Chapter 10
Ringo
Never underestimate women. This was impressed upon me from a very early age.
Un-sainted mother aside, Don Manca raised me on tales of Sardinian pirate queens, spooky crones who dressed in black and took their euthanasia gig from door to door, and one really scary goddess who not only wove the thread of your life, she cut it, too.
Add to the mix all the aunties, grandmotherly types, and everyday women who loved those crazy outlaws, and I should have picked her out right away.
A Fed.
Sure, Ellie didn’t come right out and say it.
That made things a little difficult to understand, but she knew enough to warn me from the middle-aged woman with pampered feet.
One of Mario’s cousins owned the same pair of heavy-duty, all-purpose walking shoes.
They didn’t slip, they didn’t creak, and they made it easy to run, climb, kick, and be a general nuisance.
She was also cleared to do jobs on her own.
Which meant, dangerous.
And as soon as I saw those shoes, I knew my problems in Chicago had just multiplied. The agent knew where Ellie lived. I knew that because she got into the car I followed last night. She took her time before driving off. I stared at her empty space, wondering what her angle was.
“Hey stranger, you looking for a good time?”
Ellie leaned against the car on the driver’s side, breaking my concentration.
“Get out of the street.” I shifted to exit the car and get her back on the sidewalk where she’d be safe... er.
“Give me the keys.”
“You’re not driving my car.”
“You had alcohol tonight, buddy. I’m driving.”
“It was an hour ago.” I opened the passenger door for her.
Ellie scanned me up and down and relented. “I’m getting in under protest. If you wreck with me in the car I’m haunting you.”
“It takes a lot more than two ounces of premium whiskey to get me drunk. That’s one thing I inherited from the lush.” I helped her get her seatbelt free so she could buckle it.
She caught my hand. “Is your mother really that bad?”
Now wasn’t the time for analysis. I gave her as brief of an answer as I could without opening myself up to a longer discussion. “She dumped me at boarding school so her husband wouldn’t find out about me.”
Ellie’s face fell.
I circled the car to sit in the driver’s seat.
As I did, I scanned for dark sedans and anything out of place.
Nothing seemed wrong. The streets were almost dead.
But as in any big city, there was traffic, albeit sparse, and some action near the intersection where a late bus picked up passengers.
Normality. Or as normal as life could be for me.
I started the car. I hit the seat warmers so Ellie would be more comfortable, then started south.
My rental would be safer than her condo. But it was also almost a half hour away, even with the non-existent traffic. I pulled into the lane and circled her block before pulling in the parking lot.
“I’d thought you’d missed the place at first.”
“I’m being careful.”
She turned to face me. “Orders?”
I nodded. It was time to remind myself that I was here on business, not pleasure. Ellie would be safer if I wasn’t visible in her life. What kind of insanity had gripped me when I promised to be at that party on Saturday?
“Well. Thanks for the ride.”
Her hand hit the handle, and I barked out, “Stop.”
She huffed and crossed her hands on her lap. “What now?”
“Let me open your car door and walk you inside. Please?”
After visible but silent argument with herself, she shrugged. “You’re going to do it anyway.”
Damn right I was. I opened her door and kept her on my weak side so I could draw on anyone stupid enough to approach. When we got inside the lobby, I demanded the keys.
“Stay in the hall.”
“I hate you.”
It wasn’t said with venom, just frustration. I’d usually quip back that the feeling was mutual, but it wasn’t. I was so far gone I couldn’t even lie about it anymore. I slipped the key in, but before opening the door made her stand to the side where the wall would take the punch out of any bullets.
Nothing but darkness. Good.
I scanned the room for any unusual shadows or telltale smells or sounds that signaled danger. Something was in the air, but perhaps I imagined it.
Behind me, Ellie flicked on the light.
I blinked the temporary blindness away. “Warn me before you do that.”
“Not everyone was born half cat like you were.” Her sarcasm floated in the air behind her as she moved to the kitchen. I checked the corners, the spare bedroom, the bathroom with her little signs and tchotchkes, then opened her bedroom door.
The air was cold.
I slipped my gun out and hugged the wall. The shadows were all harmless. The broken window, not.
“Hey Ringo did you want a cup of— oh shit.”
My heart rate damn near tripled. I tried my best to not yell at her. “Ellie, please stand in the hallway, and don’t go near the windows. Please?”
She put her hand on my shoulder before doing as I asked.
I knew she wanted to argue, but probably took one look at the unmade bed, the broken window, and the general disorder of her room and understood why I was being so careful.
Her suitcases had been dumped onto the floor. Their contents mixed, searched, and trampled. The dresser where she kept her jewelry displayed like a decorating theme, ransacked. There was broken glass under the window.
I checked the frame for blood. None. That told me whoever had squeezed through the tiny frame was a pro, or at least wise enough to knock out all the glass and wear gloves on their hands before coming through.
Her nightstands were open. The contents strewn onto the bed. A photo of her and Allie was tossed carelessly amongst the covers.
A stain peeked out from the jumble of sheets.
I picked up the comforter to see if it was blood.
It wasn’t. And that made things much worse.
While I was out hunting down the men who’d betrayed the Conti family, Johnny was doing more than hunting here.
“Is it okay to come in yet?”
I wanted to tell her no. I dropped the blanket so it would cover the evidence. “Yeah. Grab some things, check what’s missing, and pack a bag.”
Her eyes were wide as she flicked on the light and took in the disorder. They bounced from one disaster zone to another. “Was I robbed?”
Considering they didn’t touch the rest of the house? Probably not. “Check your jewelry.”
She shrugged. “Most of it is cheap. I don’t keep the good stuff on display.”
With that, she crouched down to pull the bottom drawer of her dresser out.
She reached inside and pulled out two little canvas bags.
After undoing the drawstrings, she dumped the contents onto a T-shirt that had been tossed to the floor.
“Looks like it’s all good. They didn’t even get my wedding ring. ”
A growl threatened to spill out of my throat. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t say something evil. She wore that damn thing the first two full days of the trip. It sat on her finger like a warning sign constantly reminding me why I shouldn’t feel the things I felt.
But I did.
And she did.
Then I laid down the law. “Take that ring off. You’re not married. And it makes you a target.” It had. Carnival attracted all the tourists, and with them thieves of all varieties.
She put it in that little powder blue velvet box and tucked it into her suitcase. Thank goodness she’d moved it to her stash spot somewhere between landing and now.
Her eyes landed on the bed and they narrowed. “Tell me that son of bitch didn’t—“ she bounced to her feet and flipped the sheets to the floor.
The wet stain glistened in the overhead light. “That motherfucker.”
“Pack your things, baby. We’re not staying here.”
She stared at the spot. The photo of her and her twin canted like an arrow pointing to the history of the event.
Ellie’s mouth fell open to talk, but stayed quiet. She finally mastered herself and grabbed a suitcase.
As she picked through her things on the floor, I got a cloth from her cleaning closet and wiped off the photo frame before handing it to her. “Take this with you.”
Her chin wobbled once, but she stiffened her expression until she’d mastered her emotions. “Thank you.”
I handed her things she’d need, but soon discovered that it was a futile effort.
If Johnny hadn’t soiled her clothes with his shoes, he’d violated them other ways.
After the third pair of sliced underwear, I gave up and directed Ellie to retrieve her shampoo and makeup.
I was done wading through his filth. I dialed another number.
Conti-Messina answered.
I bypassed all the pleasantries we both knew were false. “Who do you have on payroll with expertise in setting up mistresses?”
Ellie bugged her eyes out at me. “Mistresses? Plural?” she mouthed, threatening me with her angry eyes.
As I got the reply, I wrote down the phone number he gave me.
“Excellent,” I said to end the conversation. But he wasn’t done.
“Do you have a mistress?”
That was none of Alfonzo’s business. I hung up instead of replying. I dialed the number he gave me. A woman answered. “Alfonzo Conti-Messina recommended you. I have a woman who needs her life restored. How soon can you make that happen?”
I watched Ellie’s anger fade to concern. It intensified as I packed what we could salvage into my trunk. “Are we going to a hotel? I can pay.”
I slammed the lid a little too hard. “Get in the car.”
“You didn’t open the door for me.”
Even upset, scared, and fleeing her home she had sass.
“Apologies, amòre miàu.” The words spilled out unbidden. But I wasn’t going to walk them back. Thankfully, she didn’t understand what I said and settled into the passenger seat without calling out my slip.
When I pulled away from her place, she broke the silence. “You know what’s weird?”
I braced myself for something guaranteed to knock me off balance. “What?”
“You know five languages, but only claim to be able spell correctly in four. Why is that?”
Not what I was expecting. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I mean, you slip into that really weird sounding Italian around Mario and the guys on the island. And I noticed that even Allie doesn’t understand what you guys say. So, it has to be a separate language, right?”
When had we slipped up? It was forbidden to speak the language in front of outsiders.
“It’s just a dialect. Like Creole is to French or a Boston accent is to English.
It’s still Italian.” The lie tasted wrong on my tongue.
Technically, it was closer to the common Latin spoken before the Roman Empire.
In the north, the language was further transformed by Corsican influence and inflections unique to that language.
She stared at me.
“What?”
“Have you ever learned how to write it?”
“No.”
“See? Weird.” She settled into her seat, smug in her assumptions.
“You don’t write it down.”
Her lips pursed. “One of those...things, huh?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
Her eyes traced the scenery for a minute. “You know, if you take the Dan Ryan, you’ll miss a lot of lights.”
“Do you even know where we’re going?”
“No, but I’d assume somewhere on par with your little hitman’s hideaway that you showed off that one night.”
This woman... “First, that little hideaway is eleven-hundred square meters. Second...” damn it she was brilliant. “Fine, where do you think we’re going?”
“Lake Shore Drive. That’s where all the fancy condos are.”
“Where is this Dan Ryan street?”
“It’s not a street, it’s an interstate.” The offense in her voice was clear.
“I’m supposed to know that?”
Ellie laughed at me. “I guess the internationally famous hitman doesn’t know everything does he?”
“Ellie...”
“Turn left, follow the signs for 57.”
I did as she directed.
“You drive like shit.”
“I do not. I took lessons from Timo Bernard.”
“Get your money back. You’re going to get eaten alive during rush hour.”
“Timo Bernard is one of the best drivers in the world.”
She stared at me. “Then you didn’t learn much. Exit.”
I cut across two lanes to make the exit she pointed at so casually. It dumped me off under the expressway. The location was sketchier than the railway warehouse I’d visited earlier. “This isn’t safe.”
“Welcome to Chicago. Turn right at the KFC.”
“The what?”
She groaned in frustration. “Kentucky Fried Chicken, surely you’ve had the truly American gourmet dining experience of chicken in a bucket, right?”
“Don’t make fun of me.” A memory flashed through my head. “If you do, I’ll tell you the story about how Don Manca taught me how to make pollo al guazzetto from the coop to the table.”
“I’ll pass. What’s the address for your current Hotel Continental.”
“We’re not staying at a hotel.”
“Don’t you watch—nevermind. Address?”
I rattled it off.
“Oh, we should have stayed on the Stevenson.”
“I thought we were on the Dan Ryan?”
She let out a mighty sigh. “Pull over.”
“No.”
“Listen, you don’t belong behind the wheel if you can’t understand the freeway system here.”
“Maybe if it made sense, I could.”
She huffed.
Luckily, the streets took on familiarity, and I navigated to the high-rise building without her aid.
Ellie craned her head to peer at the facade just before I drove into the underground parking level. I flashed my card at the gate and wound through the levels to find my reserved space.
I warned her, “Don’t touch that handle,” then popped the trunk, grabbed her suitcase, and opened her door.
She affected an awful accent and spouted off something that sounded like, “Thank you, Jeeves. Lead on, my good man.”
Crazy. Certifiably so.
And I wasn’t referencing Ellie. I was talking about myself. The way things were going I’d have to check myself in somewhere. Or perhaps disappear for years in the mountains to get my head on straight again. That’s how badly she’d tied me up in knots.
And as she slumped against me in the elevator, I knew I’d do it all again, a thousand times over.