by Kris Calvert
Rushing past Liz and up the stairs, I burst into Oscar’s room, opening both doors in a frantic scramble. I was afraid of what I would see. Was Oscar dead? Is that why he’d sent for me? “Dr. Atwood?” I nearly shouted his name. I broke out in a nervous sweat, my hands trembling. “What is it?”
Stepping away from the bedside, Atwood looked at me, lifting his chin to acknowledge my presence. “Dr. Xanthus.”
“What?”
“Leo.”
The sound was faint, but I heard it. My body tensed. “Oscar?”
He held up one finger, then dropped it to the bed.
Charging to his bedside. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. “Thank God. You’re awake.”
He nodded. The nurse gave him a sip of water. “I’m parched.”
Taking the seat next to his bed, I dropped my head to our clenched hands and felt the tears well in my eyes. I laughed at his words. “I bet you are thirsty. You’ve been asleep for a long time.”
Dr. Atwood came to the other side of the bed and pulled the stethoscope from around his neck. “I’m going to listen to your heart, Mr. Wilson.”
“Call me Oscar,” he whispered, his voice weak and hoarse.
“Your vitals look good. Are you hungry?” Atwood asked.
Oscar see-sawed his open hand giving Atwood a so-so. “Eh. A little.”
“I’ll have your cook bring you up some broth. We’ll start with that. I’ve got popsicles on the way. We need to see how your stomach tolerates the easy stuff before you move on to gourmet meals. Okay?”
“Whatever you say, Doc.”
Atwood walked to me, patting me on the shoulder. I wiped my face, trying to hide my tears. I’d not let Oscar’s hand go since I sat down. “Dr. Xanthus. I don’t mean to sound condescending when I say this, but you did good, kid.”
“We did good, Dr. Atwood. Thank you for everything.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet. But we’re off to a good start. I’ll leave you two alone. The nurse will be back in to check on you. Holler if you need us. I’m going down to the kitchen. That Liz? She makes a killer sandwich, that one.”
Oscar and I looked at each other. I smiled at him and he tried to smile back. “See that she doesn’t use too much mayonnaise,” Oscar muttered. “But you didn’t hear that from me,”
Atwood paused at the door and let out a punctuated laugh. “Will do.”
Alone, Oscar stared at me, squeezing my fingers. “Thank you,” he said.
“Thank you? Oscar, I feel like the lowest piece of shit in the world for what happened to you. I should’ve been here. I should’ve been taking care of you.”
Oscar slowly shook his head. “Watch your language, young man. And that’s always been my job. Taking care of you.”
“Well you can stop now. I’m a grown man. A married man.”
“How is that sweet Polly?”
“She’s fine. She’s better than fine. She’s still putting up with me. I know she’ll be ecstatic when she hears you’re awake. She’s been checking in on you.”
Oscar nodded. “She came to see me at the hospital.”
My lips thinned. Was now the time to tell him I’d had him snuck out of the hospital in New Orleans and transferred to a make-shift hospital room in the lower Ninth Ward? Was now the time to tell him we’d faked his death so the Balivinos wouldn’t come looking for him? “You were actually in a warehouse, Oscar. I didn’t want to take the chance of Al and his boys coming after you.”
“To finish me off?” Oscar asked.
I looked to my feet and back to him. “Yes.”
“How did I end up here? In my room?”
I cocked my head, still leery of revealing too much at the moment. It would all come out eventually. “I had you moved again. We have a security team working Jackson House. It was safer for you to be here—where I could watch over you.”
“You’re a good boy, Leo.”
I stiffened, taking a full breath. “I don’t know about that. I want to be a better man. I don’t know that I’m accomplishing it very well right now.”
“You’re protecting your family, Leo. That’s what good men do.”
I shrugged off his words. I’d feel like a good man when everything was taken care of. “Oscar, what did they want the night they came?”
“I tried to tell Polly. I tried to warn her.”
“I know, Oscar. And you know what? She figured out every clue. My wife is brilliant.”
“What did she find?” he rasped.
“We found the numbers on the diamond while in Greece. A jeweler cleaned her ring.”
Oscar said nothing, only listened.
“You drew the picture. She was the one who discovered it was the ace of diamonds. Then she went on this crazed search. I thought she was on a wild good chase, but she found the book, Oscar. She found it in the safe room. She found the playing card marking the page for Rembrandt then searched Jackson House for the etching.”
“The Card Player,” he mumbled.
I nodded, full of pride. “I ripped off the back of the etching’s frame and we found the confession of Henry Allock. What in the world, Oscar?”
“I was just a boy the night your grandfather came into possession of that piece of paper. A man named John Drury showed up to pay his debt. He didn’t have the money he owed Kostas. What he had was the confession from the old pirate and the ring Miss Polly now wears on her finger.”
“Jesus, Oscar.” I ran my hands through my hair. “This is crazy. Treasure? Pirates? You know this doesn’t sound like real life.”
“Kostas told no one. I was the only one present in the room that night Drury begged for more time. The diamond and the map were just collateral. He had every intention of coming back for it.” Oscar reached for his water. I pushed to my feet and held the cup near enough for him to drink from the straw.
“So what happened to him?”
“He died. Syphilis.”
I studied him. “So no one ever came back for the diamond or the map?”
Oscar shook his head.
“There was a Bible verse on the back of the confession, Oscar. Polly thought it pointed to the angels on the mantel in the master suite. She found an X underneath the stone. In it was a key.”
Oscar grinned. “She is a smart one, isn’t she?”
My mouth curved. “She is. Oscar, Polly and I think Kostas found whatever it was on the map.”
His small grin turned into a wide smile. “Yes.”
“Polly thinks the key unlocks something big—like a treasure. I know for a fact the same Bible verse is on the family mausoleum. There’s a connection, right?”
Oscar moved in his bed, trying to sit up. “Your grandfather treated me like I was one of his own.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“I never felt like I worked here. Jackson House is my home.”
“Of course it is.”
“Kostas never wanted your father to know about what he found. It was our secret alone. Al Balivino, Sr. was a young thug working for your grandfather when Allock showed up that night. He knew something was up, but never knew what exactly. He pressured Kostas. When your grandfather sent a team out to look for Lafitte’s buried treasure, he didn’t take Balivino but that didn’t stop one of the workers from telling Balivino they were following a map from your grandmother’s ring. When Kostas found out, he had a pretty good hurt put on him. Balivino Jr. knows there’s something of value attached to the paper but not what it is. He only knows what his father told him before he died and honestly, I never thought he believed his dad. Not until they came crashing through Jackson House and beat me.”
I dropped my head. “I can’t imagine what that was like. I’m so sorry you had to deal with that.” I said the words, and yet I’d seen the Balivinos in action. I knew exactly what they were capable of.
“You did a good job of fooling them into thinking you and Polly were dead. For some reason Al Jr. got it in his head he would take the diamon
d—The Soul’s Eye, from your safe. But when the three of them arrived and I wouldn’t open it, they started to rough me up pretty bad.”
I shook my head and took his hand again. “I don’t know how you survived it.”
“Leo, they know you’re alive. When they blew the safe and the family jewelry was gone—including The Soul’s Eye, Al Jr. lost his mind. The real kicker was something else though.”
“What?”
“The bearskin rug from the bathroom.”
My mouth was suddenly dry. “I know. It was stupid for me to take it with us. I just wanted something from home.”
Oscar nodded, reaching for his water. I stood and placed the straw between his cracked lips. He took a long drink, then pushed it away. “It’s not wrong for you to want things. You were forced into this life and tried to make the best of it. Your grandfather was so pleased and proud of you, Leo.”
I felt a kinship to my grandfather listening to Oscar’s words, but quickly remembered my tumultuous relationship with my dad. “And my father?”
“Even your grandfather was displeased with your father. Why do you think he left you Jackson House and made his own son pay into your trust fund one dollar a year to live in your home?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “That had to hurt.”
“Your father took it out on you. You didn’t want to join the family business.”
“Extortion and racketeering? No, thank you. I’ve never had a problem with the bootlegging, but what my dad got involved with made me run far away.”
“All the way to the FBI.”
My mouth twisted ruefully. “I never turned my dad in.”
“Omertà.”
I nodded. “Kostas made me swear before he left this world. I’ve never broken my promise. But that doesn’t mean I want that life. I don’t. I want as far away from it as possible. Especially now. I love Polly more than life and if anything ever happened to her, I don’t know what I’d do. Besides, I want a family and God knows you can’t raise a child in the middle of the world of crime.”
“Son,” Oscar stated in his loudest tone since the conversation began. “You have enough money to do whatever you and Polly want.”
“It’s not just me. Polly has plenty of money from her trust fund. We have the luxury of money, but not the freedom to be who we want to be, where we want to be.” I paused. My jaw tightened. “But, I’m working on that too.”
“Leo.”
Oscar’s tone was critical. Judgmental. And I felt like a kid again. “What? I’m doing what I have to do.”
“I’m an old man in a hospital bed, Leo. Tell me what you’re up to.”
I exhaled harshly, pushing myself to my feet to pace. “The Marcello family is all but gone. The older, powerful players are dead or in jail. The younger ones don’t have much influence any more. But the Balivinos are working to get a heroin ring going here in New Orleans. I’m working with the other heroin kingpin—helping him to squeeze them out. Without the money they need to get things rolling, they’ll be dead in the water.”
“Who?”
“Who what?” I asked, knowing exactly what Oscar meant.”
“Son, you know who.”
“Tommaso Falconi.” I nearly whispered his name as if saying it loudly meant I liked him.
“Big Man.” Oscar reached for his water and took a drink himself. The longer we talked the more he perked up.
“Yeah. Big Man.”
“Why?”
“Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Balivinos were putting the New Orleans cops on the dole. The only person with enough man power to squash that was Falconi.”
“So you’ve jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve given Falconi the names of the cops who were on the take and the locations of their dealers. He’s rooting them out.”
Oscar twisted his face. “To make room for his own operation.”
I felt like I’d taken a punch to the gut. “Yes. But the Feds are watching him closely. If he makes one false move, they’ll take him down.”
“Men like Falconi don’t make false moves, son.”
I didn’t want to talk about it anymore and changed the subject. “So,” I said altering my tone of voice. “You never said. Did my grandfather find a treasure of some sort? And is it, as Polly believes, inside the family mausoleum?”
“You know, Leo,” Oscar said ignoring my question. “You might have one saving grace with Falconi.”
I couldn’t keep the frustration from showing on my face. I knew I was scowling. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“He was in love with your mother. Very much in love with her. So much so, he tried to stop their wedding back in the day.”
My face tensed with confusion. “What? I never heard this story.”
“Why would you?”
I shrugged. “True. What happened?”
“Your mother dated Tommaso before your father came and swept her off her feet. He tried and tried—pleaded for your mother to come back to him. But she was smitten with your dad. Falconi even showed up at the church before the wedding ceremony, barged into your mother’s dressing room. He got down on his knees and begged her not to marry your father.”
“Wow. He must’ve really loved her.”
“Never stopped. I’m sure you don’t remember it, but he was at your mother’s funeral. He was heartbroken. Maybe even more than your father.”
I smirked. “No doubt. You know, he mentioned that he knew Mom when I met with him yesterday. I figured they knew of one another from some social thing.”
Oscar stared at me through a sleepy gaze.
“I’m going to let you rest.” He closed his eyes and nodded.
“I’m feeling a little on the tired side.”
I took his hand. “I’m so glad you’re still with me, Oscar. You’re my family.”
He nodded again.
“Just tell me. Is there treasure in the mausoleum? At the cemetery?”
Oscar breathed heavily, having fallen asleep in the blink of an eye. The quiet beep of his heart monitor a constant background song.
“We’ll save that conversation for later,” I whispered. “When Polly’s home.”
I tucked his hand inside the blanket and walked out of the room backwards, so happy to have had even those few moments with him. Opening the door, I ran right into the nurse with his lunch. A bowl of chicken broth, one popsicle and a dish of red Jell-O sloshed on the tray.
“I beg your pardon,” I drawled. “He’s asleep again, but we had a nice long conversation.”
She smiled and I opened the door for her. “I’m gonna try to get some food in him. You can come back late tonight to check on him. I’ll let you know if there are any more changes.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
I went to the master suite. I wasn’t up for staring into the faces of the security team again. I wanted to take a run—exercise, but for the time being while Oscar was in and out, I also didn’t want to leave Jackson House. Taking off my clothes, I looked for gym shorts and a t-shirt. The gym adjacent to the pool house was calling my name. I needed to work off some of my aggression. Finding my shoes and socks in the closet, I saw the finishing carpenter had been in to put the final touches on the new hidden safe. The closet looked as if it hadn’t been demolished, but smelled of wood finish. It was amazing what you could make happen with a little bit of money.
“Leo!”
The door to the room pounded so hard, I could see it shake.
“What in the hell?” I threw open the door, one sock and shoe on, one off. “What is it?”
Tristan walked past me and into the room, slamming the door. “Your phone rang and I answered.”
Confusion covered my face. “Which phone? The house phone? Why didn’t Dinah or Liz pick it up?”
“Listen to me, Leo. It was Balivino. They have Polly.”
28
POLLY
My head throbbed and
my neck hurt like it had been broken off my body. Breathing through my nose, I panicked when I realized my mouth was taped, my lips sealed together under a tight band of duct tape. I lifted my chin from my chest and tried to move my hands. Bound and in my lap, more duct tape dug into my wrists.
Opening my eyes, my vision was blurred. I tried to move my feet. They too were bound. It took me a moment before I fully realized what had happened. The last thing I remembered was running to the SUV in the parking lot of the high school. Then I went blank.
“Look who’s awake.”
A pudgy middle-aged man bent down to stare at me. He smelled like cigarettes and garlic. I wanted him out of my face. Now. I winced and turned my head. Pain shot through me like a rocket and I moaned in agony.
Another man joined him. I didn’t recognize either of them but knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I was staring into the faces of the Balivinos.
The younger one put his hand on my cheek, his fingernail scraping across my skin as he pulled back a corner of the tape before ripping it off.
I caught a clean breath of air through my mouth. “What do you want from me?”
One of them laughed and I closed my eyes, trying to quell the pain in my neck.
“Open your eyes, bitch.”
When I didn’t comply, he jerked my head back by my hair. I screamed out in pain, opening my eyes. “What? All I asked was what do you want?”
“Now,” the younger one said, bending down to look me in the face. “Let’s get a couple of things straight here. We ask the questions. You answer. Other than that, keep your motherfucking trap shut. Got it?”
I nodded.
“Where’s your fucking diamond ring?”
“My what?”
He slapped me across the face fast and hard. My cheek stung and my neck twisted. I gasped, but didn’t say a word.
“Look, we all know you wear a diamond ring. Your good-for-nothing husband’s grandmother and mother both wore it, and now it’s on your finger. Where the fuck is the ring?”
“It’s not on my finger.”
He slapped me again. Same hand. Same cheek. Same blistering pain as I turned my head. A metallic taste rested upon my bottom lip. I was bleeding.
“Don’t you think we can see that? Tell me where it is, or I’ll stop slapping you around and start taking off your fingernails until you decide you want to talk.”
