Vendetta Trail

by Robert Vaughan

  “Saluto,” De Luca said, lifting his glass.

  The others lifted their glasses as well.

  “Saluto!” they responded.

  They took a swallow, then De Luca lifted his glass again.

  “To Nicholas Morello,” De Luca said. “Lui possa vagare attraverso inferno quardando per la sua testa.”

  De Luca, Provenzano, and the Italian servants standing around the table all laughed. When Provenzano saw the confused look in the faces of Rachel and Fancy, he interpreted for them.

  “The Don said of Morello, ‘May he wander through hell, looking for his head,’” Provenzano said. “It is a joke about someone we knew.”

  “Oh,” Rachel said, not understanding the humor.

  Guido returned to the table then, carrying an envelope.

  “Don De Luca,” Guido said. “Here is the money you asked for.”

  “Is the money all in federal bills? I don’t want any local banknotes.”

  “Sí, Don De Luca. It is all in U.S. Government greenbacks,” Guido said.

  “Grazi,” De Luca said, taking the envelope. He pulled out some bills, counted them, then returned the bills to the envelope and stuck the envelope into his inside jacket pocket. He looked across the table at Rachel and smiled.

  “Forgive me for the interruption, signorina,” he said. “But the cost of doing business with the police is quite high, and they insist upon federal bills. No local bank or promissory notes.”

  “I understand,” Rachel said. “From time to time it has been necessary for Clarisse to do business with the police. They can be quite particular when it comes to how they wish to be paid.”

  “And sometimes they want to do business with us without paying at all,” Fancy said.

  “If your madam would agree to let me protect her operation, nobody would ever try and do business without paying again,” De Luca said.

  One of the servants brought out a serving dish and set it on the table.

  “Ah, la nostra cena,” De Luca said as the servant removed the silver cover.

  “Our supper,” Provenzano interpreted.

  A few moments after they began eating, Guido came again to the table, then leaned over to speak quietly to De Luca.

  “Show him in,” De Luca said. “Luigi, set an extra plate for the police commissioner.”

  “Sí, Don De Luca.”

  The police commissioner was escorted back to the garden then. He was tall, gray-haired, and had a mustache, but no beard. He was wearing a white suit with a brown silk vest. De Luca rose to speak to him.

  “Signore Hennesy, how nice of you to join our celebration.”

  “‘Celebration’?”

  “Sí, our celebrazione di indipendenza. I’m having an extra plate set for you.”

  “Thank you, no,” the commissioner said. “I can’t stay long.”

  “I will be very disappointed, Signore Hennesy, if you do not honor our independence celebration,” De Luca said pointedly. “You are here for your money, I know. But surely you can take the time to have supper with friends and two beautiful women?”

  Finally realizing that De Luca’s invitation was more than an invitation, Hennesy acquiesced.

  “Of course I will stay and have dinner with you, Don De Luca. And I thank you—very much—for your kind invitation.”

  “I am honored that you accepted.”

  “I have heard that Tangeleno may be looking to have a…what is that word you Italians use for revenge?”

  “We are Sicilian,” De Luca said. “And the word you are looking for is ‘vendetta.’ But do not worry yourself about Tangeleno. We can take care of ourselves.”

  “Perhaps that is true, but I’m sure you realize what difficulty a full-scale war between you and Tangeleno would cause. For all of us,” Hennesy added pointedly.

  De Luca laughed. “You mean you are afraid that if I am killed, your money will be cut off.” De Luca reached for his inside pocket. “Well, don’t worry about a thing. Tangeleno will not dare attack me. He knows I am too…” The sound of a gunshot interrupted De Luca’s comment.

  “Uhn!” De Luca grunted.

  Rachel saw blood spurt onto the table, then she looked up in horror as De Luca put both his hands to his throat. His eyes were open wide in pain and surprise, and she saw his hands turning red with blood.

  “It is Tangeleno!” Hennesy shouted. Pulling his pistol, he spun around, but the police commissioner went down before he could get off a shot, taking a hit in the chest by a shotgun blast.

  The first few shots were followed immediately by a fusillade of gunfire as more than a dozen men suddenly burst into the garden, shooting pistols, rifles, and shotguns.

  Nearly all of De Luca’s men were armed, and they began firing back. Bullets and loads of buckshot whizzed through the air. Wine bottles burst, sending out showers of wine, food was hit, and pieces were scattered across the table.

  The men screamed at each other, and even though it was in Italian, Rachel knew that they were shouting curses.

  Rachel and Fancy were exchanging looks of terror when suddenly the front of Fancy’s lavender dress turned red with blood as she was hit.

  “Fancy!”

  “Rachel?” Fancy said. She sounded more surprised than frightened. As Fancy called out Rachel’s name, blood began oozing from her mouth. She went down.

  “Fancy, oh my God, no!” Rachel cried as she started toward her.

  “Rachel, get down!” Pietro Fanchetti shouted, suddenly appearing as if from nowhere. Pietro ran across the garden, firing at the invaders, roaring curses at them as he did so. When he reached Rachel, he shoved her hard, pushing her down to the ground.

  Rachel lay where she fell, trying to block out the horror of what was going on. She looked up at Pietro and saw him take a hit from a load of buckshot that sent a shower of blood and brains bursting out the side of his head.

  That blast slammed Pietro against the dining table, knocking it over. The table fell on Rachel and she felt a blow to her head.

  After that, everything went dark.

  Chapter 17

  IT WAS DARK.

  The soft cooing of the pigeons and the fluttering of their wings seeped into Rachel’s consciousness.

  She felt a little chilly and wished she had put the window down, but didn’t want to get out of bed to do it. She reached for the sheet and pulled it up over her shoulders.

  The sheet was wet and sticky. What was it? What had she spilled on her bed?

  Rachel opened her eyes and saw the pigeons eating bread from the ground.

  What was bread doing on the ground?

  She turned her head and stared directly into the face of Fancy, who was staring back at her. Fancy’s once-beautiful brown eyes were open, opaque, and sightless.

  Suddenly Rachel realized where she was! She remembered, also, the screams, the shouts, the gunshots, and the blood.

  “Oh my God!” she said in a quiet sob.

  The sheet she had pulled over her shoulders was the tablecloth; the wet stickiness she had been feeling was blood. Recoiling in horror, she pushed the tablecloth away.

  Rachel wanted more than anything in the world to scream, but she fought hard to hold it back. What if the people who did this were still here? Would they be coming for her now?

  Rachel wasn’t really hurt, except for a bump and a very tender spot on her head. She was lying under the table and had evidently been knocked out by it when it overturned. The fact that she was covered by the table—and unconscious—probably saved her life, because the shooters thought she was already dead.

  Slowly and carefully, Rachel got to her feet, then looked around. She counted eight bodies, including Fancy, De Luca, Provenzano, Guido, Luigi, and Pietro. She realized then that Pietro, as much as the table, was responsible for her still being alive, because he had pushed her to the ground when the firing started.

  If only there had been someone to do the same thing for Fancy.

  “Oh, Fancy,” she s
aid. A lump came to her throat and tears filled her eyes. She crawled over to Fancy and then reached out to close her eyes.

  “They’re in the back,” a voice said.

  Someone was coming and for a moment Rachel was glad. She started to call out to them, then she checked the impulse. What if they were the same people who had done this? What if they were coming back to finish the job?

  She had to get out of here!

  Getting to her feet, Rachel moved quickly to the side of the garden where she managed to step behind a sculptured piece of shrubbery just before the visitors arrived.

  Rachel peeked through the shrubbery and saw a golden bubble of light as two men appeared around the corner of the house. One of the men was carrying a lighted lantern, the other was carrying a gun.

  “The first thing we need to do is get the two women out of here,” the one with the gun said. “When the police find De Luca and the others back here, the newspaper will just report that it was a bunch of Sicilians having it out with each other and they’ll say good riddance. But if they find a couple of women among the dead, there will be hell to pay.”

  “The women were whores,” the other man said. As they came closer, the light of the lantern enabled Rachel to get a good look at them. She recognized them both. One was Joe Tangeleno, the other was Sal Vizzini.

  “I don’t care if they’re whores or not, they’re women,” Tangeleno said. “If it is discovered that we killed a couple of women, we’re going to get a lot of bad reaction from the…” Tangeleno started, then he stopped in midsentence and pointed to one of the bodies. “What in the hell? Is that Hennesy, the police commissioner?”

  “Yes,” Vizzini said.

  “Madre di Dio! You killed the police commissioner?” Tangeleno asked in an angry voice. “What the hell were you thinking of, Vizzini? Were you out of your mind?”

  “What could we do, Don Tangeleno?” Vizzini asked defensively. “He happened to be here when we showed up. We couldn’t just say, ‘Sorry, my mistake.’ Besides, the son of a bitch was being paid off by De Luca. He was one of De Luca’s men, no different from Provenzano, or Guido, or Fanchetti, or any of them.”

  “Maybe so, but this isn’t good,” Tangeleno said, running his hand through his hair. “This isn’t good at all. Once word gets out that we killed a police commissioner…the city will do whatever it takes to put us out of business. If they have to, they will form a militia to stop us.”

  “He was not an honest policeman,” Vizzini said. “Hell, everybody knows that.”

  “Do you think that will matter to the people in town?”

  “You know none of our people will talk. Everyone is sworn to the code of omerta.”

  “If the body is found here, no one will have to talk. The police aren’t dumb. We have to get him out of here. Take him out when we get the two women out of here.”

  “What will we do with them?”

  “Take them down to the river and dump them. The current will take the bodies out into the Gulf,” Tangeleno said.

  “All right,” Vizzini agreed.

  Tangeleno continued to walk through the bodies, looking down at them. He rolled De Luca’s body over with his foot.

  “Yes, here he is. The bastardo I was looking for,” Tangeleno said in a snarling voice.

  “Is that De Luca?” Vizzini asked.

  “Yes.” Tangeleno stared down at the body. “You killed my friend and sent his head to me. Now you are in hell.”

  Tangeleno put his thumb in his own eye, then jerked it away pointedly.

  “Un occhio per un occhio!” he said with a sneer. “An eye for an eye.”

  “Don Tangeleno,” Vizzini said. “One of them is missing.”

  “One of who is missing?”

  “One of the women. There were two women here. Now there is only one.”

  “Are you sure there were two?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are sure they were both dead?”

  “Yes,” Vizzini said.

  “So what are you saying, that a dead body just got up and walked away? Because nobody would come here and remove just one body.”

  “I think she was dead,” Vizzini said.

  “You think she was dead?” Tangeleno said, his voice clearly showing his irritation.

  “The last time I saw her she was lying right there.” He pointed to where Rachel had been.

  “Who was the woman? Do you know her name?”

  “Yes, I know both their names. The colored girl”—he pointed to Fancy—“was called Fancy. I don’t know if that was really her name.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference what her name is, stupido. She is dead and she is here. What is the other woman’s name? Is she colored too?”

  “No, she’s white. Her name is Rachel.”

  “What is her last name?”

  Vizzini shook his head. “I don’t think whores have last names.”

  “Of course whores have last names, lei l’idiota!” Tangeleno said angrily.

  “I don’t know her last name.”

  “If she is still alive she is very dangerous to us, because she is a witness,” Tangeleno said. “Not only to this”—he took in all the bodies with a wave of his hand—“but she also saw us kill the police commissioner.”

  “That’s not good,” Vizzini said.

  “You said she is a whore. Where does she whore?”

  “Yes!” Vizzini said, hitting his hand into his fist. “That’s where she is. She works at the House of the Evening Star. I’m sure that’s where she went. She has no other place to go.”

  “We must find her.”

  “You want me to bring her to you?”

  “No. I am going with you. We can’t afford anymore mistakes.”

  “All right.”

  “Call Benito and Umberto back here now. Have them take away the police commissioner and the colored girl.”

  “Do you think the citizens of New Orleans are going to be upset over a dead colored whore?” Vizzini asked.

  “Just get her out of here,” Tangeleno said.

  “All right.”

  Rachel continued to watch from her vantage point behind the shrubbery. Tangeleno stayed back while Vizzini left. Tangeleno walked over to De Luca’s body and stared down at it.

  “Io piscio su Lei per Nick Morello, Lei il bastardo! he said angrily. “I piss on you for Nick Morello.”

  Then, unbuttoning his pants, Tangeleno peed on De Luca’s body.

  Tangeleno was just rebuttoning his trousers when Vizzini showed up with Benito and Umberto. Vizzini pointed to Fancy and to the police commissioner.

  “That one and that one,” Vizzini said.

  The two men made no response, but effortlessly scooped up the two bodies and draped them across their shoulders. Then all four men left.

  Rachel remained behind the shrub for at least five more minutes, until she was completely satisfied that Tangeleno and Vizzini weren’t coming back.

  She had to get out of here. In fact, she had to get out of New Orleans. But how was she going to do that? She couldn’t go back to the House of the Evening Star. They would be waiting for her there. On the other hand, if she didn’t go back to her room, she would have no money, no clothes, no way to…wait a minute!

  Rachel thought about the money De Luca had put into his jacket pocket. Was it still there? And if so, how much was there? Was there enough money to allow her to get out of New Orleans?

  A nearly full moon provided enough light to allow her to pick her way through the carnage until she reached De Luca’s body. Fortunately, Tangeleno had already turned him over. She was glad he had done that. It was going to be hard enough to look into his jacket pocket. It would have been even harder to actually touch him.

  Steeling herself, Rachel knelt beside him and stared into his face. His face was still wet, and smelled of urine. One eye was half-closed, the other was fully open. There was a bullet hole in his neck and another in his left cheek. Both bullet holes were bl
ack and ugly-looking.

  She opened his jacket and stuck her hand down into the inside pocket. Feeling the envelope, she pulled it out.

  “Please let there be enough money to buy a railroad ticket out of here,” she said aloud in a quiet prayer.

  Rachel removed the money from the envelope, then gasped when she saw it. As De Luca said, the bills were all federal bills, which meant they were legal tender anywhere in America. And they were all one hundred dollar bills. She was absolutely certain there were at least twenty-five of them.

  She was holding twenty-five hundred-dollar bills: $2,500!

  For a moment she felt dizzy over her fantastic luck. She had wanted enough money to be able to get out of town, but she had no idea she would get this much money.

  Then she felt guilty. She could justify taking enough money to escape. But how could she justify this?

  Wait a minute. What was she thinking about? Who was she taking it from? De Luca was going to give it to the police officer, but neither of them had a use for it now. And she couldn’t see letting it fall into the hands of the men who did all this.

  Clutching the money, Rachel stood up. She adjusted her gown, then saw some blood on her dress. It was black in the moonlight and somehow that made it even more ghastly-looking than if it had been red.

  She wished she could go back to the Evening Star to pack and change clothes, but that was impossible. Blood or no blood on her dress, she had to get out of town right now, but where would she go? What would she do?

  “Louise!” Rachel said aloud. She would go west to see Louise. She could get a fresh start there.

  Oh, if only this had happened yesterday, she thought. Then she could have left on the same boat that Mason Hawke left on. She would feel safe if she was traveling with him. She knew that he was just a piano player…but somehow she thought he was more than that.

  Wait a minute. It’s not too late. Trains travel much faster than riverboats. She could take a train north, upriver, then join the boat.

  Straightening up her dress and combing her hair, she made herself as presentable as possible, then left.