From A Dead Sleep Page 27

  My legs feel like they’re weighted in cement as I hurriedly but carefully glide toward the side door that leads to the garage. I nearly lose my footing when Valentino’s weight shifts the moment I drop down a step onto the pavement of the garage floor. I manage to stay upright and a second later I’m out the backdoor of the garage and diligently hurrying along the flat concrete of the back porch. It has a glimmer to it from the thin layer of moisture brought in by the lightning storm, so each step is carefully planted. The smell of rain is still in the air, and I worry that there’s enough moisture on the ground to leave traceable footprints behind on the forest floor.

  I reach up and pull the goggles down from my forehead to my eyes, exposing my vision to the surrounding landscape with clarity and a distinct shade of green. The goggles are loose from being sized to Alvar’s larger head, but I’ll adjust things later.

  The cover of trees grows thicker the farther from the cabin I get and the bite of the brisk breeze that flows through it creeps in through my clothes.

  I look behind me to examine what kind of trail I’m leaving in my wake. I see no legible tracks among the scrub and pine needles that line the soil, and I sigh in relief. My attention is drawn to the blazing light that ignites from behind a window at the back of the house. A second and a third one follow moments later. By now, they’ve seen the blood on the main floor and have probably split up, checking each room for me and Valentino.

  The combination of fatigue and high altitude leaves me gasping for breath, but I push forward like my life depends on my steadfastness, which it does. Worry builds in me when I can’t find the tree with the heart carved into its base, but it soon reveals itself under the green brilliance of the goggles.

  I feel a sudden tug along my shoulders and my heart screams when I fear I’ve already been discovered by one of the boys. Valentino’s body is ripped from my shoulders and I’m propelled forward to my hands and knees. I spin around with my arms out in front of me, prepared to absorb a bullet or the toe of a boot but find nothing but the body lying by itself in a heap. I quickly crawl back to it, feeling rocks and twigs under my knees, and discover a dead pine branch about four feet long with a couple of its top twigs hooked under Valentino’s collar. The splintering along the thick end suggests that the body was snagged from the large tree I just crossed under. I worry that the loud sound of cracking wood just echoed through the encompassing area, but I stay focused.

  In my good deed of covering the well earlier, I inadvertently camouflaged it among other fallen branches. I know it has to be close though. My legs feel like rubber when I rise up, even though the burden of Valentino’s weight has been lifted. The thin mountain air wheezes in through my open mouth as I scramble along the ground cover. I fight the panicked urge to punt congregated limbs out of my way to expose their undersides, fearing the noise it’ll create. When I spot the shallow lip of the well beneath a low teepee of branches, I quickly clear it.

  With the wind intermittent in its powerful gusts, I wait for a strong rush and then pry each board up with my hands from its nailed position along the well’s frame, hoping the cry of rusty nails isn’t audible. The planks are rotted and light in weight, and they come up easier than I could have hoped for. Before I retrieve the body, I carefully pan the area to look for pursuers. Seeing no one, I grab Valentino by the back of his shirt collar and drag him along the dirt.

  I don’t even remember positioning him for his fall but his body drops through nonetheless into the deep hole with nothing hindering its rapid descent. I’d find my indifference to his inelegant burial unnerving if it wasn’t so damned crucial to me staying alive. They’ll never find him down there—not tonight and not years from now. He’s down so far that not even the night-visions pick up a trace of him. I lay the boards back across the opening and press the nails back through as best I can with the bottom of my shoe. I cover the planks again with the limbs and add several more for good measure, wary not to make the aggregation appear artificial. I’m sure that none of the guys have tracking expertise, but despite this I sweep the surrounding dirt with the needled end of a thick pine branch like I’ve occasionally seen in movies.

  When I’m confident there’s nothing left to be done, I lean forward with my hands on my thighs and breathe. I still feel Valentino’s weight on my shoulders, and I dread that I always will.

  I tighten the goggles to my head, shove my trench coat into the brief bag, and slide my arms into Tony’s jacket. It fits me pretty well. I pull the stocking cap on over my head. It smells of Arianna’s perfume.

  The strength of the wind that’s rushing along the mountain seems to be building. I hope its shriek has drowned out whatever clamor I’ve caused. A burning beam of a concentrated light flickers through the flush branches of a tribe of wavering pines, and I fear that my hope is squelched. Its source is a flashlight, and I make out two figures approaching quickly from behind the glare. One tall and the other short. They’re advancing from the direction of the house. I halt to a dead stop and watch breathlessly as the imposing beam slices through a family of thin, bare aspens beside me. My eyes drop to the side of my jacket that the beam flashes along. It passes on by. Whichever one of Moretti’s thugs is guiding it didn’t notice me. I drop down to my hands and knees, cradling the brief bag in my arm so it doesn’t scrape along the ground. To my relief, they take off in an adjacent direction away from me and away from where I dropped the body. The mountain and wind are most likely playing tricks with their senses.

  Before they disappear, I recognize one of them as Tony. The shorty. The sight of his raised shoulders above bare arms prompts a smirk along my lips. I imagine the cold mountain gusts are a little much without his jacket, which is warmer than I would have guessed when I snatched it.

  Their light disappears in the distance, and I lower my head to take a couple of deep breaths. For the first time since discovering that Valentino was the beaten pulp of a man in the basement, I’m able to relish a moment of composure and clear my thoughts. As far as I know, they’ve bought the scene I left behind and are more worried now about finding us than they are about substantiating what Valentino said. My best course of action is to get the hell out of these woods and back to some civilization. The only direction I know for certain will take me there is back down the road that leads up the driveway. I know I can’t walk along the road itself. One of them will be watching it for sure. But if I can stay parallel to it under the cover of the woods and night, it will lead me to where I need to be.

  I carefully begin making my way back in the broad direction of the house, keeping myself far enough in the backwoods to hopefully avoid detection. With the night-visions, I’ve got a huge advantage over the boys. I can see them but they can’t see me. Thank God there’s still enough cloud cover from the passing storm to keep the moonlight in check.

  My head swivels from side to side, scoping for sudden movements, which isn’t easy with the wind blowing. Everything is moving. The lights from the house come into view again. Every window is ablaze. I keep my distance, using it only as a lighthouse to navigate my way along the dangerous coastline of a life I should have left behind years ago. I cautiously cross the plane of the side of the house and see both Alvar’s Buick and Moretti’s Cadillac parked out front.

  The sight of Moretti’s car reminds me of the ride out from Vegas. Sitting in the passenger seat of that snow white Cadillac was excruciating, as I was forced to see that fat bastard in the backseat suck at Arianna’s face while he rubbed his sweaty hands all over her body. It’s been merciless enough having to sit through it on short trips up and down the Vegas strip, but Moretti’s fear of flying forced me to endure it for two days of travel. I would have rather ridden with Alvar and Tony but the boss . . . ex-boss . . . wanted me close to talk business. He always wanted me close to him and Arianna.

  It’s what ultimately got me caught up in this mess.

  Chapter 37

  My mind has strained to rationalize the insanity behind my relat
ionship with Arianna a couple thousand times. I’ve dissected the affinity into pieces, studied the madness and recklessness of it all, and still let myself spiral down the path that brought me to where I am tonight. It’s not just about love. Arianna’s like crack and I’m an addict. A hopeless, tormented addict who has told himself again and again that he has far more than what he deserves sitting at home and waiting with open arms. Yet, it’s the forbidden temptress whose covers I keep slipping back under.

  Arianna’s always been an awe-inspiring sight. That silky, unblemished bronze skin and that long and straight black hair, with her striking, luminescent yellow eyes—a lethal combination of her half-Greek, half-Chinese pedigree. She has the kind of epic beauty that wars were fought over long ago. Yet, it’s not just her looks. At times she has a delectable innocence about her, like when she signed “Good morning” to me the first time we met. It took my breath away.

  Arianna has a younger half-brother who’s deaf. She left him behind somewhere near Hong Kong when her father brought her to the States. The boy had been born without his hearing, and she’d learned to sign with him in Asia at an early age. She was fluent, though the dialect she used was significantly different than the American one they teach here. At Moretti’s urging, we’d occasionally teach each other the differences. The bastard got a kick out of watching us exchange dialogue for some reason. He found it entertaining.

  I don’t know exactly how Arianna and Moretti came to be. She avoids talking about that part of her past and becomes angry whenever I press her. I think it has something to do with her father. I gathered from a cryptic joke Moretti once made that her father had been indebted to him for some reason. My guess is that Moretti had a hand in smuggling the family into the country, but I can’t say for sure. All I know is that her father has been out of the picture for a long time.

  Between us, it started out harmless enough—playful, in a way. I think she saw a lot of her brother in me and enjoyed having someone close that didn’t treat her in a domineering and repressive way, the way Moretti does.

  Playfulness turned into flirting and that eventually led to something far more serious, despite the blaring tornado sirens that blasted a dire warning through my skull the first time she clenched her talons into my shirt and pulled me into her moist lips.

  I know I have a good wife; I’ve never questioned that. She’s everything a man could possibly ask for, and that’s why I pursued her. But after living a lie for too long—a lie that has been the entire foundation of our marriage—the everyday reminder of how undeserving I am, along with the stress of perpetuating the lie, it’s all taken its toll on me. It’s broken me.

  With Arianna, it’s different. We’re both broken people. Both tainted with dark, mysterious pasts. Both longing to start over. At least that’s how I’ve managed to rationalize it. Instead, it might just be her exotic touch that won’t let me think rationally. Maybe she’s my kryptonite, absorbing my strength and unwilling to let me escape. Still, I don’t want to escape.

  I tried to break things off with her shortly after I’d returned to work after recovering from Valentino’s beating. I knew I had dodged a bullet and feared for my life if things continued between us. I told her that it needed to end. She saw things differently.

  Watching Valentino pummel me that night had done something to her. Changed her. I thought I had seen a glimpse of that change at the time as Valentino wailed on my face. She stood there silently with what appeared to be a smirk of satisfaction across her thick lips as she watched the brutality. Not a single wince from her.

  While Moretti and the boys were busy trying to hunt down Valentino to no avail, things between us only heated up. Her aggression and perversions grew. We did things I had never dreamed of, in places I would have never thought of. In some unexplainable way, seeing a man suffer pain for her was an aphrodisiac. I’d lost all capacity to resist her advances. I’m no victim though. I’ve wanted her every bit as much as she has wanted me.

  God, why didn’t I get out before the Colorado deal? We would have been spared all of this. My plan had been to move on from Moretti in a month or two. I’d turn in my informal notice and wish the man luck. He’d be disappointed but he’d get over it and wouldn’t stand in my way. That wouldn’t have always been the case, but our relationship had come a long way from when we first met. He respected me.

  After ending things with Lisa, I’d take the next couple of months to finish preparations for my new life in Traverse City with Arianna. Then, I’d come back for Arianna and take her away with me. By then, I’d have enough phony identification for her that Moretti would never be able to find her . . . or me. The IDs are never what consumes the most time. It’s the creation of a new individual that does. Getting into Customs computers and state databases; all doable when you know the right people, but still painstaking and time-intensive. With enough time having passed after my departure, Moretti wouldn’t suspect it was me who set her free.

  It would have been perfect. Moretti has never known about the cottage in Michigan. It’s another secret I’ve managed to keep from him.

  My discretion served two purposes. First off, I always thought it would make a good safe house if the DEA ever came down on Moretti’s operation. The title’s under my name, but under a different social security number and credit history. It’s not some exotic location where someone who’s looking to hide would typically go. It’s a place with seasons. It’s a place where you can mingle freely among other people—most of whom spend no more than three months a year there before getting back to their lives. With no one else aware of the cottage, the authorities wouldn’t come there looking for me if everything went to shit.

  Secondly, with a second property on the side, Moretti might suspect that I’ve been skimming off him in order to pay for it. He’d be right, but I’ve been putting away for years, long before I worked for him.

  By the age of sixteen, I’d taught myself to count cards. I was good at it. With a fake ID and the right choice of clothes and hairstyles, I managed to live life as full-fledged casino rat.

  It’s funny how the movies tend to portray such people. It’s usually some smug, Matt Damon–looking guy wearing a snap-brim fedora with a hot female accomplice by his side to serve as a lookout for suspicious pit bosses. They build up a huge amount of money before, inevitably, security is notified by a couple of guys watching the table action from a monitor in a dimly lit room, and a chase scene ensues.

  The truth is that if you don’t pull out too much money all at once and don’t draw a lot of attention to your winnings, you never have to worry about such things. Also, you’ve got to switch casinos often. Don’t stick around in one place for too long. I built up an ample savings over time.

  It also didn’t hurt that I could read the lips of casino security guards who’d occasionally case me out at the direction of some hidden observer. It gave me an extra edge for knowing when to bow out.

  As I found out, however, discretion isn’t always enough. Moretti himself caught me red-handed at his casino. It was how we met. The fat bastard had been standing right behind me for ten minutes before I noticed he was there, scrutinizing my every move until he was convinced that I was pulling a fast one. He had Frank strong-arm me out back with the promise of me being worked over with a set of brass knuckles. Through dark and smoky corridors, Moretti kept up pace with us, huffing and puffing as he sang me a song about how they used to take care of punks like me in the old days.

  I still remember the stunned look on his face when I turned to him with my arms pinned behind my back and said, “If the king is wasting his time sniffing out little league card-sharks, that means his castle’s about to crumble.”

  I don’t know why I said what I did. It wasn’t a smart move by any stretch of the imagination, especially coming from a nobody like me. Steam practically poured from Moretti’s ears, and I half expected him to snatch the knuckles from Frank and slice up my face himself before we even made it outside. He probably w
ould have if I hadn’t then told him that I knew how he could get himself into the big leagues.

  It had to be a mixture of financial desperation and admiration of someone standing their ground that let him hear me out. It turned out that the big beasts on the new strip were eating his casino alive, just like with many establishments that hugged the old strip. Moretti had made a small fortune over the years, but nostalgia and half-assed theme changes weren’t enough to stop his casino’s sharp decline in profitability.

  I had a few business model ideas for his casino, but what really got his attention were my underground contacts. When your business is creating counterfeit IDs and documents for the shadiest snakes in the desert, you find yourself privy to some pretty remarkable information. There’s an intricate flowchart to how the underground works that you’d never know about unless you had the kind of broad view that I did. So many of these people do indirect business with each other and few of them know it. They buy and sell the same guns, drugs, and whores, and even share the same suppliers who let them all think they’ve got exclusive partnerships. The truth is that just about every outside source is working multiple deals at any one time.

  That wasn’t the case with a rising Mexican drug cartel out of Chihuahua that had a recent falling out with the LoGrasso family. With the cartel purposely engraining themselves in a culture of tight discretion—tighter than most—the loss of the LoGrassos left an open vacuum that needed filling. It was a timely opportunity for someone to grab control of a runaway train filled with money and steer it right into their depot.

  Moretti had been dabbling with the illegal drug scene for some time, but he was a smalltime player, not bringing in nearly enough to subsidize his fledgling casino.

  After a couple of days of checking out my story and a hell of a lot of convincing on my part, he let me put him in touch with the right people and the rest became history. Moretti’s net worth doubled in the first year, and I became a valued and well-paid member of his crew. I left the counterfeiting business but kept good ties to my former employer.