Date Unknown
"Wake up…Stay with me." The woman is slapping his face, but her voice is surprisingly gentle. "I know what you need."
He says nothing.
"You must be hurting by now," she coos sympathetically.
"I am hurting," he admits, and immediately hates himself for it.
"I have something to take the edge off. Just take one."
"No." If he takes one of whatever it is, he'll start blabbing, he knows it. "No," he says again and swallows, offers an explanation. "It's just my ulcer."
"It's not your ulcer." Her voice is still a low purr, but there's an unmistakable edge to it now.
And he realizes he understands - but what? The drugs, his ulcer - a connection, once tenuous, is now concrete. The pieces fit, but he can't see through the fog in his brain.
"Maybe it's time," he says wearily, "to just stop. If you're gonna kill me, then do it. I got nothing to say."
Sunday, 17th August: 6:32 am
By the time he pulled himself back together it was too late to for posturing and threatening. The cops swarmed in, crime scene technicians all over the place – the entire damn op was up in smoke. He was a murder suspect, and they had a warrant. They would search the house. They were investigating Hannah's death, they would search her apartment. Shit. Were the Feds listening to this? They had to be; they were always listening. Were they scrambling for an exit strategy? Planning to cut him loose?
Shit.
He insisted on a phone call, and dialled the emergency number. Johnny picked up.
"Listen," he said, curtly. "I need a lawyer, I need one now, and I don't want that prick Pender."
"Okay," Johnny caught on quickly. "They've just told me something's going down but I don't have all the details. What's happening?"
"I'm being pulled in to help with the investigation into the death of Hannah." His voice cracked. "She was getting out, and somebody murdered her."
"Okay, our legal team are on it, and I'll meet you the minute you get to the station."
But they didn't bring him to the station first. They brought him to Hannah's apartment.
Yeah, great strategy, Ray thought, nausea clawing at his throat. They're trying to shock me, trip me up somehow. It was a dirty trick, but not illegal – he'd done it himself. Confront the criminal with evidence of their crime and shock them into giving something away. Oh God, I'm gonna see Hannah.
"Okay," Detective Burns said as he led him from the car. This time they hadn't cuffed him, but the man put a proprietorial hand on his shoulder and steered him to the elevator. Ray was too freaked out to play Armando and shrug the hand off. And there Mando was, shooting a look of contempt at Ray's weakness. "When were you last here?" Burns' voice pulled Ray's attention away from his brother's disdain, and back to the reality of the situation. Shit, someone's killed Hannah…
"Last night."
"About what time?"
"Nine-thirty, maybe, ten o' clock."
"You kept her apartment close to your office. Any reason for that?"
"So it wasn't a long ride home from work, what do you think?" Ray blustered as they rode up in the elevator. So far everything was looking very normal. If he talked shit, then maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was a fuck up.
Maybe, he thought with sudden hope, they got the wrong girl – Clara looked enough like Hannah that whoever killed her mighta made a mistake. Well, no, Clara was white, but they were the same size and shape, sort of. And if they'd got Clara, that would be sad – but it wouldn't be Hannah.
It couldn't be Hannah – not after Irene, not after Sarah – it just couldn't happen again. They got the wrong girl.
They got the right girl.
Hannah was in the sunken bathtub, still in her golden dress, her whole body submerged. Her recently straightened hair curled slightly now, floated out like seaweed. Her arms were straight along her side, palms upward. Her gown swayed softly in the rosy water.
"Oh God, no," Ray whispered.
The blood bloomed dark around her wrists, still slowly unfurling from the sharp edged, straight lined cuts that sliced her wrists neatly. Her face was slack, as though her skin was already slipping.
"At first it looked like a suicide," Burns was saying, "but the ME noticed a few inconsistencies –"
"Oh God, no."
"Mr Langoustini…"
Ray lurched forward, and then he was in the bathtub with her, kneeling, trying to lift her out. "Oh God, no, no, no." She was slippery in his arms, and her dead weight kept falling from his grasp, kept drowning. Angry voices around him – I contaminated the crime scene, he realised distantly, as he struggled against the cops dragging him away. "Hannah," she slid from his arms. "Hannah, Hannah baby, please, wake up."
She didn't wake up.
10:45 am
By the time they'd got him to the station he'd retreated, and wasn't taking in a word that anyone was saying. That is, he could hear them, but it didn't seem to matter very much. His mouth tasted of bile, and his fingertips were black again from being printed. He stood without complaining as they bound his wrists behind his back – this time in cuffs, rather than ties. Obviously they were keen to avoid another lawsuit.
Once in interview room three, however, Burns was as harsh as ever in his questioning. It was like they'd never left.
"… a pattern of abuse seems to be emerging. After all, Hannah wouldn't be the first of your lovers who has died in mysterious circumstances. If we go back, do you think we'll find anyone other than Sarah? What about your wife? Did she really kill herself?"
Ray stared at the mirror. He thought he'd looked bad last time. This time he was in a tee-shirt and sweatpants. They arrested the wrong guy, he thought, that guy looks nothing like the Bookman at all.
"Mr Langoustini," Burns shouted. He slapped the table, and Ray turned to look at the man's hand. He felt as though he'd never left this room, as though he was on a wheel, and had just returned to the starting point. Hell's like this, he thought, and the thought itself was familiar, you gotta relive the same crap over, and over again. "Answer the question," Burns said.
Ray frowned, confused. What question? Maybe if he could figure out the right thing to say he'd eventually get out of this nightmare.
"So," Burns circled the room. "What happens? You meet some nice girl, pick her up – maybe even marry her. Treat her like a princess, put her up in an apartment. And then when you're tired of her, what – you kill her? Or are you going to tell me that we're wrong, that Hannah did commit suicide?"
The cop in Ray woke up at the question.
"Hannah didn't commit suicide," he croaked out.
Burns froze in his circuit of the room, and stared at him intently. "No? Then what did happen?"
"I don't know," Ray admitted, "but someone killed her." He shook his head. "Not a professional though. I mean, someone who's killed before - they were confident - but not someone who specialises in that kinda cover up. Too sloppy. Left too many tells."
"Oh yeah?" Burns sat casually on the table. "What kind of 'tells' are we talking about?"
Ray grimaced, trying to picture the crime scene without emotion clouding his judgement. He squinted his eyes, and replayed it, standing outside his body now, so he could watch without pain.
"When I lifted her," he said staring into space, "she should have spewed water. She bubbled instead. There were bubbles when she came up out of the water. There was air in her lungs. So… she didn't drown."
"Maybe she died of blood loss before she went under the water."
"No," Ray shook his head. "That's not what happens. They pass out, then they go under – they're still breathing and their lungs fill up."
"You seem to know a lot about death, Mr Langoustini. Is this something you've done before?"
"I've seen it," Ray said, thinking of his first suicide, a pregnant fourteen year old. He'd been sick that time too, rookie cop.
Armando flashed back into the room.
"Where were you?" Thoughtlessly, Ray spoke aloud.
'I've seen it before,' Armando echoed his words, and Ray had a sudden vivid memory of a middle aged woman, Juliana Langoustini, God, his Ma… in a long night dress, floating peacefully in the family pool, wrists split. His heart stuttered – the woman looked nothing like Hannah but…
Hair like seaweed, salt and pepper, obscuring her face, and a kid sobbing.
"Sorry, Mando."
'Why?' The voice in his head was bitter. 'It was a long time ago.'
Ray opened his mouth to say something else to his brother – then he remembered where he was. Who he was talking to, who he was. Not a cop anymore. He shouldn't be discussing crime scenes so casually when he was a suspect. He glanced sharply up at the Detective interviewing him. The man obviously didn't know anything about Ma Langoustini – neither had Ray or the Feds. The Family must have covered it up. Doc Simmons would have faked the death certificate. Ray managed his first Bookman smile of the day. "In books, I've seen it in books. I read a lot. Unless you think your forensic examiners are suspects too."
"Okay then." Burns was giving him a curious look. "So, you're a forensic expert. You mentioned 'tells'. What other 'tells' did you see?"
"No hesitation marks," Ray said, and pointed to his inside wrist, drawing a line up to his elbow. "People are scared of pain. Even if you're trying to kill yourself, there's that little bit of you that wants to live. So, the first few cuts are always shallow, while they're getting their courage up. She just had four cuts." He swallowed, picturing the inverted T's. "And, they should have been weaker on one side than the other. Once she'd done the first arm, she wouldn't be strong enough to cut as deep on the other. These were done by someone else."
"Interesting speculations. Anything else come to mind?"
"When I saw her, she was coked up. She wouldn't have been sleepy…" He shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe she took something to calm herself down. If she took a downer, she could have been unconscious or something, so it would have been easy for whoever it was…"
'Don't you fucking dare.'
Ray saw his face go pale in the mirror, pale as his brother's ghost. Armando leaned in and hissed in his ear. 'Don't you say another fucking word.'
He knew who it was – How stupid am I? Jackie had left the meeting just as Ray arrived. Ray had sent Hannah home with a bodyguard, one of the soldati – and everyone in the organisation, every bodyguard, chauffeur, soldato, capo – they all answered to Jackie.
"What?" Detective Burns leaned toward Ray with every semblance of concern. Ray shook his head, and shut his mouth. He'd forgotten, for a while, that he was the bad guy here. 'Don't worry, Mando,' he told his brother. 'I won't tell them a thing.'
"I want my lawyer," Ray bit off. Where the fuck is Johnny?
But for some reason it was Pender, not Johnny, who came.
Sunday, 17th August: 9:43 am
Jackie was waiting for him this time, at the back of the police station. I should want to kill him, Ray thought. He killed Hannah, staged it the worst way possible to crack Mando up. He posed her in the water, same posture even as Ma Langoustini, palms up and to the side. I should want to kill this fucker… He didn't want to do anything. He just wanted to lie down. He started trudging toward his cousin. Where was Mando anyway?
"Fuck," Jackie said, "they could have at least let you change your clothes."
"What?"
"You in that tee-shirt. You look like a fanook," he laughed. "Your shirt's pink."
Ray looked down. It was still damp from the bathtub, and pink from Hannah's blood.
"Oh. Yeah."
"Oh. Yeah." Jackie's voice was loaded with sarcasm. "Whadaya think, Val? Another lawsuit?"
"Inevitably." The lawyer sounded quietly pleased by the prospect.
"So," Jackie said, "I'll get this sorry bastard home, and see you at the fundraiser tonight." He lifted his hand in a casual farewell, and Pender nodded – one of his micro-bows – as he took his leave. Probably to report to Sal.
Jackie turned his attention back to Ray. "Think you'll be straightened out for the fundraiser?"
"Another fundraiser." Ray paused. "How much of it gets to the disaster victims?" He knew, actually – something like five percent.
"Don't worry about that. We got to get you straightened out for it though. I never seen you look so fucked, and that's saying something. Shit, you had it bad for the whore, didn't you?"
"She killed herself," Ray lied.
"Yeah. Hookers do that."
Ray stared at his cousin, looking to see if there was a flicker of anything – remorse, shame.
"Look," Jackie said, with irritation, "She's not your Ma, so don't start up with that shit again. Fuck. Sal's gonna be pissed if he sees you like this. Come on. Let's get you straightened out."
Jackie put his arm round Ray's shoulders, and steered him to his Lexus. Obviously Jackie was less worried about keeping a low profile than Sal – he was mainly concerned with his seats. "You coulda fucking told me you needed a change of clothes."
Ray said nothing, looking out the window as they drove to Jackie's place. He let himself zone out. Jackie's voice kept on in the background.
"So, Cuz," Jackie said, as they pulled through the gates into his compound. He turned in the driver's seat, and looked Ray square in the eye. "Did you do it? Because if you did, you can stop the performance now. The cops aren't coming after you for this one."
Holy shit. How far was Jackie prepared to go in his pretence? "Did I… did I do it?" How can he ask that?
"Oh, shit." Jackie rolled his eyes. "Cazzo cagna really did kill herself." He slammed his way out of the car, turned and kicked the front wheel. "I thought it was just you being creative."
"No," Ray said, in dull tones, getting out the passenger side. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it wasn't Jackie after all. "I thought it might be you."
"No," Jackie said, leading him into the house. "Wish I'd thought of it, but no. Like I'd have left all that money in a suitcase for the cops to hold as evidence. Come on, snap out of it. You're not gonna pull that shit like when you were a kid, walking around talking to invisible people are you?"
"What?" Jackie's drive was gravelled, rather than paved like Armando's. With each step Ray felt the crunch shudder up through him. Giant, he thought, dizzily, sounds like a giant grinding its teeth.
"Like when your Ma died. Fucking hell, you're a head-case. You don't pull yourself together, we'll have to get rid of you." Jackie raised his hands in the air. "I don't mean whack you. Sal might say he'll do it, but he'd never follow through. But you got to pull yourself together."
"I do it every day," Ray managed. "I'm a pair of curtains."
Jackie looked puzzled for a moment, then started laughing. "That's a good one, Cuz. That's good. Look, you got the cops off your back with the grieving boyfriend thing, and every hooker in Vegas is going to be hot for you after that performance. You know how whores love a tragic hero. Story like that gets around. But tone it down for the fundraiser, okay?"
"Yeah."
"Plus we got this Muldoon shit going on. You and Sal walking out of the meet like that. You got balls where your brains should be. You need to fix that, that's all I'm saying. You wanna retire after Muldoon, fine. Just be our accountant if that's what floats your boat. But right now, hold it together, just a little longer. You can do that, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah. Sal's gonna be here in an hour. So go, get cleaned, get changed, we'll try to figure out the Muldoon crap, and then you take the day to do what you do, research, number crunch, whatever. And get ready to schmooze up to politicians and judges and movie stars this evening, make us a lot of fucking money, and don't fuck up."
"I can do that."
Jackie shook his head. "Shit. Sal's gonna walk in here any minute and you're a fucking train wreck. You need a drink."
"Yeah."
"Sit."
"I'll get blood on your couch."
"The maid'll clean it up. Just sit."
Ray watched, feeling numb, as Jackie poured bourbon and tipped powder into the drink.
"See, Cuz," Jackie explained as he stirred. "It's not like snorting. It's a new thing, okay? You put it in your drink. It's a slower hit and you need more coke for it to work, but it lasts longer. Takes about an hour before you start coming down, and it's a slow comedown. It's not as hard, so Sal won't notice, and it'll really make you feel better."
"What?"
"Oh God, you really are out of it. Look, it's not poison, I'll have some too this once. It's good stuff."
Jackie turned to prepare another drink. "Go on. Bottoms up."
Maybe he really is trying to poison me.
Ray knocked it back in a gulp.
"Good man, Cuz."
By the time Ray had showered and changed into a fresh suit, he wasn't feeling pain – or anything – at all.
4:00pm
"Where the fuck was Johnny?" Ray asked as he and Rossetti slid into a booth together. The VIP suite was nearly empty, and had been swept just that morning for bugs – by both sides. They could speak here undisturbed.
Of course, Rossetti was wearing a wire – probably something very high tech in her necklace. He found himself staring at it, transfixed. To anyone else, it would just look like he was staring at her breasts.
"Ray," she said, "are you coming down off something?"
"I think I've come down," he said, blinking his way back to attention. "I just need some coffee now."
"You've been drinking," she reproached him. "It's been a hard day, but when did you start?"
"You didn't answer my question. Where the fuck was Johnny?" For a second he panicked. "They didn't kill him, did they?"
"No," she reassured him. "No, he's fine. It's just Nero phoned Pender before we got through to the station, so we had no way 'in' as your lawyer, since they'd never heard of us."
"Oh thank fuck for that," he muttered, "I thought I'd got another one killed." He frowned. "I wasn't there long though, even for a Mafia boss. I mean, they're investigating a murder – how come they let me out so suddenly?" His mind flitted sideways to another concern. "Last thing I needed was Jackie and fucking Pender 'looking out' for me –" Fuck, he couldn't concentrate on one thing… "You don't think the cops figured out it was…" Shit. He couldn't say it, even without Armando standing next to him. "Someone else," he finished. After all, he didn't know for sure it was Jackie.
"The higher-ups moved quickly to quash the investigation, so it's not going anywhere anyway. Don't worry – your cover hasn't been compromised, but the local PD now know that Langoustini's being actively investigated by the FBI."
"Oh, fucking marvellous. That'll get out, and the brothers will be all over it like flies on shit."
"Ray," she said, sounding – scripted, like she was a psychiatrist or something. Which, now that he thought of it, she probably was. Part of her field training or something… "What's been happening today? I know it's been a shock. How are you doing?"
How am I doing? I've just started taking coke, and I fucking like it. Not enough to stick it up my nose, but I bet I do it again. Shit. Who was he kidding? A week from now he'd be putting it up his nose if he had to – he'd already taken two of 'Jackie's specials.'
"I'm fine."
"Hannah died. You're not fine."
I'm not anything, he thought. I don't feel anything. Just … coming down.
"Leave it." He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, watched the bright spots flare and fade. "Leave me alone. She either killed herself, in which case it's my fault, or someone killed her because of me, in which case it's my fault. I made her miserable, I broke her heart, then she died." He made a dismissive little noise in his nose, not a snort. "'How am I doing?'" He looked across at her, not making any pretence of them being a romantic couple. "How do you think?"
Rossetti glanced around the dimness of the club. He followed her gaze. Some of the other booths were occupied, but nobody was paying them any attention. The other couples were either engaged in carnal activities, or doing drugs. If they noticed anything, it would be that the Bookman was having his first lover's tiff with Amelia. Rossetti stopped pretending to be romantic, and rolled her eyes. "You know why I have to ask…"
"Look, I asked you people to get her out. You didn't. Now she's dead."
"You tried to get her out, and she's still dead."
Ray paused. "How long you been bugging my office?"
"We didn't think you'd mind."
"I don't. What I do mind is you not telling me. Did you think I'd gone native?"
"Some of the higher-ups think it's a risk."
Ray started laughing. "So let them pull me. If that's what they think."
"Most of them don't think so."
"You know what I think? I think most of 'em don't think at all." Ray stood. Shit, times when he'd thought he was safe to talk to Mando, and the Feds had been listening. "I'm going."
"Come with me to the hotel, just till the fundraiser. It'll make it easier to avoid –"
"'Avoid the occasion of sin,'" Ray quoted. "Yeah, I know. But you know what? Fuck it. You people dropped me in this horseshit. If I wanna go and have a drink, I'll go and have a goddamn drink." She put a hand on his wrist, and he wrenched his arm away. "I'll see you tonight," he said, "at the fundraiser. You're my 'date,' so you can babysit me then."
11:30 pm
This thing was going to go till the small hours, and Ray wasn't sure he'd manage to last the night – he'd had his third ever 'Jackie cocktail,' and it worked like magic. Problem was, though the comedown wasn't a crash, it was still a big fucking comedown, and he could feel himself, just now, right on the cusp of coming down. He didn't want to keep swallowing the stuff – God knew what it was doing to his stomach. He'd seen what it did to people's noses.
But the brothers had nothing to complain about – he was doing his job with flair. So far he'd schmoozed, and rubbed shoulders, and gently menaced, depending on which tactic was necessary – and he'd raised them in excess of twenty-three million dollars in disaster relief for the people of Umbria and Marche. Sal was over with the show biz types, his arm around his goomah. Wonder how Margharita feels about it, Ray wondered. She was pregnant, again. How can Sal be a proud father to be, and parade his mistress around like that? Ray didn't talk to her – apparently Armando hadn't spoken to the woman in the ten years she and Sal had been an item. Something to do with her father being Portuguese, not Italian. She'd have been Sal's first choice, Ray thought, if she'd been Sicilian.
Damn… definitely coming down. His mind was wandering, he was feeling number and dumber by the second.
He wasn't asking for more of Jackie's stuff. He went out on the balcony, checked to be sure nobody was looking, and cracked a couple of dexies. He poured the grains on his tongue and swallowed with plain bourbon. Nowhere near ideal, but it would take the edge off.
"Hey, Cuz." Jackie ambled out after him. He was slurring slightly and looked half asleep. He could get away with it. His public persona was the clown of the court; Ray and Sal had to stay sharp. For a moment Ray envied Jackie that. He'd give anything not to have to pace himself so rigorously, to just get righteously shit-faced.
Jackie leaned his head against the wall and exhaled, his cigarette smoke ballooning up into the dark. Ray watched it, feeling floaty himself. The bright lights of Vegas reflected against the smoke, painting it pink and blue and green. Ray had never been to Canada in winter, but he bet that was what the Northern Lights would look like, distorted through someone's breath.
Jackie was still talking. "You know, you're putting on a good show in there. I heard a new joke about you. You wanna hear it?"
"Go on."
"They're saying the Bookman's got the dick of death. Everyone you fuck, dies." Jackie laughed and peered at Ray to see what reaction he would get.
"Maybe they got a point," Ray said. Irene, Sarah, Hannah – hell even Angie had lost their baby. Maybe we're cursed, he thought, me and Armando. We both lost everything.
'Don't be stupid,' his brother told him, out of the blue. 'Everybody dies.'
Jackie was still laughing. 'You think this guy's your friend, Mando?' Ray carefully addressed his brother in his head. 'Look at him. He spied on you, he knew about the drugs, and he didn't help you, he supplied you. He's not your friend.'
'He's my cousin.'
'He hates you.'
Ray felt his brother's pang of pain sharply in his chest, as vividly as if he'd been knifed. How many days since he'd remembered to take his anti whatchumacallit meds?
'It's you he hates,' Armando said, 'not me. He knows you're different, he doesn't know why. But he would never have hurt me.'
"You want another pick-me-up, Cuz?"
"No," Ray watched the man carefully. "I'm good."
"You are?"
"Yeah."
Jackie seemed to be working up to something, but since Ray didn't have a clue what it was, it was best to say nothing.
Jackie opened his eyes, and Ray jerked a little. The guy had been drinking, but he was wide-awake, and sharp as a snake.
"You liked our little whore, didn't you?"
You fucking piece of shit…
Ray smiled. "Honey? Yeah. She was a lotta fun."
"Huh." Jackie's face glowed red for a moment as the tip of his cigarette brightened. "Well, so long as that's all it was. Fun."
He breathed out and stepped toward the balustrade. Smoke furled from his nostrils, as though he was a dragon. He stood against the skyline, surveying his kingdom.
"Why? What do you think it was?"
"I think she looked at you like the sun shone out your bony ass." Jackie took one last drag, then flicked his cigarette over the balcony. Little sparks followed it as it curved away into darkness. "I don't care if some whore got her heart broken." His profile was swallowed up by shadows. "I care about you," he said. "Did you fall for the bitch?"
I could push him. Ray looked down over the balcony, at the long, long drop. He wouldn't be expecting it. I could wait till he's looking away, and push him…
Jackie closed his eyes, and leant forward, elbows on the railing. I'll tell 'em he was drunk, he stumbled – they'll look at his blood alcohol, and they won't be able to prove any different…
Ray swallowed. His throat was dry. There stood Armando, next to Jackie. The ghost fixed his gaze on Ray, and challenged him. 'Go on then, if you think you can. I dare you.'
"Let's get another drink," Ray said, stepping back from the edge. Armando smiled – as though he'd known all along his cousin was safe, that Ray didn't have it in him.
"Yeah," Jackie turned toward him, opened his eyes. That man never said 'no' to a drink.
Ray put an arm across Jackie's shoulder, and walked them back into the ballroom. I still got a job to do. I'm a murderer, but I ain't gonna murder someone today. He could feel it, starting in his chest, shivers. He dropped his arm from Jackie, so the man wouldn't feel him shake.
"You didn't answer my question. Did you fall for the bitch?"
"I don't have to answer."
"If Sal asks, you'll have to."
"When Sal asks, I will. Hey, Jackie, I got a question of my own."
"Oh yeah?"
"You kill her?"
Jackie turned to him, and smiled. "I didn't have to, did I? Bitch killed herself."
Ray paused, then smiled back. "I saw the crime scene, you know. Idiots thought they might shock me into a confession or something."
"Oh yeah?" Jackie lifted his drink to his lips and sipped, thoughtfully. "So?"
"She was dead before they put her in the water. The cops'll notice that."
"You figured this out yourself?"
"You know me, Cuz. I'm a clever man. "
"Well, if someone did it, they'd have hired a professional."
"I hope so. Or at least someone expendable. Whoever did it fucked up. Really sloppy work; definitely not a pro."
The flash of fear and uncertainty on Jackie's face was barely noticeable, but Ray was watching for it; it was unmistakeable. There, he thought, I've got you.
Ray knew. Absolutely knew. You killed her yourself, you piece of shit.
Ray turned from his enemy, flashed the bitter thought at his brother: 'I shoulda pushed him'
'You couldn't. He's your cousin.'
'Fuck you, Mando.'
"Oh look," he said to Jackie, in smooth tones. "There's Amelia talking to the Senator's wife. I'd better go join 'em – see what blood we can squeeze from that stone."
"Yeah, you do that, Cuz." Jackie sounded like there was nothing going on between them. "I'll go see how Pender's doing."
Armando stayed with Jackie. Ray joined Rossetti, and hit up the Congressman's wife for three quarters of a million. ('Write it off against tax,' 'poor orphans in tents this winter,' 'Italian community pulling together to help itself, not relying on outside aid…')
And this time, when he started to flag, he let Rossetti make excuses, and followed her obediently to the hotel.
2:43am
Johnny was waiting in the hotel suite, and Ray shocked them both by hugging the man. "Shit, I thought for a while there they'd killed you."
"No, just a paperwork snaffoo…" Johnny backed out of the hug, with an embarrassed 'what the fuck' grin on his face.
"I can't debrief now," Ray said. "Please don't ask me. Can it wait till tomorrow?"
"Give us your watch and let us do some blood tests –"
"Oh great." He looked from Rossetti to Johnny and back again. "You're gonna love what Jackie put in my drink."
"He what?"
"Apparently I'm an Aztec now, they drank coke as well, didn't they? I mean, not coca cola I mean –"
"You mean you've had coke?" Johnny was pale.
"How much?" Rossetti asked, more pragmatically.
"I don't know. All I know is my stomach's killing me, I want some fucking buttermilk, and I really don't think I'm doing it again." At that moment it seemed unlikely.
"I thought the brothers didn't want you on drugs," Johnny said, slowly. "Or, at least – they accepted it as inevitable up until the Muldoon deal, then they wanted you to get clean. So…"
"So why is Jackie trying to escalate your consumption?" Rossetti finished the sentence. "He knew about Armando's addiction, he must know that if Armando was a coke addict this will just trigger the old cravings. Why would he want you to –?"
"He's trying to get me killed, but he doesn't want to do it himself." The moment he said it, Ray realised he had known it for months. And then he suddenly realised something else. "Oh – oh God."
"What?"
Ray sat with a whumph on the bed.
'Don't say it.' His brother was leaning threateningly into his face. 'Don't you dare fucking say it. It isn't true.'
"You know it's true, Mando. You know it is."
Johnny followed Ray's gaze, eyes so sharp that for a moment Ray thought he could see his brother too. Rossetti sat beside Ray, and lightly touched his face, a deliberately grounding gesture.
"What," she said, "what does Mando know?"
'Please." Mando looked desperate now. "Don't say it.'
"What, you think if I don't say it, it won't be true?"
'He wouldn't.' Mando's hand was gripping a lamp, his knuckles the colour of bone. 'He wouldn't, he wouldn't. He loved me.'
"Mando," Ray covered his face against his brother's grief. "It wasn't Onofri behind the hit at all. He was being used, like the Greek was. He thought he was in charge, but he was just another patsy. Jackie was behind the whole thing."
Even the Feds heard the noise Armando made. The lamp shattered. A cold wind cracked through the room and all the lights went out.