Under the Bones

by Kory M. Shrum

  Did she know how much he had at his disposal? Cash and assets? “You think I’m rich?”

  “Oh, you have a few billion,” she said, flicking her eyes up to meet his. “Likely more if those casinos you built in Singapore take off soon.”

  She stepped past him to the closet, leaving the door open.

  He only looked at her. How had she come by that information? He wondered. It wasn’t printed anywhere. Only his accountants knew those numbers. The men who looked at the proverbial books. He ran an imaginary list through his mind and wondered who might have gone missing or had an arm twisted.

  Of course, it was fair play. He’d been learning all he could about her, too.

  She holstered one of the guns. Konstantine assumed the other pistol was for him, but she kept it.

  “Can I have a gun?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Don’t trust me with a gun?”

  “No one touches my guns.”

  “At least it isn’t personal.”

  “Are you coming?” she asked, beckoning him into the waiting closet. “I thought this was urgent.”

  He slid into the dark beside her. Chest to chest, he could feel the heat from her body radiating over his skin. She turned her head to reach for the door and something brushed his cheek. Hair? He wanted to lean in, and make sure. Find her lips in the darkness and press her back against the wall of the closet. He was sure she could brace her knees against the wood as he entered her.

  “Where are the people you need to call? What city?” Her breath was hot on his face. Intimate. Voices in the dark always were.

  “New York,” he said, squeezing the words out, feeling the fire in his face and the desire throbbing below his belt.

  With his body pressed full frontal against hers, it was almost too much. He could feel the erection forming. The building pulse. And if he didn’t shift himself away to create space, she was surely going to notice it as well.

  But it wasn’t Konstantine that leaned in close. She pressed her body against his, pinning him against the wall. He wanted to reach out, wrap his arms around her, take a fistful of her hair, but she’d pinned his arms in place with the weight of her. He shouldn’t have been surprised by how strong she was. He’d seen her lift and drop men twice his size with ease. But feeling her uncompromising grip on him was different.

  An edge of panic entered his mind.

  Then they were falling backwards through space. He felt as if a rug had been yanked out from under him. The momentary panic grew. The sensation of weightlessness followed by compression in his head.

  Then the world was beneath them again.

  At some point, her hand had snaked around his hip, holding him in place. Again the urge to wrap his fists up in her hair rose. But before reason could be overruled, she released him and stepped out of the closet into a dim bedroom.

  Two double beds side by side, a nightstand between. A desk with stationery. Not a bedroom exactly. The name of a chain hotel printed across the top of the stationery. He heard a metal clank-clack and realized she was locking the door no doubt leading to a hallway.

  “Hurry,” she said, nodding toward the phone. “Local calls are free.”

  “We are in New York?”

  “Yes. Be sure to dial 1 or you’ll confuse the desk clerk. This room isn’t checked out.”

  Konstantine picked up the beige phone and pressed the key to connect him to the outside world. The dial tone greeted him.

  “I’ll come back,” she said.

  And when he turned to ask her where she intended to go, the closet door was already closing behind her.

  Just as well. He would feel strange conducting business under her watchful eye.

  He dialed his friends in New York.

  He’d already considered which men he would contact when this happened. After all, Konstantine had been expecting this. Not Nico necessarily. But bloody succession was always possible when the leader of a crime faction died. Padre Leo had prepared him for this moment. And now Konstantine had to wonder if part of that preparation was against Nico himself.

  Keeping secrets from me, Padre?

  Mario Ricci picked up on the third ring. His New York accent was comically thick. “Who the hell is this?”

  The unknown number calling his personal emergency line no doubt had startled the man.

  “Ciao, Mario,” Konstantine said, nervously twining his fingers up in the phone’s cord.

  “Konstantine!” the man said with a relieved sigh. “I wondered if I was gonna be hearin’ from you. I was starting to think you were dead.”

  “No, amico mio. Not yet.” Konstantine wet his lips, his eyes falling on the cheap hotel print across the room. A photocopy of a boat sailing down river beneath a soft blue sky. “No doubt you know why I’m calling.”

  “Oh yeah,” said the man with a dry chuckle. “Your pretty face is all over the news right now. Congrats my friend, you’re a celebrity.”

  “In our business, that isn’t such a good thing.”

  “Tell me about it. So what’s the plan?”

  “I will handle the press,” he said. “I need your help with something else.”

  “A trip to Florence to kick Agostino’s ass, maybe?”

  Konstantine laughed. “Word does travel fast.”

  “Especially when you got two ears and an asshole pressed to the ground.”

  “I can offer you two million in exchange for your men and time, Ricci.”

  “Aww, that’s sweet,” Ricci said and Konstantine heard the refusal coming. His pulse quickened.

  “But you don’t need to do that. Padre already cut a check for 2.5 million if I helped you.”

  So you did expect this Padre. And the old man had set up protections. Konstantine’s throat tightened at the news. That a man such as Padre would ever pay him such kindness. A man who had owed him nothing.

  “Padre is very trusting to cut you a check so early,” Konstantine said. “And you’re a good man for admitting you received it.”

  Ricci laughed, a hearty chuckle that no doubt jostled the man’s large belly. “Yeah, well, I don’t know about trusting. He cut Tommy Romano 3.5 million to put a bullet in my head if I didn’t help you or if I didn’t fess up to the money. And you know that chump bastard’s been looking for a reason since I married his ex-wife.”

  He didn’t know. But now he did.

  “Besides this seems to be the day for calling in favors. When it rains, it pours,” Ricci went on. Konstantine heard the flint of lighter strike once, twice, and then the sharp inhale. A cigarette or a cigar.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You ain’t heard? Conway’s distribution chain is fucked. Two of his guys disappeared down in Miami and there’s a warehouse in the fishing district that had forty three bullets—43—pried out of the walls and machines. A fucking mess. The Cubans were going on about a devil coming to claim souls, but Conway thinks it was Hendrix fucking with him. I swear those two are gonna kill each other before the year is out. Anyway, he’s got nobody at the docks so Conway asked me to send a couple of my guys down until they can get it sorted. Untile then, a ton of cocaine is just sitting in the gulf.”

  Konstantine thought of Lou, naked, stepping from the closet. The heart-stopping sight of her wet hair stuck to her cheek. Konstantine suspected he knew what might have happened in the fish house.

  Ricci coughed. “So when you want to move against Agostino?”

  “When can you be ready?”

  “Tomorrow? I’ll call my guys at the jetway and get us some birds to put in the air. I don’t know what Tommy Romano’s got, but I know he’s bringing something smart. Can you hold off that long? They’s huntin’ you pretty hard.”

  “I can until tomorrow.”

  “Good. Meet me at the Charlie’s tomorrow at 1:00. And don’t get caught on the way here.”

  Konstantine thanked him and ended the phone call. Six million to secure his succession. And no doubt more, tucked away with
this or that hand in case Konstantine had needed the help. The list that Padre had made him memorize in the event of an emergency…it hadn’t been so random after all. The men and women selected were those who Padre knew and trusted best from decades of working together, but they were also hands that he’d deliberately greased.

  You are still looking out for me, Padre. Grazie.

  Melancholy crushed his chest.

  “You sure you can trust them?” Lou asked. He looked up to see her leaning against the wall. He wasn’t sure how long she had been there, watching and listening.

  “Padre trusted them, and that is enough for me.”

  He expected her to laugh at that, but she didn’t. Then he remembered the aunt and the New Orleans ex-cop. Perhaps Lou knew something of inheriting help herself.

  “Are violent successions really so common in your world?” she asked.

  Konstantine stood, his bones creaking. “We even have a name for it. Dispute resolution. And yes, in addition to forming alliances, it’s good money.”

  “Is it only about money for you?” she asked.

  Her face was dangerously calm.

  He smiled. “No. There are some things I want more.”

  22

  King had just put in the order for his beignet croquembouche, assured by the manager that it could be ready in 48 hours when the cellphone in his pocket went off. At that moment, the world stopped and began spinning in reverse.

  He didn’t remember running back to his apartment, getting in his car or racing to the cancer center. He became somewhat aware of himself halfway down the hallway to Lucy’s room, pushing through the swarm of nurses and patients.

  When he reached her room, his heart faltered.

  It was empty.

  “Mr. King,” a voice said.

  He turned and found Naomi standing there. Her braids pulled behind her head and secured with a tie. For a horrible moment, he felt the walls closing in on him, felt his lungs compress, threatening to explode. She’s trying to figure out how to tell me Lucy is dead Lucy is dead Lucy is dea—

  “She just got out of surgery,” she said quietly.

  “Is she—” His breath was tightening in his chest. He should’ve brought his damned inhaler.

  “Her heart is having a real hard time with it all, but the surgery went fine,” Naomi said, taking his two pale hands in her dark ones and squeezing them hard. Too hard. But enough to bring him back to his own body and this time and place. The walls moved back. He drew his first real breath. “They might keep her up there tonight, have more eyes on her.”

  “Can I visit?”

  “Not until they’re sure she’s stable. I’m sorry.”

  “When will they know if she’s stable?” he asked, grateful for her cool hands. It kept him steady in a room that started to spin around him.

  “An hour, maybe two.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  She gave his hands another squeeze. “I’ll come find you in the cafeteria if I hear something.”

  He thanked her. Walking toward the cafeteria was a much calmer affair than his entrance had been.

  When he got there, and smelled the food wafting from the hot bar, his stomach turned. But he walked up to the counter and ordered a large black coffee, served to him in a paper cup too thin to protect his hand from the heat. He removed his cell phone from his pocket and laid it on the tabletop beside the steaming cup.

  Then he did nothing. He was unaware of any thoughts trailing through his mind.

  In their place seemed to be a general anxiety. A low-grade buzz that filled every bit of space in his mind and allowed for no other ideas to materialize.

  He stared into the inky black of his coffee for who knew how long, looking at a reflection he didn’t recognize. The hollowed-out eyes with deep purple bags beneath. A part of his mind understood it was his own reflection, but still more disbelieved it.

  He reached into the pocket of his black duster and found his wallet. His fingers fished out the white card with a number printed on the back. He almost had it memorized now, but didn’t trust himself not to screw it up while his mind was a million miles away. Robotically, he punched the number for the fifth time in the last 24 hours and pressed the # key to designate this was an emergency.

  Lou may hate hospitals, but she would come. She had to come.

  The coffee was cold when she showed up, sliding into the booth seat opposite of him. Her eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses and her leather jacket sat evenly on her shoulders. He couldn’t tell if she was packing, but suspected so. If her arm was a wreck from her run-in the other night, there was no evidence of it. She moved as if no part of her body ailed her, which was a hell of a lot more than King could say for himself. Half the time he walked bent slightly at the waist, because his low back was so stiff.

  Even if his heart wasn’t collapsing in his chest, the ache in every joint would ail him.

  “Is she dead?” Lou asked as last. He hadn’t realized until she’d spoken that he had been silent for several minutes, looking into his black coffee without acknowledging her arrival.

  “She’s in critical care,” he said. His voice cracked. He took a sip of coffee, cold and disgusting, but enough to wet his pipes. “Her heart is giving out under the strain of…of everything.”

  “Have they let you see her?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll take you,” she said, her palms pressing flat to the table.

  “No,” he said, perhaps too quickly. “They don’t want us in the way. I’m sure they have their reasons. We’d only prevent them from doing their job.”

  “Which is what?” Lou asked. He searched her face for cruelty or sarcasm. But it was only his own eyes staring back at him in the reflection.

  “Keeping her alive as long as they can.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be alive anymore.”

  King’s hands curled into fists. The blood red knuckled turned white. “That’s not for you to decide.”

  Lou looked ready to speak. But then her lips flattened. Finally she said, “Konstantine is about to move against Agostino. He’s working with the Ricci family.”

  King knew the name. They’d tried to nab the Riccis in the 70s. All the good it did them. They were slick snakes.

  “Did you know they have a name for it? Dispute resolution.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s how the old, powerful families stay in power. And they rely on the alliances of other groups to maintain that power.”

  “Who knew thugs were so aristocratic,” she said.

  “Don’t you think this is the wrong time?” he asked.

  “For what?”

  “To be running off to Italy for a gunfight. You should be here. You should be with her.”

  “I offered to take you there and you said no.”

  “Can’t you holster your bullshit long enough to tell her goodbye! Properly!”

  He was screaming. Sweat slid down the side of his face.

  Lou was perfectly impassive in the face of his anger. She only said, “Are you looking to join her? When is the last time you took your blood pressure medicine?”

  He’d actually been removed from the medicine after the last checkup. The doctor had been pleased with his weight loss and new exercise routine.

  “What do you want from me, King?” she said. Not petulance. Again that utter calm which in its own way was more infuriating than if she’d yell at him. Slap him across the face. Anything. Show any damn emotion.

  “I want you to stay with her! I want you to show her you give a damn! That woman raised you, kept you out of foster care and now she’s dying, and you can’t even take the time to make sure she doesn’t die alone.”

  He expected her to leave then. To get up, walk through the lunch room and disappear around some dark corner.

  Instead she said, “You’ve made a lot of assumptions.”

  “Fucking hell.” He fell back against the booth’s back.

  “Maybe she does
n’t want me to see her like that. Doesn’t want me to remember her that way.”

  His breath hitched. “You need to do what’s right! You need to make this easy for her!”

  “Easy for her or easy for you?”

  And at this she did rise and exit the booth. He watched her go, her long lean steps and the jacket shifting over her shoulders as she went.

  23

  After a bowl of ramen in a busy Tokyo street annex, Lou spent the early hours of the day walking the streets of Paris. She stood outside a macron shop and saw the little wafers made of almond paste. It was too early to buy Lucy a half-dozen to enjoy with a cup of Earl Grey. And knowing King, he’d been trying to shove food down her throat for days.

  He’s figuring out how to let her go. Just like you.

  Lou shook these thoughts from her head as she wandered past Notre Dame, over Pont Neuf. A batobus slid silently down the river, its lights casting shadows along the flanking cobblestone banks. She stepped up behind a stone pillar and out onto the streets of London. She hadn’t intentionally chosen such a place. But the mere thought of Lucy had brought her here.

  She remembered a ninth grade social studies report, where she was expected to write about the history of a city of her choice. Lou had chosen London because it was the birthplace of so many books and writers she loved—even more so after her parents’ death, when there were days that felt as if books were all that she had left. Any world was better than the shattered world in which she lived.

  At the first mention of the report, Lucy had been delighted.

  Well let’s go see it, Lucy said and the next thing Lou knew, she was stepping out of her aunt’s cramped Oak Park linen closet and into Piccadilly Circus, with the red double decker buses and funny black taxi cabs whirring by.

  Lucy had always been able to surprise her like that.

  In the beginning, Lou was certain that her ability to travel through the dark or water was a curse. Something to mitigate and endure. But Lucy had been the first to show her the magic of it. The power of it. The freedom.

  There isn’t a place in this world you can’t go, Louie, her aunt had told her in those early days. You just have to know where you want to be.