Classic Novel
Chapter 32
We stopped by the local grocery store and stocked up on canned and tinned foods. I bought a toothbrush for Lucia and things like deodorant – plus I got a cheap charger for my cell phone that could plug into a wall socket. The one I’d bought back at the gas station only worked with a car’s cigarette lighter. In addition, I snagged a dozen cloth bags. No way I wanted to be out on the street and have a paper bag rip open.
“Why aren’t we getting anything good?” Lucia asked snottily as she inspected my food choices.
“We need stuff that’ll keep,” I said in a low voice so no one else could hear. “We won’t be coming back for a while.”
“Great,” she muttered.
“Get whatever you want for tonight and tomorrow. Just don’t get anything we can’t eat in the next 24 hours.”
She didn’t pick apples and bananas, though. I was the one who got several of those.
No… she got junk food. Two bags of potato chips and a box of powdered donuts.
“That’s what you call ‘good’?” I asked as I stacked the food on the counter beside the cashier.
“It’s a hell of a lot better than tuna fish,” she said as she scrunched up her nose.
“We need protein.”
“Well, it looks like you’re buying a shit-ton of it.”
“I’m a big guy.”
She leaned in and whispered naughtily, “Yeah… how big?”
“GO… AWAY.”
She sighed and walked over to the front of the store as the cashier rang me up.
When he was finished, I paid in cash. I didn’t want to take a chance that Fausto could trace my credit cards.
“Oh my God!” Lucia suddenly squealed – not in anger, but delight.
I looked over to see her standing in front of a gumball machine, the type that dispensed plastic bubbles filled with trinkets and fake jewelry rather than candy.
“I love these things! I haven’t seen one since I was a kid!” She looked over at me, a huge smile on her face. “Can I have some coins?”
I looked at her for a second and got lost in her eyes.
She could be so incredibly annoying sometimes…
And then, without warning, her eyes could sparkle…
And her smile shine with joy…
It was enough to –
“Massimo,” she barked. She snapped her fingers like she was trying to break me out of a trance. “Earth to Massimo. Come in, Massimo.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, then slipped the cashier a five-euro bill. “Can you give us change for whatever that thing takes?”
I gave Lucia a handful of coins, and she inserted one and cranked the metal handle around. When the bubble came out, she opened it – and saw it was a keychain.
“No,” she announced to no one in particular as she tossed the keychain and bubble on the floor.
“Pick that up,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving me off as she inserted another coin and turned the handle.
The second bubble yielded several pieces of bubblegum. She popped them in her mouth and began chewing as she tried again.
The third bubble yielded a sticker of a scorpion. Or what I thought was a sticker.
“Oh, cool – a tattoo!” she cried out, and held it up for my inspection.
“Doesn’t look like a tattoo,” I said. I nodded my thanks to the cashier and grabbed the handles of the dozen cloth bags.
“You put water on it and it sticks to your skin,” she explained.
“Pick up the key chain and those plastic things,” I ordered.
She grabbed them off the floor and stuffed them into one of my bags.
“Thanks for offering to carry one,” I said sarcastically as we walked towards the door.
“You’re a BIG guy,” she said lasciviously. “You seem to be handling them just fine.”
Rather than have her start talking about penis size again, I just carried the bags in silence as she inspected her sticker… tattoo… whatever the hell it was.
Once we got back to the car, I loaded everything into the trunk and stepped away to make a phone call on my cell. There hadn’t been any reception at the house, but I had three bars here in town.
I still kept Lucia within sight, though. She placed the tattoo on different parts of her body over her clothes, trying to figure out the best place for it.
Some of the places she put it – over her left breast, on her ass, low on her belly – caused an inconvenient stirring in my pants that made me have to adjust myself.
Niccolo answered on the first ring. “You alright?”
“As best as can be expected.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means my traveling companion is annoying the fuck out of me.”
He chuckled. “Well, it could be worse.”
“I suppose. How’s it going on your end? Did Lars catch the shooter?”
“No,” Niccolo said, and his voice sounded dire. “The shooter got away clean.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. But nothing else has happened since then. I’m still paranoid about who I can trust, so I haven’t found a plane to pull you out yet.”
“Not a problem.”
“I’ve been in contact with the Widow. She’s still wary that Fausto’s men are lurking in the shadows, so she told me to tell you NOT to bring Lucia in until we’re convinced it’s safe.”
“Okay.”
“Look, not to be overly paranoid… but it might be a good idea for you not to use your cell anymore. In case they can trace it.”
“I was thinking of that. I’m not going to get much reception where we’re going, anyway, but I think I’ll still keep it as an emergency back channel. Text me if you need to get in contact and I’ll call as soon as I can.”
“Understood. Anything else?”
“Aurelio called me yesterday as I was driving away from Venice.”
“REALLY,” Niccolo said, surprised.
“He threatened to escalate things unless I turned over Lucia. A couple of things he said gave me the feeling that maybe he’s behind this and not Fausto. That maybe he went rogue.”
“What specifically did he say?”
“Nothing concrete – just that he wouldn’t let me talk to Fausto, and he seemed to avoid talking about Fausto whenever I brought him up.”
“Huh… you may be on to something. I still don’t think the overall plan – Mezzasalma killing the Agrellas and trying to frame us for the murders – could have been done without Fausto pulling the strings, but you may be right about Venice. It was a huge tactical error, which could indicate Aurelio decided to take things into his own hands.”
“What do you mean, ‘tactical error’?”
“Fausto turned the Five Families against us by framing us for the Agrellas’ murders – so why send a bunch of mercenaries into Venice? And not enough to finish the job? It was a complete fuck-up on their part, and they’ve squandered whatever advantage they had by framing us in the first place.”
“So you think Aurelio’s behind Venice?”
“Quite possibly. I’ll have to think about it more, but good insight on your part.”
“Thanks.”
“Anything else I can do for you?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Alright. Be safe, brother.”
“You, too.”
And then I hung up.
It dawned on me that this was the first time in my entire life that I’d been shut off from communication with my family.
Sure, there had been times when I’d been away from home and unable to phone in…
But I’d always had at least one of my brothers with me.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!
The times I’d spent alone at my cabin had been by choice… and I was just a short car drive away from being able to call anyone I wanted.
This was different. This was forced separation, and there was no one to count on but myself.
For the first time in many years, I felt very much alone.