The Green Rolling Hills

by V. J. Banis

  Growing accustomed to the dark, Mac moved silently toward the back of the building. Oughta cut and run, he thought, something not right here.

  But what could he do? Get back in the flatbed and drive the Porsche home again? No way. He’d taken enough risks. It was time to unload, get the money and take off. Vito was probably out to lunch, or screwing his secretary. Just because some fool turned the lights off, there was no reason to get spooked. This was payoff time.

  Mac reached the office door and eased it open. More darkness. He stood there trying to figure out what to do next. Where was the light switch?

  He wasn’t sure what alerted him first, but suddenly he knew he wasn’t alone in the small room. The muscles tensed in the back of his neck. He skirted the room silently. Mac could make out the desk in the center of the room. Was someone sitting there? Fumbling for his lighter, he flicked it on. Vito was slumped back in his chair. Even in the flickering light, Mac could see that Vito’s throat had been cut, a big, gaping wound that went almost ear to ear.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Mac whispered. “I gotta get outta here.” The lighter was burning his fingers. He snapped it shut.

  Suddenly, the garage outside the office door exploded with light and the noise of barked orders, cursing, men running, and equipment being overturned. Somebody was sure as hell searching for something or someone.

  Was it the cops? Oh shit! He was a sitting duck if the cops showed up. Mac listened for a moment more. No, probably not the cops. These men sounded too angry, too relentless.

  Vito’s “business partners?” They’d probably done Vito in, poor sonnavabitch. They’d sure as hell pop him, too, if they found him here. Mac flicked his lighter again and looked around quickly—no other door, nothing. He could hear the intruders working their way methodically toward the back of the building. Well, Tanky had had to pick gangsters to do business with. But Tanky wasn’t here to face the music.

  All of a sudden, Mac heard another noise, a soft sobbing sound coming from the corner of the room. He edged toward the sound. “Help. Help me, per favore, aiuto!” a muffled voice said. “Get me out of here.”

  “Where are you?” Mac whispered.

  “Here, behind the bookcase.”

  Looking down, Mac made out the small, huddled figure of a young girl. “Who are you?”

  “Rosa. I’m Vito’s niece. Who are you?”

  “Mac. I’m, eh, sort of a deliveryman. Sure as hell shouldn’ta made this delivery. Look, we gotta get outta here.”

  “Yes, before they find us. They are bad men.”

  “How? How can we get out?” Mac could hear the searchers coming closer.

  “The window. Help me up. Hurry.” She crossed herself as she ran past Vito’s body.

  The small window was set high in the wall. Mac boosted her up. She wasn’t near as young as he’d first thought. It occurred to him that she was pretty filled out for a schoolgirl, but this wasn’t the time to be thinking about stuff like that.

  She was also agile and quick. In a minute she had the window open. She straddled the frame and reached down a hand for him. They scrambled out, breathless and shaken, and dropped to the ground.

  They were in the narrow alley that ran along the side of the building. Mac grabbed her arm and steered her toward the corner. They paused. Mac stuck his head cautiously around the corner.

  Nothing. By now those men must be in Vito’s office. Any second, they’d spot the open window.

  “Wait here.” Mac ran into the street, reached the flatbed, and in minutes had released the Porsche. He didn’t have to look around for the girl; they fell into the car at the same time. Mac gunned the engine and the Porsche’s tires squealed. They were off.

  “Somebody just ran out the front door.” The girl was looking back as the Porsche rounded the corner and blended into heavy traffic. “Oh, Grazie Dio.” She crossed herself. “We escaped. Now, where can I go that they can’t find me?”

  Mac glanced across the seat at her. She was dressed in a short skirt and baggy sweater. It was the student backpack that had given him the impression she was a schoolgirl. He could see now that she wasn’t.

  For sure not. Lots of long, dark curls fell around her shoulders. She was a looker. She was also dangerous as hell. He should put her out at the next corner.

  Instead, he grinned at her and said, “Say, you ain’t American, are you? I like the way you talk. Don’t worry, I know a place in the hills where they ain’t never gonna find you. Prettiest place in the world in the spring. Ever heard of West Virginia?”

  The Porsche crawled through city traffic. From time to time he glanced into the rear view mirror, but so far as he could tell, no one was following them. When they finally hit the Beltway, Mac relaxed a little. Once he turned off onto Route I-70 West, he felt free.

  “Is this West Virginia?” she asked.

  “Nope, not yet. We’re in the state of Maryland now,” he told her, “have been for a while. After we pass Frederick, you’ll get your first look at the mountains.”

  “We’re going to the mountains?”

  “Yeah, lots of mountains in West Virginia. We’ll get off the Interstate at Hancock, Maryland, cross the Potomac River, and in a few miles hit a little place called Berkeley Springs. I grew up there. Best to avoid the town though. I know a lot of places in the hills and along the Ca’pon River where you’ll be safe.” He thought for a moment. An idea had just popped into his head. “Matter of fact, my cousin Jett has a cabin in the hills near the river. Folks living on the back roads are loners, not used to strangers. They’re none too friendly to anybody poking around, asking questions. Say, what’d you say your name was, anyway?”

  ‘Rosa,” she said. “Rosa Maria Teresa DeLucca.”

  “Well, I can’t call you all that. How about I call you Rosie”

  She grinned at him. “Rosie,” she said. “I like that. It sounds American.”

  “Okay, Rosie it is. And I’m Mac, case you were wondering.”

  * * * *

  While Mac and Rosie drove toward West Virginia, Mac’s cousin, Jett McCabe was trying to tie things up in his Washington, D.C. office. A big man in his mid-thirties, he looked like an older, heavier version of Mac.

  He wanted to leave for his cabin in West Virginia on Friday, a day earlier than he usually got away. Springtime was the hardest time to sit behind a desk. The redbuds would be in bloom behind the cabin. Chrissakes, the city was driving him crazy.

  He only hoped his dumb ass cousin, Mac, had left the cabin alone. The last time Mac had crashed there, all of Jett’s fishing tackle had disappeared. Mac had always had trouble drawing the line between what was his and what belonged to other people.

  And he wasn’t the only McCabe who had this problem, either. That was one reason Jett had left the West Virginia State Police and moved to the city. He’d gotten tired of arresting his uncles and cousins.

  “Can’t pick your relatives,” Jett muttered as he got back to work and opened a new file on the computer. It read: “De Marco Crime Family.”

  * * * *

  Jimmy De Marco leafed through the ledger book in Vito’s office. Without looking up, he issued orders quietly and concisely. “Mike, check over the flatbed from West Virginia again. Try to find the registration. See if the driver left anything in the cab. Move, Joey, get rid of Vito here. You know what to do. I want the word spread that he held out on Jimmy De Marco.”

  Jimmy slammed the ledger shut and handed it to his driver. “Rico, we’ll take this with us. I want you to check on who Vito did business with in Vest Virginia.”

  De Marco left his underlings to their assignments and strode from the garage, Rico hurrying around him to get to the Mercedes first and open the door for him. De Marco settled into the back seat. Rico ran around and got behind the wheel.

  “So,” De Marco said when the car was moving, “who’s the girl who left in the Porsche with the kid from West Virginia?”

  “Vito’s niece. She showed up a week ago. Sh
e was in a convent school in Torino up till then.”

  “Chrissakes, don’t tell me I’m going to have to ice a nun?”

  “She ain’t a nun yet, Boss. That’s why Vito brought her over here. He got a letter from the sisters telling him, he’s next of kin, see, that she had graduated from high school and was considering taking vows for the convent. He sent for her. Hadn’t seen her in fifteen years, since her parents died.”

  “So, do you think Vito entrusted this little convent girl with my money? And if she doesn’t know anyone in the States, where could she be now?”

  * * * *

  The Porsche labored up the rutted dirt road and stopped. “This is my cousin Jett’s place. He’s a cop down in the city so nobody’s usually here through the week. Whatdaya think”

  “It is a good cabin. I like it here on the mountain.”

  “This here is really just a hill. But it’s a nice, quiet spot. Let’s go in and see if we can find something to eat. I’m starved.” Mac rented a small apartment in Berkeley Springs, but it hadn’t seemed like a good idea to go back there tonight.

  “So, your cousin’s a policeman.” The girl smiled. “We have families, also, like this in Italy. They may not agree on anything, but they all go to Mass on Sunday and then sit down for dinner together. After all, family is family, yes?” Her smile made her really beautiful.

  “Yeah, well Jett McCabe ain’t that forgiving. Don’t have an understanding bone in his body.” Mac realized that Jett would be mad as hell right now if he knew that him and Rosie were sitting in front of his fireplace. As far as Jett was concerned, his cousin Mac was a two-bit crook and hustler, and he would peg her right off as Mafia family.

  Mac grinned as he pictured Jett’s reaction to the hot Porsche parked outside. Well, too bad. Smartass sonnavabitch would be in for a surprise.

  “Will I meet this Cousin Jett? I would like to thank him for his hospitality.”

  “I don’t think so.” Mac’s grin faded as he looked at her and remembered that he was in some deep shit, and having her with him wasn’t making things any better. Plus, he didn’t know anything about her except for that goofy Italian name. “Say, I been wondering how you learned to speak English so good, Rosie?”

  “English? Well, at the school we had English classes. I also talk French, better French than English, I think. I lived near the French border and many of the nuns who taught us were French. Do you really think I talk good English?” She grinned.

  “Probably better than mine. And another thing that puzzles me, what were you doing in Vito’s office today? What happened?”

  Rosie’s face crumpled. She put a hand over her mouth, but couldn’t stop tears. Gingerly, Mac moved closer and put a comforting arm around her.

  “I had gone to help him count everything. You say ‘inventory.’ It was a small thing I could do to help. Zio Vito, Uncle Vito, had been so kind to me.

  “We were working in the storeroom when we heard a car drive into the alley. He looked out the window and got very upset. His face went white, and he told me to run and hide in the restroom. ‘Sta attenta! Corri!’ he told me.

  “I did what he said. After a minute, I could hear angry voices. My uncle was talking very fast, he kept saying, ‘Jimmy, per favore’. I heard him scream, ‘Aiuto, Dio mio, Aiuto!’ He was calling for help, pleading for his life.” Rosie shuddered. “Then all was quiet. I heard the men leaving. I snuck back to Uncle Vito’s office. I found him—e morto, dead. I should have left then, but I was too terrified. I remembered, when they were arguing, he kept saying, ‘mia casa, mia casa.’ I think he threw his killers off by sending them to his home to search for...for whatever they wanted, so that I could escape. But I was idiota! I just hid there, crying. And then you came. You looked too young to be a Mafioso, but you had that beard, so I wasn’t sure at first.” She looked up at him. “You and I, we could both be dead along with Uncle Vito.”

  “Yeah, I guess we could.” Mac stroked his short, closely trimmed beard. “So a beard makes you a gangster? Maybe I oughta shave it off.”

  “No, no, I like it. It’s just that I was very scared and nervous then.”

  Poor kid, he thought, she’s sure as hell been through a lot. Hell of an introduction to the U. S. of A, wasn’t it? “Don’t worry, nobody ain’t gonna mess with you no more, Rosie. You got my word on it.”

  They made a dinner of canned beans and sardines, and Rosie seemed a little more relaxed. “So what you planning to do now, Rosie? Go back to Italy? You got people there?” Mac stretched out his long legs and pulled out a smoke. He’d lit a fire in the fireplace and its warmth made the small cabin cozy. He smiled at Rosie, hoping her answer would be no.

  “Oh, no, not Italy. I have no family there anymore. Vito was my only family, and I couldn’t even see him properly buried.” Rosie looked down. “He was good to me. If it weren’t for Uncle Vito I probably would be a novice by now.”

  “A novice?”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot you are not Catholic. Everybody at home is. A novice is, well, a kind of apprentice nun, a junior nun.”

  “A nun! You wanted to become a nun? Oh, no, I can’t believe it.” Mac stood up and confronted her. “Get up!”

  Rosie stood up. Her dark eyes never left his narrowed blue eyes. Very slowly, Mac lowered his lips to hers. His kiss was light, but lingering.

  “I was right,” he said, “you ain’t nun material.”

  Rosie laughed. “No, Mac, I never really thought I’d have made a good nun. But, you see, I’d been in an Ursuline Convent School ever since my parents died when I was very young. I knew no other life. So when I graduated, it seemed like a good idea. I had no future.”

  “Well, you do now, Rosie. You do now.”

  “I don’t know what the future will bring, but I know it’s here, on this side of the ocean. But there is something I must do now, Mac. Come and sit down. I need to talk to you.”

  “What you need to do,” Mac said as he sat next to her, “is to put as much space between you and those gangsters as we can get.”

  “Yes, but first I must find the Sisters of the Ursuline Convent here in America. I have a regalo, a gift for them from Uncle Vito. They will pray for his soul.”

  Mac stared at her. She was sure one complicated woman. “Gift? Vito? I don’t understand.”

  “Well, it’s simple. Until I deliver this, eh, gift, neither Uncle Vito or I will be free. I must do it, but how? Will you help me, Mac?”

  Her smile almost made him consider this crazy scheme. But he said, “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” Rosie really should have picked somebody better qualified to help save Uncle Vito’s soul.

  Thursday May 5

  First thing in the morning, Mac headed for Tanky’s place. Rosie was still sleeping in the cabin’s only bedroom. Mac had bunked on the couch. Chrissakes, he’d never had any trouble with women, but what could he do with a little nun? The best thing to do was keep his distance.

  About a half mile from Tanky’s, Mac pulled off the road and maneuvered the Porsche up an abandoned logging road. “Can’t never be too careful,” he muttered as he wiped the car clean. Continuing on foot, he approached the garage from the rear.

  He stood at the edge of the woods and waited for several long minutes, scoping the place out. His old truck was still parked by the garage. Naomi’s station wagon was gone, meaning she wasn’t home. Everything was quiet. After about ten minutes, Mac walked slowly along the side of the building and slipped inside. The door had been ajar. Silence. No country music blared from the radio, no movement, nobody home.

  Mac spotted Tanky over in the grease pit. At first, he thought Tanky was just standing there, resting against the side of the pit. When he reached him, he saw that Tanky’s head was twisted at an unnatural angle. His throat had been slit, just like Vito’s. Someone had propped him up in the grease pit.

  Poor bastard, Mac thought. It looked like they’d worked him over pretty good before they killed him. ’Course, Tanky would
have handed him to them on a platter if he could’ve, but he sure as hell didn’t deserve nothing like this. Mac looked around. There weren’t even any signs of a struggle. Tanky was a big man, and he’d have gone down swinging. They must have taken him by surprise.

  “Damn them all to hell,” Mac muttered.

  He found Tanky’s old .38 service revolver in the bottom drawer of the old desk and shoved it into his belt. He was gathering up two boxes of hollow point bullets, when he spotted a West Virginia license plate in the back of the drawer. He slipped that inside his jacket, stuffed the bills from the cash box into his pockets, and headed for the door.

  Outside, Mac pressed against the side of the building. He edged closer to the truck, alert for any unusual sounds or movements. It was a beautiful, clear spring morning, and birds were making a racket in the nearby trees.

  Relaxing a little, Mac told himself that even these crazy hoods wouldn’t hang around. He slipped the keys from his pocket and ran for the truck. Too late, he realized that his tires had been slashed while he’d been inside. The air was slowly seeping out of all four tires.

  The first shot landed about five feet ahead of him. Hitting the ground, Mac snaked along on this belly until he had the truck between himself and his attackers. Bullets hit the ground all around him. They weren’t trying to kill him, or he’d be dead by now. He realized that they needed him alive so he could lead them to Rosie. Bastards!

  He rolled into the cover of the woods, and was up and running instantly. He zigzagged around a thick stand of trees and dove into the cover of some overhanging evergreen branches. New spring brambles fused the thicket into a thick screen. Behind him, his pursuers were bulldozing their way through the woods. He fingered the gun at his waist.

  The thrashing noises faded. Mac started off silently, heading deeper into the woods. Here he was in control. He had hunted every inch of this mountainside. It was his turf. They could kiss his butt. Still, even moving fast and shortcutting over rough terrain, it took him over two hours to reach Jett’s cabin.

  Rosie was nowhere to be seen. He panicked, wondering if the Mob had found her here. But, no, impossible. There were no fresh tire tracks, and that bunch weren’t woodsmen. “Rosie,” he shouted, throwing out all caution. “Rosie, where are you?”