by Dani Amore
Loreli whirled. The big man had disappeared from the hallway. She pulled Liam into the first hallway and raced down its length. It ended in a bathroom.
Shit.
She turned around and ran back from where she’d come. Loreli found the glass doors of the great room and crashed through them.
She scooped up Liam and put him over her shoulder, then took off at a dead run along the grass of the mansion’s grounds. Even in the dark, Loreli could make out the dips and rises of the ground. She ran faster than she’d ever run before. She felt no exhaustion, no pain. Her hair was flying behind her. Liam was sobbing, his voice spasmodic from his body bouncing on Loreli’s shoulder. Get to the road. Get away. She had nothing left, now. No job. No home. Nothing. She would get on a bus with Liam and go.
She scampered down the driveway toward Lakeshore Drive. She could hear traffic. The world was outside. The nightmare was almost over, she thought.
She hit the last thick stand of shrubbery and pushed her way through only to have a spotlight hit her face with such intensity that her eyes were momentarily blinded.
Loreli sank to her knees as she saw the silhouettes of big bodies fanning out around her. “Oh God,” she said. She had come so close. Romano’s men. There were just too many of them, she thought. She thought of the cellar again. Of the torture. What they would do to Liam.
“Please...” she said, sobbing. Her hair hanging down on her face. She cradled Liam in her arms and rained kisses down on his face. “I’m sorry,” she said.
And then a woman spoke.
“Loreli, you take the party with you, don’t you?” she said.
The spotlight was averted and Loreli looked up into two smaller, green spotlights, surrounded by a halo of red.
“Amanda Rierdon. FBI.”
63.
Jack fired at the moving figure, but knew instinctively that none of his bullets found their mark. The man was just too quick. And now he was gone. Jack got to his feet and tested his body. Nothing broken, nothing hurt too badly. The shoulder wound was bleeding profusely, but he could move his arm with only marginal difficulty. No muscle or nerve damage.
Jack looked around the great room. A fire was raging on one side of the house, and he swore he heard a woman speaking through a bullhorn. Which meant the cops were here. And that meant there was only one way out.
Jack raced across the great room, out the wide French doors, and into the night.
64.
“Kiss my fat Italian ass,” Vincenzo Romano said. He was sweating. He was uncomfortable. He was in a great deal of pain, both physically and psychologically. This flaming red-haired bitch across the table from him wasn’t helping matters.
“Vinny, Vinny, Vinny.”
“You fired on federal officers, V-Man. You’re looking at some serious time.”
“You’re full of shit.”
Just then the door opened, and a slim bald man in a black Calvin Klein suit entered the room.
“About time, Wally,” Romano growled.
“What are the charges?” the man asked.
Amanda Rierdon smiled at him. “Attempted murder. Conspiracy to commit murder. Extortion. Racketeering. You name it.”
“Evidence?”
“There were over a thousand rounds fired at a group of federal officers at Mr. Romano’s compound.”
“And witnesses who saw Mr. Romano firing?”
Rierdon paused. Before she could respond, the man called Wally said, “Are the other charges this flimsy?”
Rierdon again didn’t speak.
“Mr. Romano, you will be out of here by the end of the day. They don’t have any evidence. We’ll go before the judge and get this all dismissed. In the meantime, I expect you’ll treat my client with the utmost care. He just had surgery.”
“That’s right, Half-Tit! I’d forgotten,” Rierdon said, another brilliant smile flashing across her face.
“Kiss my ” Romano started to say, but Rierdon was already gone. She slammed the door behind her.
65.
Jack pulled into the parking structure a half-mile from the Lodge and 7 Mile exit. It was a security guarded parking lot, mostly for the office tower two blocks away. But it was far enough away from any of Jack’s activities that he deemed it reasonably safe.
Besides, the car he had left here wasn’t in his name, anyway.
Jack took a ticket at the entrance, then went up to the fifth level. He went to the section marked with an “F” and pulled into a spot next to a tan Buck. He got out, took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the trunk’s lock.
“Hello Special Agent Macaleer,” he said.
The trunk swung open and revealed a curly headed man clutching a suitcase to his chest and with a bullet hole between his eyes.
66.
The final blow came not from the authorities, nor from the realization that unless there was a fucking miracle, he’d be spending the rest of his life behind bars, confined to a prison cell.
No, the final blow to Vincenzo Romano came courtesy of his wife.
Gloria Romano entered the special lockup at FBI Headquarters and stood outside her husband’s cell. Vincenzo thought she’d never looked more beautiful. The light from the small row of windows near the ceiling cast a faint glow down on her from above, and the light cast faint shadows under her eyes and face, creating a visage of beautiful ivory skin, dark hair and eyes, and swaddling her in the shroud of what Romano thought of as the ultimate what-might-have-been.
“They wouldn’t let me bring you anything,” she said.
Vincenzo Romano felt shame. It burned through his body, circled the scar where his left breast used to be and rushed to his face. He hadn’t realized that despite the fact he didn’t love Gloria, he still desired her respect. And now, too late, he knew he’d lost that as well.
“I’m going to ask for a divorce,” she said.
The shame reached a flash point and instantly blossomed into anger. Not toward Gloria. He knew this was coming. No, the anger was directed at the now deceased Tommy Abrocci. The fucking rat. He’d spent the rest of his life dreaming of killing the rat.
“I’m going away for awhile, too,” she said.
The words came to his throat and he brought them out, painfully, one by one. “Take it easy, Gloria. Whoever it is, I hope he makes you happy. You deserve it.”
The silence fell between them like a curtain after the final act. They both knew there was nothing else to say.
“Good-bye,” she said.
Vincenzo Romano sat, alone in his cell, save for the final disintegrating scent of his ex-wife’s perfume.
67.
They sat around the conference table on the 26th floor of the Federal building. Loreli and Liam on one side, Amanda Rierdon and SAC Vawter on the other.
Between them, sat Wanda Bernstein, the attorney Loreli had hired.
“Sign the papers, Loreli,” Rierdon said. “It’s the last time we’ll make the offer.”
Loreli looked at her attorney and when the woman nodded her approval, Loreli picked up the pen and signed with a flourish. Her eyes raced over the paper, the words a meaningless jumble. Only one word was in her head: freedom. She was going to make it out of this mess, with Liam intact. Her own psyche, her self-image, her future were possibly in ruins, but she had Liam and her freedom. She could work the rest of it out later.
“The tapes,” Rierdon said.
From her suitcase, Wanda Bernstein produced the cassettes she had been given by Loreli, who in turn, had been given them by a man she only knew as “Jack.”
Loreli watched as Rierdon and her boss seemed to be utterly transfixed by the sight of the tapes made by Tommy Abrocci. She knew she was forgotten but not gone. She got to her feet.
Rierdon looked up from the tapes. “I don’t know how you survived this, or how you got these,” she said. “You must be blessed.”
“I had a little help,” she said, and ruffled Liam’s head.
“We know
about that. We don’t know who he was, but we know someone else was involved. A mystery man. Why don’t you—”
“We’re done here,” Wanda interrupted. “According to the deal, you’ve got the tapes, Loreli’s got her freedom. There’s nothing else for us to discuss.”
Rierdon smiled at the both of them.
“Oops, you’re right,” she said. “Nonetheless, I intend to find out who that person was.”
“Without Loreli’s help.”
“That’s right,” Rierdon said. “Right after my vacation.”
68.
Rierdon’s flight left at six o’clock in the evening. She’d had a drink at the airport bar, a dry martini, and had boarded the plane with just minutes to spare. But she didn’t hurry. The flight wasn’t crowded and she was on vacation. As the plane left the ground, she felt the pressure of the last few months drop from her shoulders.
The flight landed in Atlanta, refueled, then took off again for Jamaica. It was nearly four in the morning, Jamaica time, when they landed. As they descended into Kingston, Amanda could see the turquoise blue water glowing in the pre-dawn darkness. Her stomach felt light, her heart threatening to leap from her body. On the ground, she slipped a ten spot to a airport busboy and he brought her back a plastic bag filled with bottles of Red Stripe. On the way to the resort, on the bus, she gave two bottles to a couple who obviously were honeymooning. The two of them and Amanda were the only ones, besides the driver, on the bus.
They roared along the coastline, the driver taking sharp turns with no need for safety, save a quick toot of the horn just in case another bus was rounding the curve going the other way. Rierdon slid the window down and breathed the air in deeply. It was warm, heavy and moist.
Amanda looked at the couple. They were starting a new life together, obviously full of love and hopes and dreams. She wondered how they’d be in a few years, if the mundane aspects of life; bills, budgets, the rigors of survival would wear them down. She hoped not. Today, she was a romantic.
The bus pulled up in front of the resort two hours later. The entrance was covered with thick foliage, a gap in the wall of green. The bus wound its way down a heavily landscaped drive before pulling up in front of the main office. A porter got her suitcase out and she followed him to one of the oceanside cabanas.
He used his key to unlock the door. Amanda saw the suitcase on the bed, its flap open revealing a small cache of clothes. The porter put Amanda’s suitcase next to the bed and she tipped him five dollars. When the door closed behind him, Amanda turned and locked the door. She heard footsteps behind her, then a pair of hands on her shoulders. The hands slid forward and cupped her breasts.
Amanda turned.
Gloria Romano smiled at her. To Amanda, the smile, the eyes, the lips, they were all the most beautiful things in the world. Amanda’s knees were weak. She brought her arms up and they collided, mouths pressed together in a deep passionate kiss.
It was all worth it, she thought, setting up Tommy Abrocci with the sting operation. It had been Gloria’s idea, really. She’d overheard the pig talking about his fling on the Internet with a young girl. Gloria had told her and the trap was sprung.
The goal, to put away Vincenzo Romano, was the best of both worlds. Amanda got her crowning achievement, Gloria got rid of him for good. And they had each other.
Oh yes, Amanda, thought, we’ll have each other. We’ll have each other again and again. She couldn’t wait to taste the saltwater on Gloria’s skin.
She would taste Gloria everywhere.
69.
The last box barely fit into the Camry’s trunk. When Loreli pushed it shut, she had to lean on it until she heard the click telling her the trunk was latched. She watched Liam play in the front yard with his soccer ball. He kicked it, ran and chased it, then kicked it back. The house was shrouded in plastic and sealed off with crime tape. Part of the deal was that she was allowed to come back and get some of her stuff. There wasn’t much.
“Come on, Liam, time to go.”
Liam picked up his ball. Loreli got her mail, the last batch. They were moving to Wisconsin and she had already filed their change-of-address form.
Loreli put the mail in her purse, then checked her watch. “Come on Liam, it’s time to go if we want to beat Chicago rush hour traffic.”
Liam scrambled into the back seat of the Camry, surrounded by boxes and a plant, and buckled himself in.
Loreli got behind the wheel and put her purse on the passenger seat. The tank was full of gas.
She was looking forward to a new future.
Not what the future would be. Just that there was one to look forward to.
70.
Jack figured that there were three kinds of people in his profession. The first were the amateurs. They usually acted out of madness or brazen ego, no intention of surviving for the long haul. Often they were filled with insane images of what killers-for-hire were all about. They tended to last as long as their first job. They usually ended up getting killed or sent to prison quickly.
The second tier was the lower-level pros. They usually stumbled onto the profession from a background of breaking and entering, burglary or cons. They weren’t as foolish as the amateurs, but they weren’t serious about killing. Among this level, they could be sub-divided into two groups: the creative, and the methodical. The creative lower level guys could think on their feet, but were poor planners and undisciplined. The methodical guys were great at planning and organization, but couldn’t improvise, couldn’t innovate when the situation called for it. Both groups were ultimately failures, doomed to make mistakes, get caught and die. That was why they always stayed on the second tier.
The third tier was where Jack was. The ultimate pros. Not in it for ego. But not in it because he was trapped like the second tier suckers. And he figured the reason he’d made it this far was that he was the best of both worlds: he could be creative, he could innovate, he could fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants. But he could also plan. He could organize. He was a perfectionist.
And that’s why the puzzle didn’t fit together as neatly as he would have liked. In fact, that last piece so troubled him that he spoke to several people after the story disappeared from the front pages of the newspaper.
One of the people he spoke to was Big Paulie Bernocchi.
Big Paulie pointed him in the direction of the last puzzle piece. All Jack had to do was pick it up and snap it into place.
Jack sat at the bar for nearly four hours before they finally made their appearance. He was as close to being drunk as he ever got, certainly on a job. But the hot Caribbean sun had provided the motivation, the sparkle of the blue water, the crystal dagger reflections of the sand provided the atmosphere, and the bartender provided easy access. The beer flowed easily. The breeze coming off the ocean was pure and rich. He could taste the salt in the air. The sun was prickly hot.
It was an upscale resort. The kind for couples only, couples who wanted to frolic in Paradise, drink and swim all day, cavort all night, get up in the morning and start the whole process over again.
For some reason he thought of the secretary, Loreli was her name he was pretty sure. He’d given her the Abrocci tapes because he knew she had a kid, a boy. Hell, maybe he’d look her up one day.
The sound of a speedboat cruising past the beach brought him back to the present. This kind of resort was all about privacy, even though the general public could come to the main restaurant for drinks and dinner. Jack had found the place with a few well-placed calls. He knew the two people, their names, and he had a pretty good idea what was going on, so a quick trace of their credit cards revealed the tickets on one, the hotel on the other. He could have left it at that, naturally, but there was something about wanting to see them together that made him get on the plane and come down.
The bartender was a friendly Jamaican. Jack figured that was redundant. Did Jamaicans ever get grouchy? Probably. One thing Jack had learned. People were the same everywhere. Sure, the
y dressed differently. Spoke different languages. But when it came right down to it, everybody was just like everyone else. Everyone had bad days, fought with their spouses, wondered about the future, felt the wide range of guilt, joy, envy and pride. Each day for every person was a variation on a theme. The same song with slightly different words. Except maybe the Spook. Jack wondered where he was. The man was a fricking ghost. But Jack figured that in their line of work, they were bound to run into each other again. He was looking forward to it.
The bartender turned as the two approached the bar. Jack, in a straw hat and a fresh sunburn, watched them as they ordered and took their drinks toward the beach. Jack shoved away from the bar and followed them. He sat at a table as he watched them walk down the beach, farther and father from the resort. When they were too far away for them to recognize him, he walked after them.
The waves were lapping onto the beach as the sun slowly began to sink. Evenings in Jamaica were truly beautiful, Jack thought. The sand squished between his pathetically white feet. The beers were numbing him a bit, but he walked quickly and became his old self. He closed the distance on them just as he saw them step from the beach behind a big palm tree.
Jack walked quickly ahead and then, a few feet from the spot on the beach where they stopped, he slowed. As he passed, he saw them out of the corner of his eye.
Amanda Rierdon’s mouth was parted, her eyes closed, her lips tightly clamped on the lips of a dark-haired, slender woman. As Jack passed, they pulled their faces away.
Gloria Romano glanced at Jack. He walked slowly by, the puzzle piece slamming into place. Had Rierdon always wanted to put Romano away? Or only after she’d fallen in love with his wife? It didn’t matter. She had the means to get it done. Gloria had helped by setting up Tommy Abrocci. Gloria couldn’t very well wear a wire. If word got out that Gloria and Amanda were lovers, they’d have no case. But Tommy was an objective third party. So Gloria and Amanda set him up. Stuck him with a fake Internet luring charge. Only Tommy didn’t cooperate. Now, Tommy was dead, and Gloria’s husband was in prison.
