Rage of Angels (26 page)

“I’m in a hurry, officer.”

Two minutes later the police car, red light flashing, was guiding the limousine past the wreckage on the road. When they were clear of the traffic, the sergeant got out of the police car and walked back to the limousine.

“Can I give you an escort somewhere, Mr. Moretti?”

“No, thank you,” Michael said. “Come and see me Monday.” To Nick Vito: “Move it!”

7:30
A.M.

The neon sign in front read:

BROOKSIDE MOTEL

SINGLES—DOUBLES

DAILY AND WEEKLY RATES

INDIVIDUALES–DOBLES

PRECIOS ESPECIALES

Joseph Colella and Salvatore Fiore sat in their car across from Bungalow 7. A few minutes earlier they had heard a
thump from inside, so they knew that Frank Jackson was still there.

We oughta jump in and cool him,
Fiore thought. But Michael Moretti had given instructions.

They settled back to wait.

7:45
A.M.

Inside Bungalow 7, Frank Jackson was making his final preparations. The boy was a disappointment. He had fainted. Jackson had wanted to wait until Joshua regained consciousness before the other nails were driven in, but it was getting late. He picked up the can of gasoline and sprinkled it across the boy’s body, careful not to let it touch that beautiful face. He visualized the body under the pajamas and wished that he had time to—but, no, that would be foolish. Clara would be here any moment. He must be ready to leave when she arrived. He reached in his pockets, pulled out a box of matches, and set them neatly beside the can of gasoline, the hammer and the nails. People simply did not appreciate how important neatness was.

Frank Jackson looked at his watch again and wondered what was keeping Clara.

7:50
A.M.

Outside Bungalow 7, the limousine skidded to a stop and Michael Moretti jumped out of the car. The two men in the sedan hurried over to join him.

Joseph Colella pointed to Bungalow 7. “He’s in there.”

“What about the kid?”

The big man shrugged. “Dunno. Jackson’s got the curtains drawn.”

“Should we go in now and take him?” Salvatore Fiore asked.

“Stay here.”

The two men looked at him in surprise. He was a
caporegime.
He had soldiers to make hits for him while he sat back in safety. And yet he was going in himself. It was not right.

Joseph Colella said, “Boss, Sal and I can—”

But Michael Moretti was already moving to the door of Bungalow 7, a gun fitted with a silencer in his hand. He paused for a second to listen, then stepped back and smashed the door open with one powerful kick.

Moretti took in the scene in a single frozen moment: the bearded man kneeling on the floor beside the small boy; the boy’s hand nailed to the floor, the room reeking of gasoline.

The bearded man had turned toward the door and was staring at Michael. The last sounds he ever uttered were, “You’re not C1—”

Michael’s first bullet took him in the center of his forehead. The second bullet shattered his pharynx, and the third bullet took him in the heart. But by that time he no longer felt anything.

Michael Moretti stepped to the door and waved to the two men outside. They hurried into the cabin. Michael Moretti knelt beside the boy and felt his pulse. It was thin and thready, but he was still alive. He turned to Joseph Colella.

“Call Doc Petrone. Tell him we’re on our way over.”

9:30
A.M.

The instant the telephone rang, Jennifer snatched it up, squeezing it tightly. “Hello!”

Michael Moretti’s voice said, “I’m bringing your son home.”

Joshua was whimpering in his sleep. Jennifer leaned over and put her arms around him, holding him gently. He had been asleep when Michael had carried him into the house. When Jennifer had seen Joshua’s unconscious body, his wrists
and ankles heavily bandaged, his body swathed in gauze, she had nearly gone out of her mind. Michael had brought the doctor with him and it had taken him half an hour to reassure Jennifer that Joshua was going to be all right.

“His hand will heal,” the doctor assured her. “There will be a small scar there, but fortunately no nerves or tendons were damaged. The gasoline burns are superficial. I bathed his body in mineral oil. I’ll look in on him for the next few days. Believe me, he’s going to be fine.”

Before the doctor left, Jennifer had him attend to Mrs. Mackey.

Joshua had been put to bed and Jennifer stayed at his side, waiting to reassure him when he awakened. He stirred now and his eyes opened.

When he saw his mother, he said tiredly, “I knew you’d come, Mom. Did you give the man the ransom money?”

Jennifer nodded, not trusting her voice.

Joshua smiled. “I hope he buys too much candy with the money and gets a stomachache. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

She whispered, “Very funny, darling. Do you know what you and I are going to do next week? I’m going to take you to—”

Joshua was asleep again.

It was hours later when Jennifer walked back into the living room. She was surprised to see that Michael Moretti was still there. Somehow it reminded her of the first time she had met Adam Warner, when he had waited for her in her little apartment.

“Michael—” It was impossible to find the words. “I—I can’t tell you how—how grateful I am.”

He looked at her and nodded.

She forced herself to ask the question. “And—and Frank Jackson?”

“He won’t bother anyone again.”

So it was over. Joshua was safe. Nothing else mattered.

Jennifer looked at Michael Moretti and thought,
I owe him so much. How can I ever repay him
?

Michael was watching her, wrapped in silence.

Jennifer Parker stood naked, staring out of the large picture window that overlooked the Bay of Tangier. It was a beautiful, crisp autumn day and the bay was filled with skimming white sails and deep-throated power boats. Half a dozen large yachts bobbed at anchor in the harbor. Jennifer felt his presence and turned.

“Like the view?”

“Love it.”

He looked at her naked body. “So do I.” His hands were on her breasts, caressing them. “Let’s go back to bed.”

His touch made Jennifer shiver. He demanded things that no man had ever dared ask of her, and he did things to her that had never been done to her before.

“Yes, Michael.”

They walked back into the bedroom and there, for one fleeting moment, Jennifer thought of Adam Warner, and then she forgot everything except what was happening to her.

Jennifer had never known anyone like Michael Moretti. He was insatiable. His body was athletic, lean and hard, and it became a part of Jennifer’s body, catching her up in its own frenzy, carrying her along on a rising wave of pounding excitement
that went on and on until she wanted to scream with a wild joy. When they had finished making love and Jennifer lay there, spent, Michael began once more, and Jennifer was caught up with him again and again in an ecstasy that became almost too much to bear.

Now he lay on top of her, staring into her flushed, happy face. “You love it, don’t you, baby?”

“Yes.”

There was a shame in it, a shame at how much she needed him, needed his lovemaking.

Jennifer remembered the first time.

It was the morning Michael Moretti had brought Joshua safely back home. Jennifer had known that Frank Jackson was dead and that Michael Moretti had killed him. The man standing in front of her had saved her son for her, had killed for her. It filled Jennifer with some deep, primordial feeling.

“How can I thank you?” Jennifer had asked.

And Michael Moretti had walked over to her, taken her in his arms and kissed her. Out of some old loyalty to Adam, Jennifer had pretended to herself that it would end with that kiss; but instead, it became a beginning. She knew what Michael Moretti was, and yet all that counted as nothing against what he had done. She stopped thinking and let her emotions take over.

They went upstairs to her bedroom, and Jennifer told herself that she was repaying Michael for what he had done for her, and then they were in bed and it was an experience beyond anything that Jennifer had ever dreamed.

Adam Warner had made love to her, but Michael Moretti possessed her. He filled every inch of her body with exquisite sensations. It was as though he were making love in bright, flashing colors, and the colors kept changing from one moment to the next, like some wonderful kaleidoscope. One moment he made love gently and sensitively, and the next moment he
was cruel and pounding and demanding, and the changes made Jennifer frantic. He withdrew from her, teasing her, making her want more, and when she was on the verge of fulfillment he pulled away.

When she could stand it no longer, she begged, “Please take me! Take me!”

And his hard organ began to pound into her again until she screamed with pleasure. She was no longer a woman paying back a debt. She was a slave to something she had never known before. Michael stayed with her for four hours, and when he left, Jennifer knew that her life had changed.

She lay in her bed thinking about what had happened, trying to understand it. How could she be so much in love with Adam and still have been so overwhelmed by Michael Moretti? Thomas Aquinas had said that when you got to the heart of evil, there was nothing there. Jennifer wondered if it was also true of love. She was aware that part of what she had done was out of a deep loneliness. She had lived too long with a phantom, a man she could neither see nor have, yet she knew she would always love Adam. Or was it just a memory of that love?

Jennifer was not sure what she felt about Michael. Gratitude, yes. But that was a small part of it. It was more. Much more. She knew who and what Michael Moretti was. He had killed for her, but he had killed for others, too. He had murdered men for money, for power, for vengeance. How could she feel as she did about a man like that? How could she have let him make love to her and have been so excited by him? She was filled with a sense of shame and she thought,
What kind of person am I
?

She had no answer.

The afternoon newspapers reported the story of a fire in a Queens motel. The remains of an unidentified man were found in the ruins. Arson was suspected.

After Joshua’s return, Jennifer had tried to make everything as normal for him as possible, fearful of the trauma the preceding night might have inflicted upon him. When Joshua woke up, Jennifer prepared a meal and brought it to him in bed. It was a ridiculous meal, consisting of all the junk foods he loved: a hot dog and a peanut butter sandwich and Fritos and Hostess Twinkies and root beer.

“You should have seen him, Mom,” Joshua said between bites. “He was crazy!” He held up his bandaged hand. “Do you think he really thought I was Jesus Christ?”

Jennifer repressed a shudder. “I—I don’t know, darling.”

“Why do people want to kill other people?”

“Well—” and Jennifer’s thoughts suddenly went back to Michael Moretti. Did she have the right to judge him? She did not know the terrible forces that had shaped his life, that had turned him into what he had become. She had to learn more about him, to get to know and understand him.

Joshua was saying, “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”

Jennifer put her arms around him. “No, darling. We’re both going to stay home and play hooky all week. We—”

The telephone rang.

It was Michael. “How’s Joshua?”

“He’s wonderful—thank you.”

“And how are you feeling?”

Jennifer felt her throat thickening with embarrassment. “I’m—I—I feel fine.”

He chuckled. “Good. I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow. Donato’s on Mulberry Street. Twelve-thirty.”

“All right, Michael. Twelve-thirty.”

Jennifer spoke those words and there was no turning back.

The captain at Donato’s knew Michael, and the best table in the restaurant had been reserved for him. People kept stopping
by to say hello, and Jennifer was again amazed at the way everyone kowtowed to him. It was strange how much Michael Moretti reminded her of Adam Warner, for each, in his own way, was a man of power.

Jennifer started to question Michael about his background, wanting to learn how and why he had gotten trapped into the life he led.

He interrupted her. “You think I’m in this because of my family or because someone put pressure on me?”

“Well—yes, Michael. Of course.”

He laughed. “I worked my butt off to get where I am. I love it. I love the money. I love the power. I’m a king, baby, and I love being king.”

Jennifer looked at him, trying to understand. “But you can’t enjoy—”

“Listen!” His silence had suddenly turned into words and sentences and confidences, pouring out as though they had been stored inside him for years, waiting for someone to come along to share them with. “My old man was a Coca-Cola bottle.”

“A Coca-Cola bottle?”

“Right. There are billions of them in the world and you can’t tell one from another. He was a shoemaker. He worked his fingers to the bone, trying to put food on the table. We had nothing. Being poor is only romantic in books. In real life, it’s smelly rooms with rats and cockroaches and bad food that you can never get enough of. When I was a young punk, I did anything I could to make a buck. I ran errands for the big shots, I brought them coffee and cigars, I found them girls—anything to stay alive. Well, one summer I went down to Mexico City. I had no money, nothing. My ass was hanging out. One night a girl I met invited me to a large dinner party at a fancy restaurant. For dessert they served a special Mexican cake with a little clay doll baked inside it. Someone at the
table explained that the custom was that whoever got the clay doll had to pay for the dinner. I got the clay doll.” He paused. “I swallowed it.”

Jennifer put her hand over his. “Michael, other people have grown up poor and—”

“Don’t confuse me with other people.” His tone was hard and uncompromising. “I’m me. I know who I am, baby. I wonder if you know who you are.”

“I think I do.”

“Why did you go to bed with me?”

Jennifer hesitated. “Well, I—I was grateful and—”

“Bullshit! You wanted me.”

“Michael, I—”

“I don’t have to buy my women. Not with money and not with gratitude.”

Jennifer admitted to herself that he was right. She
had
wanted him, just as he had wanted her.
And yet,
Jennifer thought,
this man deliberately tried to destroy me once. How can I forget that?

Michael leaned forward and took Jennifer’s hand, palm up. Slowly, he caressed each finger, each mound, never taking his eyes from her.

“Don’t play games with me. Not ever, Jennifer.”

She felt powerless. Whatever there was between them transcended the past.

It was when they were having dessert that Michael said, “By the way, I have a case for you.”

It was as though he had slapped her in the face.

Jennifer stared at him. “What kind of case?”

“One of my boys, Vasco Gambutti, has been arrested for killing a cop. I want you to defend him.”

Jennifer sat there filled with hurt and anger that he was still trying to use her.

She said evenly, “I’m sorry, Michael. I told you before. I can’t get involved with—with your…friends.”

He gave her a lazy grin. “Did you ever hear the story about the little lion cub in Africa? He leaves his mother for the first time to go down to the river to get a drink, and a gorilla knocks him down. While he’s picking himself up, a big leopard shoves him out of the way. A herd of elephants comes along and almost tramples him to death. The little cub returns home all shaken up and he says, ‘You know something, Ma—it’s a jungle out there!’”

There was a long silence between them. It
was
a jungle out there, Jennifer thought, but she had always stood at the edge of it, outside it, free to flee whenever she wanted to. She had made the rules and her clients had had to live by them. But now, Michael Moretti had changed all that. This was
his
jungle. Jennifer was afraid of it, afraid to get caught up in it. Yet, when she thought about what Michael had done for her, she decided it was a small thing he was asking.

She would do Michael this one favor.