“But you don’t kill a man for that.”
“Tony, Sr.? He deserved it.” His father snorted. “The man foisted upon me a son I had raised as my own because he didn’t want to marry Jeanne. From Tony, Jr.’s perspective he was saddling the Sciopelli business with his spawn. I took care of paying for the hit. Little Tony took care that no suspicion or retribution would come to me.”
“Then why’d you kill Tony, Jr.?”
“Tony, Jr.?” his father asked, sucking a deep breath from the inhalator. “Little Tony didn’t know I had a side deal.”
UPSTAIRS, ANGEL HELD up a Skipper doll.
“I think we can fit in three more dolls,” she said to Anna. “Do you want to take Skipper or do you want to leave her behind?”
Anna sat on the bed playing with her sneaker’s pink laces. “I don’t know,” she said sullenly.
Angel sat down on the bed.
“Maybe you don’t want to go with me and Zach?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anna, are you scared about going?”
Anna twisted her mouth. “I don’t know,” she repeated. She looked up. “Hi, Maria.”
Angel whirled.
Maria stood in the doorway. She wore a floral print sundress and a pair of espadrilles. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she looked startling refreshed considering her husband had been brutally murdered the night before.
Angel was so stunned by the contrast between the Maria who had been sobbing hysterically at the station house and the one standing before her now that she nearly missed the gun.
Held in Maria’s perfectly manicured fingers.
“Maria, if this is about Tony,” she said, moving away from Anna, “I didn’t have anything to do with it and neither did Zach.”
“Ha, you’re a riot” Maria laughed mirthlessly. “You always were such a straight arrow. Such a straight arrow. Worrying about the little widow.”
“How are you feeling?” Angel said, sliding down the bed so that if Maria intended on shooting her, Anna would not get hurt. But Maria had other plans. She jerked the gun suddenly. “Get up off the bed—you’re not taking Skipper or any other Barbies anywhere. Bring the retard, too.”
“What did she call me?” Anna asked as she followed Angel.
“Nothing, Anna,” Angel said, putting her arm around Anna. “Just come along.”
By the butt of her gun, Maria escorted Angel and Anna down the stairs to the Martin front hall. Rocco stood waiting.
“Darling,” he said to Maria, kissing her offered cheek. “I’ll take over from here.”
He took the gun from Maria and trained it on Angel and Anna. Maria stood behind him, smiling triumphantly.
“You should have left when you had the chance,” Rocco told Angel.
“They’ll be going soon enough,” Maria said. “Let’s have our little chat with Mr. Martin.”
ZACH ROSE to his feet the moment Angel entered the room. She tugged behind her Anna, who was quietly crying and quivering with fright. As Maria and Rocco stepped behind them, Zach grimaced. His eyes met Angel’s and he was surprised she was not more frightened.
Perhaps she didn’t know what the possibilities were.
Or perhaps she had learned his trait of greatest calm in the face of greatest danger.
He patted the seat next to him and Anna sat down, latching her arms around his waist.
“It’s all right, little pumpkin,” he soothed, not believing his words.
Angel sat on his other side. She put her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have been watching for trouble.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll think of a way to get out of this one,” Zach said.
Flopping one leg over the arm of the chintz-up-holstered love seat against the window, Maria snapped her gum. “All right, old man, it’s time to divvy up,” she said. “Rocco, baby, sit down next to me.”
In the doorway, Rocco rubbed his thick, sunburned neck. “No, I want to keep an eye out.”
“For what?”
“I dunno.”
Maria glanced at Angel. “Didn’t know about me and Rocco, did you?”
“No,” Angel admitted.
“He was in my grade all the way through school,” Maria said. “We always loved each other, right, Rocco?”
“That’s no reason to kill a man,” Angel said.
“It wasn’t quite like that. Tony thought he had wooed me away from him, but like I said at dinner night before last, first loves always win out Rocco, darling, you don’t need to stand watch. There’s nobody to be afraid of.”
Rocco sat down next to Maria, keeping one hand firmly on his gun while Maria entwined her fingers around his other.
“Zach, put your piece down on the floor,” he said.
“How did you know?” Zach asked.
“I’m not as dumb as I look.”
Zach pulled his gun out of his holster and put it down on the cool terrazzo floor.
“Rocco, did you know your brother killed your parents?”
“I found out about it when he asked me to do the tape,” Rocco said. “You know, the one with Marcus Jones on it. Then I knew. It was bad enough he took my woman. But he killed my parents. It made me mad. Real mad. It wasn’t all that hard to take care of the car.”
“I knew all along,” Maria said. “I tried to persuade Rocco that Tony, Jr., was like that, but he didn’t want to believe me.”
“How long have you and Maria been…back together?” Angel asked.
“None of your business,” Maria snapped. “This isn’t question and answer time. This is money time.”
“Money time?” Zach asked.
“Yeah, let’s talk money, Mr. Martin,” Maria said. “We both got stuff on each other. Tony, Jr., and the parents. We all know enough to put us all away for a long time.”
Rocco winced at the mention of his family.
“It’s okay, darling,” Maria said. “Tony was going to cut you out anyway, baby. But that’s been taken care of. I won’t let you down. Now, Mr. Martin, we have only one problem—your son, Guy, Jr.”
“He’s already been taken care of,” the elder Martin said calmly.
“Really?” Maria asked. She glanced over at Zach, noting his stricken face. “How very efficient. He was the cause of a lot of trouble. You can tell me all about it later. For now, let’s get down to business. Zach, are you familiar with the terms?”
Angel bristled. He saw a flicker of movement in the trees and made a quick calculation.
“I’m willing to talk business, but can’t we leave Anna out of this?” Zach asked Maria. “She’ll get bored, uncooperative and she’ll keep this from being a productive meeting.”
“I guess it’s okay,” Maria said cautiously.
“Get her out of here,” Mr. Martin agreed.
“Anna, go upstairs,” Zach said. “Play with your Barbies. Remember the costume I bought for your Ken doll? The blue one? I don’t think you’ve ever put it on him. Why don’t you try it?”
“This is not the time to be talking about doll fash-ions,” Maria said.
“I’m just trying to get her situated so she won’t bother us, right, Anna?”
“Right,” Anna said. “I love you, Zach.”
“I love you, too, honey,” he said, kissing her. When Anna closed the door behind him, he turned to Maria and Rocco. “All right, let’s talk business. Bring me up to speed on the terms.”
“Are you nuts?” Angel whispered urgently.
“My Angel,” he said to the others. “Such a worrywart.”
He leaned over to her, kissing her lightly behind the ear. “Trust me,” he whispered. “I’m giving you an order. Please, go down on the count of three. This time no questions.” He sat up straight.
“Now, Maria, why don’t you explain the business terms again?”
Maria smiled and pulled a cigarette out of the box on the glass occasional table.
“Thanks, honey,�
�� she said when Rocco lit it for her. For an instant, Zach thought the movement in the trees was an optical illusion created by the thick, confident stream of smoke she blew into the air.
“Go on, Maria,” he said.
“Zach, as you know, your father wanted to position you to take over the Martin end of the business. He assumed, I suppose correctly because you’re here, that you would eventually be persuaded that O’Malley’s a jerk, that you have no future in the D.A.’s office and that the only way to play ball in this town is to play with us. We’re dividing this city up.”
“One, I’m not surprised,” Zach said, keeping an eye on the flickering trees outside the conservatory window. He loosened his arm from behind Angel so that she would have unrestricted movement. “Two, I’m grateful that my father would do so much for me.”
“Glad you feel that way,” Mr. Martin said, pondering an array of prescription bottles on the tray. “Knew you’d come around.”
“Is there more?” Rocco grunted.
“Yeah,” Zach said as Isabel came out of the trees into the clearing. She carried an automatic rifle with a laser clip attached for accuracy. “There’s three.”
He shoved down hard on the back of Angel just as she hit the ground. He grabbed for his gun, but it skittered away in a hail of glass shards. Maria screamed.
Rocco fell to the floor, his face frozen in surprise, the only sign of his distress being a red exit wound on his forehead.
The second round took down Maria. Her body jerked and slumped beside Rocco.
Mr. Martin kept his eyes closed throughout the attack, a spasm on his crepelike lids his only concession to danger.
Zach recovered his gun and, crouching behind the love seat, searched for any sign of Isabel.
“She’s long gone,” Mr. Martin advised calmly, popping a sedative into his mouth. He downed it with a glass of water. “I told you she was good. Professional, too. Came with excellent references.”
Zach looked across the bloodied conservatory floor to the two bodies. Rocco jerked once, twice and then stilled.
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“Because I’m dying and I want to make sure that my family gets what it deserves,” Mr. Martin said, smacking his lips as his’ pills hit his stomach.
“You’ve destroyed your family.”
He gave Zach a clear-eyed gaze. “I only have one family member.”
“No, no, you have a whole family,” Zach corrected. “People who have relied on you, taken care of you, loved you all your life.”
“I have a wife who foisted another man’s child on me, a daughter who’s going to play with Barbie dolls for the rest of her life, a son who was an idiot and not mine anyway, and then there’s you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the last of my family. And there’s a delicious irony about it all.”
“What’s that?”
“When you marry her, I’ll have bested every one of them,” Mr. Martin mused.
Zach helped Angel to her feet.
“Me?” Angel asked.
“Yeah, you. You’re the key to it all.”
“I’m not going into the business,” Zach said.
“The business will come to you,” his father countered. “Remember what happened when you tried to get a job as a lawyer? Everyone wanted you, because they thought a chunk of Martin and Sciopelli business came with. The law firms were fighting one another for a chance to hire you.”
“I wouldn’t have done your dirty work.”
“It won’t matter. Nothing you do will mess with my plans. Chicago is a surprisingly small town—everyone knows what and where you come from and nobody’s going to forget. So thank me or don’t thank me. Hate me or not. One day you will have to take it. Starting today, actually. I’ll just be able to die knowing this was passed on—to my bloodline, not his.”
It was then that they heard the sirens.
“Anna!” Angel said. “She’s coming down the stairs.”
Angel went to make sure that Anna wouldn’t come into the conservatory and see the carnage.
“You are not my father any longer,” Zach said with great effort but also a great sense of relief. He realized it had been a weight sitting heavily upon him.
“You are always my son,” Guy, Sr., responded calmly. “You’ll have to run pretty far to escape from the name Martin. Or the name Sciopelli. Those two names will be linked forever. That is, if you give in to your desire for her.”
He began to cough, heave and wheeze.
But instead of bringing him water or flipping on the oxygen tank, Zach left him.
“Inga!” he yelled for the nurse, knowing that she could take care of things more competently if less personally than he could. He felt so revolted he thought he might throw up, but then he calmed himself, knowing that he had to be strong just a little longer.
Anna stood in the doorway with her round red Barbie suitcase. “Did I do a good job calling the police?” she asked.
“You did wonderful, kid,” Zach said, kissing her forehead.
He steadied Angel, who was beginning to feel the effects of shock. She was trembling and her skin was cool—he needed to get them both out of here.
“Anna, you called 911?” Angel asked, leaning against Zach for support.
“Yes, it’s a special code Zach and I set up,” Anna said proudly. “The special outfit for Ken is the blue policeman’s outfit. And that meant I was supposed to get the police.”
“That’s phenomenal.”
“I might be slow,” Anna said solemnly. “Maybe I’m even a retard like Maria said, but I can still do good things.”
“You did a very good thing,” Angel said, hugging the young woman.
Zach looked up the stairs.
“Where’s Inga?”
“In her room.”
“Fine, we’ll leave her. The police will take twenty minutes just to figure out she can’t speak English. And my father won’t talk to them.”
“Zach, aren’t we going to wait for the police?” Angel asked.
“No, Angel. My father is right about one thing. The Martin and Sciopelli names are tough to shake,” he said. “But we’re going to do it. Come on, we’re clearing out.”
“We’re leaving forever?”
He nodded.
“Zach, this is what I’ve always wanted.”
He let his hair fall in front of his face so that she couldn’t see his anguished expression. After he pulled the Camaro out into the street, they turned onto busy Green Bay Road just seconds before two Glencoe squad cars pulled up to the driveway.
Chapter Eighteen
The ticket agent typed furiously for several moments, bit her lip as she studied the screen in front of her and at last shook her head.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have two seats on the flight to San Salvador,” she said. “But I can put one of you on the flight and then see if I can book one other seat for the next day’s flight. That’s the best I can do for two passengers.”
“We aren’t two passengers and we don’t need two seats,” Angel said. “We need three seats. Don’t we, Zach?”
He looked away. The man in line behind Angel muttered to his wife that the service was slow at this airline.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” the ticket agent said. “We don’t have three seats, either. The flights to San Salvador are usually booked solid. Now, ma’am, is there anything else I can do for you? Because there’s a great many other people in line.”
She smiled at the man standing behind Angel, but Zach held his ground.
“What about the twelve-thirty to Guatemala?” he asked.
“I can check again, sir,” the agent said with limited patience. “But thirty seconds ago, when you last asked, the flight was booked.”
“I forgot we tried Guatemala. Try Fiji.”
“Checking, sir. Do you just need two seats?”
“Just two,” he confirmed.
“Zach, why are we buying just two tickets?” Angel de
manded. “Are we planning on leaving Anna here?”
They both glanced over at Anna, who was seated on a blue vinyl bench by the elevators. She clutched her Barbie suitcase to her chest and quietly rocked. Back and forth. Back and forth. Singing a nursery rhyme to herself.
Although she had been asked repeatedly by both Angel and Zach, she had claimed she wanted to go with them, but Angel and Zach had both been worried about her condition. Zach thought she needed a good breakfast. Angel thought she needed a home.
“Of course, Anna’s going,” Zach said. “My mother is entrusting her to me. I’m just sending you two along first. I’ve got some business to take care of.”
“Zach!”
The man behind Angel pushed his suitcase and a plastic gift shop bag inches forward, as if he thought his luggage might persuade them to conclude their business.
“Sir, there’s no seats on the flight to Fiji,” the agent interrupted, leaning across the counter. “While you’re deciding on your destination and the number of people in your party, would you mind stepping aside so that I can help these other customers?”
Muttering an apology, Angel and Zach walked over to the concourse.
“Zach, I’m leaving town, your sister’s leaving town. That means your plans are up in the air. You can’t mean that you’re staying.”
“Angel, I’ll come later. Please take my sister. Get her out of here.”
“Zach, don’t do this to me,” Angel pleaded. “I don’t want to leave without you.”
“I can’t go, Angel, you know that. I’m a wanted man. I shot my brother and I’m a material witness to a double homicide.”
“I saw the same murders,” she hissed, and then brought her voice down low as several travelers turned to stare. “I should be staying, too.”
“You can’t identify the automatic rifle Isabel used or her outfit or even the position from which she shot. I’m much more useful.”
He didn’t add that the reason why she wasn’t as good a witness as he was was precisely because she had done as he had asked—hit the ground immediately, and with no arguing about doing what he told her or not
He figured he would be willing to argue with her for the rest of her life about who was boss, about who was too old-fashioned, about who was living in the wrong century—as long as he could know that in matters of life and death, they would trust each other.
His Betrothed Page 15
