The delinquents huddled together in the alleyway behind the church and waited, ashen-faced, to bury their dead.
They'd lost eight of their friends to the Russos – eight children, killed by the same mafia greed that had driven Jacuzzi to bootlegging in the first place. Eight corpses to bury and no money to bury them with, now laid out on the ground with bullets still embedded in their flesh. The delinquents crowded around their brethren's bodies defensively and seethed with grief and hatred and a desire for vengeance that could never truly be quenched.
Jacuzzi Splot stood at the mouth of the alley with his back to his friends (both living and dead) and waited. He waited in wretched silence to bury children who had trusted him right up until they died, innocent victims of his foolish, ill-conceived vendetta.
One of the delinquent's watches struck twelve-thirty. Two minutes later, Nice emerged into view and quietly informed Jacuzzi that the local police patrol had been "taken care of." Jacuzzi nodded and turned to face the youths behind him, his complexion sallow underneath the dim light of a nearby street lamp. He kept his lips pressed into a thin, hard, line, and his hands balled into fists, but the red puffiness of his eyes betrayed the raw anguish he'd experienced over the last two days. Yesterday he'd gone and taken out eighteen speakeasies all by himself, bawling his eyes out nonstop the entire day – and the delinquents had welcomed him back with viciously satisfied hugs and a even little bit of awe when he stumbled back into their hideout late that night reeking of gunsmoke and alcohol.
He hadn't cried ever since he'd returned home the night before. He hadn't made much noise at all, outside of the few times he'd issued orders and reviewed tonight's plan with the rest of his gang. The delinquents did not associate Jacuzzi with silence, and they found the dissonance jarring – though they were not exactly accustomed to silence in their own right. So when he turned to face them under that street lamp and opened his mouth, they snapped to attention at once.
"Let's go."
Nothing more needed to be said. Jacuzzi and Nice moved to pick up Kenny's corpse and carry it between them, with Nice cradling Kenny's shoulders and Jacuzzi gripping Kenny's legs. Nick and Jack did the same with Eli, and Donny carefully lifted two of the taller corpses up and draped them over his shoulders. When the last four bodies were spoken for, the remaining delinquents grabbed the shovels they'd stolen from various gardens and stores and toolsheds that morning in anticipation of the burials.
One of their lookout boys across the street waved his hand at them. Coast clear. Hurry, hurry.
The shovel-carrying delinquents formed a circle around those who carried their friends' corpses, as if to shield the bodies from unaccounted for passersby. The teenagers moved quickly across the street, and quicker still across the sidewalk toward the far end of the church's cemetery grounds – the end that was poorly lit, and sported a weak spot in the cemetery's rusting iron fence that Nick had discovered early that afternoon. Once they reached it, Donny reached out and wrested the decayed metal aside while trying not to jostle the bodies on his shoulders as best he could.
Delinquents filtered into the cemetery grounds two by two: first the corpse-bearers, and then the shovel-bearers. Never before had the delinquents operated so silently, so efficiently, motivated out of love for their dead and by the way Jacuzzi carried himself – his limbs stiff with determination and intent, so different from his normal deportment. It was impossible to observe him and not try to emulate him, though not all of the delinquents realized they were doing exactly that.
The group came to a stop at a large cedar tree near one of the fence corners – where hardly any light shown upon the untouched land. Jacuzzi and Nice gently laid Kenny down upon the grass, and two of the shovel-bearers stepped forward to offer them spare shovels. When all eight corpses were laid out side by side, the delinquents hoisted their shovels and got to work.
All of them wanted to dig the plots – the more hands, the better, for time was of the essence and they couldn't afford to dilly-dally. That, and they all wanted to do their own part in ensuring that their friends had the burials they deserved – to put them at peace. But there weren't enough shovels to go around, and those without shovels scrambled to act as lookouts for the rest. No city truly sleeps, and though Nice had taken care of the police patrol all of them were on edge. The Russos had put a bounty on Jacuzzi's head. None of them had spoken of it, but the fact weighed heavy on their souls. Civilians and police alike wanted Jacuzzi's head – and the delinquents would be dammed if they allowed Jacuzzi to be taken away from them too.
They dug, and dug, uncaring of the dirt and grass stains on their trousers and the ache of their hands and so overwhelmingly grateful that they had Donny's strength on their side. They dug and dug and when the plots were finished they all had to stop and remember how to breathe.
And then they were off again. No time for breaks – no time to linger on the faces of their friends for too long when the Russos were out for Jacuzzi's blood in a city that never truly slept. They'd all stared at their friends' corpses for long enough in the first place, back when they'd first been mowed down. Approaching two days on and the bodies weren't exactly all that nice to look at anyway. You could only stare at the raw, ravaged bullet hole in Kenny's throat for too long before you started to feel sick.
So they passed the corpses to the diggers, who lowered their friends tenderly into their plots and then immediately clambered out of them themselves and they were off again, shoveling dirt back into the plots God bless Donny for his strength, filling up two plots on his own, don't look at their faces, just keep digging, just get it done before you're discovered.
Kenny's was the last plot to be filled, but his was the first to receive a grave marker. The grave markers were crude things – really just eight medium-sized stones that the delinquents had collected and etched the initials of each person onto. These were 'planted' reverentially at the head of each plot by Nice and Donny while the rest looked on and Jacuzzi knelt to readjust Kenny's marker.
One of their lookouts down the street rushed through the hole in the fence and over their way just as Nice and Donny prepared the last grave marker – Eli's. The lookout skidded to a halt in front of Jacuzzi and hissed, "There's a couple cops headed this way! Gotta scram, they look bent as anything."
A police whistle sounded off in the distance. Jacuzzi shot to his feet, steely-eyed, body taut like a whip and looking for all the world like he was going to give the officers what for.
All the delinquents – Nice, Nick, and the rest – had the same gut reaction at the sight.
They're not getting their hands on him.
Nice stood. "Jacuzzi," she whispered, "Don't pull anything funny. Let's beat it – we're outta time."
Jacuzzi trembled violently, and whipped around to address the gang. "We're coming back," he said. "We're going to give them their funeral. We can't do that if the police catch us, now, can we? Run!"
The delinquents bolted. Most went for the hole in the fence, though others were so bold as to clamber over the nearest fence strip available, vanishing into side-streets and alleyways and even a sewer gutter or two. By the time the police reached the alleyway the gang had originally met in, there was not a youth in sight.
When the gang returned to the eight graves several nights later, they had a priest in tow.
Several of the gang members were familiar with the priest, who had a reputation amongst the street rats for being generous with food toward the odd wayward waif who came begging at the church's doorstep. The delinquents who'd experience that generosity for themselves callously approached him and demanded that he come pray over the unauthorized bodies of eight children they'd buried in his church's cemetery "if he didn't want to get hurt." And if he valued his job, he'd not breathe a word of their break-in to anyone.
So the priest had agreed - perhaps out of a moral obligation to see the souls of children well looked after, perhaps out of sympathy to those who had been left behind. He dutifully followed the delinquents to the cedar tree, and bowed his head upon spying the hastily dug graves. Jacuzzi bowed his head too, unable to bear the muted sadness in the other man's gaze.
"I think Eli was Jewish," Nice mumbled, over on Jacuzzi's right side. "Or at least, his parents were, I-I don't know for certain. Mister Reverend, sir, please." A note of anxiety crept into her voice. "Eli was a good kid, Reverend, he – he was such a sweet boy, only ten, black-haired, skinny as a beanpole. We didn't know any good synagogues around here, and even if we did, we didn't think he'd want to be separated from the others. But we didn't know any rabbis eithers." She looked over at Jacuzzi, and squeezed his hand. "We're-we're just trying to do right by him."
The priest glanced heavenward. "I don't doubt your good intentions," he said. "And I believe that your friend would say the same. God will look after Eli like He looks after all His flock."
Jacuzzi kept his head bowed through the priest's prayers, though it was not piety that humbled him. It was all he could do to stand on his own two feet while his vision swam and his head throbbed. He did not even register that the 'funeral' had ended until Nice placed her left hand on his shoulder.
"Jacuzzi? Are you all right?"
He blinked, and hot tears rolled down his cheeks. His shoulder was warm under her touch, it tingled, and all the fear that he'd forgone feeling over the past few days flooded him in a dizzying rush of adrenaline.
"I—" he gasped, breath hitching, hands shaking as his knees turned to jelly. Kenny's initials blurred on their grave marker. "I—I—need to—"
"Okay, I got it, Jacuzzi," Nice murmured, and she brushed her thumb over his cheek. "We'll go move a little ways away and leave you alone with them for a little bit."
Jacuzzi bit his lip – was that what he needed? He couldn't say – but there were so many things that he needed to say to Kenny, to Eli, to the others, and he dropped to his knees in front of their graves and mourned.
"K-Kenny, E-Eli." There was a terrible, pressing weight upon his chest and he choked on air, fat tears dripping onto his hands and trousers, sobbing the names of children who would never had died had he not been so reckless, so stubbornly idealistic – the names of children whom he had failed, whose deaths would weigh on his soul for the rest of his life. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"
Over and over Jacuzzi apologized, even as his voice cracked and tattered from the strain of repetition. The cedar's leaves rustled in the wind above him, soft and shivery, and while Jacuzzi wept apology after apology one desire swelled up in his heart –
If you're listening, Kenny, Eli, everyone – if you're listening, please, please don't forgive me. I don't deserve forgiveness. I can't ever possibly atone for your lives – and I have no right to. Don't forgive me. Never forgive me. Never.
Several yards away, the delinquents huddled together and watched their leader sob on his knees under the cedar's canopy – a tiny, lonely figure when compared to the massive tree. Jacuzzi had finally, finally broken, and the younger delinquents broke with him. Nice hugged a teary thirteen-year-old girl close to her chest – teenager comforting teenager – and bit her lip and swore that she wouldn't cry. Someone had to be strong for these kids, and she'd already shed her share of tears days ago. What good would crying do her now? Her vision was already awful, the last thing she needed was for tears to obstruct it entirely.
Over on her left, Nick swiped at his nose with his sleeve and met her gaze. He and Jack seemed to be relatively holding it together, much to Nice's relief. "Hey, Boss?" he asked, tentatively. "What's going to happen to us?"
Nice squinted at Nick over the tween's head – she couldn't make out much of his expression, but she supposed that didn't matter much. Probably could guess as to what it was anyways. It was a good question he'd asked – it was time she focused on the gang's immediate practical problems, of which there were plenty.
"The Russos still have a bounty on Jacuzzi's head," she replied, and the tween stiffened in her arms. "It's probably only a matter of time before they sniff out our hideout and send over some of their capos to see whether or not Jacuzzi has flown the coop. You remember that job Jon and Fang tipped us off about? I think we're really going to have to go through with that one. Chicago's not safe for us anymore – laying low in New York for a while seems like a smart idea for the time being."
Nick nodded slowly. "I'm with you, Boss."
"You are, Nick?"
"Uh—well, it's not like I'm overly attached to Chicago or anything, y'know? I grew up in the slums – s'not really a childhood I'm gonna miss. If you think the robbery'll take the heat off Jacuzzi, I'm in."
The smile Nice flashed Nick was the first real one she'd expressed since before their friends had been murdered. "Good," she whispered, and looked back over to the tall strip of brown and red that was the cedar tree. She couldn't make out much of Jacuzzi – he was mostly a dark smudge against a sea of dark green, but through her left ear she could hear his cries just fine and it gutted her.
While Jacuzzi had been out mowing down Russo speakeasies, Nice had cried alone in their bedroom and grieved alone. Now their roles were reversed – Jacuzzi wept alone and blamed himself alone and enough was enough. She released the tween into Nick's custody and marched over to Jacuzzi's side while the rest of the gang watched in trepidation.
Jacuzzi didn't acknowledge her - not at first. She cleared her throat. "Jacuzzi."
Now he looked up, and the familiar, instantly recognizable sight of his tattoo was such a welcome one that a lump sprang to Nice's throat. She knelt down beside him, and used her hand to brush away some of his tears.
"You've done enough, Jacuzzi Splot," she said, and she leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching. "It's okay, Jacuzzi. You don't have to bear it alone."
Jacuzzi shuddered and stared downwards at his trembling hands. "But I do, Nice," he croaked. "It's all my fault they're dead – if I – if I hadn't been so stupid to think I could go against the mafia, they–"
Nice took hold of his hands to steady them. Normally Jacuzzi would have blushed at such a bold move, but he simply fell silent instead. "You didn't fire those guns at them, Jacuzzi," she said. "The Russos killed them. They saw a bunch of kids selling a little liquor and decided to murder them in cold blood. It's a sick bunch of bastards who can do something as evil as they did, and I guarantee you that anybody with a lick of a conscience will agree with me."
Jacuzzi hiccoughed, and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Nice, but I just can't accept…"
"Stop apologizing," she snapped. Jacuzzi blanched.
"I-I'm sorry—"
"You're doing it again – you've done more than enough apologizing for an entire month, Jacuzzi, and you've done more than enough mourning on your own." She interlocked her fingers with his, and his eyes widened. "Let's go back to the hideout, Jacuzzi, okay? It's time you and I grieve together. Let's all go back and mourn our friends together, and share good memories of them together. You keep blaming yourself, but you know, if you're so awful then why have none of the others up and deserted you yet?"
Jacuzzi sat back on his heels, and looked over at the rest of his gang as if he were seeing them for the first time.
"Yeah, that's a funny little conundrum, ain't it? The only one here who hates you is you, Jacuzzi. Me and the others – we all knew that there'd be risks getting into the bootlegging business, and we did it because we wanted to, Jacuzzi. Sure, maybe some of them only joined for the cause, but that's not why they've stayed on, Jacuzzi."
Jacuzzi swallowed, and his grip on Nice's hands tightened. "I-it's not?"
Nice laughed. "Of course it ain't, Jacuzzi. Look, a good percent of our guys believe in your cause, but you know what all of them believe in more?"
No answer.
"They believe in you, Jacuzzi." Nice gave him a little smile. "They believe in you."
His eyes glistened. Still holding his hands, Nice stood and pulled him up with her. "Come on," she coaxed. "Let's go. Everyone's waiting."
Jacuzzi hesitated for a long, long moment. "Yeah," he whispered, and drew in close to Nice's side. Warmth pooled in her chest. "Nice?"
"What is it?
"When I came back from that speakeasy rampage, I planned on ordering the gang to disband," Jacuzzi confessed. "I was so scared that the R-Russos would end up killing more of our friends that I thought disbanding was the only way to keep everyone safe."
Nice managed a tiny nod in reply.
"But you know what? What scares me even more is everyone s-scattering in the first place." He raised his chin high, his words now loud and pointed. "I only realized it just now, but I can't stand the thought of us all not being together. Every single one of you guys is important to me. We're a family, all of us, and I'll – I'll see those Russos in hell before I let them break us up, you hear?"
"Atta boy, Jacuzzi!" shouted Nick, and at his side the tween girl offered a few wobbly cheers of her own. Jack and others quickly took up the rallying cry, and even the priest (he was still around?) decided that there was no point in looking scandalized at the swear and settled instead for a confused but well-meant smile.
Nice closed her eye and drunk in the cheers of her friends. God, she missed Kenny and the others so badly, but she had missed happiness too. More than happiness, she'd missed hope. And for the first time since she'd knelt by little Eli's body with her hands pressed to his bloody side – listening to her friends cheer now, she felt just the tiniest bit hopeful. Someday things just might be okay. Halfway to all right. If the Russos got their comeuppance someday, well, she figured that would be when life finally got copacetic again.
"Are you crazy?"
Nice tensed, immediately looking around for the speaker. Jacuzzi nudged her elbow – "look over at the fence by the cedar tree" – and she did. A fuzzy semblance of a kid had climbed up the fence and now leant his torso over the top to spit bloody murder at them. With a start, she realized it was their lookout boy – she hadn't even realized that he was still faithfully carrying out his lookout duty.
"You morons're making such a racket that somebody's gonna catch on any second now!"
A police whistle sounded in the distance.
Déjà vu.
Nice opened her mouth, but Jacuzzi squeezed her hand and took off, pulling her along behind him in a streak of brown and white and yellow and red. "Let's go for real, guys!" he squawked. "Everyone scramble!"
And people ran. Bodies blurred by Nice's left and right, and for a moment she thought she saw the swish of black cloth out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't help it – she snorted at the mental image of the priest hurrying off in his long, clunky vestments.
When she reached the hole in the fence, she tugged sharply on Jacuzzi's hand and slowed her pace, so that she could behind her at the dark silhouette of the cedar tree once more. The lack of good lighting at the back of the cemetery had been more than useful when they'd gone about digging the graves, but now that it was all over their corner just looked…bleak. Shadowy and ominous.
Jacuzzi tugged back just as strongly. "Come on, Nice," he panted, "this is no time to be slowing down – we can't get caught by the police here."
"Fireworks," she mumbled, a little dreamily. As they picked up their pace, she continued, "wouldn't that look nice, Jacuzzi? All of us running away with the heat and light of fireworks at our backs, lighting the way?"
"I think the l-last thing we want now is for our way to be lit, Nice! The cops! Could see us! Very easily! That way!"
"That ol' cedar tree would look real nice under those fireworks," she gasped, focusing on the feel of her hand in Jacuzzi's and the thudding of her soles striking asphalt and the wind in her fair. "Their grave markers would look nice and shiny with a little bit of red n' orange lighting to brighten up the place. Kenny always like my fireworks, Jacuzzi—!"
"I knowhe did, Nice – I know, okay—" Was Jacuzzi crying again? "N-next time we go head to head with the Russos, you break out those fireworks, okay? For Kenny, and for Eli, and all the rest! You got that?"
"You mean it, Jacuzzi?" They darted into the nearest alleyway, and immediately turned the corner of another. Already she was imagining it – the heat of the fireworks on her skin, the whistles and pops above her head, the dizzyingly colorful hues of red-orange-yellow and green-blue-purple electrifying Chicago's grey skies – she didn't need her right eye to be able to picture throwing one of her homemade makes right into the midst of a few Russo capos.
Hope welled up inside her. More than hope – anticipation.
Nice whooped. Jacuzzi whooped, shocking her – a pleasant shock, a wonderful shock, and she flushed with the promise of things to come. Of a train robbery, of fireworks going off by Russo heads, and a future with Jacuzzi and a bunch of ragtag delinquents who now, more than ever, were family.
I like to think that the fireworks Nice blows up when she and the others kill the Russo capos the night before TFP have the names of their eight friends written on them.
Jacuzzi may have told Nice that he was a-okay with her using fireworks against the Russos at the end of this fic but I guarantee you he forgets about it the next day. This boy has not slept in days. So when Nice sets off fireworks and blows the Russos to bits in LN#2, he's completely taken aback and very preoccupied with the fact that she has signaled all the local police to their presence, good job Nice. No, seriously though, good job, Nice, A+ for payback.