Page 89 of The Furies

The shape in the tunnel was now becoming more apparent to her. It was small, and she thought it might have been crouching on all fours, like a cat ready to pounce. The image caused Esther to take a step back, and it seemed that the shape moved forward in turn, so that what little light there was briefly caught what might have been a face before the presence receded again. It was a child, a little girl, probably not more than five or six years old.

Any thought of securing a weapon receded. She would have no need of it, not for a child so young. My God, Esther thought, how did she even get down here? Unless she’d somehow entered when the door had been left open, perhaps by Bobby Wadlin, and then found herself locked in when it was closed again. These old walls were thick, and it was possible that her cries for help might have gone unnoticed.

“Oh, honey,” said Esther, “why don’t you come upstairs with me? I’m sure I can get you safely to my room without us being seen. I have candy and cookies, and milk in the refrigerator. You can have something to eat and tell me all about whatever happened, and we’ll set about finding your mom and dad. Because you do have a mom or a dad, right?”

The child made a sound, but whether of agreement or disputation Esther could not tell.

“And if you’re really all alone,” said Esther, “we’ll look for someone who can help you. It’ll be all right, I promise. What I do know is that you can’t stay here.”

Esther drew herself up to her full height of five two.

“I won’t let you,” she said firmly. “It’s not right.”

The child jumped, and the shock was so sudden that Esther barely had time to register its pale features, its lank hair, and the odd angle at which its head hung, before her heart exploded in her chest. She toppled to the floor, her consciousness consumed by a pain so overwhelming that it had weight and mass, and a gravity that was crushing the life from her.

“Boo!” said the child, as Esther Vogt died.

CHAPTER XXI

Mattia Reggio sounded surprised to hear from me, and then not overjoyed upon being told why I needed his help.

“A lot of the guys I knew are gone now,” he said, and gum clacked loudly. “The ones that aren’t dead are behind bars, and the ones that aren’t dead or behind bars are trying to stay that way. It’s all new faces, new names.”

“Not all,” I said.

He didn’t answer. I let the silence hang.

“I worked out of Boston,” he said at last. “Back then Providence took the lead, and we deferred to them. Now I think it’s more Boston, but the Sawyer thing burned a lot of fingers, so maybe the chain has become fucked up.”

“Did you know Dante Vero?”

“Yeah, I knew Dante, although I was closer to his uncle, Marco.”

“Is Marco still around?”

“No, Marco died in Devens about ten years ago. Liver failure. Last time I saw Dante was at the funeral.”

Devens, or FMC Devens, was a federal prison in Massachusetts that operated as a medical center for inmates with health problems, whether physical or psychological.

“Are you and Dante still on speaking terms?”

“I guess, within reason.”

“I hear he has an aversion to phones,” I said.

“Dante has an aversion to risk,” said Reggio. “He doesn’t open his mouth unless he has to.”

“Even to you?”

“Even to me.”

“How would you go about making an approach?”

“Marco’s only sister, Elisa, is still alive, or was last time I asked. She never married, and wouldn’t have left the old neighborhood. Dante is the kind of man who’d keep an eye on her, make sure she was doing okay. If anyone can get a message to Dante quickly, it’s Elisa.”

“If you could reach out to her, I’d appreciate it.”

I heard Reggio exhale long and hard. I knew he didn’t want to do it, and not only because no particular warmth existed between us. If the Office had targeted Nate Sawyer’s widow, then Reggio’s involvement with a man acting on her behalf, even if only as an intermediary, would earn him a black mark in someone’s ledger.

---