Page 28 of Kingpin
“Fuck! Dad watch . . .”
Before I can finish the sentence, the nine millimeter explodes into a flurry of gunfire. I immediately duck down and cover my head with my hands as the bullets come flying through the car. There’s glass shattering and I can hear the distinct sound of bullets piercing the metal of the car. The sound is so loud I can’t hear myself think. Panic sets in and tears fill my eyes as I try to dig myself lower and lower into my seat. I can’t seem to get low enough though, and suddenly, a hot stinging sensation rips across the back of my neck, and I feel warm liquid rolling down the back of my shirt. It hurts like hell, but I know better than to move. The shots seem like they last forever, but eventually they stop, and tires squeal as the Honda rushes away.
Now, there’s silence. Nothing but the terrifying scream of silence and the ringing of my ears. I know I heard the car drive away, but I’m scared to move.
I open my eyes first. There’s broken glass on the floor beneath me, and a white smoke is hovering through the car as it floats off the bullets and shell casings. I see drops of blood next to my feet just as I rub the back of my neck and wince at the pain. Sure enough, there’s blood all over my fingers when I inspect them. It’s not a hole, so I assume a bullet grazed me as I ducked. It hurts, but I think I’ll be okay. Now, I need to get up.
“Dad, you good? I saw who it was,” I hear myself say, but my voice sounds muffled and my ears ring louder when I speak. “Dad, I saw them. Dad?” I force myself to sit up and look over at my father, but the second I do, I wish I wouldn’t have.
My father’s slumped down in his seat, his neck bent down and to the right so much that his head is resting on his own shoulder like a pillow. His entire torso is covered in blood.
“Oh fuck! Dad!” I scream as I lean over and try to lift his head up, but when I grab his face, my fingers sink into a hole on the left side of his head. I scream when I feel it and let go of him, and his head falls back down to the position it was in. “Oh my god. Oh my fucking god! Dad!”
I muster up the courage to lean over and look at the other side of his face, because I have to see it. I have to know. When I do, I crumble. There’s two, maybe even three holes—there’s too much blood to tell for sure—in the left side of my dad’s face, and I know there’s no chance he could possibly have survived what I’m seeing.
I let out an uncontrollable scream that burns the back of my throat. My tears have a mind of their own and come rushing out of my eyes faster than I ever thought possible, as I stare at my hands covered in my father’s blood. I hear police sirens approaching, and there’s bystanders on the sidewalks staring into the car. None of them are doing anything to help, they’re just staring at us. At me. At my dead father. I don’t even bother asking for help, either. They’re obviously too stupid to recognize I need it. Fuck them.Fuck them!
I look at my father again as I sob uncontrollably. My stomach heaves up and down from the crying, and my heart hurts from the sight of him slumped over, unmoving, breathless, lifeless. I can’t think, I can’t see straight, I can’t move, I can’t live. My thoughts collide and jumble together to form an incoherent mess of words and emotions that multiply over and over again, and produce a hatred and anger I can’t understand. I don’t know if I’m in shock or if I’m just scared and mad. I don’t know anything.
The sirens get closer and I still can’t move. Soon, the cops will be here and they’ll ask me questions about what happened, and if I saw anything. The same fucking cops who arrested Frankie yesterday, and the same ones who would’ve been coming after my father tomorrow.
I won’t tell them anything. I won’t tell them about Our Thing, or River City, or my father, or Alfonse Cestone’s death, and I won’t tell them about Sammy Cestone either.
I won’t tell them it was Sammy.
It was Sammy.
Sammy . . .
My world closes in around me. Alannah’s leaving. My father’s dead. There’s nothing left, and I have no reason to think of anything positive. Everything positive is gone.
As the cops arrive with their sirens blaring, I look at my father one last time. I think about how his heart is no longer beating, and I realize mine isn’t either. It has gone too cold. Or, maybe it just left my body altogether. I don’t know. I don’t care. Either way, I’ll never be the same. I don’t even want to be.
Everything good in me has died with my father.
