BELLA MAFIA (36 page)

Dante had closed his club, paid off the staff, and was moving as fast as was humanly possible.

When Dario Biaze returned, Dante knew the gunsmith had been taken care of. That left only Luka; then Dante would be safe.

"I'm getting out," he told Dario. "I'll come back when the heat's off. I suggest you do the same. There's a club up in Trapani; you take your wife and kids." He stacked the lire on the desk, and the big, broken hands of the ex-boxer couldn't grab at them fast enough. Dante reached down to stop him.

"Wait . . . You'll get ten times this, but I want Luka taken care of. Neither of us can trust him; he's crazy. How many kids do you know could kill their own father?"

The big hands didn't move. The watery eyes blinked; then Dario nodded.

Dante slowly lifted his hands away, saw Dario hesitate. . . . He put another bundle of money down. "Ten times ..."

Dante waited until he heard the heavy, plodding footsteps pause at the front door, waited until it banged shut, then got a black satchel and started loading it with money, making two more trips to the safe. The gun went in last. Dario Biaze would never reach Tapani; he knew too much. When he came to collect his payoff, Dante would kill him. This one he had to do himself.

He carried the bag into the dark area of the bar and put it down near the till. Then he returned to his office and worked for almost an hour.

Satisfied, he went back to the stocktaking in the bar. He paid little attention to the rattling of the door chain at the fire exit, believing it was a customer who didn't realize the club was closed. Then his mind raced; no customer would try to come in the back way. . . .

The door rattled again, and he stood poised, listening. Finally he made his way through the curtained archway toward the fire exit to see who was there.

He called out that the club was closed. There was silence, and he listened, then took a heavy bunch of keys from his pocket and unfastened the padlock, pushing the doors open slightly. He stepped out and looked up and down the back alley. He could see no one. As he was about to relock the doors, he heard a noise, this time inside the club, in the bar.

"Dario? Is that you?"

Dante moved slowly backward, standing half hidden behind the curtains, and peered through the gloom. There was only the working light behind the bar. . . .

"Dario?" He squinted, screwing his eyes up to see more clearly. He looked over the tables, the stacked chairs, and moved farther into the room, almost to the edge of the dance floor.

"Hi, okay if I help myself?"

Luka appeared from behind the bar. He was holding a glass of orange juice, raised slightly as if in a toast. "You see the news on the television?"

Dante's heart stopped for a moment. "How did you get in? Dario with you?"

Luka sat on a high stool and sipped his juice. He was wearing a shirt, no jacket, and it was obvious he wasn't carrying a gun. "No, came through the front door; it was open."

Dante swore under his breath; that fool Dario hadn't shut it properly. He kept a frozen smile on his face.

Luka dug into his pocket and brought out a bullet, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. "Here, you want a keepsake? We made two, just in case, but . . . Is he taken care of? The gunsmith?"

Dante poured himself a brandy. "Yeah, Dario—It's done." He took a gulp of brandy. "I've closed the place, gonna lie low until the heat dies down. I've been stuffing a bag with some dough for you."

"That's thoughtful, but where's the heat, man? They don't have a fucking clue; they've got nothing. . . ."

Dante had inched farther behind the bar as he talked. He had to get to the bag, to the gun; it was propped up beside the till. Luka's wide eyes looked at Dante, then at the bag.

"How much did ya put in there for me?"

Dante put his glass down. "A few thousand dollars, could be more. Should last you awhile, and later we can get down to sorting through the rest." He bent down for the bag, his back to Luka. "You want to count it?" His hand was in the bag, feeling for the gun. The touch of the cold metal gave him confidence. He smiled, looked up, and froze. Through the mirror, Luka could see every move he made.

Luka quickly shifted his glass to his left hand, flicked his arm up a fraction and down again until he felt the knife slide down his arm. He cupped it in the palm of his hand. They stared at each other. Then Luka smiled warmly. "I guess I can trust you. What's a few thousand dollars between friends?"

As Luka said the word "friends," Dante fired, through the bag, through a wad of dollars. The glass of orange juice slipped from Luka's fingers and rolled onto the floor, intact. Luka didn't even feel the bullet smash into his shoulder, he was moving so fast. The knife sliced into Dante's stomach, ripped through the muscle, the blade so fine and sharp it was like a razor.

The gun was still in Dante's hand inside the torn bag. He tried to hit Luka with the bag, but Luka dragged it away from him. Dante began howling and gibbering, clutching his stomach, blood streaming between his fingers. He made a desperate effort to get clear of the bar, knocking bottles to the floor.

As agile and fast as the cat Dante had once called him, Luka wrenched the bag open, took out the gun, then swung up and over the bar. He faced the terrified man and fired twice, aiming once at Dante's throat and again into his heart. The big man wouldn't go down; the impact of the bullets at such close range threw him backward into the rows of glasses, but he was still standing. Luka was about to fire again when, in slow motion, Dante died on his feet. He gurgled as his lungs filled with blood. It oozed from his mouth as he crashed backward and finally lay still.

Luka stared at himself in the splintered mirror. He was fascinated to see his shoulder covered in blood, spreading over his shirt, dripping down his arm. . . . He had been hit, and only then did the burning pain cut through his brain like a scream.

The bullet was lodged deep in his left shoulder blade. Part of his shirtfront was covered with bits of the bag and dollar bills. He knew he had to get out, and fast; three shots had been fired, and someone must have heard. He hurried to a table to collect his own bag and carried it back to the bar. The pain was now so fierce that he felt dizzy; it was useless trying to salvage any of the cash Dante had stalled him with. Instead, he went to the office and kicked open the door. He put the bag on the desk and went to the safe.

The door was wide open. . . . He was just about to start filling his bag when he heard the chains on the fire exit door rattle. . . .

Luka staggered and dropped the bag. He turned toward the bar and heard the door rattle again. Then a woman's voice called, "Is anyone there?" He switched off the one light behind the bar and picked up the gun. Again he stumbled.

Another woman's voice: "It's open, Teresa, it's open. . . . It's all right, there're lights on, somebody's in there. . . ."

Sophia pushed the door farther open, then peered into the dark corridor. "Is anyone here? Hello . . . Anyone here?"

Luka entered the cloakroom, leaving the door open no more than a crack, and stared out. Sophia appeared in the doorway from the main room, Teresa behind her.

They peered around in the gloom. Then Teresa whispered, "You see an office? Maybe there's someone in the office. Hello?"

Teresa made her way to a door marked "Private." She knocked and waited, then swung the door open wide. Sophia remained standing on the dance floor.

From his vantage point behind the door, Luka could see Sophia clearly. He gritted his teeth, wishing the women would get the hell out of there. The pain was beginning to burn, and the blood dripped down his hand. He was losing a lot, and fast.

Sophia looked around, puzzled that the doors should be unlocked, wondering why there was every sign that somebody was there yet there was no one. Something on the bar gleamed where it caught the light, and she walked toward it. It was Luka's bullet, and she was just reaching for it when Teresa called from the office doorway.

Her voice was full of excitement. "Sophia, I found them! The safe was open. There are papers on the company, the warehouses. . . . Everything's here. Without these he's got no proof of anything."

Teresa went back to the office, and Sophia turned away from the bar. She was only a few feet from Dante's body, and her foot struck Dante's bag. She bent down and picked it up, then stood up quickly. Her hand was stained and sticky, but in the darkness she couldn't tell what it was.

"Sophia, come in here. Hurry!" Teresa called from the office. The safe door was wide open, and she was eagerly removing file after file. "Holy Mother of God, you should see what some of these are. . . . Look at this!"

Sophia said quickly, "Just take our contracts, Teresa, nothing else. And hurry." She picked up Luka's bag and handed it to Teresa. "Here, put everything in this."

Teresa brought out stacks of lire and dollars.

"Take the contracts and nothing more. You leave the money.
Leave it.
Let's get out of here."

Sophia went around behind the bar. Now she could see all the broken glass. She inched forward, the glass crackling beneath her feet. Then she screamed.

Teresa ran to the dance floor. Sophia, still behind the bar, was backing away and pointing in horror. "He's dead! He's dead! Oh, my God . . ."

Teresa leaned over the bar and then turned away. The sight of the body made her sick to her stomach. Sophia tried to pull her away.

"We've got to get out of here."

Teresa stepped back. "Do you think I don't know that? Who is it? Did you see who it was?"

"No . . . Come on, please let's go, please," said Sophia, almost weeping with fear.

Teresa glared, told Sophia to pull herself together, and walked around the bar to look down at the body. "Is this Dante? Sophia?"

"I don't know. How do I know? I've never even met him."

After a moment's hesitation Teresa rolled the body over and slipped her hand into the back pocket of the corpse's trousers. She flipped open his wallet. "It's Dante." She touched his hand. "And he's still warm. This must have just happened. What do you think we should do? I mean, do we call the police, or what?"

Carrying Luka's bag, which she had stuffed to bursting with papers, Teresa slithered on the wet blood, and her high heels gave way beneath her. She screamed, and panic-stricken, the two women turned and ran for it.

As soon as Teresa and Sophia arrived home, they shut themselves in the study. Teresa began tipping the files from the bag they had picked up in the club. There were stacks and stacks of papers and, to Sophia's fury, bundles of banknotes.

"I told you not to take any money."

"I didn't mean to. I just swept everything into the bag. I swear I didn't mean to take the money. . . . It's not much; it was an accident." She tipped out the rest of the contents of the bag, Luka's bag. The separated parts of his cane gun clattered out; the heavy top section slipped off the desk and fell on her foot. She swore in agony.

Sophia turned over the strange horse's head on the short piece of cane. She checked the handles of the bag; they were covered in blood.

Teresa saw them too. She touched the bag. "Look at the handles of the bag. Give it to me, Sophia. It's blood. Is this his bag?"

Sophia's voice rose. "I don't know. How would I know whose bag it is?"

Teresa paced up and down. "What if this bag belongs to someone else, someone who shot Dante? He was still warm when I touched him. What if it happened just before we got there? What if we disturbed the killer?"

Sophia couldn't get her breath. She gasped, "Oh, God, we should have gone to the police."

Teresa shouted, "Don't you understand? Don't you see that if we disturbed the killer, he could still have been there? Could also have seen us? He would have seen us taking the papers from the office."

Sophia's nerves were in shreds. "Don't shout, you want to wake Mama?"

Teresa seemed frozen; she stood staring into space.

"Are you okay?" asked Sophia. She watched as Teresa turned slowly around, her eyes searching the room. "Teresa, what's the matter?"

"Where's my handbag?"

"What?"

"My handbag, where is it? Did you bring it back with you?"

"Do you mean from the club? I didn't even see it. Did you take it?"

"Oh, my God, please, God, don't say I left it there."

They searched the car, they searched the study, and Teresa became more and more panic-stricken. When Sophia tried to calm her, she became hysterical.

"Don't you understand? Are you stupid? If whoever shot Dante was still there, and he finds my handbag, he not only saw us but now knows exactly who we are."

Sophia snapped back, "Don't blame me. It's
your
handbag.
You left it, not me."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry . . . But we'll have to go back. Give me the bag we brought from there, and I'll replace it."