Page 57 of The Cat's Mausy

Open Season

Fergus exhaled a cloud of smoke as he turned the page of the photo album. This was his favorite time of day. The legitimate workday had ended and he had a little quiet time before less legitimate work began. He’d usually spend time with the photo albums during this, gentle reminders of why he did the things he did. But that wasn’t the reason for him breaking out this specific album today.

He couldn’t let it go. The boy had said his father was called Hans and that he had died before his birth and Fergus had no reason not to believe him but-

He smiled sadly at the pictures of young Irishmen and one out-of-place German all standing in front of a bar. Lukas would have been about Issac’s age in this, both his son and the young man Fergus had met if they were in fact two different Issacs. He had never thought to ask Lukas how common the name Maus was, or if he had any brothers. There was the small, however unlikely, possibility that Lukas had a brother or cousin who had a kid around the same time as Lukas and named him the same name as Lu-Lu’s precious boy.

And maybe pigs fly, he thought, taking another drag on his cigarette as he turned the page.

There was Issac, Lukas’s, a few weeks old and already the happiest little boy Fergus had ever seen. Lukas had said on the phone after Sarah gave birth that he fell in love with Issac the same way he had fallen in love with Sarah: on first sight. Fergus had too. The second he saw that wrinkled, squalling face, he knew he’d move the entire sun because it hurt those precious dark eyes. Lukas’s eyes.

He dropped the burnt-out cigarette in the ashtray and turned the page back to the group shot, running a finger along each of the men’s faces. Many of them were dead now, some just days after this photo was taken. The Clovers had been nobodies back then, but they were rapidly changing that. Too rapidly maybe. Lukas’s presence in their gang had been a turning point; given Fergus and Finnegan some heavy power behind their words. Fergus had always been the brains, planning out the attacks, and maneuvering their people. Finnegan was the recruiter, convincing and rallying people to their cause in ways Fergus still didn’t know. Lukas, however, was the threat. Their German Reaper. He was the person they sent when words and shows of numbers didn’t work. Those black eyes were often enough to get most people to play by their rules, but he also had the strength and techniques to finish anyone who could hurt the Clovers.

But Lukas, for all the rumors and lore and appearances, wasn’t some cold-blooded killer who reveled in the deaths he caused. Just the opposite. He was a good man, a kind man, a loving man to the people that were important to him. For a while, that was the Clovers. Fergus and Finnegan had been his closest friends, but Lukas liked all the lads well enough, looked after the young ones like a big brother. Then he met Sarah, and the Clovers had to make room for a princess.

Fergus couldn’t blame him for leaving, not when his one boundary for Issac had been so blatantly crossed. He couldn’t blame Sarah, who had never liked any of them all that much, for giving Lukas the ultimatum, or Lukas for agreeing with her. They had both been far more understanding than Fergus could have asked; Finn still breathing was proof enough of that. They had to protect their son. He just wished protecting Issac hadn’t come at the cost of his friendship. He wondered-

The Italian national anthem played, breaking him out of his thoughts as he looked around at the phone he had left on his desk.

“Tony,” Fergus said by way of greeting as he answered the call, setting the album on the desk still open and picking up his cigarettes. He was supposed to be cutting back, but who was really counting? “Did we have a meeting? I’m sorry, I totally forgot.”

“O’Hare,” Antonio Esposito said coldly. “I have Volkov on three-way.”

Fergus paused, his lighter halfway to his cigarette. “I see,” he said slowly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“We have each received disturbing calls from Gatto and Adrian about an incident at the university,” Tony said, no less cold and easily the most unfriendly Fergus had heard him speak to him in the last fifteen years.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Fergus said, carefully as he turned his lighter in his fingers. “What about?”

“About at least three Irishmen coming into my Ring, taking the myshonok, and shooting at my son,” Emil roared so suddenly into the phone that Fergus had to pull it away from his ear with a wince.

“Hang on, Emil,” he said, switching to speaker phone for the sake of his eardrums. “My boys would not-”

“Are you calling our men liars, O’Hare,” Tony asked, not raising his voice.

Fergus sighed as he set the phone down. “Of course not,” he said, lighting his cigarette. “But no one should be stupid enough to-” He paused. “Hang on, what did you say they took?”

“Myshonok,” Emil snarled.

“The boy you met Saturday and took such an interest in, O’Hare,” Tony clarified. “He was taken by force and Little Volkov confirms the voices he heard were Irish.”

Fergus stared down at the screen then slowly to the photo album as fear and rage filled him. “Anyone who went after those boys did so without my knowledge or consent,” he said firmly. “I would never allow harm to come to your son, Emil, nor would I allow anyone to touch the lad you introduced to me Saturday. Give me a name and I will give you open season.”

There was a pause, Emil’s heavy breathing the only sound. Fergus couldn’t blame him. Dimitri was the apple of his eye and it was clear enough that Dimitri was at least very good friends with Issac, if not more from what he had seen. Issac might as well be Emil’s own blood for that alone.

“Gatto has revealed to me history previously unknown,” Tony said finally. “We knew he was a Casualty Orphan, but his background was a secret he kept to himself until he opened up to Gatto.”

“Sure,” Fergus said, also recalling how close the Cat had held Issac after Fergus had lost himself for a moment. If Fergus hadn’t called men like Lukas his friend, the Cat’s look alone would have scared Fergus senseless. He wanted to tell Tony to get to the point but he was already on thin ice with both men. Being rude would not do him or his Ring any favors.

“He told Gatto that his father and mother were both murdered in an alley outside their apartment. The ten-year-old saw this murder happen and the man who pulled the trigger.”

“Fuck,” Fergus breathed, closing his eyes and praying, praying that he had been wrong. “What were the lad’s parents’ names?” There was another pause. “Tony, please. I need to know their names.”

“Gatto did not tell me his mother’s name,” Tony said, “but his father was called Lukas Maus. Issac said that he was known as the German Reaper. Your man, O’Hare.”

Fergus thought the world would shatter around him as Tony spoke his friend’s name, pressing his eyes into his hands and feeling them flood his palms. “Did Gatto give you a name,” he asked, his voice shaking with rage and pain. “Give me a fecking name, Tony! I will skin the bastard myself.”

When Tony spoke the cold was gone. “He does not have a name, only a description. The man was a Clover that was close with topolino’s father, close enough that Issac and the man share a name.”

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