Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty

  Don Tomasso’s black Mercedes limousine was double-parked directly in front of Giovanni’s entrance. Surrounded by his men, the don approached his car with his head held as high as possible in defiance to any unseen observers. A dark BMW pulled up behind Tomasso’s Mercedes. He nodded in recognition at the driver before ducking his head and climbing into the limousine. One of the bodyguards followed him. The others moved back to the BMW. Both cars were in motion before the doors of the BMW were shut.

  Lit by a dull orange streetlight, two children played on the sidewalk in front of a brownstone half a block down the street from the restaurant. The boy had just tossed the baseball to the younger girl when the Mercedes exploded, followed instantly by the BMW’s destruction. The fireballs bloomed and met as pieces of the cars and bricks from the nearby buildings crashed back to earth.

  Rosemary Muldoon continued to watch the flames on the oversize video screen in front of her. She said nothing until the tape ran down into static. She sat immobile in the carved black walnut chair at the head of the long table, but her hands clutched the chair’s arms until her knuckles were white.

  Chris Mazzucchelli got up from the chair beside her to pull the tape from the VCR. Rosemary glanced around her father’s “library” where strategy meetings for his Family, the Gambiones, had always taken place. She had left almost everything in the penthouse the same, only bringing in some high-tech equipment such as the video and her computer to help her run the empire she had inherited. Right now, the room felt very empty, as if even her father had abandoned her.

  When Chris came back to the conference table, he laid the tape down and stroked her dark brown hair. As his hand cupped her face, Rosemary roused herself.

  “Only two of us left now. Don Calvino and I. Three dons dead in a matter of weeks, and we don’t even know who’s destroying us. All we know is who they are using.” Rosemary shook her head. “The Five Families have never faced a threat like this. We’re not prepared to fight on this scale. We’ve lost most of the drugs in Jokertown. Harlem has stopped paying our portion of the numbers. We’re getting hit from the top and the bottom. They took over our biggest drug factory in Brooklyn.”

  “We’ve got to get prepared. You’re the only active don left. I talked to Tomasso’s capos; they’re all with us just like the others. I only wish I could point them in the right direction. Right now, I’m just trying to keep business going so we have the money to survive and fight back. Calvino tried his hand at negotiating. So far, it doesn’t seem to have worked. We had both of the remaining dons covered at all times. That’s how we got this tape.” Chris picked it up and tossed it into the air. “Remotely controlled explosives, P.E., we assume. They were probably within sight of the cars to make sure they got Don Tomasso.”

  “So they knew about the kids.” Rosemary glanced up at him.

  “Probably.” Chris shrugged. “So far they haven’t been particularly careful about civilian casualties. They’re terrorists.”

  “They’re bastards.” Chris nodded and Rosemary knew he was already working out the details of backtracking the explosives. One of the things she had learned in the last few months of working with him was that he was superb at taking her objectives and desires and accomplishing them through his position as her front man to the Families. She had known she would never be accepted as the head of the Gambiones by the capos. They required a masculine figurehead. So Chris ran things in public, and she, Maria Gambione, pulled the strings. Except that it had not worked out quite like that. Chris could almost read her mind. He had the practical experience she lacked. They made a great team. Without him she would never have pulled it off.

  “The Shadow Fist is causing us trouble, but I didn’t think that it had the organization to accomplish all of this. On the other hand, we know they are working with the Immaculate Egrets and the Werewolves from Jokertown. Together, they’re giving us a lot of trouble. But a bunch of gangs…”

  “With the right leader…” Rosemary spread her hands.

  “With the right leader anything’s possible. But we would have heard something about him. How could they keep him under that sort of deep cover?” Chris shrugged. “I’ll check it out, but I won’t hold my breath. I had another idea. Think about Tomasso’s murder. Those cars would have been under twenty-four-hour guard by teams of his most trusted men. How the hell did they plant those bombs?”

  Chris pulled a chair out and sat down backward.

  “How?” Rosemary had learned not to get too impatient with Chris’s occasional use of Socratic method. As in law school, it taught her much.

  “Aces, again. Just like Don Picchietti. Who else could pop in and out without being seen? Nobody really knows how many there are or who they are or what they can do. What if some of them decided that wearing funky costumes and being altruistic was silly? Jokers, too. Look at the Werewolves. Get back at the nats. That’s a pretty fierce army we’re talking here. Look at where the action is going on most of the time. Jokertown. Maybe it’s because we control it and they’re trying to get us, or maybe it’s because the jokers have decided that they want their own piece of the action.” Chris had leaned forward to emphasize his point. “If these guys aren’t all aces, they’ve got some working for them. And I think that’s the way to go. If we don’t get our own aces, we’re going to get slaughtered. We can’t compete.”

  “I like that. I could use the district attorney’s office to get volunteers. A little steering of their efforts and a number of our troubles could get solved. We’ll get higher-quality aces that way too. Pity a lot of the big names are still on that WHO tour.” Rosemary nodded, more enthusiastic about this plan than she had been about anything in some time. “Good. Can you pull in anyone?”

  “To be honest, I already have. We’ve got a detective named Croyd doing some checking for us and a heavy name of Bludgeon who’ll come in handy in a fight. ’Course they won’t be as ‘high quality’ coming from the criminal element like me.” Chris straightened and looked down his nose at her, trying to hide his grin.

  “They’ll do. The criminal element isn’t all bad.” Rosemary reached up and pulled him down to her to kiss him.

  Bagabond walked down the crowded East Village street trying not to be impatient with C.C. Ryder’s window-shopping. It seemed as though every ten feet the spike-haired redhead saw something she just had to have—as long as she didn’t actually have to go in and talk to anyone about it. Bagabond was about to suggest going back to the songwriter’s loft when she heard a bayou-accented voice behind her.

  “Hey, y’all, qué pasa?” The teenage hyperactive body encased in a tiger-striped leotard with gold-lamé sneakers belonged to Jack’s niece Cordelia. She bounced out of the restaurant she had been about to enter and grabbed both Bagabond and C.C. Ryder by the elbows to guide them into the Riviera with her before either could muster a protest. C.C. quickly shrugged her off when they were inside, but neither woman put up a struggle when Cordelia immediately got them a table. Bagabond had learned it was useless to resist unless one wanted an excessively hurt teenager on her hands.

  “So, y’all seen Rosemary’s television appeal to aces yet?” Cordelia opened and shut her menu with the same movement. “Gonna join up, Bagabond?”

  “Haven’t been asked.” Bagabond chose to take her time with the menu. “What about you?”

  Glancing up over the top of her oversize menu, Bagabond was surprised to catch the expression of revulsion on Cordelia’s face. For possibly the first time she had stopped Cordelia cold in her tracks.

  “I, uh, don’t do that anymore.” Cordelia opened her menu again and stared at it fixedly. “I could hurt somebody, y’know. I’m never going to do that again. It’s not right.”

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Ace vigilantes are not what we need in this city.” C.C. looked from Cordelia to Bagabond before excusing herself.

  “So, you seen Jack lately?” Cordelia followed C.C.’s progress to the rear of the restaurant intently before tu
rning to Bagabond with wide, innocent eyes.

  “Yeah. He asked if I’d seen you. Ever think of calling your uncle once in a while?” Bagabond’s irritation was evident in her rough voice.

  “I’ve been so busy, what with working for Global Fun and Games an’ all—”

  “And you haven’t wanted to talk to him anyway, right?”

  “I don’t know what to say…” Cordelia blushed. “I mean, it’s like I don’ know him anymore. You don’ understand. I was raised in the Church. I was taught that bein’ a homo—what Jack is, is one of the worst sins.”

  “It’s not catching and he’s your uncle. He’s risked his life for you and you won’t even give him a call. I’m glad you’re so strong on right and wrong.” Bagabond looked disgusted and unconsciously flicked her wrist at the girl. “Michael’s good for him. I’ve never seen Jack so happy.”

  “Yeah, well, Michael’s a son of a bitch! I saw him in a club in the Village last week. He was with someone and it wasn’t Uncle Jack.” Cordelia was furious.

  “Everything okay here?” C.C. seated herself and looked at each woman in turn.

  “Hey, no prob.” Cordelia waved the waitress over. “You goin’ to do my benefit or what?”

  “You keep asking and I keep saying no.” C.C. shook her head in affectionate exasperation. “I just want to write my songs, do some recording at home. I don’t need a live audience and I certainly don’t want one.”

  “C.C., de audience needs you. It’s a benefit for wild card victims as well as AIDS. You of all people should have sympathy for the cause.”

  Bagabond watched C.C.’s face tighten at the mention of the wild card virus. It had taken years of drugs, therapy, and God knew what else to bring her back to humanity. C.C.’s very real nightmare was that she would again become a living subway car formed from nothing save hate. Or something much worse. C.C. had spoken of a little of this to Bagabond.

  C.C. Ryder controlled her emotions rigidly, never allowing them to exceed a certain low level. If she continued taking the downs and antidepressants prescribed for her, she couldn’t write. Not being able to create her songs was even worse than the prospect of changing back. So she avoided any situation that might be more than she could handle. Not even Tachyon could tell her what might set off the series of internal changes that could result in another transformation. Bagabond did not understand how C.C. could live in that state of constant fear and still create the songs, but she did understand why she wanted to stay away from most humans. She approved.

  “No.” C.C.’s voice had become as tense as her muscles, although it was equally clear that she was controlling the effect the discussion was having on her.

  “It could be your big comeback—”

  “Cordelia, you can’t have a comeback if you were never there in the first place.” C.C. forced a smile. “I’m sure there are many more likely candidates out there.”

  “Your songs have been recorded by the best: Peter Gabriel—” Cordelia barely paused in her diatribe at the arrival of their burgers. “Simple Minds, U2 … It’s time for you to show them all what you can do.”

  Bored by the argument and reasured that C.C. was holding her own, Bagabond reached out across the city, flashing through the tangle of feral intelligences. Darkness, bright light; hunger, fulfillment; the tense anticipation of the hunter, the cold, shivering fear of the stalked; death, birth; pain. So much pain in living each minute—why did these human fools insist on creating even more for themselves by their little games? Playing at living. She touched a squirrel with a broken back. It had been struck by a passing car near Washington Park, and she stopped its heart and brain simultaneously. In Central Park the gray son of the black and the calico dashed into a copse of oaks and sheltered by the underbrush, spun and raked the nose of the Doberman that had chased it. Bagabond felt the cat’s triumph for an instant before it recognized her touch and hissed in anger. Feeling no need to force the contact, she moved on. She allowed herself another instant to ascertain that the black and the calico’s most recent litter of kittens was well in the warm service tunnels beneath Forty-second Street.

  As her eyes rolled back down, Bagabond realized that Cordelia’s conversation with C.C. had stopped.

  “Suzanne, are you okay?” C.C. ran her gaze across Bagabond’s face then nodded slowly.

  “She’s fine, Cordelia.” C.C. brought the young woman’s attention back to herself, giving Bagabond time to return. Sometimes it had become difficult to come back to the slow, jabbering world of the humans. Someday, she thought, looking at C.C. Ryder, she would not come back. C.C. was the only person she had ever met who understood that. One day she would ask what C.C. had felt as the Other. C.C. mentioned it rarely, but when she did, Bagabond had seen a haunted need still there behind her eyes.

  “Um, okay. Anyway, GF&G, you know, would love to back you on your reintroduction. The Funhouse is an intimate venue. Perfect for you and your music.” Cordelia leaned toward C.C., hand extended. “And you know Xavier Desmond’s one of your biggest fans.”

  “Christ, girl, you’re turning into a freaking agent.” C.C. leaned back in the fifties plastic-covered chair. “And I’ve already got one agent. That’s bad enough.”

  “Well, hey, I’ve got to get home. It’s late. Good to see you guys.” Cordelia dropped a few bills onto the table and got up. She swung the armadillo shoulder bag off her chair. Catching Bagabond’s eyes on the dead animal, she elbowed it behind her and backed toward the door, still working on C.C. “You’ve got a few weeks to make your final decision. The show’s not until late May. Bono said he was looking forward to meeting you. So’d Little Steven.”

  “Good night, Cordelia.” C.C. Ryder had clearly reached the end of her patience. “I’m too old for this, Suzanne.”

  Wriggling underneath the padded shoulders of the business suit Rosemary had bought her, Bagabond stepped out of the elevator onto Rosemary’s floor. The receptionist recognized her instantly.

  “Good morning, Ms. Melotti. Let me buzz Ms. Muldoon.”

  “Thank you, Donnis.” Bagabond sat down uncomfortably in one of the chairs scattered around the waiting area.

  “I’m afraid you just missed Mr. Goldberg. He left a few minutes ago for his court appearances today.” The older woman behind the word processor smiled at Bagabond indulgently while she punched Rosemary’s intercom number and announced her.

  “For once everything’s running on time. Go right on in.”

  Bagabond nodded and got back up onto her high heels. With her back to the receptionist, she blinked at the pain in her feet. She hated these days when she played dress-up to talk to Rosemary. At Rosemary’s closed door she knocked twice and walked in to see the assistant DA with a phone resting on one shoulder. As usual, Bagabond sat on Rosemary’s big oak desk. She listened to the conversation.

  “Wonderful, Lieutenant. I’m so glad that tip on the designer drug factory panned out.” Rosemary rolled her eyes at Bagabond as she signed papers and balanced the receiver.

  “So it wasn’t a Mafia operation after all. Any clues as to the ownership? If we could just find out who’s behind this senseless crime war with the Mafia, we could go a long way toward stopping it.” Rosemary nodded to her unseen caller and almost dropped the phone. “True, but as long as they’re wiping each other out, they’re hurting innocent people.

  “Well, you can rest assured that I’ll be forwarding any other aces who volunteer over to you immediately. You’re right—uncoordinated activity is dangerous for all concerned. I’m just glad to help. Right. I’ll be in touch. ’Bye.” Rosemary hung up the phone.

  “We took out a drug plant last night.” Rosemary leaned her chin on her hand and smiled up at Bagabond. “I’m pleased.”

  Bagabond nodded, looking across the office toward the dark wooden door.

  “And I’m curious.” Rosemary got up and checked to make sure that the door was securely closed. “Why haven’t you volunteered?”

  Bagabond noticed for
the hundredth time that Rosemary had no trouble walking in her spike heels. She looked up to see Rosemary staring at her, a muscle jumping along her jaw.

  “You never asked.” Bagabond was uncomfortable. She hated it. Guilt was for humans. Or pets.

  “I didn’t think I had to. I thought we were friends.”

  They glared at each other like two cats in a territorial battle. Rosemary broke the impasse.

  “And of course we are.” The DA sat down and leaned back in her chair. “I should have asked. I’m asking now. I need your help.”

  Rosemary’s smile reminded Bagabond of a tiger’s yawn. Teeth, lots of teeth. Bagabond felt cold.

  “What can I do? I talk to pigeons.” Bagabond examined Rosemary’s face for duplicity.

  “Well, pigeons see things. Sometimes I’m sure they see interesting things. I’d just like to hear about those things.”

  “Which one of you? The DA or the Mafia don?”

  Rosemary’s eyes flashed up to the door and back to Bagabond. After an instant of hesitation she smiled at the woman sitting on her desk.

  “You’d be amazed to discover how much their interests are intertwined.”

  “Yes. I would.” Bagabond shook her head. “No, I don’t think I can help.”

  “Come on, Suzanne. People are getting hurt out there. We can stop that.” Rosemary reached toward her window.

  “People killing other people.” Bagabond nodded. “Good. The fewer of them, the better I’ll like it.”

  “Being a hard case today, I see.” Rosemary relaxed back into her chair. “I’ve heard this one.”