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Dante's Fire Chapter Thirteen: Dante
Chapter Thirteen DANTEDante's granny, Grandma Ursula, attended the funeral. Grandma Ursula had eyes like curdled chalk water, the watery white of albumen, and hands soft as a mattress. She gathered Dante's face in those mattress-supple hands of hers. 'Oh, Dante, my boy.' She rasped. 'Your father—terrible is what it is. Just terrible.'Dante could only nod and wonder how she was able to worry over him when he had merely lost his father. She had lost a son. It did not get any worse than that. Grandma was nearly a hundred, if Dante tried to do the maths. But he did not. Grandma Ursula had been there since he was waddling in diapers; she had also been there when his father was waddling in diapers too, since the beginning of time. There was no telling where she began or ended. She was one of the things in his life that had remained steady, perpetually present. Even when his mother died, she had been there for him and his father, a steady and unmoving boat on a running stream, holding the
Dante's Fire Chapter Fourteen: Dante
DANTEIf you had been at the reception, you would have thought the Bianchis a happy family, a bunch of haoyoy people. You would have thought perhaps that Raymond Bianchi died of natural causes. Maybe a heart attack. It was not uncommon for men his age. There was laughter and sparkling wine in squeaky glasses; there was clinking and toasting, most of which Orlando did.'To Raymond!' He roared, standing at the banister overlooking the gigantic living room.'To Raymond,' The crowd below raised their glasses along with him in salute, auriferous wine sloshing from side to side. Dante walked around, weaving through the crowd with no particular purpose but to tell those that milled about the house, the stairs, the rooms that his father had walked in, breathed in, lived in, danced with his wife in, that they were welcome. Thank you for coming, Dante said through tightly gritted teeth. Shaking cold hands that bore little more than sympathy. He hated the job. He hated the entire day. It was wo
Dante's Fire Chapter Fifteen: Andre
ANDREThe sodding funeral lasted so long Andre was nearly konking out on duty. He was in charge of the security for the night. Perhaps for all other nights. Most of the soldiers in the mafia revered him now. They could often be found offering him a smoke, which was a thing he always accepted readily. They hailed him on the streets unabashedly, loudly. He had survived a hit, had seen a full scale insurrection and had lived to tell the tale. That counted for something in the city. To the elite though, it was a different matter. They now regarded him with distrust. With eyes that said they would rather he had not lived to tell the tale. Andre did not begrudge them their wishes, the sodding money hoarders. They were right to be afraid. As much as it was often believed that it was the Bosses who made the pivotal decisions, it could also be said that in every Mafia, the force of those below made the difference. Without foot soldiers, there was no organization. Their opinions mattered, mo
Dante's Fire Chapter Sixteen: Big Jack
Chapter Sixteen BIG JACKGhostly.That was the proper word for a place like the cemetery, Big Jack thought as he waded through the snow and wet lawn to get to his best friend's grave side. A light breeze blew. He had worn weighty clothes meant to keep off the cold, yet he shivered.Poplar trees saturated the parcel of land. In the errant wind, their leaves rustled and sang. Their fat branches and obese trunks cast deep shadows on the short snow-smeared grass and the cement headstones beneath them, some of which had been there so long that they were crooked, leaning sideways towards one another.Big Jack knew where his friend was buried: in an unmarked grave right next to that of his father. It was a spot far from the shade of any tree, near a hill rise. 'Nothing like a good cool breeze, Jack.' Raymond told him the day they were there, years before. They had come to visit his father together, because Raymond could not do it by himself. They were both nineteen and suntanned and it was t
Dante's Fire Chapter Seventeen: Dante
DANTENatasha looked surprised to see him when he arrived at her doorstep.'Señor,' She said, her full brows lifted slightly in startled contemplation. 'I did not think that you would come.' 'I did not think I would either.' Dante replied. She had left him an invitation to her house to talk about the future of the mafia. Dante had planned not to attend; he had at first not given a flying toss about the group. But after Natasha pressed the cross into his palm, things had taken a mild turn. After a night of emptying the liquor reserves at his father's house, draining bottle after bottle of sparkling and red wine, Dante had come to the realization that he would at least like to know how the group intended to proceed in finding Big Jack. That, he knew, he would learn if he were a recognized part of the mafia, or at least, a person who invested his interest in it. Even now, the cross was pressed to his chest, the steel cool on his skin as metal is often wont to be. It had been fashioned
Dante's Fire Chapter Eighteen: Dante
DANTE Blythe edged forward until he was at the edge of his seat. He played his thumbs over the rim of a glass cup with wine sloshing inside of it. 'So, Natasha, now that we are all here—and I believe that we are—why exactly are we here?''Patience,' cautioned Sean savoring his wine. 'You are always in too much of a hurry. Time is not running away.'Natasha smiled. 'Gentlemen,' she began, disentangling her legs and steepling her hands together instead. 'The past few days and, perhaps, weeks, have been, without overstating it, very tedious. This I know. Which is why I did not call this meeting sooner.'Dante shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was stiff and too thin. Through the layer of padding and foam, he could feel the wood against his spine. How could they sit like this? It dawned on him that this was something they must have done now and again. Their meeting hosted in different places and different boroughs of the city. Perhaps this had always been one of the spots. That would
Dante's Fire Chapter Nineteen: Jackie
JACKIENeil had gotten Jackie a place to stay in the city. It was in the upstairs apartment of a tall, ancient building made up of a patchwork of red bricks. There was a store on the first floor and a barbeque across the street. The pavement which bordered the stretch of road was pockmarked by hydrants. Every two steps and you met another one. Jackie could imagine them in late springtime or the summer, pumping a spray of water into the air like a fire hose, children dancing underneath, getting their summer clothes drenched. Now, mercifully, they were not functional. Jackie could not imagine being hit in the face by a torrent of ice cold water.Since her father's disappearance, there had been no news whatsoever. Neil would have told her if there was any, she liked to believe. And if something had happened to him, the news would have told it. Or so she hoped. Being in the dark was a thing of many frustrations. For someone who had become accustomed to texts and lectures and the ordinarin
Dante's Fire Chapter Twenty: Jackie
JACKIE 'You are late today.' Neil said curtly when she arrived at the appointed place.Jackie slipped her bag off her shoulder and slid into the booth, thankful for the release taking off the weight of it had afforded her.'I am. I guess you are now free to call me my father's daughter.'The 'meeting place' was a restaurant too, like the first one, but this one was more secluded. At the corner of these street, a sign hanging on the glass of its door boasted of the finest mac-and-cheese in the city. An OPEN sign lay at the other side of the glass. Jackie pushed the door open and stepped in. There was no bell jangle. But she was immediately assailed by the strong aroma of food, of foreign spices and culinary miracles. A woman was emerging from the store with a baby on her hip, trying to squeeze past Jackie, but when she caught a glimpse of Jackie's face, she backpedaled and gave her a wide berth.What was that about? Jackie had wondered. The sheer brutality of what she had just witnesse
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