Page 2 of Inferno
Felice laid a hand on the side of my bed, his fingers curling around the bordering bars. I felt myself stiffen at his closeness. It brought back unwelcome memories of being tied up in his huge bee-infested mansion right before Calvino, his brother, beat the crap out of me. I shifted away from him. On the other side of my bed my mother squeezed my shoulder.
‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ she whispered, but there wasn’t an ounce of conviction in her voice. The last time she had seen Felice Falcone, he was pointing a gun at her head. If she thought I couldn’t feel her hand shaking on my shoulder, she was wrong.
‘Mr Falcone,’ croaked Detective Comisky, his cheeks rouging. ‘I’ll have to ask you to leave. We’re conducting a private interview with Miss Gracewell.’
‘Whatever for, Detective Comisky?’ Felice’s smile, while fake, was a lot more practised than that of his adversaries.
‘Well, we—’ Detective Comisky faltered. He shut his notebook and shoved it back into his shirt pocket, but kept the pencil clamped in his hand. ‘I don’t recall telling you my name, Mr Falcone.’
Felice raised his almost invisible brows. ‘But you knowmyname, detective. Is it that strange that I should know yours?’
Detective Comisky blanched. Felice seized his surprise, stepping closer to him. ‘Walter Comisky,’ he mused. ‘342 Sycamore Drive, I believe. Beautiful residential neighbourhood. Those quaint brick houses, and then there’s that fabulous park on the end of your street. I expect your girls adore it.’
Detective Comisky rolled his shoulders back and made himself stand a little straighter. He was a half-head shorter than Felice but he jutted his chin to account for the difference. ‘They do, Mr Falcone. Now if you could just—’
‘And your wife mustlovethat backyard. So much open space for her gardening. All those beautiful hydrangeas, and I’ve always adored long-stemmed daisies. It’s Alma, isn’t it?’ He flashed another thirty-two-tooth grin.
‘No,’ said Detective Comisky, with obvious relief. He hiked his belt up, returning a small, not-so-practised smile that flickered underneath his moustache. ‘It’s not.’
Behind him, Detective Medina’s expression had crumpled.
‘No, no, no.’ Felice rubbed his temples as though his mind had betrayed him. ‘That’s not your wife, Walter, that’s DetectiveMedina’swife… isn’t it, Doug?’ He peered around Comisky, making a show of his sudden interest in Detective Medina.
It took several long seconds before Detective Medina responded. ‘I don’t see why that m-m-matters in a p-p-professional investigation, Mr Falcone.’
My mother squeezed my shoulder a little harder, and beneath the sheets I squeezed my leg to stop it from shaking. Felice was a master of intimidation and it was hard not to feelthe horror in the detectives’ faces as they realized exactly what was going on. Here was a cat sharpening its claws in front of two quivering mice.
‘It matters,’ clarified Felice, without taking his eyes off his prey, ‘because maybe I have a gift for her. Both of your wives, in fact. Alma and…’ He made a show of tapping his chin thoughtfully, but there wasn’t a person in that room who didn’t believe he already knew the name of Detective Comisky’s wife. ‘Rose!’ he whooped, feigning excitement in his fakeAha!moment. ‘How could I forget? Rose. Beautiful, like a flower. Beautiful like her garden. They fit together seamlessly.’
Detective Medina raised his hand to his chest, rubbing at it with casual slowness, but there was a real possibility he was having a heart attack. I pictured Felice stepping over his body, being careful not to scuff his shoes.Ugh.
When Felice spoke again his voice was low. ‘Perhaps your wives might like a jar of my home-made honey? I could have it delivered to them, it wouldn’t be a problem…’ He trailed off, letting the sentence, and everything that went unsaid in it, hang in the air.
The pencil snapped inside Detective Comisky’s fist.
Felice smirked.
I sank deeper into my sheets. I remembered the jar of honey Felice had sent to Jack, and exactly where it had led us all. By the looks on the detectives’ faces it was clear they knew exactly what that black-ribboned jar meant. In the underworld, he was ‘The Sting’, and his honey brought death.
‘That’s all right, Mr Falcone,’ said Detective Comisky, shifting to the side so he was no longer standing between Feliceand the doorway. He gestured at the door. ‘We don’t want anything from you. We want to proceed with this private interview. If you would please leave now.’
Felice threw his hands in the air, clapping them together once. ‘Of course,’ he said with blithe indifference. ‘I have to be with my nephew anyway. I heard all your questions this morning tired him out, and I would hope you don’t plan on doing the same thing to this poor girl. I’m quite sure she needs her rest, and even more sure that this investigation is an utter waste of your precious time, which could be spent more productively elsewhere.’ He left the room without so much as a backward glance.
My mother released her grip on my shoulder and exhaled in a choked puff. My palms were slick with sweat even though Felice hadn’t looked at us once when he was in the room.
‘Well, then,’ said Detective Comisky. ‘We’ll resume.’
The interview was concluded a couple of minutes later. That was on Day Two. Two days since my life had flipped upside down and changed everything I thought I knew. There were so many things that haunted me, questions woven inside the nightmares. And there were people, too. People I never wanted to see again, people I never wanted to meet, and people who still owed me answers. And though I didn’t know it at the time, there was someone just like me, trapped on the other side of that world, trying to get out.
CHAPTER TWOTHE MAFIA QUEEN
At first my mother refused to leave my side. She just watched me, statue-like in her chair, blood-red eyes drooping with tiredness as she clutched my hand in hers and told me it would get better. Her voice shook as she said it, and I wondered at her reluctance to be apart from me – was she afraid of leaving me by myself, or was she terrified of being alone?
When she could barely open her eyes from exhaustion or speak without yawning the ends of her sentences, she agreed to go home and sleep. It was almost over. The next day I was getting out. After that I would never have to set foot in a hospital room again.
The sound of her retreating footfall was replaced by Nic’s surer steps. He was returning from his brother’s bedside,where he spent the other half of his time, his guilt splitting him in two.
‘Hey,’ he whispered. He leant over me, subtly assessing the bruises, like he always did. Maybe he didn’t want me to feel self-conscious about it, or maybe he didn’t want to remind me where they had come from.
