Twenty-seven
The runner tapped at the motel room door after dawn
and handed John a cell phone and an envelope. After the man was gone,
John read the instructions contained in the envelope, showered, and got
dressed. Jennifer hustled in silence behind him to keep pace. Together,
they left in his car and drove north along the river. Once clear of the
city, John began exploring side roads.
“What are we looking for?” Jennifer wanted to know.
“Privacy,” John said.
John inspected a deserted clearing behind a public
rest area along the highway and grunted his approval. He punched out a
number on the cell phone. A voice he did not recognize answered and asked
for directions.
“North along the river from the city,” John said.
“Watch for a quarry. Turn east at the gravel road. I’m just around the
corner at a marked public rest area.”
“We’ll be there within the hour.”
John handed the phone to Jennifer. “Tell Peugeot
where we are. We need Dimitri here as soon as possible.”
He watched Jennifer make her call in hushed tones.
She paced like a cat waiting for the group to make their short journey. She looked worried, and she
had reason to be. If Dimitri had died during the night, he had no way to
protect Francis and her girls against Garko. And even if they settled
their differences with the mob, one of the girls had been marked for death
by another, unknown party.
John sat on a picnic bench, watching the girl, amazed
at how events had unfolded since Jennifer’s arrival. She had been so
utterly unexpected and magical. The soft body and voice of an angel had
replaced the gloom in his life, although she could as easily be an angel of death.
The magic couldn’t last forever.
He wasn’t behaving like his normal self. How long
would it be before he made a fatal error and brought his little paradise
crashing down upon them both?
A car arrived filled with five women and Dimitri.
Two of the women supported a dazed and critically weakened Dimitri
Carvelli, bare-chested and dressed only in an oversized pair of coveralls
stained with his own blood. John pointed to the shaded side of the
clearing. The women escorted Carvelli in that direction, and then let him
slump to the ground.
Francis came over and stared up at John soberly,
waiting for further instruction.
“When
this is over,” John said in a tone of voice that matched her grim expression,
“do nothing to cause further complications. Did you ask Dimitri why he
killed that girl?”
Francis gave a careless shrug. “He
said he thought she was Evelyn. He said Rosie wanted her
death. He hasn't been clear-headed enough to explain how he knew
Evelyn, or who Rosie might be. I was hoping you'd know."
“It will remain an unresolved issue
for here and now," John said. "The men you
will meet today are not concerned with reasons for Dimitri’s behavior,
only in resolving consequences to their bottom line. Do you understand?”
“I understand bottom lines perfectly well,” Francis said softly,
her eyes now on Jennifer and filling with anguish.
“John is helping us,” Jennifer told her. “He didn’t
have to be here. He doesn’t have to do this.”
“But he does, my dear,” Francis said gently. “What
choice have you given him?”
She turned away and returned to her huddled group
near one of the picnic tables.
Two limousines pulled into the clearing within
minutes. Four men in suits were first to emerge. They jogged to the four
corners of the clearing to stand guard.
Garko led the procession that followed. The fat man
partially supported by two of Garko's henchmen John recognized as Bernard Carvelli.
The one carrying the black leather bag would be his personal physician.
The fourth man was Garko’s personal body guard, openly carrying a small
semi-automatic pistol.
Garko wasted no time. He glanced at John, at the
group of women, and then gestured for them to follow. The two groups
converged upon Dimitri Carvelli and formed a semi circle.
Dimitri managed to rise to his knees, but his eyes
focused on no one, clearly too injured to know with any clarity what was
happening. Bernard Carvelli broke down at the sight of his son,
weeping and wailing in Italian. The old man would have agreed to the
need for his own son’s death. John didn’t know whether the display
warranted pity in the eyes of the spectators. In the face of death, he
himself felt nothing. Nobody died in his presence who did not deserve to
die.
Garko pulled his own handgun from a shoulder
holster, casually screwed a silencer in place, and offered it butt first
to the old man. Garko muttered a few words when his patience ran thin,
and Bernard snatched the weapon petulantly and turned to his son.
Francis and the girls averted their
eyes. Jennifer,
John noticed, watched in horrified fascination, and Garko’s eyes were on
Jennifer, making sure she was a witness to murder.
Bernard Carvelli collected himself. With a dramatic
flair, he drew himself erect and positioned himself directly behind his
kneeling son. Muttering unheard words of derision, he simply lowered the
gun and pulled the trigger.
And missed.
Dimitri staggered to his feet, brought instantly
alert by the sound of the pistol exploding inches from his head. Bernard
cried out in dismay, forced now to put the barrel of the gun to his son’s
face.
“Rosie, no!”
Bernard fired again with even less hesitation, this time
into the expression of utter astonishment. Dimitri’s head flew back and he
dropped lifeless to the ground.
The rest was a strange ritual typical of Garko. He
knelt, picked up a handful of loose dirt, and tossed it upon Dimitri’s
body. John repeated the gesture and glanced at Jennifer as an indication
that she should do the same.
The guards converged on the scene, casually unrolling
a heavy plastic tarp. Garko gestured for John to join him on his walk
back to the car. “No more must come of this. Do you understand?”
“I’m concerned,” John said.
“I understand. Someone was pulling Dimitri’s
strings. But this mysterious Rosie is not our business. If it becomes
our business, we deal with it in the usual way.”
Garko turned to him at the car. “Take care, John. I
wish you well.”
John watched the limousine back from the clearing and
drive away with half the group. Dimitri’s body went in the trunk of the
second vehicle. It, too, pulled quietly away, leaving no visible evidence
of a disturbance in the quiet morning air.
Francis came to him, looking pale and shaken. “What
now?”
“Jennifer said you hired protection. It may be wise
to have someone keep an eye on your back for a time, and to keep a low
profile, but I’d like to meet the man before I leave, and I’d appreciate
it if you’d abide by my evaluation of his credentials and abilities."
“And your personal plans, sir?”
John gazed off into the distance. “I have no plans.”
“Plans in regard to Jennifer?”
Jennifer stood nearby, watching.
“The kid doesn’t take no for an answer.
I don't speak for her.”
“The child indeed has a will of her own” Francis said. “I
don’t want to see her hurt.”
“I won’t hurt her,” John said bluntly, pegging the
angry woman with a hard look. “I won’t see her hurt. You have my word on
that, ma’am.”
“How often is the hurt we cause intentional, sir?”
“Point well taken.” John turned away and hurried to
his car. By the time he had opened his door, Jennifer had opened the
opposing passenger door, slipped inside, and shut it behind her with a decisive
slam. She pulled her safety belt across her body and latched it before he
had settled behind the wheel.
An angel made of Kevlar, John decided. An angel with
teeth. But still a kid who had watched a man shot in the face by his own
father.
Once back at the motel, Jennifer leaped into his arms
and held tight, trembling for hour on end during the course of the quiet
afternoon. John held her in silence, offering the security of his
embrace, basking in her warmth, for as long as she wanted it, and for as
long as she would allow it.
