into an empty bus stop bench. He dropped back and two hubcaps rolled out ahead of the 'Stang.
Dane slowed, drew into the parking lot of the hospital where Angelina Monticelli had died, and pulled up to the emergency room.
He reached into the glove compartment and grabbed his.38 from beside the envelope with the ten grand JoJo had given him. He got out, stuck the pistol in his belt, buttoned his suit jacket over it, and calmly walked in through the automatic sliding glass doors.
He waited inside for a second until he saw Big Tommy Bartone come screeching to a stop behind the limo. Tommy got out, holding his gun pressed down against his leg, looking more upset than pissed, and came jogging up the sidewalk.
So, it was going to be like that.
Dane shook his head, turned, and wandered down the corridor leading deeper into the hospital.
Nobody ever looked twice at someone else in a hospital hall. Patients could wander around the place for an hour without a nurse coming up to offer any help. He checked down the corridor and saw that the administrative station was empty.
Two Asian doctors walked out of an office. Whispering and staring down at their feet, they stepped into another room and closed the door. Dane kept moving casually, knowing Tommy would come bumbling along any second.
He looked at a sign on the wall: Pediatric Oncology Ward. The only people you were likely to find here were dying children and their parents huddled around well-made beds. The pillowcases always fresh, even when their flesh was rotting.
The corridor lights were too dim. One end of the hallway looked like it was being remodeled. Wires hung in a colorful knot from the ceiling, and below stood a wooden ladder, stained cans and tools placed on every other step. He hadn't seen a wooden ladder in years and it reminded him of his father, the man's thick hairy arms speckled with paint. Yellow caution tape had been strung across the width of the passage.
A whisper to his left. He turned and listened as a child's muted voice called, “Hallo?”
The greeting barely recognizable. Taking the vague form of a word shoved through a pinhole cut through layers of scar tissue.
Dane looked down to see a girl, maybe twelve years old, touching his wrist. Tufts of coarse gray hair stuck out in odd cusps and notches across her pink scabbed head. Bandages swathed her throat and forehead, and there was hardly anything left of her face.
He couldn't tell if she'd been in a fire or if this was some kind of cancer, chewing her away an inch at a time while the doctors tore more away with their scalpels and radiation. She looked at him with one perfect eye, beautiful in its depth and full of understanding, perhaps even forgiving. The dark angles of her ruined features drew together to form an inexplicable shadow.
She used what remained of her lips to ask, “Are you real?”
It gave Dane some pause. “I'm not so sure anymore. I have my bad days. How about you?”
Something like a tongue prodded forward. She grunted a sound that could've been either yes or no and tried to give him a grin.
However frail life might be, the appearance of it was even more fragile. No matter how closely you looked, you still couldn't tell who was alive and who was dead.
He patted her head and felt the softness of bone beneath all the gauze, the thickness of the scar tissue so much like his own.
They both turned away from each other in the same instant, the girl drifting back to her room as Dane headed farther into the hospital. He came across a visitors' lounge filled with a few chairs, a worn couch, a soda machine, and a pay phone. At the end they tell you to go call any family members who might want to visit one last time. Like you ring them up while they're watching one of their yuppie sitcoms, sitting around in sweatpants, a one-year-old napping in the bassinet, and they'll come charging into the night.
Pounding footsteps resonated up the hall. Dane drew his gun and faded around the corner into the alcove, his back to the wall.
Tommy's leather holsters creaked loudly as he stormed down the corridor, too wired to play it with any tact. They were all losing their cool so easily nowadays. What the hell had happened to everybody?
Dane could feel Big's attitude approaching first, an oppressive aura of anxiety. In the army, Dane's drill instructor used to talk about how some people went out of their way to make their presence known. Without saying a word, without even an odor. But you could pick up on it if you made the effort.
With his.32 still pressed down against his leg, sort of tiptoeing like a little kid does when playing hide-and- seek, Big Tommy Bartone wandered past facing the wrong way.
Dane stuck the barrel of his gun in Tommy's ear and said, “Hey, Big, you really think this was a good idea?”
Tommy's bulk stiffened but the muscles of his face went slack, glad the game was over. Maybe everyone was just getting too old. “Ah, no.”
“You want to tell me what's up with all this Steve McQueen car chase shit? Coming after me out in the middle of the goddamn street?”
“I'm sorry about that, Johnny.”
“I just bet you are, Big. It's a nice car, you should take better care of it. You know how many people we could've hurt? I thought you wiseguys like to keep things quiet, up close and personal.”
“I do.”
“Then, really, man, following me around a hospital? You want we should shoot up a few leukemia patients? Turn the ICU into a fire zone? Come on, what the fuck?”
Tommy held the gun out, a moderate offering. He must've had three other pistols in holsters all over his body, plus the knife. “I got no clue, Johnny.”
“What's that mean? And don't move for your upside-down blade, Big. That shit might look cool but you won't clear it in time.”
“I won't go for it.” None of the smugness there anymore, all of it washed away in a kind of juvenile humiliation. “Listen, everybody, even the Don, knows what happened with Angie was an accident. We know you ain't responsible. But we got no choice, see? An order is an order.”
“Put the pistol away, Big, and keep your hands clear of the other hardware.” Tommy did it carefully, afraid to move his arms. “Now, use your head. You guys really want to be part of a crew run by somebody like that?”
“Not much we can do about it. We signed up for the long haul. We betray the Montis, and nobody else will have us anyway.”
“The Don isn't dead yet. He's old but he's not senile. Why isn't he putting his foot down about stupid moves like this one?”
“He's sick and in a lot of pain. It makes him a little loopy sometimes. He lets Berto run the show any way he likes.”
Dane hadn't expected Roberto's name to come up at all. He figured everybody was really following Vinny's orders. “And Vinny?”
“He spends a lot of time alone. He's playing the violin again, I hear it in the house every once in a while. But on all of this, he don't say much.”
Angelina had told Dane the same thing. Vinny doesn't say anything. The hell was going on? Vinny was taking a backseat while Berto ran the show? Dane couldn't see it.
“And what about Delmare? Even the old school
“His brains will be all over his breakfast plate if he doesn't go along with Berto.”
But no, that wasn't a good enough answer. It was the goomba in him talking, a natural tough guy response. “You're scared of him, Big?”
It skinned his ego, being asked a question like that. “I'm not scared of anybody.”
“Then why not put your foot down?”
“I got three kids in college.”
Dane snorted. “You wiseguys, everything you do is for your kids' education. You squeeze a guy's nuts with vise
