by William Cain
Reggi is visiting Frank in New York. He has an apartment in his home that’s connected, but private. Frank and his son’s bedrooms are on the second floor, so this separation works out for everyone and no one gets their life disrupted and interfered with. It’s bitterly cold outside today with gusts of wind trying to blow the hair off people as they walk their dogs in the busy, wintry neighborhood the brownstone sits in.
Frank’s planning to go to midtown to catch a show with his mother and have a late, light dinner, but right now, the family is just preparing for lunch and, later, to catch a football game on the television. Today’s match-up pits the Steelers against the Chiefs in Kansas City, and the weather there is even worse. Reggi is making pigs in a blanket for the boys. Frank Jr. invited a few friends over, so she has to make a lot.
Frank doesn’t know it yet, exactly, but his son is going to innocently finagle his father into giving him the apartment that his grandmother is using now. He wants it when she leaves so he can move in there permanently, or at least a while. He wants it for himself and Agatha, his fiancé, and they want to save for a place of their own. Frannie doesn’t know it yet, but his dad is going to give him what he wants. He knows he’s going to miss him, but if Frannie moves into the apartment, he knows he’ll live there for a few years, which is longer than he expected to have his son live in the same house with him. Eventually, he’ll get his own place, with his soon-to-be wife, but this might ensure he sticks around a little longer.
Frank walks downstairs to the apartment his mother is staying in and, without knocking on the door, he notices she’s in the living room, by herself, staring at the wall across the room. He watches her a while longer, and she begins to tilt her head back and forth. He thinks this is comical, so he just watches her. After a while, she begins to talk under her breath. It looks like she’s talking to someone else in front of her, maybe two people, as her head moves from side to side, laughing silently. The scene begins to take a macabre undertone as Reggi motions with her hands a few times. Frank knows she’s enjoying herself, and he’s amused, thinking, she looks like she’s at a party, talking to friends. It’s a fine performance. Wow, this is what seventy-nine years of living will drive you to?
Then her attitude turns ugly and her face becomes twisted. She starts pointing to herself and then pointing to a person that’s not there, and she’s practically shouting without any sound, spitting and beginning to cry. Frank is completely weirded out and he knocks on the door, “Mom? Are you in there?”
Reggi takes a moment to compose herself, “Just a moment,” she calls out sweetly. He hears her run to the bathroom to brush her hair and check her makeup. “I interrupted something, but what was it?” he says to himself.
When she returns, he simply asks, “What were you doing?”
To which she replies, hesitantly, “Nothing. What was it?”
“Forget it,” Frank says, “lunch is ready.”
“I’m coming,” she answers, “just let me finish with my hair.” She returns to her bedroom off the living area of the downstairs apartment.
As she comes into the kitchen, before Frank Jr. is there, she tells Frank, “Your friend Detective Henson wants me to look through some photographs when I get back to Asheville. She’d like me to try and find the other woman I saw near a certain home back in July, in Heritage Hills.” She smiles and looks at Frank, “FYI.” He just nods. He understands Adelaide needs to break some big case and she’s digging deep.
Reflecting on the phone call she had earlier, she says, “I just got off the phone with Ken. I need to talk to you about something.
“While in Florida where Ken and I were spending time in our Naples home, some time ago, we went to dinner with three other couples. Well, Ken began drinking, and it was only six o’clock and he was bombed by seven. People at the table started to talk politics, which is always a bad idea, as you know, and he got so drunk. He was slurring his words and then called one of the wives there, a really kind woman, a bitch and some other things that you don’t need to hear. She became very insulted, and Ken stood up to leave the table, and I think he stood up too fast, and everything went to his head. Well, he passed out. It was a big scene. The man married to the woman he insulted wouldn’t even help pick him up. The other two did, and they put him in our car, followed us home, and helped me put him to bed.”
Frank is listening and forming a very anti-Ken opinion. He can imagine the scene, and it’s not pretty. He gets it that the man is loaded, but this is only heading to disaster.
“Anyway, the next morning, he’s hung over, and I tell him I’m leaving and that we’re through. He promises to stop drinking but I don’t believe him. I ordered a cab and left.”
Frank begins to say something, but Reggi interrupts him, “Let me finish, Frank, please. Well, I arrived at the Asheville airport and guess who was there waiting for me as I went through security? Ken! He chartered a private plane and beat me to the airport. He apologized over and over. I told him he had to stop drinking and he agreed to go to rehab again.”
Continuing, she tells him, “Well, he completed the program in November. Then after he arrived back in Asheville, we went to a party and Ken looks around and sees all the inebriated people. He asked me if he was that embarrassing when he was drinking and I told him that he was the king of drunks. He regrets having started to drink in the first place, so many years ago. I tell you, he’s been a changed man for three months.”
“You know I ask my kids for help, for money sometimes, because I don’t want to ask Ken—and I think he respects me for it. That includes the Mercedes AMG he bought me. I told him I wouldn’t use it until after we were serious or married. He keeps it in his garage in Heritage Hills.”
Then Reggi finally comes out with it, “Edwin has persuaded me to marry him. Ken and I talk about it a lot. I’m going to say yes if and when he asks. I only have one other stipulation, and that is he has to meet my family.”
Seeing that she’s done, Frank’s thinking, sure, Charlotte and Edwin convinced her to marry Jones, the town drunk. All Edwin wants is access to Jones’s money, but he answers her with this instead, hoping to prevent his mother from making a huge mistake, “You know this Ken Jones is going to want to have sex.”
She’s not shocked at his forward nature. They have a good relationship and speak plainly to each other. “Sex? Oh, that ship has sailed. He’s interested, I’m not into it that much. Funny thing is I need to have some cosmetic surgery. I want to have a skin tag removed. It’s under my right boob. The only one that sees it is Ken.”
Dumbfounded, stunned, all Frank is thinking is Yuck.
Frank then asks, “Do you have any pictures of Ken? Of you and him together? I’d like to see this guy. When am I going to meet him?”
“He’s camera shy. A person in his position usually is. He hates to be photographed.” She then adds, “I need you to come down in March to help me find and lease a new car.”
Before Frannie arrives at the lunch table, she looks up at Frank and, in her motherly fashion, tells him,
“I just want my family to be happy for me, Frank.”
Chapter 34 Helen
January
A friend is one of the nicest things you can have and one of the best things you can be. Winnie the Pooh
Addie’s cell is ringing, and as she looks at it she sees the caller is Helen Richter. Maybe she has something, and Addie is a little hopeful that she does, that she found the friendly woman in the mugshots. Helen has probably seen thousands of them by now. She looks at the time on the clock over her kitchen sink and notes that it’s seven pm. Helen’s punctual if not anything else, making her check-in call at the agreed time, every other day. Addie’s even coming to like Helen. They’ve been working closely, in person and over the phone. They developed a rapport. Go figure.
“Hi Helen, got anything?” Addie asks when she answers the call.
“Sorry, Addie, nothing yet. I’m going out of town soon and I’ll be back in a
few days. Heading down to Miami. Going to do some clubbing.” She finds herself amusing, chuckling a little bit.
Addie’s wondering what kind of clubbing—hitting someone over the head or nightlife clubbing.
“Sorry I missed you the other day, I guess you had something more important to do.” Helen pans in mock sorrow, “You think I travel to Asheville just for the birding?”
“Had to follow up on a few things. You gotta do what you gotta do.”
“Hey, Addie, next time I’m down there, why don’t we go shopping? You could use a new style.” Addie quickly thinks that Helen’s a fashion disaster, but they could both probably use a change. Helen adds, “You know, in the right lingerie, I’m quite the cutey.”
And they’re both laughing.
“I’m on my third glass of chardonnay,” Addie tells her, and Helen replies that she too has just gotten into her wine.
So the conversation continues amiably, talking about shopping, the clothes they might buy, and each can tell the other is smiling. It goes on a while longer, about the cars they drive, when they’re going to buy a new one, how fast they like to go.
Then the back and forth becomes a bit more serious. They’re both quiet for a moment.
“Are you ok, Addie? I think you’re sad,” Helen asks, then quickly adds, “Sorry, it’s not my place. Sorry, forget it.”
Cautiously, Addie says, “Well, I have been having some issues.”
“Uh huh. Who’s the guy?” Helen knows what “issues” mean.
“His name is Frank, and we really hit it off, but we live so far apart and…and…I don’t want to start something that could turn out to be a train wreck. He just got divorced. You know, we gals are older and have to make better decisions. Nobody ever special in your life, Helen?”
“There was, his name is Chris. He was just an average guy…ok, maybe a little better than the average guy. He’s blonde, about six feet tall, thin, but he had a kind face and good laugh. Anyway, he liked me, and there aren’t that many of those around. We were lovers. We met in a park, Red Rock Canyon, near my home in Colorado Springs.” Addie is listening and wondering why Helen told her where she lives. That’s inside information. These guys never divulge that kind of stuff. “It’s a lot like the hills here, but rougher. And out there they have real mountains, very tall. I kind of like both places, here and there.”
“Anyway, I was birding and Chris walked by with his two water dogs and we checked each other out. After that, we’d see each other a lot more, in that park, until one day I asked him about his dogs and he told me and we struck up a conversation. Before too long, we both got the feeling that we talked easily to each other and I guess we had good chemistry.”
Continuing, “He asked me if I wanted to get a coffee, and I don’t know how it happened, but we wound up at my place, and one thing led to another. We ended up in bed together before we knew what was going on. And we had a really good time. I don’t think the smiles left our faces before, during and after.” She laughs loudly, and Addie’s laughing with her. “That was six years ago. We fell in love.”
Her voice becomes darker, “Then he got sick. He died from cancer; it was horrible. He was robbed, I was robbed.” From the sound of her voice, Addie thinks Helen's shaking a little. She finds herself sympathizing with her.
After a pause, Helen bluntly states, “It’s hard to meet someone, anyone, and make it last. I don’t blame you for being cautious.”
“I think I’m in love with Frank.”
‘If you tell me that then you’ve been in love with this guy a while. Go for it, hang onto it tooth and nail, like the Henley song says.”
“Helen, why do you do this?”
Helen sees the conversation has shifted. Addie’s asking her why she’s a hitman, and she tells Addie, “It’s coming to an end. I’m coming to the end of my career, if you want to call it that.”
“Your next hit is Battaglia, isn’t it?”
“Is that his name? Maybe.”
“I’ll have to catch you if you do it.”
“You’ll never catch me. Remember the day of the Battaglia killing? Nobody saw me, nobody recorded my being there, but I was.”
Addie is a little taken back by this confession, and she tells Helen, “The recordings were off. The surveillance guys followed him out of town.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m a shadow. I was there, I saw, it was evil, who did that.”
Then Helen tells her what she’s been holding in all this time, “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do that. I know I look like I can be nasty, but I’m not. I felt sorry for her. I was supposed to do it, but she was already dead, beaten like that. Lying in the living room, what was left of her, her face pointed at the ceiling. She was a person, a woman, and someone did that. Oh, God,” and she releases a long groan, finally able to unload this on someone else. Addie can hear she’s weeping, sobbing.
Addie feels for her. There’s a long pause and Addie asks, “Why are you helping me?”
Helen collects herself; she’s probably said too much already. She replies, “I like you, you’re my only friend who’s not a criminal, which is sad. But I’ll stop doing this soon. Anyway, I’m having fun doing it, helping you. You really think I like birding? I only do it to meet hot guys and nice cops.”
Amused, Addie replies, “I’d arrest you but I think I like you too! Life can be so mixed up, right?” Then she adds, “Really, please stop.”
“I will. I’m leaving the country, going away.”
“Where are you going?”
“I can’t tell you that, but I’ll stay in touch.”
“I’d like that.”
Pause. “G’nite, g’nite.”
Addie ends her evening with this singular, peculiar thought,
“Who’d have thought my new best friend would be a hired killer?”
Chapter 35 Confessore
February
The only thing that’s the end of the world is the end of the world. Barack Obama
Biggie is very tense. The long-awaited operation to avenge his wife’s death is on its way. It’s been seven long months, but he still remembers. He remembers the blood, he remembers her face, he remembers all the years they spent together, and he’s going to remember this. He’s going to remember this for the rest of his life. He’s making a statement. Anybody that messes with Biggie will lose. He’s doing this for Elsie. And he’s doing it for himself.
He shook his tail. It was almost too easy. And it was. This is Juvieux’s game. Biggie’s tail was told to be “shaken,” knowing the tail they have on Helen will step in since Helen’s following Biggie. Juvieux believes Battaglia has a sense of escape, and maybe he’ll drop his guard. It could happen.
He arrives at the safehouse along with Michael and Gangi. The safehouse is on the shore below a bluff near Miami and it’s isolated, in a short bay. The slight wave action of the ocean complements the warm, dark skies, quieting the evening. The house isn’t very big, but it’s big enough for what they want to do. It’s been there a long time, and the Family’s used it for a lot of things. This won’t be the first time there’s been a killing in this house. The house has had so much crime and pain take place in it that one day it’ll have to be torn down to hide the history inside its walls. Nobody’s going to want to buy this house, and the Family wouldn’t sell it to anybody for any reason because of everything inside. You could convict twenty or thirty people with what would be found here, in its floorboards, its walls, its attic. It’s a house of sadness.
After they enter the beach house, Michael wheels his torture machine, “Junior,” into a room in the back, and he begins to set it up. Biggie and Gangi leave him to his job, since this is his special creation and this is his creation’s special night, and they’d just be in the way. In the living room they can hear Michael working away with wrenches and screwdrivers and ratchets. Neither of them takes part in the setup, and neither of them have seen Junior, but they’ve heard about it.
It takes Mi
chael thirty minutes to complete his work and he invites the boys in to take a look. As they pass by they see Michael rolling out a thick cable from his hands.
They look at it and Michael tells them, “Junior has to be hardwired to the junction box. Junior takes a lot of juice.”
When they step inside the room, they see Junior, and they are impressed and a little creeped out all at the same time. It looks like an operating table but with large battery packs and drawers holding tools of the trade like knives, wires, picks and such. Extending from both ends of the table are rods with loops at their ends. High overhead of the table are flexible arms that can be moved around. Each has what looks like a mechanical hand on it. A blank instrument panel on the far side of the table sits on a swivel and suddenly leaps to life as Michael wires Junior to the box. There’s an undercurrent of vibration and sound as Junior boots up.
◆◆◆
Outside, high on the bluff, Helen is watching, and the tail that Juvieux placed on her is also watching. He’s watching her and he’s watching the house. It won’t take long to set up his own recording of this night and when he does, he checks the focus because the house is some distance away. He double checks the clarity and the equipment in general and, satisfied, resumes his surveillance.
Helen is ticked off because Gangi is always with Biggie and she can’t get clean access to finish her job. She calls Gangi “Biggie’s little butt buddy” and, frankly, she’s just getting disgusted following Biggie around with Gangi always at his side.
Helen saw the SUV pull up and Biggie and his boys get out, and she rolls her eyes when she sees Gangi. What Helen sees, her tail sees. The tail pinged Juvieux earlier that something was going down and he’s online, watching the live feed from the recording. An hour passes without any action when from the southern route, they see a car pull up to the house. Two men get out and walk inside. After seeing this on the feed, Juvieux signals to the tail that one of them is Riggoti.
