“Pull a gun and I’ll end you,” warned the gorilla. “I have use for him, but…” The gorilla paused before adding, “I don’t need him whole.”
Ryan splayed open the fingers of his right hand to show their lack of gunpowder malice before using his left to remove a large hunting knife from a sheath on his belt.
“Oh dear,” said the gorilla, winking mischievously at Ian. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”
“I’m gonna carve out your fuckin’ eyes,” said Ryan.
The gorilla held up a lone finger. “One eye. I still need him to see.”
Ryan licked his lips. “One fuckin’ eye and one fuckin’ ear, but that’s just to start. When the boss is done with you, I’m taking the rest.”
The gorilla looked over at Ian. “So, tough guy, what are you gonna do?”
“Can we talk about this, Ryan?” Ian asked. “I’m not the one who shot your brother.”
“Fuck you, you fuckin’ fuck,” yelled Ryan. The sharp knife danced between his hands in nervous anticipation.
“Can’t argue with that rebuttal,” said the gorilla as he moved off to one side, an amused smile on his scarred face.
Ian stood alone in the garage doorway.
“You’re gonna fuckin’ scream,” said Ryan.
Ian braced himself as the brother’s grip on the knife tightened, his knuckles turning white while bloodlust veined his face in angry streaks of beet. A primal, agonized howl of rage and revenge tore from the man’s throat as he rushed forward.
A dozen calculations went through Ian’s mind simultaneously, but he couldn’t find any other choice.
Snaking a hand into his waistband, Ian drew out the .45 and fired three times. All three bullets hit center mass, punching open the brother’s ribcage, pulverizing his insides, and exiting out his back in fist-sized holes.
The power of the .45 knocked Ryan off his feet to land on top of his brother’s corpse, dead before his body stopped twitching.
“See,” said the gorilla as the sound of gunfire faded, “that’s why Ryan was never going to go far. A clever man would have asked if I needed him alive, too.”
Ian’s elbows were locked in rigor, his shoulder muscles trembling, and his stomach churning with sour bile.
Christ, he thought, what have I done?
*
The gorilla’s large hands smothered Ian’s to unlock his grip on the gun. When the weapon was free, he handed it to his skeletal partner who had barely blinked during the exchange.
“You got this?” asked the gorilla.
The man nodded. “Furnace is hot enough to melt steel, should take care of these morons easily enough. Not that anybody’ll miss ’em.”
One of the gorilla’s hands moved to Ian’s face, pinching his chin between large fingers until Ian’s shocked eyes found their focus.
“We’ve got business to discuss,” he said. “Don’t go maudlin on me.”
Ian’s chest shuddered violently as he suddenly exhaled and began to breathe again.
“There you go,” said the gorilla. “Let’s head back inside. I believe there’s even a slice or two of pie left in the fridge.”
*
Sitting at the kitchen table, Ian slowly ate a slice of homemade apple pie. The flaky crust was sprinkled with brown sugar and he savored every sweet kernel as it dissolved on his tongue. His coffee had also been laced with spoonfuls of sugar. It wasn’t the way he normally liked it, but he lapped it up.
The gorilla barely said a word as he poured the drinks and served the pie. He didn’t ask either of his guests how they liked their coffee, but simply served it the way he wanted to.
Nobody complained.
Once Ian and Constance finished their pie, the gorilla cleared the plates and refilled their cups. This time he didn’t add extra sugar.
“You thinking clear?” the gorilla asked.
Ian wiped his mouth and nodded.
The gorilla produced a scrap of paper with a phone number written on it.
“Call Zelig,” he said. “Tell him you’ve found Constance and want to meet. Don’t let him run the conversation. Sly old bastards like him get suspicious if everything’s too easy.”
The gorilla turned to Constance. “Unless he wants proof of life, you just sit there and keep it zipped.”
Constance tugged her hair to cover the bruise around her eye and silently lowered her gaze to focus on her coffee, but Ian could see she was hiding a rebuttal beneath the furl of her lips.
“You ready?” asked the gorilla.
Ian dug in his pocket for his phone, thankful he had retained control over his bladder when his body went into shock, and placed it on the table. After tapping in the number, he hit the speaker button and waited.
The phone rang four times before a voice answered. Ian recognized it as belonging to Zelig’s goon with the bandage over his nose.
“I need to talk to your boss,” said Ian, his voice quaking slightly with the last tendrils of shock.
“Who the fuck is this?” asked Nose Bandage.
“Ian Quinn. He’ll want to take my call.”
“How did you get this number?”
“Who cares? You think your boss is the only one with friends in this town?”
“What if I told you to go fuck yourself?”
“Then you better dig your own grave,” Ian snapped, allowing his own self-loathing to fuel his words. “I have your boss’s daughter. You don’t want her, fine by me, but when Zelig finds out—”
“Hold on!”
The phone was muffled as the goon walked across a room and opened a door. It took a few more minutes before Zelig’s aged voice came on the line.
“You have my baby girl?”
“I’m looking at her right now,” said Ian.
“How does she look?”
“The years have been kind.”
A smile flickered in the corner of Constance’s mouth as an audible sigh escaped her father’s lips.
“Where are you?” asked Zelig.
“Right here in Portland.”
“Has she been here all this time?”
“No. I brought her back with me.”
“You didn’t harm her, did you?”
“What do you care?” said Ian. “You’re the reason she left.”
“You know nothing.”
“Wrong.” Anger frothed on Ian’s lips. “I know everything and I’ve had to live with the fallout my entire life.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“Fuck you.”
“How dare you talk to me—”
“Shut up! It’s my turn. I have something you want, but I need a guarantee this will be the end, that your goddamned vendetta against my family is over.”
“Return my darling daughter to me and you have my word.”
“And what’s that worth?”
“It is everything.”
Ian glanced over at the gorilla. He shook his head and mouthed, “More.”
“Sweeten the pot,” said Ian.
There was a short pause before Zelig answered. “How much?”
It was a language every gangster understood: greed.
“Quarter million. Cash.”
The gorilla nodded. It was a respectable number.
“Deal,” said Zelig. “Can I talk to her?”
Ian looked across the table at Constance. She nodded.
“One question,” said Ian. “She’s listening.”
There was a longer pause this time before Zelig said, “I have missed you so much, Constance, my darling. Have you missed me?”
Tears sprang to Constance’s eyes and she covered her mouth with her unchained hand. She began to tremble and shake her head, struggling to find a voice. Until the moment her father spoke directly to her, she had been stoic and strong, likely believing she possessed the strength that she had been telling herself was within her all these years.
“Constance?” Zelig pressed.
“Give her a moment,” said Ian
. “This is difficult on everyone.”
Finally, Constance lowered her hand from her mouth and spoke.
“Father,” she said. “Did you receive my gifts?”
“Yes,” said Zelig, his voice light with joy. “Every one.”
“We’ll be together soon.”
“Yes,” enthused Zelig. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Touching,” said Ian dryly.
“If you harm—”
“Don’t! You’ve terrorized my family long enough. It’s over.”
Zelig began to cough, his chest spasming as the snap of elastic and hiss of air told Ian that he was sucking on his tank of oxygen.
“We’ll meet tonight,” said Ian. “You hand over the money plus an assurance that my sister can return home unmolested, and I’ll deliver your daughter. After that, I never want to see your ugly mug in my neighborhood again. Is that clear?”
“Where?” Zelig gasped, still struggling to breathe.
“Where it began,” said Ian. “My grandfather’s shop. Don’t come inside. I’ll meet you on the street. Ten p.m.”
Ian hung up the phone and turned to the gorilla.
“How was that?” he asked.
“Cold,” said the gorilla, his lips parting in a smirk. “Stone cold.”
37
Ian drove away from the garage with his gun on the seat beside him. He stopped at a gas station with an automatic car wash and drove inside. The white foam turned pink as the brushes washed away a sticky film of blood, sending the last remains of the Bowery brothers down the drain.
As the brushes spun, Ian removed the clip from the .45 and loaded three new hollow-point cartridges. His hands trembled slightly as he pressed the fresh brass into the clip.
His conscience quivered also, struggling to answer the nagging question: Could I have done something else, anything else?
The truth was, when he squeezed the trigger he hadn’t even been sure the gun would fire. The weapon had been out of his sight before being returned, and the gorilla didn’t strike him as a trusting soul.
But now, with blood on his hands, the gorilla had leverage over him, and that was something Ian didn’t need.
Ian exited the car wash and drove home. He only had a short time before everything came to a head, and he needed to prepare.
38
Ian’s heart leapt into his throat when the gorilla banged the flat of his hand on the front door of the butcher’s shop.
Unlocking the door, Ian spotted a dozen heavily armed men staring back at him from the darkness. Two large black Escalades had formed a V in the middle of the road, blocking any traffic from entering the street from the west.
“Isn’t that going to spook him?” Ian asked as the gorilla escorted Constance inside the store.
“He won’t come alone,” said the gorilla. “This will make him think twice about going back on his word.”
“I don’t like it.”
The gorilla showed his teeth. “Like I give a fuck.”
The mesh curtain separating the back room from the front parted and a tough-looking man with full-sleeve tattoos and dark ginger hair stepped out. A ragged scar ran across half his face, and one of his eyes was swollen from a recent punch.
The gorilla barely blinked. “Who’s this?”
“A friend,” said Ian. “Just in case you go back on your word.”
“And you think he would be enough to help you?”
“He didn’t come alone,” said Ian. “And his friends will lay down their lives, and a lot of firepower, for him.”
As the two large men sized each other up, Ian turned to Constance. “How are you?”
The unshackled woman shrugged, her gaze taking in the room as a way of avoiding eye contact.
“It looks so different.” She pointed to the tin pig hanging on the wall. “I remember that. Are you living here now?”
“So long as we make it through the night.”
She turned to the large picture window. “The neighborhood’s changed.”
“Maybe I can help change it back.”
Constance offered up a brief smile. “Optimism. A rare quality.”
“We’re nothing without it.”
The gorilla turned away from the biker and snorted. “You armed?”
Ian nodded.
“I’d keep it cocked and locked if I were you.”
“Zelig’s not going to try anything with his daughter here.”
“That’s why chumps like you die in the street. When a shark shows its teeth, it’s not because he’s being friendly.”
The gorilla handed Constance a slim, rectangular black box. “A gift for your father. Just in case he doesn’t recognize you. It’s been a few years.”
Constance lifted the lid to reveal a commando-style dagger with a hand-forged handle and black ceramic blade. The handle was wrapped in ebony parachute cord.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He’ll adore it.”
“Almost kept it for myself,” said the gorilla.
The woman unexpectedly touched the gorilla’s arm, her fingers grazing the thick hair on his forearm before retreating.
A radio on the gorilla’s belt crackled, and a voice said, “He’s here. Lincoln Continental, dark blue. Slowing down.”
The gorilla moved away from the door and locked eyes with Ian.
“It’s your show, don’t fuck it up.”
Ian turned to Gordo. “Anything happens to me, shoot him in the head.”
Gordo grinned, the scar on his face turning white from the strain. “Be my pleasure.”
The gorilla barely acknowledged that anyone had spoken.
Ian took Constance by the arm. “You ready?”
Constance inhaled sharply and clutched the black box to her bosom. Without a word, she reached out and opened the front door.
*
Walking out to the middle of the street, Ian struggled to keep his breathing regular and his legs strong.
This was the man who had butchered his grandfather, terrified his sister, and gunned down his father. What the hell made him think he would be treated any differently?
His grip tightened on Constance’s arm as they moved in front of the roadblock and faced the approaching vehicle. The Lincoln stopped a short distance away, its headlights blinding.
The front passenger door opened and Nose Bandage strode forward into the light. He was carrying a small duffel bag.
“Send her over,” he ordered.
Ian shook his head. “This is between your boss and me, not his hired goon. I need to see it in his face that this ends things.”
The hired goon spat on the ground to show his disgust before tilting his chin in the direction of the blockade. “Who’ve you brought?”
“Hired men,” said Ian. “No personal interest. Just here to keep me alive.”
“No need. Zelig gave his word.”
“Let’s call it my own insecurity,” said Ian.
“Yeah,” said Nose Bandage, the corner of his mouth creaking open in a smile. “I get that.”
The goon raised one arm and a team of men fanned out from behind the Lincoln. They moved up to stand on either side of him, three abreast.
Nose Bandage’s grin widened. “Little insecure myself.”
Ian glanced off to the side and saw the Song family at the window of their restaurant. Two of Gordo’s men were standing with them, offering protection. Ian shook his head at them and they retreated back into the darkness.
“We all good?” Nose Bandage asked.
“I’m good,” said Ian. “Constance is nervous. It’s been a long time since she’s seen her father, but if he’s not prepared to join us…”
Ian let the sentence drift as the woman trembled in his grip.
Nose Bandage turned his head as the Lincoln’s driver exited the vehicle and opened the rear door. After helping the passenger to become steady on his feet, the driver stepped back and waited by the door.
Walter “Ice Pick” Zelig strode forward into the light. He had washed and dressed for the occasion in a sharp, charcoal suit beneath a dark tweed overcoat. The silhouette was broken by a coral blue scarf wrapped once around his pale throat, while the fresh polish on his shoes reflected the light with rich abandon.
Tonight, he looked younger than his advanced years, especially without the oxygen mask strapped to his face and the tank in his lap.
Constance gasped at the sight of him and her hand latched onto Ian’s arm, squeezing so tightly that he had to grit his teeth to hold in a yelp.
“Is that you, Constance?” Zelig asked as he stopped at the head of his small army. “Come closer. Let me see you.”
Releasing Ian’s arm, Constance straightened her shoulders, sucked in a deep, cleansing breath, and began to move forward.
Despite a burning pang of guilt in his chest, Ian let her go.
*
Constance kept walking until she was but a few steps away from her father.
“Is it really you?” asked Zelig. “After all this time?”
Constance lifted her chin and stared deep into her father’s eyes. “It’s me.”
Zelig swayed on his feet, clearly overcome with emotion.
Constance held out the black box.
“A final gift.”
The old man smiled as she lifted the lid and showed him its contents.
“For your heart,” she said.
Tears poured down the man’s wrinkled cheeks.
“My beautiful, beautiful baby girl.”
He opened his arms, inviting her into his loving embrace.
Stepping forward, Constance removed the knife from its box and plunged it deep into her father’s chest.
*
Gunfire erupted as Ian dived to the ground, bullets flying in both directions as the street turned into a war zone. Ahead of him, Constance lay atop her father, her face spattered in blood, the knife still plunging over and over as a look of pure psychosis shone in her eyes.
Beside her, Nose Bandage was struggling to break her grip, but failing, as his boss’s last orders were to keep Constance safe. Around him, his team was returning fire, but the gorilla’s gang was better prepared and better armed.
One by one, his gunmen were reduced in number until he saw no other escape.
Ripping Constance off her dead father’s corpse, Nose Bandage hauled the woman to her feet and used her as a shield until he was the only man on his side of the street left standing.
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