Authors: Tom Piccirilli

Tags: #Horror, #Fiction, #Brothers and Sisters, #Sisters, #Suspense Fiction, #Thrillers

November Mourns (33 page)

BOOK: November Mourns

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“Jeezus!”

“You’ll be in the infirmary for three or four weeks. You’re not hurt bad but they’ll want to keep an eye on you for infection. After that, the bulls will toss you into solitary for at least another month. By the end of your run, I’ll either be dead or this shit with the Monticelli family will be cleared up.”

“You sure . . . about that, Johnny?” Mako whimpered.

“Even if I’m not, you’re better off than I would’ve been, right?” Dane let out a slow smile. A part of him wanted him to end it now, do it the way it should be done. Cut their throats, finish it the right way. You don’t injure the enemy, you eradicate him. His fingers twitched. A small, sharp fury nearly broke free from the center of his chest, but as he felt himself about to take a step forward, it receded. He almost wished it hadn’t gone. “Don’t fuckin’ complain.”

Mako grabbed him by the ankle and squeezed once, as a sign of thanks. Dane combed his hair back, checked himself in the mirror to make certain his grandmother wouldn’t give him a rough time.

He walked out past the guard on the Monti payroll, gave him a grin and a little salute. He felt good, stronger than earlier in the day, much more settled. He’d been half wondering if he’d had a death wish, and now the answer seemed to be no. Still, it was the kind of thing you couldn’t be a hundred percent about.

When he got back to his cell, the girl he’d sort of killed, Angelina Monticelli, was sitting on his cot.

“Oh Christ,” he said, his scars suddenly burning.

She wavered for a second, fading and reappearing, then vanishing until an old man sat where she’d been. It was Aaron Fielding, a neighborhood grocer and fish seller buried a couple of rows from her in Wisewood cemetery. The guy always smiling and letting the kids steal cheap candy bars from the wire racks at the front of the store. He’d let out this heavy, booming laugh whenever something hit him just right.

But now, old man Fielding had a wild and desperate look to him, colorless eyes flitting all over the place, hinges of his jaws pulsing. He raised a hand to Dane in a gesture of pleading. “Johnny, I need—”

“I can’t talk to you right now, Mr. Fielding. Later.”

His dimly gray face filled with terror. There was none of the joy and peace the nuns taught you about when you were a kid, what you were hoping for when you hit the other side. “Please!”

“No.”

“Just for a little while.”

“No, Mr. Fielding.”

“A minute. Only one moment more!”

“No!”

Angie snapped back into focus. She let out a soft laugh, like it was funny the shit she had to go through to talk to Dane. Or what he had to do to bring her in.

She told him, “’Berto says they’re going to let you go home and visit your grandmother first and then they’ll clip you on your second or third week out.”

“I guess he’s not as eager as I thought he was.”

“He wants to build up tension, make it spectacular.”

“He doesn’t have the imagination or style for that.”

“I know, but it’s what he tells his crew.”

“Does the Don agree with all this?”

“No, but Daddy doesn’t really stand up to Roberto anymore. He’s old and in a lot of pain.”

“What about Vinny?”

“He’s waiting for you.”

Fifteen years old when she’d bought it two years ago, but still appearing so full of life, with that overwhelming hipness of youth. She was dressed the way she was the day she OD’ed: oversized black sweater and blue jeans, no make-up, with her dark hair falling straight back over her ears, showing the slightest curl of bangs up front.

The old heat flooded his stomach and got his skin dancing. He started breathing heavily, and when his breath reached her she closed her eyes and lifted her face to meet it. Her bangs stirred and wafted as if in a strong breeze. She smiled and he swallowed thickly, again and again.

Jesus. He realized he still wanted her. What the hell did that say about you, when you were aroused by the dead? Or was it only because she looked so much like her older sister, Maria?

“Angie—”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed with me, Johnny.”

“I’m not.”

“There’s no shame in it. You keep me sane in hell.”

It made him chew his lips, hearing that. He sat on the floor across from his bunk, staring at her. If only he’d driven faster, or hadn’t run over the cop.

But why stop there? If you’re going to go back, go further. If he hadn’t given in to her and taken her to Bed-Stuy in the first place. She’d talked circles around him until he’d cracked, and it hadn’t been difficult. If only he’d cared a little more and been a lot smarter. He shouldn’t have been so listless, but that’s what the familiar streets had done to him. What he’d allowed them to do. What they were still doing, even in here.

“Will you visit me in Headstone City?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. It’s best if I’m not seen there.”

“You live there.”

“I mean at your grave.”

“Nobody visits. They act like they miss me so much, but nobody takes the time to say a prayer or bring a shitty plastic flower.”

“I’m sorry, Angie.”

“Johnny, I need you.”

Something began to soften in his belly then, and he felt himself going with it. A weakness that had always been there but was now broadening, intensifying. Maybe he was about to cut loose with a sob. Twenty minutes ago he was almost ready to cut throats, and now this fragility and brittleness. He wanted to ask her if she held him responsible the way her family did. It was a question he’d never asked her before. She didn’t appear to want to make him feel guilty, didn’t try to get her claws into him, the way she had in life.

Dane heard the bull coming for him, turned to watch as the guard stepped up to the cell door. “Danetello. Let’s go.”

He got up and was escorted down the tier, through the gen pop, across the courtyard and back into the visitation quad, where all the new cons first set foot in the can. The warden was nowhere to be seen. They handed him a ream of paperwork, but nothing for him to sign. The clothes he came in with were pressed and folded in a pile laid on the counter. He reached for them and another guard said, “Hold it.”

“What’s the matter?”

“You’ve got a phone call, if you want it.”

“Why wouldn’t I want it?”

“Most cons who get this close to the outside on the day of their release don’t turn around and go answer the phone.”

Dane figured it was his Grandma Lucia, jonesing for sugar. He went back and took the call. His grandmother said, “Stop off at the bakery and get some
cannoli
and
biscotti
, will you, Johnny? And don’t let the girl put you off. She’s dead, that one. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”