For Nothing

by Nicholas Denmon

“You hear much. I left something at the scene. Do you know if the boys in blue found it?” Rontego thought to his cigarette. It bothered him a bit, but not much. If he could get it out of evidence, though, he would.

  “I hear more than you know. More than I want to know.” Still, Muro didn’t turn to face Rafael. Rafael studied the stubble on the man’s jaw line. The mandibles flexed as Muro continued. “Relax about evidence. Word is, they found nothing. Some cop mucked up the scene real bad anyway. Some friend of your guy.” Muro paused, and then switched direction. “We’ve known each other a long time. We have been fortunate to be on the same side of these things in the past. But Fortune, she is a crafty bitch.”

  Rontego didn’t know what Muro was yapping about. But he didn’t like being in the dark, and he disliked Muro’s cryptic conversation even more. On visits like these, in the past, there was banter, a few tidbits about the reasons such business was conducted, and life went on. Rontego liked that flow to the order of things. This was something different. He decided to take some of the power back.

  “Well, if she is such a bitch, I could change her mind. I could take you out. If I wanted. Right now.” Rontego smiled. He had no intention of shooting anyone in a crowded theater. But Muro and he enjoyed a different way of communicating. “You know better than to keep your back so open.”

  Rontego lifted his eyebrow in surprise when Muro smiled and shook his head back and forth. “I know better. But you don’t know what I know Raf. Look under the seat.” Rontego placed his hand under his seat. His fingers groped, blind, until he touched a bulky object. He felt the tape and smiled as he pulled it from under him and Muro continued. “You think I don’t have my gun pointed at you under my arm right now? Maybe you’re stupid enough to believe bullets don’t go through chairs.”

  Rontego pulled the carved wooden piece onto his lap and tugged the masking tape off of it. The chess piece lay in his palm, the pawn gazing up at him.

  Rafael smiled again and stood up, placing his hand on the back of Muro’s seat. “Til next time.” He started to turn away, when he felt a hand clamp down on his. He turned back and looked at Muro who finally spun around, his brick hand holding Rontego’s to the seatback.

  His eyes held Rontego’s for a moment. “Til next time.”

  Muro released Rontego’s hand and looked back at the stage. People began to file in, and the curtain on the stage lifted. Rafael Rontego went up the stairs, his hands back in his pockets, rolling the pawn between his fingers. Something about Muro’s face alarmed him. What it was, he couldn’t tell. He filed the look away, and picked up his pace. He had to get out of the theater before the damned singing started.

  *

  Alex and Charlotte walked through the theater in silence. She seemed to enjoy the play and they seemed to get along as the night went on, but they always got along when they didn’t have to talk. They got along when they could bury their concerns with distractions. That was how they operated for so long. Alex didn’t know any other way. He glanced around the theater as they made their way towards the exit.

  “We should talk.”

  She said it soft and quiet and Alex tried to ignore her. He knew what talking meant. He looked at the ornate ceilings with their decorated tray crevices. The theater, a baroque masterpiece, was recently renovated.

  Worth every penny.

  Surrounded by the awe-inspiring theater and the mix of French Rococo and bits of Spanish architecture, he couldn’t help but look at her. She outshone all of it.

  “Fine, let’s talk.”

  He held the door open for her as a crowd shuffled by on their way out. The cold blast of Buffalo’s night air hit them as they exited. Charlotte shivered, but Alex didn’t know where to put his hands. So much was off limits these days. He watched her shiver again, and made to put his arm over her. He did it a thousand times in the past. This time, like the last time, she shrugged him off. The heat rose to his face despite the swirling winds.

  “Alex, you know what I want.”

  Alex looked at the ice on the sidewalk. “You know I can’t Charlotte. I mean, now, of all times.”

  Charlotte turned to look at his face. But he still stung from her shrug, and refused to meet her eyes. “You can do whatever you want.”

  Alex looked past her. His irritation was palpable. She wouldn’t let him touch her. Jack was dead.

  She won’t let me touch her. He felt his hands tremble, the emotion boiling to the surface. He heard his voice lift. “I catch bad guys Charlotte. It’s what I do.”

  “Don’t give me that crap. You choose what you want to do. You always have. You know what; I guess we don’t have much to talk about after all.” Her voice got louder to match his.

  Alex knew where this was going but it was like a play he had seen a thousand times and was powerless to avoid. He played his part perfectly.

  “Well then I guess we don’t.” He felt the sentence come through his throat louder than he intended and people turned to look. He felt the heat in his face compound. “You’re so damned selfish Charlotte.”

  “”I’m selfish? I’m selfish?” She said it twice and Alex knew it was a done deal. Anytime she said anything twice he knew to brace. “You’re the one who does whatever he wants. Just remember, Alex, you choose your life and everyone else just has to hope for the best. Well, I’m done hoping. We’re done hoping Alex.”

  She turned to walk away, but spun around after a step. “I’m selfish? You’re just a little boy Alex. Why don’t you grow a pair and grow up.” Her eyes watered and Alex wondered how they didn’t freeze to that cold face of hers.

  He hated her tears, always had. But he couldn’t help himself. It just came out.

  “Go fuck yourself Charlotte.”

  He spun around first this time and walked away as people swerved around him in pairs, some shaking their heads at him as he passed. He couldn’t remember when having the last word felt so terrible.

  *

  Rontego walked down the street back towards his apartment. The snow began to fall now. The assassin lifted the collar of his suit jacket and lowered the brim of his hat to shield himself from the frozen falling droplets of water. Those same droplets resulted in an odd mixture of hard, tiny hail and a flurry of soft snow that melted as soon as it landed on your heated frame. With a grunt, Rafael fumbled inside his Armani suit pockets and pulled out a cigarette.

  “Maybe this will keep me warm,” Rontego mumbled as he let out a puff of warm breath.

  The hit man glanced down at his feet as he burned the tip of his cigarette and felt the taste of the smoked tobacco fill his mouth, then his lungs. His pants were getting wet in the slush that was left behind from the nasty snow.

  As Rafael Rontego stumbled onward to his apartment, he let his mind wander a bit and he took in what transpired at the meeting with Don Ciancetta and with Muro. He rolled the pawn between his fingers again. The first time he met Muro, when he was learning how to do a hit, Muro gave him the pawn. Rafael stared at it, unsure what to make of it. He never played chess, and he was pretty sure you needed a whole set anyway.

  Muro laughed at his confusion. “It’s a reminder.”

  “A reminder for what? Rontego asked.

  “That these,” he lifted his jacket showing his gun holster. “These make it so even a pawn can take out a king.”

  Ever since, the two of them traded the pawn when they wanted to make a point. This time, Rafael was unsure what point was being made.

  Shaking his head, he revisited his meeting with the Don. He was amused that Leonard Ciancetta had become the new boss in Buffalo. Things changed in the last few years. Rontego remembered back when leadership in Buffalo was consolidated. He had never known many years of peace since he entered the services of the organization. The last real years of ‘peace’ ended when Rafael was just a young boy.

  The best he could remember, it was back when he was about four or five years old. He met the man who held the reigns to Buffalo’s underworld for over fifty
years. His dad introduced them. The man was Don Magaddino. Rontego remembered the awe with which his father spoke of the man. When he met Magaddino he was nervous and he did not even know why.

  The man was old, but his strength, unmistakable. When he looked into the old man’s eyes he saw a sort of tiredness and a look as if he were contemplating something that he could not change but desperately wanted to. More than that, though, he remembered the Don’s hands. They were large and encompassed the entirety of his hand when the man reached down and shook his. When he shook hands with this grown up, this powerful adult, he felt as if he were being treated like a man. That feeling stuck with him for a long time. But that was in a time since passed. Magaddino was the last man to hold things together, and it was before Rontego’s time. He did however, have that meeting as a claim to fame.

  Rontego walked with a brisk trot. The cold began to bite at him as the wind snaked around and grazed against the sides of his neck. With a puff on the tobacco, he let his mind continue along its course so long as it was not focused on the weather enveloping him.

  He thought back, the times with Magaddino were the 'good times’. Like all good leaders though, his success at running the family spoiled some capos, and they began to bemoan the power that the Don held. They forced the old Don into retirement. It was about this time that the family began to have a shift in power.

  That was before the Pieri brothers and Fino fought the Cammilleri wars. Before Crazy Fino’s own son betrayed him and sided with the Pieri brothers. Whereas Magaddino led the family for fifty years, now they would go through three bosses in twelve years.

  It was during these wars that Rafael Rontego earned his stripes. He earned a reputation most men would have to die for. With skill, he maneuvered himself on both sides of the war and made a killing on hit contracts. The assassin kept out of the spotlight and left the politics to whoever paid him the most. It paid off in more ways than one, too.

  At first, the Pieri brothers seemed to win the war. Sal, ‘The Eye’, Pieri even claimed the title of boss for a while. If Rontego came out on the winning side, he would have been short lived, because less than a year later, it was Crazy Fino that got the upper hand and ousted ‘The Eye’.

  That victory lasted for four years, so Rontego got a little comfortable and it became a suspicion when one of the Pieri brothers, (this time ‘The Eye’s’ younger brother Joseph), resumed controlling interest in the Buffalo Empire.

  Through some sleek maneuvering, once again, Rafael was able to scratch a living running a gambling ring and making hits when things became chaotic enough to cover his tracks.

  About six years into Joey, “The Blade”, Pieri’s reign, the assassin made a near fatal mistake. He carried out a hit for Old Ciancetta against an upstart Pieri associate. The word traveled fast and a hit was out for Rontego. Scared for his life, Rafael barricaded himself in his apartment.

  It was a very tense time.

  Fortunate for Rontego, Old Man Ciancetta moved quicker than the hitters and within a week the hired guns sent to take out Rontego were dead and Joseph Pieri was abdicating the Buffalo throne to the Ciancetta factions.

  In that time period Rafael became a cold-blooded assassin. With the exception of his first hit, he felt very little remorse, a rare ability that worked in Rontego’s favor in these particular situations. It wasn’t that Rafael was unable to feel guilt, it was that he was able to switch those feelings on and off at will.

  But that was a while ago. Now with Old Ciancetta semi-retired in Florida, Little Leo was in charge. Little Leo was no longer little though, and an aging man himself. He was now responsible for Rontego’s primary income. Still, Little Leo was a shifty boss.

  He sent Rafael out on a lot of hits, which was fine by Rontego, but there was something in his demeanor that often made recognizable blips on Rafael’s danger radar.

  Rafael served Old Leo with loyalty, a sort of thank you for saving his life. However, it was no secret that Rafael Rontego considered his debt repaid with the Old Man’s retirement.

  Now, the new Don Ciancetta was fair game. Perhaps, that was why he kept Rafael busy. For Little Leo, it was a win-win situation. Either Rafael stays busy and takes out the Don’s dirty work, or Rafael gets pinched and spends the next three hundred years in jail, or Rafael gets a bullet in the gut and all that he knows dies with him. Still, he felt as if the man wanted to do the deed himself, as if Rafael was too successful and he was uncomfortable with such a person holding the keys to so many doors.

  Oh well. Rontego was doing well under this arrangement, as was the new Don. He used Rafael’s contacts a lot as of late, and as long as Rontego was useful, he did not see any reason to worry about things not in his control.

  A strong gust of wind brought him from his inward contemplation. Rafael was burning low on his smoke and tossed the butt onto the embankment along the curb. He brought one hand to his hat as the gust of wind threatened to lift it off of him and send it swirling into the vast, impenetrable whiteness that built up all around him.

  With a glance upward along the brim of his hat, Rafael squinted and saw he was about fifty paces from the shelter of his apartment. In a burst, Rontego sprinted onward, across the intersection in front of his place, and into the black metal door that led into the warmth of the narrow stairwell that led to the heat of his home.

  Chapter 6

  The 1997 Ford Taurus squealed into the parking space in front of Alex Vaughn’s townhouse. The faded blue rust wagon’s squeaking brakes were the only telltale sign of Alex’s excitement. He never liked the fact that he was yanked from his old case. His mind was made up now.

  Alex entered his apartment and without hesitation, grabbed the phone hanging on the wall of his kitchen. He punched in seven digits as quick as he could get his fingers to move and he felt the chill leave his body as he became accustomed to the heat coursing through his home. Several rings later he heard a familiar voice, gruff but not impolite.

  “Hey, Vincenzio here.”

  Alex’s friend Ryan Slate was also an undercover agent. He was going by the name of Ricky Vincenzio as of late. Right now he was just an associate to the younger Ciancetta. A friend of Joseph Ciancetta, the new Don’s son. Alex needed a favor, and lucky for him, Ryan Slate A.K.A. Ricky Vincenzio was in a prime position to deliver.

  “Vaughn here, I need a favor, Victor Garducci is reactivated. Leak of his return via New Mexico immediately. Contact me again at seven o’clock PM.”

  He hoped that Ricky would understand and get on with the favor. He had faith in his friend though; Vincenzio was not an unintelligent bastard.

  “Yeah sure thing Papa, I’ll get right on that. Look, I am a little busy right now; can I call you later tonight?” Ricky was covering his ass and not letting on to the conversation.

  Alex knew that this was his way of agreeing, and letting Alex know that now was not a good time.

  “Sure thing Ricky; thanks a lot. I’ll be expecting your call.”

  Alex hung up the phone. So far, so good. Alex went into the bathroom. It was time to mob himself out. He looked at his face. His long brown hair would be fine with a few inches cut off and slicked back. It was time to shave. Alex pulled out his razor and a pair of scissors.

  Alex pulled his medicine cabinet mirror around and angled his head so that he could get a clear view of the back. He pulled his scissors up and went about the work of becoming Victor Garducci. His hands almost trembled with the excitement building up inside him. Everything about this shit on protocol.

  As he finished trimming the length of his hair down so that it was about the length of his ears, Alex wondered how much time he would have once he went under. He had a day or two, three tops, before his friend Ricky asked someone about Victor’s reactivation.

  Alex might be able to buy more time if he talked to Ricky, Ryan Slate, before he talked to his supervisors. He didn’t want to get the guy in trouble though. He would just have to wait and see how the conversation went later that nig
ht. As for now though, Alex was going to begin the process of re-infiltrating his old crew. If he couldn’t buy extra time, then every second undercover counted. And the clock was ticking.

  With a shake of what was left of his brown mane, Alex took a look at himself in the mirror. It was interesting to him, half between Alex Vaughn, and half between Victor Garducci. He looked down at the razor sitting on the sink. He reached out and turned the hot water on and waited as the water began to warm as it streamed from the faucet.

  In a few moments, Victor Garducci would be back. The son of a bitch that killed Jack was going to face a reckoning, and soon, very soon, Alex would be well on his way to arranging that meeting. What better place to start, then the old pool hall across from Inhaled Imports. Two birds, one stone.

  *

  It was seven minutes after seven when the phone rang. Alex jumped out of his skin at the sound. He fell asleep for a few minutes watching the news on his static filled television. The phone rang again. Remembering that Ricky Vincenzio was going to be calling him, Alex jumped up and ran to the phone. He took a deep breath, and then lifted it off of the receiver.

  “Hello,” Alex said, with the excitement edging his voice.

  “Hey, Alex. It’s Ryan Slate.” Ryan seemed relaxed, and he used his real name. He was away from anyone related to his undercover assignment.

  “Hey man, sorry ‘bout earlier. It’s sort of an emergency that I get this information out there. I am going to be making an appearance at the Inhaled Imports tonight.” Alex was trying his best to fill Ryan in without telling him too much. The last thing he needed to do was make an unwilling accomplice out of his friend.

  “Alex, what’s going on? I mean this isn’t exactly on par with procedure. I mean fuck man; I was right there in the damn bar.”

  Ryan’s thick New York accent was permeating the conversation. He was a learned man and tried not to have any noticeable accent. It was his academic elitism that worked against his natural speech tendencies. However, when Ryan was bothered by something, the accent was back full force. Right now, Alex detected that Ryan didn’t enjoy the possible implications that could have been caused by the impromptu call of Alex’s. Something told Alex he should tell Ryan the truth. After all, he had gotten Ryan into this mess of his.