by LE Barbant
All the doors on the second floor lay open except for one; she knew precisely where Rizzo was. Pausing outside his room, poems ran through her mind. She quickly catalogued the tools at her disposal. For the past three months, committing poetry to memory consumed her every moment. Her preparation was about to be tested.
****
“You the new girl?”
Though in his early eighties, Rizzo could have been 106. He looked awful, the dialysis barely keeping up with his broken organs. Nevertheless, his satin pajamas were perfectly pressed, the sheets of the hospital bed bleached white. Tubes and wires made the crime lord look like an abductee aboard an alien craft.
“New girl?” Willa grinned. “You could say that.”
“Well, it’s good you’re here. My piss bag is almost full. And I’m not really sure what my shitter’s been doing.” The man’s surly face rejected any shame at his incontinence.
“So, does that mean you might be full of shit?” Willa asked.
“Oh, a funny one. Didn’t they tell you? I’m a pissed-off old man waiting to die. You do your thing, and then get your pretty little ass out of here.”
Willa grabbed the chair at a writing table and dragged it over to the side of the bed. The legs left parallel scuffs in the perfectly polished oak floors—the kindest marks she would leave upon the house. Easing herself into it, she put her hand on the rail of the hospital bed, and asked, “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
His eyes searched her face as though trying to remember. Then they wandered down her body. “Should I? I’ve seen a lot of people in my life.”
Willa pulled her phone out of her pocket, thumbed the screen, and pulled up a picture of her mother. “How about her?” she asked, holding the phone inches from the man’s face.
“Now there’s a good-looking woman.” He squinted, leaning in with a grimace. “I wouldn’t forget that face. Ladies never escape this memory,” he said, tapping his temple with his index fingers; the IV bag tubes swung.
Willa’s jaw tightened, her lips pursed. “You changed her life.”
The man smiled, and a twinkle that seemed out of place came to his eyes. “You know, for a man like me, that’s music to my ears. I’ve spent the last fifty years being painted as a monster. But I’ve changed lives. If we allowed it, there’d be a line of people a mile long, just like her, standing in the front of my house waiting to come in and thank me. I touched this city.” The smile lingered on his face.
Willa squeezed the phone like she was trying to crush it into a million pieces. She pulled it back from his face, never wanting him to see it again. “You changed her life. Not for the good. But for the end.”
The man didn’t say a word; he just stared, as if trying to figure out a riddle.
“Sarah Weil. Ring a bell?”
“Weil…Weil…Weil…” The sound of her family name coming from his mouth turned her stomach. She had planned on making him beg for his life. She wanted to make it slow, make him grovel. But now Willa just wanted to put him down, wipe him from the face of the earth.
But restraint was her new modus operandi. The magician not only worked her body and mind, she had also trained her will.
“She’s my mother. And you had her killed.”
The man’s features scrunched up, looking more like a prune than a face. “What is this?”
Willa gripped the arms of the chair, ready to rip them from their joints. “Maybe this will jog your memory:
“Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness—for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee—and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.”
Rizzo’s eyes widened, his face turned blood red as a silent scream remained trapped in his throat. She held him there for only a brief moment.
As she loosened her hold he fell into a fit of coughing. Gasping for breath he looked at her. “You’re…you’re one of them, aren’t you? I thought you were all dead.”
“Not quite. But I’m here to finish what you started.”
The man started to laugh. It went on and on, the laughter turning to a cough, which graveled in his chest. He scrambled around on the side table, reaching for something out of sight. Finally his hand returned with a bottle of water. He tilted it and drank, his hands shaking. “You’re a damn fool if you think what happened with your mother started with us. Your lunatic grandfather made a lot of enemies, sweetie, and ones higher up the totem than me. Your mother’s death was a pawn sacrifice in a game of chess beyond your understanding.” He paused again, taking another sip from his bottle.
“What do you mean?”
“Look, if it’s all the same to you I say we skip the narrative unfolding and get right to the killing part. I’m too old for foreplay, and I’ve been waiting awhile for something to get me out of this damn situation.” He motioned at the machines and the IV bag that sustained his failing body. “I prefer redheads, but I guess you’ll have to do.” The man laughed again.
Willa was thrown off her game.
She had imagined this moment for months, even before she knew of Rizzo’s connection, but it was nothing like this. She lashed out.
“The night, tho’ clear, shall frown—
And the stars shall look not down
From their high thrones in the heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given—
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee forever.”
Rizzo’s water bottle dropped to the floor.
Veins popped in his forehead.
He clawed at his neck.
Finally, she stopped her chanting and released him from the agony.
Willa’s eyes danced with joy as she watched him suffer. “Talk, Rizzo, or I’ll make this last all night. Why did you kill my mother?”
Rizzo spat off to the side of the bed, the saliva pink with blood. A smile spread across his lips. “Why don’t you take a guess, little wizard?”
Willa took a breath, trying to suppress her anger. Despite her boasts she didn’t know how long she could keep this up. And she had to know if there were traces of truth in his story.
“Dollars and cents. My grandfather and his friends were messing with your business. You’re a greedy little man, you always have been. A young mother’s life meant nothing to you.”
Willa was ready to explode.
Tears ran down her cheeks as poems ran through her mind.
But the man just sat there, as if he were at a Sunday brunch.
“You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. Money means nothing. My father left me more money than I could ever spend. I could have bought an island. It’s not money.” Rizzo paused, gasping. “It’s power.”
“Power?”
“Your grandfather and his little friends were like gnats buzzing around my ears. They kept taking out my men, but we couldn’t figure out who they were or how they were doing it. Sure, I was annoyed by them, but in the grand scheme of things, they made no difference. They were such a tiny piece of a much, much larger puzzle.”
“Why then?”
“Like I said: power. When your mother was, um, extinguished, we were making moves all around the city. Her death was a part of that deal.”
Willa’s face was drawn. Rizzo’s words rattled around in her head.
“What was the deal?”
“I figured my family wouldn’t survive the 90s unless we could bring some legitimacy to our businesses. There was a man on the rise who could help us on that front. In return for his protection, he needed us to create mayhem in the city. It was part of his plan. The man was on the way up, and he needed some rocket fuel. Your mom was just a piece of that. He gave us your grandfather’s name and told us to make trouble. But Weil and his friends didn’t quite react the way we wanted.”
“What?”
“My colleague wanted a war. He assumed that taking out your mother would provoke one. But instead your grandfather took the coward’s way out and the plan fell apart.” Rizzo’s lips spread, showing yellow, decayed teeth. His breath smelled of rotten cabbage.
Willa stood and hovered over the man. She grabbed him by the shirt. “Who was it? Who ordered the hit?”
Rizzo leaned in close and whispered a name just as the bedroom doors flew open.
Willa spun, finding three men in dark suits, high-powered guns at their sides.
“Oh, just in time. I guess my meeting with the Maker will have to wait.” He let out a hideous laugh. “But yours won’t. Say hi to your mother for me.”
The men raised the guns.
Willa chanted, holding her hand in front of her:
“Thus rose
A mighty barrier which no ram could burst
Nor any ponderous machine of war.”
Gunfire rang through the room.
Glimmering blazes of blue erupted as bullets struck the magician’s shield.
The men lowered the guns to reload.
She chanted again:
“Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.”
An unnatural darkness covered the room. Willa bolted for the door with the sounds of gunfire and the name of her mother’s murderer still ringing in her ears.
PART TWO
When Mazarvan the Magician
Journeyed westward through Cathay,
Nothing heard he but the praises
Of Badoura on his way.
But the lessening rumor ended
When he came to Khaledan,
There the folk were talking only
Of Prince Camaralzaman,
So it happens with the poets:
Every province hath its own;
Camaralzaman is famous
Where Badoura is unknown.
“Vox Populi,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A quarter-ton chandelier hung gracefully in the oversized ballroom. Its crystals reflected the dim lighting, casting a dignified glow over the hundred or so well-dressed guests milling around beneath it.
Rhett imagined the fixture dropping on top of all of them.
He grinned.
The lighting was the only impressive thing, in Rhett’s opinion, about the University Club’s ballroom. Any young Western PA bride would revel in it, but to Rhett, the space was rather lurid.
A more regal locale would have been fitting for the gala, and he had spared no words expressing his frustration to the Cabinet. Mayor Dobbs was about to deliver the speech of his career and it deserved a better setting.
Rhett’s perspective indicated more about his D.C. snobbery than it did about the characteristics of the actual room—one of the more august venues in the Steel City.
Applause drew his attention toward the stage. Rhett surveyed the scene from a distance. Rather than accepting a more honorable place near the action, he stood in the back of the room.
He always did. Sitting during the delivery of one of his masterpieces was not an option.
Dobbs looked good, elevated above the crowd. Rhett knew that he could make something of the man. He only wished he had started earlier, but some things were out of one’s control.
“Thank you. Please sit. I know most of you are here for the free drinks, so I’ll keep it brief. My staff often brags that I can cram a twenty-minute address into forty-five minutes.” The crowd laughed like the joke was funny.
Fucking Dobbs. Use what I gave you, Rhett thought.
The mayor loved to ad lib, and it drove the speechwriter crazy.
“Ladies and gentlemen, first, thank you for coming. There is nothing more beautiful than a summer day in Pittsburgh. Standing here in the University Club, I am reminded of just how amazingly blessed we are by our hometown. But no matter how idyllic this late summer day is, it remains shrouded in loss. Robert Vinton was a friend, a colleague, and an inspiration. Though young enough to be my own son, he taught me more than I could ever explain. So, as we come together…”
The Mayor’s pacing was decent, thanks in no small part to Rhett working the delivery with him ad nauseum. Down in the polls and with fundraising lagging, it didn’t take much to convince the Mayor that this moment, these eight minutes of delivery, determined his political future.
No pressure, dipshit.
Vinton’s wife, on stage and dressed in black, set the tone. She was the hook. Citizens truly loved Carla Vinton. Rhett had convinced the media to paint her as the tireless wife, working to raise three young children. Those closer to her knew that she spent her days in luxury, with old Pittsburgh money paying for the nanny who served her children and occasionally her husband.
Robert Vinton was no saint. No special gift was required for Rhett to dig up some dirt on the man, and infidelity was by no stretch the worst part. But by the end of the speech, Pittsburgh would be ready to canonize the mayor’s aide—by proxy sustaining Dobbs in his Steel City throne. That hinged, however, on the politician’s ability to nail his lines.
Moisture accumulated at the small of Rhett’s back—his face flushed despite the cool of the room. He wasn’t nervous about his writing; he knew the text was sound. But he questioned whether or not the mayor could provide the elocution they deserved.
“Bobby has left a legacy. One that will remain in the public memory for all time. Listing his accomplishments would take all night, and annoy the hell out of him.” The room laughed, not as much as Rhett expected. “My chief of staff wouldn’t want me to eulogize him or go on about the great accomplishments we achieved together. He’d want me to turn my eyes ahead—to look forward to a new Pittsburgh, a better Pittsburgh.”
Come on, Dobbs, hit it.
“Now I’ve been criticized by that kid running against me for being too conservative. Too old school. My opponent is captivated by bike lanes and hipster coffee shops rather than the things that really matter. Don’t get me wrong, we will continue working to raise the standard of living in our fair city. And I’m not against bike lanes. Hell, I’m a member of Bike Pittsburgh. But I am against a politician whose priorities are misaligned.
“Miles of bike lanes, cool new stores, and even another Superbowl ring—believe it or not—will amount to nothing if we don’t have the safety and security to enjoy them. When fear and contentment battle, fear always wins.
“Now a lot of people have been sticking their heads in the sand, one of them being my opponent. We don’t talk about the most pressing issue because, well, it sounds just downright fictional. But the most important issue facing Pittsburgh is an epidemic of grand proportions—literally.
“We need to turn our eyes from potholes and zoning laws to something that is vital—a life and death issue. That’s why, when the people cast their vote to keep me in office—which they will—my number one priority will be taking on these monsters.” Dobbs paused, letting the last word ring. “A reign of terror, beginning last February, has gripped our city. The freak occurrence was something out of a high fantasy novel. I didn’t want to admit that they were real at first, but something led to Bobby’s death and I won’t rest until whoever, or whatever, it is is brought to justice. They aren’t going away, no matter how much we ignore them or rationalize their existence. My primary platform is safety. Without peace of mind, all of the delights of our city mean nothing.
“Thank you all for coming. May God bless all of us and God bless Pittsburgh.”
The crowd rose to their feet cheering.
“I guess they liked it.” Rhett felt Paul’s hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe they let you in here like that,” Rhett replied, seeing Paul in jeans and a wrinkled polo.
He shrugged. “Maybe somebody th
ought I was too rich to care.”
“What did you think?” he asked, not looking at his brother.
“A eulogy seems an inappropriate place to call for more death and destruction. Wouldn’t a simple word of mourning have been enough?”
Paul had never approved of Rhett’s vocation, but the speechwriter had gotten used to it. He could handle his brother’s disappointment.
“I’m a speechwriter. Politicization is my trade. And we need all the leverage we can get. After all,” Rhett continued, “this is why we came here, do you remember that? You were the one who told me to move to Pittsburgh. You sent me to Dobbs.”
“I know that,” Rhett’s twin said. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t boundaries.”
“The only boundary is ineffectiveness,” Rhett said, the corners of his mouth curling up. “I’m going to do my job, Paul.”
“Well, if your job is to manipulate with half-truths maybe you could be a little less adept at it.”
Rhett’s face warmed again. It was the closest thing to a compliment he remembered his brother ever giving him.
The applause slowed to a stop. People moved toward the bar. Having had enough of his brother’s criticism, Rhett decided to go quench his own thirst. “Time for drinks.”
But Paul was no longer there to hear it.
****
“That was yours, wasn’t it?”
A woman in a dark blue dress stepped up beside Rhett. Hazel green eyes complemented the strawberry blond hair that fell to her shoulders. Light freckles that likely hid in the winter speckled her face.
“I’m sure Mayor Dobbs spoke from his heart.”
The two followed the line a step closer to the bar. “Modesty? Everybody’s been talking about the mysterious new guy in town. The superstar speechwriter. And…I’d consider that speech stellar.” The girl smiled and her pale skin flushed just enough for Rhett to see it.
They finally stepped up to the bartender. Rhett asked, “Can I buy you a drink?”
“At an open bar? You’re quite the find.”
He shrugged. “It’s the thought that counts.”
“Well, you are in politics.” She turned to the bartender. “I’ll take a gin and tonic, two limes.”
