Rage of Angels
“I could use a good night’s sleep,” Thomas Colfax yawned.
“Yeah.” He was going to get a long, long sleep.
The car was nearing the dump now. Nick checked the rearview mirror and scanned the road ahead. There were no cars in sight.
He put his foot on the brake suddenly and said, “Goddamn it, it feels like I’m getting a flat.”
He brought the car to a stop, opened the door and stepped out onto the road. He slipped the gun out of its holster and held it at his side. Then he moved around to the passenger side of the car and said, “Could you give me a hand?”
Thomas Colfax opened the door and stepped out. “I’m not very good at—” He saw the raised gun in Nick’s hand and stopped. He tried to swallow. “W-What’s the matter, Nick?” His voice cracked. “What have I done?”
That was the question that had been burning inside Nick Vito’s mind all evening. Someone was running a game on Mike. Colfax was on their side, he was one of them. When Nick’s younger brother had gotten in trouble with the Feds, it had been Colfax who had stepped in and saved the boy. He had even gotten him a job. I owe him, goddamn it, Nick thought.
He let his gun hand drop. “Honest to God, I don’t know, Mr. Colfax. It ain’t right.”
Thomas Colfax looked at him a moment and sighed. “Do what you have to do, Nick.”
“Jesus, I can’t do this. You’re my consigliere.”
“Mike will kill you if you let me go.”
Nick knew that Colfax was telling the truth. Michael Moretti was not a man to tolerate disobedience. Nick thought of Tommy Angelo. Angelo had been the wheel man on a fur heist. Michael had ordered him to take the car they had used and have it crushed in a compactor in a New Jersey junkyard the Family owned. Tommy Angelo had been in a hurry to keep a date, so he had dumped the car on an East Side street, where investigators had found it. Angelo had disappeared the next day, and the story was that his body had been put in the trunk of an old Chevy and compacted. No one crossed Michael Moretti and lived. But there is a way, Nick thought.
“Mike don’t have to know it,” Nick said. His usually slow brain was working rapidly, with an unnatural clarity. “Look,” he said, “all you gotta do is blow the country. I’ll tell Mike I buried you under the garbage so they’ll never find you. You can hide out in South America or somewhere. You must have a little dough stashed away.”
Thomas Colfax tried to keep the sudden hope out of his voice. “I have plenty, Nick. I’ll give you whatever—”
Nick shook his head fiercely. “I ain’t doin’ this for money. I’m doin’ it because”—How could he put it into words?—“I got respect for you. The only thing is, you gotta protect me. Can you catch a mornin’ plane to South America?”
Thomas Colfax said, “No problem, Nick. Just drop me off at my house. My passport’s there.”
Two hours later, Thomas Colfax was on an Eastern Airlines jet. It was bound for Washington, D.C.
47
It was their last day in Acapulco, a perfect morning with warm, soft breezes playing melodies through the palm trees. The beach at La Concha was crowded with tourists greedily soaking up the sun before returning to the routine of their everyday lives.
Joshua came running up to the breakfast table wearing a bathing suit, his athletic little body fit and tan. Mrs. Mackey lumbered along behind him.
Joshua said, “I’ve had plenty of sufficient time to digest my food, Mom. Can I go water skiing now?”
“Joshua, you just finished eating.”
“I have a very high metabolism rate,” he explained earnestly. “I digest food fast.”
Jennifer laughed. “All right. Have a good time.”
“I will. Watch me, huh?”
Jennifer watched as Joshua raced along the pier to a waiting speedboat. She saw him engage the driver in earnest conversation, and then they both turned to look at Jennifer. She signaled an okay, and the driver nodded and Joshua began to put on water skis.
The motor boat roared into life and Jennifer looked up to see Joshua beginning to rise on his water skis.
Mrs. Mackey said proudly, “He’s a natural athlete, isn’t he?”
At that moment, Joshua turned to wave at Jennifer and lost his balance, falling against the pilings. Jennifer leaped to her feet and began racing toward the pier. An instant later, she saw Joshua’s head appear above the surface of the water and he looked at her, grinning.
Jennifer stood there, her heart beating fast, and watched as Joshua put the water skis back on. As the boat circled and began to move forward again, it gained enough momentum to pull Joshua to his feet. He turned once to wave at Jennifer and then was racing away on top of the waves. She stood there watching, her heart still pounding from fright. If anything happened to him…She wondered whether other mothers loved their children as much as she loved her son, but it did not seem possible. She would have died for Joshua, killed for him. I have killed for him, she thought, with the hand of Michael Moretti.
Mrs. Mackey was saying, “That could have been a nasty fall.”
“Thank God it wasn’t.”
Joshua was out on the water for an hour. When the boat pulled back into the slip, he let go of the tow rope and gracefully skied up onto the sand.
He ran over to Jennifer, filled with excitement. “You should have seen the accident, Mom. It was incredible! A big sailboat tipped over and we stopped and saved their lives.”
“That’s wonderful, son. How many lives did you save?”