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Dante's Fire Prologue
PROLOGUE When Jackie kissed him, she felt something. This is not to say that all those other times with men who had somehow just caught her eye, Jackie had not felt anything at all. She had felt a lot, in truth. The first time with Andrew, a beautiful man with hair the colour of lacquered gold whom she had met attending a student conference, she had felt only warm. Nothing else. She felt warm when he slipped inside of her underneath the covers. They rocked each others bodies, back and forth, swinging like a sweet pendulum made of limbs and flesh, gasping, clawing at each other's skin, but not seeing each other, because the lights had been turned off. Andrew was that sort of man, the sort that turned off the lights before he undid a woman's clothes. He had a sad politeness about him that could almost be mistaken for sweetness if you did not recognize it for what it was. There, in that air-conditioned room, under the hotel's pristine sheets, Jackie had felt only warm, like all the o
Dante's Fire Chapter One: Big Jack
Chapter OneBIG JACK When the last shipment came in, Jack Maeto, was at the stash house, waiting. He was in his work clothes: a limp pair of black overalls, a yellow scarf tied loosely round his neck, knotted at his nape, old work boots at his feet. Besides the ring he received as a gift from his wife at the altar, Big Jack wore no jewelry. Even though she was long gone and it was lusterless silver, near tarnishing, it was adornment enough for him. It would always be. A man whose notoriety had earned him the moniker, Big Jack, he was as the name suggested. Thickset, thick arms, thick voice. All around him, workers in similar apparel swarmed, moving boxes to the far end of the room, trying to make space for the new shipment. It came, and the store's single door was dragged aside to accommodate the van, its tires screeching its displeasure as it went. The truck rolled in. Big Jack knew all his drivers by name. He had to, considering the fragile nature of his shipment. You did not hand
Dante's Fire Chapter Two: Dante
Chapter TwoDANTEIt was snowing when the phone rang the first time, and Dante was at the corner store buying groceries for the night. They had come early this year, the snowflakes, suddenly filling the sky and blocking out the sun, thin tufts of white drifting downwards like brown leaves from trees in autumn, like locks from God's scalp. Only this morning, children played at the basketball court, scuffing knees and bruising elbows, jumping several feet in the air to dunk worn-out basketballs in the even more worn net. It was still warm outside. Not enough to warrant sun-dresses and bare thighs, but not frigid enough to make people encase themselves in coats or carry parasols with them, hurrying as they went, looking like frozen burritos. The cold had crept up on them, on the entire New York, out of nowhere.At the store, Dante's fingers were freezing. He had forgotten his mittens at home. He pulled the coat tight around his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets for warmth.
Dante's Fire Chapter Three: Jackie
Chapter ThreeJACKIE It was nearing dusk and Big Jack had not made it to yet another graduation. The fact that she had expected his absence did not make it hurt any less, and the fact that his absence could still hurt her made Jackie realize she had not changed. She was the same after all these years. She was still the same girl she was when she was ten years old, a pinning braces-wearing girl, waiting for her father to make it home in time for Christmas. Jackie sat on one of the seats at the convocation auditorium long after everyone else had left, savouring the quietness. The note of finality it had. She was still swaddled in her graduation gown, wide like a caftan. The tassel of her hat hung before her, swishing in the evening wind. The air in San Diego was like the air inside a kitchen: crisp and warm, still tepid at the start of December. The snow often came quite late in San Diego. But unlike Big Jack, at least it came. When it began to get darker, the sky obfuscating from
Dante's Fire Chapter Four: Jackie
Chapter 4JACKIE It was the afternoon after graduation night that Jackie finally saw the numerous calls on her phone. They were all from her father. On her phone, she had saved his name as Big Jack, the moniker everyone knew him by. It was amusing sometimes, how the name made him sound impressive and colossal, but it was she, a six year old with eyes like white oil and lips like cramped petals, who started calling him that. Suddenly, everyone they knew took up the name, and it stuck. If she was Little Jack, then he was Big Jack. It made sense at the time.Her mouth tasted of vileness when she awoke. It was bright outside, a watery, egg-yolk sun hovering above, its light spilling through the shutters weakly. Her eyes were still swimming from all the liquor she had drank the night before when she saw them, the missed calls lighting her phone. She had picked the device to check what the time was. Jackie made to toss the phone back onto the mattress before she noticed the notifications.
Dante's Fire Chapter Five: Dante
Chapter FiveDANTE The pale, ash skinned man lying on the gurney before Dante was not his father, was not Raymond Bianchi. This man had hazel eyes that were wide open, ugly feet, and a small chest. He must have been in an accident the way his body was broken, the way the bones in his feet were shattered like a China doll's. One of his ankles was twisted, and his arms were scratched badly, his fingers bloody, as though he had been clawing at something. Perhaps, the something which had inevitably lead to his death. In the greenish brown of his eyes, there was crimson, and by the expression of wide-eyed shock that they held, by the peeling back of his lips, you could tell that his death had been sudden, that it had surprised even him.Dante did not care for the man, did not care to find out how he had died. The body that he was there to identify had a face like his, a face that he had seen crinkle with a smile a few days ago, a face that he had seen repeatedly all his life. He was at a
Dante's Fire Chapter Six: Andre
Chapter SixANDRE Andre watched the snow fall. It had been falling for days by now, unendingly. Silently it fell, at first, then it gathered momentum, tumbling down in straight lines. It soon became an torrent that pressed down on the people below, shoving their parasols with the wind that accompanied it, pounding the roof of cars, of cafés and restaurants and the awnings of bookstores.New York. A clutter of tall structures and old trees and hurrying people. Even when it was silent here, it was loud. While daytime was a carnival of colours, the night was one colour. Grey. It was all grey. Even with all the lights shining in the numerous apartments across the city, the colour grey prevailed. Andre liked the enveloping darkness, relished it. He came here every other night to look down at the grey city—even if were raining, or snowing, as it was now. The building at the top of which he stood was tall, quaint, sandwiched between a store and a block of residential buildings. Andre had
Dante's Fire Chapter Seven: Jackie
Chapter SevenJACKIEJackie called.She called her father's mobile phone, then she called the home cell. It was all the same result: no reply. A sense of foreboding loomed over her like a thundercloud on a rainy summer day. Her calls to his cell went straight to voicemail, and those she patched home went unanswered. She could not help feeling as though something had gone terribly wrong.Those were not gunshots she had heard over the phone, Jackie told herself. It was something else entirely. Perhaps firecrackers. Yes, firecrackers. Kids in the city were known to be crazy, wilding out at every given opportunity. She would not put it past them to be shooting firecrackers at the beginning of the season. They could totally do it. Right?Jackie had enough money to go to law school when the session began, then some extra. Her father had built a trust for her and all her money came from their. It was one of the nicest things the man had ever done for her. That way, Jackie did not need to ask
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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
