by Brent Coffey
Baker felt the room start to spin, his head go light, and his temperature rise. If he was going to make it out of this, he had to think quick:
“What’s this all about?”
“You’ve been fired by Victor Adelaide.”
Suddenly, the gravity of the situation was clear. This guy wasn’t here to rob him, to scare him, or because he had an axe to grind with guys in uniform. This guy was here to kill him because he’d written Gabe a speeding ticket, and he wouldn’t leave until there was one less Statie in Massachusetts.
“I’m sorry. Let me talk to Vic. He’s a reasonable guy. We can work this out.”
“There’s nothing to work out.”
Baker’s vision began a slow, grey fade. Things blurred into a single object of colorless television fuzz. Unique became a hazy extension of the townhouse’s furnishings, the borders between them growing unclear. From his squatting position, Baker felt his head being pressed against the floor by what felt like the guy’s foot. He then felt another foot pumping up and down on his abdomen to speed up the snake juice in his veins. He was dying, his training fled him, and cold animal panic set in:
“No! Dear, God, no!”
“I know it’s all a bit much,” Unique whispered, stepping off him and crouching next to him. “You don’t want all these snakes inside you, do you?”
“No,” he whimpered with delusion.
“Then we’ve got to get the snakes out.”
Unique took Baker’s hand and wrapped it around the loaded Walther, steadying Baker’s arm so that the gun was pointed towards Baker’s right temple.
“Whenever you want to get the snakes out, just squeeze your right hand.”
Baker was now totally blind, but his mind’s eye projected the horrifying image of his veins becoming snakes, tearing themselves out of his organs, growing gaping mouths with razor fangs, and lunging for his face. The dying man was no match for his phobia turned motion picture.
Baker screamed.
“Just squeeze your right hand, and the snakes will go away,” Unique cooed in his ear, like a father beckoning his daughter from a nightmare.
Baker squeezed his right hand and felt a split second’s worth of heat race behind his eyeballs, followed by a slight itch between his ears which was followed by nothing. The .22 slug saved him from the snakes in his head.
With a gloved hand, Unique checked Baker’s pulse and confirmed he was dead. With that same gloved hand, he plugged the phone back into its wall jack. The autopsy would show a man who went insane due to snake venom and took his own life. Baker’s phobia of snakes was well known among his colleagues, so the story would sell. Unique left the Walther in the dead man’s hand, glad that the gun’s silencer had concealed the shot’s sound from any neighbors who might’ve unexpectedly returned to their homes.
He showed himself to the front door, locking it before he closed it. Outside, he went to the patrol car, opened the driver’s door, and, from a safe distance, he watched the snakes slither out. Closing the Crown Victoria’s door, he got back into his own car and drove away. Baker was dead, the facts would show nothing that could be traced to the Adelaides, and Unique was hungry. A job well done always made him hungry.
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Victor downed his third glass of single malt scotch before 10:00 a.m. It was shaping up to be a rough morning. He’d watched Unique’s footage of Billy’s botched drug purchase yesterday afternoon, and he was deeply troubled. The footage confirmed his fear. The Filippos’ muscle outnumbered the Adelaides’ muscle. He also suspected Gabe was right to think the Filippos had been the ones who’d broken into his apartment. If that was the case, then the Filippos were looking for blood, trying to kill the Adelaides’ heir apparent.
He cursed, swore, and threw his now empty glass against a wall, watching it shatter. No matter, he’d drink straight from the bottle. The hell with pretenses. He cursed again, at no one in particular, though he deeply wished someone was in the office with him to curse at.
He’d embraced Gabe’s idea of paying for the D.A.’s surgery, knowing that sometimes an enemy could be bought, or at least have his energy diverted with a peace offering. Victor was no idealist, and he wasn’t looking for friendship. All he needed was for Bruce Hudson to hate him slightly less than he hated Donatello Filippo. If paying for Bruce’s surgery would put some social capital in his pocket, he’d gladly fork over the money. He needed the D.A. to ruthlessly pursue prosecutions against the Filippos, and a little “nice money” might steer the D.A.’s line of sight towards Watertown. He swallowed a final gulp of scotch and called Bruce’s office. He was immediately put through to Bruce.
“Mr. Hudson, I don’t believe we’ve ever spoken.”
“No, we haven’t.”
Bruce had been shocked to learn who was on the line waiting for him, and he wasn’t saying anymore than he needed to. Both men were taping the call.
“I want you to know that I’m aware my son is paying for your surgery, and he is doing so with my blessing.”
“Duly noted.”
“I also want you to know that there’s no hard feelings on my end.”
“Yeah, same here. I mean the law’s the law, and I’d go after anyone who broke it, not just you guys.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, because you need to pay attention to the Filippos’ activities. They’re, shall we say, turning a penny at the law’s expense.”
Bruce was amused. So that was the true purpose of paying for his colectomy. They were trying to buy him off, turn him against their competitors. He still wondered how kidnapping August factored into this.
“I don’t have jurisdiction in Watertown. I’m Boston’s D.A., remember?”
Bruce hoped he wasn’t biting the hand that was feeding him. Over the past several days, he’d set his hopes on being permanently cured of colitis.
“I know you’re Boston’s D.A., and because you’re Boston’s D.A. you should be mindful that the Filippos are now operating in our city. They recently broke into my son’s apartment to kill him.”
The scotch was getting to Victor. He hadn’t planned on revealing that the Filippos had broken into Gabe’s place, because it made him sound scared.
“You should notify the police,” Bruce advised. “Until there’s an arrest, my hands are tied. I’m not in the business of protecting you guys. I’m just here to prosecute those who violate the law.”
“Trust me, Mr. Hudson, I’m familiar with your job description. And that’s what I wanted to hear, that you’ll prosecute the accused to the fullest extent of the law. I believe members of the Filippo Family will soon be standing trial in your jurisdiction. I want to know you’ll give them the same sort of attention you’ve paid to my Family over the years. I want to know you’re impartial.”
“Of course I’m impartial. I don’t choose who to prosecute. The police do that for me, when they arrest someone. If they arrest one of the Filippos, then I’ll prosecute him as strongly as I did your son.”
This wasn’t turning out as Victor had hoped. He wanted to get Bruce on the record for showing some sign of gratitude for having his surgery paid for, and he wanted that gratitude expressed in a commitment to go after the Adelaides’ competitors. Bruce wasn’t giving him anything he could work with.
“Look, Bruce, if I may be so informal, we both know you worked with Detective Richard Dorsey, long before my son stood trial, to help gather information against him. You volunteered hours to build a case against Gabe to create a warrant for his arrest. In fact, had it not been for your interest in my Family, Gabe would never have been in a county jail all that time, much less stood trial. So, we both know that if you take an interest in the Filippos, then you can find enough evidence to, shall we say, help the police with their need for a warrant. The same way you helped them with warrants against my Family.”
Bruce mentally conceded the point. He’d helped gather evidence against Gabe and then turned that evidence over
to the police to get Gabe arrested, exactly because he wanted to prosecute him. It had bothered Bruce that the mob’s brazen lawbreaking was an open secret in Boston, and he’d wanted to shed some light on the Adelaides’ affairs.
Victor went on, since Bruce said nothing:
“You can assist Detective Dorsey with collecting evidence against the Filippos for warrants for their arrests.”
“If I need to, I will.”
“That’s all I wanted to know. Good luck with your surgery.”
Victor hung up and paged a splicer. An hour later, the spliced conversation between him and Bruce sounded like this:
“I want you to know that I’m aware my son is paying for your surgery, and he is doing so with my blessing.”
“Duly noted. If the police arrest one of the Filippos, I’ll prosecute him… strongly…”
(The splicer had added more enthusiasm to Bruce’s tone, by altering the pitch of his voice.)
Then Victor’s voice cut in:
“You can assist Detective Dorsey with collecting evidence against the Filippos for warrants for their arrests.”
“I will.”
Victor smiled. It wasn’t the conversation he’d hoped for, but it would work. He thanked the splicer for his work and dismissed him. He called Donatello Filippo. Paying for Hudson’s surgery was turning out to be Gabe’s best damn idea.
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Suzie Kiboski knocked on the door so lightly that she even wasn’t heard. Normally, she asked who was calling, took a message, and then trashed the message. As Donatello Filippo’s personal secretary, she had a keen ear for determining which people were important enough to trouble Don with. She only informed him of messages from the metropolitan area’s movers and shakers, and she almost never buzzed him about a call on hold. Don came to rely so heavily on her sense of judgment that he dubbed her an “Honorary Italian,” causing her to blush more than once. Who says we Polish are fools?
She didn’t want to give Don an interoffice buzz about this call. She wanted to tell him in person, because she knew the seriousness of the call. It couldn’t be good news waiting for Don on line 1, and he’d know it too, as soon as she told him who was waiting to speak with him. She knocked again, slightly louder. Still no answer. She forced herself to take some controlled breaths to steady her nerves, and she finally knocked loud enough to be heard.
Don heard the knocking and knew something was up. It wasn’t like his secretary to disturb him over frivolities.
“Come in,” he called out.
“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s an important call for you on line 1.”
“Who is it?”
“Victor Adelaide.”
She said nothing more. She stood there waiting, wanting to be dismissed. He glared at her, as if her announcement had caused this bad news to happen. His mind raced back to tougher times, when the Adelaides had been the larger, more powerful Family, as he absorbed the news that Victor awaited him on line 1. Whatever the hell Victor wanted, it couldn’t be good.
“I’ll take it from here, Suzie.”
Suzie said nothing and left Don’s office, silently relieved he hadn’t asked her what Victor wanted. She didn’t know herself, and she’d been too frightened to ask.
“This is Donatello Filippo.”
“Mr. Filippo, Victor Adelaide. I’m pleased to be speaking with you.”
Victor sounded enthusiastic, which made his element of surprise seem even more menacing to Don. Don was eager to find out the worst and review his options:
“What the hell do you want?”
“Now, now,” Victor chuckled. “That’s no way to make a good first impression. We should at least make small-talk about the weather first. Or, perhaps sports. Or, if you prefer, politics.”
Victor emphasized the last word, knowing he’d driven the point home.
“Fine,” Don snarled, “You wanna talk politics? Let’s talk politics. What about ‘em?”
Victor laughed again:
“Mr. Filippo, patience is a virtue, but since you’re eager to get to the point of my calling, I’d like to play a conversation for you, one between the local D.A., Bruce Hudson, and myself. Do I have your attention?”
“Just put the damn recording on.”
“Very well.”
Victor played the spliced conversation that sounded like Bruce was now in the Adelaides’ hip pocket. He increased the volume to its maximum decibel level when Bruce sounded like he desperately wanted to prosecute the Filippos out of gratitude for the Adelaides’ generosity.
After listening to the conversation between Bruce and Victor, Don wasn’t quick to respond. He mulled over his options and then opted to threaten Victor’s scheme:
“I’m recording this call.”
“Of course. So am I,” Victor responded.
“If Hudson comes after me because you put money in his pocket, then I’ve got the evidence I need from my copy of this conversation to go public with the D.A.’s true motive against me. That’s called selective prosecution, and that’s illegal.”
“I thought you might try recording this conversation, Mr. Filippo, which is exactly why I took precautions. The conversation you just recorded, or thought you did, came to you from a magnetic transference carrying initially undetected static noise in the background, a kind of dog whistle that only a recorder can hear. Play your copy of this call back, and you’ll only hear the ear-splitting wail of a mike turned up too loudly. My point is, you didn’t record shit.”
Victor smiled, pleased that he’d released his pent up feelings about Don Filippo and this entire phone call in a single word: shit. The hell with pretenses indeed.
Don grimaced. If that was true, then Victor did have the upper hand. He needed to know what Victor wanted:
“What’s your angle?” Don barked out.
“My angle, Mr. Filippo, is that our Families have a mutual incentive in hammering out a peace agreement between us. Look, there’s nearly eight million people in the Greater Boston region. Surely there’s room enough for both of us in a metropolis this large. Let’s meet. Let’s talk. I’ll arrange for my son, Gabriel, and my highest made man to meet you at the time and place of your choosing to discuss territory and boundaries. Agreed?”
Don immediately picked up on being slighted. Victor wasn’t meeting him. His son and an employee were meeting him. Victor was showing his superiority, and it royally pissed him off. And he was surprised to hear that Gabe was still alive, because he’d believed his sons when they’d reported killing him. The Adelaides seemed to get luckier by the second. Don swallowed his pride:
“Fine. I’ll meet your son and your goon, but they better come unarmed, or I’ll kill them both. Send ‘em to Little Italy Bistro tomorrow night at 7.”
Don slammed the phone down before Victor could verify the meeting’s time and place. He didn’t want Victor to manipulate him into saying anything else before he consulted his consigliere.
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Unique didn’t like calling Gabe. He considered it Victor’s job. He’d considered it Victor’s job to communicate with Gabe ever since Victor had forcibly adopted him. He sometimes wondered if Gabe knew that he was his biological father. He’d watched Gabe closely over the years, and Gabe showed no signs of knowing who he was. He preferred it that way. He felt no sentiment towards Gabe. Unique saw himself as an employee of the Adelaides, and he didn’t want Gabe to know they were related.
It sometimes worried him that Gabe looked so much like him, though he was relieved that Gabe didn’t seem to notice the resemblance. They both had high cheek bones, slightly curly dirty blonde hair, and thick eyebrows. Their noses slanted at the same angle, and they both had a square jaw. Unique feared that a casual observer might link them together by asking if they were related, and he didn’t want to set ideas spinning in Gabe’s head, so he limited his appearances with Gabe in front of others… which is wh
y he didn’t want to go with Gabe to meet Don Filippo. He feared Don might comment on their similar appearance and plant the seed of curiosity in Gabe’s brain. He didn’t know what Gabe would do if Gabe found out that he was the guy who’d raped his mother so that Victor could have a son. Unique had been in the underworld long enough to know that you don’t work with people you’re emotionally involved with: it complicates things, and complications can get a guy killed. Business had to be conducted according to strict calculations of utility, and utility ruled out being guided by emotion. He counted himself lucky that he could look at Gabe without any paternal affection. Maybe it was because he’d raped the kid’s mother, or maybe it was because the kid had been raised by his boss. Regardless, he’d never felt fatherly.
Unique cursed Victor again for handing him this assignment. He was a hitman, not a diplomat. He wasn’t sure why Victor was sending him to accompany Gabe, when Gabe was completely capable of handling territorial negotiations with the Filippos by himself. All it would take was one passing remark… “Say, has anyone ever told you guys that you look alike?” and that might set a domino chain in motion that couldn’t be stopped. Who knew what the result would be?
He suppressed these concerns and phoned Gabe:
“Victor wants us to meet Donatello Filippo tonight at 7 at Little Italy Bistro. We’re negotiating turf. Stop by the office at 5 so Victor can fill you in on his demands. You’re speaking on his behalf.”
Gabe recognized Unique’s voice, and he was annoyed at being told what to do by a guy who hadn’t even bothered to say hello. He’d never liked Unique. Unique was too distant, too suspicious acting. He always seemed coy about something, but Gabe could never figure out his need to keep a low profile. In his younger years, Gabe had noticed Unique watching him, and he’d pretended not to notice. Catching Unique watching him had spurred a reciprocal interest in Unique, and, around the age of fifteen, he’d noticed that he looked like Unique. He kept this observation to himself, mostly because he thought it was pure coincidence, as no one else had ever commented about his looking like Unique. As a kid, he’d been scared of Unique, due to the creepy stares he got from him. In his early 20s, he came to resent Unique for his haughty attitude, because Unique still bossed him around like he was a kid. Gabe knew he’d inherit Victor’s business and that one day Unique would work for him. Unique also knew that it was only a matter of time before Gabe became his boss, but this didn’t prevent Unique from barking Victor’s orders at him like Gabe was just another goon.
