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I nod.
He says, “But, since she got away, why in hell would she ever think about coming back?”
That’s one of the things I want to know.
The other thing, Alessio is, I’m assuming that was you who pulled me out of the ambulance.
How didyouget there so fast?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When Bruno gets back, I ask him about the report he got on Mrs. Jago.
“From the dick in Florida?” I nod. “It’s a month or two old. And, I have to say, I was pretty wary about it. The way that he approached us, I thought it was iffy on the sniff test. Still, he did have something to sell. In the end, I decided it was better to have him work it up for us than let him shop it around.”
“I would like to read it, though. Could you get a copy for me?”
“Sure.” He goes to his backpack and pulls out a tablet. After a minute, he says, “Do you want me to send you a copy?”
“No. Just let me read it on your screen if you don’t mind.”
CAPLES & CO
FROM THOMAS G CAPLES, INVESTIGATOR
Investigation Report: Background Information of the Subject
Thomas G Caples. 706-569-8708 [email protected]
REPORT:
I conducted several interviews with the subject, visiting her in her motel room on three occasions. She was most unwilling to talk, but she became very partial to my Espresso Corretto Martini, made with Reposado tequila and grappa.
Mrs. Jago is a bitter and angry woman. She maintains that all she had worked for in her life, every bright prospect she had was in the Fortuna house. That Benedetti whore came in and took it all away. She knew that Don Fortuna was no saint. None of those Italian gangsters are angels. The heads of the families are the worst of all. She’d had more than one occasion to find that out.
For years she endured the Don’s brutality, his repulsive needs and his black moods. She gave herself to him completely. In time, she truly came to love him, probably more than any other man who had been in her life.
Having Don Fortuna’s wife Ester in the house when Lucia Benedetti yanked the cover off the Don’s most recent betrayal was too much. Mrs. Jago’s blood boiled as she saw her future melt like candle-wax in front of her eyes. She was hardened to his infidelities but only as long as she didn’t have to be confronted by them.
Hearing about his disgusting lechery, his vile debauchery, his slavering cavorts with ‘the filthy puttana Adrianna Bagniola’ who was still in her teens. He spread her across the big ugly desk of his, time after time. The thought of him ‘wallowing in slime with that whore’ while she was in the very house was ‘more than flesh and blood could bear.’
Hearing his confession in the presence of Lucia and Ester, and feeling ‘those two cocksucking bitches’ cackle at her from behind the sparkles in their eyes was way more than she could stand.
It was one last huge humiliation. How could she ever look in his face again without driving daggers through his eyes? It was bad enough when she knew and he knew.
Didn’t he see that keeping his secrets was her gift to him? That it was a treasure beyond any price and a rusty saw-blade of pain that ran through her? For her to keep his repulsive deeds to herself was a gift. She didn’t reproach him, she didn’t scold him.
Never once did she even bring it up.
Their eyes would meet when he brought her a jewel, a watch or some other token of his contrition. She kept it close and it was enough.
Now he let all of his foul and degrading business spill out. And in front of ‘those two feral alley cats.’ How could she ever hold up her head again? How could she meet the eyes of anyone she knew in that life without knowing what they were thinking, imagining. Her bones could not endure the images that she knew would play in their minds, and the merciless peals of laughter they would all share behind her back.
In a blurred red mist of rage, she ran for her revolver and burst back into the room to show him, that was enough. It was too much. No more. Now, for every slight and careless jolt, every slap and slur that Don Giuseppe Fortuna had given her, all of which she absorbed and took inside to feed her fire, now there was no tomorrow. Now her future was in ruins. Wreckage and ashes. Now, all that was open to her was to take her one moment of revenge, the leap of vengeance she had held herself back from so many times through the years.
She looked him in the eyes. Watched him understand all that he had done to her and how she was taking her price from him. The gun jolted so hard, she thought her wrist would be broken.
Then, in horror, she fled. As far as she could get.
