Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(113)

He slipped the delicate gold bits into his jeans pocket and leaned forward, prodding at the tiny wad with the tip of the knife. The back of it was some sort of fibrous, fuzzy material. The front was a layer of black gunk, which crumbled into flakes as he poked it. In between was something small, hard. Irregular. He scraped at it until the shape became clear. His throat tightened. He picked up the tiny thing, rubbing it between his fingers, scraping with his fingernails, until the black shreds came away. A tiny key, made of pure gold.

He knew this key. And his heart sank.

“What is that stuff?” Kev asked.

Bruno tapped the fuzzy stuff. “My baby hair,” he said. “And this, that used to be my baby picture. And this . . .” He held up the key. “A key to a hidden compartment in my mother’s jewelry box. Another courting gift from my bisnonno to my bisnonna, like the locket. There’s a panel you slide aside, and behind it is a lock to a false bottom.”

“And you have this jewelry box in your possession?” Sean asked hopefully. “It’s a family heirloom, right? Does Zia Rosa have it?”

Bruno’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t have it. Zia doesn’t, either.”

Kev let out a long sigh. Sean got up, shook out the kinks in his knees. “Come on, Bruno. You don’t know where it might be? No clue?”

“I knew where it was on March 28, 1993, at ten at night, when we left the apartment to go to the bus station,” Bruno said. “It was on the bedside table in my room. Mom put it there so that Rudy wouldn’t pawn her jewelry. Then we left. And I never saw it again. Or my mother.” He shook his head. “Could be anywhere. It’s been eighteen years.”

It had started to rain again, as if to compound their misery.

Kev laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, not anywhere,” he said. “It’s in the possession of whoever might have had a right or an interest in collecting your mother’s stuff from the apartment after she was killed. That’s a select group. A short list, with your Grandma Pina on the top.”

“Lovely prospect,” Bruno said darkly. “If she doesn’t kill me on sight. Or it was stolen by one of our neighbors and traded for crack. Or the super threw it into a Hefty bag, and it ended up in a landfill.”

“So? You’ve got someplace to start. That’s more than before.”

True enough. At least he had the locket now. A little piece of Mamma, glinting after twenty long years in the ground. A goodluck amulet. But damn, he wished he had more to show after those four guys had busted their asses all day long on his behalf.

Things moved fast after that. A reservoir of energy had been unearthed along with the locket. Davy and Connor were informed of the new development, and they decided to hell with guard duty, they’d just finish the job and get the hell out of there. It went faster with five working, but not fast enough, not with night coming on.

First, the bones had to go back into the ground. They rolled them into the tarp, and placed them back in the hole, then scraped as much of the dirt they had excavated as they could back into the pit. It was difficult, since they had spread it so much, and rain had liquefiemore of it into slop. At the end, the hole was still a sad, sunken mud wallow.

So they collected boulders and laid those on top, as if to weigh down restless spirits. By then, night had fallen, and they were all wearing infrared goggles. When the cairn was knee level, they stopped.

“Satisfied?” Sean asked.

“Almost.” Bruno looked at Kev. “You’re forgetting something.”

Kev let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, yeah. Of course.”

Bruno and Kev unbuckled their pants. The rest followed. They hauled ’em out and had a ceremonial collective piss onto the tumbled boulders. Weird effect, with infrared. Hot pee. Cold mud.

It was a struggle, with numb, filthy hands, to get the goods back in order, pants buttoned, belts fastened, but they managed, at length.

“Nella faccia di chi ci vuole male,” Bruno said quietly.

“Amen,” Kev agreed.

Sean made an irritated sound. “The secret-language bullshit makes us tetchy. Translation?”

“In the face of our enemies,” Kev translated.

Davy nodded. “Yeah.”

“Ditto, that,” Connor said.

“Can we get the f*ck out of here now?” was Sean’s poetic offering.

Bruno gathered up shovels, hoisted them up onto his shoulder, while the other men loaded themselves up with the rest of the gear, and took the lead as they headed out over the long, treacherous rockfall.

“Thanks for the help, by the way,” he called back. “Real generous of you all to exert yourself for this coddled, ungrateful punk.”

Davy snorted with amusement, somewhere behind him. “Oh, for f*ck’s sake. You still got your panties in a wad about that?”

“Italians are good at holding grudges,” Kev called, from farther back. “Something in their genes. They get off on it.”

“To be fair, you’re a little long in the tooth to be a punk.” It was Sean, right at his heels as they stumbled and slid across the rockfall.

“I’m gratified that you noticed that,” Bruno said.

“Don’t be,” Sean said. “You know what an aging punk is?”

Bruno sternly choked off his laughter. “What, Sean? What is an aging punk?”