Find Her a Grave by Collin Wilcox Read Free Book Online Page B

things.”
    “I run things as long as I play by the rules. It’s the same for me as anybody else. I don’t kid myself. There’s one of the dons—Cella—if he doesn’t like what I do, the decisions I make, well …” Venezzio shrugged, looked away.
    “Will he take over, after you? Is that what you’re saying?”
    Venezzio nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” It was the first time he’d said it out loud, admitted that, yes, Cella was waiting—and watching. At the thought, he felt a sudden weariness, a quick, piercing chill. Without looking at his daughter, he flipped the toggle that switched on the golf cart’s electric motor. “It’s getting cold.”
    “I know,” she answered. “I know.”

MONDAY, MAY 19th
1:10 P.M., EDT
    “H ERE.” MARANZANO POINTED AHEAD through the windshield. “Turn right.”
    Behind the wheel, Fabrese nodded, flicked the Oldsmobile’s turn indicator.
    “Fifteen, twenty minutes,” Maranzano said, “and we’re there.”
    “Do we both go in?”
    Maranzano shook his head. “It’s only when Bacardo does it that two people go inside.”
    “That’s when they’re carrying,” Fabrese said. “You know—suitcases.” As he said it, Fabrese looked aside at Maranzano, briefly searching the other man’s face for a reaction. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, Maranzano made no response. Always, with Fabrese, there was an angle, a hustle. Fabrese was almost thirty-five years old, and still a soldier, nothing more, driving the car and asking questions he shouldn’t be asking, looking for yet another angle, another way in. But their organization was like any other business. By age forty, you were either on the fast track or else you were passed over, given the shit jobs, an embarrassment. Couldn’t Fabrese see it? Couldn’t he see what was happening, who was on the fast track, who wasn’t? Like today. Right now. Right here. Two days ago, Maranzano had gotten the word from Bacardo: Don Carlo had a job for him. Meaning that today at two o’clock he was to be at the prison gate, stating his business: an appointment with Mr. Venezzio. “Don’t call him the don,” Bacardo had cautioned. “Not when you talk to the guards.”
    He would be taken to the don. He would be greeted according to his rank: a new capo, not yet forty years old, a comer. Then, saying as little as possible, he would receive his orders, learn of his mission.
    “Remember,” Bacardo had warned, “keep looking in his eyes. The don doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t look him square in the eye.”
    In a half hour, probably, he would be back in the car. Fabrese would be waiting to drive them away from the prison.
    Fabrese, his driver …
    At the thought, covertly, he smiled. Perks, they were called. Little things that meant nothing—and everything. It’s who opens the doors for who, Luciano had said once. That’s what it’s all about, who opens the doors.

2:20 P.M., EDT
    S EEING MARANZANO WALKING BETWEEN the rows of parked cars, Fabrese leaned across the front seat, tripped the door latch, pushed the passenger door open. Maranzano was moving as he always moved: compactly, purposefully, with his head slightly lowered, his short, muscular arms tight to his sides, like he was ready to throw a quick punch. Maranzano was one of those short, stocky men who looked bigger than he really was. His head was large, covered with thick black hair, always perfectly barbered. Everything about his dark, Sicilian face and head was thick: a short, thick neck, thick nose and brows, thick lips, a wide, thick jaw. His small eyes were black, sunk deep in the face.
    As Maranzano slipped into the car and pulled the door closed, Fabrese started the engine, backed out of the parking place, began driving away from the prison. They drove for a time in silence. Finally Fabrese said, “So how’d it go?”
    “It went fine.”
    “The don—how’s he doing? I mean, everyone knows he’s had heart trouble. They