Clan Novel Giovanni: Book 10 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Justin Achilli

  CLAN NOVEL

  GIOVANNI

  By Justin Achilli

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Clan Novel Giovanni is a product of White Wolf Publishing.

  White Wolf is a subsidiary of Paradox Interactive.

  Copyright © 2000 by White Wolf Publishing.

  First Printing June 2000

  Crossroad Press Edition published in Agreement with Paradox Interactive

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  Table of Contents

  part one: vegas

  part two: dig your own hole

  part three: the middle of nowhere

  part one:

  vegas

  Sunday, 20 June 1999, 1:50 AM

  Faust Nightclub

  Manhattan, New York

  “What’s cover?” Julie had one hand deep in the pocket of his Oleg Cassini slacks.

  “For you?” Tony the doorman shot back with a look of disinterest. “Twenty bucks.”

  Julie looked down at the line of people there before him. He pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose and hid behind the collar of his overcoat. It was a wet night, a bit chilly. Julie’s breath puffed around him in ephemeral wisps of steam.

  “I sure hate waiting in line,” said Julie deliberately.

  “Funny. These guys love it.” Tony jerked his thumb at the queue.

  Sarcastic bastard, but he’s probably heard it all before.

  “I’m sorry. What was the cover? Fifty dollars?” Julie peeled a bill off the roll of money without removing his hand from his pocket. It wouldn’t do to have the rubes noticing him too much.

  “That’s right,” Tony said, taking notice now that it wasn’t idle banter. “Coat check’s right inside.” Tony took the fifty and opened the door, releasing a thunderous welt of 150-beats-per-minute deep house music.

  A girl in line started complaining, but Julie was inside before he could hear what she said. Patting the bump that was the wallet with the fake ID, Julie passed his overcoat to the check girl. She smiled, handed him a ticket—number 231—and winked. Julie blew her a kiss and lurched toward the bar.

  “Absolut screwdriver,” Julie shouted at the bartender, hoping to be heard over the din.

  The A-list was out in full force tonight: club kids, speedheads, spectacular drag queens and other beautiful people stalked the dance floor and displayed themselves at the booths that dotted the club’s mezzanine.

  Bingo. Julie’s eyes met his mark.

  “I said seven bucks, sunglasses.” Julie threw a ten on the bar, took his drink and moved toward the back of the bustling room.

  Frankie Gee sat at a table to the rear of the dance floor. Julie would have to move past him to get to the bathroom. He looked up at the DJ booth, where a pair of androgynes in shiny shirts flitted back and forth, clasping headphones to their ears and twisting the knobs on their mixing boards. The air was heavy here, fresh cigarette smoke, the reek of alcohol and the omnipresent bass of the sound system making oxygen a valuable commodity.

  Drink in hand, Julie shoved his way toward the end of the row of booths and into the restroom. Under the first stall he could see a pair of feminine legs on their knees facing a decidedly male pair of shoes. The second stall remained unoccupied. A pair of young club crawlers in baggy pants stood before the urinal trough.

  “Help you sir?” asked the attendant, a Mexican or Puerto Rican who was a hundred years old if a day.

  “I think I left my hat here last night.”

  “Ah, yes sir. I get it.”

  The attendant opened the cupboard beneath the sink and produced a New York Yankees baseball cap, which contained a brown paper package tied shut with twine. Julie tipped the man a twenty. The attendant looked up at him with a smile and a knowing—if misunderstood—thumb of the nose. Julie’s sunglasses hid the disgust in his eyes.

  He stepped back into the open stall, ignoring the slurping and throaty moans next door. Dropping the cap to the floor, Julie ripped open the package, dropping the shredded brown paper into the toilet. He took the pistol and shoved it into his pants at the small of his back, patting it to make sure it didn’t bulge too much from under his suit jacket. To keep the attendant in the dark, he took a few loud, staccato sniffs. Let him think I’m a coke fiend—whatever.

  Julie stepped out from the stall; the boys at the urinal had left already. The attendant smiled at him and gave him a towel after he washed his hands. Julie made to leave, but the attendant remarked, “Bad karma!”

  “What?”

  “Bad karma! Leave a tip.”

  “Fuck you. I just tipped you.” Julie couldn’t believe this guy.

  “That was before. Tip for towel. No tip; bad, bad luck.”

  “Here’s a tip: Shut the fuck up.” Julie barged back out to the club proper.

  The smoke got in his eyes, bothering him.

  Frankie Gee still sat at his booth, which was up against a mirrored wall. Two guys from his crew sat with him, and each man had an overly made-up skank at his side. There were twenty, maybe thirty drink glasses at the table—mixed drinks, shots, martini glasses. Quite a party. The whole group laughed. The men made exaggerated gestures with their hands. The women blinked frequently.

  Julie moved to flank the table, so he could approach it unnoticed with any luck. He jostled people out of the way, moving through the bodies on the floor like Moses through the sea.

  A foot in front of the table, Julie stopped. The goons looked at him, as did the women, all with expressions of interrupted laughter. Frankie Gee looked into his drink, a full glass of—vodka?—with a twisted lemon peel in it.

  “We know you, sporty?” grated one of the goons.

  “You know my boss.”

  The girls scattered. The blonde one climbed over the back of the booth to get away. This wasn’t going to be a fistfight, they knew; this shit was about to get serious.

  “Who’s your boss? He’s got real balls hiring a guy wearing shoes like those,” shot back the other thug.

  “Big Paul.”

  “Fuck you, punk. You’re no Gambino. Big Paul’s been dead for ten years.”

  “Call me a loyalist.”

  “I’m about to call you an a
mbulance, fucko,” said the first tough. He went to his coat pocket, but Julie was quicker. Grabbing his own gun, Julie put three bullets into him before the man’s hand made it out. Four more shots into the other one, one of which took off about a quarter of his head. Ten shots left. Julie heard the screaming; out of the corner of his eye he saw people rushing past him, desperate to make it out before they got shot, too.

  Frankie Gee just sat there. “You cocksucker. You just killed two perfectly good men.”

  “They didn’t do you much good, Frankie.”

  “I guess you’re right. Fuck ‘em.”

  Ten shots, all in Frankie’s chest. The man flipped over the back of the booth as Julie’s barrage walked him up and over the leather seat. Blood and gore spattered the mirror beside the booth.

  Julie walked around the side of the booth to inspect his handiwork, the work of God’s calling.

  Something was wrong. Frankie Gee lay in a heap, twisted over himself, looking up at Julie with a smile on his face. He gathered himself up from his awkward position, got to his feet and looked down at his chest. Ten holes, unmistakable, clear as day.

  “You fuck. You kill my guys and ruin my shirt? Nice grouping, though.” Frankie put his finger into one of the holes.

  “What the fuck?” Julie stammered, pointing his useless pistol at Frankie. This didn’t happen. People don’t get up with a quarter pound of lead in them. He was in over his head: Julie felt a dull, knotty horror in his belly. He was going to die. Bad karma.

  “How witty,” Frankie said, looking Julie in the eyes. “I gotta say, though, I didn’t expect much else from a third-rate buttonman like you. Joe was right about those shoes. You’re the second one this week. What the fuck is it with you wackos? You been crawling outta the fucking woodwork lately….”

  What was this guy? His gorgeous suit, desecrated with his own blood; his showpiece girls and armed companions; a hundred-thousand-dollar Mercedes in the valet lot. He was everything Julie had expected, except tougher, more powerful. More evil, Julie realized. The devil picks his servants wisely. Frankie’s got something…unholy.

  Summoning that unholy power, Frankie smashed Julie in the mouth with a fist that felt like it had a five-liter VI2 behind it. Julie flew—literally—ten feet and crashed into a freestanding table, crumpling among capsized chairs. He looked up, blood marring his sight and giving him the feeling that his ears were seeping off his head. Frankie Gee loomed above him, bending down to grab his collar and lifting him from the floor.

  “Pete! Come here!” Frankie shouted.

  “Yeah, Frankie, what’s up?” Julie wondered why this guy wasn’t shaken, like the rest of the crowd that had panicked and fled.

  “Tell Tony he’s fired.”

  Pete ran off. Julie’s vision faded completely; the last thing he saw was a lusty look in Frankie Gee’s eyes as the man moved his face toward Julie’s throat.

  Julie felt an intense pain—as if his soul had caught fire. Every nerve that could still feel blazed with the torture, and Julie knew his blood was running out of him in rivers of red—was Frankie drinking his blood? It didn’t matter anymore. Julie was done. The devil had won this round.

  Sunday, 20 June 1999, 5:00 AM

  A private car

  Manhattan, New York

  Nickolai smiled. Sometimes, the simplest ruses were the best.

  “Hello.”

  Click.

  And so it went, several times over. Nickolai knew he was driving Benito Giovanni mad with the incessant and untraceable, if perhaps a bit rudimentary, prank.

  Finally, Benito grew exasperated. The fourth—or was it the sixth?—time Nickolai called, the Giovanni answered the phone in a very businesslike manner.

  “Why now?”

  Oh, masterfully done, Benito, Nickolai thought to himself. Put me on the defensive this time. Still, you haven’t yet played to my satisfaction. Through another flaming hoop, you dog!

  “I’ve been waiting. Why now?”

  Nickolai laughed. “How could you know it was me?” Had he truly known? Or had Nickolai simply taken pity on the poor necromancer, given what he was about to ask the Giovanni to do? “If only you’d seen through things so well a couple of years ago, Benito.” If only I didn’t have to do what I’m about to, Nickolai smiled wickedly to himself, trying hard to erase the tone of malicious glee that edged his voice. Oh, the hell with it. I’m going to enjoy this.

  “You used subtlety then,” Benito replied, almost too quickly. “Now without shame you reveal your bullying nature.”

  A puzzled look came over Nickolai’s face. Subtlety? Such was the Kindred’s stock in trade! Subtlety played as much a role now as ever. Didn’t this bullheaded fool realize that Nickolai had cracked the Giovanni code? That he knew the isolated, secure-network PCS area prefix that the Giovanni were using for their mobile phones? Don Giovanni, you are playing a foolish game, one that you cannot win. Surely Benito realized that the endless nights grew long and that a fellow Kindred must take his mirth where he could find it. Eternity weighs heavily on the souls of the damned, or so some elder or another had told Nickolai during his brutal Tremere’s apprenticeship. Only the worthy choose to do something with their time other than squander it, and isn’t laughter the greatest medicine?

  Enough.

  “Miss Ash and her party—you will be unable to attend. I need you. Cancel your plans. Do what you have been told.” Terse, but effective. Nickolai hung up the phone without waiting for Benito’s reply. And now, on to greater things. I have a plane to catch.

  Sunday, 27 June 1999, 9:57 PM

  Roma Classico Import/Export

  Brooklyn, New York

  Frankie Gee said Las Vegas, so Vegas it was. His exact words were, “Talk to Milo and find Benito.” Chas Giovanni Tello thought it would be easy.

  Chas talked to Annie, the girl who handled the travel arrangements, and she took care of it.

  “You’re a pretty girl, Annie, but a bit wrong in the head to be hanging around hardcases like Frankie fucking Gee. A lot of you kids today, you like to mix with bad elements. You think it makes you tough. It doesn’t make you tough, Annie. It just wears you out early.” Chas lit a German cigarette—Shepherd’s Hotel—and blew a puff of smoke over Annie’s head.

  “Fuck you, Chas. I can take care of myself. Your badass gangster-act doesn’t fool anybody, by the way. I bet David could drop you like a bad habit, you and your suit and case.” David was Annie’s boyfriend. Chas, head tilted up to finish exhaling smoke, looked down at Annie through slitted eyes.

  “David’s a punk-ass piece of shit, Annie. He looks like a fucking broom, what with those skinny shirts and giant pants he wears. You little boys and girls— your fads don’t mean shit. One night—one day, you’ll finally grow up and realize that you wasted all your energy and youth on being dumbfucks. If you don’t have a suit and case by the time you’re thirty, you got no fucking sense.” Chas tapped his temple for effect. “I was young like you once. I thought I knew everything; I had that ignorant invincibility that being young gives you. And you know what? I grew up. I’m not so much older than you, Annie,” Chas said, smirking inwardly. Well, maybe he didn’t look that much older than Annie. “This mind still remembers shit like foolish youth.”

  “Fucking-A, Chas, you want these tickets or not? I can’t fucking call the travel agent with you here yelling at me. Now shut the fuck up, so I can get this done.” Annie looked up at Chas with an expression of boredom, chewing her gum with her mouth open.

  Chas wasn’t interested in backtalk from this little bitch, though. “Annie, maybe you forgot. Maybe you’re a little confused, here. I’m your fucking boss, as far as you’re concerned. Yeah, yeah, you work for Frankie Gee, but so do I, and I pull a little more weight than whatever cunt in a tight skirt answers the ad this month. You talk to me like that again, and I’ll fucking slap the smart right out of your goddamn mouth.”

  Annie, for all the pretty she could muster, was just another dumb kid. Ch
as wondered how long it would be before something accidentally happened to her—something like Frankie or himself.

  “And make sure the flight lands at least three hours before sunrise, Annie.”

  Annie popped her gum, rolled her eyes, and waved Chas away.

  “Girlie, you don’t know who you’re fucking with. Gimme the goddamn phone. Gimme the phone, Annie.” Chas grabbed the receiver and punched a number into the telephone.

  “Jerry? Chas. I need a favor. You know Annie down here at the office? Red-haired girl?” Chas stared at Annie, who crossed her arms and curled her lip at him. “Yeah, you remember her boyfriend? Guy we sent down to Sallie’s to pick up that thing? Yeah, him. Find him. Find him; cut off both his pinkies. Send ’em to the office here, attention Annie. Put the fingers in some kinda jewelry box. Annie needs to know I’m not fucking around over here. Thanks.” He dropped the phone in Annie’s lap.

  “Now get my tickets, Annie.” He stubbed out the cigarette on her desk and flicked the butt in the trash.

  Later that evening, the tickets arrived. “Who the fuck delivers tickets at night?” Chas asked no one in particular. “Ah, fuck it. Who cares?”

  Frankie, Victor, and Chas shared a nip of vitae and anisette while Frankie made sure they knew what they were supposed to do. Victor, a ghoul in Chas’s service, was to meet the Rothstein contact in Las Vegas and apply whatever pressure was necessary to locate one Benito Giovanni, missing for five nights going on six. If Milo Rothstein proved too difficult, Chas would lean on him, too. If he still wouldn’t crack, Milo would take the big nap. No guns, no onlookers, no police.

  Las Vegas was a crab-ridden crotch of the undead—vampires from the Camarilla laid some kind of bullshit claim to the city; Anarch punks from California sowed their oats there; the Giovanni had as many operatives along the strip as they had in all of Boston; and the Followers of Set maintained some freakish temple beneath the sands of the valley desert.