Page 62 of Kingpin
I can hear Alannah struggling still, and trying to talk behind the tape, so I muster up some strength and pick myself up. I grab the knife off the floor and use it to cut the rest of the rope off of her and she pulls the tape off herself.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She looks me in the eye and as tears start to stream down her cheeks.
“You’re asking me if I’m okay, and you’re the one who got shot,” she says as she rubs my face.
“I’ll be fine as long as you’re alright.” I help her up off the floor, and we both look down at Abram, whose eyes are closed, but fluttering.
“He’s not dead. He just passed out. We have to call the cops,” Alannah says. She looks at me, wondering what I’m going to say. I can tell she knows what I’m thinking, and it sure as hell isn’t to call the police.
“We can’t do that,” I say to her. Alannah freezes and stares at me blankly. “Alannah, I need you to listen to me. This motherfucker put a contract on my head that resulted in an innocent man being killed while he was out to dinner. You and I barely made it out of Isle of Capri alive. He also shot my good friend, Tommy Caprio, in the back and put him in the fucking hospital. Tommy’s a made guy, too. And now, he’s broken into your house, tied you to a chair, and shot me in the fucking shoulder. There’s not a fucking chance in hell I’m gonna let this cock sucker walk outta here. It’s fucking over for him.”
Alannah keeps staring at me, and I know she’s thinking about the difference between right and wrong right now, but I need her to understand the depths of this situation. I need it more than she realizes.
I hear her breathing starting to pick up as I walk over to where I dropped my jacket and my guns, and I pull the nine millimeter with the silencer out of the holster. I chamber a round and walk over to Abram. His chest rises and falls as he breathes, and his eyes are still fluttering with life, fighting their way back to consciousness as I stand over him. He doesn’t even realize I hold his life in my hands right now. After all he’s done, it’s me who holds his life in my hands in the form of a nine millimeter pistol.
“Dominic, wait,” Alannah says, almost screaming it. She’s breathing hard, like she’s about to hyperventilate. “I don’t know how I feel about this.”
“How do you not? He forced his way into your house and tied you up, Alannah. You think if we send him to jail, he’s gonna just forget about it all? You think he doesn’t have people on the outside who’d be willing to force their way in here too? It wasn’t Abram who shot at us at Isle of Capri. It was some kid named Anthony who worked for him. He did it for five thousand dollars. That’s all it took was him offering some poor kid five thousand dollars, and the next thing you know, there’s bullets flying over our heads as we wait for our food. If we let him go, it’ll never be over. We’ll never be safe, and we can never go anywhere without looking over our shoulder. Not ever. So how do you feel aboutthat?”
I can see the realization dawn on her. Her face tightens and her shoulders slump, because she knows it’s true. We can’t let him live.
Abram’s eyes start to flutter more, and I know he’s on the verge of waking up. We don’t have much time left. Something has to be done, but I’m trying to be patient for Alannah.
“Alannah, I know this is hard for you,” I continue. “But I gotta end this, and I gotta do it now.”
“I know,” she replies as a tear rolls down her cheek. “You’re right. We’ll never be safe if he lives, and after all he’s done . . . he deserves it. I can’t believe I just said that, but I know it’s true. He was going to kill me. He was going to kill both of us . . . he deserves it.”
Alannah looks me in the eye, her face blank and stiff, and she wipes a tear away. She glances down at Abram just as his eyes start to flicker open.
“Okay,” she mutters, almost in a whisper, then she turns on her heel and walks away. I watch her make her way down the hall and turn into her bedroom, where she slowly closes the door behind her.
Abram comes to just as her door latches, and I aim the weapon at his torso. I let his eyes focus on me and the gun before I do anything. I want him to know what’s about to happen. I want him to see it coming. So, I wait until it’s as clear as day.
When he sees me, he looks afraid at first, but he pushes it away and tries to toughen up.
“You’re not gonna do it,” he says. “If you were gonna do it, you would’ve done it already, motherfucker. You need one of your goons to do it for you.”
I let him finish, then I smile.
“You don’t know me very well, and I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression, so it’s important that I’m honest with you,” I say, as I grin and tighten my grip on the pistol. “The truth is, Abram, you died the day we met. Now, we’re just making it official.”
I squeeze the trigger and smile at the sight of blood spurting out of his stomach. He tries to scream, but the pain is too much, so all he can do is inhale and try to clutch his belly. When he reaches for the wound, I pull the trigger again, sending another bullet through his hand. This time he does scream, and I don’t want him to make Alannah too uncomfortable with all that noise, so I pull the trigger again. Another bullet tears into his body and finds a home in his lung, stealing his breath away. The pistol kicks one last time as I fire another round into Abram Baskov’s forehead. Blood splatters across the hardwood and starts to pool underneath his body, just as his lungs release their last bit of air and life.
He’s gone.
After another minute, I hear the bedroom door being opened, and Alannah walks back into the room. She looks down at Abram, but only for a second as she realizes it’s actually over. I don’t know what to expect from her, but to my surprise, she walks over and wraps her arms around my waist. I drop the gun on the floor and hold her close as she lays her head on my chest.
“Now what do we do?” she asks as she lays on me like she’s trying to listen to my heartbeat.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I answer. “I’m gonna clean this up, and it’s gonna be over. I just gotta make a phone call.”
“Okay,” is all she says as she goes to sit on the couch and I grab my cellphone.
I dial up Skinny Joe and Charlie first, then I call Frankie so I can tell him it’s over. He doesn’t say too much, but I can tell he’s finally satisfied with something I’ve done. He even volunteers two of his guys from his crew to help Joe and Charlie get rid of Abram’s body.
When they show up, I let them in so they can get to work. They bring in plastic and supplies to clean up the mess, while Alannah and I pack a bag for her so she can come stay with me at River City until she’s ready to come back to the apartment. It might be a while, though. Seeing a dead man in your living room tends to have long-term effects.
We leave and let the guys take care of the mess, and once we’re at River City, Alannah and I take an hour-long shower together after she works her nursing magic on my gunshot wound. The bullet went through and through, so she cleaned up the wound and bandaged me up real nice. We don’t say much after that, and I can see she’s trying to wash the image of Abram’s lifeless body out of her memory. I understand it may take a while, and I’ll be here to support her if she needs me. The same way she wanted to be there for me when my father died. I’ll be whatever she needs me to be.
Once we’re clean, we lay in my bed and hold each other. I don’t need her to say anything. The fact that she accepted what had to be done says enough for me. It takes a special kind of woman to accept a man like me, and to accept the things I have to do in my “line of work”. Alannah is no ordinary woman. She’s special, and she’s mine.
I never needed another reason to love and trust Alannah, but she gave me a million more reasons tonight. The bond we share is unbreakable now.
We’re in this.
Together.
