The Inn(28)

“Clay.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Just do what you can. Keep working on it from your end. Don’t accuse anyone of anything.”

“I gotta stay calm.” He took a deep breath. “But if you get anything, bring it straight to me, okay? I don’t know who I can trust right now.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT





VINNY ROBETTI WAS just where I expected him to be, on the corner of the porch, soaking up the last remnants of fading sun. Siobhan’s first resident, he’d spent three days alone in the house with my wife before I arrived from Boston, where I’d been packing up the last of our belongings.

We were both startled by the sight of each other. I knew Vinny Robetti by his birth name, Leonardo Roberri. In his prime, he’d been one of the deadliest gangsters in Boston history. I’d conducted raids on Roberri’s properties a bunch of times as a patrolman and I’d guarded him on his trips in and out of court for murder charges and RICO violations, none of which ever stuck. I’d responded to the scene when some stupid-ass cugine tried to make his bones with a rival family by shooting Roberri; he’d hit him in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down.

I might have objected to the old wiseguy’s presence in my house if Siobhan hadn’t loved him so much. The two had been like spaghetti and meatballs by the time I arrived. Vinny and I silently decided to leave our prior affiliation unmentioned.

As I neared the old man on the porch, I saw a bucket by his feet and a glimmering knife in his fingers.

“What’s all this?”

Vinny gave that classic Mob-guy shrug. “I’m doing arts and crafts. So what?”

In his big, knobby hands he held a small piece of wood on its way to becoming some kind of four-legged thing, a pig or a bear on all fours. I took the wicker chair next to Vinny and he handed me the item for examination.

“Look at this! This is great,” I said.

“Eh, I do all right.” He took the animal back and started carving it again, catching the little blond shavings in the bucket. “I went to see the doc about my hands. This one’s been broken five times since I was a kid. This one six.” He held up his right hand. “Last guy that got me was Bobby Russo. You know that guy? Smashed both my hands with a club hammer. This thumb nearly came off completely. Guy heard I was stepping out with his gumad.”

I opened my mouth to respond but Vinny kept on. The man liked to talk.

“Maybe I was. Who knows? Long time ago; I can’t remember. Anyway, the doc says I need to do something to strengthen my hands. Suggested I start knitting. What does he think, I’m gonna sit here making little doilies and frilly fucking tablecloths?”

“I think that’s crocheting.”

“Whatever the fuck.”

“You’re pretty good at this,” I noted.

“I know my way around a blade.” He tossed the knife up; it spun three times in the air and landed with a chunk in the arm of his wheelchair. He pulled the knife out and kept whittling like it was no big deal.

“The kid’s supposed to be at work.” He nodded toward the side of the house where Clay and Marni had just disappeared. It was probably Vinny who told Susan that Dough Brothers had called looking for Marni. When I wasn’t around, Vinny was in charge of answering the phone, because he never strayed far from the house.

“Yeah, she didn’t go. I’m worried about her.”

“You and me both,” Vinny said. “Kid told me some fucked-up story yesterday.”

“What was it?”

“Get this.” He scratched at the white streak at his temple with the knife. “It was a story about this farm. Barnyard. Man and his wife, they sell these animals, have them taken away in trucks. Only sometimes one of the animals doesn’t go because it’s fucked up or whatever, like a chicken with only one wing or a cow with a broken leg or a pig with some weird skin disease. So it’s like a reject. The farmer guy plans to whack the animal, but the wife always sneaks up and lets it go, and it runs into the forest behind the farm.”

Vinny shook his head. I waited for more, but he was concentrating on his work.

“So what happens?” I asked.

“Nothin’.” He shrugged again. “The fucked-up animals all live in the forest and they have adventures and shit. They’re all sad about how they never got to go on the trucks but they’re kinda happy that they’re together.”

“I assume the trucks were taking them off to be slaughtered?” I asked.

“Maybe. I guess so. Probably supposed to be irony that they don’t know about it. I don’t know. I’m not a poet. What do you want from me? She was just telling me because she said that’s us.”

“What’s us?”

“The fucked-up animals.” He jerked a thumb toward the house. “You, me, Marn, the sheriff. Everybody who lives here. We’re them. The reject animals who don’t know how lucky they are.”

I thought for a moment, watching the trees.

“Kid’s cuckoo, you ask me.” He tapped his forehead with the tip of the knife.

“While you’re doling out advice,” I said, “can I get some on a different subject?”

“Shoot.”

“What do you do when you’ve got a dangerous new guy on your turf, and you’re not willing to stand by and let him destroy your neighborhood?” I asked. “You probably had stuff like that happen when you were in the …”