watching a movie about someone else’s life.

But the whole time, he looked at the shield. There was a time that he would have cut off the fingers of anyone that tried to take that badge from him. It was a thing of honor and symbolic of a tradition of service that extended far beyond the life and times of Alex Vaughn. But now, and in Wilcox’s office, it just didn’t seem to shine as bright as it once did.

“So not only are you not fired, but now you have a date with the Marshals and the Mounties to go and grab up Rafael Rontego? Man, this bust wil be huge. We get him, ain’t nobody safe in organized crime.” Ryan Slates eyes shone with a hint of admiration.

Most people would have basked in it, but Alex turned his head and looked out into the cold night sky.

Ryan caught the shift and after studying Alex’s face for a moment asked, “What? And don’t say nothing ‘cause it is definitely something.” Vaughn watched his breath run away; it dissipated in to the world around him. It was so important, air. For a moment, it was everything, quite literal y, that one needed to survive. But it didn’t matter how much you needed it. Eventual y, your body would let it go.

“You know I don’t want to go. I think I would

“You know I don’t want to go. I think I would much rather just go to Charlotte’s.”

They were probably having dinner right now.

She used to make the best lasagna and this garlic bread that would just melt in your mouth. Maybe she was under her quilt at this very moment, the one her grandmother knitted for her as a child.

“So what are you going to do?”

Alex hung his head and watched the ground between his feet. Without saying a word he started towards the parking lot.

Ryan Slate cal ed after him, “Alex! Alex what are you going to do?”

Without

breaking

stride Alex

Vaughn

continued forward. “Do what I always do. I’m going to finish it.”

Rafael Rontego took a look around at the platform as he grabbed the rail that guided him into the bel y of the train. The steel on his hand felt cold and slick. He looked at the sleepy train station and felt a wrenching in his heart as he gazed at the few people shuffling around, the wooden benches, and a blue sign with white lettering that said, “Welcome to Buffalo, New York.”

He studied everything he saw in that moment and he realized it might be his last look at the place he cal ed home for so very long. He felt the weight of the place bearing down on him so hard that he thought the ceiling would col apse on him, and he took a step backward and into the train. The weight fol owed him as he walked along the aisle and found his seat. He was pushing his bag under the chair in front of him, and it felt like someone was standing on his shoulders trying to push him into the fabric of the cloth seat.

A porter walked up to Rafael as he struggled to shove the bulky bag under the seat in front of him.

He was wearing one of those ridiculous hats that had a white strip around the perimeter and carried a dark navy blue on the rest of it. The hat hung back on the porter’s head and seemed that it would fal off at any moment. He was a young fel ow, maybe just over eighteen.

“Can I help you secure your bag sir? I can put it in the overhead compartment.”

Rafael leaned back in his seat without looking up at the porter and kicked the bag under the seat in front of him. Stil leaning back in his seat, he pul ed the brim of his fedora down over his eyes, dismissing the young man. He would have said something, tried to make nice, but the infernal weight threatened to swal ow him whole. He couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. He sat there, hiding under his hat, as the train whistle blew, announcing departure.

The piercing sound didn’t even register as the assassin was exercising every bit of control to keep from hyperventilating. He hadn’t expected this. The gears on the train ground and he felt it jerk forward.

As it picked up speed, the pressure seemed to lift off of the assassin. His labored breathing became more regular. He found a measure of control in himself once more.

Sitting up in his chair, he glanced out the window as snow covered buildings shifted to mounds of white dust and evergreens, until final y, the train was racing past smal frozen ponds and scattered cloisters of trees that seemed to have grown snow in absence of leaves.

Al the while, Rafael Rontego continued on his path to normalcy. The weight seemed to fly from his shoulders with each mile left behind him. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair slicking it back. A tiny smile curled out of Rafael’s lips and they trembled with the unfamiliar movement.

*

The Pope and Don Ciancetta sat in The Pope’s sedan outside of a house in a Hamburg suburb. Nuncio was manning the front seat, while the two power brokers sat in the rear. The lights to the sedan were off but the car remained on so that the heat could keep the biting cold at bay.

The tidy rows of houses looked like something out of a snow globe or a Norman Rockwel painting. The nice brick pathways were al equal in distance apart and shoveled of snow.

Smoke drifted upward through chimneys that gave off the fresh scent of burnt cedar. Snow fel in swirls in the black sky and blotted what was left of the starry night from view.

They sat several houses down from a foreclosed home that sprouted a worn and battered

“For Sale” sign in the yard. Snow was piled half a foot on the wooden crossbeam that held the sign above the ground. The car was parked along the gutter to another foreclosed home so as to not draw attention to the vehicle in front of an occupied home.

Even though the heat was sufficient to keep them warm, Don Ciancetta kept rubbing his gloved hands together. His eyes darted back and forth, but the fear that was there earlier seemed to be replaced with calculating eyes that judged the wind in equal measure with the innocuous movements of suburban life.

The Pope opened his mouth as if to say something reassuring, but was interrupted by the glare of headlights slicing through the snow up glare of headlights slicing through the snow up ahead. The car pul ed against the curb opposite the mobsters, in front of the foreclosed home down the way. The lights went out and the area fel back into gloom, as a solitary streetlight hung off in the distance casted an ominous pal over the new vehicle as several silhouettes emerged from the car.

One held open the door for the other. When he emerged, the shadowy figure that held the door open draped a coat over his shoulders. Two more men sat in the car, the driver and another larger fel ow. The two shadows shuffled across the yard walking up the pathway of the house, then disappeared inside, while the other two remained inside the car.

The Pope watched it al and glanced over toward Don Ciancetta.

“You ready?”

Ciancetta gave his friend a tight grin and nodded.

The Pope tapped Nuncio on the shoulder and leaned forward in his seat, his heart beat echoing in his ears as the adrenaline flew through his veins.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

Alex Vaughn turned up the heat in the Crown Victoria that Chief Wilcox issued him for his trip across international borders. The unmarked squad car was a luxury vehicle compared to Vaughn’s Ford Taurus. The fact that it wasn’t rusted out and had steady heat set it apart, but Alex wasn’t enjoying the ride.

Vaughn’s thoughts were directed inward as boarded up, ramshackle industrial complexes passed by his window and dilapidated buildings watched his progression towards the Peace Bridge which joined Canada with the United States.

On the other side, there was a U.S. Marshal who would oversee the American part of the arrest and a few Canadian officers who would do the direct takedown. Alex was stil unsure what his role in the event would be, but positive identification on a ghost like Rafael was scarce. The only one who was stil alive who saw a picture of him, no matter how grainy, was Alex Vaughn.

Alex stared at the road in front of him. Water traveled past him on either side as he drove up and onto the Peace Bridge. The Niagara River was a murky grey and brown this time of year; there were stretches of the river that were iced over. Lake Erie pressed her frozen lips against the river and its effects trailed outward along the shoreline.

Ryan was right. This bust had the potential to be a game changer. If this guy was a murderer for organized crime leadership, his testimony could blow the lid off of everything. But testimony meant a deal. A deal meant this guy would get to go on living.

Vaughn gripped the steering wheel and his knuckles turned white. He punched the accelerator and weaved in and out of cars on the bridge. Alex slid past the pack of cars and found some room.

“You gotta ask yourself, what are you after?” The question rattled through Alex’s brain.

Over and over again it tap-danced across his consciousness. Jack bleeding out on a city street.

“What are you after?”

Explosions, gunshots, hidden money.

“What are you after?”

Power struggles, favors, almost resigning from the force.

“What are you after?” “WHAT ARE YOU

AFTER?”

Alex let out a yel . It came from the floor boards and rumbled along his spine until it escaped from his cracked lips. It lasted a moment but it stopped the incessant question from ricocheting across his temple for just a moment.

Alex sighed as he slowed down. Up in front of him was the border and cars were lining up to provide passports for the custom agents al owing access into Canada.

As he brought the car to a ful stop, he couldn’t help his lips from whispering, “What are you after?”

*

The two mobsters exited the car. They pul ed the cowl of their trench coats close around their necks and obscured the bottom half of their faces from view. The larger of them took the lead and strode up to the door of the foreclosed home.

In better times, this place might have been considered a decent place to hang one’s hat, but now, parts of the front stoop were in various degrees of disrepair. Several loose bricks were scattered beneath the white powder that covered the walkway.