Earl picked up his .38 from the seat beside him and stuck it in his belt. Grabbing a rifle, he got out of the car. “I’ll take the left side,” he said.
Fingers nodded.
“Ten minutes,” Louie repeated. “That’s all you got.”
Fuck off, Earl thought. What do ya think this is, the army? “You got it, Louie,” he added aloud. And maybe, just accidentally on purpose, a stray shot might take your greasy little head off—you know what I mean?
He started off along the road leading up to Valenti’s place, angling into the woods as soon as he was away from the car. He had something else he wanted to check before he played Louie’s game. If Frankie was home, they just might be playing by a new set of rules. But the house, when it came into sight, was dark. Either Frankie had split, or she was up at Tony’s.
He moved closer to check the lane, spotted the car sitting in it and nodded to himself. Okay. Tony’s it was. That fucking Louie better not blow up his meal ticket, he thought as he hurried to get into position up by the Valenti place. Earl Shaw’s had to wait too long to get on the gravy train again.
* * *
“Nervous?” Valenti whispered.
Frankie nodded, the movement almost lost in the darkness. They were in the woods in back of the house, right at the edge of the trees. Valenti still carried the UZI slung from his shoulder, but the pack with coffee and sandwiches had been stashed in a tree where no one would run across it. He carried the crossbow.
“I’m feeling a little nervous myself,” he said. “There’s something in the air—like the way it gets just before a storm, you know?”
“Coraggio,” Frankie whispered back, liking the sound of the word.
Valenti grinned. He started to answer, then cocked his head. “Listen,” he said, leaning close to breathe the word into Frankie’s ear. “Do you hear it?”
At first Frankie didn’t know what he meant, but then she heard it, too. The soft piping came drifting out of the woods behind them, a distant eerie sound.
“Makes me feel quiet and excited, all at the same time,” Valenti added, before leaning away from her.
They sat and listened to it. Valenti remembered the slack-faced boy who changed when he brought the pipes to his lips. He thought of the dancers by the old stone and the stag when it came—biggest goddamn deer he’d ever seen.
Frankie thought about Ali and prayed that she was safe. The music helped ease her fears. There was something in it that told her that there were good things in life to balance the bad. A simple enough thing, but it was a real comfort at the moment. Wherever that music came from, it couldn’t be bad, she thought. It couldn’t hurt Ali. She reached out and found Valenti’s free hand and gave it a squeeze.
Valenti started at the touch, then squeezed back. Simple thing, that, a touch of hands in the dark, but it turned his determination to iron. Nothing was going to hurt this lady—not if he had any say in it. He felt good holding her hand, knowing she was so close to him, but he had to wonder what kind of a stupid fuck he was, letting her get involved in what was going down tonight. Mary, Mother of Jesus, he prayed. Get us through tonight and I’ll burn a hundred candles for you. I know I’m not much, but do it for her, okay?
It was a long time since he’d prayed or thought about the church. When he tried to picture the Virgin, he couldn’t. He saw only Her Son, up on His cross, and damned if He didn’t have the same eyes as the stag.
* * *
At first, Fingers thought the music was coming from the house. But then he was in position and he realized its source was deeper in the forest behind them. He didn’t like that. It meant there were people closer than there were supposed to be, and people always made trouble.
He didn’t like this job. You do a hit in the city, it’s no problem disappearing into the crowd. But out in a place like this, the cops’d be stopping anything that moved, fercrissakes. And there were only so many roads out of here, unless you wanted to try the back roads, and that was just asking to get lost.
No, he thought. There was going to be shit flying no matter how you turned it. He checked his watch. The luminous digits told him he had a minute to go before Louie let loose with his rocket. Christ, he wished that music’d stop.
He started to count out the seconds and moved a little closer to the edge of the trees. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree, but he had the feeling there was no one home. He trusted his instinct—you had to in this kind of work—but he’d know for sure in a couple of moments.
Okay, Louie. Let her go!
* * *
Earl wanted to get closer to the house, but it was drawing too near to the zero hour. If Frankie was in there, he didn’t want her blown to pieces before he got his bread from her. That fucking wop! What the hell did he have to blow the place up for anyway? By the time they were finished with Valenti, it wouldn’t make any difference to him if his house was standing or not.
Earl moved out of the woods to the corner of the old broken-down barn and studied the house. Nobody moving in the windows, but that didn’t mean shit. They could be humping on the floor for all he knew. He glanced at his watch. No time at all to check it out now.
In the quiet as he counted down the remaining seconds, he became aware of the music drifting out of the woods behind him. That shit again. He had a nervous memory of that big buck deer suddenly coming on to him, but then he patted his rifle. Just try me tonight, you fucker. We’ll see whose show it is. But he wished the music’d ease up. It grated on his nerves.
His fingers tightened on the trigger of the rifle. He’d like to have whoever was making that sound in his sights right now.
* * *
Louie Fucceri paid no attention to the music. He smiled humorlessly as he got into position. He could see the lights of the house from where he stood on the road. He edged in closer, then knelt in the dirt with the launcher balanced on his shoulder. He aimed through the break in the hedge where the walkway came down from the house to meet the road.
Nice of you to line things up like this for me, Tony. Time to say bye-bye now. This is for the old man, you hear what I’m telling you? You don’t fuck with the Fucceris, Tony. It just don’t pay.
He fired the weapon. The rocket roared from the launcher with a tail like a comet’s trailing behind it. By the time it hit the house and took away most of the front wall with its explosion, Louie was running toward the building, the auto-reload shotgun in hand.
“Boom,” he muttered. “Did you hear that, Papa? You show Tony a good time when he meets you in hell, okay?”
* * *
Fingers thought he heard something moving in the woods to his right. He began to turn in that direction to check it out when the explosion came. There was a moment of shocked silence, then before he could turn back to the house, he heard somebody cry out from where he’d heard a sound a moment ago.
He didn’t even think. He just eased down the trigger of the Ingram and sprayed the area with bullets.
* * *
“Jesus Christ!” Valenti cried when the explosion came. “What the hell was that?”
He started to rise. They had to get out of here. It sounded like Louie’d brought in some full-scale artillery, fercrissakes. He turned to tell Frankie to just run, that they were getting out of here and never mind making a stand, when a line of bullets cut a swath through the bush. Valenti dropped to the ground, pressing Frankie down. A second line exploded, lower this time. It was only the trees between themselves and the gunman that saved them.
Frankie froze. She pushed her face against the mulch and panicked. When the bullets finally stopped and Valenti rose to his feet, she just stayed where she was, unable to move for a long moment. When she lifted her head, it was to see Valenti out on the lawn taking aim with the crossbow.
He was taking advantage of the time their attacker needed to change clips. She heard the wet thuck of the crossbow bolt as it hit its target, heard the man cry out, then the sharp crack of a rifle cut across the night
and she saw Valenti lifted up onto the tips of his toes before he sprawled face forward on the lawn.
She stared numbly at him. Was he dead? Oh, please God, he couldn’t be dead.
The rifle sounded again, kicking up sod a few feet from Valenti. She had to go to him. She had to drag him to the safety of the trees before they shot him again, but she just couldn’t move. The rifle fired again. More sod flew up, closer again.
“T-tony?” she called in a hoarse whisper. Oh, Jesus. He was dead. “Tony?”
Then she saw his hand move, clenching at the grass and dirt. What was he doing? When she realized that he was trying to drag himself back into the trees, she knew she had to help him.
Coraggio, she could hear him say in her mind, remembering, but she didn’t have any courage. Doesn’t matter, she told herself. You’ve got to help him all the same. Swallowing thickly, she drew the automatic he’d given her and aimed it in the direction of the rifle fire. Then she crawled out toward Valenti.
* * *
Earl blinked when the rocket hit the house. Jesus. It had demolished the place. He aimed his rifle toward the back in case somebody came out, but he didn’t see anybody surviving that. You can kiss good-bye to the bread now, he told himself. So much for Fucceri’s promise that he could have Frankie for as long as it took her to sign the money over.
The chatter of Fingers’ Ingram brought his attention to the woods in back of the house. He saw Fingers step from the trees, spraying the woods with bullets. When he paused to change clips, a figure moved on to the lawn and aimed something at Fingers. Earl couldn’t make out what it was, but he saw Fingers take a fall and then he was firing his own rifle.
The figure went down and Earl grinned. Got one. Maybe the big Tony Valenti himself. He put a couple more shots around the fallen figure, then turned when he sensed he was no longer alone. Louie stood there, his face looking weird in the flickering light thrown by the burning house.
“I hit somebody up by the treeline,” he told Louie, “but whoever it was got Fingers first.”
Louie turned slowly from the house. “Fingers bought it?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Shit. Show me.”
Earl pointed to where the men had gone down, then paused when he saw a blond-haired figure crawling to the man he figured was Valenti. Well, well, everything wasn’t a total loss. He started to get out of the light thrown by the fire, realizing that if Frankie was around there might be others. Fucked if he was going to take a chance at getting hit at this point in the proceedings, but Louie just started across the lawn. He had the shotgun up and was ready to fire, not giving a shit who took a shot at him.
It was a real shame, Earl told the audience in his imagination. I mean, we took ’em out, but we lost both Fingers and Louie in the action. A crying shame.
He brought the rifle up to his shoulder and eased his finger onto the trigger. The bullet caught Louie in the back of the head. Spread his face all over the lawn, Earl thought with a grin. He glanced over at Frankie and saw her head jerk up. His grin widened as he started across the lawn himself.
He worked another bullet into the chamber as he approached, frowning slightly when he saw she was holding a gun on him. Then he smiled again. Fucking thing was shaking so bad there was no way she was gonna hit anything, just saying she got it together enough to pull the trigger. Too bad it was her writing hand or he might have tried one of those fancy trick shots like in the movies—blown the sucker right out of her fingers.
“You better lay that thing down,” he said as he got closer.
“B-back off,” Frankie said. “Just leave…leave us alone.”
Earl shook his head. “What we got here’s a standoff of sorts,” he said. “Except I can shoot you, but I don’t think you got it in you to shoot me, Frankie. Now you can put that down and nobody else is gonna get hurt. I don’t give a fuck about the wops—they’ve blown the shit out of each other now, so they’re out of the picture. It’s just between you and me, and you know all I want. Sign over your bread to me and everything’s gonna be okay. All you got to do is spend from now till the bank opens in the morning with me, and then you’re home free. Understand?”
He started to move closer, but Frankie waved the gun at him. “I’ll shoot,” she said. “I really will. Don’t…don’t come any closer.”
“This is the wrong way to play it,” Earl said. He tried to see who it was that he’d shot. “Is that Tony? Hey, he’s still moving. Tell you what. I’ll throw him in as part of the deal—what do you say?”
“G-go away, Earl. I don’t trust you.”
“Okay, Frankie. I hear you.” He lowered the rifle. “See? I don’t wanna hurt you. But you better think of Tony. Looks to me like he needs help and he needs it quick. Promise me the bread right now—throw away that gun—and I’ll help you get to some place where we can call an ambulance for him. Is it a deal?”
Frankie was having trouble keeping the gun trained on her ex and trying to see how Tony was doing at the same time. She knew he was hurt, but she didn’t know how bad. He did need help. If she could only trust Earl. He could have everything she owned, but she knew he wouldn’t do what he said. He never had—why should he change now?
“Look,” Earl said. “I’m showing my good faith by putting this down.” He laid the rifle on the grass and held both hands up to her. “See? I got nothing now and you’ve got the gun. So let me help you with him.”
Laying the rifle down brought him a step closer. Now as he spoke, his hands held casually in front of him, he managed a few more steps until only Valenti was between them.
“I’m not such a shit, you know,” he said soothingly. “I mean, we had some bad times and you had to split—I can see that now. But we had some good times, too. So let’s do this deal for those good times. I give you your man—you give me the bread.”
He could see that she wanted to believe him. Her face was strained in the flickering light thrown off by the burning house. She still kept the gun on him, but it was drooping slightly. Earl knew he had to do something. That fire was gonna bring whatever fire department they had out here in the sticks and the cops wouldn’t be far behind.
“Come on, Frankie. Put the gun down.”
It drooped a little lower, wavered and she brought it up, dropped again. Earl pretended to look at Valenti. “Christ, would ya look at the hole in him!” he said.
Frankie’s gaze went to Valenti and Earl lunged across the stricken man. He kicked the gun out of her hand. When she started to rise, he backhanded her across the face, then knelt down on top of her, pinning her arms and torso to the ground with his knees and the weight of his body. As she struggled against him he hit her again. Sliding off her, he grabbed her by her hair and hauled her to her feet. She threw a punch at him, but there was no strength behind the blow.
“You never learn, do you?” he said. “Look at yourself, fercrissakes. I could beat the shit out of you with one hand, so what’re you struggling for?” He slapped her again, then grabbed her roughly by the arm and started to haul her across the lawn.
“Tony!” she wailed.
“Fuck Tony. Where’s your bankbook, Frankie? Tomorrow morning, you and me’ve got an appointment at the bank, but until then we’re gonna disappear.”
“No!”
Frankie let herself go limp and sank to the ground. When Earl cursed and bent to lift her, she punched him in the groin with all her strength. He doubled over, still trying to grab at her, so she hit him again.
“You…you’re…you’re dead,” he gasped.
She scrambled out of his way as he stumbled to his knees. Everything she’d been through coalesced into a burning need to strike back. She was not going to be the victim again. Tony was depending on her. On her hands and knees she covered the few feet separating Valenti from her, tugging at his UZI when she reached him. The gun came free. She turned with the weapon in hand to see Earl on his feet, still hurting, but drawing a handgun from his belt.
“
Goddamn you!” she cried and pulled the trigger, only the trigger wouldn’t move. Nothing happened. Moaning, she did the only thing she could think of and threw the useless gun at Earl’s face.
8
It took him a while—Lewis was feeling his age tonight—but he finally reached the summit of Wold Hill. He stood there, catching his breath, and stared at the bonfire. It reminded him of his boyhood. New Wolding was all new then—another steading carved out of the wilderness, differing only from a hundred other such places in Eastern Ontario by the beliefs of its people. Their beliefs and their insularity.
There had been bonfires then, down by the old stone. Once a year they offered a ram or a bull up to the spirit that spoke through Tommy Duffin’s pipes.
Things had been simpler then. But the village lost its solidarity as the young ones began to move away and the old ones died off. And Lewis had changed. Mally had given him the dark man’s books and he’d come to question as much as those who’d left had questioned, only he had stayed, searching for answers at the source of the riddle, rather than out in the world beyond.
He couldn’t remember just when they had stopped the offerings or the bonfires. Green grass grew where once the charred circle had been black in the glade, where the red blood had flowed. Had there been a pack then? Lewis couldn’t remember. If Perkin’s hounds had been around at the time, they hadn’t been quite so bold.
He wondered what Mally and Ali had been up to tonight. Neither of them was here now. He hadn’t quite understood what Mally meant about Ali being gone. Stolen like smoke, the wild girl had said. By the Hunt. By Perkin’s hounds. They might even be my hounds now, Lewis thought uneasily.
He moved closer to the bonfire and spotted Ali’s walking stick lying where she’d dropped it. He bent down slowly and picked it up, hefting it in his hands.