Stolen Heir: Chapter 17

It’s a strange thing, studying the men you wish to kill.

You watch them, follow them, learn all about them.

In some ways you become closer to them than their own family.

You learn things about them that not even their family knows. You see their gambling habits, their mistresses, their illegitimate children, their love for feeding the pigeons in Lincoln Park.

Dante Gallo isn’t easy to follow, or to learn about.

As the oldest child in the Gallo family, he’s had the longest time to learn from Enzo Gallo. He’s a classic eldest son—a leader. Disciplined. Responsible.

He’s also wary as a cat. He seems to sense when anything is out of place, when anybody has eyes on him. Must be his military training. They say he served six years in Iraq—unusual for a mafioso. They’re not patriots. Their loyalty is to their family, not their country.

Maybe Enzo wanted him to become the perfect soldier. Or maybe it was a youthful rebellion on Dante’s part. All I know is that it makes it damn hard to find his weak points.

He follows no set schedule. He rarely goes anywhere alone. And as far as I can tell, he’s completely lacking in vices.

Of course, that can’t actually be true. Nobody is that regimented.

He certainly has a soft spot for his siblings. If he’s not working, he’s catering to them. He does the lion’s share of the labor running his father’s businesses. He manages to keep Nero Gallo out of serious trouble—a Sisyphean task that seems as varied as it is unending, since Nero seems equal parts creative and deranged. In one week, Nero gets in a knife fight outside Prysm, crashes his vintage Bel Air on Grand Avenue, and seduces the wife of an extremely nasty Vietnamese gangster. Dante smooths over every one of these indiscretions, while visiting his youngest brother at school and his sister Aida at the Alderman’s office.

What a busy boy, our Dante.

He barely has time to drink a pint at a pub. He doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend, a boyfriend, or a favorite whore.

His only hobby is the shooting range. He goes there three times a week to practice the marksmanship that apparently accounted for sixty-seven kills from Fallujah to Mosul.

I suppose that’s how he hit Tymon with three shots to the chest. Practice makes perfect.

Now that I’ve killed two birds with one stone, extorting money from the Griffins and paying it to the Russians, I’d like to do the same with Dante. I’d like to fuck him up royally, while ridding myself of another enemy at the same time.

So the next time Dante makes his visit to the shooting range, I have Andrei steal Dante’s Beretta right out of his bag. It’s his old service weapon, one of the few that I can be certain was legally purchased and registered to his name.

The next part is a bit tricky. Dante is too clever to lure into an ambush. So I have to bring the ambush to him.

I may not be chummy with the police commissioner like Fergus Griffin, but I have two beat cops on my payroll: Officers Hernandez and O’Malley. One never covers the spread on the Cubs, the other owes child support to three different women.

I tell them to park their patrol car a block away from the Gallo house, right in the center of Old Town. They wait there every night, all week long. Until finally there’s an evening where Enzo and Nero are out, and Dante is home all alone.

Now here’s where we bring in the other bird.

Walton Miller is the head of the BACP in Chicago—which means he’s the fellow who hands out liquor licenses. Or rescinds them, when his chubby little palm isn’t crossed with a bribe that suits his fancy.

He’s been getting greedier and greedier by the year, extorting me for five separate payments for my bars and strip clubs.

Miller has a beef with the Gallos. The Gallos own two Italian restaurants, and Dante hasn’t paid up for either, despite selling enough wine to fill Lake Michigan.

I give Miller a nice, hefty payment for my liquor licenses. Then I give him a briefcase full of evidence against Dante Gallo—a bunch of photoshopped shit that looks like illegal tax returns from the restaurant.

Like the fool he is, Miller goes scurrying over to the Gallo house, thinking he’s going to twist Dante’s arm.

Under the normal course of events, Dante would literally twist Miller’s arm in return—twist it until it fucking breaks, set his evidence on fire, and send Miller slinking back home with his tail between his legs and a better appreciation for why nobody else in the city of Chicago would be stupid enough to try to blackmail Dante Gallo.

That’s what would usually happen.

But at 10:04 p.m., Miller knocks on the door.

At 10:05, Dante lets him inside.

At 10:06, an anonymous caller dials 911, reporting shots fired at 1540 North Wieland Street.

At 10:08, officers Hernandez and O’Malley are sent to investigate, as the closest squad car to the scene.

At 10:09, they stand where Miller stood, hammering on the door of the Gallo residence. Dante opens up. He tries to refuse entry without a warrant, but the officers have probable cause. Reluctantly, he lets them in the house.

The rest is relayed to me via Officer Hernandez himself, later that night, in his usual colorful manner:

“So we go in the house, and we start poking around while Gallo’s standing there all sulky, arms crossed. He says, ‘See, no firefight going on. So get the fuck out.’ Miller is lurking in the dining room, looking squirrelly as fuck. So I say, ‘Can you come out here please, sir,’ like I have no idea who he is. He comes out in the hallway, eyes kinda darting back and forth, not knowing what the hell is going on. Nervous as can be. Gallo is cool as a cucumber, not giving anything away.

“O’Malley says, ‘What are you two gentlemen up to?’ And Gallo says, ‘None of your fucking business.’ And Miller tries to make some excuse and Gallo cuts him off and says, ‘Don’t answer any of their questions.’ Then I say, ‘Do you have any weapons on you, sir?’ And Gallo says, ‘No.’ So I say, ‘Good,’ and I pull my gun on him.

“Gallo says, ‘You better watch yourself, officer. I’m not some kid outside a 7-11. You don’t get to put eight in my chest and call it self-defense.’ Then O’Malley says, ‘Don’t worry, we’re not here for you.’ And he pulls the Beretta and empties half the clip into Miller.

“Miller goes down without a peep, just a dumb fucking look on his face. He didn’t even see it comin’. O’Malley kicks his leg to make sure he’s dead, and sure enough, Miller is an insta-corpse.

“I’m watching Gallo the whole time. He’s like a rock, man, he doesn’t flinch. But as soon as he sees the Beretta, he recognizes it. His eyes get wide ‘cause he knows he’s fucked. He looks at me, and I can see his brain workin’. I think he’s gonna run at me.

“O’Malley says, ‘Don’t even think about it, I’ve got four shots left.’ He turns his gun on Gallo. I’ve got mine pointed right in his face.

“Cold as a popsicle, Gallo says, ‘How much you getting paid for this?’ Which of course I don’t entertain at all, boss. I say, ‘None ya fuckin’ business. You ain’t gettin’ out of this one.’

“So we cuff that son of a bitch and O’Malley puts him in the squad car. I wipe down the Beretta, then I shove it into Gallo’s hands while they’re cuffed behind his back, to get some prints on the gun and some residue on his hands. I make sure the scene looks nice and pretty, then I call it in. It all went down peachy, boss. Just like we planned.”

Just like I planned. Those two idiots could barely fill out a McDonald’s application without help.

“Where is he now?” I ask.

“Miller?”

“No,” I say, through gritted teeth. “I assume Miller’s at the morgue. I’m asking about Dante Gallo.”

“Oh. He’s down at the station. Gallo called Riona Griffin down there the same hour, and she tried to get a quick dismissal, but it’s Judge Pitz running cases this week and he said no fuckin’ way, and no bail either. He’s not a fan of the Gallos. So Dante gets to sit in jail for the foreseeable future while we investigate this thing, nice and slow.”

I smile, picturing Dante in a crisp set of prison blues, crammed in a cell barely big enough to fit his burly body. And his siblings, all too eager to run wild without their older brother keeping them in check. Enzo’s getting old—Dante is the lynchpin holding the Gallos together. They’ll fall to pieces without him.

“You want me to figure out who’s in the cell with him, boss?” Hernandez asks. “I can get a nice rusty shank put between his ribs any time you like.”

“No,” I say.

Dante is going to rot in there, miserable and furious.

When I decide it’s time for him to die, I won’t be delegating the task to a moron like Hernandez.

I like that Riona Griffin is defending Gallo. That gives me plenty of opportunity to dirty her hands as well—not that anybody was under the impression that she got her legal degree to uphold the law.

It’s all falling into place beautifully.

Of course, I’m expecting some pushback from my enemies. They’re not going to take hits like this lying down.

Sure enough, the very next day the Griffins’ men confiscate a warehouse full of blow belonging to the Russians, shooting two of their soldiers in the process.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of town, Nero Gallo incinerates my most profitable strip club. Luckily, it was 3:00 a.m., after all my girls had gone home. But it’s still infuriating, watching the footage of Nero setting it all alight.

It’s no more than I expected—less, actually. Those are weak reprisals from two families that usually rule this city with an iron fist. They’re shaken and scattered, just as I hoped. Lacking in purpose and plan.

All this action is almost enough to distract me from the girl living in my house. The one who works on her ballet day and night, the scratchy strains of music from her dusty turntable drifting down the stairs.

I watch her more than I would ever admit. There’s a camera in her studio, the same as every room in the east wing. I can spy on her through my phone any time I like. She’s in my pocket constantly. The compulsion to pull out that phone is omnipresent.

But I want more.

I want to see her in person again.

So, about a week after I successfully frame Dante Gallo, I track her down in the little library in the east wing.

She’s wearing one of the outfits I ordered to Klara to buy for her: a blue floral bodysuit and a chiffon skirt, over cream-colored tights that are cut at the heels and toes so bits of her bare feet show through.

Those feet hang over the arm of an overstuffed leather chair. Nessa has fallen asleep reading. The book is open on her chest—The Doll, by Boleslaw Prus. Well, well . . . Nessa is trying to absorb a little of our culture. Klara probably recommended it.

Nessa has another book pressed between her thigh and the chair. Something old, with a worn leather cover. I’m about to pull it free when she startles awake.

“Oh!” she gasps, stuffing the books out of sight beneath a cushion. “What are you doing in here?”

“It’s my house,” I remind her.

“I know,” she says. “But you never come up here. Or, not much anyway.”

She colors, remembering what happened the last time I came to the east wing.

She doesn’t have to worry. That won’t be happening again.

“You don’t have to hide the books,” I tell her. “You’re allowed to read.”

“Yes,” she says, not quite meeting my eyes. “Right. Well . . . did you need something?”

Many things. None of which Nessa can give me.

“Actually, I came to ask you the same question,” I tell her.

It’s not what I’d planned to say. But I find myself asking it, all the same.

“No!” she says, shaking her head violently. “I don’t need anything else.”

She doesn’t want any more gifts from me.

I hadn’t planned to give her any. But now I almost want to, just to spite her.

“Are you sure?” I press her. “I don’t want you creeping around in my attic trying to scrounge up what you need.”

She bites her lip, embarrassed that I found out about that. That’s right—I know everything that happens in my house. She’d do well to remember it.

She hesitates. There is something she wants. She’s scared to ask me.

“Now that you mention the attic,” she says, “there’s a dress up there . . .”

“What kind of dress?”

“An old one. In a box, with a bunch of other fancy clothes.”

I frown. “What about it?”

She takes a deep breath, twisting her hands together in her lap. “Could I take it? And do whatever I like with it?”

What an odd request. She hasn’t asked me for a single thing since she came, and now she wants some moth-eaten old dress?

“What for?” I ask her.

“I just . . . like it,” she says lamely.

She likes it? She has dozens of dresses in the wardrobe in her room. Designer dresses, new and in exactly her size. Maybe she wants an old gown for her ballet.

“Fine,” I say.

“Really?” her face lights up, mouth open with surprise and happiness.

Kurwa, if that’s all it takes to get her excited, I’d hate to see her reaction to an actual favor. Or maybe I’d love to see it. I don’t even know anymore.

The peace offering seems to relax her. She sits up in the chair and actually leans toward me, instead of cringing away.

“Did you just come in from the garden?” she says.

“Yes,” I admit. “Did you see me out the window, before you fell asleep?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I can smell the katsura on your clothes.”

“The kat—what?”

She flushes. She didn’t really mean to make conversation.

“It’s a tree. You have it in the garden. When the leaves change color, they smell like brown sugar.”

She glances at my arms, bare beneath the sleeves of my t-shirt. Those expressive eyebrows of hers draw together, and her lashes sweep up and down like fans as she examines me.

“What?” I say. “Irish mobsters have tattoos, don’t they? Or have the Griffins evolved beyond that?”

“We have plenty of tattoos,” she says, unoffended.

“Not you, though,” I say.

“Actually, I do.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, turning her head so I can see. Sure enough, she has a tiny crescent moon tattooed behind her right ear. I never noticed it before.

“Why a moon?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I like the moon. It changes all the time. But it also stays the same.”

Now she’s looking at my arms again, trying to decipher the meaning of my tattoos. She won’t understand them. They’re dense, convoluted, and they have meaning only to myself.

Which is why I’m shocked when she says, “Is that from the map in The Hobbit?”

She’s pointing at a tiny symbol concealed within the swirling patterns on my left forearm. It’s a small delta, next to the barest suggestion of a line. Camouflaged by all the ink around it.

Nessa’s bright green eyes are scouring my skin, darting from place to place.

“That’s the edge of the mountain,” she points. “So that’s the river. And a tree. Oh, and there’s the corner of the spider’s web!”

She’s like a child hunting clues, so pleased with herself that she’s failing to see the outrage on my face. I feel exposed as I never have before. How fucking dare she spot the things I hid so carefully?

Worse still, she keeps going.

“Oh, that’s from The Snow Queen,” (she points to a tiny snowflake), “That’s from Alice in Wonderland,” (a medicine bottle), “And that’s . . . oh that’s The Little Prince!” (a rose).

It’s only when she looks up at me, expecting me to be likewise impressed with her observation, that she sees the shock and bitterness in my face.

“You must like to read . . .” she says, her voice trailing away.

The symbols from those books are tiny and obscure. I took only the smallest and least-recognizable parts of the illustrations, hiding them inside the larger work that means nothing at all.

No one ever noticed them before, let alone guessed what they meant.

It feels violating. Nessa has no idea how she’s blundered. I could strangle her right now, just to stop her speaking another word.

But she has no intention of saying anything else. Her face is pale and frightened once more. She sees that she’s offended me, without knowing why.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“How did you see that?” I demand.

“I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m good at picking out patterns. It’s why I can learn dances so quickly. And lang—” she breaks off, not finishing that sentence.

My skin is burning. Every tattoo she named feels like it’s on fire.

I’m not used to being unnerved. Especially not by a girl who’s barely an adult. Not even a fucking adult, in the American sense of the word. She’s only nineteen. She can’t buy a beer or rent a car. She can barely vote!

“I’m sorry,” Nessa says again. “I didn’t realize they were a secret. That they were just for you.”

What the fuck is happening?

How does she know that? How did she know what they meant?

The last person who could guess the thoughts in my head was Anna. She was the only one who could ever do it.

Anna was clever. Good at remembering things. A lover of books.

No one has ever reminded me of her.

Nessa doesn’t, either. They don’t look alike or sound alike.

Except in this one thing . . .

To change the subject, I say abruptly, “Are you almost done with your ballet?”

“Yes,” Nessa says, still biting her lips nervously. “Well, halfway through anyway.”

“Is it a whole show?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever made one before?”

“Well . . .” she frowns. “I choreographed four dances for this ballet called Bliss. It was supposed to premiere . . . well, right now, I guess. But the director, his name’s Jackson Wright, he said my dances were shit. So he didn’t put my name in the program . . .” she sighs. “I know that sounds silly. It mattered to me at the time. It hurt my feelings. I kind of felt like he stole my work. But he might have been right. Now that I’m working on this other thing, I think what I did before was stupid. And not very good.”

“Good enough for him to use, though,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “Parts of it, anyway.”

She wraps her thin arms around her legs, hugging her thighs against her chest. Her flexibility is unnerving. So is her fragility. No wonder so many people take advantage of her. Her family. This director. And me, of course.

Nothing about Nessa exudes strength.

She’s not intimidating.

But she is . . . intriguing.

She’s a piece of music that gets stuck in your head, repeating over and over.

The more you hear it, the more it lodges in your brain.

Most people become predictable, the longer you watch them.

Nessa Griffin is the opposite. I thought I knew exactly who she was—a sheltered little princess. A dancer living in a fantasy world.

But she’s much cleverer than I gave her credit for. She’s creative, perceptive.

And genuinely kind.

I learn that the next day, when I spy on her yet again. I see her slip back up to the attic, to retrieve this mysterious dress on which she’s so fixated.

It’s black and silver, definitely old-fashioned. Maybe from one of those Gilded Age costume balls, like the Vanderbilts used to throw. I didn’t know the dress existed. The attic is packed with boxes, more added by every family that lived in this house, and almost none ever removed.

I watch Nessa bring the dress back to her room. She airs it out, making sure it’s clean of every speck of dust.

Then she lays it out on the bed and waits.

When Klara comes in with the dinner tray, Nessa rushes over to her.

There’s no sound from the camera, but I can see the expressions on their faces clearly enough.

Klara shakes her head, not wanting to get in trouble.

Nessa assures her it’s alright, that I’ve given permission.

Still not believing, Klara touches the skirt of the dress. Then she hugs Nessa.

Out of all the things Nessa could have asked me for, she wanted that dress. But not for herself. She wanted to give it as a gift.

I should fire Klara. It’s obvious the two girls have grown close. It’s too risky for Nessa’s jailer to be her friend.

Still, as I watch them laughing and gently touching the dress, I don’t want to do it.

Maybe later. Not today.