Page 78 of Burn this City

Spadaro gathered up Andrea’s discarded clothes. “Go out there and act normal.”

“Keep in mind there’s a camera at the back.”

Spadaro straightened, turned and made Jack feel the full force of that black stare. “I got this. You do your job, let me do mine.” She still sounded flat, emotionless, but Jack felt it was the closest Spadaro had come to being irritated or angry so far.

“Okay.” Jack took a couple deep breaths and left the private lounge. He resisted pulling at his sleeves or straightening his jacket, but took a moment to gather himself.

Right. Rausa capos. All he had to do was pretend that the distraction was the actual main event and keep the mask in place for just a few more hours.

He sauntered downstairs to join the subtle stand-off with the Rausa men, and was relieved to find Enzo was clearly the ringleader—all the other men took their cues from him. Mauro, along with security from the second floor, had already reinforced the guys downstairs, and after a mutual staredown that was mostly lost on the people of Port Francis eager for overpriced cocktails and a fun night out, Jack stepped up to Enzo.

“I think you and your boys are in the wrong club.”

Enzo lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head, then gestured at his own face. “That from the last time you played bouncer? Maybe you should let the big boys handle this?”

Jack was glad when Enzo didn’t go all out with his provocation. If he’d called him a “bitch” or worse, in front of everybody, Jack would have had to take the altercation to a whole new level. “If your boss has any issues, he can bring them to me.” Jack stepped up to the bar, turning his back on Enzo on purpose, and motioned the barkeeper to hand over a bottle of top-shelf liquor. He offered the bottle to Enzo. “With my compliments.”

Enzo stared at him, but accepted the bottle, and weighed it for a tense moment as if considering whether to smash it and glass him. But that was why Jack had chosen that bottle of eighty-year old French cognac that went for five hundred dollars on the open market.

Enzo gave a toothy grin, lifted the bottle in a mock salute and left.

And just when the security guys were beginning to relax, some asshole triggered the fire alarm, and Jack and Mauro evacuated the club together and then had to answer questions when a fire truck rolled in. The wet mess of the sprinklers also washed away what spilled blood had soaked into the carpet upstairs, or at least diluted it into a questionable pool of murk.

When Jack did a cursory tour of the upstairs floor, a pair of deserted Louboutin heels stood tidily arranged on the bar top. Of course, Spadaro wouldn’t have been able to carry or drag Andrea’s body around in those heels.

Jack took them and threw them in the trash outside on the way to his car.

39

Hours later, Jack could still feel the vibrations of the music in his bones while he steered the car. If this were a normal night, he’d drive home just like that, so he tried to stick as close to his normal routine as possible. It was eerie knowing what else was going on, but he’d lived in two realities for most of his life, as a made man on the one hand, and a legitimate “consultant” on the other. He’d have to navigate those for the rest of his life, though it seemed increasingly likely that he’d add “turncoat consigliere on the run from the Cosa Nostra” to the identities he had to manage.

Though who was he kidding? It hadn’t exactly been a “normal” night at The Matador, either.

Once he reached his street, the restlessness sat so deep that there was no way he’d be able to sleep, so he started the engine again and drove. This time of night, the streets were empty except for insomniacs or nightshift workers, or very late revelers. Driving usually helped, so he drove aimlessly around until a sudden impulse turned him toward Memorial Bridge.

He parked the car exactly in the middle, with the same view toward where the river poured itself into the sea, and while he usually avoided the bridge and the whole area for fear of another psychotic break—or whatever it had been—this time he only experienced melancholic peace. On the bridge with the dark water flowing beneath and the wide-open sky above, he leaned on the railing and focused on his breath mingling with the clean air and the smells from the water and ocean blowing in.

Only when the humidity had crept through his clothes and to his skin, did he straighten and reach into his pocket. He turned Andrea’s phone over and over in his hands, imagined Spadaro driving bare-footed around town in Andrea’s Lamborghini, and likely still enjoying the ride like some girl-faced angel of death. To transport a body in that car, the passenger seat was the only option, and Jack figured that that was the only time in his, well, life, that Andrea would be wearing a seat belt. Jack couldn’t help but smile.

He rubbed his face and shook his head. Things were fucked up, Andrea was dead with nobody at the helm of the Lo Cascio, and no one could or would do a damn thing about it. More heads were going to roll, and this whole nightmare scenario he’d fought so hard and so long to prevent simply felt as inevitable and cleansing as a hard late-summer rain. And all of that because Andrea had been a very small man deep down—unkind, petty, and not worth Jack’s loyalty.

“Fuck you, Andrea”, he murmured and hurled the phone into the river as far as he could manage.

40

As much as he wanted to, Jack didn’t call Sal. First, the man would have his hands full waging his war, and neither of them should be distracted now. Second, because of the first reason, this wasn’t the moment to ask him to clarify their relationship—whether they even had one. But all it took was closing his eyes to feel the echo of Sal’s touches on his skin. How many people knew Sal was both cruel and kind, both controlling and relinquishing of everything? Maybe that was the message—despite the circumstances, Sal had let Jack into his mind, his body—and had shared moments of intimacy outside of sex.

Jack kept a low profile, making sure nobody could spot him from the street while he was sitting in a café. As always, he had the phone close, pondering the right moment to raise the matter of Andrea’s disappearance. How to best respond when people began calling him to tell him that somebody was picking off Andrea’s capos and soldiers. Spadaro might show up and put a bullet through his head. Or the cops would catch a whiff of the killing happening under the skin of the city and pretend for a little while to give a damn about it.

Without leadership, all the capos were flailing limbs, and all their signals were directed to a brain that no longer responded. Jack focused on plausible deniability. Everybody knew Andrea was erratic. Jack was no longer running a crew. People would try to reach Andrea first if Jack didn’t pick up the phone.

He finished his coffee, picked up the phone and dialed Vic Decesare’s number.

“Yes?”

“It’s Jack. Barsanti. Listen, is there any way I can meet you? I need your advice.”

“Business?”

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