“When I say we are.”
~oOo~
Katrynn had been surprised and concerned when he’d excused himself from the party, but Bev drew her back in, and she seemed okay when he and Angelo left.
The ride to Boston was quiet. John didn’t like Angelo Corti, and Angelo well knew it. They two had come to blows about ten years ago, when Angelo had convinced Joey to join the Pagano Brothers. John had kicked the shithead’s ass. Angelo had bulked up in the intervening decade, and he had hardened. John doubted a fight today would have the same result.
Angelo and Joey were the same age and had been close friends since grade school. Angelo had always talked a big
cumpà
game, the Tony Soprano of the schoolyard. Joe, with the real family cred and seeking a way to stand out from his siblings—that was John’s take, anyway—had fallen right in line with Angelo’s scheme to sign on with the Pagano Brothers. John was convinced to this day that Angelo had only been friends with goofball Joey because he saw him as his in with Ben Pagano.
Now Joey was disabled, and Angelo was made.
Joey’s problems weren’t all on the Pagano Brothers—Carlo’s crazy ex-wife had shot him—but he’d been there on Uncle Ben’s orders to keep watch over Sabina and Trey.
Joey should never have been on the other side of the pews with the Uncles, and he never would have been if Angelo hadn’t ridden him over. John couldn’t stand this slick-haired bastard.
So they didn’t talk much on the ride to Boston.
~oOo~
Calhoun’s event was a reading at the central branch of the Boston Public Library. It was open to the public, so John had no trouble getting in. Angelo had dropped him off in front of the building and driven away to, John assumed, procure the taxi that was supposed to be at the nearest taxi stand.
While Calhoun schmoozed, paying particular attention to a shapely brunette dressed in the kind of stylish ensemble women wore when they wanted to be both sexy and taken seriously, John found a place on the edge of the arranged seats, near the front row. He remained standing, so that Calhoun might see him from the podium quickly and clearly. And then he waited, thinking all the while of what he might say that would persuade a man who hated him to leave the protection of this public place and get into a cab with him.
Calhoun noticed him almost immediately, and showed enough surprise that he stumbled over his remarks thanking the person who’d introduced him. John made every effort to put on the friendliest smile he could, and he offered what he hoped was a self-effacing shrug. It stung, but he did it.
Calhoun read the same passage that he’d read at Cover to Cover way back in February. That must have been the section he liked best in the book. John hadn’t read the book, and never would, and he hadn’t paid close attention the first time, but that passage was good—though he would sooner have had his eyes boiled right in their sockets than admit it.
John tried not to think what he would be leading Calhoun to. He didn’t really know, in fact. His death? Was Calhoun too famous to die? Probably not—he wasn’t exactly Stephen King or that guy who’d written
The Da Vinci Code
. He wrote the kind of books the literary snobs enjoyed. Most people probably had no clue who he was.
Even if it wasn’t death Calhoun unknowingly faced, it was most certainly some kind of agony. John turned inward and considered how he felt about that. The guy was an asshole, no doubt. At best, he was selfish and arrogant. He’d hurt Katrynn. And he was colossally stupid for taking Nick on like this. He deserved some payback.
But could John be a party to Nick’s brand of it?
He had no doubt at all that if he refused to do this, Nick would kill him, cousin or not. He would be Don Pagano, acting in the service of his business, and he would set their familial relationship aside. Though nobody
knew
it, everybody knew that Nick had had their cousin Vince killed a couple of years before, when Vince’s gambling debts had pulled trouble into the Pagano Brothers’ way.
So, yes. John could do this. He didn’t have a choice.
Then it occurred to him that when Atticus Calhoun disappeared on this night, he would do so in John’s company.
Jesus. They were in a room full of witnesses. He couldn’t just walk up to him and ask him to leave in full sight of a hundred or more people who would then see them leave together. Was Nick setting John up somehow, too? Why would he? Or was he banking on John’s squeaky-clean record to keep him protected? Or did he have some plan in place John didn’t know about?
John stepped back and changed his plan. He had to think like a criminal.
He had no idea how to do that.
~oOo~
As it turned out, the new plan he’d come up with was irrelevant. Waiting for his chance to catch Calhoun in or near the men’s room, he came upon him, completely alone, in a nearly dark space of the main floor. Calhoun was on his phone, so John lurked in the shadows—he hoped—until he’d ended the call and was putting his phone in his pocket.
He stepped nonchalantly—he hoped—into the room. “Hey, Atticus.” The asshole’s fake first name came out of John’s throat with barbs.
Calhoun eyed him warily. “John Pagano. You here for a rematch?”
“No, man. Just an apology. I was way out of line back in the Cove, and I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you were. Then you sicced your mob boss on me, too. Not cool.”
Rather than respond directly to that, John shifted the subject. “I read your book. It’s beautiful. You’re brilliant. I’m sure you hear that a lot, but I just wanted to say it myself.”
With a growing smirk—the arrogant warp that made John’s fist want to smash—Calhoun held out his hand. “Well, thanks, man.”
John took the offered hand and shook it. “Hey, I’ve got questions about the story. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Look, if you’re making a pass—”
Idiot. “No. I don’t turn that way. I’m just…well, trying my hand at writing. Be cool if I could bend your ear for a half-hour, maybe?”
That god-awful expression took over Calhoun’s face, and John saw the victory the idiot thought he’d gained. He was loving this. He checked his watch. “I’m supposed to eat with some rich bitch, but I can be late. You know Boston? I could go for some local brew.”
“Yeah. Thanks for this. Taxi stand’s on the side street—you want to go out that door there?” He pointed at an isolated exit, and just like that, Calhoun was following him out of the library, completely unseen. He didn’t even call any of his people to let them know.
Arrogance was really stupidity dressed up in success.
~oOo~
John didn’t know how he’d arranged it, but Angelo was driving the only taxi at what was normally one of the busier stands in the city. They got in, and John made up a name of a bar. Angelo nodded and pulled from the curb.
Before Calhoun could start talking about a book John hadn’t read, John took control of the small talk, rambling about the craft beers at this make-believe bar they were headed to.
Calhoun had no idea there was anything wrong until Angelo pulled into an alley and stopped the taxi. Then the poor clod looked out the window. “What the fuck, man?”
John heard the click at the same time Calhoun did. They both turned to Angelo, who had a suppressed Beretta pointed at Calhoun’s face.
The door on Calhoun’s side opened, and another of Nick’s men stood there. “Out, cowboy.”
Atticus Calhoun turned to John, his face gone white and slack. “What did you do?”
John said nothing. He didn’t know the answer.
~oOo~
Not knowing what else to do, John followed Angelo and the others as they dragged Calhoun into a dark warehouse. He stayed quiet and didn’t fight; Angelo had that big gun pointed at his head. Down a long corridor they went, turning into a windowless interior room.
Nick was there, as were J.J. and Sam. While the men took Calhoun across the room, Nick came up to John.
“You did well.”
“I don’t know if anybody saw us leave together.”
“Not a problem. Everything’s handled.” With a nod of his head, Nick indicated a cheap vinyl loveseat in the far corner of the room. “Have a seat. I doubt this will take long.”
“What are you going to do?”
Nick didn’t answer him.
“Nick—I don’t want to watch this.”
“Have a seat, John.”
John sat.
This room was strange—cement block walls, a concrete floor with a drain in the center, a metal table in one corner with a duffel bag on it, a few sturdy metal chairs, and this ugly loveseat. John could discern no purpose for the space, unless it was what they were here for.
They were binding Calhoun to a metal chair. It didn’t move at all, and John wondered if it were bolted to the floor. They gagged him with a wad of cloth. Nick obviously had no need for Calhoun to talk.
When he was fully locked down, all the men stepped away from him, and Nick shrugged out of his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. He dragged another metal chair over—by the sound of it moving across the concrete, John could tell that it was quite heavy. Sitting backward on the chair, Nick faced his subject. Calhoun made a muffled noise like a strident grunt.
“You and I had an arrangement, Arthur. One that was more beneficial to you than I would normally have allowed. Your part in that was to get the fuck out of my sight and stay out. And yet”—he snapped his fingers, and Angelo brought him the offending magazine—“I find this. I’m puzzled. I read people well, and I knew you were a conceited piece of shit, but I wouldn’t have said you were stupid. Deluded, yes, but not stupid. But this, Arthur, is rank stupidity. Did you think a bunch of dumb guineas wouldn’t read this magazine? Did you think you could shit on me and I wouldn’t smell it?”
Calhoun had started shaking his head frantically when the magazine came out. His long hair was flying around, strands sticking to his sweaty, crimson face. Again, he tried to talk through the gag and, of course, failed.
“I don’t need answers, Arthur. The answers are irrelevant. I need justice. You’ve proven that you can’t be trusted to uphold a deal, so I need a permanent kind of justice.”
At that, Calhoun screamed. Even through the gag, the sound filled the room and racked John’s head.
And then Calhoun soiled himself, bladder and bowels releasing in tandem. The wet sound and stink filled the room.
God. He was party to a murder. He closed his eyes and prayed.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with Thee…
Unable to think about anything but what was happening, he lost the prayer and focused again on Nick, who was telling Calhoun, “I’ve learned that you have a little blow habit, Arthur. Is that where all this literary genius and fatheaded idiocy comes from? A snoot full of powder? Maybe so. Maybe I’m too much of a
lout
to know for sure. It’s where it ends, I can tell you that. I’m not only taking your life, my friend. I want your legacy, too. You tried to fuck with mine? Let me show you how it’s done. Here’s your final chapter, Arthur: Your head full of blow, your designer cowboy jeans around your ankles, a pretty glass dildo up your ass, and—this is my favorite part—a battered woman. You’re the literary genius, of course, but I believe that’s called poetic justice.”
Calhoun screamed again.
John stood up. No way was Nick planning to hurt a woman. He couldn’t believe that could be true. “Nick!”