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Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Five: Jackie
JACKIEIn the summer, the cemetery where her mother was buried was a place of stone and manicured grass—although there were small thickets of undergrowth here and there—a place of beloved and, sometimes, forgotten people. Now, a layer of weighty, white blankness that befitted the place's purpose and mood had covered the field.Jackie ambled through the flaky snow. Headstones made of hard, indestructible concrete grew from the soft ground, jutting from the floor like hands of stone. Hands, reaching for something, perhaps the sky. Always reaching but never touching it. A forlornness pervaded the atmosphere here even though the place was obviously tended to almost as well as some museums were, even though there were always people around, weaving between the reaching stone hands, wiping dust off them affectionately, whispering to long dead parents and nieces, weeping softly too, sometimes.The groundskeeper asked Jackie if she needed help finding someone, but she told the woman that she di
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Six: Jackie
JACKIE Her father was still as tall as she remembered him to be, perhaps even taller than she remembered, thick as a tree truck and just as unyielding. He was more than seven feet away, yet the distance did nothing to diminish his stature. The years had not been kind to him though, she could see. A new tiredness had flooded his eyes and poured out over his entire being, soaking the furnace he once was. It showed. At a glance, it showed. His skin was beginning to gnarl and wrinkle. 'Jackie,' her father said. One word, and she heard his voice break a hundred times over inside the syllables. That too—his voice—was as she recalled. Heavy with timbre. Sonorous as music. The man was not meant for the life he was involved in. She had wanted to say that to him so many times, but had never worked up the courage. In another life, her father could have been something. Could have amassed his wealth cleaner.'Dad,' Jackie answered carefully. She did not trust her voice not to break, too.'You are
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Seven: Dante
DANTE Trouble, like a thundercloud, is often heavy with pregnancy. This Dante found soon enough. He had thought the greater majority of his problems had been solved when he won the polls, but it turned out that they were only just beginning. For him, they began with the courier.The driver was hunched over and she held a hand to her stomach, clutching her ribs tightly. She limped, leaning on her left leg just slightly. It was nearly imperceptible, but she still had to be helped to the chair. Dante sat at the other side of the table, across from her, while Imani, his ever-present, ever-irritable hulk of a bodyguard sat a table behind him, her hand in the slash pockets of her denim jacket, probably palming her gun for all he knew. Imani was his second as much as she was his bodyguard. She handled small affairs by herself and had proved herself adept at the job only a few days in. The woman kept on a stoic demeanor that could have passed for a serial killer's, but once, he had seen he
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Eight: Big Jack
BIG JACKAt the flora shop, Big Jack bought a wide bouquet of chrysanthemums—they were Elle's favourite; all things flora were. The inside of the shop smelt like plants and crumbly earth and Big Jack had never felt closer to his wife than in a place that felt like this.He was not leaving the city for good, he told himself. He would probably die here, he told himself, never too far from the bright lights that were New York. To leave this stretch of land would be, for him, to cease to exist. And when he went to the flora shop for a bouquet of chrysanthemums, he assured himself that they were not a parting gift. Goodbyes did not always have to be creatures of permanence.Few shops were open during periods of festivity, especially at this time of the year. Those that were were often in a hurry to close for the day. Most people had families and wanted to be with them when the New Year rolled in. Must be nice, thought Big Jack. Must be nice to have a family, whole, waiting for you to retur
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Nine: Andre
ANDRE Mole.Snitch.Informant.Tattletale.Turncoat.There were many names for the thing Andre had become. Many, many names. Snitch was the one that resonated most in these streets. It was the one that hounded him wherever he went.It was a whisper in his ear. It was the running of water from the shower. It was the crunch of his tyres on the driveway gravel. Snitch, snitch, snitch. Sometimes it was Trent's voice; other times, he could swear that when he heard the word and turned around, for an instant, a split second, he caught sight of Molly, hair like dirty straw, one eye gone. He was trailing ghosts now. But Molly's ghost was easiest to accommodate. Time had made it easier to carry the weight of her passing, and when she skirted at the periphery of his mind, he did not recoil. Instead he looked out for her. When he caught glimpses in the rearview mirror, he parked the car. When he saw her in the shopping mall's mirror, he checked. These sightings were what drove him, what kept him
Dante's Fire Chapter Fifty: Jackie
JACKIE Neil was shady after her father left town. He would not pick her calls, would not show up to any meeting that she proposed. Jackie had the distinct feeling her father had something to do with his newfound reticence. She had rented a car, and even though she could easily have afforded a car with the funds at her disposal, buying a car seemed too lavish a thing to do. Living as she had in school, basically out of a suitcase, working at a bar on weekends, just so she would not have to rely in her father's money, she had grown accustomed to being economical.It was one of the things Joaquin disliked the most about her. He lamented her attitude quite often. 'Why have all that fucking money if you are not going to use it, huh?''It is blood money. Isn't mine.' She would always tell him. And Joaquin would always shake his head in disbelief. Now even those memories were tainted. She drove the rental to her former house, which they had once thought of as theirs. Where her mother died
Dante's Fire Chapter Fifty One: Jackie
JACKIE ‘You think she will pull through?’ A man's voice asked. This was years before, five to be precise. Jackie was at the top of the stairs. She was seated on the floor just outside her mother's room, slouched against the steel handrail, close enough to hear her mother call for her if she needed her. The nurse was there, but Jackie had gotten into the habit of staying close by, never straying too far. She had been listening to a Valerie June song on her walkman, with headphones, and the thrum of the guitar and the drum beats had swallowed up all the sound in the world. When Big Jack and Raymond Bianchi walked into the house, she saw them come from above, but in the place of footsteps and the click of the door opening and closing, there was thin silence and heavy music. She slid the headphones down and all the sounds of reality came rushing back. Raymond was the one speaking, asking if 'she' would survive. Jackie knew who he was referring to: the woman in the room that she sat faci
Dante's Fire Chapter Fifty Two: Dante
DANTEThe sign above his club was neon-lit in the night and its name Ambience glowed blue in the dark, true to its meaning. Ambience was packed to bursting. Folks had begun to return from their Christmas breaks and after a long stretch of chumminess, most people—people who had been locked up with their gregarious kids and aging parents, people who had spent the ‘holiday’ catering to the whims and wishes of others—wanted out desperately. The average New Yorker with an existing social life went to the nightclub to unwind, and without even trying to brag, Dante could comfortably say that Ambience was one of the top clubs in the borough.The music was lusty, ear-splitting like the crowd liked it. People danced, which mostly involved grinding against each others thighs and crotches and jumping, hair billowing away from humid skin, sticking to face and nape, and the party lights danced with them, throwing an array of blues and violets on the walls and the lustrous floor. A bevy of ladies hu
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- Dante's Fire
Jackie & Big Jack: Chapter One-Hundred
JACKIEDante drove as though he meant to frighten her, in that peculiar fashion that she had seen people do in movies sometimes, when they meant to frighten their passengers into silence or verbosity. But he did not ask any more information of her, or her continued silence, which would have been unlikely. This left her to wonder what his endgame was. Was his plan to orchestrate an accident? To kill them both? He was intense, she granted him that. But he never appealed to her as suicidal.'Dante, what are you doing?' She asked tentatively.He kept his eyes on the road, never blinking. 'Is it not obvious?''You can stop the car. Stop the car, let's talk. It doesn't have to be this way.' She said. Now he looked at her. The rage that had returned had now dimmed in his eyes. Instead, there was only exhaustion. Soul-swallowing exhaustion.'You know,' he told her, 'you were the one person in this world that I believed I could grow to trust. Really trust. The one person. And then you just h
- Dante's Fire
Dante: Chapter Ninety Nine
DANTEJackie's phone beeped to life on the nightstand in the dark of the room, bathing the wall in white light, and for the third time, Dante ignored it. That night, the moon was a phosphorescent thing, and it poured into the room through the windows, spilling onto the floors. Over Jackie's shoulder, Dante watched it creep further into the room as the night drew on. The clock on the nightstand read 3 A.M in ominous red letters bright enough to betray the pistol Dante had laid next to it. But it seemed like nothing more than a few hours had passed since they had sex. The room smelled strongly of semen, fabric softener and—this close to her—cheap shampoo.Time stood still whenever Dante was with Jackie. He knew quite well that reality awaited him outside the doors of the hotel, outside of her arms, but while he was with her, his many troubles shrunk and the world ceased trying to swallow him whole, flesh and bone included.Even in the gloom, he
- Dante's Fire
Jackie: Chapter Ninety Eight
JACKIEThe Aurthurson Hotel burned a harsh silver under the glaring moon. Although it was gigantic in its own rights, it was dwarfed by the corporate skyscrapers around it. What they had in height, the hotel had in width.Dante parked the car in the parking lot and shut off the engine. He let out a long, tortured breath. Jackie examined him in the quiet darkness. He slumped into the seat and stared back at her.'Your grand plan is to sit here all night? Or are we ever going to go in?' She asked, humorously.He snorted. 'Real talk? I wish we would. It's peaceful out here. It's almost never peaceful in New York.'They stared at each other in the dim, contained silence of the car. It was the first time since the raid a semblance of calm had returned to him. He was composed again, the Dante she was accustomed to. Jackie knew caged rage intimately. In part, because she was Big Jack's daughter. In part, because she had felt it for herself. After the
- Dante's Fire
Nick: Chapter Ninety Seven
NickColeman Spears was the sort of man who did not give a sailing hoot about anyone else's sensibilities. Nick figured this out the day that he met him. A man who cared little for politics, but paid attention to it anyway, just like himself. So when he heard that the man had gone out of his way to go after Dante Bianchi, he was pleasantly surprised.It was in the tabloids, the raid. Not the police commissioner's involvement in the raid, but the raid itself. Bluish photos of Ambience taken from a distance showed dark police vehicles blocking off the main entrance from the street. Passersby stopped and stared in the snapshots. Were he younger, the old man would have been damn near ecstatic. But now, he only thought it would have been even better if Spears had finished it, had brought the goddamn Bianchi out of his precious night club in handcuffs. But hr had not. He had found nothing. This part did not leave Nick surprised. Impressed, but not surprised. Th
- Dante's Fire
Andre: Chapter Ninety Six
ANDREThe snow that gathered at the top floor of his building had melted with the coming of spring, and the water that it had left behind formed shallow puddles at the corners of the roof. Damp wetness was everywhere you looked on the roof, every surface you touched. Andre had not been here for a long while. He had forgotten what a view Brooklyn was at the darkest hours of night, and how much better the view was in the light of day. He had forgotten the rows and rows of buildings, some as tiny as pebbles in the distance, others skyscrapers, bursting through the cotton wool clouds.Memories are feeble things. But it was all coming back to him as he stood there, staring out into the day. It did not seem so long ago now, since he had been there with Nick Noah, Trent in a building some distance away, with a sniper trained on him. A much needed precaution.This time, however, like the last, Andre was not alone. Gloria was at his side. She was dressed as she oft
- Dante's Fire
Spears: Chapter Ninety five
SPEARSThe team of officers came through the front doors like an avalanche, breaking the mountain slope. This, at least, was what Spears imagined it would have seemed like to Dante Bianchi.He had taken the rear, coming in as the last man, his hands deep in the pockets of his Police parka, the handle of his firearm protruding like a leathery bone from his utility belt. Ambience was a tall building, and the lower floor could be traced with the eyes to the VIP section in the upper floor. Only staff were in the building at the time, and one of them, a woman was descending the stairs when they charged through the front door unannounced. She stopped, clutching the steel railing in a fright. Leo Daniels was ascending the steps, talking to the Oman as he climbed. The bartender was startled, too. Spears did not blame him. Cops were never bearers of good never.Soon Dante Bianchi answered them. He came rushing down the stairs, in a suit that distinguished him, gave him t
- Dante's Fire
Jackie: Chapter Ninety Four
JACKIEWhen Dante called again, asking if she would come to his club, Ambience, Jackie had said yes without pause. There should have been that fear of sounding desperate, that apprehension that he would hear her rapid, almost desperate yes, and wonder, and maybe even guess correctly that she wanted to be there only so she could go through his things so she could get into his head.But there was no fear. That gave her cause to worry. Neil had warned her many times already. The last time was the day before the call. He had picked her up from work the other day. She came down after a long, grueling shift to find him waiting in his car outside. Even though she would much rather had taken a taxi, she let herself be talked into entering the passenger seat.'Dante is dangerous.' He had told her. 'Volatile.''Oh, and you are not?'Neil ground his teeth together. She could tell he wanted to pound the steering wheel. 'Not like this. I watched him shoot a man in
- Dante's Fire
Big Jack: Chapter Ninety Three
BIG JACKHe cut the frizzly beard he had grown on the journey. In the mirror, when he looked he had become another version of himself. A man who was familiar in a distant fashion, but who was still a stranger. Big Jack washed the shaving cream off his cheeks and chin and felt the smooth, new flesh there. Another thing Joaquin would never be able to do.The fight at the motel had left him with a limp, slightly imperceptible, but still there. He limped out of the bathroom with its ornate mirror and shiny ceramic, back into the room that had been allocated to him. The windows in the room were open, and a gentle breeze played with the shutters. For there, Big Jack could catch a glimpse of the street. A row of palm trees lined both lanes on the road, the early morning sun was the colour of a cob of corn. He was leaving, finally. Everything felt distant in a way already. Like he was never there, like he was just passing through.McCoy had made his staff leave him some clean
- Dante's Fire
Dante: Chapter Ninety Two
DANTEColeman Spears was just as punctual as he had expected. The bloody man was correctness itself, what with that firm jaw, those self-righteous eyes that seemed to have the ability to make anything he did not approve of combust if he fixed them with a stare for enough time. Which was what he looked to be trying to do to Dante when he spotted him in the midst of the festivity.Dante took his hand in a firm grip. The man's giant paw of a hand almost swallowed his. 'Finally,' he said through a smile that was more clenched teeth than it was actually excitement. 'I get to meet the man running the city.'Spears snorted. 'I could say the same for you. The people seem to believe you are the one in charge.'Dante's arm was in grave danger of being crushed. Flattery and subtle violence? One handshake and a sentence and he absolutely loved this guy.He managed to get his hand out of the vice grip and smiled. 'Well, this is New York. The people think what they
