The Immortal Game

by Mike Miner

  Angelo Denatale had sponsored his emigration to America, where he housed him in luxury. Denatale kept him available as a last resort, like a nuclear weapon. Because, word on the street was, the German would get the job done, just not always cleanly. When using the German, one had to account for collateral damage. He lacked the finesse of say Whitey and Kat Scarlotti. But Angelo was prepared for collateral damage in this case. After all this was war.

  And if there was any Scarlotti man, woman, or child walking the face of the earth when the German was done, Angelo would murder them himself.

  “But remember, son. Until one or both of our problems is solved, I’m safer here than out there,” Senior cautioned. “Especially from her.”

  Junior nodded and saw something he had never seen before in his father’s eyes: Fear.

  11

  “Tell me about him.”

  “My son?”

  Lonny nodded. They were in some sort of living room. Beautiful hardwood floors, cherry, he guessed, surrounded a burgundy, patterned rug so thick it grabbed at your feet as you walked on it. A leather couch so lush, Lonny never wanted to get out of it.

  “He is handsome.”

  “I can see from the pictures.”

  She flashed a sad smile. “He’s bright.”

  “Like his parents.”

  She shrugged. “What is the purpose of this? What do you want to know?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. You learn, in this line of work, to find out everything you can. You never know what piece of information will do it. Better to have as much as possible.”

  A sigh. “I see.”

  “Mrs. Scarlotti—”

  “Linda.”

  “Linda, does he have any hobbies? Video games?”

  Linda thought. “He likes to read.”

  “What’s he read?”

  “Fantasy stuff. Harry Potter. The Hunger Games.”

  Lonny nodded.

  “His father used to read the first few Harry Potters at bedtime. Christopher got hooked.”

  It was difficult to picture Red Scarlotti, the famous gangster, reading to his son about Dumbledore. But it made Lonny fonder of the man, he had to admit. The things men will do for their children…. What did Lonny used to read to his son? Ferdinand. Every night. Lonny read it so often, he could almost recite it from memory. Once upon a time, in Spain…

  “Mr. Lonagan?”

  Lonny snapped to attention. “Sorry.”

  “You were thinking about your son.”

  “Yes.” She was a woman who would be hard to lie to. Lonny wondered how Red did it.

  “I remember reading about it.” As she spoke, she wrung her hands. “Then later, something happened to the man you suspected.”

  “He vanished,” Lonny whispered.

  “That’s right,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I was happy.”

  “I was too.”

  “But you aren’t anymore?”

  Lonny tried to look her in the eyes, but they only reminded him of everything he’d lost. Those green, green eyes were trying to hold on to everything. Lonny knew how hard it was.

  “Does your son know about his father?” Lonny asked.

  “You mean,” Linda grinned, “does Christopher know that his father is a gangster?”

  “I guess that’s what I mean.”

  “He knows his dad has a dangerous job. A few years back there was some trouble.”

  “The North South War?”

  Linda nodded. “Christopher went to live with his Uncle Whitey and Aunt Kat.”

  Lonny’s eyes widened.

  “Can you think of safer guardians?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Christopher understands that his father has enemies.”

  “When did you realize who he was?”

  “What does this have to do with finding my son?”

  “Nothing.” He was just curious. How one won the hand of such a lovely creature.

  She closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

  “We met in college. Richard didn’t put on airs back then. He was a terrible flirt.”

  She seemed guilty, remembering fond things now.

  “We went out a few times. A few places in the neighborhood. Everyone knew him. I figured he was just a popular, local kid.” She shook her head. “Things were going well. For Valentine’s Day, he decides to take me to Providence, to Federal Hill. The best Italian meal you’ll ever have, he says.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Camille’s.”

  “Pretty good.”

  “He was right. The food just melted on your tongue. After dinner, we’re waiting for the valets to get our car. There’s some guy there. Older. All dressed up. A little wobbly from booze. He’s mouthing off to the valets. He looks at me, then turns to Richard, says, that is a fine piece of ass.”

  “The valets go bug-eyed. Richard stays calm and cool, doesn’t even raise his voice, just says, “Watch your mouth, sir.” Gives him his dead-eyed stare. My jaw drops. The old guy loses it.”

  Lonny pictures it, this Ivy League, Irish catholic girl, in the middle of all these gangsters.

  “Who the hell you think you’re talking to, you little punk, the guy says. Richard keeps giving him the eye. The old guy pulls out a gun. The valets wrestle him inside. I’m saying, Richard let’s get the hell out of here. Richard doesn’t say a word, but his face is bright red and he’s shaking. I thought it was fear.”

  Not fear, Lonny thought. Anger.

  “The valets must have explained who Richard was because a few minutes later, out comes the guy, red faced, near tears. I say, Richard let’s go, but he keeps looking at the guy. The guy won’t make eye contact with anyone but finally he looks at Richard. Richard is twenty years old, mind you. Guy looks straight at Richard, clears his throat, and says, I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Scarlotti. Richard gives him one of those smiles that isn’t a smile. Turns to the valets and says, Make sure this guy gets home safe.

  “Now, my friends had made some jokes about Richard, some mob jokes. I never took them seriously. When we got back in the car, I turned to him and said, Who are you? He laughed. Just some guy with a mean dad, he said.”

  “Lorenzo Scarlotti,” Lonny said. The boss of bosses.

  “A lot of people would have known right then what they were in store for and gotten the hell away from him.”

  “But not you,” he said.

  She sighed and looked at him. “Not me.” She sniffed. “You think this is all my fault.”

  “No.”

  She smiled. It did things to his chest, her smile, made it hurt. Maybe that was just his heart, rusty at beating fast. “You’re a lousy liar.”

  Lonny chuckled. “For what it’s worth, Linda, the heart wants what it wants. The choices aren’t always easy.”

  Linda’s expression changed. She looked away then back at him. “My husband mentioned….” She turned away again.

  “What?”

  “His brother, William.”

  “Yes?” He tried to read her expression, but it was tough. Concern? Fear?

  “He’s still alive?”

  “He seems to be. Have you heard from him?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  Lonny decided to leave it alone. “I’m being paid to find your son. I’ll go try to do that.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lonagan.”

  “Dylan.”

  “Thanks, Dylan.” She touched his arm, squeezed it.

  It made him want to kill people for her.

  12

  Whitey was in a car across the street.

  Lonny walked out of the Scarlotti house.

  Whitey watched him. Remembered him. Wondered how much he could trust him.

  He remembered the Lonagan job. If you could call a free hit a job. Whitey had been happy to do it, though Kat had pulled the trigger. Whitey had cleaned up. Made the man disappear. He remembered the man’s things, his secret stashes of c
hild porn. Whitey shivered at the memory.

  “We should let the cops find this stuff,” Kat had said.

  Whitey shook his head. He didn’t want Dylan Lonagan to know about it. Didn’t want him tortured by it.

  “What if one of these kids is his?”

  “Then he’s better off not knowing.”

  Whitey had stuffed all of it, boxes of filth and the man’s body, into the back of his Yukon. Took them all out of town and set fire to them.

  As he watched the flames build and devour the man and the records of his sins, Whitey wondered what it would be like. To fight crime for a living. Make the streets safer.

  Whitey watched Dylan Lonagan and wondered again. What would it be like to be a hero? To get called to save people instead of kill them?

  *

  His son dead.

  His wife gone.

  Sooner or later that dark whirlpool sucking at your feet, pulling at your legs, that bitch, despair, wins the battle and pulls you under to a dark world full of shadows and whispers, an inferno where hope is abandoned and everything is your fault.

  But this wasn’t hell. There were ways to quiet the voices, dim the fingers pointing at you.

  Things got pretty bad for Dylan Lonagan.

  Boston’s an easy town to drink in. Especially when everyone knows your name. Everyone knew his story. Saving the kid, getting kicked off the force, losing his son. It made for entertaining reading; it sold papers, like any story that keeps getting worse.

  There were plenty of people to buy him drinks. Plenty of cops to look the other way when he’d had too much.

  One night, Whitey saw him stumble past the front window of Modern Pastry. Sometimes, after a job, Whitey liked to sit and unwind with an espresso and a biscotti, liked to act civilized, kid himself that he was.

  Lonagan looked a mess, hair wild, eyes squinting. Whitey saw some local boys tailing him. He sighed and stood.

  Just past the pastry shop, across the street was St. Mary’s Church. In front is a garden, a statue of Mary held center stage. The drunk saw her and wanted to chat.

  The three boys saw an easy score. The drunk was on his knees, praying.

  “I don’t know what to do, Mary. I don’t know what to do.”

  His hand touched her stone feet. He sobbed.

  The oldest boy grinned, turned to the youngest boy. “All right, Jimmy, go pop your cherry. Take his wallet.”

  Jimmy nodded, then looked past the oldest boy, over his shoulder.

  The older boys turned.

  Every wannabe gangster in the North End knew Whitey Scarlotti. Wanted to be him. They looked in the mirror and practiced his dead stare. The same stare now directed at them.

  “Not him, boys. He’s with me.”

  They couldn’t leave fast enough.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Scarlotti.”

  “Just keepin’ an eye on him.”

  Whitey barely acknowledged them. He concentrated on Dylan Lonagan. The life of a hero. Heavy is the head.

  Those kids still talk about the night Whitey Scarlotti stopped them from robbing some lush outside of St. Mary’s, and how shocked they were later, when they saw Whitey carrying him down the sidewalk over his shoulder. Nobody said a damn word to him.

  Whitey followed Lonny, observed him get a phone call and change his destination. He was surprised when Lonny walked past a group of police cars and patrol men, all painted the color of flashing lights, and into Whitey’s old apartment building.

  Lonny stood in the living room of Whitey and Kat Scarlotti. The room was full of cops. Detectives and forensics.

  He remembered waking up there. Years ago. The same couch. His head felt like hammered tin. Dented. He had no idea where he was. The soothing voice of a woman singing. Breakfast smells, the pop and sizzle of something frying in a pan.

  “You’re up?” Kat Scarlotti said.

  “Where am I?”

  “It ain’t Kansas, Dorothy.”

  Lonny cradled his head.

  “Can you eat?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You should.” She put a plate in front of him. “You throw it up, I won’t take it personal. Coffee?”

  “God, yes.”

  An omelet. Just a bit of cheese, a mix of herbs, tomatoes.

  “This is amazing,” he told Kat when she brought his coffee in.

  She smiled. “We aim to please here at Casa Scarlotti. Grew those tomatoes ourselves, out on the deck.

  Lonny sipped his coffee.

  “Not bad for a killer, huh?”

  “Not bad at all.”

  They sat for a while. Lonny couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, let alone something this good. Kat sipped her coffee and seemed quite content to watch Lonny enjoy her cooking. What had happened to her, he wondered, what had broken her, turned her into what she was?

  “He suffered.” She turned her eyes on him. “If that helps.”

  He had never seen kindness and wickedness teeter so precariously in one person before.

  “I don’t know if it does.”

  She nodded. “I hoped it would. Whitey knew it wouldn’t, didn’t he?”

  “I guess he did.”

  “That damned conscience of yours.”

  “I suppose.” Maybe that was what she was missing. A conscience. “How’d I get here?”

  She giggled. “I’m sorry. Whitey brought you. Carried you more like it.”

  Lonny grimaced. He had no recollection of it. The last thing he remembered was a man buying him a drink and slapping him on the back. “This is one of the good guys,” he’d said. Lonny couldn’t down his drink fast enough. He wished he’d drunk enough to forget that line. One of the good guys. Used to be.

  “He’s worried about you.”

  “Who?”

  “Whitey.”

  “Where is he?” The whole scene was so incongruous, sitting here, chatting with the infamous Kat woman, like they were old friends.

  “Whitey? It’s Sunday. He’s at church.”

  “Wouldn’t have figured him for the church-going type.”

  “He never misses.”

  “A true believer?”

  “Yes.”

  “So….”

  “So he knows he’s damned.”

  It was a difficult piece to place in the puzzle of William Scarlotti. Lonny’s picture of him kept changing. Did he want to redeem himself?

  “Kat, you’re a great hostess.”

  Lonny could almost smell the breakfast Kat had made for him all those years ago. A wistful smile played on his face.

  “Who called it in?” Lonny asked the detective, a man named Miller.

  “Two calls. Building across the street.”

  Lonny smiled. “Nobody from the building?”

  Miller shook his head, the same smile on his face. “Four dead bodies. She got the last one between the eyes.”

  Miller was pointing to the corpses splayed on the floor. Typical goons from the looks of them.

  “All carrying. Looks like self defense.” Miller rubbed his eyes. “Word is, you’re working for her brother-in-law.”

  Lonny nodded.

  “Missing kid?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Check out the far bedroom.”

  Lonny walked down the hall. Stepped into the room.

  The unmistakable signs of a young boy. Superhero comic books, Harry Potter DVDs, in the closet, young boy’s clothes.

  A chess set.

  A familiar game.

  Lonny looked at Miller and nodded.

  “Fingerprints will confirm it.”

  “I figure,” Miller said.

  “How long have these stiffs been stiff?”

  “Not long. Two hours, tops. They aren’t even stiff. Now I got a question for you. Why would Kat Scarlotti have Red’s kid? And who were these dudes after? Kat or the boy?”

  Lonny shrugged. He had the same questions. He fought the urge, the old reflex, to order the cops in the apartment aroun
d. “You recognize these guys?”

  They were back in the living room.

  Miller crouched close to one of the dead men’s faces. “Giuseppe Rossi. Footsoldier for Angelo Denatale.”

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  “Looks like the start of something,” Miller said.

  Lonny nodded. He thanked Miller. On his way out, he looked at the door, turned back. “How’d they get in?”

  Miller shrugged. “No sign of forced entry.”

  And curiouser.

  *

  Lonny wanted a drink but settled for a double espresso at Mike’s Pastry. No sugar. This time of night there was a decent crowd. Lonny sat at a table and breathed the smell of confections, like the air was part sugar, part butter.

  A tall man entered, wearing a leather jacket with chains on it, a blue bandana around his head and a scowl on his face. The sort of man you noticed immediately then looked away from. Unless you were a certain type of woman.

  Even Lonny, trained at spotting faces in crowds, didn’t make him at first glance. But there was something familiar about him. The dead, dark eyes. The man didn’t move like a typical tough guy biker, heavy on his feet. Pulling out a chair at Lonny’s table, the man’s movements were careful, graceful.

  Whitey Scarlotti.

  Lonny sipped his espresso, put the cup down. Whitey ordered the same from the young waitress.

  “Long time,” Lonny said.

  Whitey smiled. Raised his eyebrows.

  “There’s a man in a black suit looking for you in Vermont.”

  Whitey let out a long breath. “I need to know what happened in there.”

  “Was it Kat that shot up your place up north? Killed that girl?”

  They spoke quietly, leaning toward each other. Whitey’s disguise had the effect of making people ignore them. They stopped talking when the waitress put down the tiny espresso cup.